Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  And he gave it. Without question, without hesitation, he took her to the top of that peak, and she leaped off. A burst of energy erupted within her from his fingertips to her head, sparking bright colors behind her eyelids and fire along her skin.

  Her nails dug deeper into his skin, and she cried out against his collar bone.

  Before she could think about catching her breath, he slipped himself inside of her and found his own rhythm to her body, to her thrumming heart.

  He had intent with strength behind it, and his giving of himself to the moment took her with him.

  The wind caught up, whipping over them and between them. It chilled her, and she pawed at him, dragging him closer, deeper.

  This is what she needed. To curl her toes, to lose herself, to relish the dizzying spin of brief ecstasy and escape.

  To make him lose himself.

  When he broke against her, he called out and clung to her, shuddering in her arms as the sensation eased over him.

  The wind died, and the warmth of their bodies returned.

  They panted, chests heaving, and then he looked at down at her, their noses nearly touching.

  His eyes were just as deep, just as intense, and softer.

  It had been so quick, so easy, like they’d been starved for the other.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She swallowed and nodded. “You?”

  He nodded, too, but didn’t move to separate from her. He held her beneath him, their bodies entangled, and she didn’t mind it.

  She was satisfied, inside and out, and he looked satisfied.

  Two people, two bodies, had sought comfort in uncertainty. It was what they needed—a brief moment to forget and let go.

  Chapter 18

  Sufford — Ingini

  Grier rotated his arms and rolled his neck, admiring the clear sky for the first time since arriving in Ingini. It still wasn’t as nice as a Stadhold sunset on the bridge to the main campus of the Great Library, but it was better than a yellow-green haze.

  Too long in a cramped airship with little practice, he wouldn’t mind a fight today.

  Jahree had set the airship down on a plateau north of the small town of Sufford. The hangar housing this massive airship underground loomed on the edge.

  “Who’s going in?” Emeryss asked.

  They’d all lined up beside Grier to look at the rows of houses, the roughly paved streets and paths, the shops.

  “Frankly, I don’t see me being much help slipping into a secret UA base,” Mykel said.

  “I can,” Vaughn offered.

  Sonora crossed her arms. “I think it’s better if I stay here, too.”

  “I’m going in, Clove is going in, and Emeryss.” Adalai had her hands on her hips and her chin up in full leader mode.

  He almost suggested Emeryss not go but thought better. “If Emeryss is going, I’m going.”

  “Why Clove?” Jahree asked.

  “Because these are her people, her buildings,” Adalai said. “She’ll know the place.”

  “Then, I’m going, too,” Jahree said.

  Clove glanced down at her feet when he’d suggested he go.

  “Hello, I said I would like to go.” Vaughn waved his hand. “What is this? Am I invisible?”

  “No,” Adalai said, “I just can’t think of when we’d need to shrink or enlarge something to save our skins.”

  “What?” Vaughn looked around at everyone. “I can shrink them. What are you talking about? I’m literally always useful.”

  “And Emeryss can do it now, so…”

  Vaughn shook his head. “Since when is air boy over here always useful?”

  “Watch it,” Jahree said. “You might find yourself in a tornado.”

  “Sorry,” Vaughn muttered. “But I’m tired of babysitting duty. Babysit the airship, babysit the captives. Urla, you’re not upset?”

  She shrugged and tossed her white braid over her shoulder. “I like fights I know I can win.”

  “You don’t think they’ll make it out?” he asked.

  She side-eyed him. “Wanna make it worth something?”

  They huddled together, discussing the terms of their bet in hushed voices.

  “Don’t listen to them,” Adalai said. “If they really thought we couldn’t make it, they wouldn’t let us go. Me, Emeryss, Clove, Grier, and Jahree are going, and then the four of you are staying.” Adalai turned to Clove. “Do we still look Ingini enough?”

  She nodded.

  “Fine. Let’s go. I want to get this over with.” Adalai found the easiest way down the plateau, leading them toward the city of Sufford.

  “Anything we need to know about this place?” Grier asked aloud, mostly for Clove.

  She squinted up at the town now looming ahead of them. “Not really. It’s a small mining town. Full of regular citizens and nothing special. I guess this ship is special, but these people don’t want trouble. They probably don’t even know it’s here.”

  “If it’s here,” Adalai quipped.

  “I don’t think Kimpert’s and Clove’s friends were lying,” Emeryss said.

  “Oh, so you mean rattling the cage and screaming at her didn’t work but throwing that Hall bastard out of the airship did?” Adalai smirked. “Imagine that.”

  Clove rolled her eyes but smiled at her. “I was okay with killing both of them, but you make me wish he was still alive, just to piss you off.”

  They would not survive this trip, let alone sneaking into a secret facility, with these two at each other’s necks. Grier cleared his throat. “Let’s talk security. Anything we should know about?”

  Clove shrugged. “You ask me like this is normal and I know how all of it works. I know nothing—”

  Adalai snickered.

  “—about security or things like that. I mean, we have locks on doors, we have alarms, there’s probably armed security. Beyond that, I have no idea because I wasn’t in the UA. I didn’t even know there was a top-secret airship, and I’m not a trained Ingineer.”

