Bastian was aware of a gentle drone as he awakened. A song that rolled and modulated with the fancy of a breeze.

  His head throbbed, sending splashes of color dotted with white across his vision. The buzzing music did not calm him, instead the notes ground against his headache, the waves of harmonies rocking his inner ear and rolling his stomach. He felt sick.

  When he blinked through the grogginess, he stared upwards at the glass ceiling of the chapel - suddenly so far away. A structure he did not remember loomed over his vision, the huge rounded edge of a stone structure, far above his head. Around his body, heavy fabric was piled on him, weighing him down. He thought it was all an illusion of his headache, and as the rolling of his nausea subsided, the scale of the world around him did not change.

  He went to brace himself with his hands and sit up, and his brain made the startling realization that its current map of his own self did not match with the one he had his whole life. Instead he flopped and kicked on the floor as he threw off the fabric, and the edge of his vision saw yellow scaled feet, black talons, and the flap of banded red feathers.

  He screamed - and it was not his own voice he heard by the tiny, piercing cry of a hawk.

  He slid across the floor to the base of the stone structure, flopping along on his belly as he kicked his wings and feet, feathers flying in his haste. His feet felt uncoordinated, his curved talons scrambled for purchase on the smooth stone. His arms and hands did not respond as he remembered them moving. His vision spun, the changed scale of the world filled him with sudden fear, casting humongous dark shadows and blinding red and orange light.

  He panted desperately at the base of the stone structure and evaluated his body. His feet were long and strange, the parts where his brain remembered his knees and legs were tucked into his feathered body, and instead his feet and ankles elongated and strangely mobile. What he could see was scaled ochre-yellow, ending each toe in a curved talon that made it difficult for him to stretch his new toes on the flat ground. The talons bumped into each other and tripped him up as he tried to move them.

  His arms and hands were ever worse, he couldn’t feel all his fingers, his sense of his hand finishing at about his wrist but instead now a network of feathers along his arms provided him with detailed, confusing information about touch as they brushed the ground and bumped into the stone structure. As he shifted his arms, massive muscles around his shoulders and back shifted in novel ways. His nausea at all the new overwhelming feelings and sights only grew.

  When he opened his mouth to vomit, there was none of the familiar jolting of the diaphragm and gagging, instead he ejected in one motion a thin stream of yellow-brown bile onto the stone in front of him, and noted a large, curved beak in the front of his face between his eyes where his nose had been.

  He definitely wasn’t a man anymore.

  He spun his head around assessing the chapel and the scale of the world. The stone structure above and around him must have been the edges of the central dish of water where he had fallen. Despite his changed body, his mind and faculties remained intact, at least as far as he could tell.

  He tested one foot, extending and curling his taloned feet, and with deliberate care stood and practiced balancing his new body for a few minutes. Tentatively he gave his wings a beat, and felt unfamiliar muscles shift. A single banded downy feather floated off from his chest.

  He gave a few more flaps, and felt how the air moved around his new body. He jumped once and managed a hover before landing on his awkward feet again. Glaring up at the edge of the stone dish, he hopped to turn, and then leapt up at its edge and beat his wings desperately. He tripped on the edge of the bowl and landed chest first into the shallow disc of water, sending ripples across the mirror surface. With a squawk of indignation, he stood and looked down at himself.

  His chest and the underside of his wings were pale and thinly banded with black, fading to off white at the base of his tail. His shoulders were a warm red, the color of his hair, and familiar golden eyes stared back set in a very unfamiliar face. The red carried onto his head and below his eyes, leaving him with two white eyebrows that gave his new head an expression of constant indignant anger. His beak started ochre and faded to the same grey-black as his banding at its tip. Tentatively, he stretched his wings, examining as the thin bands of his chest grew thicker and darker at the trailing edges of his feathers.

  “And so our final promise has been met. The contract struck, is now complete.”

  Bastian spun, the noise of a voice was so huge and terrifying he ducked and shrunk into his feathers. He opened his beak to demand explanation but again only the thin screech of a hawk emerged.

  The Prime stood nearby, her aged grey hair bound up on her head and silver pendant hanging between her breasts. Seeing the scale of something he was familiar with, his mind scrambled to make sense of his new vision. As he blinked, the image telescoped wildly while he worked out how to focus on her face.

  “Speak with your mind,” instructed the Prime, her eyes bright and curious. Her one wrinkled hand extended to reach for him and Bastian stepped away across the dish of the bowl.

  What have you done to me? He yelled into the void with his mind.

  “I have done nothing. You have heard the Watcher speak, and in hearing her words you have changed,” explained the Prime.

  Change me back!

  “I can do nothing. It is the Watcher’s will.” The prime tucked her arm into the fold of her robe, using it as a sling.

  Bastian hunched his wings over his back and took several long legged steps towards the Prime.

  Fuck that. Change me back!

  The Prime grinned, the corners of her eyes wrinkling as she did. “You will have to learn how to do that for yourself. You are one of us now - Welcome to the Vigil.”

