Eagles and Swans
Chapter 44: An Open Cage
One thing was for sure: the world never stood still. The invisible wall that had once divided the classroom into left and right was falling apart, faster than a coastline during a goddess' rampage.
These days, strangers smiled at Ruthenia in the hallways, and didn't turn up their noses when she looked their ways. No one cared that she dressed like a worker, or cursed like a criminal.
And Iurita never spoke to her with less than complete respect. And Hollia was full of wistful sighs, and lingered with Orrem at the classroom door with increasing frequency. And Ruthenia had swapped seats with Calan so that he and Alacero could hold hands under the desk when no one else could see.
But more than all else, Ruthenia felt her own change, like an ache in her bones—the weariness and weight to everything she did, the exhaustion that kept her head down and her voice low. She wasn’t sure if she liked it. But she supposed there wasn’t any choosing.
"Ruth, may I have a minute?"
As Ruthenia was about to find out, Hollia Canavere had had a huge party in the works since her return to Astra.
Now, in the minutes before the first lesson of the day, her friend pressed the invitation eagerly unto her—and appeared from the hugeness of her eyes unwilling to leave without a definitive "yes."
Ruthenia wasn't all that reluctant to go either, considering the party sounded suspiciously like it was being thrown in celebration of her.
What was there to celebrate? After all the fire she'd started, she was finally feeling her burns. She had never wanted to become a part of their deceits and images, until it was too late to turn back. I sealed that by throwing myself between them and Lilin.
Oh, Ihir, will you tell me what to do?
Blinking her daze away, she looked up for an answer—and saw only dear Hollia and her pleading grey eyes. Perhaps this was Ihir's answer.
"Of course," she said with a smile. "I couldn't say no."
That evening, she found a messenger note from Reida about a funeral tomorrow evening. Reading it made her stomach clench. Saying goodbye was something she had never found easy, but here and now she was having to learn how, so quickly. How to unwrap the baggage and discard it. She spent the rest of the day exchanging words with Reida.
It’s Hyder you should speak to.
On the evening of the nineteenth of October, as planned, the friends gathered in the pink light at the end of their alley, their home, with flowers and flower chains. It had been a week, but Tante and Gordo had not reappeared, and it was difficult to imagine any other fate had befallen them.
This was not an Ihirin funeral. There was no smoke. The final rite was the laying of fresh flowers on the fence, which joined the withered old ones up there, and there was much talking and laughter. They talked, even with tears in their eyes, about the good, and the good only.
While Ruthenia had never liked Tante in his life, she knew he was part of the reason she was still alive, and that, too, she spoke up about. Small things that meant everything now. They found their belongings—an old gun, a book Gordo had been trying to read, a pack of cigarettes—and wrapped them in paper, to be given to the people they knew, for what use was burning them like the Ihirin did? Only the wealthy burned what the dead used to own. Only they saw meaning in empty poetry.
Ruthenia stayed until midnight was almost upon them. Reida had already gone home, Den accompanying her to her door, and without them Hyder sat all alone in his corner of the alley staring at the narrow rectangle of sky three stories above.
Instead of going home, she sat with him, saying nothing. She caught him closing his eyes with his face raised to the stars, whispering words as if in prayer.
“I thought you didn’t like Ihir,” she murmured when he finally turned to her.
“Well, not until He saved your life, I didn’t,” Hyder answered simply, and they exchanged a quiet glance, all the things they’d shared and never shared passing between them through their gazes.
Hollia's party sailed along upon that Saturday, after another week of paperwork, machine building and interview appointments, and news stories and speculation the whole country over.
As they landed at the aviary door, Tanio muttered, “We need to sort you a new flight mount. What do you reckon you'd like to fly?”
She shrugged. “Not a surfboard, that's for sure.”
“How about a bigger, better umbrella?”
“You know, I could be convinced.”
Ruthenia was cleaned up tonight, wearing a white and dark-brown coat-dress with buttons all the way down the front. On her neck hung the golden pendant that the prison had returned to her last week. Even from here, they could tell the cottage was bursting with guests; three concurrent conversations were audible from the doorstep. But outside the walls, there was not a sound besides the rustle of the grey field.
The edge of the enclosure peeked from over the rooftop, silhouetted in the purpling sky. No birds hung from the netting by their claws today. No chattering of sparrows. No shrieks or caws.
Ruthenia frowned. It was too quiet for the aviary that she knew. When Hollia had said she was no longer a birdkeeper, did she mean...
Right then, the door squeaked open and they both straightened. The birdkeeper emerged in a whirl of deep green silk. "I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "Welcome, Ruthenia! And good evening, Mister Calied! I hope you did not wait long!”
