There’s a bit of fear at this part. You have to commit.
But you go, of course, and then the runway’s stretched out before you like a shadow. Follow the flare path as you throttle back. They flash by and up you go into the unknown, into anyone’s sky. Steady now, watch the pitch.
3,000 feet.
You break through the clouds and meet a shining world. Sunlight all around. The wind fights you side to side, but still you push higher. This beautiful plane won’t let you down. She’s on your side. Your ally.
15,000 feet. The birds have disappeared because even they don’t come this high. It’s just vibrating metal, endless blue. Up here in this perfect and untouched world, I see your face in the sky, Ali. Your warm eyes in the golden dawn. You’re the sky I love so much, the place I want to be, and I feel like there’s nothing that can take that away. You and I, we could run as far as we’d like and not look back. We could escape earth and beat her at her own game. Maybe I’ll fly away from here and never come back. Go west and never stop, leave all this behind.
How far to you, girl of the dawn sky?
But someone calls over the radio and the slipping western horizon betrays me. It’s getting farther and farther, and they need me here. If anyone challenges our sky, I have to be ready to fight. Today. At least for today. But I promise you, when those dark planes come for the chase, I won’t let them touch me. I won’t let them touch us, Ali. I was born in war and I will not let them even come close. We’ll go right into the smoking storm, beautiful plane and all. We’ll ignore the chaos, ignore the flaming wings and spiraling metal stars that streak through the blue. We’ll ignore the panic that scrapes like fire to get free. We’ll just keep running. Just be quick enough to stay ahead. It’s what I’ll always do. Because I have you. And I fly for you.
And that’s what it’s like, Ali, every day.
Yours always,
Athan
VIII
CHOICE
33
AURELIA
Hathene, Etania
The exam sits before me, taunting with its final questions.
They’ve allowed me to write in a secluded room of the palace, an instructor sent to oversee, his skeptical gaze and bushy brows bearing down while he circles my desk. I’ve already taken the first half—three hours of math and science, then a break, and now literature and history. It’s asking me about the Wars of Discontent, about the final terrible rout where ten thousand Etanian soldiers were lost at once, but stars, I’m tired. Everything’s blurring together.
And as always, Lark’s photographs bleed into my thoughts.
Ten thousand men lost a hundred years ago, but what about the mothers today, whose boys were murdered before that wall? Did they watch and beg? Or did they simply cover their eyes and weep? The scene plays out in my head, over and over, in different ways. Sunny. Rainy. Dusk. The soldiers line their rifles, and I’m ordering them to stop, because I’m a princess and they have to do what I say, they must, and then I’m the one being blindfolded, stuck before the wall in the hot sun, waiting for death, and then it shifts again and suddenly I’m the one holding a gun.
I’m staring at the Landorian soldier, with a gun in my hands, and I wonder if I’d shoot.
I wonder if it’s the right thing to do. If it would save the boys.
There’s a cough, and the instructor gives me another pointed look. I haven’t written a thing for at least five minutes.
What would you think about those photographs, sir? Would you care if you saw those children? Surely you would. You’re stern, yes, but perhaps you have sons yourself. Wouldn’t you protect them in any way you could? Wouldn’t you imagine them in front of the wall?
He appears offended by my stare.
I see, suddenly, in this proud and educated man, the vanity of the North, and I’m glad Lark can’t witness it. We get to read about tragedies far away and long ago. Study them in papers and presentations, debate solutions and strategies.
We don’t have to live them.
He raps his pen on the desk and I hurry down some answers, then surrender the exam.
* * *
Three days later, I find Lark alone by the target range. The air is cold and wet, feeling more like early spring than late summer. He fires a pistol at the wood boards. Over and over, like he might right the world with a single, flawless shot. The thick pine trees round him absorb light and sound.
He lowers the weapon when he spots me, and I catch the glint of hope. Of gladness to see me. When I arrive, he kisses me on the cheek and I return it. It makes me feel better about the world, because if we can be friends, then surely this negotiation is possible, and soon.
“You’re very good,” I greet in Resyan, offering him my secret at last.
His smile warms further. “Thank you,” he replies, evidently pleased to hear me speak his tongue. “You look like you have a question. What shall we discuss today?”
I stop beside him, arms wrapped about myself. “Only a small one.”
“Then ask.”
“What does your father do?”
“Ah, small question indeed.” Lark gives me a half grin, then fires a sudden shot like a show-off, making my ears burn with the sharp sound. “He’s a translator, in Rahian’s court,” he explains after. “We’re not so impressive as your mother, I’m afraid. She’s the one who claimed a Northern king’s heart—and his crown.”
I shift beneath Lark’s teasing gaze. I know how fantastical it must seem to them, that she has risen so high and they’ve remained behind, forgotten characters in a story I don’t know. I’ve always imagined that moment my parents first saw each other like a childish myth—she visiting from a foreign kingdom, beautiful, wearing Resya’s colours, and he watching from across a ball or a reception, young and handsome and with no family left. Only his books. I’m certain my father was lonely. There was no one left to stop him from marrying a woman he shouldn’t.
