“Let’s go back,” I say. Beside me, Callen shivers. “Here.”
I lift the cloak and awkwardly drape it around the two of us. Our boots will get wet, but at least he’ll stop shaking. Callen uses his arm and helps, propping up the fabric like a little roof.
Is this a mistake? I just want him warm. Or do I want him close? I don’t dare look at Callen, but I feel him—our limbs touching as we walk, the discomfort of my wet clothes forgotten in my racing pulse.
“You okay?” Callen asks.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
When the barn comes back into sight, I sigh. “Seth’s going to have my hide.”
Callen shrugs. “We can tell him it was me.”
“No, no,” I return, wiping yet another slick lock of hair from my face. “You still have a reputation.”
“And so do you,” he says, turning to face me with our shared cloak overhead. “Even if they’re angry when they notice you’re gone. After we save the city there’s no way that the king doesn’t pardon you.”
I pause. “Do you really think that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice to hear someone else say it,” I reply. I’ve been so wrapped up in acting first, thinking later, that I haven’t allowed much room for any logical thought—and Callen does love logic.
I finally look at him. In the moment, it’s so easy to remember the past golden hours we spent together. Our whole lives, two pairs of wings soaring side by side.
Callen keeps very still, until I swear to the skies he leans in. Our breaths mingle, and I study his face, his eyes, his lips …
He pulls back abruptly, sending rainwater dripping down my head. “Hey!” I say as I catch the cloak at the last second and pull it back.
“Sorry,” he says. “I just didn’t think this was a good time to…”
“I know,” I reply. “But … do you know what I thought when the teams were named?” He shakes his head. “My first thought was that you’d better come home.”
Callen furrows his brow. “Okay?”
“But this isn’t about me or you. Or Ox.”
“I know.”
“But if for one moment, it was about us,” I start. His head snaps up, expression so full of hope. “Then I’d tell you that I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, and I’m not going to risk a lifetime of friendship on a chance that I’ll change my mind.” I know I’m falling short. I know my words aren’t enough, but I have to say something. “If this was about us, then I’d tell you that you know I love you. Of course I do. How could I not? You’re my best friend, Callen, and I love you for that. I just don’t know for certain if I’m in love with you.”
The pain in his eyes is enough to snuff out the sun. “Right. Okay.”
“We have more important things to focus on,” I say. “Let’s find the cure. Then we can … figure this out.”
He gives me a half-hearted smile. “Okay.”
Then he hands me the now-useless cloak and turns for the barn. I watch him walk away, feeling as if I am trying to grasp at the sun long after it’s slipped below the horizon, leaving shadows in its wake.
23
CALLEN
Ox is awake when we get back. His eyes follow Rowan as she waves him a quiet hello, collapsing into the hay without bothering to try to dry off. Sethran, thank the skies, doesn’t stir.
“I can keep watch another hour,” Ox says.
“Thanks,” I reply.
We both know that it’s my turn, but it’s not like I got any sleep traipsing around outside. Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be getting any more, after what Rowan said to me out in the rain.
I settle into the hay, heart still racing in a way that gives no promised rest.
I remember the exact moment I realized I loved her. Training had been brutal that day, and I was in a foul mood, but Jai and Exin got me to join them at an evening’s dance with their friendly encouragement and a glass of wine. It was a good vintage, something Exin had haggled over for nearly an hour before getting it down to a reasonable price, and it did its job.
Across the room, Rowan and her friends danced together in a circle. A couple of bolder Leonodai offered their hands and soon everyone was pairing off. The music of the hall bounced raucously in my mind, its eager tempo egging me on.
Skies, I remember thinking. What a perfect winter night.
Rowan loves to dance. I could see it in her movements so plainly—the flow of her dress and sash waving elegantly as she moved with the beat. She grabbed Vera’s hands, and they danced together, energetic as kids. She saw me across the hall and smiled—and that’s when I knew.
No matter what happens, I know our history will bind us forever. What I don’t know is if forever has us flying side by side, or skies apart.
* * *
A donkey’s bray interrupts the morning. I flinch at the sharpness of the sound, but my eyes aren’t on the animals below us. They’re on the human.
He’s up early. Dressed in dull brown garb, he walks to the far side of the house to a small box garden and an adjacent chicken coop. Carrying the fragile eggs in his hand, he goes back inside. Every now and then, his shadow passes in front of the warped glass of the window of the house.
Sethran gets up with a small groan as he stretches out his legs and back. He takes a knee beside me. “What do you see?”
“One human. No other movement within the house.” Then, a moment later, “He’s coming this way.”
I scoot back from the wall and look at the bales of hay around us. We’re hidden, but should the human come up to the loft, he’ll see. Sethran rallies the others. Ox raises his bow and nocks an arrow.
“Only if he sees us,” Sethran says. “We don’t want the humans to know we’re here.”
Then doors groan open, sending a shower of dust upward. The human says something cheerily, addressing the horse in the stall. The humans’ language is heavy, like boots stomping. The four of us watch and wait as the human shoves a saddle and bridle over the animal’s body and head. I loosen the hold on my axe. He’s leaving. I ease back over to the barn’s side and peek out between the slats, checking for light or movement inside the house.