“Miss Canavere,” Tanio replied. “I hope you have an excellent evening.”
“Why, the pleasure is mine!” She whirled to face Ruthenia. “Please, come inside, everyone’s been waiting for you!”
“Oh, is she here?” From behind the door frame peeked the grinning face of Orrem, who rested his chin on Hollia's shoulder and waved. “Great to see you, Ruthenia!” His eyes lifted to her guardian. “Oh, and you must be Mister Calied. Well met.”
“Ah! It's you,” Tanio piped up. “Anchor racer of the New Town team? Fancy seeing you here!” Meanwhile Ruthenia raised an eyebrow at her best friend, whose eyes dipped with an abashed smile.
While the other three became embroiled into a lively conversation, Ruthenia slipped past Hollia and ventured into the living room. It had once again been transformed, the couches moved to the side and chairs lined up at the walls, the dining table heavy with empty glasses and a massive glass jug of what must have been cordial. Dodging along the edge of the room, she plucked a fresh glass from the table and leaned closer to the jug to sniff it, before a voice over her shoulder said, “It's homemade apple juice.”
She glanced back. “Oh, hey, Iurita,” she called. “Hollia sure pulled all the stops for this party.”
Picking up the scoop, Iurita coolly filled Ruthenia's glass. “What can I say? Her best friend came back from the dead,” she replied, lifting her glass. “Anyone in her position would be ecstatic. And I am, too. Cheers to you.”
“And to you,” she answered, their glasses clinking together.
Ruthenia wandered through the crowd, sipping on her drink. She quickly began to surmise that almost every member of 2-I was in attendance, and a couple of guests whom she didn't know besides—like Caela's partner, who sat enjoying a cake with her. In the couch, Dariano was entertaining her two seatmates with a trick involving vanishing utensils, both audience members taking turns to challenge the illusion, though they paused to wave and shout as she passed. She passed Perrio and Vesta, chattering about the painting of Hollia’s great-grandmother over the mantelpiece.
As she strolled past the corner lamp, she was intercepted yet again with a shout, then found herself being engulfed in a hug from behind. “Ruth, there you went! Thank you so much for coming.” Hollia, let go, spinning her around by the shoulders. “How are you liking the party so far?”
“I'm enjoying the apple juice,” she replied, glancing at her half-drained glass. “Do you have a schedule for the evening?”
Beaming, she shook her head. “No, all free and easy.”
“No toasts? No speeches?”
“No speeches. I know you don't like that sort of attention.”
“You know me too well,” she said with a smirk. Then her face sobered again. “What happened to the aviary? I mean, if it's not too much to talk about right now.”
Hollia kept her smile on, but her eyes darted to the nearest window with a barely masked sorrow. “Lightning hit one of the weight-bearing poles. It tore the netting wide open when it fell.” She did not continue that reply, and that told Ruthenia everything.
“Uh, anyway,” she scrambled for a new topic, “about Orrem…is he still ‘considering?’”
At this, her friend laughed tipsily. “I don't think so.”
Ruthenia grinned back. “Aw, look, I told you he'd come around.”
“Enough about me,” Hollia giggled. “I'm glad you could make it—” A roar of laughter crowded out the rest of Hollia's sentence.
Ruthenia leaned closer. “What was that?”
Hollia cupped a hand around the side of her mouth. “This was for you! I think everyone's thrilled you're alright! Everyone I asked agreed to come.”
Water splashed onto the floor as another laugh surged across the room. Hollia shook her head, and they both stepped to the side, to appraise the party in all its light and life. “It's as good an excuse as any to throw a party,” Ruthenia murmured, warmth rising through chest. “Seriously, it means so much that you did this. Did you really invite everyone in class?”
“Almost. Lora and Telis still won't talk to me.” Her shoulders sank. “But that's alright. Seventeen guests is plenty already. I—” Then, perking up, she cast a glance about. “Wait a minute, he was here earlier. Where'd he go?”
“Who? Oh.” Ruthenia's eyes followed her friend's, and indeed, there was one person conspicuously missing. “So…if, hypothetically, you were stressed out by the chaos of the party and wanted time alone, where in the house would you go?”
“Probably through the kitchen and out the back door,” Hollia said thoughtlessly, then gasped when Ruthenia immediately broke away. “Oh, wait! If you do find His Highness, could you convince him to come back? And tell him I'm sorry if this is too much.”
“I'll do my best,” she laughed. Then she followed the directions, through the kitchen and out the door into the evening.
As she stepped out into the darkness, the humid cool descended upon her skin. Her eyes lifted above her, and she saw exactly what Hollia had described. The wires that had previously netted the sky had sunk aside, a gaping mouth in which all the unguarded stars shone.
