by JMD Reid
“So they’re Stormriders?” Chaylene asked. “I remember my teacher saying the Agerzaks were unknown during the time of the Dawn Empire. The only Humans in the skies were the Vionese and the Vaarckthians.”
“Indeed. The Agerzaks were first encountered by the Empire after the rediscovery of flying ships. Before communication broke down between the skylands during the Age of Isolation, the eastern skylands that make up the Fringe and the Agerzak Kingdoms were ruled primarily by the Empire of the South, one of the three nations that devolved from the Dawn Empire, and a few other smaller countries. The invading Agerzaks obliterated all remnants of the Luastria who ruled those skylands.”
“So that’s why the Cyclones attack? To steal our land and escape the terrible darkness below the Storm?”
Estan nodded. “Probably. But do not forget the Great Cyclone dragged Swuopii down into the Storm Below instead of conquering and colonizing it.”
“So that’s why the Agerzaks have so much metal,” Ary said. “Because they brought it up from the ground. Their pirates are feared because of the great metal blades they wield.”
“The Agerzak greatsword is a fearsome weapon, remnants from the original Stormriders who conquered the Empire of the South. Thanks to those weapons, the Kingdom of Agerz broke the back of the Vaarckthian Empire. Three times the Empire tried to conquer them. Three times they were stopped. It’s why the Autonomy and the rest of the nations are free of the Empire. With their power broken, the Empire was unable to put down the rebellions. But it also broke the Agerzak people, and they splintered into the petty, squabbling kingdoms of today.”
“Allowing the Autonomy to conquer the two southern kingdoms and claim the Fringe,” Chaylene said.
“All their fighting caused them to lose many of their blades to the Storm Below. And while the Agerzaks possess great metallurgy, they do not have access to new sources of metal.”
“So why did one Cyclone conquer and the other destroy?” Ary asked, furrowing his forehead.
“A question my mentor, Master Rlarim, often mused upon,” Estan said, his eyes growing distant for a moment. “Theisseg is the Goddess of chaos. Who can fathom why she does anything? All that can be said is her actions only bring harm.”
Am I going to bring harm? Is that why they quarantine anyone touched by lightning during a Cyclone?
Chapter Thirty-One
Coajyoa 30th, 399 VF (1960 SR)
Ary’s arm crashing into her stomach launched Chaylene out of sleep. She gasped awake, groaning, his elbow planted in her solar plexus. He groaned beside her, the bed’s frame creaking as words spilled out of his lips, mumbled.
That storming dream again. “Ary!” The dull ache in her stomach and the exhaustion pulling on her eyelids gave her no sympathy. “You’re dreaming! Wake up and stop elbowing me!”
She grabbed his arm and threw it off her stomach. She shook him hard as he mumbled about chains and setting something free. And betrayal. Who was betrayed? Why do you have these dreams?
“Ary!”
He started awake with a snarl. Sweat poured off his face, visible in the blue moonlight bleeding through the curtains. “Chaylene?” He let out a groan, his head falling back onto the pillows. “Did I wake you?”
“You elbowed me,” she hissed, digging her own elbow into his side, brushing the puckered smooth skin of his scar. “Thrashing like a maddened boar! It’s bad enough you have these dreams, but you have to flail your arms, too?”
“Riasruo Above, I’m sorry, Lena.” His rough hands grabbed her face, his calloused fingers gentle.
“Least you can do is tell me about them. Who was betrayed? Your pa? Your sister? What’s a chain?”
“I don’t know,” Ary growled. His hands ripped away. He rolled over onto his side, broad back facing her.
Slapping her with rebuke.
Her heart constricted. “You can’t be thrashing like this and then pretend nothing is happening. I have a right to know. I share your bed.”
“You have dreams. Everyone does. What’s so special about mine?”
“The same dream?” Incredulity stretched her words. “It’s almost every night now. And you mumble, you thrash, you sound in pain sometimes. It scares me, Ary.”
Her heart pounded. She needed to know. It dug at her all the time, a splinter in her thoughts she couldn’t pry out no matter how hard she tried. What did they mean? Why did he have them? Why was he so stubborn about telling her about them? That last one left her baffled. How could his dreams be a secret he needed to keep from her?