The human finishes readying the horse, then rides off. When the beat of hooves on the earth fades entirely, I get up.
“There’s no one in the house,” I say quickly, hands trembling with anticipation—or hunger, it’s hard to tell. “There will be food in there.”
Sethran adjusts the sword at his hip. “Are you sure it’s empty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s go.”
As we crawl out of the same entrance we came through last night, the salty air settles on my skin in a fine mist. Sethran reaches the house first and tries the door, but it’s locked. Rowan walks around the back and finds a window that’s unlatched. After climbing in, she comes back around and opens the door for the rest of us.
Inside, the house is dark but blissfully warm. A clean table rests upon a worn rug with some mud tracked onto the edges and beneath the chairs. A bowl of yellow and green apples beckons from the kitchen. I grab one and hold it reverently for a moment before sinking my teeth into it.
Ox opens his satchel, and Rowan puts the fruit inside. It doesn’t sit right with me that we’re stealing, especially having seen so much muddy, empty farmland on the way here. Still, we have to survive. There’s half a loaf of bread on the table, too, beside bits of cooked meat and cheese, and a few empty cups. I could eat it all by myself, but Ro dutifully divides the portions into fours. Ox goes through the rest of the kitchen for good measure.
“That’s all there is,” he says.
“No, it’s not,” she replies. Her eyes are fixed on a small cup on the table.
Ox strides over to her. “What?”
She holds out the cup. Inside is a flower with six petals, each a blazing red.
24
SHIRENE
“Is that everyone?” I ask Lyreina, wiping beads of sweat off my
brow.
She looks up from the scroll laid out before us. “It’s as close to everyone as we’ll be able to get. The Keep is full.”
We’re stationed on the southeastern part of the palace ridge, where a massive pair of half-circle doors has been let wide, revealing the deepest tunnels below the palace. The Keep hasn’t ever been used like this. We’re lucky to have it. The more citizens we can shelter in its depths, the better, at least until the warriors return and we are at full strength again.
Typically, it houses the boat used to transport the ambassadors to the sea when they need to travel to and from Vyrinterra. I still cringe at the memory of being on duty when they needed it lowered to the sea—even with a team helping hold the lines, it was heavy as stone.
The teams of today don’t have to keep their jaws on the lines as long as I had to. Each day, the sea creeps closer. What used to be hundreds of feet of open air between the Heliana and the water is slowly disappearing.
The aeroplanes—as Noam told us they were called—came back last night and earlier this morning, but they kept a wider berth, shooting bullets into the open air. I wish I could say that made me feel better, but it just told me they were gathering information about us. That kind of reconnaissance meant something greater was on the way.
Usually, the Heliana swarmed with citizens flying here and there, and warriors training in the skies, especially in the summer when Vyrinterra’s bounties were plentiful and the afternoons long. But these days had been long for the worst of reasons. The exhaustion chipped away at me like a sculptor chipped at stone—only I was being broken apart. I couldn’t stop. I had to press on.
When the morning’s seventh bell tolls, Lyreina and I fly back to the Glass Tower for a council meeting. The place feels less hallowed with each day, as if the mirrors and polished decorations have lost their shine.
The king takes his seat without any of the usual formalities. The Chief Healer and Chief Scholar had been invited, joining us sentinels alongside the king. Both take their places on the opposite side of the table. Despite her station, the Chief Healer wears the same working uniform of the healers downstairs. Her long gray hair is tied back, though long strands have fallen free. Like me, I don’t think she’s slept much in days.
“Thank you all, again, for coming,” says the king. “Sentinel Carrick, how go the repairs?”
My colleague bows his head in respect. “All the buildings damaged by the machines’ attacks have been examined. A few will need extensive work, but most could be restored within a week, when it is safe to do so.”
“And the defenses?” the king asks.
“We have teams of warriors ferrying stones from Vyrinterra as we speak,” he says. “The sentinels are in agreement with the generals that we need as offensive a strategy as possible. With the citizens in the Keep or in rooms in their homes, warriors and warriors-elect will take the lead.”
The king puts a hand to his brow. “And there has been no word from Balmora.”
Who the king is addressing doesn’t matter. It is a statement and not a question. None of the warriors we sent have returned from Balmora yet. Why would they? We sent them far and with the belief that they had more time.
“Not yet, Your Grace,” I answer finally. Someone has to. “By our count, the warriors should be reaching the human capital today or early tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Lady Shirene.” The king turns to the Chief Healer. “How many are in your care now?”
The woman bows her head low. “Twenty-nine sick, and seven have died.”
“All children?”
“Yes, my king.” She raises her voice. “I beg the sentinels to do more about the citizens. To tell them what is going on. They already know that children are dying. Even those without young kids will not sit long in the Keep without getting restless.”
“We are all upset at the children’s sickness,” I say. “But we are doing all we can. Families with young children are already sheltering in their homes and not the Keep. Healers are checking on their condition several times each day. The teams have been sent. We must wait and have faith they will return.”
