Dark of the West (Glass Alliance)

by Joanna Hathaway

* * *

  The morning after the reel of Arrin’s speech arrives, it’s the talk of the base. Everyone has an opinion on the prospect of this new war, and whether or not General Dakar’s son has made legitimate accusations. The debate continues around our breakfast table.

  “I always knew there was something funny with Resya,” Greycap says, nodding as if he’s in on the secret. “They’ve never caused trouble, but they’ve certainly never helped us much either. And you have to admit the pilots we’ve been facing have some skill. They’re getting help from somewhere.”

  Spider points his fork. “Or that goddamn Safire commander’s trying to start a war, and we don’t need it. God knows one mess is enough.”

  “But you have to admit he has some guts,” Greycap persists, “calling all those politicians cowards. I liked that bit. No one appreciates what we do down here.”

  “Guts or not, the General’s son is a fool.” Spider glances to the nearby Safire table. “No offense.”

  Garrick, Ollie, and Sailor frown, looking ever so discreetly at me.

  They’d better quit that.

  I swallow what’s left of my coffee in a single gulp and stand from the table. I’m done with it.

  A breeze greets me outside, flags rippling a lazy rhythm. The black runway heats in silence, and I take a deep breath of the fresh air. Then another. I’m not angry with Arrin because he’s trying to start a war and insulting every Northern politician in the process. No, I’m furious because he went so far as to use Mother, to wield her death as a chess piece in his gamble. He should have ignored the baited suggestion. Moved on. But of course he couldn’t resist the opportunity to go from cavalier young lion to noble avenger of injustice. And then that only reminds me he’s still plotting away about Etania, whispering ideas in Father’s ear.…

  He’s too good at turning a spark into a forest fire. All I want is Ali safe, and I feel helplessly far away.

  The door creaks open behind me and Ollie slides around it. “Never mind those Landorians,” he says. “They’re nervous about change. You know we all think it was a brilliant speech.”

  “Was it?” I ask, and his smile disappears.

  He tries again, voice lower. “Your brother spoke the truth, and they don’t want to hear it. In time, they’ll see it’s the right move. We can’t let allies of the Nahir go unpunished and—”

  A loud, clanging bell interrupts. It echoes from the ops hut urgently. For half a second, we both look at each other, confused.

  Then recognition snaps at our heels and we take off at a wild run for the flight line.

  The bell. They’ve spotted rebel planes. They’re here, attacking us.

  Us!

  It’s never happened this way before, but I know I need to get to my plane. That’s my only thought as I tear across the tarmac.

  Filton and Kif are already scurrying around the wings, fueling and arming the guns with incredible speed. I pull on my kit in record time—parachute, gloves, life vest. The vest gets tangled and I throw it off me. Never mind that. I scramble into the cockpit, Filton hollering words at me: “Seven planes, coming northeast,” and that’s all I need to hear. It’s not until I’m buckled in, flaps tested and pump primed, sunglasses on to cut the morning sun, that I realize I have no leader.

  I scour the tarmac, a commotion of pilots and crew as they try to get us in the air. Ollie’s plane is still being fueled. I don’t know where Garrick is. Merlant’s the only one already inside his cockpit with propeller spinning. I call to him over the radio, and he looks over, brows briefly raised as if shocked to find me ready to go.

  “Follow me up,” he orders.

  “Copy that.”

  We’re the first two planes off the ground. Arcing north, we follow Control’s coordinates to face the oncoming rebel planes, out over the sea.

  “All right, Charm,” he says. “Don’t fall asleep on me today.”

  “Wouldn’t do that to you, Knight.”

  “And stay on my wing.”

  It could be a joke, if we weren’t the only two pilots facing seven enemy aircraft.

  I spot the dark swarm quickly. “Two o’clock low.”

  “Good eye. Let’s get some altitude.”

  We swing up to 7,000 feet, towards the sun. My fighter hums beneath my hands, electric, on edge in a new way. This time, they’ve brought the challenge to us.

  “On my turn,” Merlant says.