“I won’t judge you if they’re embarrassing.”
He didn’t answer.
“I know you’re not sleeping.”
He only breathed.
She flung herself back down on her pillows, tears stinging her eyes, her throat tightening. “What did I do? What have I done to make you think I’m untrustworthy?” Her heart clenched, fearing his answer: “You bedded Vel on the Xorlar. Everyone knows. They all laugh at me. That’s what I’m dreaming about!”
“Nothing,” he answered after a long, terrifying moment.
“Then why won’t you tell me?” She touched his back, running her hand down his hot flesh.
“Goodnight, Lena.”
Her pillow drank her tears. He didn’t trust her. She rolled over onto her side, facing away from him. The cottage’s wall loomed over her, gaps between planks edged in blue highlights. Her thoughts turned to Vel. Tomorrow night—No, Dawnsday is over, it’s Redday now—she planned to go for a walk with him.
If Vel had strange dreams, he’d tell her. He wouldn’t hold back. He trusted her. She closed her eyes, imagining his arms around her, holding her. At first, it was the hug of a friend, giving comfort, but as she lay beside her husband, her blood’s heat rose. She squirmed, biting her lip, imagining Vel comforting her in other ways.
Does Ary really love me? She felt terrible even thinking it. Her stomach yawned like she fell through empty air, the Storm roiling beneath, eager to swallow her. He joined the Navy to be with me. He has to love me.
A voice, sounding almost like Vel’s, whispered through her thoughts: Then why won’t he tell you something so simple?
She didn’t remember falling asleep. She slid into dreams of Ary finding her in bed with Vel. He watched as she writhed beneath another man. Not caring. Not shocked. Like he expected it. “That hot blood,” he said as he dressed in his marine uniform. He slung his thunderbuss over her shoulder. “I have to go. Got pirates to fight.”
“No,” she gasped, unable to escape Vel, trembling beneath him. “Please, Ary, it’s not what you think. We’re just friends!”
“Just like we were,” Ary said before vanishing out the door.
The dream shifted.
She stumbled through the azure skies, walking on soft clouds, bodies lying around her. Bloody, hacked, butchered. She cried her husband’s name. She had to find his body, see him burned, and spread his ashes off the side of the skyland.
“We’ll find him, wife,” Vel said. “He’s our friend.”
“I’m not your wife,” she wailed. “I’m Ary’s.”
“But he doesn’t love you.” Vel’s arms went around her. “I love you, Chaylene.”
When she woke up, she reached out across the bed for Ary. She didn’t find him. Panic surged until she saw him standing dressed. She studied him, her stomach twisting from the dream. She needed him to hold her, to love her right now.
“Ary,” she croaked.
“They’re about to sound revelry. Back to training.” He adjusted his sword belt, the weapon swinging in its leather scabbard. “Better get up.”
Duty sounded outside as she pressed her face into the pillow, the dream clinging to her thoughts.
~ * * ~
Ary shook as he marched out of the house. How could he keep pushing her away? He had to tell her something. But what? How could he explain the chains? The betrayal? Theisseg touching him? He wanted to turn around, to march in there, and tell her.
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I was touched by the Cyclone and have dreams of an imprisoned being, Ary thought in his mind, rehearsing the conversation as he paced outside the cabin. That’s what I’m dreaming. She wants me to free her.
“The Cyclone touched you!” He pictured horror blanching Chaylene’s face. She recoiled, sick, the sign of the sun forming with her thumb and little finger. “And you share my bed?”
His hands clenched. Maybe she wouldn’t react that way. She’s my wife. She loves me.
Does she love you enough? a nasty voice whispered. Fear almost kept her from marrying you. And you think she won’t be afraid about this?
Bile rose in his throat.
He had to tell her something. Anything. He’d tried laughing it off. He’d tried pretending it was nothing. She was too smart. She saw through it. The truth was best. She deserved it. And maybe she should be horrified. Theisseg touched me. Maybe . . . Maybe I should be quarantined.
He’d never see her again. But she’d be safe away from him. Vel would watch out for her, and Zori, Guts, and Ailsuimnae, too.
