Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  In truth, she would have stayed in that road and never moved again. She’d wanted to fall back down in the street and burn with the rest of it.

  She’d deserved it.

  She’d deserved nothing less.

  Chapter 39

  Sufford — Ingini

  Clove paced at the plateau.

  No longer green or even yellow, Sufford was now a black scar on the surface of Ingini. The RCA had disbanded, the warship had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and the city—her people—lay in ruins.

  Total devastation.

  All those people had died.

  All those people had been hurt and separated and terrorized out of their homes and community.

  Revel did this. Revel destroyed everything. They always did.

  They took her brother. They took her.

  She fought back tears. More tears.

  Mykel lay on the grass with a cover over him already. He’d died fighting Revelians. Urla and Sonora had risked their lives and nearly died, too. Grier and Emeryss had done what they could.

  Not all of Revel did this.

  And yet, had she not agreed to help, they would have been able to defend themselves like Kimpert had said. All those people would have been safe.

  She roared until it came out as a scream.

  “Clove…” Mack held his hands up to her, but she pushed him off.

  She didn’t want a freaking hug. She didn’t want to take a deep breath or calm down. All the survivors were homeless. All that death.

  Those children.

  Those families.

  Tears streamed down her face.

  She was trying to help them.

  She was trying to end it.

  Vaughn panted up the hill with a wounded Adalai in his arms. Everyone was covered in ash. Everyone looked like they’d just missed death by inches, most of all Adalai. Her face was swollen, her clothes were torn and bled on.

  Adalai.

  She did this.

  She’d convinced her crew to take Clove on board and keep her. She’d tricked Clove into getting them into Ingini. She’d convinced her crew to hunt down those grimoires. She kidnapped Kimpert. She’d gotten Clove taken by Trent. She’d convinced Clove to change the sigils on the Goliath.

  Vaughn unhooked his arm from Adalai as she tried to catch her breath.

  “It’s your fault!” Clove screamed, charging up to Adalai.

  But her face was blank. Her expression empty. Adalai didn’t move or say a word.

  “Say something!” she shouted at her again.

  Everyone backed away, letting her assail Adalai with her fury.

  Because that’s all she had left in her.

  Fury. Anger.

  Complete and total regret.

  “I trusted you! I trusted all of you!” Clove screamed. “You tricked me into letting them die!”

  “I didn’t know,” Adalai muttered without emotion on her deadpan face. “I didn’t know.”

  It was like she was there, but somewhere else at the same time.

  “You did know! We told you!” Clove seethed. “We told you Revelians always lie and cheat and steal! We told you they were the bad ones in all this! You got all those people killed for nothing! You got Mykel killed!”

  Adalai’s eyes barely moved to Mykel’s body lying on the ground. She blinked them back at Clove with tears filling them.

  “You left Lark to die!” Clove shouted.

  “What?” Mack said, panic edging out his words. “What are you talking about?”

  Clove gestured at Mack with her head. “Tell him, Adalai. Tell him we saw his brother on the Goliath, that I wanted to save him, but you Blinked us out before we could get him.”

  “What?” Mack’s voice trembled beside her.

  Adalai swallowed. “We didn’t have time to get him out, too—”

  “You bitch!” Mack’s voice cracked as he lunged toward Adalai.

  Vaughn and Grier moved to stop him before he reached her, but Clove had stopped him with one hand to his chest. His heart thundered beneath her palm.

  “She is the real enemy here, Clove,” Kimpert said behind her, still on her knees. “I never wanted all these people to die. I wanted to trade the technology—”

  “Shut up!” Clove barked, pulling Cayn’s gun from her jumper and aiming it at her. “You wanted money!”

  Kimpert whimpered away from the gun, cowering where she knelt. “Please, Clove—”

  Clove spun and aimed the gun at Adalai. “You did this.”

  The other Zephyrs held up their hands and moved toward her.

