40°22'03.9"N 49°46'26.8"E

  ?uban?, Bak?

  04.11.2016 – 07.00 UTC +04.00

  I looked back at the view from the hill.

  The sun had not risen yet, and maybe that was for the best. I did not know how long it would take me to return. The Flame Towers did not shine with the sun’s light. A rough sea, stirred by southern winds, adorned in white foam the hook of Bak?’s harbor.

  “Do not See Far,” Kaz warned me, “we do not know what Shadows can sense. We are still in their Domain.”

  I bit my lip. I wanted to wander off in the breeze, let my eyes lead me all the way to Ab?eron. Take it all in.

  Instead, I turned forward to our path ahead. Kaz, a man I had only met a couple of months ago, was dressed in a long black cape. As the first light appeared, I noticed it glowed in a faint iridescent hue. His slender, tall build and peculiar clothing made him completely fit into the lunar landscape. He was my guide to a new, peculiar world for me, and he looked the part.

  “Do you think they can do that?”

  “All Domains are different. Depends on how well they have mastered it,” he answered.

  I hesitated. Was I meant to trust this man? Leave everything behind – for the vague threat of a Domain? Hundreds had left the city before me, but there were still thousands of us Cursed in the city. And there was strength in numbers.

  He sensed my hesitation, but did not pressure me. I did not expect him to. He was the kind of man who spoke only when he had something to say.

  A gust of a southern breeze whistled past us, carrying the smell of the sea and scattering away the scent of oilfields. Would my next home smell any different? I bet it would.

  He nodded and walked uphill. I sighed and followed him.

  ? ? ?

  By the time we reached the top of ?uban? the sun had risen, casting away any suspicion that this day would be the beginning of winter for the year.

  Kaz stopped and looked at me as I struggled to reach him, already at the top of the hill. He had warned me not to get sentimental and carry a lot of things with me, but I managed to make the heaviest backpack I had ever made. Mostly clothes, some favorite books, and some Caspian spice. Stepping next to him on the top, the breeze turned into wind, blowing uncomfortably against our clothes.

  “Gilavar,” Kaz said, referring to the wind, “gentle. Heavy and wet. Proper for a goodbye.”

  “Wait,” I said, between panting and trying to catch my breath. “One moment.”

  I stood upright, trying to keep my dress from getting in the way, pulled around by Gilavar.

  “Starling. Did she really ask of me? Specifically?” I asked.

  “You are not having second thoughts, are you?”

  “No, I…” I tried to find the right words. “I had heard about her. Of course. It just feels very unreal. Now that I am standing here.”

  Kaz walked up to me. His height placed his face right above my forehead, so he leaned – not in a demeaning way, but mostly tender. As if he wanted to protect me from the wind.

  “Yes, she asked of you. But not only you,” he said, “stormy nights are coming in our land, Nisy, and she wanted the strongest wardens, seers, and whisperers she could find. You are all three. You are needed to protect what will be left of this land when dark forces rain down on its innocents.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I nodded, and he tilted his head upwards. Looking behind me. I followed his gaze, back at the view of the city I was abandoning. I hated that I was abandoning it. It felt wrong. The landscape looked serene as the city was waking up on a new November day, and the wind felt like it was asking me to leave. Tears welled up under my eyes.

  “I know this feels wrong, Nisy. It feels for me too. Regardless. We need to regroup with my – and yours, soon – murmuration. This city has already changed.”

  I took in the view. The sun had risen past the horizon, its sunrays reflecting into the sea and the Flame Towers, making the city sparkle. I searched for the Mosque in the south, not far from where I was standing now. I remembered the starry nights I had witnessed while wandering around Bibi Heyb?t, back when I used to live there. Back when I did not even know what covens were.

  “Okay,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks, “I am ready.”

  Kaz laid his hand on my left shoulder, gently turning me to face away from the city.

  In the west, the Lokbatan lowlands gave way to the Qobustan Desert. Past that, in the north, the beginning of the mountain range of Qafqaz extended as far as I could see without using my Farsight.

  “Gilavar is gentle, but he is a trap, Nisy,” Kaz explained, “Stay on my back as we dive to the lowlands, and then once I let you free, use the wind to lift higher, but fly crosswind to follow my path. Otherwise, it can blow you far too north, and you will lose me. Stray too far away from me, and Starling’s blessing will fade.”

  “Fade? What do you mean?”

  Starling’s blessing was metamorphosis, turning her coven into little starling birds. And if it faded, that meant I would turn back to my human form. But if that happened mid-flight…

  Kaz looked me in the eyes. I knew that this was a form of trial, an initiation in and of itself. I had to flee my home in her form, demonstrating that I can control myself. Be a good starling that finds her true nest. A Cursed who deserves a place in the coven.

  “Just stay the course, and if the wind separates us, try to catch up to me. And if it happens, kill the human fear inside you.”

  I wiped my tears from my cheeks. I could not back down. I should not back down.

  “Kaz, I…”

  His right hand pulled me from the left shoulder.

  “Birds of pain,” he whispered, and pain reshaped us. My clothes all reshaped with me, my limbs, my skin, my eyes. And we dove right west, Kaz timing perfectly our transformation through a momentary stillness of wind.

  It was unholy. It was gentle – and natural. I had wings.

  Next to me, a black starling chirped in a distorted voice.

  “Birds of pain,” he said, fluttering his wings faster and picking up speed. I mimicked him, although I did not know how to replicate the starling voice.

  The sun felt different. Its rays. They were false. And then I felt it for the first time, in a way I had not felt before. The Shadow Domain. Peering right into us, two Cursed birds trying to escape its claws, the sun’s rays filtered through its invisible dome that surrounded the city, were just another way to harm us. The subtle breeze through the ?uban? hills followed us, and its humidity was foreign, a warning in the air. A warning, I had made the right choice to flee.

  As we dove into the lowlands faster by the second, I let my thoughts slip into those of a starling. Free to fly where it pleased.

  “Pain,” Kaz, next to me, warned. Gilavar, now its gentleness gone, a gust so violent it shook my core lifted us. “Crosswind,” he reminded me, and immediately I saw him disappearing high next to me.

  I felt the pain of him gaining distance. I saw the ground below me: if I now turned back human, I was not high enough to hurt myself. But he wanted me to follow him into the sky. A fear unnatural for my form took over me: this was unholy. I was not supposed to have wings. I was not supposed to fly sky high. I was not supposed to ride Gilavar, I was only supposed to feel him by the Sultan’s Cape.

  Kill the human fear inside you.

  “Pain,” I chirped like a starling, tilting myself on the right. Gilavar lifted me. I saw the lowlands below disappear, zooming away and away and away. The air around me drew colder. And then it changed – the sun changed color as well, only for a moment. I felt lighter. As if an unspeakable burden that was watching over my soul, lifted.

  Kaz chirped. He had not strayed far while I found the courage to kill the human in me and let Gilavar lift me to new heights.

  I understood what his chirp meant. It meant safety, relief, calm. We were finally outside the Domain. He chirped again.

  We were free. I chirped back, riding the wind. Two birds of pain, finding their way back to his – and mine soon, too – murmuration.