Finding the Suun

by J. A. Culican

  The farther I walked, the more I thought about it, trying to picture the moment my father gathered me up in his arms again. I didn't think he would be upset. He'd always encouraged us to forge our own paths, and perhaps even accepted that we wouldn't be together forever.

  "Look up, my star," he'd said to me. "We will always be under the same sky."

  Maybe he had never expected any of us to return.

  The deck of the Wind Wraith was busy with sailors dashing to their posts. The sound of an unfurling sail met me as Estrid took my hand and helped me over the railing.

  She looked past me. "Where is Erik?"

  "He's not coming." I kept walking even though I knew she'd want more information.

  Her hand on my shoulder snapped me backward. "He's not coming? Where is he?"

  "He's staying in Barepost."

  She drew her sword and turned back to the edge. "That blasted Luthair, I'll kill him if—"

  It was my turn to stop her. I grabbed her wrist. "Put the sword away. It was his decision."

  Renwick approached then, looking warily between us. "The captain wants to know if we're ready to go."

  "Yes," I confirmed, releasing Estrid's arm. "Tell her to head west."

  "We're not leaving without Erik," Estrid argued as Renwick hurried away.

  "We have no choice. He isn't coming."

  The sound of the gangplank scraping on the wooden deck punctuated my point. Estrid ran to stop the sailors but she was too late. The ship was rising, and the sun was sinking. Captain Wynleth would want to get off the ground before night fell and the cliff monsters emerged. To escape Estrid's wrath, I skirted away from her, moving to the front of the ship, not letting myself look around for Arun. I took a seat beside Stiarna near the bow and leaned against her muscular body. She nipped at my hair with her beak and I tilted my head back, a breeze touching my cheeks.

  Look up, my star.

  So I did, and for the first time in my life, saw nothing but darkness.

  Chapter 9

  I stayed there all night, curling into Stiarna's warmth when the wind made me shiver. I could hear Estrid arguing with Captain Wynleth about turning around and going back for Erik. I didn't intervene, and the captain held her ground, keeping the ship up in the air and headed west, racing Aupra, the smaller of Iynia's two moons.

  When she finally disappeared and the sun peeked over the horizon behind us, hands pulled me from my hiding place and tossed me onto the deck. My ax was in my hands before I'd even regained my feet. I turned on Estrid, who had no weapons drawn but her hands were balled into fists at her side, her chest heaving. There were dark circles under her eyes.

  "How could you?" she growled at me.

  I put the ax back into my belt. "I didn't have a choice."

  "You should have stayed. How could you let him stay behind on his own?"

  The thought hadn't really occurred to me. "I couldn't stay in Barepost. My destiny lies elsewhere."

  Estrid rolled her eyes. "Your destiny, how could I forget?"

  I pressed my lips together, trying to fight back the tightness gripping my chest. I couldn't even blame this one on Savarah. This anger, this cruelty—it was all Estrid. "You have no idea how hard it was for me to let him go, but it was what he wanted."

  "Before all of this—before your destiny—you never would have left him behind." She paced back and forth a few steps at a time, keeping me cornered against the railing. "You've changed, and not for the better."

  I held my arms out to the side. "Of course, I've changed. We all have. The entire world is changing. Ur’gels and Dag'draath and dreamwalkers! This must be done. I have to find the heir. I have to save…," I trailed off. It sounded ludicrous even to my own ears, but Estrid caught it like a dog with a bone.

  "Save the world," she sneered. "Even if it costs you your family."

  Before I could respond, Estrid lunged at me. She wrapped her hands in my vest and pressed me against the railing. All it would take was for the wood to snap and we would both plummet to our deaths.

  As quickly as she'd grabbed me, though, she let go. I righted myself, smoothing down my shirt, and found myself staring at Captain Wynleth's dark, stormy eyes. She stood between us, a hand to Estrid's chest, the other on her sheathed sword.