  “Hold on, Clove,” Grier said.

  “We’re all mad and hurt,” Jahree added. “But we need to think about this—”

  Mack took a protective stance between her and the crew.

  “Why should she?” he shouted. “She’s right. Adalai did this! She killed my brother! She killed everyone! We were right this whole time.”

  “This isn’t going to solve anything, Clove,” Urla said gently.

  But they didn’t get it. It would solve her problems. It would get one more Revelian out of the way. One more piece of shit out of her life, stopping her from being happy.

  “Tell me right now why I shouldn’t!” Clove commanded. “Teleport to me, shock me, set me on fire, go ahead and stop me if I’m wrong!”

  “We don’t want to hurt you,” Sonora said.

  “You all hate her, too!” Clove yelled. “She’s ordered you to do things you didn’t agree with. She’s been a bitch this whole time, not caring about your lives, either—”

  “But it’s not worth killing her over it,” Sonora said calmly.

  Clove huffed. “Did she think about that when she threw that miner off?”

  “He was a traitor,” Grier said.

  “Yeah, and she’s my enemy.” It had come from lower in her chest, where the pain hurt the most.

  With the gun trained on Adalai’s forehead, Adalai didn’t move.

  “Kneel,” Clove ordered.

  Adalai swallowed but followed orders just like the perfect soldier she was for her perfect little king and her perfect, stupid general.

  “You’re a murderer,” Clove whispered.

  Emeryss sniffled. “Clove, both sides have done things. You know this.”

  Her team could have easily stopped her, and yet, they weren’t. They just stood by watching.

  Were they wanting her to do it? Were they testing her?

  “Was this part of the plan the whole time?” Clove asked Adalai, peering down at her from her nose. “You hate the Ingini. Was this your plan the whole time?”

  Adalai’s mouth parted but didn’t move.

  “Answer me!”

  “No!” Adalai blurted. “I told you everything I thought I knew—”

  Clove screamed, “That’s not good enough!”

  Adalai’s bottom lip quivered.

  “You’re the leader. You’re the one who screwed up! Take responsibility—”

  “I do,” Adalai said, tears bubbling over. “I did do it. I am responsible. I did this. I made all this happen, and now I am nothing. I have nothing—”

  “You have nothing?” Clove shouted. “Those dead people lying in the street have nothing! That town, those families, they have nothing… You, you at least have your life. Or what’s left of it.” She kicked on the ether-pulses, finger on the trigger.

  She could do it. One pull and Adalai would pay for what she’d done. Her stupid hair. Her stupid eyes. Her stupid illusionary hol-shit. Every cocky smirk or comeback would cease to exist. She’d pay the price for underestimating the Ingini, for underestimating her.

  “If you don’t stop her, I will—”

  Sonora’s voice.

  “No one moves, or I’ll stop you—”

  Mack’s voice.

  They were fighting amongst themselves, and Adalai was letting her stand there with a gun to her head. She could stop this herself. She’d seen Adalai move. She could Blink beh
ind her, and it’d be over.

  Did Adalai want to die?

  Did Adalai think she wouldn’t do it?

  Was this a game to her?

  “Clove, please,” Emeryss tried. “I know this is all really terrible, and you can’t see past it right now, but none of us are in any position…”

  Adalai didn’t truly understand what it meant to be the absolute bottom of the barrel in the world. She couldn’t understand.

  But when she’d said she had nothing, she’d meant it, and Clove believed her.

  The RCA was everything to her. Doing her job had been everything. Here she’d done what she’d thought was her job and failed triumphantly in the view of everyone else.

  Adalai had become nothing. A nobody. And she’d have to live the rest of her life knowing she’d done this, she’d caused this, she’d pushed this into happening.

  And so, what?

  None of the war would stop.

  Nothing would end.

  It would continue.

  More hate. More pain. More fear. More loss.

  Starving. Homeless. Worked to death.

