Binding Blood - Chapter 2

The three lines of geography essay he’d managed glared at him from the paper. Once again, Dannel attempted to write a fourth. Once again, he obliterated it all with the eraser on the tip of his pencil.

Manarilde was the smallest of the sectors when the Two Firs penal colony was established. It has since grown into the largest area of industrial production on Tayfir. How it got there was dependent on three factors: climate, the initial reward system and iron ores discovered below the city of Plemvir. The most influential of these was the climate.

What was he supposed to add? How could he develop an argument on such a bloody obvious point?

“I’m going to bed,” Teersin announced, “I just can’t take it anymore!”

Dannel swivelled around on his chair to face the imp. His little green face was all screwed up and blood was pouring out his palms from where his fingernails were digging in.

“Sorry,” Dannel said, “It’s just that it has to be in for tomorrow and you know Miss Hutchins terrifies me.”

“Of course I know!” Teersin snapped, “But would it hurt to squeeze a stress toy every now and again instead of piling it all on our connection link? My joints feel like I’ve listed a house!”

Dannel gulped. “Sorry.”

Teersin rolled his eyes and plodded over to a basket at the foot of Dannel’s bed. He would get a proper bed when Dannel went to university. In fact, Dannel had even heard he’d have his own little room. Teersin curled into a ball, sighed and shut his eyes.

Dannel gasped as the pairbond was muted. One night, he would get used to it, surely. He put his pencil back to the paper but his hand was skidding about the page so much that he had to stop before he accidentally scribbled out his night’s work. He sighed. Geography was first period as well. He couldn’t just scribble the essay out during maths again.

His door swung open. His mum peeked her head around the door, then strode into the room.

“Dannel,” she said, “Go to bed. I don’t care how much trouble you’ll be in. Just go to sleep.”

She seemed to be about to add something but his father entered and added, “Are you still up, Dannel? For God’s sakes, go to bed!”

“I think I covered that, Ron,” his mum whispered.

His dad smiled meekly, winked at him, hesitated, then withdrew from the room. His mum ventured over to Teersin’s basket.

“He’s not a dog, you know,” she said, placing herself on the edge of Dannel’s bed, “He ought to have a room of his own.”

Dannel nodded. Agreeing with her usually finished the conversation sooner. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take opportunity of his mum’s rare affection for Teersin, but, contrary to popular belief, he really did want to go to bed. And he was not about to get undressed in front of his mum, no matter how young she thought he still was.

“Dannel, come sit over here.” She patted her head and gestured for him to sit beside her.

In the dim light his desk lamp offered - the light always dimmed when Teersin nodded off - he crossed his room and gingerly perched on the edge of the bed.

“What’s going on, Mum?”

She gave him one of those looks that makes teenagers everywhere remember that little over a decade ago, their parents were changing their nappies.

“It’s not that bad,” she assured him.

Complete lie.

“She couldn’t tell you herself.”

What?

“Hannah’s moving out.” She gasped as she made her announcement.

Dannel tried to react. He opened his mouth but slammed it almost immediately shut. He shifted his weight to recalibrate himself but slipped off the edge of the bed and slumped to the floor. He sprang upright and began to pace.

“Why?” he asked, because it was better than ‘when?’

“A difference of opinion with your father and I,” she replied, a little too quickly.

“What exactly … ?” He stopped moving and stood still, then sat with his legs crossed in the middle of the floor.

“It’s not important for you to know,” his mother assured him.

“It’s important enough for you to kick my sister out!” he yelled.

“Dannel!” she hissed, “Next door will be trying to sleep.”

He clenched his teeth. “Was that it? Did Hannah keep the neighbours up so you’re getting rid of her? Or maybe she wanted to study history instead of physics, or literature instead of maths?”

He was on his feet again, then leaning against his wardrobe, then curled up on his desk chair.

“Dannel,” she whispered. He could have been wrong, but she sounded weaker than she had thirty seconds ago. “Dannel, would you just listen for once? Not everything your father and I do is with the intention of oppressing your freedom.”

Dannel rolled his eyes, which he always did when she made fun of him.

“Your sister wished to have her connection link nullified,” she continued, “She told us she wouldn’t live under the same roof as anyone who ‘sullied their blood’ with the ‘demonic tint’ our culture is used to.”

Anyone? She couldn’t had meant ‘anyone’. How did he even know his mother was telling the truth?

Dannel rose and paced back and forth again. He caught her pleading eye again and, rolling his eyes, turned to face her. Her cropped hair looked greyer than it actually was in the silverish light of the lamp. The creases in her forehead looked like ravines by the shadows trapped in them. Dannel peered into her glistening eyes. Was his mother … old?

He crouched and wrapped his arms around his mum’s shoulders.

Little more than five breaths later he was lying in bed, his mum closing the door behind her as she left.

***

"Dannel!"