  It’s his familiar strategy. We dive down, side by side, sun at our backs, and fire on the enemy formation. They must be surprised, certainly still eyeing the planes hurtling up from the coast. They scatter in all directions. I push down on the stick and lay into one hard. His wing smokes, the plane falling away, wounded.

  “Nice,” Merlant says, and the quick affirmation feels better than an entire report of praise.

  The enemy formation’s now broken, and others are arriving—Garrick, Greycap, Ollie. We charge onward, after the nearest target. Knight locks his sights on a rebel fighter tailing one of the Safire planes. Our machine guns light up the air. The rebel abandons his prey, diving lower, away from us. We stick to him. He’s trapped between our two planes. Nowhere to go but forward.

  “One’s on our tail,” I say, instinctively aware of the shadow barreling in behind.

  “I’ll take care of him.”

  No time to affirm that one. Knight breaks away with fantastic speed, a tight spin that quickly puts him behind the rebel who’s after us. He fires and chases the rebel into a dive.

  Now it’s only me and the colourless plane ahead. He tries a sudden roll, wings trembling with a rookie’s grace. I roll as well, still on his tail, and mimic every move he makes. Left, right. Back and forth. His strategy’s nonexistent. He tries to wiggle his wings, like it’s some kind of message, and I hesitate. Time to end this pointless game. I dive a bit lower than him, a feigned surrender, giving him a moment to look around in confusion, then open my throttle and surge upwards again, attacking from below. The rebel plane can’t outrun this. There’s not a chance. I fire at the undercarriage with my cannon. Bright flames shoot from the plating as I pass beneath and away, pieces of metal pelting me, and the little fighter goes into a spin much too steep. There’s a violent shudder through its body. Stalling. The right wing tears off, giving in to the pressure. Black smoke erupts from the burning engine, thick and ugly.

  Get out of there, I tell him over my shoulder. Hurry the hell up.

  A flash of orange, bright as noon, explodes five hundred feet below me. Flames streak through the air. I stare, hand still on the trigger, watching with some kind of terrible fascination as it plummets for the sea in a mesmerizing storm of colour and scattering metal.

  No parachute.

  “Two for you now, Headache,” Knight calls, somewhere nearby. “I’m at your nine o’clock.”

  I fly straight.

  “Charm, nine o’clock, understood?”

  Silence. My breaths are heavy. Hands frozen.

  3,500 feet, the altimeter says.

  “Charm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get back on my wing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Quit saying that and do it, would you?”

  Without thinking, I steer my plane for the coordinates and follow Knight into the fray.

  * * *

  The battle lasts no more than ten minutes. Ten minutes of life and death before the remaining enemy fighters decide to hightail it home. We land on a runway lined with relieved faces, ground crew and operations officials rubbing sweat from wet brows. The other pilots jump out to greet their grateful crowd.

  I sit in my cockpit and ignore Filton’s curious glances, pretending to write my flight report, taking my time, anything to avoid facing the questions and congratulations. I hide behind my sunglasses.

  3,500 feet.

  My grip tightens on the pen and nothing legible appears.

  A knock on the cockpit startles me. Cyar peers through the glass, concerned, resting on the wing. I t
ake a breath and open it, swiping off the glasses. Give him a grin. “Better catch up quick, Fox. I’ve got two on you now.”

  “Just letting you get a head start. Damn, I never even made it into the air! Bell sounded right when I was in the shower, and by the time I got out here, the rest of you had…” He pauses, studying me again. “You all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re pale.”

  “Because I’m starving.”

  I push out of the cockpit abruptly and Cyar jumps onto the tarmac, making room. There’s something dark constricting me from the inside out. It’s going to make me sick. I walk for the barracks and force myself to move at a regular pace, to appear normal, but there’s a flash of orange, bright as noon, in my vision.

  “Impressive speed into that plane, Charm,” Merlant calls. “You’ve got a talented ground crew, readying it at the rate they did.”

  “I do.” I muster a hollow smile.

  He gestures at my disheveled flight suit. “But remember the life vest next time. Drowning isn’t the way any pilot should go.”

  “No, sir,” I say.

  There are other ways to go.