  “Yes, we all understand how barely useful you are.” Adalai laughed to herself and picked up her pace.

  “What is the plan, Adalai?” Grier asked.

  “We go in through the fake houses like Kimpert said, get inside, find the airship, get information on the grimoires and the cannon. Done.”

  Even Grier had to shake his head at that. She’d made it sound so easy, and it was quite possibly the hardest thing they’d have to do.

  “At least this time we won’t be going insane from the ether,” she said.

  Emeryss had been quiet.

  He reached out for her hand. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Just nervous. I want answers, too, but I want out and done with this. This is quickly becoming too much for us to handle.”

  He squeezed her hand in his. He agreed, but how could they turn away when they were this close?

  Emeryss brought the ethereal veil down around her and scoured the streets. It wasn’t as blinding as being in the mine, but ether was everywhere, too.

  There were dusty roads with shoddy carriages, decent—albeit plain—buildings for housing, and businesses in scant clusters on several streets. The only noticeable eyesore was the large hangar on the northern side of the town.

  After Adalai had killed Hall, Kimpert shared that the houses around the hangar would get them in through a shaft and lift. It had made little sense to them, but they figured poking their heads that far wouldn’t hurt too much.

  “Where are all the armed guards or the walls protecting this hangar?” Adalai asked. “This doesn’t look like they’re hiding anything.”

  “I think that’s the point,” Grier said. “If they make it enticing, it becomes a target. Make it look like it’s no big deal, and you can hide in plain sight.”

  “And it’s underground,” Clove added.

  “I say we walk down the street to some of these houses on the end, try to peek inside without the owners noticing, and see if
anything looks off.” Jahree moved ahead next to Adalai.

  As they approached the first street, the houses looked pretty typical. A few people walked up the lanes to go somewhere in town, but there weren’t any spaces for airships. Most of the homes were empty of people, too, but filled with tables and furniture and food. Some still had ether-lamps on inside.

  Adalai shook her head, and they moved to the next street. Backs against the walls, they crept between the houses to the next row lined with businesses. A few Ingini were working in them, and even fewer were shopping.

  It all looked completely normal.

  “Let’s check the next street,” Adalai said.

  They were getting closer to the hangar, but the next row of houses didn’t look any different from the first.

  They darted behind a building and scanned the area.

  “It’s too clean,” Jahree whispered.

  It was. The houses on this lane had dead-grass lawns, but they’d been cut perfectly. The houses’ exteriors were immaculate. It looked like a street of newly built houses or homes that were never lived in.

  Adalai gestured for them to check it out, and they moved around to peer inside.

  She and Grier made for a little house painted green. One table. One chair. One ether-lamp. No sign of anyone living there.

  Kimpert hadn’t lied. These were fake houses made to appear like everything else, and they did, except people were never that tidy or boring.

  “Here!” Adalai whispered and waved them on.

  Clove and Jahree joined her from across the street, and Grier and Emeryss made their way to her house next door.

  Adalai pointed at the window. “There are two men inside sitting at a table. Looks like they’re playing a game or something.”

  Jahree and Grier poked their heads around to see inside. After a few seconds, they moved away from the window and huddled together with them.

  “There has to be something they’re guarding inside,” Jahree said.

  “They have ether-guns,” Grier added. “And they’re just sitting there bored with playing cards.”

  “This is it, then.” Adalai cracked her knuckles. “I’m going to send in Tidbits. She’ll distract them, and we’ll follow her in and take them out.”

  “I’m going in first,” Grier said. “I have the shield.”

  “So do I,” Emeryss said.

  “No,” Adalai said. “His is just easier. We need you to Air Slice them or something. Jahree, Clove, stay behind Grier’s shield.”

  “We have to do this fast enough before they can contact anyone,” Clove said. “They will call for help.”

  “Of course,” Adalai said. “That was always part of the plan.”

  Emeryss swallowed. She could do this. She’d wanted to go into Ingini. This is what she’d been training for. She could handle it.

  They gave each other a nod, moved to the front door, and Adalai jiggled the handle as quietly as she could. “It’s locked.”

  Jahree whispered, “I’ll blow through it—”

  “No, save your sigils.”

  “I can bust through it, and you can send Tidbits in right after,” Grier said. “We’re going to get noticed standing crouched like this outside the door.”

  “When you hear them talking, bust in. I’ll go for them when you do.” Adalai broke apart into a pink dust cloud and disappeared under the crack of the door.

  Emeryss took a deep breath and readied an Air Slice sigil in her left hand.

  Jahree checked behind them. “Still clear.”

  Muffled voices echoed on the other side of the door.

  Grier brought up his bracer, willed his black crystalline shield to life, and rammed it into the door. It shattered at the locking mechanism and hinges.

  The men jumped up, but Adalai was already Blinking behind one man and slitting his throat with her dagger. The second reached for his sound device at his shoulder, and Emeryss tossed her Air Slice at his hand, severing it at the wrist.

  Blood sprayed everywhere, and as the man went to scream, Jahree lunged forward and took the man’s air. His voice caught, his eyes widened and reddened, and he gasped for air that wouldn’t come. When he fell to the ground onto his face, Jahree relaxed.