  Bastian screamed and launched himself at her, batting at her head with his wings and balling his talons into fists. She shield her face with her robes and backed up towards the door but did not strike out at him. When they were almost through, she held one arm up blocking him from reentering the chapel with the long sleeve of her robe. Bastian tumbled out the door, tripping over his tail and fluttered to a stop on the ground

  Buildings around him cast frightful shadows, everything seemed large and terrifying, so he launched for the open sky.

  His desperate flaps steadied to a glide and he fled from the Chapel. The wind beneath him lifted his body, and at first he struggled and fluttered - battered about by the changing whims of the air. He twisted his wrist and he suddenly jerked to the left. He corrected with his tail, and his stomach lurched as he broke unexpectedly hard.

  Then, with practice, his flight steadied. He felt every twist in the air around him with the tips of his feathers. He felt the ease of how the slightest adjustments of his tail or wings kept him steady, or sent him wheeling and diving. He felt power in his body that he only felt as a human in those moments when he drew his war bow taut, the poised tension of straining muscle and coiled energy, and the confident mastery of his craft.

  His fear and confusion was lost and he climbed into the sky testing the limits of his new body. He dived, he twisted, he grasped at the playful wind with his talons. His feathers were so sensitive, communicating every eddy and shift in the wind in minute detail, and his wings and tail masters at controlling it. He lost himself in the joy of this world unlocked.

  He had no idea how much time passed. Tired, he steadied to a glide and examined High Haven beneath him. His focus was drawn to what remained of the pilgrim camp, and the Citrine Snake’s encampment. He tilted his head and dived. As he drew close, skimming the roofs of High Haven, he stretched his feet in front of him and landed at the top of the wall. His landing was a little awkward, grabbing the edge of the wall with his taloned feet. He didn’t quite judge his momentum, and despite breaking with his wings and tail he fell forward and had to flap his wings to right himself.

  After gathering his balance again, cautiously, he sidled along the wall and studied the camp below. From above, the layout of tents and hovels, and the central bonfire, was familiar. Most of the community was disassembled, maybe as much as ninety percent smaller. The ground was trampled still leaving the ghosts of roads he remembered when he had walked the community with human feet. At the very edge of the clearing, down the singular road up the mountain, a single rider on pied talon steed was galloping towards them.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Bastian tucked his head into his shoulders, ruffling his feathers, and watched. When they drew close and turned off the road to the Snakes camp, he grew curious. Finding he had no fear of heights, he effortlessly dropped forward, catching himself with his wings, and glided to the Snake Prince’s tent. His landing at the point of the rounded pavilion was considerably more elegant and he fluffed himself up against the wind as he sat and listened.

  The rider entered the tent below him, and after several minutes was dismissed.

  “It has finally happened, we are ruined…”

  The voice was the Citrine Snake's.

  The voice of someone Bastian didn’t recognize, likely an advisor replied. “Only as long as word does not get out. But it will require utter secrecy, we cannot even hold a funeral.”

  “No funeral? This is your Queen you speak of! She deserved far more than the indignity of an un-mourned death.”

  “We already risk the news spreading. All it would take is one servant from the palace to slip the news… soon a merchant will carry it across the borders and the other families of the Pentarchy will hear about it…”

  “I will not have my Grandmother pass without a proper celebration and burial!”

  “My Prince… I cannot recommend anything but the highest caution…”

  The Citrine Prince exited his tent, marching towards the meadow where his horse grazed, his female advisor in tow. Bastian spied ugly mottled scarring on the dark skin of his face and neck before he covered the burns with a black mask.

  “Caution!?” he cried as he stalked, “We stand on the brink of chaos! Nothing has tested the balance of the Pentarchy’s Peace like this will, if it gets out!”

  “The late Second Pentarch hid this for years, long before your brother set on his mission, long before…”

  The Prince turned, black cape billowing behind him, “We are finished! Do you understand? Caution or not! The Second Pentarchy is over! My brother searched for years secretly, tracing Vigilant records for the slimmest relation, any distant line no matter how far removed with the Matrilineal blood, and he found nothing! Now my Grandmother is dead, and she leaves only sons and grandsons!”

  The advisor made quieting motions with their hands, rushing after the distraught Prince. “It is not over, if we can…”

  “Silence! There is no hiding this, not forever. We must prepare for the inevitable. What will happen when the other Pentarchs hear our line is ended? What if they have already had a hand in this? What if my brother did learn something on his pilgrimage? Isn’t it convenient that he is now missing and the gate to High Haven closed? For generations the borders of the Pentarchy have stood unchanging, and now there is a great fucking hole in one corner for the taking! It might not even be considered a breaking of the Peace when there is no Second Pentarch to invoke the pact!”

  The advisor was panicking and desperately shushing him, “Someone will hear!” she hissed, and grabbed him by one hand to drag him back to the tent. “You are the Second Pentarch now. We must return, you have responsibilities to return to…”

  “I am nothing! I am responsible for no one!” as the Prince threw his advisor off his arm, she tumbled to the ground, “My family is end with me.”