“Save your words, Sentinel Shirene” is her response. “You have said the same script to the citizens.”
My stomach tightens like a knot pulled on either side. She is right. Last night, we’d updated the city on the situation—how we wanted the older, vulnerable citizens to make their way to the Keep, while others were instructed to shelter in the most secluded parts of their homes away from windows. The sentinels had prepared my speech together, but I had to deliver it. Someday, I’ll forget the desperate cries, the demands to know more. But we kept the message as steady as the sun’s path in the sky: help is on the way; we just have to be patient.
“And what of the city falling?” Lyreina asks, shifting attention to the Chief Scholar. An elderly man thrice my age, his eyesight is beginning to fail him, but his wits remain sharp as arrows. So much of our history is carried in his heart and mind. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“My lady, the city falls as the prince gets worse,” the Chief Scholar replies. “Apologies, my king, for being so blunt.”
The king waves him off wearily.
Lyreina presses further. “Do you think it will fall entirely?”
“Skies keep us, no,” says the Chief Scholar. “If the warriors return with the cure in time, then the city will be restored to her normal place in the skies.”
“That said,” the Chief Healer cuts in, “I know no one wishes to say it, so I will. Forgive me, my king, but don’t you feel we should prepare—at least in some way—for the worst?”
I exhale, my heart thumping hard in my chest. “Which is?”
“Abandoning the Heliana,” she replies.
A few chairs down from me, Renna leans forward. “Chief Healer, I’m surprised. You’d abandon the city so easily? Our warriors can and should make a stand here, on streets they know.”
“And what of the people who don’t know how to fight, hmm?” the Chief Healer replies. “You surround yourself with warriors, but you forget that there are other citizens at play here. Other lives. If the city falls, the humans will be on us in a matter of hours. We know they can reach us by sea, and now by air. Seeking refuge on Vyrinterra is not a permanent solution, but our people would last longer in the shelter of the bearkings’ fortresses than they will here. Our city is not built to be defended.”
She has never needed to be, I think bitterly. The thought of retreat is painful, but I can see why her mind went there. The Heliana would not become a second Garradin. If retreat is needed, we’ll retreat. Though I can only imagine the colorful language that Princess Freanna would unleash if thousands of Leonodai started landing on Vyrinterra’s shores, headed for their carefully guarded lands.
The king clears his throat. “Thank you for your words, Chief Healer. I know we would all like to believe that’s impossible, but without word that the cure has been found … I agree it must be considered.”
Renna opens her mouth to retort. Beside her, Hammond puts a steady hand on her arm.
“Your Grace,” says Hammond. “If the city is to be abandoned, then we must preserve every part of Leonodai tradition that we can and take it with us to Vyrinterra.”
“There is still time,” Renna interjects, but the king silences her with a wave of his hand.
“Tell the scholars and trainees to begin gathering our oldest and most vital texts,” he says. “I detest the possibility more than anyone in this room, but we must be ready to react as needed.”
“It will be done, Your Grace,” the Chief Scholar replies.
I sway with the pain of our reality. Gathering texts. Sending scared citizens fleeing to Vyrinterra. And no word from the east.
I close my eyes—it is all too much. What I wouldn’t give to have Seth hold me in his arms, to whisper to me that we’re going to be all right. I need him for moments like this.
“And what of the prince?” Hammond asks q
uietly, each word heavy as a river stone. “They will start putting the truth together for themselves soon enough. Should we tell them of his condition?”
His words snap me back to the present. Tell the citizens? It is the fair thing to do, but skies, at what cost? They would do as the Chief Healer predicts: they’d get angry, and more afraid than they already are. It would breed further chaos.
After a long pause, the king looks eastward toward Balmora. “My son has time. I will not inflict a panic on the citizens by revealing his condition now. Let us wait, and let us pray to the skies that the teams return swiftly.”
The council breaks up with a scraping of chairs against the floor and restless murmurs. Every setback of the past days has finally tipped the scale in my chest, and the guilt of it roots me to the spot. We humbled ourselves to Noam much too late. We’d sent the warriors too late, built our defenses too late. Was it arrogance that kept us from ever wondering if the Heliana would fall?
“Lady Shirene,” says a voice, one that has become familiar. Lord Rhys and Lady Alys stand before me. With the Sea Queen in agreement with King Kharo’s plans, I hadn’t expected them to feel compelled to attend this meeting. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed they had joined.
“Are you all right?” Lady Alys asks. “You look ill.”
I grit my teeth. “Lost in thought,” I reply, getting out of my chair. “Is there something you need?”
Rhys points across the room at the Chief Scholar. “We wanted to ask you about him.”
“What of him?”
“It is strange to us,” he says. “You trust him completely.”
I frown. “The scholars are keepers of our history. They have a sacred duty to the Heliana, and we reward that duty with trust.”
“Oh, we don’t think he is lying,” Lady Alys says, her tone ever a ringing chime. “Only that truth changes. You may not see it, in one lifetime. For our people, truth is like water—it will never rest, never cease folding and unfolding upon itself.”
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