Why, then, did no one stop Lark from following the Nahir?
Desperately curious to hear, at last, how he ended up this way, I ask, “Did you always want to be…?”
For some reason, I can’t bring myself to say the word aloud. It’s too strange to talk of the Nahir like it is a title, a thing one can be, no different from a doctor. But it is. In Lark’s world, it is.
He pauses, sensing my meaning. “No. Not at first.”
Unsettled pain wrinkles his face.
I wait.
“My mother was a nurse,” he admits eventually, which explains certain aspects of his knowledge. “She believed in healing others. Civilians. Nahir. Even the wounded Landorian soldiers left behind by their own officers. Back then, the revolt was young, and she believed if she could save people, she could save the world.”
“Was a nurse?”
“Was.” He nods. “You can save other people, but you can’t save yourself from a misspent bullet.”
We stand in silence, in the memory of this woman—my aunt—whom I will never know.
“I’ve seen the lives that are wasted through inaction, Aurelia,” he continues after a moment, his mouth gentle around my name, like he’s holding out a flower of goodwill. “It makes little sense to you, here, I know, but I don’t want to die for no reason. I want to die with purpose. That’s why I am what I am.”
“I don’t think she died without purpose,” I say.
“You haven’t lived half your life without a mother,” he replies.
I turn away, acknowledging the wet woods so he can’t see my face. I don’t want to witness his grief, nor do I want him to see my pity.
There’s a tap on my arm after a moment.
I find him offering me the pistol. “Your turn,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t shoot.”
“Come on. You must. My father says your mother was the best shot he ever saw. She could shoot the tail off a cat.”
“My mother?” I make a face. “She’d hate that I’m even here.”
“An
d yet you are.”
His excited gaze wears me down. “One time, then,” I say, taking the pistol for the sake of our friendship.
I stretch my arms out straight, the way I’ve seen others do, and aim the pistol at the board with its large red circle. Lifeless, distant. Paint chipping from seasons of harsh weather.
“Keep steady,” Lark says. “Watch your breath. If you flinch, you miss.”
I try to still myself. Still everything.
“And you need to balance forward more. The force will knock you off your heels.”
I grimace, adjusting, standing on the balls of my feet instead, then I focus again, clutching the pistol.
One shot.
“Ali, what the devil are you doing!”
I lower the weapon, spinning.
Reni strides from the wash of pine trees, his face horrified. “You’d better thank your stars I saw this instead of Mother.”
“And why shouldn’t she shoot?” Lark inquires, irritated.
“Please,” Reni says. “This is dangerous for a woman.”
“Why?”
At this moment, I quite appreciate Lark’s dogged Nahir persistence.
But Reni is freshly returned from his tour and armed with the news from the Royal League. General Dakar’s son has given my brother a great gift—justification for his enmity. He scowls at our Resyan cousin. “Why? This is a live weapon. In the hands of a girl who has never fired a thing before in her life!”
“It was only going to be one shot,” I say.
“Don’t make me the villain today, Ali. I was trying to bring you good news, but now you’re sour.”
I frown at his interpretation, but hand the pistol back anyway, not wanting Lark to bear the brunt of Reni’s strained civility. “Then tell me the good news.”
“You passed your exams. You’re now a student of the University.”
The words, announced in the damp gloom of the target range, don’t feel very inspiring. Not the way I expected. “Oh,” I say.
“And you have a surprise for your birthday.” Reni appears even less enthused about this part of the good news. “The General is coming. He’s giving you an air demonstration.”
“A demonstration?” I ask in disbelief.
This I wasn’t expecting, not by any stretch.
“Yes. He says you requested it, and he doesn’t wish to disappoint.”
Thin laughter slips out. My request from a month ago seems foolish now, like a silly question from a silly girl who asked simply because she could, and of course there are far more important things at hand. Why should he remember it?
“He’s not coming for that reason alone,” Reni continues, sensing my thoughts. “He has much to discuss with Mother, about Resya. He’s also bringing his son, since the Commander’s the one who will inevitably be on the ground there.”
Thick revulsion coats my mouth, and Lark stares at me from behind Reni, a question in his eyes. I know he’s waiting to see what I’ll do next. I have a power in my hands, the power he longs for and will never have, and the terrible wall sits between us, an unforgivable crime that no one knows.
But we do.
“No, I don’t want the air demonstration, Reni. Not if his son is coming.”
Now my brother looks stunned. “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t want it. That rotten Commander won’t come to Etania. You’ll have to tell the General an excuse.”
Lark looks a bit in awe.
“But he said he’s planning to bring your friends,” Reni says. “The Lieutenant and the other one.”
At that, my noble certainty crumbles to dust. The offer in those wonderful and unexpected words is as radiant as a hundred suns—Athan, here, far from danger and close enough to touch, to see where it might lead, and the temptation makes me light-headed. But then I imagine the Commander’s brilliant smile gloating over his victories, impressing our kingdom. That isn’t the sort of show I asked for at the beginning of the summer. There won’t be any joy in it, not knowing what I know, not even with Athan in front of me. Perhaps there’s another way to see him again. Surely there is, but not like this.
