He kept speaking, but Aria didn’t hear the rest.
Her gaze moved to the window again, and she went to it. People made way for her, clearing a path. Even Sable’s soldiers stepped aside for her. Roar, Talon, and Brooke came with her, lining up beside her at the thick glass.
“There,” Brooke said, pointing. “Do you see them?”
42
PEREGRINE
The Dragonwing surged forward again, pushing Perry against the seat and making Cinder gasp.
They passed the other Hovers in the fleet, one after another, and then there was no one left. Nothing in front of them but Aether in every direction.
“You’ll need to tell us how close you want to be,” Sable said.
Perry looked at Cinder, who bugged his eyes and shrugged.
It was such an honest reaction that Perry found himself smiling. None of them had been in this situation before; how close they should be was anyone’s guess.
Strangely, Perry felt better, his focus returning by the second. He’d said what he’d needed to say to the Tides. Now it was time for action—always where he felt surest.
The craft gave another sudden lurch that threw him against his restraints; then it began to shudder. The instrument panel came alive, flashing with red warning messages, and the blare of an alarm filled the cockpit with an urgent pulse.
Cinder blurted, “That’s good! We’re close enough!”
The craft slowed and then bobbed unsteadily in place. Here the ocean was even rougher, rising in huge swells. Perry estimated a distance of one hundred and fifty yards between them and the barrier. He’d have liked to fire an arrow at it. A dozen arrows. He’d have liked to be the one to pierce it and tear it down.
“Time to do what you’ve promised us, Cinder,” Sable said. “Do this, and we’ll get both of you home. Willow is waiting for you.”
Cinder’s eyes had glazed over. Silent tears spilled down his cheeks.
Perry tugged his seat restraints off and stood, knowing this was the hardest thing he’d ever have to do. He sank into his legs to keep his balance in the pitching craft and unbuckled Cinder’s restraints.
“I’m right here,” he said, holding his hand down. “It’s all right. I’m going to help you.” Cinder’s arm shook violently as Perry helped him to his feet.
They moved into the small hold behind the cockpit together, Perry half carrying him.
The bay doors opened. Wind and spray swept inside in a violent rush. The air was cool and tasted of salt, as familiar to Perry as anything, except for the sting it carried, like bites all along his skin and over his eyes.
The wall of Aether churned and roiled ahead of him; Sable’s pilots had turned the craft parallel to it. For long moments he stared in awe, unable to look away, until he caught movement from the corner of his eyes.
Cinder was bent into a corner of the craft, his back convulsing as he retched.
“What’s happening?” Sable’s voice moved through the speakers. “I can’t see what’s happening.”
“We need a minute,” Perry snapped.
“We don’t have a minute! Get Aria up here right now,” Sable ordered.
“No! Just hold on!”
Cinder recovered and climbed to his feet. “Sorry . . . it’s so bumpy.”
Perry let out his breath, realizing Cinder was only seasick, not sick with fear. “That’s all right. I’m surprised I haven’t done it myself.”
Cinder smiled weakly. “Thanks,” he said. “For being here with me.”
Perry nodded, accepting his thanks. “Do you want me to stand next to you?”
Cinder shook his head. “I can do it.”
He moved to the bay doors, bracing a hand against the opening. Then he closed his eyes, the fear easing from his face. Webs of Aether spread beneath his skin, moving up his neck to his jaw, then higher over his scalp.
He looked relaxed. The world raged around him, but it didn’t feel that way to Perry. Standing behind him, watching him, Perry felt like the world was raging for Cinder.
Seconds passed. Perry began to wonder if Cinder had changed his mind.
“Peregrine,” came Sable’s voice, “make him—”
A blast of air pushed Perry backward. He slammed against the rear wall of the Hover, staggered.
Cinder hadn’t moved. He stayed planted by the doors.
Beyond him, in the distance, a gap formed in the barrier of Aether—a hollowed area that the currents flowed around, like river water past a rock.