  * * *

  The day passes and I sit on my bunk, thinking, letting my brain go in circles. It’s a terrible habit. I should be outside, distracting myself, maybe playing cards or writing to Ali. If she were here right now, I’d kiss her and not think twice. I’d kiss her and maybe do even worse, because suddenly this moment feels very selfish to me. It’s mine. I’ve won it. There was me and there was him, and now there’s only me.

  The loneliness of that startles me.

  Evening comes and I sign out of base with one of the motorbikes, the ones we use to ride to the harbour on days off. Down the familiar curving road, through Havenspur. The long promenade appears ahead. No one’s out strolling tonight. The recent weeks, the awareness of our fights in the sky, Arrin’s speech … it’s enough to unnerve even this quiet corner of Thurn.

  The wharf looms along the western edge of town. When I arrive, the Landorian soldiers at the checkpoint flip through my papers. They nod and motion me to leave the motorbike at the gates. Ahead, shadowy ships sleep along the docks. Will the Pursuit even be here? Perhaps she’s out on the Black, miles across the sea hunting for rebel vessels, for weapons being passed from hand to hand.

  But no. There she is, anchored at the farthest dock. Relief floods me.

  I haven’t visited Kalt in the six weeks we’ve been here, and the Safire soldiers on guard look surprised at the sight of me. They quickly escort me to his officer’s cabin. It’s lit from within in the warm dark, inviting.

  He sits at a table scattered with reports. Folco Carr’s next to him. Folco quickly stands when I enter, his freckled face etched with surprise.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Am I interrupting?”

  Folco shakes his head.

  Kalt spares me a cursory glance. “Glad I was finally worth a trip.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Join the club.”

  He looks tired. His normally pressed uniform jacket is tossed across the bed, and the collar of his shirt has at least three buttons undone. That’s a lot for the brother who prides himself on looking the part.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Folco says, no hint of hesitation.

  He disappears out the door, and I slump into the seat opposite Kalt, ship creaking from side to side.

  “What spurred you to make the effort, little brother?”

  No words come. A sense of shame rises unexpectedly. We’re not the type of family that stops by for sentimental reasons, but that’s why I’m here, and I don’t know how to say it. “I’m not … I was…”

  He sets down his pen, waiting.

  Oh hell, I’m desperate to tell someone. Anyone. I’ll do it.

  I tell him how Merlant and I came out of the sun, how we trapped the rebel plane, how I chased him and got him in my sights, then came from below and shot him to the sea in flames. I killed him, I say. I burned him to death at 3,500 feet and now there’s nothing left, nothing at all, not even a body for his mother to bury. And I did it.

  Kalt listens, his fingers laced together, resting on his elbows. “You did what you had to, Athan. There’s nothing to blame yourself for.”

  “I took someone out of existence.”

  “No, you eliminated a threat. A threat to you and your friends. You’re thinking about this wrong.”

  “It’s not easy to think any other way.” I struggle for the words. “I’ve … I’ve never done it with my own hand. It’s never been me.”

  “Neither have I.”

  Kalt says it almost in passing, and I nearly tell him not to lie to make me feel better. But I realize he’s telling the truth. He hasn’t. He serves on a ship with hundreds of men, prowling the sea, playing games of cat and mouse, and even the times he’s been in battle, in Karkev, he’s always been at the bridge, watching, strategizing, while sailors on the gunnery turrets pull the triggers. It will always be that way for him—death coming as shells fall miles away across the water, never right before his eyes. Never a dogfight, two people locked in a blistering moment with only one allowed to come out alive on the other side.

  I look at him and realize, for the first time, I’ve been somewhere he hasn’t.

  His eyes are on the papers before him. “Do you remember the last battle before Valon was won, when I made you hide under Father’s desk?”

  The question catches me off guard. Of course I remember. I was seven and it was the most terrifying night of my short life. I knew that whenever Father and Malek began to bark orders, it meant gunfire and explosions would quickly follow. I was used to hiding and covering my ears to it. But that night was different. It happened too fast, too close to our base, and I wound up curled beneath Father’s desk, eyes shut, certain the sky would fall on top of me if I opened them for even a breath.

