Royal Airs

by Sharon Shinn

  When everything finally stopped moving, Rafe sat motionless, trembling, panting, half blinded, and damn near deaf. He wasn’t sure which direction was up and which was down, though he thought the LNR’s right wing was tilted skyward, which must mean the left one had gouged itself deep into the soil. He knew he should try to extricate himself from the wreckage, clamber down the folded sides of the aircraft, show everyone in the watching audience that he had survived, but he didn’t think he could do it. Couldn’t free himself from the crumpled edges of the pilot’s box, couldn’t figure out how to lower himself to the ground, wasn’t sure his legs would take his weight.

  Wasn’t sure, to be honest about it, that he actually had survived.

  His first piece of affirmative proof was pain. His arm was on fire. His rib cage felt like someone had run a sword from his armpit to his hip, slicing precisely through each individual curved bone. His head was booming, every pulse of blood through his veins searing like a lightning strike. His right hand felt strange, both hot and sweaty; he had a feeling that if he managed to pull off his glove, he would find it filled with blood.

  His second form of proof was sound. Muffled and dull—more nuanced than the grinding, wordless belligerence of the engine—and growing louder. Voices. Questions. Rafe! Rafe! Are you all right? Rafe, can you hear us? Can anybody see him?

  He was alive. The elay prime—he knew it for a fact—had called up the winds to blow him to the roughest kind of safety. He had gambled his life and almost lost it, but he had had a hidden wildcard all along. The thought made him smile even as he closed his eyes and slipped into darkness.

  NINETEEN

  T his is becoming altogether too common, Rafe thought as he swam fuzzily to consciousness. Waking up in an unfamiliar place half dead from injuries. The last time had been when he was attacked in the slums of Chialto. Recently enough for him to remember how wretched the experience could be.

  It was no less painful this time—maybe slightly worse. He thought it was possible his head would crack right open, and the whole left side of his body felt as if it had been stripped raw. But the setting was different. Bigger, brighter, bustling with more purpose, and crowded with more people. The quality of the light made him think he’d been transported inside the aeromotive hangar and not much time had elapsed.

  “His eyes are open,” someone said. A woman leaned over him, her head blocking out almost everything else.

  “Can you talk? Do you know your name? Do you remember what day it is?” she asked solemnly.

  “Rafe Adova. It’s the middle of the third nineday of Quinnahunti. My brains haven’t been scrambled.”

  “That’s good. Can you wiggle your fingers? Move your feet?”

  He was tempted to not only flutter his fingers, but to lift his hands and wrap them around her throat. Maybe outsized irritation was a side effect of the concussion she clearly worried he might have. “Yes. See? Is anything broken?”

  “Couple of toes. Maybe a couple of ribs, but I think you just flayed some skin off. I’m more worried about your head. And the possibility of internal bleeding. Let me know if this hurts.”

  She proceeded to apply pressure to various spots on his torso and seemed pleased when he didn’t cry out. He wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have been, maybe; he was trying, without lifting his head, to look around the room and figure out who else was in it and where exactly he might be. He spotted a man and a woman nearby, holding what looked like medical supplies, but neither of them, unfortunately, was Josetta. The space was too clean and brightly lit to be Kayle’s office. Maybe they kept an infirmary right at the hangar. They probably had need of one often enough.

  “What happened to the LNR?” he asked, grunting as the medic poked at his stomach.

  “Worry about that later,” she said. “Can you sit up?”

  He struggled a bit, but with the man’s help he made it upright. His senses reeled and for a moment he thought he might throw up, but then the nausea passed. That was the point at which he realized he was wearing nothing except a strategically placed sheet and an impressive array of bandages around his left leg, left arm, right hand, and chest.

  “What happened to it?” he insisted. “Is it beyond repair?”

  “Still being assessed,” the man said briefly.

  “You should be more worried about whether or not you’re beyond repair,” the woman said with grim humor.

  “I feel all right,” he said. He didn’t, of course. He meant All right for someone who crashed an aeromotive. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

  “Only you,” the medic said.

  “Where’s Josetta?” he blurted out.

  “The princess is waiting outside,” the medic said. “Very worried about you.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “When I’ve finished examining you. Do you feel like you might pass out again?”

  “No.”

  “Do you feel dizzy? Like you might fall if you stand up?”

  “A little.”

  “Want to try?”

  “Sure.”

  He required help for this maneuver, too, but after a few moments he was able to stand without assistance. The stone floor felt cool beneath his bare feet. He tucked the sheet more securely around his waist and put his weight gingerly on his left leg. It didn’t buckle; all the pain must be coming from scrapes and bruises, and not a broken bone. Well, that was cheerful news.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Hurts. A lot.”

  She nodded. “I imagine it does. I have drugs I could give you for the pain—but they’d mask any dangerous symptoms you might develop, and I don’t want to take the risk. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I understand. I’m not an idiot,” he snapped. Her face relaxed into a smile, and he caught the sound of muffled laughter from the other two.

  “Well, that’s a good sign,” she said.

  “So can I go home?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I want to watch you for a day.”