  "This ends now," she said in a low, menacing voice. "Unless you want to die at the end of my sword, you can continue this fight off of my ship."

  From the way she was scowling at me, I almost expected Estrid to call the captain's bluff. But after a tense moment, she took a few steps back, her arms out at her sides as if to say, "See? No problems here." Even if her face said otherwise.

  I didn't want to test her, so I slipped away from the two of them and descended into the bowels of the ship. I didn't typically like spending time below deck, but it was better than facing Estrid and her mood, so I ducked down the stairs and slid aside the door to our sleeping quarters.

  Where I was met with a bare, muscled back that ended in narrow hips and low-slung linen pants. Arun turned, and suddenly I was staring at a bare, muscled chest instead.

  "Hi," he said, offering me a small smile.

  I tried to speak but found my throat very dry, so I coughed instead, managing to cover my mouth with my hand but still not looking away.

  He had his shirt in his hands, and he slid it over his head, leaving the neck unlaced as he tied his hair back with a leather thong.

  "Good morning," I finally managed, only after he was mostly dressed. It pained me I couldn't control my body's reaction to him, even when my head told me it was a stupid and pointless attraction.

  He sat on a cot and began lacing up his boots. "What are you up to?"

  "Hiding from Estrid." I sat across from him.

  "Because of Erik?" he asked. So, he had been on the deck and witnessed that whole scene.

  I nodded in confirmation. "What about you? Why are you down here?"

  "Hiding from Quynn." He finished lacing his boots and sat back, the cot creaking beneath him.

  "Why?" I asked, hating that he'd mentioned her name.

  Apparently oblivious to my discomfort, he shook his head. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do if I can't give the orders. She's already threatened to lop off my hands if I touch her ship one more time."

  I grunted and looked away from him, wrapping my arms around myself, a fruitless effort to try to keep my spitefulness contained.

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "What?"

  "Nothing."

  Laughing, he pushed himself off his cot and spun around, falling beside me onto mine. The cot rocked and I tipped over against him. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and shook me. I took a deep breath. He smelled so good, damp and freshly bathed but still salty, like the sea air.

  "What is it? What has you all distant and quiet with me? I thought… Well, I thought we were … you know."

  "Friends?" I offered.

  He tilted his head back and forth, then slowly said, "Yeah, friends."

  I was so stupid. "I just, I wanted to give you and the captain your space. To become … friends." Or something more, I added in my head but didn't dare say aloud.

  He laughed again, the sound making me want to reach over and punch him in the face. How was it that I could face down a massive blazetaur without hesitation, but talking to Arun about my feelings had me terrified? It seemed a little backward. I surprised myself by wishing for the first time that I had a girlfriend, someone like Aysche, who I could talk to about things like this. I didn't think Estrid would want to hear it, especially not right now.

  Finally, Arun said, "Quynn is like a cave dragon."

  I remembered encountering a cave dragon with him when he and I had been exploring the mine for an escape route. "What do you mean?"

  "You don't befriend a cave dragon. You hold still and let it sniff you, and hope it doesn't bite your head off."

  That comparison seemed surprisingly accurate. I just hadn't known he felt that way, too. "So, y
ou and Quynn aren't…?"

  "Friends? No, I wouldn't say we were friends."

  The feeling of his arm around my shoulders changed, no longer playful as his thumb stroked my arm and my heart picked up speed, jumping into my throat. He was so close. All I had to do was turn my head and tilt my chin up. I clasped my hands in my lap and stared at them, afraid to move, afraid to touch him, but wanting desperately for him to keep touching me.

  The sound of boots on the ladder was all it took for us to shoot apart from each other, both of us leaping to our feet and moving to opposite sides of the room. That was how Renwick found us, studiously not looking at each other.

  He looked between us, shook his head, and then fixed his gaze on me. "The captain wants to know if there's a new heading."

  Nodding, I drew the stone and compass from my shirt and oriented them. The direction had shifted slightly. "Northwest," I told him.

