Free Feather’s Blossom by Viola Grace Page A

little valley.
    Nineteen families made their livings in the harsh hollow between the mountains. She flew over their homes as she made her way toward the ideal spot to view the shower.
    The wind ruffled her long skirts around the leggings she wore for the sake of modesty. It had taken a lot of trial and error for her mother to find a comfortable and proper style of dress that allowed Ty’s wings to move freely.
    Ty swept up along the walls of rock until she reached the plateau. With precision, she flipped out her blanket, her bedroll and the hot tea that her mother had prepared. Now, there was nothing left to do but watch the sky.
    The stars appeared one by one, peeking through the curtain of the atmosphere. When Ty was six, her parents had reported their finding of her to the local authorities during one of the rare trips out of the valley.
    No one had ever come looking for a lost girl with wings, so Niira had cuddled her and just said that she had been meant for them all along. Niira and Orwait had prayed for children and the moment they found Ty, they thought their prayers had been answered. Two years later, the natural children had begun and Ty was heralded as the catalyst that tipped the scales. There was not a day in her household that she didn’t feel loved.
    She leaned back on her wings and smiled when the first star streaked across the sky.
    With the vid recorder aimed at the sky, she settled in for a good show.
    The lights took on different colours as they streaked through the sky, each denoting another primary mineral in the rocks that burned on entry into the atmosphere.
    It was the rock that burned toward her and didn’t shatter into nothing that had her sitting up. “Oh, crap.”
    If she didn’t miss her guess, she was witnessing a crash.
    The ship was coming down hard.
    She rolled up her stuff and rammed it into her bag. She clipped her vid recorder onto the exterior of the bag and took off, following the flight of the ship and its rapid descent to the surface.
    The impact sent a shockwave through the air that spun her around, but she refocused and continued toward the crash site.
    The ship was about a hundred feet long, so it was a short-range vessel. The power cores were ruptured, but the containment foam shell had been discharged to seal them.
    Ty knocked on the hull with her fist and listened for a sound. The slight ticking of the metal was all the warning she got when the door flew off and skidded across the rock face.
    A man covered with blood crawled from the wreckage, one of his black wings was hanging at a painful angle, and Ty hissed in sympathy.
    “Let me help you.”
    He grunted and didn’t look up. “Thanks but unless you can relocate a wing…”
    Ty moved behind him, put a foot in his back and snapped the joint back into alignment. He screamed, but she held him in place while his wings flapped until they relaxed.
    “There. It will be sore for a few days and you will have to sleep on your stomach or flat on your back, but you should be fine.” She bent down to look at his features, and his angular chin, cheekbones and nose gave him the appearance of a bird of prey.
    He was still gasping for air. “Help me to my feet.”
    She got in front of him, and as he pushed up with his hands, she pulled up at his shoulders to help him rise to a kneeling position.
    Once he was on his knees, he stared at her. “You are a flier.”
    She smiled. “I am aware of that. Now, let’s get you on your feet. I can’t fly with you, but I can call for help.”
    “Where am I?” He looked around from his position on his knees.
    “Orion’s Rest. The farming valley of Timmuur.” She went to his uninjured side and helped him to stabilize on his feet. “Can I bind your wings? The muscle will heal better with support.”
    He was two heads taller than she was and twice as wide. It was a miracle he could fly at all.
    He frowned and then nodded. “There are med kits and supplies in the shuttle. Put the straps on