by Beth Wangler
I bite my lip and search the skies. Empty still, and darkening as night approaches. We need to get out of this canyon. It blocks too much of the sky, makes us vulnerable to surprise attacks.
“Stay close, everyone,” Savi murmurs, herding us together with his arms. “Rai, you go in front, I go behind?”
I agree by doing what he suggested.
“I thought the aivenkaites thought we were dead or trapped,” Hoenna whispers.
“That’s what I hoped,” I say.
“Can they sense you?” he asks.
“I didn’t think so. Maybe?”
Nihae says, at full volume, “Rai, why are you whispering?”
I almost jump out of my skin. “Shh, Mama Nihae. There might be aivenkaites.”
“Stop shushing me!” Nihae grumbles.
I take her hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“There!” Forziel’s hiss jolts us to a stop.
A shadow streaks over the edge of the cliff, loops, and disappears. We stare after it. It’s not like any aivenkaite I’ve ever seen, but maybe it’s a new trick. They’ve been trying new tricks since Nhardah gave us the Swords.
Another shadow appears, a little further west. It also loops, but unlike the other, this shadow pauses. The setting sun shines full on it, showing gigantic wings and a furry tail.
“What on Orrock?”
“Axex,” Forziel breathes.
I assume it’s a curse he learned in another language. The profanity on this journey is starting to annoy me, so I frown at him.
Forziel doesn’t notice. His face is awash in wonder, green eyes wide, mouth hanging open, cheeks taut in a smile.
“What did you call it?” Yori asks. She tilts her head to get a better look at the creature.
Forziel doesn’t take his eyes off of the canyon top. “Axex—head and wings of a hawk, feet and tail of a lion. Eggs like agates. Oh, man, I’ve got to see this!” He breaks into a sprint. Before we call after him, he’s already scaling the canyon wall, reckless in his haste.
“Forziel!” I shout at him.
“C’mon,” he calls back. “You’re gonna want to see this!”
I glance at Savi.
“Go on,” he says. “I’ll stay down here with Mama.”
“I can climb as well as anyone,” Nihae grouses. “Certainly as well as that boy. I’m not a baby, you know.”
The kind, longsuffering woman I know is changing before my eyes. I turn after Forziel to avoid thinking about what’s happening to Nihae.
“Of course, Mama. But let’s stay down here anyways, okay?”
Yori is right behind Forziel. I tighten the belt holding Luemikaroeth and look up. Forziel’s feet disappear over the edge.
We don’t have time or supplies for this. We need to get to the capital. Why did Forziel choose to be impetuous when we’re in such a hurry?
But please, don’t let me fall.
I find a handhold and start to climb.
Before the top, my left shoulder aches. I shouldn’t be using it this way so soon after dislocating it.
I pull my chest over the top of the canyon with shaking arms and lose my breath. Colorful rock piles rise in crooked towers, topped by reed hats. In each hat nestles what can only be the eggs Forziel described. Each is swirled with stripes of color, smooth, hard, and vibrant. Oh—the rock piles are actually piles of shells!
And everywhere, everywhere, sit and soar the most majestic creatures I’ve ever seen.
One alights right in front of Forziel. I want to call out to him, but the words stick in my throat.
Forziel flinches back, arms spread, and his head whips up. Both he and the axex freeze. The hawk-lion turns one eye, then the other, toward Forziel. Slowly, the boy does the same.
The axex steps forward, catlike. I pull myself the rest of the way up, ready to protect Forziel.
Forziel holds a hand back at us. I wait, legs tense to spring.
The axex lowers its head and gently butts Forziel’s chest.
The boy and creature become instant friends. In moments, Forziel scrambles onto the creature’s back. “See?” he laughs. “We can ride them!”
Yori jumps forward. I grab her arm. “They’re wild animals, Yor.”
“No, see?” Forziel pats the axex’s neck. It spreads and flutters its wings. “The axex were domesticated. They’re the sultan’s traditional animal. Legend says the first axex was created by Yza, Mother Weaver, and Rezik, Father Physician, specifically to protect humans. I thought they were extinct, but here they are!”