  He nodded and turned to go, but as he did, the light faded.

  "Wait," I said.

  He paused and looked back at me.

  Arun crossed the room, looking over my shoulder at the stone. "What is it?"

  Not only was the stone not glowing, but all the warmth had faded out of it, as if I'd dropped it into an ice chest. I remembered what had happened the last time the stone had gone cold to the touch.

  Looking up at Arun and Renwick, I said, "The ship is in danger."

  Chapter 10

  The three of us stormed up the ladder and crossed the deck to the helm in a flurry of shouting. The captain looked down at us, stunned, but only briefly.

  "Quiet, all of you," she ordered. Then, pointing at me, "You. Go."

  "The ship is in danger." I held the stone up as if she would be able to see the threat in its smooth surface. "The wayfinder’s stone has gone cold. The last time that happened, we were attacked by ur’gels."

  The mere mention of the monsters sent the sailors into a frenzy, shouting back and forth to each other and searching the skies.

  But Quynn stayed stoic, raising her voice above the din. "Everyone, be quiet now. Make no unnecessary noise. Renwick, take us up."

  We'd been hovering below the veil, but now Renwick took the wheel and shouted orders to the sailors, who had gotten themselves under control and seemed glad to have something to do. No one else spoke as the ship rose into the clouds and then came out on the other side. Quynn moved to the railing, keeping her eyes on the sky as if she could see something no one else could. Below us, the veil was thick but calm, a white blanket.

  "Pull the sails," Quynn ordered.

  Renwick repeated it, and the sailors hurried to obey.

  "Why are you pulling the sails?" I moved to stand beside her, my hand wrapped tight around the still-cold rock. "Without the sails, we won't be able to escape our pursuers."

  Quynn narrowed her eyes at me. "Was I not clear? No unnecessary noise. That includes your incessant gabbing."

  I pressed my lips together, remembering what Arun had said about her. I rather wanted to keep my head on my neck, after all, so I stepped aside, running smack into Arun, who was standing surprisingly close. He steadied me with a hand on my back, a hand that he left there.

  I was about to say something to him—probably something pointless and inane—when there was a sound like nothing I had ever heard. A single high-pitched note, a song that wrapped around me and held me in place. Not quite a human's voice, nor a bird's call, nor the blast of a horn. Something entirely new and different. Something beautiful and haunting.

  "Here they come," the captain whispered.

  I drew my ax, ready to face whatever it was.

  And then the clouds moved, and a monster rolled out of them. It had the streamlined shape of a fish with a thin, long fin on its back trailing behind it and paddle-like arms on each side. It breached the clouds like a fish surfacing, first its face, then its back, and then its finned tail, slapping the clouds and parting them briefly before it disappeared beneath us. Without thinking, I followed the crowd to the other side of the ship where we watched it surface again. This time, it stuck its elongated head straight up out of the clouds, snapped a bird out of the air with its giant mouth, and then fell back, emitting another high-pitched wail that was answered by a dozen more somewhere around us.

  Beside me, Estrid gasped, her sword in her hand.

  "Put away your weapons," Quynn scolded us. She was behind the wheel again, maneuvering the ship to drop it into the clouds.

  We obeyed, even though it felt unnatural to face this threat without something to use to defend ourselves. As soon as I dropped the ax into my belt, I felt fingers wrap around my own. I looked over to see Arun smiling at me. He didn't let go.

  "Aren't they beautiful?"

  "What are they?" I asked.

  "Sky whales. A whole pod of them."

  I'd heard of whales but never seen them, in the sky or in the water. Quynn had dropped us into the veil so that the whales were enormous shadows all around us. One came so close that its fin floated over the edge of the ship. I reached up with my free hand and let it float over my fingers.

  "It's so soft," I whispered.

  The whale called back its response, a lower tone that vibrated the ship beneath my feet.

  Arun laughed and squeezed my hand.

