Windrunner's Daughter by Bryony Pearce Read Free Book Online

all I can spare.”
    “We’ll get more, as soon as Colm gets back in, I’ll send him out …”
    “Well, when he gets back, return for another bottle – if you still need it - until then, there are Grounders who need these more: people who do real jobs, women who contribute to society.”
    “My mother contributes-”
    “How many babes has she sent for exchange?” he snapped. He masticated on nothing. “It’s all I can spare. Take it or leave it.”
    Wren closed a hand around the bottle. It fit inside her palm. “These won’t be enough.” She pulled out the bracelet and thrust it at him. “I can pay.”
    The Doctor snorted. “What do you think I am? I’ve given you all the help I can, now get out so I can see someone who’s actually sick.”
    Wren staggered backwards. “What if she …?”
    “Get your father to bring her here and I’ll examine her.”
    Wren’s back hit the door. “He’s not here.” Automatically it slid open, tipping her onto hard packed dirt. The Grounder mother stepped over her, kicking dust into her mouth and the door shut in her face.
    Wren scrambled to her feet. Raw was nowhere to be seen, but the boys remained by the tech house. She looked at the bottle clutched in one hand. Analgesics! She had tried them already, used the family’s whole supply in the first two days. Wren was tempted to throw the bottle, but she held herself back; some pain relief was better than nothing.
    Raw had been right, the Grounders weren’t willing to help her. She was on her own.
     
    Avalon was quiet when she returned. The skies were clear, the platform empty. She hadn’t expected anything else. She cycled through the airlock and stood, trembling, in the centre of the room, listening for her mother’s breathing. One day, soon, she’d open the curtain to find her dead body. Would it be today? Wren couldn’t bring herself to step closer to the alcove and find out. It was too quiet.
    But the sphere didn’t have the feeling of abandonment, not yet, and her mother coughed in her sleep.
    Wren placed the bottle of capsules on the kitchen counter. Her mother would struggle to swallow them and she didn’t want to wake her. It was a job for later on.
    Jay’s old wings remained in the corner where she had left them. She drifted nearer. Dreamlike, she touched the straps. Wren was about the same size that Jay had been when he first started running. So if she tightened the straps like this and swung them behind her like that …
    Wren slid the wings over her own shoulders, tightened the straps over her chest and clipped her wrists onto the struts.
    Her breath caught. Sheer terror twisted her gut. This was blasphemy. She glanced at the doorway - if someone should come in now … but they wouldn’t. She was completely alone. Outside, Elysium’s alarms began to sound. It was mid-day in dust storm season. No-one could come to Avalon now, even if they wanted.
    She did a half turn, like a Grounder with a new dress, and the wings swished around her ankles. They were lighter than she had expected them to be. She lifted her arms; they moved with her, as if they were part of her body.
    She giggled and immediately clapped her hands over her mouth. If she was caught like this she’d be killed: dropped screaming from the Runner platform. Convocation’s rules were utterly unambiguous. Girls were forbidden from wearing wings. No room for argument, no loop hole. No Running for Runner women. She swished the wings again. Shimmering graphite glimmered in the soft light.
    She had to remove the wings, but she couldn’t make herself undo the straps.
    Wren pressed her teeth together so hard they ached. There had to be something more she could do for her mother. Was she really supposed to just watch her die?
    She had seen her father and brothers Run a thousand times.
    She touched the straps again; she had to take off the wings.
    With shaking fingers she unclipped the straps and shrugged them carefully from her back. But she