The most annoying aspect of this new form, Shawn realized, was not the stant re-learning of the most fual ability to walk. Or that he didn’t have a clue how to use his wings, yet, and wasn’t bold enough to try, as Garrett sent out a few teammates to scout ahead with mighty fps of their wings.

  It was a strange sensation that he couldn’t sweat. He noticed it, after a while: even with the cooling air around them, he still felt warm. Too warm. More importantly, he couldn’t feel any beads of sweat f on his body. He felt like his respiration rate increasing.

  Aveeran must cool their bodies through rapid breathing–Shawn deduced that their lungs were pact heat exgers, like avian species from Earth. So when Cire ented for the fourth time if he needed a break and he sounded winded, he shook his head. He didn’t feel winded htheaded.

  “I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t terrible, but just ahing he wasn’t pletely used to, and keeping his beak slightly agape felt embarrassing. It was telling that Regia gnced his way wheumbled again. He kept trying to walk like he utting toe to heel, and it was difficult to unlearn it.

  “I fot how out of sorts you are. I’ve never seen a gestalt turn someoo a pletely different species. I’ve seen a few minor ges in physiology, but…” she trailed off as if trying to find less-edged words. “Yoing to need some practice.”

  “I feel like I’m walking on tiptoes.” He’d been doing okay when he slowed down, and strangely, he didn’t feel the uneven and rough grouh his feet, where exposed granite was checkered with exposed tree roots from the hardy alpine growths. If anything, it felt like his flesh was tougher, more adaptive than he remembered. She stopped him, while the others kept moving. “What’s up?” he asked after the group passed.

  “You o put more weight on your cw tips. Watch how I do so.” He had been paying attention to the other Aveeran, but he hadn’t had time to watch it more keenly because they’d been in a hurry.

  “Alright.” Regia flexed her foot and showed in a slightly exaggerated way how her cwed toes flexed, rose, and came down with a regur, normal stride. She also demonstrated over some of the alluvial boulders, with her toes ing to the surface, and digging in her cws. They appeared to be quite powerful, and he’d hey had impressive grip strength.

  “Now, you try. Same path, Shawn.”

  “I’m not an infant, Regia–”

  “But this body isn’t yours. You’ll have to learn because I sincerely doubt we ge you baytime soon. If at all.” There was an air of ione, and she winced. “Sorry in advance. I need you mobile and fully funal; that ensures everyone else's survival rate goes up. You already showed remarkable peten the orbital ptform.”

  He didn’t take offeo it–she was trying her hardest to keep upbeat, in the face of such a surreal escape. He slowed his pace deliberately, feeling the tension of his cwed toes, and tried not to overcorrect. It still felt like his bance was off–or, his sense of bance was now super-sensitive, and the slightest disruption made him feel like the world was skewed. Cire looked on casually, her face brightening a little, and she gave a silent nod of approval.

  “Now, the rough terrain. Remember, don’t fight it,” Regia assured him. He used a trick he’d used for hiking–not looking down, but six or seveers ahead of him, always anticipating the several steps.

  He found it worked…somewhat. He still felt his cws gripping too tightly on the softer earth, and Regia caught him with grace when he almost stumbled off the boulder, and she smirked. “Well, I guess you don’t make a terrible Aveeran, after all.”

  “Yeah, is it normal to have a rather muted rea to a plete form ge? Because I’m feeling a little numb to it.” He figured once he wasn’t in a danger sario, which had been the past few hours, there was going to be aable crash, on his part.

  And hopefully, not in front of Cire.

  Regia nodded while walking along the boulder, and he navigated slowly. “By the sound of it, you’ve already been through some heavy stuff in your world. I wouldn't call it numbness, so much as having a stronger mental bulwark against ge.”

  He hesitated before answering. “You could say that. So, you've never heard of people going through a full-body ge? I feel like someouck a lightning rod in my head.”

  Don't look at me for that one. I think that’s just Aveeran physiology at work.

  So, you didn’t decide ‘Hey, I’m going to turn this poor sod into an Aveeran, just for the ughs’, right?

  Oh, no. If I had that power, I’d have transformed you into something a little more durable. Like the scaled Kin.

  Your implication that my body is made of gss is noted, Halsey. He was slowly trusting his footing a little more, and he caught sight of Telga, watg with keen i. “So, great avian sage, apparently people don’t get turned iirely different species. Any insight?”

  “I’ve heard of it before,” Telga stated calmly, while Garrett and a few of the other least-injured Aveerans scouted ahead for the main group. All eyes turo her, retively posed. “Before the cataclysm that sundered our world, it was written that those who came to this sanctuary world first were the Kin of Earth, long ago. They, and travelers from other worlds. They took upoeria, and became the first unique species of Remaria. The Aveeran, the Vorhuhe Lovar’ii, and many others.”

  “But, not retly?” Cire inquired, eying her brother with curiosity.