  Adalai was a ‘no one’ made to believe she was ‘someone.’ Just like her.

  “What did you say about sob stories?” Clove asked her.

  Adalai sniffled, but her words were clear. “Sob stories… don’t save… you…”

  “Clove, no!”

  “Clove, don’t do this!”

  Clove took a deep breath. “This won’t be my sob story. I won’t let it.”

  Adalai’s eyes glazed over.

  “This,” Clove said, “will be my revenge story, and it starts with her.” She spun, lowered the gun to Kimpert’s face, and pulled the trigger.

  She’d squeezed her eyes shut, something Cayn told her never to do, but when she opened her eyes, Kimpert’s body had crumpled over into the dirt.

  She turned back to Adalai.

  Adalai was trembling. Her legs and arms shook violently.

  “After we get back to Revel,” Clove said, “if I ever see you after that, I’ll kill you.”

  Chapter 40

  Pigyll — Ingini/Stadhold

  Adalai was in her bunk, staring at the cold gray metal above her. The airship had been relatively quiet since leaving Sufford for Revel.

  She wasn’t really focused on the metal sheeting above her.

  Her mind was a million seconds behind, watching the flames lick those buildings like old-fashioned matchsticks. Her mind was on the people running, screaming, dying in the streets, on Mykel’s body lying under a blanket.

  For no reason.

  There was no reason for any of it.

  Revel would say it happened because they didn’t get the Goliath she’d destroyed. But that wasn’t the truth.

  She took a deep breath.

  She’d known the truth the moment Orr left her there to die.

  Clove’s eyes kept drifting toward her from her own bunk across from her; Adalai could feel it.

  Clove hated her and nearly killed her for it.

  In some respects, she’d wished Clove had. It wasn’t the gun to her head that haunted her, it was General Orr, standing in that street, ordering the destruction of a town caught in the middle of the war, and then seeing her there and doing absolutely nothing about it.

  She was nothing to him.

  Her whole life from the moment she’d met him… had been a lie?

  The gray metal above her head with tiny bolts in its plating faded away.

  She’d been little, too little to be alone, and she’d been out looking for food, looking for something to fill her aching belly. It didn’t need to be much, just something small enough to get her through the night and the next morning. She’d figure out the next day’s food then.

  A group of RCA had been traveling through the lower levels from the academy up to central proper of Aurelis. It had been the first time she’d seen a group of well-trained Casters up close like that. And they were loaded with food.

  The first time they caught her trying to steal from their supply crates, they shot her off with a few bolts of air and ice spikes like a wild animal. But she’d dodged them easily enough and still managed to get some small pieces of fruit.

  The next night, she’d stolen a whole roasted leg of some animal. She’d Blinked in and out so fast, they cursed and cursed behind her as she ate hidden in an alley. It wasn’t until she’d made the mistake of following them a couple days more, and she’d tried to Blink out a crate full of food. It’d been sitting out like it was forgotten. Instead, it was a trap, and General Orr had been waiting for her.

  When he’d caught her, he’d asked her how she was able to move so fast and not get caught. He’d seen potential in her. Told her to straighten up, stop stealing, and she could join their group as a dishwasher to get fed like everyone else.

  She’d agreed, believing he saw something in her. All the men and women in his family were in the RCA, murdered by Ingini in different battles. He was alone, like her, and she’d believed him.

  When she’d joined the RCA officially, he’d taken her under his command. That’s when the stories started. Everyone suspected they’d had an unethical relationship, but none of those rumors were true. The two of them were more like a father and daughter if nothing else, and it just meant his eye was on her constantly. She couldn’t screw up, really. She couldn’t afford to be weak or vulnerable anymore. Those days of crying in the alley were over. She had someone who cared for what she would become.

  She thought she had someone who cared for what she would become.

  The cold thrum of the airship’s engines whirred on and on.

  It was probably the attention, the praise, the hope, but she’d always believed him.