Dannel inhaled sharply and jerked upright. His legs were twisted around the covers and his right arm was curled up behind his back. He frantically kicked the sheets off the bed as he tried to discern the source of the cry. He let his breathing calm down and resolved that the shout had been a very vivid extension of his dream. He was far too jolted to have any recollection of what the dream was but he could sense that it had involved panic. The very air around him seemed tense.

Just as he was lying back down and snuggling his head into the pillow, the door to his bedroom was flung violently open and his sister, Hannah, stumbled into the room. So it had been Hannah who had called his name. Hannah was seventeen and in Holly Martin's class at school, emphasising the age difference to a cruel overstatement. Hannah was a little smarter than Holly, Dannel reckoned, but Holly by far had the edge in not being a giant pain in the backside.

"What do you want?" he groaned.

He struggled back into a sitting position and lazily rubbed at one eye with the heel of his hand. Hannah had awakened Teersin with her intrusion and his sudden burst into awareness meant the desk light sprang on, pointing straight at Dannel's bed. Dannel cried out as the beam stabbed at his eyes. Teersin quickly dimmed the light as Hannah strode across the room to stand over Dannel's bed.

"Get up," she whispered, "Now!"

Dannel glanced around her shoulder and spotted her bound demon, Jaravin, conversing hurriedly with Teersin. Jaravin's favourite form was that of a winged, scaled, taloned jungle cat. If you removed the scales wings and talons, she would probably resemble a jaguar. He winced as he remembered that soon she would be floating Tayfir with no companion or prospects, if Hannah got her way. She and Teersin got along well but in times of crisis it was reliably Jaravin who would take the lead. It was only as this thought crossed his mind that Dannel realised that this may well be a time of crisis.

He hated to do what she wanted, but he stood anyway. She was annoying and she talked too much and apparently she despised their entire society but he trusted her and she would never lead him to danger. He liked to think she only bugged him so much to build up his resistance to the temptation to lash out at annoying people who talk too much.

"What's happening?" he asked, a little louder than she had spoken and was immediately - and fervently - told to 'shush shush shush'. His heart hammered a little and his breathing became rapid and shallow. He glanced from his sister to Jaravin to Teersin and back to Hannah. Their mouths were level and solemn but there was terror in their eyes. Dannel tried to calm the twist in his stomach but it was no use.

"What's going on?" he whispered.

"We have to go," Hannah hissed, "That's all you need to know."

She started to stride past him but Dannel grabbed hold of her arm.

"I am going nowhere until you tell me what's going on," he mumbled, "Besides, why would you care about me? I 'sully my blood', don't I?"

"So that's what they told you..." Hannah whispered, "Look, there are two men downstairs who will kill you, me, Mum and Dad if we don't get out of here right now. We have to go!"

"But who?" Dannel exclaimed.

Hannah said nothing. She shrugged him off and darted to the window.

Teersin had sprouted a second pair of arms from just above where his wings met his torso and was scampering towards Dannel, growing three inches in height with every step. By the time he'd reached Dannel, he was only slightly shorter than Hannah, who was constantly being teased by her friends at school for her long, lanky appearance. At this height his pointed features were more pronounced and if it wasn't for the fear brimming in his eyes, Teersin himself would be quite frightening to an onlooker.

Teersin collapsed to all fours and reached his middle right hand around to pat his back, indicating that Dannel should mount him like a horse. Whatever was going on, it must have been serious. Teersin loathed being demeaned and Dannel could think of nothing less dignified than being ridden around like a flying horsey.

"But why?" he groaned.

Teersin glared at him. Dannel opened his mouth, desperate to protest further. He couldn't. He just couldn't. The terror on Teersin's face was too much. He couldn't face upsetting him further. He did as he was told and hooked his legs around Teersin's belly, which had swollen in size to the depth of a cauldron. He hoped Teersin couldn't tell that he was shaking. He wasn't looking forward to being teased later for trembling with terror. That was presuming there was a 'later'. Whatever was going on felt like life or death.

"I have some energy stored from the sleep but we were only down for half an hour so you're going to need to give me some energy," Teersin explained in a calm, almost soothing voice, which was only unnerving Dannel further.

He couldn't hold it in any longer. "Why can't you just tell me what's happening?"

"Just hurry up," Teersin muttered, "Give me some energy."

Dannel groaned but obliged then glanced to his right. Hannah had mounted Jaravin and with a flick of a taloned wrist, Jaravin shattered the glass of Dannel's bedroom window. The noise ran like a pulse of energy along Dannel's nerves and he gasped with fright. He rounded on Hannah but before he could ask what was going on again, a shout from downstairs opened up a whole new world of confusion.

"I told you there were more of 'em! Go check upstairs!" The voice was male - his dad? But it was husky. His dad spoke like a fairy.