  “That was too close,” Grier said.

  “That was perfect.” Adalai was moving around the house, checking inside cabinets and doors. “Let’s find what they were guarding.”

  They checked every container or piece of fake furniture for a switch or a door to somewhere.

  “Look at this.” Grier was pointing to a bed with sheets over it. “It’s not even real. It’s made of thick paper.”

  Emeryss bent forward and inspected the bed frame. “Weird.”

  “I think this is it,” Clove said.

  She’d been facing a wall where a small device was sitting.

  “What’s that?” Adalai asked.

  “It controls the temperature inside the house. Cold, warm, you know.” Clove looked confused. “You don’t have temperature controllers?”

  Adalai shrugged. “The palace has air and fire Casters to control some of it. Most of us use our windows. We don’t have the pollution to worry about.”

  Clove rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s set to 100 degrees. That’s far too hot, that’s like boiling, and it’s not that hot in here.”

  “So?” Emeryss asked.

  “So,” Clove clicked the tiny little tab hovering over 100 back to 70, and a machine whirred for several seconds before stopping.

  They looked around. Nothing had changed.

  “Try again.”

  Clove moved the tab, this time over 0, and a machine inside the wall whirred until it finally made a chiming sound. The wall slid apart and showed a small lift inside a cage. She slid back the cage and looked inside. “Ready?”

  “We’re not all going to fit in there,” Jahree said.

  “Fine.” Adalai stepped inside. “Me, Emeryss, and Clove will go.”

  “What?” Grier huffed. “No way. We should not separate.”

  It looked like Jahree was about to agree when shouts came from outside of the house.

  Emeryss grabbed his arm. “The broken door, Grier!”

  “Stay here, fend off whoever’s coming, and meet us outside of the hangar in thirty minutes.” Adalai yanked Clove inside the lift with her and reached for Emeryss.

  “No, this was not part of the plan!” Grier’s eyebrows almost met in the middle.

  Emeryss wasn’t happy about splitting up either, but they needed the element of surprise. “Turn the lever on the wall again and make it seem like you never found this entrance. Keep them away from us, and we’ll be okay.”

  He rubbed the top of his head. “This is insane.”

  “No, you’re being insane, lover-boy. You trained her for this, remember?” Adalai slammed the cage door back and pushed a button with a down arrow on it.

  They descended as Jahree pulled him off. “Get ready for a fight.”

  The door closed above them.

  Grier and Jahree would be fine, and they’d be fine. They’d get out of this. That wouldn’t be the last time she saw him. The lift had a few green lights and one pale ether-lamp but otherwise was dark. She’d just willingly stepped into an Ingini house, onto an Ingini lift, down into a secret Ingini base.

  This was getting to be too much.

  “Adalai—”

  “I know, Emeryss, but we have to get the information, right? We want to see about this ship? About the grimoires? We have to do it. This is part of being a soldier.”

  But she wasn’t a soldier. She’d wanted to be a Caster and get stronger, but her training was more about not being a liability than a willing soldier to infiltrate Ingini bases.

  “This is a really far drop,” Clove muttered.

  “When it stops, be prepared. I’ll be in front, Emeryss with me, Clove behind.”

  They didn’t argue and positioned themselves with the tiny space they had as the lift kept falling. />
  “Goddess, how deep is this?” Emeryss looked at Clove mirroring her own worry.

  “Get ready,” Adalai warned, hands up.

  Emeryss prepared another Air Slice.

  The clicking against the rails of the lift in the shaft counted down to the unknown. Emeryss’s heart beat faster with each one.

  Finally, it chimed, and the cage doors opened to a long cement hallway.

  Two guards with their backs to the elevator turned.

  Emeryss released her Air Slice at one of their heads, slicing him across the mouth and nose. He wheeled back, grasping at his bleeding face.

  Adalai had stabbed one in the chest with her dagger and Blinked behind the other Emeryss had hit and cut his throat. Blood was pooling around them.

  “Watch your feet and push them back into the lift,” Adalai whispered.

  Emeryss took a sharp breath. She created a shrinking sigil, touched both men, picked them up without looking at them too closely, and placed them in the lift. Adalai shut the door.

  “Look at that,” Adalai scoffed. “I guess Vaughn would have been helpful. You could have just stuffed them in your pocket or something if you were going to shrink them.”

  “What? Are you kidding? We killed two men, and I shrunk them to hide them, and your answer is to put them in my pocket?”

  Clove shook her head, and Adalai put her finger to her lips to tell her to be quiet.

  Adalai was insane. She was losing it. This mission was making her crazy.

  They moved down the hall with only one door at the end.

  Without a window, Adalai Dispersed again, slipped under the door, and then returned. “No guards through there, but that crack in the door is tight. Want to stay here, and I’ll just go and look?”

  “No!” Emeryss and Clove had said it together.

  Emeryss reached for the handle, but it wouldn’t move.

  “It’s locked.” Clove pointed to a small box beside the door.

  “So, what now?” Emeryss asked.

  Clove visibly swallowed. “I can try to unlock it. I’ll have to close my eyes and visualize it, and then—”