CHAPTER 107: HIS BROKEN WINGS (2)

As much as he hated the guy, Yoa was starting to feel bad for him. Behind all the arrogance, there was a boy who held the weight of his mother’s words, and the throne that would be his. It is clear to the young warrior, even then, that Vulcan was looking for an escape, a different path with meaning that didn’t revolve around the flock and his disdainful mother.

Yet, the first dream Yoa had been pulled into was one of Vulcan sitting on that throne. Before his thoughts could spiral further into the depths of what Vulcan must be thinking and feeling, he was yanked from this position on the cliffside and landed with a thud onto another.

Vulcan’s muscles had grown, his hair longer, no longer following the masses of Silver Feather that copied their Sky Matron’s style. Cruelty had sharpened his gaze even at the age of fifteen, but what Yoa saw next went beyond what little he’d known of the harpy eagle.

Vulcan crouched at the edge of a rocky outcrop, his claws gently curled around a young cliff-dweller—an injured sky serpent with shredded wing membranes and a broken leg. It had fallen from the upper thermals during a storm and hadn’t moved since.

He wrapped it in a cloak of woven feathers, something he’d borrowed from the temple stores, and held a shallow bowl of water to its beak.

"Drink," he murmured. "It is not your time yet, little one."

The serpent blinked up at him, tongue flicking weakly. He didn’t know if it understood, but he stayed with it, his palm warm against its side.

Footsteps crunched behind him, and the measured steps were unmistakably hers.

"I wondered where you’d gone."

Ixana’s voice cut through the stillness like a blade.

Vulcan straightened but didn’t stand. "It fell near the warriors nests," he said. "I thought it might live."

Ixana stepped closer, towering, her silver plumage catching the light as it filtered through the stormclouds. Her expression was unreadable.

"That is a scavenger beast," she said, eyeing the serpent. "Diseased. Weak."

"It’s still breathing."

"For now." Her eyes narrowed. "And what do you plan to do with it? Bind its wings and sing lullabies?"

Vulcan’s jaw tightened, but he stayed calm. "I was taught we protect what falls under our skies."

Ixana’s lip curled into a bitter smile. "We protect what serves. What strengthens the line. Not every creature deserves to be pulled from the cliff edge, Vulcan. Some are meant to die."

He said nothing. What could he say to that? Her presence and words grated under his skin, and he held the little creature a little firmer. But he was aware of his own strength and ensured he did not injure it further.

Ixana circled him once, slow and cold as ever. "You mistake kindness for wisdom," she said, tone laced with quiet venom. "But the skies are not kind. And neither is the throne you will one day inherit. If your hands tremble for every broken wing, they will never be strong enough to hold a crown."

"I don’t want a throne that crushes everything beneath it."

That stopped her. Yoa also froze at the words, his eyes widening. Silver Feather were known for their cunning and cruelty, but was he just assuming all were unkind and opportunistic creatures.

Ixana turned to face him fully. The wind tugged at her feathers, but she stood unmoved.

"You think your mercy makes you better than me?" She said softly, dangerously. "It makes you vulnerable. And when something stronger tears your mercy to pieces, you’ll remember this moment."

Without another word, she extended her talon toward the sky serpent.

Vulcan’s hand shot out, blocking her.

They locked eyes.

For a moment, just one, Ixana’s gaze flickered in surprise. This was the first time Vulcan had defied her. Contempt twisted her features, and she scoffed, leaning closer, her voice a whisper but loud enough above the crashing waves.

"You’ll learn, Vulcan. If not now, then when something you love dies because you hesitated."

She straightened, turned, and walked away without another word, her wings sweeping a gust of cold air across his face.

Behind him, the serpent wheezed softly, alive for another day.

Yoa knew from this memory that the serpent bird he’d never really paid attention to before, had become something like a pet to Vulcan, but one who came and went as it pleased. Still free, and provided to the prince nobody really knew.

Once again, Yoa was yanked away, the world spinning, nausea rising in his gut until he landed on a giant tree, the one where a throne sat on a pile of skulls and bones.

Vulcan stood tall, wings stretched wide, his body painted in the red and black spirals of combat. He was slightly older, seventeen, and it was his first campaign as a commander of the Elite warriors. The warriors that followed him had returned victorious, driving away giant spiders that had been growing like a disease, trying to claim land from one of their food sources.

