Chapter 405: Dawnfire

Chapter 405: Dawnfire

The skill transfer was quieter than the recent Star advance. He did it on Thursday morning after the beetle encounters, in the private stall, after the real Flicker’s weekly check. Glitch was asleep along the back wall.

[Skill transfer — Flicker]

[Ember Lance: available]

[Recipient readiness: good]

There was no change of Star this time, and no change of feathers. There was only a warmth through the bond. The sun mark on her forehead flared white for a moment and faded back to gold, and Flicker sat on the perch bar with her head on one side, as if she’d heard a noise in another room.

[Flicker — skills: Gale Dash, Ember Shot, Crosswind Turn, Ember Lance]

He took her to the flight yard that afternoon and set a fist-sized stone on top of the target post.

"A small one," he told her. "We’re checking the aim."

She went up, came round and stopped in the air, holding herself still, and Jin watched the sun mark go white. Her first real Lance went a hand’s width wide of the stone and gouged a black line into the top of the post.

After she had rested, he reset the target and let her try again. The second strike knocked the stone off. She landed on his arm afterward, breathing quickly, very pleased with herself.

"That’s enough," he said. "That’s plenty for one day."

He checked her panel again on Friday.

[Flicker — Rank 1, 9-Star]

[Breakthrough readiness: full]

The reading agreed with her settled movement and the care report. She had recovered from the skill practice, and the bond remained steady. He felt a fresh flicker of excitement. He could ask for a date now.

He went to see Brand.

"I want to book the breakthrough chamber," he said. "For Flicker."

Brand put her pen down and looked at him over her glasses.

"She’s Rank 1."

"Nine-Star. A week and a half now."

"Hm." Brand pulled up something on her screen. "Low Gold?"

"Since last month."

She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn’t read her expression. Then she picked up the pen again.

"Bring her in tomorrow," she said. "I’ll check her bond reading and Alcott will check her body. If we both say yes, Sunday."

They both said yes. Dr. Alcott spent an hour with Flicker on Saturday, weighing and measuring and listening to her breathing with an instrument pressed against her chest, which she disliked intensely. Verrick came along, with his clipboard and Flicker’s care history.

Brand put Jin on the mat with Flicker on his knee and watched her own readout for a long time.

"Clean," she said finally. "Strong. Your second slot’s been open since your own breakthrough, and she’s been sitting in it like she owns it." She turned the tablet off. "Sunday at nine. We can use the room from Glitch’s awakening."

On Sunday morning, Jin sat against the breakthrough chamber’s padded wall, with Flicker waiting on a low perch in front of him. It was the same room. The same round, padded walls, the same monitoring pads on the shelf. Brand stood by the door with her tablet. Dr. Alcott was beside her. Verrick leaned on the wall with his arms folded and watched the bird.

Glitch waited in the corridor with an attendant, leaving the staff room to move around Flicker’s low perch. Every so often, Jin heard his tail thump the floor.

"Whenever you’re ready," Brand said.

Jin held out his hand, palm up. Flicker hopped off the perch and onto it. Then she looked up at him with one bright eye, the way she did before a crossing in the gallery, when the moss was steady.

"Okay," he said. "Go on."

It started with warmth. It came through the bond, the way it always did. But it wasn’t the gentle warmth of a Sync. It grew. It was a deep heat, as if a door had opened onto a furnace somewhere behind her, and it came through his palm and up his arm and into his chest.

It reached the knot of his Core and the bond that ran from it to her. He felt the bond pull. It wasn’t painful. It was like holding the end of a rope while someone on the other end began to climb.

"Steady," Brand said quietly. "Let it run."

He let it run. Flicker’s feathers lifted all over her body, and they didn’t settle. The sun mark on her forehead went gold, then white, then something brighter than white that hurt to look at.

The ring of fire round it spread. It wasn’t just a ring anymore. It was a crest of light running back over her head and down the nape of her neck, like the first edge of sunrise.

She was concentrating. He could feel it. She wasn’t frightened. She was working, the way she worked when she held herself still for a Lance. All her attention was fixed on something inside herself that Jin couldn’t see.

Her wings opened, slowly, as wide as they would go. Then they kept opening. They were broader than they’d been. They were longer, and the feathers along their edges were lengthening and darkening as he watched.

The copper on her flight feathers deepened to a burnished copper-gold, and down the length of each feather ran a faint line of warmer colour, like a seam of fire.

"Bond reading’s climbing," Brand said, from somewhere far away. "Steady. Steady. That’s very good."

Jin barely heard her. Flicker was growing. Not much, but enough that she was suddenly heavier on his hand, a real weight. Her chest broadened. Her legs thickened slightly, and her claws closed on his palm with a grip that could have hurt if she’d meant it to.

The heat in the bond peaked. For a moment, it was almost too much. It wasn’t pain. It was fullness. Jin’s breath caught. Then he felt the bond settle into a new place. It sat deeper and wider than before, and it held.

The heat faded. Slowly. The light on her head dimmed from white to gold, then to a deep, steady sunrise colour that stayed. Flicker folded her wings. The room was very quiet.

"Bond stable," Brand said. Her voice sounded slightly odd. "Full awakening, second slot. Complete."

Dr. Alcott had come a step closer and was staring at the bird on Jin’s hand.

[Flicker — Dawnfire Sparrow]

[Quality: Gold (Low)]

[Combat Rank: 2 — 1-Star]

[Skills: Gale Dash, Ember Shot, Crosswind Turn, Ember Lance]

Jin checked the reading on his phone, careful to keep the screen turned toward himself, then looked at her. She was bigger. Not hugely. She was still a sparrow, still small enough to sit on his hand, still unmistakably Flicker.

But she was broader across the shoulders now, and her wings, folded, reached further down her back. Her feathers were ash-grey and copper-gold, with lines of fire along the flight feathers. The crest of dawn colour ran from her forehead over her head and down her neck.

She looked up at him.

"Hi," he said, and his voice cracked.

She leaned forward and pushed her head into his chest.

"Your Core’s unchanged," Brand said a while later, when he could listen again. "Six stripes, stable. Nothing new formed. Nothing needed to." She made a note. "That’s what happens when a second beast catches up. It doesn’t redo your breakthrough. It finishes its own."

"I know."

"I know you know." Brand looked at the bird for a long moment. "She kept a very steady flow. The preparation shows."

Jin remembered the forming Core lurching under Glitch’s energy, and how frightened he’d been of making a mistake. This time the foundation held while Flicker completed her own part. He’d felt her effort, but none of the resistance he’d feared.

He looked at the copper-gold feathers against his shirt. All that potential, and she still wanted him to scratch the same place behind her crest. He obliged, smiling down at her. In the corridor outside, Glitch’s tail thumped against the floor, twice, impatiently.

"Yeah," Jin called. "We’re coming."