Chapter 143: The Mother Put One Foot Into Ninebell

Inside Ninebell, the mother’s trapped foot kicked once.

Her claws struck stone. On the far side, her body twisted under two moons, and the silver around her ankle pulled tight enough to flatten every wet feather against the leg.

Pava stayed beyond the reach of her beak.

"I am not touching you," she said. "You can stop explaining that part."

Her beak jabbed through the feeding gap again.

Pava sat back. "Very clear."

The male tried to answer from Jiang’s shoulder. Air scraped through him, thin and rough. His flank sank before the note ended, forcing Jiang to spread his good toes and take more of the weight across his breast.

Pain traveled from Jiang’s bound shoulder into his neck. He held anyway.

Under the brood fold, the chick made a hungry click. That tiny sound reached the mother. She stopped fighting the stone and let her head sink until one dark eye appeared beyond the feeding gap.

Her mate called again.

This time she answered him instead of striking at Pava.

Silver loosened around the trapped ankle, though the stone did not release it. Ahead of her, low cups brightened. Behind her, the far rookery went on calling beneath its two moons.

Brinn knelt beside Elen’s forked glass. His old brace held only the lip of the feeding reach, and pressure from the mother’s body had begun to turn one green prong.

Valea caught the prong through folded cloth.

"If it turns farther, it cuts the edge," she said.

"Not the bird?" Pava asked, watching the trapped foot.

"First the edge," Valea said. "Then the bird."

"I am growing tired of things that choose stone before flesh."

Brinn put her empty mask beneath the glass as a prop. "Stone complains less."

The line over Aylin’s forearm slid.

She caught it with her palm before it could fall into the middle. Silver touched the reopened cuts. Her hand jerked, but she did not bring her shadow across the road.

Blood ran into the folded cloth under her wrist.

Kedra saw it from the other edge. "Trade with me."

"You have one sound hand."

"You are decorating the floor with yours."

"Still separate," Aylin said, and kept her forearm planted.

Kedra’s mouth tightened. Her own fingers had gone pale where they pressed the opposite lip. When she shifted to ease them, the road bowed toward the center and the mother’s trapped leg disappeared to the toes.

Both women froze without lifting from either edge.

From the far side came the female’s scream. Her foot returned inside Ninebell when Kedra forced her hand down again.

"No trading," Valea said. "Not while she has weight in both places."

Kedra bore down with her shoulder behind her hand. "Then get her through before one of us becomes a very educational stain."

Pava dragged a warmed stone toward the male.

She stopped it beyond his beak, then pushed a fold of hide against its far side. Heat gathered there without touching his brood feathers.

He watched Pava withdraw and did not strike.

Jiang eased his breast toward the warm edge. His companion could follow or refuse. For several breaths, the male did neither. His body shook against Jiang while the chick’s toes worked under the fold.

Then the male shifted.

He moved no farther than the width of his own wet feathers. Even that motion brought his sound flank against the warm hide and lengthened his shadow through the next low cup.

Silver stirred under Jiang as he moved with the male.

Silver climbed Jiang’s good toes.

Far wind touched his beak again. Rookery voices opened at the edge of his hearing, and a second black outline began to form behind the mother’s trapped leg.

Jiang locked his claws around Ninebell stone.

Before Jiang’s shadow finished forming, the mother cut her call short.

She turned her head away from Jiang’s growing shadow and called to her mate. The male answered from the heat Pava had placed within his choice. His weak note left a gap at the end.

A click from the chick filled it.

Her next answer held that gap open.

Silver slid off Jiang’s foot.

No one congratulated the road for remembering. Aylin was bleeding too freely for that, Kedra’s fingers were shaking, and the mother’s leg remained caught in a hole between worlds.

Brinn pressed her forearm against the empty mask beneath the brace. Green glass creaked over it.

"What releases the first cup?" Pava asked.

"Her second foot," Brinn said, without looking away.

