“What the hell happened here?”
“A bit of gymnastics over our enemy. Got sent to scout their defenses on the coast, and they radioed me to keep my distance. So I did what we all would do—told them I couldn’t speak Resyan and went in for a closer look!”
“They fired at you?” I ask, stunned. The Resyans really can’t afford to be seen as provoking anyone. Not with the position they’re in.
“Do you blame them?” Thorn replies. “They see the writing on the wall.” He moves me to the far side of his fighter, lowering his voice from the mechanics. “And between us, I’d bet the big show starts tonight. We’ve carried this thing for as long as we can. Now it’s time to face the music.” He pauses. “And I don’t think this is going to be a quick surrender either. They’ll be on the defense, above their own homes, and God knows they’ll fight like hell to defend it. I would.”
As usual, he sees straight through me. My unspoken hope for a short war. He’s always known how to read me, even back when I was just the little kid brother Arrin and Kalt had no time for. It’s why I’ve always wanted to fly with him. He can keep up with any of the cocky aces, running them gamble for gamble, but inside he’s gold. Honest and good. And unlike every other squadron captain here, he understands me in the way that matters. He knows what it’s like to serve with a hefty last name. To have a father in power and be caught between worlds.
“Don’t go too low in your plane tomorrow,” he continues, and he looks more like his father as he says this. A face that can be quietly intimidating through sheer soberness. “Your brother’s mad idea is going to be deadly. We’re going to lose pilots.”
“Too late for that,” I reply. “I’m in the first wave.”
“Not anymore. My Nightfoxes just got plucked to be the third squadron going ahead of the divisions.”
I stare. “No. Moonstrike got plucked.”
They did, because I volunteered them.
Thorn smiles. “Apparently the God of War did some shuffling around. You’re back off the hook, going up with the bombers instead.”
At that, something hurts in my chest—a confusing mess of anger and disbelief. I volunteered for this hell, the whole thing was my idea, more fighters for the main assault. And Arrin’s pushed me right back out again. Away from the worst of it.
I’m not sure if I should be furious or touched.
Thorn grabs my shoulder lightly. “Quit worrying, would you? I’d rather it was me than someone else. I can do it right. By the way, saw your brother last night on the Impressive.”
“Please make sure he stays on board until we have the beachhead,” I recite glumly. “My father would appreciate that.”
Thorn chuckles. “I served with him in Karkev and I don’t think anyone could stop him from disembarking early, even if they wanted to.” I must be staring out in alarm at the distant convoy where the Impressive waits, Arrin quite possibly plotting to join his own siege, because Thorn’s hand waves in front of my face. “Hey. You got any food not from a tin can here? It’ll be at least an hour before they fix my plane.”
This time, his obvious distraction chafes. I’m not eight anymore.
“Everything naval is cheap, expendable, and comes in a tin can,” I reply pointedly. “Like us.”
Thorn raises his hands. “Oh no. Athan Dakar sarcasm. I’ve really entered the flak field now.”
I resist a grin. “But … there might be illegal rum.”
“Forget the food, then. You ever seen five battleships unload a barrage?”
I shake my head.
He smiles again, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “Then you’d better get a little drunk, Charm. You won’t be sleeping tonight.”
11
AURELIA
Norvenne, Landore
The evening we see the General’s son off to his aeroplane, the setting sun is hidden by clouds. I’ve hardly spoken with him since our nighttime meeting, left outside this swirl of diplomacy which stubbornly remains the realm of men—and my mother. Windom departed as quickly as he arrived, pulled away by some urgent business in the South, and the rest of the time was spent drinking wine and marveling at the naval display along the docks. Now the Captain is bound for Savient with our Resyan settlements to encourage this fragile peace since summer, and it’s Havis who passes him the leather briefcase.
I’m determined to ensure some kind of promise of my own.
“I hope we’ll continue these discussions,” I tell the Captain politely, searching for some assurance that he sees my deeper meaning. No war from his brother. Only a future which holds something better for him and the world alike. “There’s no need for trouble when we have everyone at the table and a favourable way forward.”
He gives a curt nod, bundled up in his long wool coat, Havis’s briefcase now in his hands. “Perhaps,” he replies, equally polite. He looks down at me, breath misting. “And please choose your next steps carefully, Princess.”
His soft words are a flicker in the cold, then he’s striding for his aeroplane.
The others head back inside to warmer halls, but I linger at the edge of the aerodrome, watching the Captain’s plane rise up and merge with the iron clouds, disappearing.
Havis also watches, his empty hands fidgeting, as if he misses the briefcase he’s so often held. “Looks like we’re going to Resya, Aurelia. Tonight.”
I turn to him, stunned. “Tonight?”
He grimaces, agitated in the drab light. “If you truly want to work for peace, then we need to go now. Are you with me?”
For a moment, I can only register how strange urgency looks on him. It’s always hard to determine if it’s real. Is he telling the truth? What if Havis is the one who has the most to gain here? But I’m also certain he’s drawn the same conclusions as I have—that the Commander is still scheming somewhere in the shadows, trying to get his war however he can. Racing us to the end.
And I have to head him off with a better negotiation.
