Skyfire

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  Teddy steps forward. ‘I’ll come with you. I reckon we’ll find someone.’

  Gratitude fills my stomach like warm soup. But I’m out of words, and all I can do is nod. Then we’re stumbling out of the tent, the fabric flapping behind us, and that final image of Lukas is burned into my brain. And no matter how much I deny it, how much I try to stomp down on my thoughts, a small part of me can’t help thinking: That might be the last time you see him alive.

  The cold hits me hard – a sting of bitter night. People slash at each other, moaning. I trip over a body in the mud; when I look down in horror at the dead eyes, I recognise one of the soldiers from the firing squad. Just a few minutes ago, he was ready to shoot me. And despite everything, all I feel for him is pity. Just a kid. Conscripted. No older than twenty. He still clutches his bow in one hand, his arrow half-buried in the muck beside his face.

  ‘Come on!’ Teddy says.

  We race towards the nearest foxary, which is chained outside an abandoned tent. Teddy works on the chains and then we clamber aboard. The foxary snarls and tosses its head, straining to reach around and gut us.

  ‘Don’t like this thing,’ Teddy mutters, grabbing the knife-bridle in his hands. ‘It’s bloody cruel.’

  He yanks the knives free from their clips, but leaves the bridle clamped across the creature’s jaw. He has no choice. Teddy’s proclivity is useless here, and the foxary views him as just another lump of flesh. Without a bridle, we won’t be riders; we’ll be meat.

  Lights spring into life around us. Fire stones, strapped to the belts of Víndurnic soldiers. Thousands of stones light up in unison, as though an enormous hand has reached down from the sky and flicked a fistful of glitter through the battlefield.

  The Taladian soldiers cry out, terrified. Their shouts hit my ears like a rush of overlapping waves. ‘Magic!’ they cry. ‘Magic in the Valley!’ But I know the firestones are imbued with Curiefer, and so their stilted light isn’t a shock to me. Just another whirl of the battle. Just another rush in the dark.

  Where’s Lord Farran? Is this it? Is he about to send some kind of magic through the stones – some terrible burst of alchemy, a pall of death for the enemy troops?

  But nothing happens. The firestones are nothing more than lights, shining like the cliff top near Bastian’s village. They flicker. They glisten. And after a minute or so, they fade back into shadow.

  Whatever Farran is planning, it isn’t time to start. Not yet.

  Teddy grasps the foxary’s reins. I feel a familiar lurch beneath me: a clench of muscle, the loading of a furry spring. Then the creature explodes into the crowd, all its strength pumping forward as its legs churn the muck. It snorts and snarls and claws its way through a pack of bodies, soldiers scattering as we charge towards them.

  ‘Which way?’ Teddy shouts.

  I turn my head, desperate for a sign of help. But I don’t see healers. I don’t see Deníel, or Bastian, or anyone who looks ready to tend the wounded. All I see is killing, and dying, and bodies in the mud. Screams. Blood. Chaos.

  And then I see him. Quirin. He has already spotted us, and he rides towards us with fire in his eyes. He swings a blade above his head, his sólfox gnashing and clawing at the bit between its teeth. His beard melds into the colour of the beast’s fur, so when he leans down low I’m not even sure where the animal ends and the man begins.

  Quirin, the smuggler of secrets. Back for one final twist of the knife.

  We meet in a whirlwind of snarls and claws. I lurch forward and grab our foxary’s neck, clinging on for dear life as it twists and bites and writhes beneath me: a furious serpent of fur. Quirin slashes out with his blade and I duck just as the metal swoops above my head. Our foxary twists aside and we face each other, beast to beast, with only silent air for a shield.

  ‘You should have joined us when you had the chance!’ Quirin says, his eyes fixed on Teddy. ‘You had potential, boy. You’d have made a great smuggler.’

  Teddy stares back at him. I suddenly remember our chat on the lagoon, when Teddy professed his desire to join the smugglers. To leave our mission behind. But now he faces Quirin with a tightness in his body. Even from behind, I feel it: the way his spine straightens, and his shoulders pull back. As though his entire body is recoiling from the smuggler, repulsed.

  ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘All that betrayal … don’t reckon I’d have the stomach for it.’

  Quirin lets out a snarl, as wild as his sólfox, and kicks the animal towards us. A gleaming blade, a flash against the shadows, and Teddy leaps.

  He hits Quirin smack in the side. The man bellows as Teddy ploughs into his torso. I’m left alone on our foxary, fumbling for the reins. The creature wrenches its head around to snap at me. I pull the reins, wild and brutal, forcing its head back to the front.

