Read Rainbird for Free Online

She scooted the stool into the corner, away from the door, and half-turned towards the table.
    She was Petrus’ slow-witted helper. That was the story they’d devised, and the persona she always played.
    The someone outside the egg was not used to waiting patiently. The knocks came hard and swift.
    Surely the Levine woman wouldn’t bother us this late at night. Surely she wouldn’t be out on the nightside. But since he couldn’t put anything past the woman, Petrus struggled to sit up. He snatched up a book and put on his spectacles, to make it look like he was reading in bed. “Come in.” He put strength into his voice, but it still came out weak.
    The hatch door groaned open, and Diamada swung inside.
    Or rather, she floated in, light on her bare feet. Her wings, high and arched, spreading even when folded, brushed the sides of the opening. She brought with her the scent of ozone, the chill of stars, the thinness of high-altitude air.
    The sight of her was like a punch to the stomach.
    She stopped just under the hatch. Twists of clothing around her chest and waist bared skin, soft and downy with fine white fur. He’d known how touching it had felt like, once. “Hello, Petrus.”
    Rainbird stifled a gasp. Diamada didn’t so much as glance her way, her luminescent gray eyes focused on Petrus. She looked just the same as she had nearly two decades ago, with her star-shimmer hair pulled back from her head in a chignon.
    Petrus exhaled, slowly. His insides had gone to jelly. “Diamada.” He lifted his hand to her.
    Diamada ignored the invitation and Petrus let his hand drop. His fingers clenched into wool. “What are you doing here?”
    Diamada tilted her head. “I’m here to warn you.”
    “What about?”
    “You found bonerot in the sunway.” It was not a question. “Leave it be, Petrus.” Her voice softened a notch, caressed his name, and desire stabbed at him, sharp and insistent. He could not look away from her beautiful otherworldly face, too angular and sharp to even pass for human. “Do your inspections, your polishing and oiling and welding. Stay out of the deep recesses and the cavities. Don’t go looking for bonerot. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
    He barely heard her words, just her voice. He started to nod, to form the words Yes, I’ll do anything, if only you’ll come back, but they were drowned out by Rainbird, who burst up from her stool, coat puddling around her. “What are you saying? Do you mean that the eiree are responsible for sabotaging the sunway?”
    Her voice, shocked and sharp, broke the spell. Diamada frowned, eyes narrowing, giving her face a feral look. She still did not look at Rainbird.
    Anger, shocked and disbelieving, felt like a stone in his belly. “Answer her, Diamada.”
    Diamada pursed her lips, refusing to acknowledge the daughter she had abandoned.
    She’d abandoned them both.
    With a strangled cry, Petrus surged off the bed and clamped both his hands on Diamada’s shoulders. She was small, smaller than Rainbird even, and her arms and shoulders slight. But she wasn’t fragile, not at all. What muscles she had were far stronger than a human man’s, to power those large wings of hers. She was not just a small woman with wings.
    She was eiree.
    “Well? Are you infecting the sunway with bonerot, Gwipper take you!”
    “I am only a messenger.” Her eyes were unreadable, had always been so, even when she’d said she loved him. “The Perch says to you, Petrus, ‘There is no cheris gum for the sunway. Stop looking and stop asking. The eiree have nothing to do with the sunway or the Company or the affairs of men.’”
    “So, you’ll let the sunway collapse then, will you? It’ll take you with it, if you do!”
    “Long before men, there were the eiree. Long before the spine, even, and the wings and the whole skeleton. Long before the dragon screamed into our world, there were the eiree. And long after the men and bone have gone, we will be.”
    “Such fine