Our frustration growing, we walk along the new wall until it disappears, then continue the climb upward.
Our path turns into an invisible maze as we avoid the god’s power. We backtrack, zigzag, go in what feels like circles—just so that we can find a path that isn’t blocked by the invisible wall.
“We’ll never find the bird like this,” I huff after running into yet another barrier.
“We’re making progress,” Soren says.
“Barely.”
“Before you arrived, I’d never even set foot at the base of this mountain. This is progress. Don’t give up on me now.”
That stops my complaining instantly. I’m doing this for Soren, because I want him to be free to return to the villages. And I need his help to publicly face the god. We can do this.
But all these barriers—it’s like the god is taunting me. Does he know I’m alive? Why is he protecting this mountain peak?
A bird’s call draws both our gazes upward. We can’t see the otti. Not from where we stand.
But that sound—it’s close.
Soren flies up the mountain with me right behind him. We’re met with the god’s power only once more before we halt and drop to our stomachs.
We lie at an incline, our heads just barely grazing over the tops of the rocks. Up ahead, a nest made of branches and weeds is perched atop a circling of rocks. The nest itself is half the size of the tree house. And inside, a mess of little squawks and fuzzy blue heads.
A tail flicks upward, not that of a fowl—but the large mountain cat that had been caught less than an hour earlier. The hatchlings are tearing through it. I now make sense of an assortment of other noises. Swallowing and ripping. I cringe.
“Where’s mama bird?” Soren asks.
From our hidden position, we try to take in all the surrounding trees and cliffs, but the great otti isn’t in sight.
“Will one of the hatchlings work?” I ask.
“They’re too small; they haven’t grown feathers yet.”
Right.
“She can’t have gone far,” Soren says. “Let’s wait her out.”
“What’s your plan?”
“Well, she’s a bird. At some point, she’ll come sit in her nest. I’ll sneak up behind her and take a feather.”
I whip my neck in Soren’s direction. “You want to approach her while she’s in her nest? She’ll be the most volatile then! And, what, you think she’ll just let you walk away after yanking out one of her feathers?”
“Do you have a better idea? No matter what, she’s going to be volatile!”
I think for a moment. “What supplies did you bring?”
“Other than food and a change of clothes?” He pauses. “Actually, I did bring a net, but it’s far too small to fit over the giant bird.”
“Let me see it.”
He frees the net from his pack and hands over the tangle of ropes. I stretch it out on the ground behind us. I shrug my pack from my shoulders and pull out a coil of rope. With a knife, I cut it into four strips, then tie each strip to one of the corners of the net, lengthening the ends and giving us better handholds.
“It won’t cover her wingspan,” I say, “but perhaps her head and back? If we can just pin her long enough, you can get close enough to grab a feather.”
Soren looks from the net to me. “That’s a much better plan. Let’s do it.”
* * *
UP IN THE TREES, I stand on two separate branches, holding the net, waiting for Soren’s cue. As I watch him kneeling behind a boulder, waiting for the otti’s return, I want to laugh at him.
His master plan was to just sneak up on the bird and take a feather.
Honestly, how did he even survive before I was banished to the wild?
I don’t think he’s ever excelled at thinking before acting. No wonder Iric said he used to get into trouble all the time.
One of my legs starts to cramp, so I attempt to stretch it out without toppling out of the tree. It would be so much better if we could set the trap on the ground and rig it to spring upward and catch the bird when she steps on it—but with those sharp talons, she’d shred through the rope in seconds.
This trap has to be sprung from above, and Soren needs to be on the ground, ready to pluck a feather once the great bird is caught.
If only she’d bother to show up.
The hatchlings still take their time with their meal. A fuzz-covered head lifts into the air with a chunk of meat held between its beak. It uses gravity to help force the hunk of mountain cat down its throat.
My eyes swivel back to Soren’s hiding place, only to see that he’s no longer there.
He’s creeping toward the nest.
“Soren, what are you doing?” I ask in a loud whisper.
“Speeding things up.”
Something sinks low in my chest, and I have the burning urge to rush to him as I watch him advance toward the nest.
Idiot. He’s out in the open.
But I hold my ground. He’s going to lead the otti to me, and I have to be ready.
But my throat closes off as I watch Soren draw closer.
During Iric’s mattugr, there was fear for him, fear for all of us—but now—
This is different. Nothing can happen to Soren. I couldn’t bear it. I feel the seconds tick by like a hammer against my heart.
When he’s ten feet from the nest, the wind picks up, sending Soren’s hair over his shoulders.
At five feet from the nest, there’s a loud chirp as one of the hatchlings eyes Soren warily. There are five hatchlings in total, and the others soon spot Soren. The sounds of eating cease. Earsplitting chirps ratchet up from the nest, clear sounds of distress. The birds rise onto their toes, each one as tall as Soren’s arm.
A faint whooshing sound stirs the air.
“Soren, she’s coming!”
I can’t see her yet. The sky hides her too well, but Soren must spot her, because he suddenly darts toward me.
My heart races as he clears the tree line, and the otti finally comes into view. She lands on the ground just before the trees, her wings sending the branches swaying. Soren, breath heaving, comes to a stop just below where I wait with the net, and we both watch the bird. She tucks her wings to her sides and hops a step forward. Talons crunch against rock as she leaps her way around trees and over boulders, drawing closer and closer, her mouth open, releasing angry caws into the air.
Soren backs up slowly when he’s sure the otti will take a straight path to him. She seems to gain both confidence and speed the closer she gets to him.
“Now!” Soren yells.
I drop the net, watch it land over the otti’s head, back, and tail feathers, before climbing down the tree as quickly as I can to help.
Soren grabs the front two ends of the net, holding down while the bird rears her head. I scramble behind her to grab the back ends. She tries to buck, swivel her tail feathers, but with her talons pinned beneath her, she can’t free herself from the net.
“It’s all right,” Soren intones. “We’ll let you go in just a second. I need something first.”
The otti turns her head to the side, sizing him up with one black eye. She tries to push her beak through a gap in the net.
And succeeds.
She snaps at Soren, who just barely manages to dodge it. With both rope ends clasped firmly in his hands, he sidesteps the bird, joining me in the back. The otti’s neck turns with the motion, pinning her head against her side.
“She won’t hold still,” Soren says. He stumbles beside me as the otti attempts to raise her wings. “Damn.”
He holds both of his ropes in one hand and reaches for one of the bird’s long tail feathers.
There’s a whisper of sound as the feather comes free, and I watch the bird’s eyes dilate.
She flaps her wings madly, not in an attempt to fly, just to clear us away from her, and I lose my grip on the rope in my right hand.
“Soren!”
The otti gets a leg free with the opening I’ve given her, and she rises on that side, talons trying to find purchase on the ground.
Soren grabs the remaining rope in my hand, while I try to leap onto the bird’s back for the end I let go of.
She bucks again, her freed leg finally finding purchase, and I tumble down her back before landing on the hard ground.