"That sounds simple when you say it."

"It is simple." Brinn’s eyes stayed on the far ice. "It is not small."

The mother’s rear foot stood beneath two moons.

Beyond it, adults answered from the rookery. Nearby calls gathered into a living wall of sound. Jiang could not understand each bird, but he knew the shape of a colony locating one of its own. Heads turned in the moonlight. Dark bodies began moving toward her over open ice.

They had seen her caught at the edge.

One adult came ahead of the rest, belly low against the wind. It gave a short contact call.

She answered at once.

Her voice no longer belonged only to Ninebell. It traveled back toward birds she had hunted beside, slept beside, and crossed a sea to find. Several answered her changed ending. A smaller call rose among them and was hidden by larger bodies.

Jiang felt the male listen.

His head lifted from Jiang’s shoulder. Through the low road, he found the far rookery. He could see a place his mate had reached alive, a place that had fed her when Ninebell could not, and bodies coming to pull her away from the closing light.

He gave her no command to cross.

Lowering his beak to the chick, the male called once.

A thin answer rose from the chick on his feet.

Across the road, the mother looked back.

Wind moved through the far colony’s feathers. Leading the others, one adult reached the last clear patch of ice and stopped outside the silver. It called again, louder now.

She leaned toward it.

Her trapped ankle turned in Ninebell stone. That movement bent the green brace and drove Aylin’s palm down against the edge. Aylin made a sound between her teeth.

Kedra swore. "Do not hold her here."

"I am holding the road apart."

"Then bleed less," Kedra snapped through her clenched teeth.

"Excellent advice," Aylin said, and did not move.

Valea folded another strip of cloth and pushed it beneath Aylin’s hand without lifting the arm. Fresh cloth went red under her palm.

Pava remained beside the warm stone. She wanted to catch the mother’s foot before the joint twisted, but kept both hands on her own knees.

"If you go back," she said softly, "I will not blame you."

Brinn glanced at her.

"She cannot understand the words," Brinn said.

"Good. Then I said them for me."

The mother answered the far adult.

For a moment, the first foot began to fade from Ninebell. Around the empty moonlight, the stone cup widened. Her claws scraped backward, and Jiang felt the male’s weight gather as if he meant to stand.

He could not raise even his breast from the rest.

His outer leg folded under the attempt. Before the chick could be crushed, the brood rest caught his breast, but his flank slid down Jiang’s shoulder. Jiang drove his beak against the floor and pushed upward with his only working foot.

His shoulder binding pulled loose another finger’s width.

The male stopped falling.

Beneath him, the chick shoved its beak through the brood feathers and called into Ninebell.

At the call inside Ninebell, the mother turned back.

Her trapped foot darkened again inside the cup. She looked past Pava, past the warm hide, and found the small beak under her mate.

Behind her, the far adult called once more.

She answered with the sound she had used before moonlight formed the road. It began as a return to the rookery. Halfway through, she changed it around her mate’s broken breath and the chick’s thin click.

The far adults answered the opening.

Her family in Ninebell answered the end.

She stood between both sounds until the road shook beneath her.

Then she lowered her body toward the trapped foot.

Her weight entered Ninebell by degrees. The first cup deepened under her webbing. Wet breast feathers crossed the feeding reach, flattened into silver, and appeared along the low road without yet touching stone.

The far rookery grew louder.

The mother looked back a final time.

No false call hurried her. No human hand reached across the line. Her mate could not lift himself to fetch her, and the chick could not know what she was leaving.

She lifted her rear foot.

Ice showed beneath it under the two moons.

For one breath, all of her weight hung from the ankle trapped in Ninebell and the breast suspended between worlds. The leading adult rushed forward, stopping with its beak just short of the silver.

The mother touched that beak with her own.

Then she pulled her head away and brought the rear foot over the line.

Its black webbing left the far ice.

Behind her rising body, one of the two moons went dark.