Birdcage

"We will never need to run again."

That was what Caine had promised her. Back then, as they lay side by side beneath the burnt ashes of an old farmhouse, Vix had wanted to believe him. They had overcome the last obstacle and fought the last bitter battle. There was no need to be afraid any longer.

But, even still, she had never quite been able to convince herself.

Old habits were difficult to break, after all. Ever since she was a little girl, Vix had been running. There always seemed to be someone just a few steps behind.

Her dead parents' creditors, the gangs infesting the slums of Belgrave, and even the Riverman, that icon of death itself – one after the other, they had come after her, hands clutching for her throat. Yet Vix had outrun them all.

She was very good at running, it seemed. It suited her. How silly she had been to think for one moment she could ever stop to catch her breath.

Vix stared down at the songbird before her, watching as the little creature hopped along its brass perch. Turning one amber eye upward, it twittered softly from behind the bars that held it.

Vix’s heart twisted at the sound. She had never heard anything quite so beautiful, yet so sad, before. One pure note seemed to contain so much, a melancholy acceptance and unwavering hope. Vix held the bird’s gaze, watching as it cocked its head from side to side, a splash of colorful feathers amid the cold, gray bars of its cage.

Caine did not see this as running. He called it traveling. They were seeing the world, just as they had always planned. But Vix knew the truth, deep in the heart of her. She could feel the hot breath of pursuit on the back of her neck, again. The cage might have moved with them, but the bars were still there, always.

The whole world seemed to be waiting, holding its breath, for Vix to make the first step. To begin to run again.

'Gods, I'm tired,' Vix thought to herself.

Someone cleared their throat quietly. Vix was so engrossed that the sound made her jump. She looked up to find a merchant smiling at her. Behind him, the world seemed to fade back into view.

The wharves of Alenza swept outward like huge marble stairs, sloping down in regular, terraced levels. Crowded into every available inch of space, rows of white houses stood, their white walls shining like pearls, the neatly tiled roofs the color of the sea.

Above the blue-topped, vaulted houses lay the ocean itself, golden and sparkling in the late afternoon sun. Ships bobbed like children’s toys upon the waves, their sails waving in the chilly breeze that swept in from across the water. Above the town of Alenza stood the Pearl Cliffs, giants of stone, their sheer sides disturbed by rough and rippling rock, making them appear like the shell of some vast crustacean.

Vix blinked, tearing her eyes away from the impossible natural beauty around her and back to the merchant. He was a thin man with a wide mouth and a flat, small nose. His hair was so severely parted that it looked like it had been cleaved in two with a sword. His scalp was very sunburnt.

He stood in the center of his multi-faceted stall, with its counters laden with cages of all shapes and sizes, each filled with birds to match, The air was filled with the noise of the cages’ inhabitants, a steady cacophony of squawks, hoots, and shrieks. Labyrinthian passages ran through the cramped space, which were plunged into pockets of shadow by tarps strung up along the perimeter.

“May I help you with anything, miss?” the merchant asked, bobbing his head deferentially to her.

“Oh, no,” Vix said with a wave of her hand. “I was just looking, thank you.”

“At my dear Celine, yes, I noticed.” The merchant’s smile widened. “Isn’t she beautiful? I’ve bred Tucktucks for ten years, and I’ve never heard one who could sing half so lovely.”

“Tucktucks?” Vix repeated, smiling.

“A bit of local parlance,” the merchant said. “Named for the sound of their chirruping, you know. She’s a Vinua Warbler, if you fancy the proper name.”

“I like Tucktuck better,” Vix said, stroking a finger along the bars of the birdcage. The Tucktuck within shied away from her touch, as far along the bar as it could go. Vix stopped abruptly, a bitter taste forming in her mouth.

“As do I, miss, as do I.” The merchant twisted his fingers together. “The two of you look fine together, I must say. A match made by the gods.”

“Do we?” Vix asked distractedly as she peered closer at the Tucktuck, admiring the way its golden breast flashed in the light.

“You’re referring to the two of us, I hope?” a familiar voice came from behind her. The next moment, Caine wrapped his arms around her shoulders, leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“No,” Vix informed him, matter-of-factly. “He was talking about the bird and me. You were never mentioned.”

Caine sniffed. “I never thought I’d find myself jealous of a songbird.”

Vix laughed and kissed him back to show that she had not meant it.

Tall and slender, with a long, handsome face and striking green eyes, Caine smiled at her. Vix wondered how someone so lovely could exist. No one could see him and not fall in love with him. The truly bizarre thing was that he loved her in return.

The merchant’s smile had slipped a little upon Caine’s sudden arrival. But he hitched it back in place again as quick as a flash.

“Good day, sir,” he said, with a bow. “Your lady friend was just admiring my fine Vinua Warbler. It would make a lovely present for her, if the good gentleman was feeling generous...” He trailed off meaningfully.

Vix looked at the merchant with wide eyes. “Ah, so you were trying to sell me something? And to think, all this time I had thought we were just discussing birds.”