  “No. These days, most people are born with a gestalt. Very, very few are…virgin, so to speak,” Telga replied with an uneasy clearing of her throat.

  “And, you khis might happen to me?” he asked, his voice edged. “Or, to Cire?”

  “I didn’t have crete evidence of it, no. But I did state very pinly, that it could ge you. And from this discovery…I think the legends are true. We did desd from the Kin.”

  Cire g the case she'd slung in a bag, narrowing her eyes at it. “Great. Ultimate power, but you get turned into something else. This is making me want to do this, less and less. I told you not to do it, Shawn–”

  “No one forced that Etteria in my hand. I did it on my own.” He could still lingering pins and needles jolting his nerves as if that etteria was needling through his body. “I made that choice, even if it was a hasty one. I didn’t lose my humanity in the process. Only my desire to ever have fried chi again, given my current…status.” He frowned when he heard Halsey ughing internally. Shut up, that's not helping.

  Cire broke out in anxious ughter. “I’m gd you make jokes, after watg people die left, right, aer.”

  “Yeah, real talk? It’s pretty messed up Cire, and I am by no means cozy with it. I shot people, and burhem. I killed them in self-defehey may have been trying their damo kill us, but that doesn’t make me feel aer about it.” He dug his cws on his fingers into his palms gently, and took a calming breath. “Okay, we o get moving again. I’ll have to pick this up as I go. And sort out how to fly. Why are we not doing that?”

  “We have wounded, and untrained Aveeran are she in flight. We’re talking minutes, not hours of flight,” Regia expined. “You’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

  “Also that uling, dreaded notion that Earth ized this pce.” Cire tied back her hair so it wouldn’t get in her face, and grunted against the disfort of the bindings. “Telga, what else do you know? What are the Kin?”

  “Earth had magic. A lot of it. Apparently, well-hidden, because you two didn’t know about it.” They stared at each other in disbelief, then at Telga, who seemed to have regained fiden her words. Or, more likely, was one domino away from breaking down, and trying desperately not to. “Let’s focus oing to Vea’nt. This pce might be calm, but it’s not safe,” she warned.

  “Guys, let’s get moving! I don’t want any night bound predators to pick up the st of fresh blood!” Garrett called out from up ahead. Shawn g Cire, who slowly nodded.

  “Guess questions wait, then.”

  Shawn was fortuhat one boon of his newfound body was the keen sense of night vision. While he couldn’t see color as well, he could make out distinct trasts of surfaces, and easily see objects in fiail, even at a distance.

  They progressed along the faintly marked path through a series of iferous equivalents. A ridge of low mountains of grey stoh mixed vegetation on the cliff faces loomed off to their left, obsg part of the night sky. Small meadows dotted the area where the trees receded hem, and a small mill pond was visible, just a little further out. A pale white moon–an actual moon, shone light across the still waters, ppily around bone-white trees that had been since flooded.

  Do they have beavers in this magical world? It looks simir enough to Earth, that if you didn’t look too close, you couldn’t tell the difference. Halsey made no entary, but he could feel her presehere, soaking in the sights and sounds–and eveher sensory things that he didn’t have a name for, yet. He swore he could feel a slight ination to keep a dire like he had his own internal pass.

  It wasn’t much of a stretch–it was theorized that birds could ‘read’ magiorth, and aided in their navigation, especially during migration seasons. Almost as if on cue, he could hear the call of alien-sounding birds posed of shrill screeches, long, drawn-out warbles, and low g sounds all around him. Nightly birds were fluttering overhead in a stealthy mahis pce was untouched by civilization–no trash, no overwhelming foot traffic. The trail was barely more than a faint hint of traversal.

  This was a truly untouched world. He would have loved to explore this–but he had someoo find, and rescue, from this pce.

  Ahead of them were more of the root-covered rocks, and untamed wilderness. Cire was keeping pace well, even slightly ahead. Regia stopped him briefly to hand him a dagger from her vest, and he g it.

  “You’ve used one of these before?” she asked quietly.

  “I’ve used a knife before with proficy. I’ve ed deer and other carcasses, along with carving and striking a flint.” He wasn’t about to let a valuable tool go to waste, and slipped it into a vest pocket, just within reach. He fumbled a bit because of that gring problem of only having four fingers, aapped it reassuringly. “But, why…”

  “We’re not at the top of the food , Shawn. Even with wings and the ability to get out of danger with a burst of flight, or estalts? There are monsters everywhere that end someone’s life very quickly, and very violently.”

  He gnced around, still attuning to the alien noises around him. If those opped, he figured trouble was close by. “’t have it too easy, we?”

  “Ah, yetting the hang of it,” she grihey quickly caught pace with Telga, who used her small light globules to help the several humans navigate the woods. The two wolvens–the Vorhunde, he recalled–had taken up the lead, leaving their wards with a few others to carry, having recovered somewhat. They were bipedal, like the Aveerans, but occasionally leaped to a low tree limb for visibility. They could leap almost double their body height, and would talk to each other softly. A man and a woman, Shawn noted.