The opening seemed almost insignificant in size. Twenty or thirty feet. Not big enough to fit even the smaller Dragonwings, to say nothing of the larger Hovers.
But through it, Perry could see what lay beyond the wall clearly: ocean, sitting beneath sunlight. That golden color that he’d glimpsed through the sheets of Aether was even warmer. And he saw sky. Endless, clear blue sky.
“What’s he waiting for? That’s not enough!” Sable yelled.
There was no point in talking to Cinder now. Perry had seen him like this. He was in another place. Lost to his surroundings.
“Peregrine!” Sable yelled.
As the seconds passed, relief moved through Perry. Maybe they wouldn’t make the crossing, but Cinder would live.
Horror followed quickly. What would they do now? Forge ahead through the barrier, and hope they made it through? The alternative, turning back to the cave, sounded worse. They couldn’t go back.
Cinder turned, fixing a blazing stare on him, and Perry understood.
What Cinder had just done was only the beginning. A test, to see what this would cost him. Looking into his eyes, Perry knew the answer.
Cinder turned back to the Aether.
Perry saw white, and then he saw nothing.
43
ARIA
Do you see them?” Brooke said. “They’re right there.”
Aria nodded. Perry and Cinder’s Dragonwing was just a small point in front of the barrier of Aether, but she saw it.
An explosion of light blinded her.
Shouts erupted as the Hover dipped sharply. Aria flew into the person behind her. Blinking, fighting for her vision, she righted herself and lunged back to the window.
The barrier now had a rift. A wide seam, like parted curtains. Through the barrier, the glittering ocean stretched out, as promising as anything she’d ever seen. Aria wanted to stare at it forever, but she tore her eyes away and searched for the Dragonwing.
“Where did they go?” she asked. Perry’s Hover had disappeared.
“I’m looking,” Brooke said.
Roar was there too, searching. Grabbing her arm and steadying her when their Hover surged forward. Cursing softly when Sable’s voice came through the speakers again, announcing that they were going ahead with the crossing.
“Where are they?” Aria asked, her panic rising.
Brooke’s face paled, her quiet concentration changing suddenly to wide-eyed shock. “Water,” she said.
Aria’s gaze dropped to the ocean below—where Perry’s Hover tossed in ferocious white-capped waves.
44
PEREGRINE
When Perry opened his eyes, he was on his back, the concave ceiling of the cockpit above him. He couldn’t move, and it took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t paralyzed, only pinned in the small space between the wall and the back of the pilot seat.
His right shoulder throbbed, the pain as intense as when he’d dislocated it weeks ago—and his left shin stung sharply. There were other aches, less intense. Good signs. Pain meant he was still alive.
He pulled himself up, clutching the back of the seat for balance. The Hover was tilting wildly. Waves pounded the windshield, covering them completely, each torrent of water so thick that it plunged the cockpit into darkness.
Perry lumbered back into the hold, unsteady, nauseous. He swiped at his stinging eyes and came away with blood on his hand.
Through the open doors, he saw the sea. Thirty-foot swells of white and s
ilver and Aether blue. The craft pitched, and water rushed up to his ankles.
The Hover had become a boat—with a missing side. Miraculously it was still afloat, but that was changing with every wave that surged inside.
“Cinder!” he yelled. “Cinder!”
He could barely hear his own voice over the waves. Yelling was useless, anyway. His eyes swept across the small hold. There was nowhere for Cinder to hide. To have gotten lost. Perry staggered to the door, almost pitching forward into the ocean as the Hover hurtled down the face of a wave.
“Cinder!”
He fell against the cabin wall as the Hover rocked again and stayed there, pressed against the wall, the air rushing out of his lungs. Out and out and out. He didn’t think it would stop, the expansion of emptiness inside him.
“You survived, Peregrine,” crackled through speakers. “But not Cinder, from the sounds of it. I’m very sorry.”