  “My Prince, My King, Cassius…” cried the advisor, climbing to their feet, “You are mad with grief, you do not think straight, I beg you! Return to your tent. We need not send a reply now, we can think on this…”

  Cassius drew his sword and slammed the blade with a wild cry into a cut log at the edge of the field. When it stuck so deep he could not withdraw it he gave one strangled cry to the sky, and finally turned to retire as bid.

  Bastian remained perched at the peak of the tent, the weight of what he just heard settling on him like a dark cold night.

  The Second Pentarchy was over. They had no women to breed heirs, and apparently the last that had remained was elderly and now dead. That was what the Carmine, and later the Citrine had come so desperately to the Prime for - a search of their records for any branch of their family that might remain with their blood - and with it the hope for a woman of breeding age to make the next Pentarch, or become the support for one of the Princes.

  The other Pentarchs would absolutely take this chance for expansion that had been held back for so long by the Peace. He was absolutely right, it was the perfect loophole - it was not a war against a Pentarch if there was no Pentarch to war with, and thus there was no obligation for a unified response.

  They knew what the Citrine did not. His brother was dead. Killed by a god beyond the Sacred Valley… In what Bastian now guessed was one wild last pursuit of a path for their families continued existence. It was surely coincidence, and not a deliberate interference by any other Pentarch? To act directly would be too aggressive, test too dangerously the ambiguous interpretation of the loophole, let alone the difficulty in orchestrating such a strange death. But to wait for death to come, and be ready at the borders when it did… That was another matter.

  Bastian hunched forward, turning in place.

  The question remained - what did Sylus and Synthias plan to make from this situation? How much did they know, and how much did the Fourth Pentarch know? Someone knew something, the signs of movement at the eastern border were clear.

  Bastian turned into the wind and kicked off, winging his way back over the wall and back to the Chapel. He had to work out how to become human again!

  ---

  Bastian crashed with a clatter into the window sill at Elias' room. Peeking through the slats, he saw no one within, so he flew round to Dorius’ room. Hunched within, the old man was reliably studying. He fluttered against the window and shook the slats with one foot, screaming with his hawk voice to get the old man’s attention.

  Elias sat up and turned his way, eyebrows raised in confusion as he got to his feet to come adjust the window.

  “You get your foot caught, little hawk?” he asked softly as he opened one side of the shutters.

  Bastain flew past him, Elias lifting his hands to shield his head, then slowly lowering them when the hawk came to perch on the knob of one corner of the bed.

  “What…”

  Elias, it's Bastian.

  Elias clutched his heart and stumbled. He reached out for a chair and drew it under him as his knees gave way and took a deep breath. “I swear, I just heard a…”

  Yes, I’m a fucking bird. We’ve got bigger problems…

  “Watcher…” he slumped into the seat and just looked blankly at Bastian. Then finally, “How are you talking? You’re a goshawk?”

  Vigilants did something to me. Listen, we can work out what to do about it later. I have bigger news. Bastian hopped off the bed post and took long steps across the floor then fluttered up to Dorius’ desk.

  “I don’t know what… Is Dorius okay?”

  Bastian shook his head. No clue. A messenger just came to the Citrine’s camp. The Second Pentarch is dead.

  Elias' face settled into a grim expression, “That is dark news, but I do not see how it is more significant than… Your current state?”

  The significant bit is that they have no women left. I overheard it directly from the Citrine Prince, their line is ended - the Second is collapsing.

  Elias was faster than Bastian was, his reaction was immediate, “The troop movements east? The Fourth plans to interpret this as an opportunity for expansion without invoking the mutual aid clauses of the Peace!”

  The Carmine Snake came here seeking any distant family they could in the Vigilant’s records. I am guessing they found none, hence breaking the seal in the hope a god may know a solution to their problem. The question is if it is true, and what Sylus knows?

  Elias stumbled to his feet and leant over his work, studying the notes before him. “I have most of what I would need here to confirm it. If we could find a distant daughter, we may avert war?” He picked up one document in particular, and smoothed it carefully in his hands. “I will search what I can, but we must hope Dorius is successful. Assuming I will only draw the same conclusions and, like the Carmine Snake, we must turn to a god for answers.”

  Did you find his relation to this Abrigardius?

  Elias folded his notes, “Yes.” And he was silent for a moment before elaborating. “Dorius’ father’s line led back along a male line, sired by a father whose own birth I could not find. The father’s name and age were the same as the only documented child Abrigardius ever had… a son, believed killed in the civil war of the Unrest as an infant. She did not share the blood of the prior Monarchs, and in fact I can find no noble family line that she originates from, nor her partner. But through his father’s male line, he has a connection back to her. And through his mother, the female line of the Monarchy before it passed the crown outside the family, for a final time, and collapsed. He is the first mix of both bloodlines, generations later.”