“How do you know so much about these legends? Especially Izyphorn ones?” I call.
“I just do.” Forziel nudges the axex, and it leaps into the air. “See? We’ll be fine!” His laugh rings out.
I swipe a bead of sweat dripping down my face. I’m thirsty, and we haven’t been awake for long. How do I expect us to reach the capital without dehydrating? Walking requires water, and flying would be faster.
“Okay,” I say as my stomach knots. “If you can get a few more axex to agree, we’ll reach the capital by flying.”
Yori and Forziel whoop.
Chapter 32
Soon after I arrived on Ira, the island held a great festival to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the spirits uniting and creating the Iranines from their thoughts—at least, according to their traditions. On that night, Tatanda’s wife pulled a locked chest from under their bed and drew out of it a vest of the softest and darkest fabric I had ever seen.
Black velvet, they called it, cloth so rare that few but Izyphorn sultans and royals can afford it.
While we feasted, Anik scaled a wall holding a glass of sweet rice water. Promptly upon reaching the top, he teetered and tumbled down. The drink sprayed his mother’s vest with white specks, and Anik hobbled on a broken leg for months after.
The sky tonight reminds me of that vest—deeply dark, sprinkled in vibrant white, and warm. If only the axex could fly high enough for me to touch it, I’m certain the sky would be as soft as velvet.
Heat hangs in the air. When one of us shifts, it sparks against the axex feathers. That never happened when the kaites used to carry me high over Orrock. Most of the time, the kaites just held the air together enough to support my weight. That was like floating on an invisible bed as soft as feather down; this is clutching to a body that rocks and shakes with every air current. The kaites would never let me go; the axex requires most of my strength focused on staying aloft.
But the dust-dry air whips stringy, sweat-stiffened hair in and out of my eyes as we speed toward the capital, and that is just as I remember. Hills and dry canyons below, indree singing in ierah above⎼
For a moment, I let go of fatigue, fear, and grief, throw my head back, and laugh.
Forziel, ahead of us, darts back and forth on his axex. He whoops when the creature loops.
“Is there anything better than this?” I yell up to Forziel.
He grins and shakes his head, but Savi says, “I think I miss the flash flood.” He clings white-faced to his axex.
A glow warms the horizon, though we haven’t been in the air long enough for morning’s arrival. We fly steadily toward the light. Soon the glow illuminates the top of a massive mesa.
We are at the capital, and it’s in the throes of celebrating the beginning of the Feast of Wheat.
“We made it,” Forziel says.
The axex land in a bare stretch on the edge of the mesa, not far from the ramp leading down to the rest of the desert. Chords of music drift over to us, clashing tunes uniting in a cacophonous theme of celebration.
More people than I’ve ever seen fill every open space between crowded tents and stalls. The sight and the solid ground beneath my feet contort the joy of flight into the weight of our oncoming task.
“We actually made it,” Savi marvels, collapsing on the ground.
Yorchan slides off of her axex and lands on shaking hands and knees. “I don’t know how you’re so calm, Rai,�
�� she says. Her face is as pale as her hair.
Forziel grins, hopping from one foot to another. “Wasn’t it exhilarating?”
“That’s one way to put it,” Savi groans.
I want to reassure them, but my insides fizz. I wring my hands and breathe slowly. No words come to my tongue.
This is it. This is the moment I’ve been longing for all my life.
“We should set up a camp,” Hoenna says, surveying the festive glow of the city. “Use some of the treasure we took to buy supplies.”
My mouth is too dry to speak, so I just nod.
“Where’ll we camp?” Forziel asks. “D’you want me to find somewhere in the city?”
“No, too many eyes,” Hoenna says. “Out here seems like a good place. We’ll be close enough for the Champions to do whatever they do, but far enough to make a break for it if we have to.”
“Good thinking.” Forziel pats his axex’s side. It nudges his cheek with its beak. The boy grins. “I’ll be back soon, Lightning.”
“Lightning?” Yori asks.