  Now…

  He’d used her. All that scrubbing, all that extra duty, all that effort, had kept her isolated and staunchly in his view. He’d made a brainwashed soldier believe everything he’d said, and the line of what was real and true was too blurry to grasp hold of.

  Was everything a lie?

  The histories, the point of all those exercises and training, the tech, the politics, the king, the grimoires…

  It was too big, too much, and she wasn’t sure there was a whole lot she could do about it.

  So, what now?

  She closed her eyes.

  When the airship landed, and the engines cut, she woke.

  “We’re at the beach,” Jahree announced.

  That’s right. They wouldn’t be able to fly an Ingini-looking airship into Revelian airspace. They’d have to stop at the border on the beach, where they’d first landed, and cross on foot.

  She’d not even been made part of that planning.

  None of the crew had come to ask her or include her.

  Maybe they thought she was sleeping again and didn’t want to disturb her.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Truth.

  They didn’t want to ask her for help because she’d screwed up so badly.

  She wasn’t their leader; she wasn’t a leader.

  She wasn’t anything important because she didn’t have potential like General Orr had said. That was a lie, too. She was just Adalai, born to a prostitute on the streets of Aurelis, left to scrounge for herself as a half-bit illusionist.

  No one bothered to tell her it was time to leave or what the plan heading out was, and she wasn’t in any position to ask. When they passed her to exit out of the cargo hold, she simply followed.

  The sun was bright and low, early morning if she had to guess. The beach had a dense fog over calm waves.

  “I love the beach in the morning,” Emeryss said, taking Grier’s hand.

  “Ready to say goodbye?” Jahree asked Clove.

  Clove patted the hull of her airship, said goodbye to Pigyll as if they were old friends, and they all walked up the coastline toward Stadhold.

  It wasn’t more than thirty minutes of walking when they finally crossed the rift valley into the border.


  “Can you try to reach him again, Sonora?” Jahree asked.

  Adalai didn’t bother to ask who.

  Jahree was clearly calling the shots. She just had to do what she was told until she could get away from them.

  It wasn’t that she hated them. It was more that they clearly hated her. She didn’t even blame them for it.

  All those missions. All that time. Joking, playing, becoming what she’d thought was friends. They’d been so angry at her that they couldn’t face another one of her mistakes.

  Well, the feeling was mutual.

  She wouldn’t be doing anything to harm anyone else for a long time.

  Sonora nodded. “Got him, and he’s nearly at the pick-up point.”

  “This friend of yours,” Emeryss said, “can get us to Delour? Is he RCA?”

  “No, so we’re good. We don’t have to worry about getting in trouble or anything like that. He’s also bringing us… uh… some spare clothes.”

  The group fell silent.

  There was that hole again. She felt it in her chest and her stomach.

  Mykel, Tully, Kayson.

  They approached a small alcove with an eddy of water moving through it. It looked like it’d come through Stadhold. Fresh water running into the sea, it mixed in an open cavern on the beach.

  “There he is!” Jahree squinted at the sky and pointed.

  An airship about the size of Pigyll landed gently, and a small man with dark hair and dark eyes came out. Jahree and his friend hugged, joked about something she couldn’t hear, and welcomed them aboard with new clothes.

  They’d changed into the fresh garments—simple pants and shirts—and settled in the bridge. There weren’t enough seats, and Jahree’s friend apologized profusely for it, but they made do sitting around in the hull.

  She caught her reflection in a piece of shiny metal near her spot on the floor.

  She looked… sallow, a literal shade of blue, sunken, defeated. Her hair wasn’t a lively shade of purple or pink. It wasn’t even bright and healthy. It looked dried, deadened, as empty as she felt.

  The airship took off.

  “Oh, man, when Sonora contacted me I was so excited,” Jahree’s friend said. “Have you heard the Messengers? They’re going crazy over that battle. Your names, all of your names just about, made the list of the dead.”