Fear twisted his stomach. He should be noble. Should be strong. But . . . Bleak skies lay in that direction. Emptiness. It was more than a lifetime of imprisonment, it was a future without his Eyia to brighten his soul with her dance.
His will crumbled. He marched to the camp, shoulders bowed in cowardice. He’d have to find a lie to satisfy her.
~ * * ~
“What if he doesn’t love you?”
Vel’s question hung in the air between them. Dozens and dozens of times during training, she’d asked herself that. Did her husband love her? She didn’t want to believe it. He’d joined the Navy for her, he held her in his strong arms, he comforted her in her grief, shared in such simple joys, exposed his own vulnerability to her.
And yet, he couldn’t talk about the dreams.
It maddened Chaylene. What reason could he have to hold back? What did he fear she’d learn? Does he think I’d hate him over dreams? Despise him? See him as weak? I held him when he cried.
“Why do you think that?” she asked, lying beside Vel upon the grass in the shadow of the armory. Above, the stars winked and twinkled, so clear as the moons rose. She wished to sprout wings and join the stars, to get away from earthly pain and doubt, suspended above by the Goddesses for eternity.
“Just the way you talk about him,” Vel said, his hand holding hers. His thumb stroked over her knuckles; the generated heat perversely made her shiver. “It’s only a dream. Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
She bit her lip. “He must have a good reason.”
“Really?” Vel snorted. “For concealing a dream? Why not tell you? Unless . . .”
She swallowed, flinching at the unsaid words reverberating through her mind. “How did you know you loved me?”
His hand tightened on hers. She turned her head from the stars, gazing at his face outlined by a faint, silver luminescence. It caressed across his cheekbones and traced his chin. His full lips were wet, pursed for a moment.
Then they moved.
“It was probably two years ago. Ary dragged us out to go fishing up the coast. Way too far. And he insisted on staying until dark. We’d barely caught anything. No fish were biting, but he was being stubborn.”
“He was avoiding his ma,” Chaylene said, her voice quiet.
Vel let out a long sigh. “Yeah, probably. Well after we finished, I ran home through the fields. Twiuasra shone full. The barley had that pearly shimmer about it. Everything seemed more . . . real, you know?”
She nodded her head.
“I skirted by your place and . . . There you were, your nightgown glowing as you lay on the hill. It stole my breath. This beautiful moon nymph painted by Twiuasra’s reflected love. I couldn’t look away as you stared at the sky, your skin so dark compared to the nightgown, which only heightened how . . . how . . .” He squeezed her hands. “My heart beat so fast. There was a tightness in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I feared disturbing you. That you were a dream or something. I never realized how womanly you were. You stopped being my friend at that moment and blossomed into femininity.”
Her heart beat faster as he spoke. She stared into his eyes, picked out by starlight. His words wrapped around her, ensnaring her. His face drifted closer and closer as she stood gripped by the passion he spoke.
“And I knew I loved you. That I had to have you. I never wanted anything more in my life. Every time I saw you from that moment on, I remembered the moon nymph. You danced through my thoughts. You shone in them, golden hair streaming behind you, dark skin making your locks more vibrant. A treasure. And Ary had already claimed you.”
She swallowed. His face had moved close. When? Her blood burned through her body. Her stomach tightened, twisted. She moistened her dry lips. Conflicting impulses beset her: to lean forward, to flee, to kiss him, to race back to Ary.
“I love you, Lena.” His breath fanned her lips. A fingerswidth separated them. “Never doubt that.”
Vel’s eyes promised everything she ached for from Ary. Trust. Love. Passion. Comfort. Last night, her marital bed had frozen. If Ary didn’t love her, did she owe him her fidelity when another came along who did?
Another whom she’d cared for her whole life.
She felt like two different people: one who chose a course that led to Ary, and one who chose a course that led to Vel. And suddenly, those two people became one. Her. And she didn’t know which course was right. It would be so easy to go with Vel’s. To lean her head in the last bit, or let him close the distance and claim her. He’d hold her. His hands would touch her. He’d be atop her. In her.
His eyes closed. He moved in. She didn’t know what she wanted. Her blood demanded one thing, her heart another.