“I don’t want the demonstration,” I say, surprising myself with how calmly the words come. “Tell the General.”
Reni shakes his head, expression drawn, tense. “We can’t refuse the General. Not now with the situation in Resya. I don’t think it matters what you want.”
And I shrug, because really, I never expected it did.
When Reni has left—with a strict order that I not touch the pistol—I turn to Lark, the two of us alone again in the drizzly silence. “What will you do?” he asks, distressed. “That General isn’t interested in talking round a table. He’ll have another angle. He could ruin our whole damn negotiation!”
“But what if he would talk?” I ask aloud, remembering how he and I did that very thing earlier in the summer. How civil it was, with tea. Surely he and my mother could settle this matter of Resya and do so without force. The Safire and Nahir have too much in common. Surely he’d listen to Seath? We could bring him to the table and—
“You can’t trust him,” Lark says sharply.
“I have no choice.” I look at my cousin helplessly. “The Commander may be bold and reckless—unpredictable, as you said—but I have to trust the General is not. And if I can keep him talking to us, and away from Resya, won’t the world be better for it? I can’t let these suspicions grow, Lark. My mother needs him as ally.”
Lark watches me with hollow copper eyes. “Do what you’d like. But your first and last mistake will always be trusting an ambitious Northerner.”
34
ATHAN
Havenspur, Thurn
Father arrives at base one morning with no warning.
His motorcar rumbles through the gates just past noon, flanked by armoured carriers. The vehicle halts and everyone on the tarmac stares. Father steps out, greeting Wick with a handshake, and armed Safire soldiers surround him. Casually, as if this isn’t a show, he and Wick peruse the compound, walking across the runway, pointing, smiling. Wick has to look up, since he’s at least a head shorter.
Inside the hangar, I clean my plane with Kif. He sits on the wing, rag in hand, and I pretend to work, watching Father. Waiting for him to wave for me.
Kif chatters about his theories of gun alignment, cleaning as he goes, but eventually, his voice lowers a touch. “I have to say, sir, that whole speech at the Royal League has got me thinking.”
“Yeah?” I’m still looking out the doors.
“I’ve been wondering since we got here, you see, about the camouflage on these planes.”
Father and Wick have stopped, isolated together on the far edge of the runway.
“I mean, these wings are still grey,” Kif continues, patting the metal he’s seated on. “I got here and the first thing I said to Filton was ‘When can I paint them?’ and he says, ‘We’re not painting them,’ and I thought ‘Not painting them?’ Everywhere inland from here’s mostly desert, right? These wings need to match. I told him just that and he said to wait, because the orders hadn’t come.”
Father and Wick turn, heading back this way.
This is it. He’s going to wave me over.
I set down my rag.
“But see, here’s the funny part, sir. Why would we wait? If we’re here to help Thurn, setting up a base and all, then we need to change the colours now. Might as well. But Resya … see, Resya’s mostly mountainous jungle. The jewel of the South. Desert camouflage wouldn’t work there. And that’s when I started wondering.”
I turn back to Kif, his words finally registering. “What are you saying?”
He’s earnest atop the wing. “Between you and me, sir, it’s almost like they knew we’d need to paint the planes again soon. So they didn’t bother to do it yet.”
“Kif, no one could have predicted this.”
He swallows, hesitating. “It just seems a bit convenient.”
I shake off
the uneasy feeling and give Kif a pointed look. “You shouldn’t talk like this.”
He drops his eyes. “Sorry, sir.” Freckled cheeks red, he begins to clean the metal again, and I glance out the hangar doors.
No sign of Father anywhere.
* * *
The day shifts forward, hours passing, and still no invitation comes. It’s nearly dinner now and I’m getting impatient. He wouldn’t leave without seeing me, would he?
I sit in the lounge, hands idly constructing a little ship out of newspaper. Folding, folding.
Distraction.
Right when I’ve talked myself into marching over on my own, Wick stomps through the door and points. “Lieutenant.”
God, that took long enough.
Inside HQ, he motions me down a hall to the back offices, the place Merlant and Garrick usually go for their private briefings. It’s hushed there, away from the busy main room filled with maps and typewriters and phone calls. The sound of pilots and personnel fades. Wick points to a closed door, wordless, before returning the way we came.
I take a breath and step inside.
Father’s seated at the desk. Early evening light filters through narrow windows. He glances up and gives a small smile. “Look at you. Hardly recognizable with all that sun on your face.” He gestures to the seat across from him.
I sit.
He continues to scan whatever it is he’s reading. “A moment.”
“Yes, sir.”
It’s been seven weeks and five long hours. What’s one more moment? I wait quietly, analyzing my boots, while Father reads, signs, repeats.
Clock ticking.
“You’ve done well here,” he comments. “Captain Merlant’s impressed.”
“I downed two planes, sir.”
Dark of the West (Glass Alliance) Page 34