  “I said I’d watch the door,” Kalt continues. “I told you that Arrin was guarding down the hall.”

  “Yes.”

  “I lied.” His green eyes flick to mine. “Arrin wasn’t down the hall. He was fighting. We were surrounded, and Father had no choice but to arm everyone he could.”

  I stare at him. “Arrin was thirteen.”

  “It was the first time he killed.”

  Nausea spikes again, rolling against my stomach. I lean forward in the chair to lessen it.

  “I couldn’t have done what he did, Athan. Not at that age. I asked him later how it was, and he said it wasn’t so bad. He simply remembered that the other man had chosen to hold a gun, and it wasn’t by accident, so how could he feel bad? Both of them knew why they were there. It made a lot of sense, and that’s how I look at all of this. We’re each here by choice, so why feel guilty? They want to fight, and we meet their challenge.”

  His explanation seems simple, rational, but something doesn’t connect in me. “And Arrin has turned out just wonderful for it.”

  Kalt doesn’t contest that. He only sighs. “I won’t make excuses for him. He lives by his own rules, but it’s always been that way. You know Father once tried to marry him into some wealthy Rahmeti family? To finalize the unification in a way they’d appreciate down there, or so he said. But Arrin just refused. Ran off and got some other girl pregnant and then slept with one of Father’s officer’s wives, a woman twice his age. Be glad you missed that one. It wasn’t pretty. So believe me, I see what an idiot he can be. It has nothing to do with war. It has to do with him, and he suffers the consequences.”

  I’m not sure I believe that Arrin has ever suffered any consequences, but Kalt leans forward. “The point is, you make the choice for yourself. No matter how high you fly in the sky, Athan, no matter how you pretend otherwise, you were born with our name and you can’t outrun it. Away doesn’t exist, and you need to accept that. Then you’ll be able to do what you should. As I do.”

  “At least it sounds like I’m getting another war to learn from.” Can’t hide
the bitter humour in my voice.

  “Yes. But surely you expected that.”

  I don’t know if I did. Maybe there’s always been a piece of me holding out hope that one day Father would decide he’s had enough and that would be the end. I’ve done a very good job of not thinking about reality. I’ve spent years inventing a fiction in my head that sounds much better. But now I’ve killed someone, and there’s nothing pretend about that.

  Kalt’s still watching me. “He’ll never ask you to do more than you can. He asked Arrin to fight because he knew Arrin could do it. And he was right.” He pauses. “You’ll figure a way through it.”

  We sit in silence a few moments, the Pursuit creaking in her side-to-side sway. Kalt starts writing again. “I need to take care of these reports.”

  I don’t move.

  “You can stay here tonight if you want.”

  The offer’s generous, coming from him, but I shake my head. “I should head back.” I move for the door, then stop. “Thank you, Kalt.”

  He nods without looking up.

  To Her Royal Highness (Princess of Royal Commands):

  I’m your obedient servant. But as it turns out, there are no glasses of wine here. Wine is too fancy for an airbase full of men and so I’ve wound up instead with one bottle of watery ale. I drank the entire thing in a single go, now I’m sitting before a piece of paper. I might regret this in the morning (I will), but I’m going to seal the letter up tight when I finish. I’ve told Cyar to hide it, then mail it. I won’t give myself a chance to think. He says all men become poets in love and war (though I really can’t say here if one of those is true yet).

  So what is it like to fly? It’s like this.

  You march out into the dawning day and nerves rattle around inside. Of course there are nerves. This isn’t the safe sky you trained in. This is anyone’s sky. It’s always dark at first, thick with clouds from the sea, before the sun burns them away. Your friends laugh as they lace up their boots, your ground crew gives you the rundown, you feel happy to be alive. No one’s going to die. Not today.

  There’s your plane, waiting faithfully. She’s beautiful as ever. Up you go, settle in, the cockpit shut tight. It feels awfully tiny at that moment. Please, God, don’t let this be my coffin. The rigger gives you a thumbs-up, saluting. Always smiling. “Go on,” he says. “We’ve done our work and now it’s up to you. You’re on your own.”