Ruthenia stared up into the void for a while, before turning right and trudging down the garden path, following that great tear in the net. The silenced seemed to grow vaster as the party’s bustle sank away, replaced by the lonely crunch of her shoes on grass. Not a bird answered as she strode by sweeps of vines; none flitted as she passed beneath the great curled tree, whose first new branches were just learning of the world beyond the cage. But traces remained: scratches on the wood, old dishes where they had bathed, feathers trapped in the cables.
Everything here, she saw for a blinding second, had been suppressed by the great cage. Everything had shrunk to match its confines.
She soon found the end of the gash in the net—a place where the pillar had snapped and ripped from the wires. Arcing from the fracture into the sky, a spangling of stars rose.
A wooden swing hung by the wreckage, and upon it sat a figure in white.
“Is that who I think it is?” she called. Her made their head turn. She raced through the grass, and watched as the apparition resolved into a person.
“Good evening, Ruthenia,” answered Aleigh as she arrived. In the glow of the living room window, she saw that he wore a swan's colours: a white tailcoat and a black shirt, his hair tied in a golden ribbon.
Whether or not he was evoking the appearance of Ihir's icon on purpose, she found herself drawing the connection. But having met both their patron deity and the Arcane Prince, she could say the latter was far more beautiful.
She dropped into the seat beside him. “Catching some fresh air?” she asked.
He tilted his head boredly to a side. “You could say so.”
“I think Hollia feels bad that the party scared you away.”
He frowned. “Ah…I shall apologise when I return.”
Ruthenia dug the heel of her boot into the grass and kicked the swing backward. “You should come back inside with me. You’re dressed so nicely today. It’d be a waste if no one saw you.”
The swing creaked gently, carrying them both. “I could say the same, your outfit is breathtaking.”
An inevitable flush lit her face. “Hey, I wasn't ready for that!”
“After all this time, you still can't take a compliment,” he sighed. “Well, it isn't just your dress that is beautiful, but the rest of you, too.”
Her face might as well have turned to cinders in that instant. Her true folly was in getting tangled up with the Literature teacher's pet student. He had a thousand more lines like that, for all she knew.
Heedless, Aleigh glanced up at the glowing house, and at the strains of chatter drifting over, and said, “I'm sorry. The number of people in that room was getting just a little too much.”
She sighed. “I thought as much. Can't complain about some quiet, though.”
Just outside the fence, the cicadas were chirping to celebrate the arrival of summer on the plains. She tipped her head backwards so she saw nothing but the night sky beyond the swing, sparklier than the palace ballroom. Tiny clouds swirled into knots in the black above them, blotting out the points of light.
As they basked in that expectant silence, Ruthenia toyed with the idea of asking him every question she had. About his silence. About the afternoon in her shed. About whether it mattered that she was the lowliest sort of commoner there was—born in a lab and raised on the street. But each placid creak of the swing scattered whatever willpower she mustered.
Aleigh lifted his head. “Two weeks ago, you mentioned wanting to talk.”
Ruthenia blew out a breath. Well, that worked too. “I have just one question. Why?”
“Why?”
She folded her arms. “Why did you run away from my shed that evening? And then avoid talking about it for two weeks?”
Aleigh was quiet for what felt like a minute.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I was confused,” he said. “I've always known you to be a straightforward person who speaks her mind, and you never said anything that made me think you felt strongly about me. So when you kissed me, I thought I must have done something to coerce it.”
Looping over the scene again from this new vantage, Ruthenia heaved a sigh. “Yeah…pushing you away probably didn't help,” she murmured. “But you didn't force me to do anything. It was completely by my own choice.”
“Then I apologise for jumping to that conclusion. I've tied my mind into knots wondering how you feel about me.”
She shook her head. “I couldn't even admit to myself how I felt. Because I was a coward.” Her heart pounded so hard that her head was spinning, but she willed herself onward. “You were so kind to me. And I started daydreaming about being a part of your future. But I felt like I wasn't allowed to. Because you are…I mean, what are you not? You're literally royalty! And I'm a criminal.” She chuckled. “So I could only hope for the most modest version of that future—us two, twenty years from now, meeting sometimes. Maybe sharing a meal. If that was as close as we could ever be, then I would have been happy—”
“Ruthenia…” She went still at the anguish in that sigh of her name. “Clearly, I haven't been explicit enough, if you think those things would stop me. But if you wanted it, I would gladly fall from the heights just to be at your side. I would renounce my title again if I had to. Really, I thought I was the one who wasn't enough for you. Because you are a force of nature, and you make me feel like a worshipper gazing at a deity.”
She let out a wobbling laugh, toes curling. “Did you have that line prepared?”
“No?”
She covered her face with her palm. “You really do read too many romance novels.”