“Ain’t it a great name for him?”
Yori laughs shakily. “I guess.”
Nihae frowns, and a struggle crosses her face. “Where are we? I don’t recognize this place. Are we setting up camp?”
Forziel snaps his fingers. “Right. I’ll be back soon with all the things.” He scurries away and disappears between the tents of Feasters.
I take Nihae’s hand and lead her to a nearby rock. “Here’s a good place to rest, Mama. We’re at the capital.”
“The capital! I never thought I’d see the day,” Nihae marvels. “Where’s Elesekk? We used to talk about what we’d do.”
I purse my lips into a weak smile. Hoenna’s advice echoes in my head: Play along. “I’m sure you can tell him soon.”
Savi, recovered enough to walk, joins us. “Why don’t you tell me in the meantime, Mama?”
Yori comes over, and the four of us talk in hushed tones. Meanwhile, Hoenna clears some ground of brush and rocks.
“They say that Tion Beriath, our promised home, is green and full of water,” Nihae says, eyes full of the glow of the indree. “If we live to see the day when Aia finally brings us back, the first thing we’ll do is spend a whole day in the water, and we’ll drink until we can’t hold any more.”
“‘Trees as far as you can see, towering tall as you can see,’” I quote. “That’s what the kaites used to say.”
Listening to Nihae share her and Elesekk’s dreams of the future is just enough to take my mind off of my twisting stomach.
Then Forziel returns, ladened with blankets for each of us and a sack filled with wheat cakes and figs. “There’s water in the city,” he announces. “They’ve got this huge wheel with buckets that lifts it from the bottom of the mesa. There’s a thing like a trough running through the city, and people just take what they need.”
In short time, our camp is set up, better supplied than it’s been to this point. Six blankets form a ring around a small fire ringed in the pebbles. While Forziel fills our waterskins, Hoenna heats the wheat cakes and passes them out to us. The warm, yeasty bread fills my mouth, and I sigh in satisfaction. Food has never tasted this good.
We chase the cakes and figs down with fresh water.
After our meal, Hoenna asks, “What do we do now?”
I look to Savi. He tilts his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Me, neither. There’s no point in waiting, now that we’re finally here.”
Savi nods. “Then we’re doing this.” A faint smile tweaks his lips, but his eyes are wide and the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
He looks as nervous as I feel.
I slip my hand into his and squeeze. We’re together. That strengthens me. Savi takes a deep breath and rolls his neck, loosening some of the tension there. I look up at the sky when he does. The indree sing and dance over us. Regardless of what the aivenkaites and sultan want, the indree see us and want the best for us—just as Aia does.
Aia. His name fills my mind. We’re here, at the capital. This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life, but now...Please, Aia. You care about Your people. You chose Savi and me to free them. Come with us. Do what You have promised: Free Your people.
When I look down, my eyes meet Savi’s. He watches me fondly. “May it be so,” he whispers.
“You don’t even know what I was praying,” I protest.
Savi draws me closer. “I know you well enough to know I agree with whatever you said.” He takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “For Aia and Maraiah?”
“For Aia and Maraiah.”
“Okay. So, what’s our plan?”
I blink at him. “We’re on our second plan: Convince the sultan and royals to free us.”
“Yes, but how? What do we do first?” Savi asks.
That stumps me. I’ve never thought of the details, and we didn’t get that far in planning on the ferry. “Aia will let us know what to do, right?” I want to sound certain, but it comes out more as a question. Our reasoning runs through my head, but I don’t know how we’ll start the conversation with the sultan and royals.
Savi tilts his head. “Maybe, but we should still have a plan.”
He’s right, of course. “I have no idea. Do you have any suggestions?”
Savi sinks down to his blanket, tugging me along. I settle beside him. Our arms brush.
“If Yrin’s here, that may count against us,” he thinks aloud.
I nudge him with my elbow. “At least they’ll have to wait to kill us.”
Savi laughs softly. “That’s not as comforting as you may think.”
“It does guarantee that they’ll have to hear us out.”
