Moons went by, and the rhythm was only broken when a cry sounded that an airship had been spotted. Kala was in the village this time, sharpening her blade, when she caught word. She decided to finish sharpening her knife before heading to the landing field as it would be some time before the airship was secured, but her hands shook from nerves and she almost cut herself repeatedly. She gave up and grabbed a piece of fruit instead. Can’t cut myself on an apple, she thought and steeled up the courage to make her way to the landing field.
She arrived just as the last rope tethering it was secured. She spotted Calix on a line and waved at him. He only smiled and nodded back, not wanting to risk losing his grip. She looked around and found Cera and Lily in the crowd. She walked over and squeezed both their shoulders. They grinned and Lily opened her mouth to speak…
“Fishhooks?” Kala snuck in.
Lily pursed her lips, then said, “I wasn’t going to say anything about fish hooks.” The girls each raised an eyebrow to coax from her whatever she had planned on saying, but she just blushed and swatted them. They fell to laughing until dirty looks from the people around them shamed them into propriety.
“Serious business these balloons,” Cera said, wiping her eyes. And yes, while one of them could be sent away in the ship and even if not, the village’s survival hinged on its cargo, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t still find humor in it to deal with the tension.
Lily’s father strode about giving orders. Torin paced nearby in his usual menacing way. Several off-duty gate guards fetched their spears and returned to take up positions around the ship.
Finally, receiving a nod from Claudius, Torin marched up to open the door. Again, he struggled to figure out which way to turn the wheel and Kala buried her forehead in her palms. He solved the riddle of left vs. right, and the door eventually swung open. Torin pulled out his knife and peered inside. After adjusting his sight, he stepped in and re-emerged a moment later, quicker than he had the last time.
“Door’s locked,” he reported and paused to let that sink in. The youth of the village visibly relaxed. “But we’ve got company,” he added. The villagers tensed, and the guards rearranged themselves to flank the door. Kala stared into the black hole that was the door of the airship.
No one from the village would be sent away this time, but some unfortunate soul had been sent to them. Torin waited for the go-ahead from Claudius, and while he waited, he made a show of flipping his dagger into the air and catching it after an increasing number of rotations. Kala tried to figure out who loved the attention more until Claudius finally signaled Torin that everyone was in position.
Torin found a grip on his knife that he liked and headed back into the ship. The village was dead silent. A faint click was heard, and a moment later, a tall youth was shoved roughly through the door, although he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by Torin’s aggressivity. He stood tall, flexing his cramped muscles and squinting into the sunlight. He was gorgeous, with deep blue eyes and a square jaw. He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed the crowd, making several of the younger girls sigh. Kala instantly disliked him for it.
“Name?” Claudius asked, eager to reassert his authority.
The boy looked at him quizzically, as though he didn’t quite grasp the language.
“Your name?” Claudius repeated, irritated.
“Skye,” the boy answered. A few people snickered, but the boy remained unfazed.
“What are your skills?” Claudius asked.
No ‘Welcome to our little hamlet,’ Kala thought, annoyed at the brusqueness of the interrogation.
“Mining, if that’s a skill, and I’m good with animals,” Skye replied.
“Hmmm. I’m not sure how useful either of those is, but you look strong enough that I’m sure we’ll find a use for you. In the meantime, there is a room at the back of the cow barn that you can stay in.”
Skye seemed satisfied with that, but a voice rang out from the back of the crowd, “I’ll take the boy in.” It was Kala’s grandfather.
No! thought Kala, but Claudius considered the offer and shrugged his acceptance of it. Several girls who were clearly admirers of the new arrival cursed their luck that their parents didn't have their best interests at heart and shot Kala dirty looks. Oh gods, Kala winced, this is not my doing.
Kala’s grandfather stepped forward to collect the boy. The guards looked unsure of the turn of events and sought assurance from Claudius. He made it clear that allowing this was his doing and gestured for the guards to stand down. They let Skye pass as Kala’s grandfather waved him forward.
Kala looked at the uneaten apple in her hand, and realizing that she’d lost her appetite, tossed it to the boy. He caught it deftly and took a bite. Kala wheeled around to go, but her grandfather walked right up to her with Skye in tow, ensuring that she couldn’t escape being part of this. She sighed, remembering that her grandfather had once been in this boy’s shoes and vowed to play nice.
“Skye, huh?” she muttered.
“My mother had a sense of humor,” he replied and winked at her.
I’m so going to kill this boy! she thought and stormed off, leading the way home.
6
Skye
Kala opened the door to their cottage and let it swing back into Skye. He caught it without breaking his stride and held it open for her grandfather. Great, a gentleman rogue, Kala thought, the worst kind. Skye followed her grandfather into their humble home.
“We have an unused room,” her grandfather told him, gesturing toward it. “You’re welcome to it.”
Skye paused for the briefest of moments as he tried to figure out how they could have an unused room is so tiny a house.
Kala picked up on his hesitation and it annoyed her. She didn’t owe him an explanation for why neither her nor her grandfather could bring themselves to disturb the room her parents shared before they died. “I sleep out here,” she said, sitting down on her bed. “The room is all yours.”
