Sixteen-year-old Niala is just coming into her own, a strange thing even among the winged creatures like herself. Freed from a cage in a government facility, she is united with a people like herself- the Wildlings- with wings like doves. With her black hair and sharp wings, she stands out among the flock. Will she find love in their ranks? Is she even the same kind of creature?[1st person, switching POV] [Book is completed and being edited]Cover art by Damien Birdyboi @BirdyBoiWonder on twitterCalligraphy by Sadcat SadCat#0732 on discord

Azania was sixteen. And she couldn’t take it anymore. She had spent her childhood lonely, spent it terrified, spent it desperate, spent it aching. The only adults in her life were the people who saw her as nothing but a tool to exploit and use. She was told over and over and over again that she was nothing and no-one and she didn’t matter. The only people in her life who cared about her were fellow slave-children and she barely ever got to see them at all. She needed freedom. Escape. She was willing to do anything for it.

And she wasn’t the only one. All over the city people were being exploited. People were being forced to work under impossibly degrading conditions and live in abject poverty. People were silenced. Stifled. And they were longing for escape.

The Forest was beyond the edges of the city. It was a place of magic and miracles. It was a place of hope and freedom and rebirth. But getting there was next to impossible.

Within the Forest the wolves howled. Azania emerged from the water. And she wasn’t the only one. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Who she met changed her life forever.

————This work is in the public domain and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

Be careful what you wish for.... [Based on a true story; names have been changed to preserve privacy.]

I always welcome constructive criticism.