I hadn’t realized the others were listening, but Forziel pipes in, “If you can even get to them. These kinds of things are very crowded, and there are guards and stuff to keep the common folks away from the sultan.”
“How do you know so much about this?” Hoenna asks.
Forziel frowns at him. “The point is, we need a way in.”
Savi leans closer to me. “I know how to request an audience. That’s something I learned as one of Yrin’s advisors. I can probably get us an address with the sultan and royals, and then we can present our request.”
“All right. Then let’s do this.” I stand.
Savi follows. “Okay, but, Rai, we’ll have to follow the standard formalities of address. Let me speak first, and wait until I’m done to speak your part.”
I think of when I met Yrin. “I’ll try. But, Savi, what if Aia tells me to speak?”
He laces his fingers through mine. “Then you’ll speak, of course. Aia outranks the sultan, after all.”
That surprises a laugh out of me.
Before we leave camp, Savi looks at Hoenna. “If anything happens to us, will you…” He glances to Nihae and Yori, then back at him.
Yori rolls her eyes. “I don’t need a babysitter, brother. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m coming with you.”
“Yori,” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Rai, do you honestly think I’d miss out on the chance to witness this? I’m coming.”
Forziel almost trips over himself jumping to his feet. “Me, too!”
I sigh. “Fine. But you both stay far behind us, and you don’t say anything.”
“Yes, Mom.” Yori sticks out her tongue.
I roll my eyes at her, but I’m smiling.
With that, the four of us delve into the capital. We squeeze, one at a time, past countless strangers enjoying treats, songs, and exhibits of unusual talents. Someone in a mask juggles knives from the top of stilts. A masked woman lowers a flaming torch down her throat and exhales a stream of fire, like the zindrumih of legend.
I feel cold when we pass her.
Through it all, Savi keeps a tight grip on my hand. I squeeze back and rest my other hand on Luemikaroeth’s hilt.
Buildings replace tents. At first, people ov
erflow from cramped huts, but the further in we go, the larger the buildings become.
Salty, greasy aromas mingle with the music in the air. Though we just ate, my stomach growls.
When we pass a water fountain, we pause to join the line waiting for drinks. We drink the water, pumped in somehow from the Havilim River, for as long as the fountain attendant allows.
The buildings stop, and we run into a line of dancers swaying and stomping to the music of a two-ended pipe flute. Through them, I glimpse an open courtyard, where all the assembled royals lounge under white textiles draped between the pillars of the faces of the dead. Two roaring fires flank them, sending up glowing embers and making their clothing shimmer. Yrin is not among them.
In the center, ensconced in a cushioned throne, presides the sultan. A crown of wheat stalks woven into a braid towers over his head. Statues of a vole and a jack rabbit, the animal incarnations of Api Guardian of the Harvest, stand to his right and left.
There they are, the richest people in the world, pouring fermented drinks down their throats while they bask in the fruits of slave labor.
The dancers part, and court magicians leap into their place. The magicians launch into a display that is half-spectacle, half-competition. “They’re showing off whose connection to the divinities—you’d call it their powers of illusion—is greatest,” Forziel tells Yorchan. His chanavea glints in the torchlight.
The display speeds up, signs growing grander. Something inside me tells me this is our moment.
I tug Savi’s hand and nod at the rulers. Together, we squeeze between the magicians and stride toward the lounging Izyphorns. Thankfully, Yori and Forziel stay back.
Savi drops to his knees and tugs me down beside him. “O our sultan and O our royals, we humbly request an audience with you on this day of Feast.”
One magician was creating a swirling maelstrom of green and purple sparks. At Savi’s declaration, he drops his hands. Fire explodes in his face, singing his eyebrows and sending up a plume of violet smoke.
The sultan frowns. The magicians still. Everyone’s eyes are on us.
My cheeks heat.
Something must happen while I focus on my embarrassment, because Savi is introducing us. “And this is my wife Raiballeon, daughter of Khorfai and Karoecharn, raised by the kaites, of the people Maraiah.”