To his credit, Skye didn’t question the odd arrangement. He simply nodded his thanks. “You’re very kind,” he told them.
“I’m not. He is,” Kala clarified, gesturing to her grandfather.
“I’ll go find some food,” her grandfather chimed in. “You look hungry.”
“Thank you, sir,” Skye said, “but please, no dried fish. I just spent the past several days eating nothing but.” He shuddered. “If I see another fish before I die, it’ll be too soon.”
Kala’s grandfather smiled as he left, “Got it – no fish.”
“So, what brings you to our quaint little village?” Kala asked when her grandfather had left.
“A big black balloon apparently,” he joked.
“Ha ha,” replied Kala dryly. “I mean, how’d you get chosen? What’s your people’s custom for choosing their ‘victim’?”
“I dared to fall in love with the Chief’s daughter. No wait, that was irrelevant. She had the audacity to fall in love with me, a boy of, let’s say, ‘humble means.’ That was not the plan the Chief had for his daughter, so I was ‘selected’ to be sent away. But don’t worry, I won’t be here long. I’m going to find my way back.”
Lovesick fool, she thought. There is no going back.
“Someone has to look after my mother,” he continued. “That’s been my responsibility ever since my father died.” His sunny demeanor clouded briefly.
Kala decided to burn out the part of her brain that assumed the worst of everyone. “I’m sorry,” was all she could think to say.
An awkward moment later, there was a knock at the door. It was Cera. “You forgot your things,” she said to Skye, placing his small pile of possessions inside the door and turning to go.
Skye jumped up and called after her to thank her. He stood in the doorway, watching appreciatively as she walked away, which made Kala change her mind about him again and want to belt him.
“She’s not your type,” she said dryly.
“She’s
everybody’s type,” he replied under his breath while collecting his things. He held them awkwardly for a moment until Kala told him there was a dresser in ‘his’ room that he could use. He disappeared into it to deposit his things inside.
“Why didn’t you bring them with you?” Kala asked him through the doorway.
“Your friendly man-mountain didn’t exactly suggest I gather my things before hauling me out,” he replied as he reappeared.
“Right… Torin. Sorry about him.”
Skye shrugged and sat down in a chair across from Kala on her bed. For the first time in her life, she felt self-conscious about her bed being in the main room.
Skye picked up on it and said, “I’m sorry that I’m invading your space. I’ll totally respect your privacy. And put me to work. I should earn my keep.”
Kala couldn’t decide what to make of him, so she reprised their earlier conversation, “So how, precisely, do you plan on finding your way home?”
“Funny you should ask,” he replied, jumped up, and returned from his room with what looked like a journal. “I’ve been trying to figure out the airships. They seem to come and go at random, but they’re slaves to the wind and the winds seem to have a preference for which way they blow. If I can figure out the routes they take, I might be able to find a way back home.”
Kala couldn’t hide her skepticism, but she tried her best to seem at least a little supportive. “They say the God of the Winds is capricious.”
“I don’t have much time for Gods,” Skye replied, sensing that Kala wasn’t all that religious. He pulled out a stub of a pencil and opened his book. “Okay, tell me everything that comes to your village in the airships, and everything you send out. No detail too small.”
He looked at her so earnestly that she sighed and complied, telling him everything she could think of.
What felt like an eternity later, her grandfather returned, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He set to making lunch for the three of them, and Skye returned his journal to his room.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“You can tell us a bit about your home,” Kala’s grandfather replied as he cut up some fruit.
“Hmmm. Not a very exciting story there,” he began. “It’s deep in the mountains. It’s a wonder the airships find their way to it at all actually, but our village sits on a rich seam of iron, and I guess that’s important enough to the world that the airships make the effort. We send out large quantities of iron, and large quantities of just about everything else comes back.”
“So, the fishhooks come from you,” Kala concluded, a little accusingly.
“No, we’re not artisans, just miners. I’m sure someone downwind fashions the iron into something useful. We just pull it out of the ground. I’ve spent a fair bit of my life deep underground, but above ground, my village is quite beautiful. It’s carved right into the mountain-side, and the sun on the peaks is dazzling.”
Kala was captivated. His eyes sparkled as he talked, but when she stared into them, she realized that their exact color eluded her. She first thought they were grey-blue, but when he laughed, they became bright blue, and when he grew thoughtful, they seemed aquamarine. Hints of hazel ringed his pupils. Kala became embarrassed when she realized that she was staring at him.
“Tell us more,” her grandfather said, saving her from the awkwardness.
Skye went on, “Our village is pretty compact. The houses are clustered together and connected so you don’t have to go outside in the winter unless you absolutely had to, and believe me that you wouldn’t want to – it is cold enough as it is, but the wind can make it unbearable. My own home is pretty tiny, but it didn’t really matter because it was just my mother and me at home. My father died in a cave-in when I was a child.”
Kala’s grandfather stopped slicing an apple. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you. I gather that Kala’s parents aren’t with us anymore as well,” Skye hazarded, connecting the clues. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” her grandfather replied, warming increasingly to the boy.