Now, he was the one who laughed nervously. “I can be less saccharine, too,” he replied, hunching his shoulders. With every word, his gaze sank farther away. “I have written a dozen love letters that I never worked up the courage to send you. I have simply—never been this violently in love before. And I do dream of it too—having you in my future. Braving storms together. Maybe…holding your hand?”
To call it an arrow through the heart did not quite capture the sweetness of the ache, the way she wished to be pierced by it again and again. Her body burned. She, too, had never wanted anything this much.
“Let's not just dream of it, then?” she ventured. And her breath caught as he reeled her in by the shoulders, finding her mouth with his.
This time, Ruthenia did not abandon the conquest halfway. She kissed him angrily, making up for the times she’d convinced herself that no good would come from this. Their fingers tangled, then their bodies, and the world swung around them. Suddenly she was pinning him against the arm of the swing, all fire and nothing else, still shackled in lip-lock.
When she eventually dragged herself away, like a bird leaving the thrall of gravity, he was smiling up at her, quite unbecomingly for someone of his station. And she obliged to answer him, descending with a second kiss, which he returned with more eagerness than she'd ever thought him capable of.
As she hung over him with their faces an inch apart, she felt his finger trace her neck, looping under the string that hung from it. From inside her collar he lifted the eagle pendant, and his surprise made another wave of longing roll through her, so she sank and kissed him again.
Eventually, she rose up on her arms, head as hot as a lit lamp. The swing beneath them creaked back and forth, as they crawled back upright.
They sat for a minute in buzzing silence, until Ruthenia turned and reached out to straighten Aleigh’s jacket, while he redid his hair.
“How would your family feel about this?” She inched over and curled up against him, head against his shoulder.
“I hardly care. But my mother loves you. And my brother seems to want your endorsement, so…I'm sure it would agree with them too, if…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes darted to a side. The next words came timidly. “Would you be my partner?”
She gripped his hand. It was all she could do not to fall off the swing. “If it means more kisses like that.”
“I would be delighted to kiss you as often as you liked.”
“How about now?” she asked. And he did as instructed, with less vigour and more care, cupping his hands around her face.
When Aleigh drew away, they returned to their cuddle, fingers woven together. Ruthenia stared absently at Hollia’s back door. She closed her eyes, letting the sway of the swing lull her.
*
They were interrupted by a cry from among the leaves of the bowing tree.
Ruthenia cast a glance at Aleigh, then in the direction of the noise, extracting herself from his arms. “You heard that, right?” she said.
“A bird?” he replied, lifting his gaze as well.
Rising from the seat, they began to cross the garden, hand in hand. They passed through grass and vines, under the broken branches, till eventually they reached the shortest one. Another rumbling call came from behind the leaves.
Ruthenia lifted a curtain of leaves to reveal a small nest of twigs, upon which sat a dove, staring at the newcomers with unblinking eyes.
“Hello there,” she whispered. “What’s the matter?” It did not answer, but continued to breathe softly, blinking its eyes. A squab poked its head from under its wings, inspecting the strangers.
While they studied the creatures, there was a creak of a door behind them, and the rustle of footsteps across the garden.
“You heard him too?” came a whispering voice. Both turned, to discover Hollia approaching, eyes bright with fear. She paused as her eyes darted to their linked hands. “Oh! Am I interrupting?”
“No!” Ruthenia exclaimed. “We were checking on the bird.”
They moved apart to let Hollia pass, and she glided forward to peer at the nest. “Every now and then, he sings for his mate,” said Hollia as she approached the nest. “But she’s gone. She was on the tree out there—” she pointed at the silhouette down the road— “when the lightning hit. He will have to raise their children alone.”
“I’m sorry,” said Ruthenia.
“There’s only the four of them, now, and chances are, there will not be any left in ten years’ time.”
“That won’t happen—”
“It will.” A pang tore at Ruthenia’s heart, for she had never heard Hollia's voice sound so defeated before. “But that’s how it is with life—isn’t it? Death and extinction. I have no power to prevent that. We never did.”
Ruthenia wanted to understand, but she knew she did not. She did not understand compassion like Hollia’s, and did not understand being tethered to a place, a genealogy, in this way. Now that those things had vanished, where had she to go?
Swallowing, Ruthenia laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “They’re alive right now,” she said. Hollia nodded. “And so are the rest of the birds, for today. And I think that's a wonderful thing in itself. They wouldn't be alive right now, if not for you. And sure, some will die. But others won’t, and they’ll have offspring of their own. I’m sure of it. And they’ll be making their nests in the next town. In the forest, where they once did. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Despite the sorrow in her eyes, Hollia smiled waveringly. “I think it could be.”