  On the bow of the ship, a smaller whale faced off against Stiarna, floating just out of her reach but studying her with a large black eye. She stretched her neck out, inching carefully to the edge of the bowsprit until her beak brushed the whale's dark blue hide. The whale startled and flipped away, the wind from its tail sending the ship into a spin. Quynn called out a quiet order and righted the ship with the help of her crew, holding the Wind Wraith steady as the pod of whales passed us.

  "I thought we would be in danger," I said, my eyes still on the creature’s shadows, even as they grew smaller and more distant.

  "Danger can come in any form." Arun let go of my hand and patted me on the head, making me wince. "Fighting isn't always the answer."

  With the sky whales gone, Quynn took us back above the veil. The sun had turned the sky golden-yellow. Plateaus poked out of the veil in the distance, none of them close enough to see clearly.

  The captain looked down at me from the helm, her hands on the wooden steering wheel. "Now, D'ahvol, where to?"

  Chapter 11

  At the wayfinder’s stone's behest, we flew in circles for the next two days.

  Everyone was mad at me.

  I was mad at the rock.

  Every time I looked at it, it said the same thing. And every time I had to report it to the captain, she looked at me with such contempt that I felt like I shrank a bit. Soon, I would be the world's smallest D'ahvol.

  The stone kept us over Bruhier, directing us east until we hit the coast, south for half a day, then back inland for a while before turning us gradually north and starting over again. Was it lost? Were we missing something? On the second pass, Quynn took us below the veil to see if there was something there, but it was only the same thick, dangerous jungle. After a blazetaur swung its poisonous barbed tail at us, she took us back up above the clouds. If we were going to fly in circles, at least she would keep us safe.

  Estrid wouldn't talk to me or hardly even look at me. I didn't know how long she would continue to blame me for Erik's absence, but it didn't seem that there was anything I could do to convince her it wasn't my fault. She'd relied on him and followed him for so long that she seemed about as aimless as the wayfinder's stone without him there. Even I had to admit it was strange to see her by herself.

  Arun, on the other hand, became my constant companion. He was the only one, it seemed, not annoyed by me. We sat together on the deck whenever there was nothing else to do, and stayed up late into the night, wooing each other with tales of our respective homes. He asked me constant questions about Bor'sur, my hometown in the Western March, and about the Ahvoli traditions. I told him about Yule, which we celebrated on the winter solstice, and the Midsummer feast o
n the summer solstice.

  "I cannot wait to see it," he'd said dreamily, as if it were a given that he would be invited.

  I decided that if we ever got out of this, I would take him home with me. It was almost impossible to imagine introducing him to my father—a gentry elf and a D'ahvol warrior. But then again, that was what we were, wasn't it? And we got along just fine. I thought my father would, too, once he got over his initial shock.

  Finally, on the third day, when we should have turned south, the stone instead directed us inland, toward a distant plateau that we'd seen in passing but never approached.

  "What is it?" I asked, standing at the helm sandwiched between Quynn and Arun.

  "I think it's Morasera," Quynn answered. "An elven city of scholars."

  This city was not as flashy as Lamruil or as run-down as Fairlow, but somewhere in between, with wooden houses built high in the trees and lit by suspended yooperlite stones shining yellow in the twilight. It wasn't until we'd gotten closer, though, that I saw maybe why the stone was bringing us to this plateau.

  It was under attack.

  I ran to the edge of the ship and leaned over to get a better view, hanging onto the rigging for support. The elves were fighting back familiar dark shapes—ur’gels. Thankfully, these ur’gels didn't seem to be of the flying variety. These elves, though, were obviously not fighters. Quynn had called them scholars, and it showed. They used staffs and walking sticks. As I watched, an ur’gel grabbed one elf, hoisted him up, and tossed him over the edge of the plateau. Stiarna took off after him, wings tucked against her sides as she dove.

  "Take us down," I said to Quynn, forgetting that she didn't like to be ordered around.