Perry shot back into the cockpit. The nose of the Hover dipped suddenly, sending him flying against the windshield. The water in the craft surged forward, soaking him completely.
“Get me out of here!” Perry yelled.
The doors began to close as soon as the words left him. Across the cockpit, the dashboard controls flickered on.
Sable said, “What are you doing?”
A terrified voice answered, “Bringing the ship back up—”
“I issued no such order,” said Sable.
“Sir, if we don’t act now—”
“Shut it down.”
A beat of silence.
“I said shut it down.”
Perry cursed, turning in time to see the bay doors pause for an instant, and then open again to the raging sea. In the cockpit, the controls fell dark.
“This pains me, Peregrine. I like you very much and this isn’t what I wanted. But I can’t take any chances.”
Then Perry didn’t hear Sable any longer, only the waves pounding against the Hover.
45
ARIA
Do something!” Aria yelled. “They’re still out there!”
Loran stood at the door of the cockpit, blocking her way inside. It was the first she’d seen of him in the Hover. “I can’t let you in there,” he said.
“You have to! You have to help them! Help me!”
Loran stared into her eyes. He said nothing, but she could tell he was battling with himself.
Sable’s voice came through the speakers again. “We’ve had no contact from either Cinder or Peregrine. There’s no sign from either. We’ve lost control of their ship, and I’m afraid it’s too dangerous to attempt a rescue.”
Roar pushed forward, standing almost nose to nose with Loran. “We can’t give up on them. We have to get down there!”
Reef exploded next. “Sable could be lying! How can we know he’s speaking the truth?”
A great ringing sound swelled in Aria’s ears, and she was jostled, shoved between huge bodies that pushed and yelled. Through the noise and confusion, she still heard Sable.
“No one knows how long that barrier will remain open. Our priority needs to be making the crossing while we can.”
He kept speaking, his voice soothing, rational, as he explained why they had to leave Perry behind and how sorry he was for the Tides. Aria didn’t hear the rest. She couldn’t hear anything over the shrill sound in her ears.
Somehow she made it back to the window.
They were almost upon the barrier of Aether. Outside, the wind was brutally strong, whisking up ocean spray. Water obscured everything, but she spotted Perry’s Hover by the white ring of waves that broke around it.
It was listing to the side and half swallowed by the sea.
As she watched, they flew right past it, into the Still Blue.
“Aria, look,” Brooke said, nudging her.
Aria was still at the window. She’d been there since they’d crossed the barrier and left the Aether behind. The ringing had left her ears, but now something was wrong with her eyes. She had lost the ability to focus. She’d been staring out the window without seeing anything.
Roar stood at her side, his arm around her. Twig held a sleeping Talon in his arms on Roar’s other side. The spot where Talon had cried against Aria’s stomach was damp.
“Land,” Brooke said, and pointed. “There.”
Aria saw a break in the perfect line of the horizon. From a distance it looked like a black bump, but it broadened as they neared, gained color and depth. Becoming verdant slopes, covered in lush foliage.
These hills were folded and rolling, and they couldn’t have been more different from the rocky bluffs they’d left behind. The colors she saw were crisp, unlike the dullness caused by the smoke that had clung to the Tides’ territory. Here the land was vibrant green, the water turquoise, both almost garishly so.
A buzz of excitement swirled inside the Hover as word spread. Land had been spotted.
Aria hated them for their happiness. She hated herself for hating them. Why shouldn’t they enjoy this moment? This was a new beginning, but it didn’t feel that way to her.
She wanted to turn back—how could she possibly want to go back? But she did. Perry was the rugged cliffs and the crashing surf. He was the Tide compound and the hunting trails and everything else she’d left behind.
Talon shifted in Twig’s arms. Sleepily, he raised his head and moved from Twig’s arms to Roar’s. Aria looked from one to the other and back.
They had to be enough. Maybe someday she’d feel like they were.