  He glanced around the small space. Yes, it was clearly a sickroom. There were cabinets of medical supplies against one wall and the brisk scent of the powerful kind of soap people only used when they wanted to keep a place really clean.

  “Here?” he said faintly.

  She smiled again. “You wouldn’t be the first to stay overnight.”

  He didn’t have the strength to protest—or, for that matter, to keep standing upright. With a sigh he sank back to a sitting position onto the narrow bed. “Can I at least get dressed?”

  She glanced at her assistants. “Can someone fetch him some coveralls?”

  “What’s wrong with my own clothes?” he asked as the other woman slipped out the door.

  She looked at him again. “The bits of them that weren’t ripped to shreds or covered in blood had to be cut off your body so we could tend to your wounds.”

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t have a chance to ask another question because the door opened again and Josetta peered inside. “Is he—Rafe! You’re awake! How do you feel?” She didn’t wait for permission, just hurried inside and grabbed his hands with both of hers. “Look at you, you’re so beat up, but you—well, for a few moments there, I was—that was terrifying to watch.”

  Her presence acted like the best kind of drug; for a moment, he forgot all his dreadful pains. He even found the strength to squeeze her fingers in return. “It was terrifying to live through.”

  “So are you all right? How soon can we leave?”

  “He seems fine, but there’s a chance of internal bleeding—most dangerous if it’s inside his skull,” the medic interposed. “I don’t want to risk a brain hemorrhage on the drive home, so I want to keep him here overnight.”

  Just like Rafe, Josetta sent a doubtful glance around the room, but she didn’t bother protesting. �
�All right. Maybe I can camp out in Kayle’s office for the night.”

  “You can come back for him tomorrow,” the medic answered. “You don’t have to stay.”

  Josetta’s fingers wrapped more tightly around Rafe’s; she gave him a private smile. “Oh, yes I do,” she murmured. “I’m not leaving him behind.”

  • • •

  The rest of the afternoon passed in an unpleasant combination of pain and tedium. Rafe imagined it was less painful but more tedious for Josetta, who was mostly allowed to sit in the room with him but frequently chased out when the medic wanted to check his condition again. Even when the princess was sitting beside him, he wasn’t capable of much conversation. His headache was back, his body hurt all over, and his mind was almost blank. She didn’t seem to mind. She sat beside him when she could, her hand wrapped around his or resting on his arm. Sometimes she read. Sometimes she talked in a low voice to the medical staff. Sometimes she appeared to be lost in thought. He watched her when he was awake and dreamed about her when he slept.

  It was morning before he realized night had crept up and slipped past while he wasn’t paying attention. Early morning, to judge by the angle of sunlight, and he was entirely alone. Josetta and the medic must have found semi-comfortable accommodations elsewhere to bed down for the night. His headache was markedly better, though the left side of his body felt worse. For the moment, he considered that a good trade-off.

  He cautiously pushed himself to a seated position and felt a certain elation when that didn’t bring on vertigo or nausea. He was just debating whether or not to try to stand when the door swung open and Kayle Dochenza strode in. He was pale and disheveled enough to have spent the night sleeping on the hangar floor—though, of course, he always looked pale and disheveled, so it was hard to tell.

  “That was bad,” Kayle said without preamble. “I hope it didn’t give you a distaste for flying.”

  Rafe wanted to laugh out loud because the comment was so perfectly in character for the elay prime. “Not at all. It’s made me want to do a better job next time. If you’ll trust me with another aeromotive.”

  Kayle nodded. “You’re the best pilot we’ve got right now. You were aloft that whole time? No one else has kept a machine in the air that long.”

  “I made it to the ocean and then west about a mile. But once I turned to come back, the engine kept cutting out. Maybe six times.”

  Kayle looked thoughtful. “Maybe the fuel doesn’t feed well once the tank is half empty.”

  “I need to thank you,” Rafe said, “for saving my life.”

  Kayle just focused those blue eyes on him and said nothing.

  Rafe went on. “I know you called the wind. It was violent and messy, but it kept me from crashing.”

  “You still crashed,” Kayle pointed out.

  “Not quite as spectacularly. I don’t think I would have survived if I’d come down any harder.”

  “No, probably not. Wind isn’t difficult to control, but it’s not very precise.”

  “I keep thinking—there should be a way to eject from the pilot’s box. A way to get free of the plane before it goes down.”

  “You’ll still die if you jump out when you’re a few hundred feet in the air,” Kayle pointed out. “And you’d probably land on the wreckage anyway.”

  “Yes, but—” Rafe snapped his fingers. “The flying bag! If a pilot has one of those strapped on to him, he can shoot up out of the plane while it’s going down. It might not carry him very far away, but even fifty feet would be enough.”

  Kayle looked intrigued. “That’s very good,” he approved. “We’ll make flying bags a part of every pilot’s equipment. So when will you be well enough to fly again?”

  This time Rafe did laugh. “I don’t know, but I think my injuries have to heal first.”

  Kayle glanced at him in an assessing manner. “Some bruises and sprains? That shouldn’t take too long.”