It’s the blood that wants me to love him, flitted through her thoughts at the last moment. It’s not my fault. I have to do this.
Did she? Did she have to be so weak and prove Xoshia and the goodwives right about her?
“Vel!” she gasped, her hands pushing on his chest. “What are you doing?”
He blinked. “I was just . . .”
“I’m married. To your friend.” She sucked in breaths, her body trembling.
“You wanted it. I could see it. You were about to kiss me.”
Chaylene squeezed her eyes closed, struggling to parse her emotions. “I love him, Vel.”
“And me?”
“I don’t know.” She spoke the truth. She wanted Vel right now. Ary felt so remote, so far away, and the temptation to find comfort with Vel gripped her. Moments of passion before returning to her husband.
Just another Vaarckthian hussy.
“I have to go, Vel.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just got caught up talking about that night.”
She swallowed as she rose, backing away. “Okay.”
“It won’t happen again. I’ll be your friend. I promise.” He took a deep breath. “Just . . . think about Ary. Why did he marry you?”
“Because he loves me,” she said, mustering all the confidence she didn’t feel.
“Or is it pity?” Vel looked up at the sky. “He saw that you needed someone to love, that no other boy in the village would, and he pitied you. He always felt sorry for you. For how they treated you. How your ma acted.”
“It’s love, not pity,” she insisted.
“Maybe. But . . . the dreams.”
Chaylene chewed on her lip as she left Vel. She thought back to her relationship with Ary. He was always there to defend her, to comfort her with a hug, with encouragement. He came when her ma died. Had she mistaken his actions? Did he enlist in the Navy because he thought I was too weak without him?
Her mouth tasted ash as she slinked into her cottage. Ary was already asleep. She studied him for an eternity in the flickering light of the oil lamp, questioning everything.
~ * * ~
Though he hadn’t plucked her flower, Vel still floated on his way back to camp. His simple lie
dug at her. Anyone could tell that Ary loved Chaylene. For all his rage and anger, he cared for her. Too much. He gripped her tight to never lose her. But Vel’d finally found the cracks in her feelings. He thought she faked her love for Ary, that she feared him so she pretended. But now he realized the poor thing had deluded herself into believing she loved the brute.
Like Goodwife Nyumisa Brionil, who insisted her husband did nothing wrong when he beat her. She loved him despite the pain.
But Ary’s strange refusal to talk about his dreams provided the flaw. Like a Zalg miner, Vel merely had to claw into the cracks, widen them, and separate her heart from Ary’s. Then nothing would stop her from admitting the truth.
She loves me. She almost succumbed tonight. That Luastria’s right. Patience. She is worth it.
With his britches tight, he decided to visit Shon. A friendly maid would give him the relief Chaylene denied him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aernoa 10th, 399 VF (1960 SR)
A month and a half into their training at Camp Chubris, at the start of the month of Aernoa, the marines, scouts, and sailors began drilling together more and more often. At least half the day was spent as an integrated crew aboard the Dauntless, either with the ship still docked at Camp Chubris or sailing in the skies in and around Southern Les, returning most nights. Sometimes, the ship stayed out for several days, letting the crew get used to the day-to-day routine of living on the cramped ship. The summer’s heat baked the crew above deck and turning the stuffy hold into something that approached an oven, or so it felt to Ary in his wool uniform. He drank water by the bucketful sometimes, the medical officer, Lieutenant Jhoch foisting the liquid on any crew he felt wilted in the conditions.
After two weeks, Ary had learned about every part of the ship and how to fight from her gunwales along the deck. Unlike the Xorlar, the railing around the Dauntless’s was solid, turning it into a barricade to provide cover for the ship’s defenders.
As the training intensified, Ary’s dread of Chaylene learning the truth of his tainted dreams swelled. Her curiosity itched. Every time they afflicted him, she pestered and needled him. And the more he resisted, the cooler she became. He kept trying to tell the lies, but she’d look at him, face tight, eyes cloudy as the Storm, and he knew she saw through his words. Now he put her off, he shrugged, he denied her what she craved. It tore at him to see the hurt in her eyes. Better a little pain than seeing the disgust, he told himself. At least angry she still loves me.