A pounding on the stairs told Dannel that the orders were being followed. He could hear things being smashed in the living room below him and squeals of panic that he assumed came from his parents. He glanced at his desk, bed, lamps, wardrobe and every poster woven with demon energy that made them glide around the room. Normally when two strangers broke into your home and started trashing it, forcing you to escape, you weren't likely to come back any time soon. Dannel gulped, which seemed an incogruous understatement and forced himself not to think about what was happening. He pictured his parents' faces, then shoved them away.

"Let's go," Hannah murmured.

Teersin and Jaravin sprang upwards to the height of the windowsill and kicked forwards on it to begin their flight. Dannel prepared for the rush of wind winding through his ears. He spluttered as he was jolted forward on Teersin and spent a dizzying moment trying to figure out how a sudden acceleration would jerk him forwards. A cry from below him jolted him back to a clear mind and he realised that Teersin was batting his wings but not accelerating in the slightest. Dannel twisted round and almost choked.

A short man with tanned skin and a backwards baseball cap had his fist closed around on of Teersin's six limbs. In the confusion, Dannel couldn't even tell which one. The man, whom Dannel vaguely recognised as some education board official, was twisting the joint at the end of the limb - an ankle, Dannel decided - and sneering at the pained expression contorting Dannel's features.

"This is for the ancestors," the man snarled. "Ghestin! Give me a hand over here!"

There was a thunderous crash from downstairs and a husky cry of pain. The man with the stranglehold on Teersin's cursed and shifted in his place. Dannel felt a gasp rattle through Teersin's body. Teersin batted against the air with all of his strength.

The man gripped Teersin even tighter. His ankle was bending, contorting. Dannel was sure it couldn't go much further. Then there was a fierce, condemning crack that hung in the air like the thought of a gasp. Teersin howled in pain and anger but managed to drag his injured foot fluidly out of the man's grip. He flapped his wings the best he could to escape from the man's reach. The man swore as he realised his mistake. He grimaced and leaned out the window, but there was nothing he could do.

Jaravin had thundered back to help. She began to drag Dannel off of Teersin's back and on to hers.

"What are you doing?" Dannel exclaimed. His mind was whirling around in circles and nothing made any sense. Causes and effects had been broken apart and now things were just happening with no purpose.

Hannah, her thick brown hair fluttering in front of her face, replied calmly, "He can't heal if he's carrying you."

Dannel nodded sombrely and awkwardly shifted off of Teersin and onto a spot at the small of Jaravin's back, just behind Hannah. Teersin's expression was strained but gradually the bones at the end of his leg began to take the shape of a foot again. He exhaled explosively and his rib cage - which was visible in shape against his skin - was juddering up and down with ragged breaths.

Teersin mumbled something but it was lost on the wind.

"What was that?" called Jaravin.

A coil of bronze energy briefly shot from Teersin's port-point to Jaravin's.

"What did he ask, Jaravin?" Hannah asked. Dannel realised that Teersin must have sent what he'd tried to say telepathically to Jaravin, one of the benifits of a shared sibling bond.

"How long could I carry Dannel," Jaravin replied, "And not much longer. I think we're losing altitude slightly already."

"How far are we?" Hannah asked. She glanced over the side of Jaravin's wing, something Dannel had been firmly resolving not to do for the entirety of the trip. He didn't want to think about how high up they were, never mind look.

"We're just passing the outer Phelman district. That's pretty much the edge of the mill sector. If we can just get to the forest on the other -" Jaravin choked back the last word and her wings completely lost their rhythm.

She slowed almost to a stop and Teersin pounded into the back of her. Dannel nearly fell off his precarious perch.

"Are you okay?" croaked Teersin.

"We have to land," Jaravin answered, "Right now."

Teersin nodded weakly and within moments was angled towards the ground. Even with a drained energy source, he was as graceful as a swan - probably not a sentiment he'd appreciate, Dannel noted. His wings unfurled fully and he began to swoop towards the ground. Jaravin did the same and was soon gliding down at an alarmingly steep angle. It was only as the sheep and grass came fully into view, whooshing past down below that Dannel realised they were still travelling at more than thirty miles per hour.

Jaravin must have realised too because she veered upwards, with Teersin following suit and levelled their flight path out. She flapped once and within moments the forest she'd spoken of was in sight. They left behind rolling fields of a dull brown-green for the deep browns and greens of bark and leaves. Dannel had been to the forest only a few times but he remembered vividly there being a massive loch in the middle of it. He hoped they would have slowed to a stop before they reached it but rather doubted it.

Its banks came into view moments later and both Teersin and Jaravin did their best to twist away from the inevitable. It was futile. They were travelling far too fast and the loch was far too wide. They couldn't get around it and there was no way they'd be able to turn back in the air. By their current trajectory, they were on track to land about fifty metres into the icy waters of Loch Aldin.