Caine rolled his eyes. “Don’t fall for that,” he told the merchant. “She could haggle the clothes off your back, if she wanted.”

The merchant’s smile shrank once again. He excused himself with a few mumbled words and darted off to greet another customer wandering through his stalls.

“Spoilsport,” Vix said, throwing Caine a dark look.

“The man deserves a fair warning,” he said, grinning. “You know, we could just pay what he wants, without you trying to bargain him out of business, for a change.”

He rested his chin on her shoulder. “He’s right; it really is a lovely bird.”

Vix shook her head. “I don’t want to own anything in a cage,” she said as she watched the songbird hop back and forth on its perch.

Caine looked surprised. “Oh?”

A sudden wave of melancholy swept over Vix. She struggled not to let it show. “Have you found anything interesting?” she asked him as she turned away from the bird.

“Plenty,” Caine said. “The Alenza bazaars never disappoint. I was just looking at a spectacular dinner jacket at a tailor’s stall. It would match perfectly with those trousers I got in Ganeran. You remember, the dark gray ones.”

Vix, never able to keep track of half of Caine’s rapidly expanding wardrobe, grunted noncommittally.

He took her hand, breathing deeply through his nose as he looked around, drinking in his surroundings. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” he said. “We can go wherever we want... do whatever we want. No more looking over our shoulders.” He smiled warmly. “Free, at last.”

Vix saw him glance at her, trying to catch her eye. But she remained looking out toward the ocean, watching the waves swell and fall.

“We are free, Vix,” he repeated, his voice growing a little harder.

“You don’t know that,” Vix whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. “The Riverman is gone, but the Al’Vidar aren’t, Caine. They’re still hunting you.”

It had been almost a year since she had nearly lost Caine to the Riverman, an immortal assassin who had been created to hunt Caine to the ends of the earth. Caine had been immortal too, in a fashion. He could die, and had died, over and over again. Even Caine did not know how many times he had been killed by the Riverman.

But, always, he had come back to life again, afterward. Vix and Caine had discovered that it was the Al’Vidar, a group of immortality-obsessed fanatics, who had accidentally transferred a host of living souls to Caine, granting him his unnatural immunity to death, all over a thousand years ago. They had been using the Riverman to hunt him down ever since, bleeding the remaining souls from him, one death at a time, so they could harness them for their own purposes.

Vix had used the Al’Vidar’s powers against them, and stripped away the souls they gave to the Riverman, finally killing the assassin for good. But Caine’s additional souls had been lost as well. If he was to die again, it would be the end of him. Permanently, this time.

Ever since she had overcome the Riverman, Vix had been on the road with Caine, traveling from one destination to another. Caine wanted to show her the world, and Vix was only too happy to let him. She could hardly believe all the wonderous things that lay beyond the city of Belgrave, where she had grown up.

But there was another reason why she had been so eager to join him. It would be much more difficult for the Al’Vidar to track them down if they never stayed in the same place for more than a few days.

Caine might call it traveling, but to Vix, they were still running. And that was fine with her, so long as it kept Caine alive.

But Caine did not like to look at it that way. He never did.

“The Al’Vidar only wanted to kill me because of those souls I had,” he said to her in an undertone. “They have no reason to chase after me, now.”

“Not even for revenge?” Vix asked. She looked at him, and suddenly found the strange, melancholic feeling that had been plaguing her for days surge up to the surface. It revealed itself as stark, naked fear.

“They’re evil people, Caine,” she said. “You can’t be sure what they might do.”

“Neither can you.” Caine stroked her cheek tenderly with two fingers, his deep green eyes looking warmly down on her. “I’m through with running, Vix.”

Vix opened her mouth to argue. But, after a moment, she closed it again. It was no good trying to convince him. She could not say anything that she had not already said before.

Caine leaned down and kissed her gently. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told her, so close that she could feel his breath wash against her skin. “That’s a promise.”

Vix looked at him a long while. Then, slowly, she nodded.

Caine smiled wider, looking relieved. “Shall we go and see if that dinner jacket hasn’t been snatched up yet?” he asked, his voice returning to its ordinary volume. “What’s more, there was a rather fantastic dress I saw that would suit you perfectly.”

Vix made a face at him. “What’s the matter with the clothes I’ve already got?”

Caine put on a pained expression. “As I feared, the girl is beyond saving.”

Vix shoved him. “You go on,” she said. “I’ll catch up after I finish looking around here.”

Caine stared at her for a moment, as though he wanted to argue the point. “Well,” he said, “if you’re certain. Come find me as soon as you’re done here, will you?”

“Of course,” Vix assured him, giving him a smile. “I’ll be right along.”

They parted with another kiss, and Vix watched Caine until he disappeared into the bustling crowd. The moment he was gone, her false smile slid off her face like thawing ice.

He promised her that nothing would happen to him. ‘And nothing will,’ Vix told herself, setting her jaw. ‘I won’t let it.’