I nod. “I’ll do anything, Havis.”
“You shouldn’t say that. Not yet. Meet me out here in an hour?”
I’ll have to sneak away from both Mother and Reni, but I’ll find a way, and we march back inside together as if nothing’s the matter.
Violet, my only true ally, helps me pack, a few simple blouses and skirts and dresses, then she shuts the trunk for me, her hands shaky on the clasp. Her green eyes peer up into my face, knowing so little of my mission, yet knowing enough to fear. “You’re brave to do this, Ali. Braver than me.”
I muster a smile, fighting the realization that we’re saying goodbye. Perhaps for a very long time. “I might actually be rather witless,” I confess. “But I love you, Violet.”
She kisses my cheek. “I love you. And I’ll be waiting here when you return and everything’s made right. We’ll always be strung together like stars, no matter how far or wide we go. I promise.”
This I believe, a tiny warmth in my chest that I need right now.
Before I can begin to question my own sanity, I pick up my trunk and haul it awkwardly for the door. Usually someone grapples with it for me. I don’t look backwards, hurrying down the soundless evening corridors of this strange palace, longing to say goodbye to Mother even though I know that would sabotage the entire thing. She’d place me under house arrest, for certain. Possibly banish Havis forever. A funny laugh bubbles up inside me. I could frame Havis tonight—an ambassador kidnapping a princess—and be done with him forever. But now that I have the chance, it feels as far from what I want as actually marrying him.
Havis, my regrettable ally.
“Making your escape?” a quiet voice asks behind me.
I spin. Reni’s shoulders are already lowered in surrender, a sad expression on his face. He’s been preparing for this moment for weeks, despite his insistence that somehow, someway, he might undo whatever dark thing happened the night of the coup.
But even a prince can’t undo death.
“I
t’s now or never,” I reply firmly. “Havis insists.”
“Be careful.”
I nod, looking up into his troubled eyes. They hide the words he’s decided not to say, the final protests against his only sister’s venturing off into a precarious world that’s far from here. “Violet’s staying in Landore, Reni. Please help her catch the train she needs. I know it’s hard for you, what she’s doing, but she needs—”
“I’d do anything she asked.”
He doesn’t hesitate, his voice honest, and I know he’s going to let her leave. He’s going to let her leave the same way he’s letting me leave. Some deeply tender part of him has been roused since the coup. Weighted with responsibility, desperate to love well. Mother always said I had my father’s heart, but she was wrong.
It’s Reni.
How I wish I could explain better what I hope to do! How I wish I could show him what Lark showed me—the innocents killed by Northern guns, the terrible injustices that extend back decades. I long for Reni to see more than just a map, divided between North and South, practical lines on an earth he’s never walked. I want him to see the invisible hearts, like Lark’s.
But he can’t. He’s in another realm entirely, a Northern prince in line for the throne, and right now he’s more worried about how he’ll look before the world if he defends the wrong cause and implicates himself before he even has a crown.
Please give Reni a sign, Father. Let him see his blood of two worlds is a great power to wield, not a hindrance to erase.
But there’s no whispering reply, and Reni offers me a book instead. Gold letters embossed on the front: An Introduction to Savien.
“I know how badly you wanted to study at the University,” he explains. “I promised you a tutor, but perhaps you can teach yourself for now?”
The beautiful gift is so unexpected, I reach for him, wrapping my arms round his strong chest. We hold each other close, fighting the distance to come. “Watch over Mother while I’m gone,” I plead into his neck. “I don’t trust anyone except you.”
“I will.”
“Do whatever you must to protect Etania.”
“I will.”
“To protect her.”
“I will.” He pushes me back, looking into my face. It’s the way he says it this third time, the same and yet different. “Send my regards to our family in Resya. I hope I might visit myself someday.”
They’re polite words, but I don’t think he believes them. And it dawns on me, in this moment, that he has his own secrets. Things trapped on the tip of his tongue, things he can’t tell me—or won’t. I know when he’s hiding, and this is the same boy who gave Athan Erelis a black eye for daring to speak back to him. All of that energy still surges inside, desperate for focus.
Where does it end?
I kiss his cheek then will myself to simply head for the aerodrome, to leave him. I make it only a few steps before I stop. I glance back and Reni still stands there, a silhouette, the hazy hall glow cutting his form and slashing the dark.
He’s there.
I’m here.
Gentle fingers try to draw me back, but I push from their invisible grasp, and turn for the hushed darkness of the aerodrome and Havis’s waiting plane.
III
RESYA
12
ATHAN
It begins like distant thunder.
In the inky dark, a starless night makes the sea and sky indistinguishable as our Safire fleet descends on the coastline with rage. The Impressive and four other battleships unleash their full arsenal. Artillery guns. Heavy cannons. Long-range shells. It’s fireworks in every direction, exploding under my skull, streams of fire clawing at Resyan defenses. The beautiful shore before us lights up like dry brush, and it’s too damn easy. A barrage of incendiaries. Alloy and white phosphorous. Mountains and men, reduced to rocks and teeth.
A steady drone high above moves like a swarm of unseen wasps. Twin-engine medium bombers from the nearby island. Loaded with hellfire, they’re on their mission to disintegrate enemy lines far behind the coastal defenses our battleships rage against.