“I have an older sister too, I guess,” Skye continued, “but she married young, and sort of got absorbed by her husband’s family. We didn’t see her much after that,” he added wistfully. “We had goats,” he went on. “Goats don’t mind the cold, the thin air, or the steep slopes. I was always rounding them up when they wandered too far. It’s a miracle really that I haven’t fallen to my death a hundred times.”
He went on about his village’s customs, his favorite foods, and hilarious stories about people Kala didn’t know but could now imagine clearly. He was a born story-teller like her grandfather. He laughed readily and heartily, and she also warmed to him more and more. Soon it grew dark, and Kala cursed herself for accomplishing nothing much of value all day, but she was oddly content anyway. Her grandfather shooed Skye off to bed, and she went to bed herself not long after, feeling a fullness that she hadn’t felt in many years.
Kala woke the next day to find her grandfather and a shirtless Skye drinking kai. She blushed and flopped over to face away from them. The movement caught Skye’s attention, and he called over, “Morning, sleepyhead. Your grandfather and I have hatched a plan to fix the roof today.” With that, he leaped to his feet and placed his cup down on the table. “Where’s this storehouse you spoke of?” he asked her grandfather.
“I’ll show you,” he replied and got to his feet as well. They headed out, Skye not even bothering to put on a shirt.
“Well, that’s going to cause a scandal,” Kala muttered into her pillow. She dragged herself out of bed, washed, and got dressed. A tiny part of her wanted to rummage through Skye’s things, but she wasn’t that terrible a person, was she? she thought. She decided she wasn’t and passed the time instead by fletching arrows from a pile of branches that she’d collected.
She was only alerted to Skye and her grandfather’s return by the sounds of rustling from the thatched roof above. A while later, a low murmur of conversation made its way into the cottage and Kala decided to investigate. She peeked out the door and saw a small crowd of village girls watching shirtless-Skye scamper about the roof at the direction of her grandfather, who was sitting on a pile of firewood. Holding court among the girls was Kira, Councilor Sayer’s granddaughter. Oh no, thought Kala, that girl is trouble.
Kala was supremely annoyed that her quiet existence was being turned on its head. She craved the peace of the forest, so she returned inside, pulled on her leathers, fastening the straps around her waist, and securing her knife at her thigh. She pulled on her high boots and patted herself down in a silent inventory. Content that she was ready, she headed out to gather more branches from the forest. Pine would do, but cedar would hold its straightness better, and she wanted a long walk anyway. She pushed out the door and told her grandfather her plans so he wouldn’t worry about her absence. He reached up and squeezed her arm, and she turned to go. Skye whistled playfully at her from the roof, prompting Kira to shoot her a look of pure venom. Kala clenched her teeth and stalked off to the forest by way of the closest gate. Normally, she’d walk around the village to the side from which the cedar stand was nearest, but for now, she just wanted to put some distance between her and the village.
The forest was quiet when she entered it, and Kala immediately felt more at peace. She flexed her muscles and sharpened her mind. No daydreaming here – time to pay attention. She took a roundabout way to the nearest cedar stand and took her time finding the most promising branches. It was nearly dark before she started for home.
She arrived back at her cottage to a wonderful smell. Skye, now properly clothed, thank the gods, was hovering over the tiny stove stirring a pot.
“Skye’s preparing a dish from his village,” her grandfather announced. “We stopped work on the roof early so he could round up the ingredients. The girls were mightily disappointed.”
“I’ll bet they were,” Kala said sarcastically and de
posited her bushel of sticks in a heap between her bed and the wall.
Skye just grinned, and she had to restrain herself from throwing a stick at him. She bent and straightened out the pile instead. Besides, whatever he was cooking smelled delicious, and who could be annoyed at someone who was making you dinner? She sighed and tied her hair back out of her face.
“Dinner is served,” Skye announced.
Kala made her way to the tiny kitchen table and promised herself not to enjoy the food too much, but promptly broke her promise by having a second serving. She tried at least to look like she wasn’t enjoying it as much as she was. Maybe I’m just hungry, Kala thought. Skye watched her intently, and she doubted that she’d put on a convincing act of indifference.
They all leaned back in their chairs, content. Skye pointed at the salt shaker. “I bet that came from my village,” he said proudly.
“The shaker?” Kala asked, wondering why he’d be so proud of such a nondescript lump of pottery.
“No, the salt. We mine that too.”
Kala looked at him skeptically. “Doesn’t that come from the ocean?” she challenged him, remembering her schooling.
“I imagine it would be hard to get it out of the water. We just pull it out of the ground.”
“And how, pray tell, did it get underground?” Kala pressed.
“The story of our people is that the God of Earth and the Goddess of the Sea fell in love, but she missed the sea and left him. The salt is from his tears.”
“That’s a nice story, but it doesn’t really solve the mystery.” Kala hated made-up answers, so she got up to gather the dishes, but Skye gently placed a hand on her shoulder and got up instead. It was a surprisingly tender gesture, and her head swam. Skye busied himself washing the dishes while Kala’s grandfather begged off to an early bed, closing the door to his room quietly behind him.
Raven's Wings Page 5