Voices carried from the cockpit. The pilots and engineers, assessing the terrain. For an hour—and then two—all she heard was the careful trading of coordinates. The running of tests that evaluated freshwater sources, elevations, and soil quality. The cataloging of every feature from the air as carefully as a spider creeping over its web, with technology so sensitive, so advanced, that it seemed like magic. Once, this kind of magic had built worlds for her in the Realms. Now it was discovering a new world, taking its temperature. Mapping the best place to establish a settlement.
What they were really looking for, she knew—everyone knew—was people. Such a discovery would bring a host of issues to consider. Would they be welcome? Would they be enslaved? Turned away? No one knew.
Until Sable emerged from the cockpit. “It’s ours. It’s uninhabited,” he said, sounding a little breathless.
“Good fortune at last,” Hyde said softly. He stood behind her, tall enough to see over her head to the window. All of the Six were there, crowded around her. They had been since they’d crossed the barrier.
She didn’t know what to make of that. She didn’t know whether it was supposed to mean something, all of them standing around her like a wall.
“About time,” Hayden said. “I’ve got no fight left.”
Twig let out his breath. Reef met Aria’s eyes, and she wondered if he’d been hoping, irrationally, for the same thing as her. That the instrumentation would find one human. A young man of almost twenty, with green eyes and blond hair and a crooked smile that he used infrequently, but to powerful effect. A young man with the purest heart imaginable. Who believed in honor and who never, not for a moment, placed himself over others. But of course such a person hadn’t been found. Magic wasn’t real.
Marron stepped between Hyde and Twig, joining them. “I wouldn’t call it good fortune. Millions of people lived here once. Now there isn’t a soul left. That seems far from good fortune. And we might have benefited from some compassion and some help. We are so few.”
Aria bit her lip to stop herself from snapping at him. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so angry. It was those words: We are so few. Why had he needed to say that? They weren’t few. They were lacking. They were missing Perry.
The Hovers regrouped, and she felt their velocity slow. There was a sudden descent, which made people gasp and reach for one another. Then the Hovers put down on a beach, one after another, a flock of iridescent birds alighting.
When
their craft landed, Twig said, “We’re here. I can’t believe we’re here.”
Aria wasn’t. She didn’t feel there at all.
Reef motioned Roar closer. Talon was still sleeping in Roar’s arms.
“I want the three of you to stay together,” Reef said, looking from her to Roar. “Hyde and Hayden will be watching you, starting now.”
Watching them? She didn’t understand. Roar pursed his lips and nodded, resigned, and it began to make sense. He had been after Sable since Liv’s death. That was no secret to anyone, least of all Sable. And Talon was Perry’s nephew. Eight years of age, but a successor nonetheless. Aria wasn’t sure why Reef thought she needed to be protected, but then her mind wasn’t working right.
Reef disappeared and Aria was suddenly looking up at the brothers, at Hyde and Hayden, and then looking away, because they had bows over their shoulders. Because they were the same height and blond-haired, though not the right shade of blond. Was she going to move through the rest of her life seeing failures and deficiencies everywhere? Wishing everyone was more like Perry? Wishing everyone was him?
Sable was the first to leave the Hover, with a group of his soldiers. She only heard him leave. Everyone in the large hold had come to their feet, and with Hyde and Hayden in front of her, all she saw were their backs, and arrows poking from quivers. She listened to the soft hum of the ramp being lowered, a familiar sound now. Daylight flooded the Hover, and then a warm, gentle breeze floated in, carrying birdsong and the rustle of swaying leaves.
The crowd thinned around her as people began to disembark.
A new land.
A new beginning.
She put her arm around Roar, telling herself that she could do this. She could take a few steps.
As the crowd thinned, she could see further ahead. Marron was exiting the ramp, accompanied by some of Sable’s men. She was about to search for Loran when she caught a flash of Reef’s braids. He was leaving the Hover with Gren and Twig at his sides.
Fear shot down her back, sudden and unexplainable, yanking her from her daze.
Under the Never Sky: The Complete Series Collection Page 85