There’s a flash of bright yellow in the distant smoke. A bomber caught by flak, disappearing to the ground, to nothing. Bones and flesh and metal all melted together at once. Another and another. Flash after flash after flash. Brilliant as noon sun.
Eight lives in each …
This is what strategy around a map becomes. All those words. Those empty numbers. Now they’re death, raining down, and my hands are desperate for my throttle. Forward—fast! Anything but being left here to watch, helpless in the maddening dark, miles out on the sea.
An explosion hits too close to us and I shove my hands over my ears. The Intrepid’s engines growl urgently beneath our feet, trying to lumber backwards, farther out of range. But it’s not quick enough. A shrill whine plunges overhead, the far side of the deck erupting into flames. A fighter shoots through the black sky.
Not ours.
“Mad bastards are flying at night!” someone shouts.
An alarm sounds, but the Intrepid is too heavy to react. A sitting duck for the enemy planes. One Safire destroyer charges to the rescue, cutting through the waves right in front of us with fiery grace. The Pursuit. Kalt’s old ship. Its anti-aircraft guns pound at the sky, finding their mark. The Resyan fighter above chokes down in smoke—right into the turret of the nearby destroyer Fury. We’re all frozen on the deck, watching in horror as the wounded Fury falters briefly, like it’s equally stunned by the blow, before one of its ammunition caches alights. The middle blows skyward. Pieces of hull scatter, separating apart, the destroyer rolling beneath the waves, sixteen hundred tons of iron and blood swallowed in the space of a held breath.
“Pilots inside!” Torhan yells.
Our carrier’s batteries fire more frantically now, raking the sky for these mad, brave Resyan fighters. Defending their own, like Thorn said. Sailors race to put out the flames and pilots dart behind port doors, but I’m not quite quick enough, too busy staring at the rippling waves where the Fury was. A hand shoves me through. I turn to find Torhan’s furious face near mine. “Get the hell inside, Lieutenant, and be ready to fly at first light!”
The iron door swings shut, explosions echoing, the orange hell disappeared.
They lock us into suffocating darkness.
War.
13
AURELIA
I wake somewhere over my mother’s homeland.
Groggy, I peer out the round window of our aeroplane, finding the endless sea has at last been replaced by green earth like a tender jewel. Even in the pre-dawn light, the luminous mountain peaks are lit by the sinking moon in the west, ghostly clouds—or perhaps mist—coiling round the highest points, where the dense forest grows pinched and thin.
I rub my eyes, trying to clear the strange smoky haze.
It remains.
Tendrils, like ominous fingers, reach towards our aeroplane.
“Good morning,” Havis greets at my left.
I straighten sharply, mortified at the idea of having slept beside him. It’s far too intimate for us, but it’s too late now. I put ample space between us again. “Those are peculiar clouds,” I observe, trying to look farther behind the aeroplane, to find the source of the billowing mist.
“Possibly from the sea,” Havis replies, though he sounds strangely unsettled.
We lower, curving round the side of a mountain, and my belly dips with the plane. I try to take deep breaths, focusing on little details below. Winding roads and motorcars darting beneath the trees. Then cement blocks appear, grey amidst the green, and it doesn’t take long to identify the ugly truth—bunkers. The square-shaped blisters of war I’ve only ever seen in newspapers, carving deep into the earth. Reni has always said that mountains are the greatest armour a kingdom can wield, the reason our kingdoms in the western Heights were spared the conquest of the old Empires, and it’s a shock to see Resya so blatantly militarized. Mighty guns pointed at th
e sky.
At us.
I push back from the window, suddenly feeling too exposed, vulnerable.
“Relax,” Havis says wryly. “You’re on the right side.”
I try to let that reassure me as another hour passes, the mountains spreading out in every direction. At the front of our aeroplane, the pilots begin conversing together in the still-darkened cockpit, headsets on, agitated. Though we can’t hear them over the propellers’ rhythmic thud, it’s clear something has gone wrong.
“Are we nearly to Madelan?” I ask, meaning the capital.
Havis grunts an alarmingly vague noise as we lower rapidly, the gusting mountain winds shaking the small aeroplane. One of the pilots glances back at us, clearly scared out of his wits.
“Shit,” Havis says.
He’s never used such low language in front of me. “Is the engine dead?” I ask, hoping I sound calm and official, not petrified.
“The propellers are still whirring, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Then of course the damn engine’s working! This might be worse than that.”
He doesn’t elaborate further, leaving me to sweat profusely as the earth rushes up to meet us—far too fast—and then there’s an enormous bump and I actually yelp aloud, Havis gripping me tight as we hurtle down the tarmac, brakes hissing, stench of smoke souring the air.
All at once, we’ve stopped.
I let out a shuddering exhale, the propellers spinning to stillness, and I glance outside to find a shadowed tarmac lit by lamps. It’s a swarm of frantic activity. Well-dressed families haul luggage as they make for small aeroplanes—ladies in heels, men in tweed suits. Children follow in dresses and caps, carrying alarmed pets in their arms. One even holds a towering birdcage.
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