  He pondered if they were reted to one ahey had the same amber-colored eyes and simir brown and red fur markings ating their limbs and faces. Or, there might have been less diversity in visual appearaween species.

  Halsey, take notes. I’m woefully out of my depth; I have to find a library on this three-dimensional jigsaw world. Wait, hang on, you seem to know things about the Aveeran. Care to chime in?

  I ot seem to recall things on my own. When you were thinking of the Aveeran, memories triggered for me. I was able to glimpse some of it. From a textbook, I saw?

  How do you not even know what you and ’t remember? He saw faint lights through the trees–artificial lights, or like the globules of illumination he’d seen from Telga, and other areas on the orbital retreat.

  If I see things I reize, I’ll let you know. All I do know, for a certainty? If the Radiants knew I existed, they would snuff me out. And you. I have an intimate fear of them that I ot expin.

  Telga’s on our side. I don’t hate her, she gave me a shot at finding Maggie somewhere in this world. But I wish we’d had more heads-up. I could have grabbed a sor panel, my ptop, and downloaded every survival book known to man, industrial practices, blueprints, hunting gear–

  He stopped a out a soft breath. There was no point w about those. The ptop in his bag had made the trip intact, somehow, along with his maist handbook copy he loved. But the ptop only had a fitery. If they didn’t have a means of geing AC power here, it was useless. Assuming that it didn’t get banged up in the chaos. Cire still held it for safekeeping. But, why would they wipe you out?

  Because they think I’m dangerous. But I don’t know why.

  Fortunately, they didn’t have far to navigate in the dark. Shawn could see dim lights betweerees, and the trees had dohing but grow taller, and thicker. When he realized what he was looking at, he gasped. These trees would put the redwoods of Earth to shame.

  “Hey, yawking. That’s a good way to lose focus, and bee a tasty treat for a monster,” Garrett teased beside him, now that they were closing o. He could almost hear the sound of musiearby, and what might be a perimeter wall of siderable height, just beyond the grove of massive trees.

  “Garrett, I’ve had a bit of a day, and I need something to take my mind off the…more trying circumstances,” he stated with a cck of his beak. It jarred his head a little, and he grumbled. Garrett ughed in response.

  “What, you? You sure had ation to do what was needed. You’re a natural!”

  “So was my father. But he wasn’t defending people, let’s say.” Garrett picked up on it, with a slow nod.

  “Oh. That kind of ‘natural’ talent. Not the good kind, huh?”

  “Nope.” Every sed he thought of that man, was a victory for that fiend sitting in a grave.

  Garrett took a sed to click his unicator, and Shawn could indeed just make out the outskirts of the towled in an opening of the massive trees that towered above them. “Vea’nt militia, this is Lieutenant Garrett Victus, we’re about to cross into the range of the forward sentries on the north side. We had to maintain radio silence, and we’re bearing wounded members. Did the scout team meet up with you?”

  There was a crackle of energy from the small device. “Harvak came in a couple of minutes ago, we’re scrambling the healers and we’ll meet you at the front gate. What happeo the orbital retreat? We saw fire in the sky–”

  “Theranas Sanctuary is gone.” Garrett gripped the rey so hard that Shawn worried he might break the device. “Revarik’s men got onboard. They killed a lot of people, and one of their heavy gestalt users destabilized it with a pyrocstic bst. We made it out with twenty-five. Oher ptform might have made it, but they’re downstream oeic mass, way out in the middle of nowhere. No idea how many made it.”

  “Damn. I thought Telga was safe.”

  “She’s with us. We’re alive, and hopefully, Revarik believes we’re all dead." Garrett's beak gritted tightly. "That specter-possessing prick was there, Varrick. Mog us iility of it. I wish he’d showed up in person, so I could have had a shot at putting an alchemical round through his grinning beak.” Garrett's feathers were tensed, and Shaw like sound was fading out. He waved a hand in front of his face--was it fatigue? No, not to that level. Everythi like it ying through an old radio, with static present. He snapped his cws together, frowning. His hearing was fine a sed ago.

  Something was wrong. He k, withnizing the why. "Garrett, something's happening," he tapped his shoulder, to get his attention. He heard one more burst from the radio before it was too difficult to hear.

  “Just get here in one piece. We’ll talk then--"

  That was when the sounds around them stopped, and Shaw every nerve go on end. Garrett se too, his beak slightly agape. Shawn grabbed his revarrett leveled his rifle at the woods, and put his back to Shawn, wings creasing against each other. Sound around them felt...muffled. Like something was dist in the air, or someone had stuffed cotton in his ears?

  “Bandersnatch!” Garrett screamed out.

  Ali Wondernd, this isn't...

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