The Takaru weren’t the best when it came to combat, and those eight-legged creatures were far too formidable, though with the right numbers and leadership, were too weak against Vulcan and his warriors.

Other chiefs, enemy or not, praised Vulcan’s strategy. Even Ezak, Ixana’s advisor, bowed his head in respect. But Ixana? She remained silent, her face unreadable throughout the ceremony as new ink was etched into his arm, a war mark earned from today.

After the crowd dispersed, she summoned him alone, rising from her chair and descended slowly along the pile of bones.

Vulcan approached her with pride. "We cleared the island of those creatures. They will no longer cause problems to the Vohraki, or any on Tayun. Our sources are secured."

"I heard," she said, turning her back to him, and strolling towards the edge of the tree.

"You said I wasn’t ready," he pressed, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. "But I led them. They followed me."

Finally, she turned with a flourish.

"You led insects into a hole and chased out other insects," she said coolly. "That is not war, Vulcan. That is pest control."

He flinched. "I saved lives."

"You were lucky," she said, eyes narrowing. "Luck is not strength. It is a flutter of wind under a crippled wing."

"I planned that operation. I trained those men."

Ixana walked toward him slowly, her steps silent on the bark. "And when the day comes that you face a warband twice your number, or significantly much more skilled, what then? Will you fold your wings and hope the wind favours you again?"

The muscle in Vulcan’s jaw feathered. He knew better than to voice his opinion by now. There was no point. One day, he will prove to her and the flock that although he wasn’t a daughter to Ixana, his right to the throne was no less. Or he would prove to them by protecting this island as the next Yiska.

Ixana paused before him. For a moment, it looked like she might reach out, touch his shoulder, offer the rare softness of a mother.

But then she lifted her hand and brushed his cheek lightly with her claw, without affection. It was like she was tracing the cracks in a broken sculpture.

"You try so hard to earn praise I’ve never promised," she said. "You think victory entitles you to my approval?"

He held her gaze, his expression hard. "I don’t want your praise," he said at last, voice low. "Just your respect."

She smiled coldly. "Then stop trying to be someone you’re not, and start being someone they fear."

Darkness fell over Yoa like a curtain and he fell back until his feet landed on solid ground again. He brushed a few stray hairs out of his face and found he was back on Skyhold with Vulcan sitting on that throne, expression cold and aloof, his shoulders back, wings spread wide, an invisible crown on his head.

Yoa understood this man a lot more now. He might not have been capable of leaving this dream world, one where he already sat on the throne he truly desired, but he didn’t deserve to die, stuck in here. With a single thought, Yoa woke up with a soft gasp and sat up, the world spinning around him for a different reason this time- dizziness from lack of food and water.

Zahul offered him a water bag and he drank thirstily from it before rising and staring down at Vulcan lying on the ground.

"Release him," Yoa commanded as he glanced up at Luna Lacus shimmering above them, as though he spoke to the stars, the gods and Tayun. Then his gaze flicked back to Vulcan, whose lips were chapped and white, close to dying from thirst. "He has a duty to fulfil."

The command rippled along the cave and along Yoa’s spine. A loud gasp alerted him to Vulcan being released from the trance that would eventually kill him. Vulcan breathed heavily, eyes wide, flicking from side to side. He’d been lost to the dream of his victory as heir to the throne.

Vulcan’s lips parted in shock as he focused on Yoa, the younger Oncari, who was the next Yiska of Tayun. His brows tugged together as he realised what Yoa had just done for him.

"Do not make me regret this decision," Yoa growled, sounding older and wiser than his age.

"Do you regret it now?" Nova whispered, snuggled in his arms as she gazed up at the man who’d turned into her entire world.

Yoa’s eyes locked with hers as he spoke his truth. "I am still deciding it. Retelling you his story as reminded me of his upbringing, and the small signs that proved he had been worthy to a degree to become Tayun’s guardian... It was will alone that halted his path to becoming Yiska. This was not what he truly wanted... But being raised by Ixana has also warped him to a degree where he took the risk of my wrath so he might get to his ultimate goal."