  Rafe just grinned. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  • • •

  The trip back to the port required only a single elaymotive, since Kayle had lent Josetta one of his big private cars that could hold up to twelve people. Still, the journey was agony incarnate, because whenever the vehicle hit a bump or rut, Rafe felt the impact on every inch of his battered body. Good to her word, the medic had finally handed over a small sack of drugs that she said would ease the pain, and he swallowed two of them before they were halfway to the port. The only thing that kept him from taking more was that she had limited him to four a day.

  When they finally arrived back at their rented rooms and Foley had helped him up the stairs, Rafe mumbled an apology and headed straight for his bed. “I’ll take care of things,” Josetta promised as she kissed his cheek and smoothed the blanket over his shoulder. He figured that meant she would shop for food and maybe some replacement clothing, but he couldn’t think about it too long. He just slept.

  This time when he woke it was closer to dark, he felt a little less like the specter of death, and he wasn’t alone. Josetta sat across the room at the small table, where she was busily engaged in writing notes or adding up sums or doing something else productive. The last horizontal rays of the setting sun lanced through the window and sizzled around her head, turning her pale blond hair to white fire. Serenity radiated from her like heat from a hearth; it was a perfume as heady as spring. He took a deep breath and felt tranquility settle into his bones.

  “Josetta,” he said, and she immediately jumped to her feet.

  “How are you?” she asked, coming over to place a cool hand on his face. The fish charms from her bracelet tickled against his skin. “I’m supposed to check in case you develop a fever,” she explained.

  He covered her hand with his own. “Doesn’t feel like fever.”

  She smiled. “What does it feel like?”

  “Falling off a mountain onto a pile of rocks.”

  “Are you hungry? The medic said that if you hadn’t started vomiting by now you’d better eat something. It’s been almost two days since you’ve had a meal.”

  Maybe that angry feeling in his stomach wasn’t pain, it was hunger. “Food sounds like a good idea,” he said

  “Can you make it to the table or do I need to spoon-feed you while you’re lying there?”

  “Well, I like the idea of you fussing over me while I’m in bed,” he drawled, which made her laugh, “but I think I can manage to sit at the table. Anyway, I need to get up. I have a few other needs to attend to.”

  Caze was in the hallway when Rafe opened the door. “Look who’s up! You must be feeling better. Need any help getting down the hall?”

  “I think I can manage, thanks.”

  In the common bathing room, he cleaned up as thoroughly as he could around the bandages. There was a decent-sized mirror on one wall so he took stock of his injuries, which felt better but still looked spectacular. He appeared pitiable even once the dried blood was washed away. The whole left side of his body was one dark bruise; even his left eye was ringed with purple. And, of course, the abundance of bandages made him look pathetic as well. He slipped on a loose tunic and trousers and tried to return to the room without favoring his left leg. Caze gave him an encouraging nod as he stepped back through the door.

  Josetta had laid out a simple meal, complete with the fruited water that he had always considered a sign of high elegance. “I’m supposed to tell you that you should have Kayle’s physician check you out tomorrow,” she said as they took their seats. “The medic gave me the name and address.”

  “I think I’ll be fine.”

  “I think you’ll go see him.”

  He sipped from his water and watched her for a moment in silence. “I think I don’t like the fact that for half the time you’ve known me, I’ve been beaten up and broken.”

  “You do seem to lead an eventful life,” sh
e agreed.

  He gestured at the dressings mostly covered by his clothing. “Always needing medical attention. It makes me seem weak.”

  “Careless, maybe. Unlucky. Not weak.”

  “I’d rather seem dashing and adventurous.”

  “Oh, I’d say an aeromotive pilot is very dashing.” She toyed with her food, then glanced at him. Her voice was carefully casual. “Did yesterday’s disaster make you rethink the idea of flying?”

  “It made me want to figure out how to make it safer, but no, it didn’t scare me off. The opposite, really. I can’t wait to get back into the pilot’s box and do it right this time.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  He waited a moment, then challenged her. “Were you hoping I’d give it up? Would you rather I did?”

  “It’s not up to me—”

  “I’m going to make my own decision,” he interrupted. “I just want to know what you think. Honestly. Whether or not you think it’ll make me mad.”

  She nodded. “What I think is that my heart almost stopped when the aeromotive was coming down. What I think is that every time you fly another one of Kayle’s machines, you’ll be just as much at risk and I’ll be just as terrified. Do I wish you wouldn’t fly again? Yes. Do I think I should stop you? No. As soon as you climbed into that machine, I could tell it’s what you’re supposed to be doing. You were made for a chancy life. It just makes things harder on the people who care about you.”

  He could tell that his grin was lopsided. “There haven’t been that many people who cared about me, up till now,” he said. “I haven’t been used to considering how they might feel.”

  “There’s your brother.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a small part of his life. He wouldn’t notice so much if I wasn’t in it.”

  “Well, I’m used to having people care about me. And I’m used to nodding gravely when they express their concern about me—and then going off and doing what I want anyway. You can’t be bound by other people’s worry.”