Wren's hands shook. The scent of hot bodies surrounded her on all sides, their voices a dull rush in her ears as her eyes followed two men with a cot through the crowd. The man aboard it did not move. A stained sheet laid over him, to shield his face from the hot desert sun, or perhaps to shield her from seeing. The new wings on his back stuck out beside him like they didn't belong there, their feathers matted with blood. 

The crowd around her pressed the air out of her lungs. They whispered to one another in hushed voices, with words that were hard to hear. Wren craned her neck to get a better look at the man. She'd never seen someone fledge before, not for real. She'd heard gossip from the women, of course. Tales about children whose backs parted, then sprayed blood before the wings sprouted. Sometimes people bled to death, or worse, been beaten for what they were. She'd even heard Armand talk about it, because he told her everything that went on in the guard. But not for real.

The woman standing next to her jostled Wren's shoulder, then leaned in like she had some sort of grand secret. Wren turned her eyes down and scuffed one of her feet in the dirt instead of looking at her.

"He looks already dead to me."

Wren's stomach threatened to crawl up her throat. She didn't answer as the guardsmen drew closer, then pushed them aside so they could get through. Her eyes tore from the woman and back to the man lying on the cot.

The skin on his back had ripped open, and inside was raw, and still oozing. The smell of blood mixed with sweat crawled up her nose and made her want to retch. She locked eyes for a moment with one of the men carrying the cot. He turned away like he hadn't seen her as they passed a few more tents, then faded out of view.

She pitied the man. He hadn't asked for this. Who would? He probably had family he was leaving behind. She wondered if he was lost and scared and lonely and afraid that he would die. She wondered how many miles away he was from his home, in a strange place with a strange people that were nothing like him?

She knew exactly how that felt. 

"Good, we don't need another one." The woman sniffed and pushed Wren out of the way. The rest of the crowd released their grip on her. She sighed in relief and tried to clear the scent of blood from her memory. Her parents would ask awkward questions, if she got home after they did. She needed to get home.

The hot desert air sucked the moisture out of her throat as she hurried away from the crowds. Their noises faded behind her, and the weight of it was like the weight of a boulder being lifted off her chest. 

Wren scarcely went a day without thinking of what it was like back at home, before her parents had uprooted her and tossed her into the chaos that was the caravan. It made her feel like an ant in a sugarbowl, small and insignificant, and most of all unwanted. The woman in the crowd had only talked to her because she was there, not because she cared, just like everyone else.

A man in flowing robes pushed her out of his way, towing a camel on a rope behind him. Wren brushed her mousy hair behind her ear and tried not to meet his eyes, or the eyes of anyone else, for that matter. Back to her parents' tent. No stops along the way. The man on the gurney wasn't any of her business anyway. The man with the camel gave her a nasty look, but kept going. She breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't try to speak to her.

She wondered how many nasty looks the winged man had gotten, on his way into the center of the caravan. If they'd crossed from the edge with him, her crowd wasn't the only one they would have passed. People had probably followed him for miles, staring at him and the winged guardsmen that held the ends of his stretcher. 

Wren feared and respected the guardsmen in equal measure. Her parents paid their share of market earnings to them like everyone else, but the sight of their wings and the scowls on their faces always made her want to hide. The fear was just barely enough to keep her from following them to see where they'd bring the man. He'd probably end up at the guards' tent, if he wasn't already dead, along with the rest of the men who had wings. She could ask Armand about it later.

Her body twisted through a gap between two tents someone had pitched too close together, away from the direction of the crowds. The sun settled on her back, an unwelcome weight. She needed to get home before it got too hot. and her parents started to shutter their shop. If she met them on the way home, she wouldn't be able to ignore them politely.

They'd ask her questions, if they'd heard, about why the man had been brought through their side of the caravan, and not back around toward the guard tents. They seldom let marked ones this close to the merchant camp, let alone one half-alive and still bleeding. Wren didn't know why they'd brought him that way, but she could already hear her parents squabbling over it.

And of course, that would only drive discussion to where she'd been. Wren glanced around at the empty rows of wagons, pitched like patchwork along the borders of the caravan's encampment, empty of their wares. She'd spent most of it out here, hiding from her mother and waiting for Armand to get off guard duty. But she'd gotten thirsty before he had come to find her, and that's when she'd seen the crowd.

Her father still talked about the time one of the merchants' daughters had fledged, while she stood in the middle of the market making small talk. Wren hadn't seen it, but she'd heard about it later, and the girl was gone the next day. To where she didn't know, and the thought of it ran a shiver down her spine. She'd seen the marked women prowling the edge of the caravans at night, half-dressed. Their wings unfurled like flags, looking to lure unsuspecting men into giving up most of their money. 

She hurried by the wagons and toward the smattering of tents where her parents had set up their home for the week, this time without waiting to see if Armand would materialize. He'd be busy, with the new marked one coming in, and he'd have no time for her. If she tried to chase him down, she'd have to answer later to her mother, and it was better not to put off the inevitable.

She was grateful for the quiet, once she crossed the invisible boundary between supply carts and peoples' living quarters. The thick canvas tent flaps all hung open, to keep hot air from getting trapped inside, but the only people home at this hour were mothers tending to babies. They had no time to entertain discussion with her, even if everyone else in the caravan always seemed to want to.

The thought of having that kind of responsibility made her skin crawl. Babies cried a lot, and they always needed something. If her mother had her way, she'd have been married off three years ago and already with child. Nineteen was getting old, according to her mother, too old to put it off for much longer. That kind of talk made Wren want to vomit into her mother's ledger books when she wasn't looking. It was a small consolation that no one could actually force her, but that didn't stop her mother from trying.

She resolved to go find the man later, or at least find out where he'd come from. If anything else, it would give them something to talk about. Something that wasn't Won't you chance it? He's a very nice boy or oh my, where have you been? or Crow's beak, can't you stay out of trouble? She welcomed the distraction with open arms, even if it scared her. At least being scared was better than being bored.