Wren could not find a comfortable position in which to lay. She rolled over and stretched her arms as a wicked burn bloomed between her shoulder blades. She'd been fighting it for hours, ever since it woke her in the middle of the night, when she'd tried to stretch it out without disturbing the soft breathing beside her. 

The sun already shone through the canvas flap and lit the inside of the wagon with a fiery glow. She bit her lower lip and curled into a ball as another searing band attacked her shoulders. Wren rolled onto her back and breathed hard. She clamped her eyes shut and let out a low moan.

The blanket beside her stirred and Armand opened his eyes. He fixed her with a quizzical expression as she tried hard to keep the tears from her eyes. He reached out and touched her arm. It just about made her jump out of her skin.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She clenched her jaw and held herself together with both arms wrapped around her waist. Her heart beat thready and uneven in her chest. He wrapped an arm around her and she fought the urge to push it away again. A low rumble escaped her throat as he rubbed at the sore spot, which didn't help even one iota.

"What's wrong?" 

"I don't know," she said. She bolted upright with a scream. He fixed her with a frightened stare. She let out a keening wail and doubled over. The pain consumed her like a live thing, bent on destroying her and everything she loved. She could think of nothing else. The muscles in her back spasmed as he put an arm around her waist and helped her stand.

"Can you tell me what hurts?" he asked. Wren could barely breathe enough to answer. She nearly crumpled to the ground again as another wave of agony took her. Cold sweat nearly blinded her as she fought to keep her footing while they scrambled out of the wagon. Armand took her arm and held her just barely upright.

"We need to get you help," he said as he steadied her and looked around, panic-stricken, for anyone that might be able to help them. Wren looked toward Ittra's barely-repaired tent. Michael's head popped out, then he ran outside and grabbed Wren's other arm.

"What happened to her?" he asked Armand. 

"I don't know! She was asleep and then--"

Ittra followed Michael outside and her eyes went wide. She looked to Wren, then to Armand, as if she were thinking something to herself that she wasn't sharing, then shook her head as if it wasn't important.

"Get her inside," she demanded.

"What's wrong with her?" Armand pleaded, voice nearly cracking. Another shot of pain ripped across Wren's upper back. Her vision faded in and out as they half-carried, half-dragged her inside. They set Wren down in a corner and she crumpled onto her side again. Ittra pressed a cold cloth to her face.

"I know it hurts, you're going to be okay," she said gently. She turned and looked at Armand, who stood worriedly with his hands in his pockets. "Did you know she was a marked one?"

"What? No!"

Wren screamed again. The skin on her back crawled and the muscles bulged. Tears streamed down her face. She sat up and retched. Ittra held a basin below her and rubbed her shoulder. The touch felt like barbed wire whipped across skin. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and her breath came first in sobs, then in screams. She prayed to whoever there was to kill her. 

All at once the pain reached a crescendo, and for a moment, Wren blacked out. Her back gave way with the sickening tear of flesh and fabric as something burst from it. A torrent of blood came with it, soaking Ittra and Armand and Michael. The pain ebbed away with it until it was nothing but a dull ache that radiated when Wren tried to move her arms. Ittra grabbed some of the rag-cloths from the corner and pressed them to the wound. Wren was too exhausted to protest, even though it was so painful she retched again.

"Someone help me!" Ittra shouted. Michael grabbed a strip of linens and began wrapping it around Wren's torso, binding the cloth to the wound. His face was flecked with bits of blood. Wren let out a terrified little sob and glanced around for Armand. He stood and watched them, dumbstruck. A shadow fell across his eyes. Wren looked away.

Ittra piled nearly an entire outfit's worth of linens around the wings and tied them off with cloth. She shook her head.

"If we can't get the blood to stop, she'll bleed to death, and we can't keep her here. Boy!"

Armand jumped and turned toward her. "Yeah?"

"Do you know where the medic tent is? I'm guessing 'yes' judging by your clothes."

