Kaya forced herself to breathe slow, lungs dragging in cold, wet air.
’It won’t happen again,’ she told herself. ’Lightning doesn’t pick the sa place twice. We moved. We’re under another tree. It’s fine.’
The sky answered.
Crack.
Boom.
Light tore the world open a second ti. The bolt slamd into the tree just beside theirs, close enough that the shock punched through her chest. Wet wood blew apart, bark and branches bursting in a flash of white. For a heartbeat it was all fire and noise, then steam and smoke folded into the rain.
Kaya’s mind blanked.
’What the hell is going on.’
’Why here. Why us.’
The old warning about trees and storms wasn’t a line in a book anymore; it was screaming in front of her face. She snapped her head toward Veer and Cutie.
Veer’s mouth was a hard line, eyes narrowed, whole body coiled. Cutie had gone very still and straight, the softness gone from his posture—weight forward, head turned, every sense straining. That switch from relaxed to fully alert is exactly how bodies show "danger now" before words catch up.
They didn’t need to talk. All three moved at once.
They broke from under the branches and ran.
The ridge was a slick ss, rain turning stone into sothing like oiled glass. Kaya’s boots skidded with every step, muscles protesting after everything they’d taken already. Thunder chased them along the edge. Veer sprinted ahead, then cut sideways, breath sharp.
"Damn it," he spat.
He didn’t waste ti after that.
His outline blurred; bones stretched and twisted, feathers ripping through skin in a rough, practised rush. In a breath, the man was gone and the vulture was there again, wings half‑open even as his claws hit the rock.
He grabbed without asking.
One taloned foot closed around Kaya’s middle, the other around Cutie’s. It wasn’t crushing, but it was firm enough to hold. Claw tips bit through soaked clothes, a quick sting around her ribs and hip. Kaya hissed once, then bit it down. Veer’s grip was the only thing keeping her off the ground—and out of reach of the next bolt.
Then they were airborne.
The ridge fell away under them, swallowed by grey. Wind t them head‑on, shoving rain into their faces in hard, flat sheets. Veer fought it, wings beating aggressively instead of gliding. Heavy rain and turbulence make flight more demanding; flapping against that kind of air burns through a bird’s energy fast.
Drops didn’t feel like drops anymore. Kaya felt each one as a slap. Cold smacked into her cheeks, forehead, eyelids; it stung where it hit cuts and bruises, sharp enough to make her eyes water for reasons that had nothing to do with emotion. The wet clothes clinging to her skin sucked heat out of her in thin, constant pulls.
Cutie dangled ahead of her in the other talon’s grip, body curled protectively around the scaled ankle. His hands were braced there, not prying, just stabilising. His hair was plastered down, head ducked against the worst of the wind. Once, when Veer lurched in a side gust, Cutie’s fingers tightened hard—the kind of reflex squeeze you give when you’re ready to lose skin rather than let go.
Veer flew like there was nothing else in the world but forward.
No circling. No saving strength. He drove his chest into the storm, huge wings carving the air in raw, exhausting strokes. Each beat yanked them higher and further, cutting across the worst of the rain bands as fast as his body could manage. Gliding birds are built to use rising air and smooth currents to save effort, but in this ss he had to power through instead.
Kaya’s fingers had gone numb by the ti a darker shape finally started to form in the wall of grey ahead.
At first it was just a shadow. Then the outline sharpened: a vertical line of stone, sheer and high, carved by wind and ti. The vulture mountain. She recognised the scatter of dark cave mouths punched into its face—their territory.
Veer saw it too. His body shifted, angling down toward one particular hollow halfway up the cliff. He tucked his wings tighter, sacrificing so lift for speed, claws flexing around them once in warning.
The dive into the cave was ugly.
He didn’t slow much. Rain made the rock slick, the air near the cliff face choppy. At the last second, Veer flared his wings, throwing them forward like brakes, and jabbed his talons toward the cave lip. Impact jolted through his fra; his feet scraped hard, claws seeking purchase on wet stone.
The grip on Kaya and Cutie loosened at the sa ti his balance went.
Feathers shrank, folding back into skin; wings collapsed into arms. In the sa ssy heartbeat that he shifted back to human, his knees buckled.
All three went down in a heap.
Kaya hit first on her side, then her back. Cold floor slamd into her shoulder and hip, knocked what little air she had left out of her lungs. A dull thud at the back of her skull made white spark at the edge of her vision. Cutie rolled near her, landing on hands and knees before sliding onto his hip with a rough exhale. Veer half‑fell against the inner wall of the cave, catching himself with one arm and then just... staying there, chest heaving.
Outside, the storm howled at the entrance—rain a solid curtain, thunder still talking to the mountains. Inside, the air was still and echoing, slling of old stone and feathers and the faint tang of wet dust.
Kaya lay on her back for a mont, blinking up at the dark ceiling, soaked hair stuck to her face, clothes dripping onto the cave floor. Every breath hurt. Every limb felt heavy.
But she could feel solid rock under her, not tree bark catching fire. No lightning. No open sky above.
Alive.
Chirp.
Chirp chirp.
Kaya’s eyelids twitched at the sound—familiar, irritating, impossible to ignore.
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