Wren's breathing slowed to shallow gasps and she curled her body forward, unaccustomed to the weight pulling her back. She tried to move the new wings and they flopped around in their sockets, like a bird that had just grown an arm. Ittra grabbed the wing and stilled it.

"Don't move them, you'll make it worse," she said. She turned back to Armand. "She needs to go to the medic tents or she'll bleed to death. And be quick about it, we don't want her to be seen."

Armand nodded and removed his cloak, then threw it over her back. Michael scrambled out of the tent and returned a few minutes later with the camel already rigged. Wren's skin felt white and cold. Her vision went fuzzy. Ittra gave her hand a squeeze.

"Stay with us," Ittra said. She helped Wren to stand as Armand took the other arm and they heaved her into the wagon. She collapsed in a heap against the back wall. Armand climbed in after her. 

"Keep her awake," Ittra said to Armand. "I don't know if she'll get up again if you let her sleep."

Armand didn't say anything. He sat down next to her and put a gentle arm around her back, below where the wings were protruding, to put pressure on the wound. Wren whimpered. He stroked her hair with his other hand.

"If you die I'll be upset," he said. She let out a weak-sounding laugh. 

"I'm trying not to," she replied. He pressed his lips to her forehead and it was all she could do not to try and throw him off. She turned sideways and inched away from him. Her stomach roiled and she wished suddenly that he wasn't so close. Like a shoe that was too small, or full of pebbles, or on the wrong foot. He didn't say anything else and she sighed in relief. 

Tears welled at her eyes again. For all the begging she'd done, how upset she'd gotten, the last place she wanted to go was home. She couldn't bear to see her mother again. To see the agony on her face when she saw the state of Wren's back, or how much pain she was in, or why she left. Wren closed her eyes and Armand shook her.

"Stay awake," he said. She groaned and fixed her eyes at the canvas on the back of the wagon. It flickered as they rolled by the shadows of other tents. Wren's vision faded in and out as something warm and sticky leaked down her back and onto her legs.

Eventually, Wren could hear voices as they approached the market stalls. The wagon rolled to a halt and Michael opened the back.

"We need help!" he shouted, as Armand grabbed her arm and helped her up. She eased herself off the wagon and into the medic tent.

There was a flurry of activity as a woman with gray hair and warm blue eyes grabbed her around the middle and ushered her into the medic tents. Two more tore at her clothes and pressed pads of linen gauze to her back. The pain awoke again like a living thing and crawled up Wren's shoulders, choking her of air as she screamed.

Someone tipped a vial of something that tasted like lead and sulfur into her mouth. Wren gagged and looked at the woman with the gray hair.

"It'll stop it from hurting so much," she said as they padded the wounds. Wren nearly vomited again as someone wrapped the bases of her newfound wings, tender from their emergence. The screams petered out until they were no more than a whimper, and all of the sudden all six of Wren's limbs felt like they'd been weighed down with bags of sand. Her eyes fluttered closed.

"Stay awake, sweetheart," someone said. "You're going to be okay."

Wren nodded her head. A smile creeped across her face as the warmth and heaviness spread into her head. Someone wrapped a big roll of bandages around her midsection, but Wren couldn't concentrate enough to figure out who it was that was doing it. Two people pulled on the end of the bandages so hard it squeezed the air out of her lungs.

"Drink," another person told her. They pushed a mug of water into her hand. Wren took big gulps of it. It unsettled her stomach and made her queasy. She shook her head 'no' and tried to hand it back, but someone just took it from her and helped her instead. She didn't have the wherewithal to say no anymore and drank it anyway.

The last thing Wren remembered before drifting off on a sea of painkiller-induced euphoria was someone squeezing her hand. Voices drifted in and out of her head, so faint she couldn't tell whether they were real or imaginary.

---

Wren has fledged, and at quite the inopportune time. What would you do if you were her?