  As soon as the beast is under control, I glance to the side. Teddy and Quirin grapple upon the sólfox. They claw at each other, shoving and shouting and gouging terrible marks into each other’s skin. Neither has a weapon – Quirin dropped his sword in the impact. All they’ve got are fingernails and fury.

  And then Quirin pulls the knife. It slides out from his sleeve, as swift as a snake. He raises it to Teddy’s eyes.

  ‘Teddy!’ I kick my foxary and it charges forward, smashing into the other beast’s side. Quirin jerks back and Teddy grabs the man’s fist. They grapple, the knife locked between two sets of knuckles, two faces straining and panting into the grey.

  Suddenly, another blade flashes.

  Quirin topples.

  The moment slows oddly in my mind. Teddy reels back, shocked, as his opponent falls away. A stranger’s sword sticks between Quirin’s ribs, protruding through the bloody tatters of his cloak. A shine of silver catches my eye and my breath stutters.

  The charms!

  I throw myself from our foxary. The beast careens off into the crowd, snorting and snarling against the bit on its tongue. But all I can see is that falling body, and the charms around its neck.

  Quirin hits the mud. His eyes are open. Dead. I wrench the chain over his head. The fistful of silver is like oxygen in my hands. A breath of life. This is it. This is what I need to save Lukas. If I can only …

  And then I see our saviour. The hand that wielded the blade.

  Annalísa.

  She topples slowly, a bloody arrow in her chest. And I just manage to catch her, silver cold in my palm, before her gasping head hits the dirt.

  We ride Quirin’s sÓlfox back to the tent, and chain it roughly to a stake. The creature shrieks, flapping wildly, as we drag Annalísa’s wounded body inside. The twins cry out when we burst into the tent, but my gaze flies straight to Lukas. Is he …?

  I can’t hear him breathing, but I can see his chest rising. I almost sink to the floor. It’s as though my legs have turned to water, pooling beneath me in a flood of liquid relief. If we’d been too late, if he hadn’t been breathing …

  We lay Annalísa on the second camp bed, a few feet from Lukas. I rush across with Quirin’s stolen charms, fishing for the tiny silver bone.

  Maisy lets out a gasp. ‘Where did you get –?’

  ‘Quirin,’ Teddy says. ‘He’s dead.’

  I press the charm against Lukas’s chest and clench my eyes shut, desperate. This is it. I’m going to save him.

  Teddy grabs my forearm. ‘Danika …’

  ‘Get off me!’

  ‘Danika, it’s not gonna work!’

  I don’t want to hear it. I block out his voice. All that matters is this twist of silver. This tiny metal bone, ready to heal Lukas’s wounds. It stings against my fingers, ricocheting magic back into my flesh. I wince at the pain, grit my teeth and press down harder.

  ‘Danika, it’s not gonna work,’ Teddy says again. His voice is gentle, but it hitches a little. ‘We’re still in the Valley.’

  ‘No! Just give me a second and –’

  ‘It’s alchemy, Danika. Doesn’t work properly here.’

  No. It can’t be.


  The charm won’t heal Lukas. Not when we stand upon seams of magnetic rock. I almost scream at the unfairness of it all. I lean forward and clench my fingers tighter around the charms. Lukas once risked everything to keep this Valley’s magnetism in play. And now, that very magnetism is going to kill him.

  ‘Hour …’ Annalísa murmurs. ‘Hourglass.’

  We turn, startled. I’d thought she was out cold, her consciousness leaking away with her blood. But her eyes are open now, and she stares at us with a furious light in her gaze.

  ‘What?’ Maisy says. ‘What about the Hourglass?’

  Annalísa’s breath is stilted. She chokes out a few rough gasps, then wets her lips. ‘You must stop him. He will do it tonight.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Midnight …’

  I force myself to step away from Lukas. I reach Annalísa’s side and bend down close, my heart racing. ‘What do you know about the Hourglass?’

  She stares at me, her eyes glassy. ‘I thought … I thought it was just a story. But now I think … Midnight … He will …’ She trails off into a fit of coughing. Blood sprays over her lip, her chin. I wipe it away as gently as I can manage.

  When she speaks again, her voice is barely a whisper. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I won’t. I promise.’ I swallow hard, my throat dry. ‘You saved us. I don’t know how to thank you.’

  Annalísa shakes her head, then winces as the pain flares. ‘The Hourglass …’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A machine.’ She coughs again, bloody spittle spraying across her lips. ‘Alchemy. A machine of life. A machine of time. Locked deep within the earth, so none may use it. A thousand years …’

  ‘Locked within the earth?’ I say, heart thumping. ‘And you think Lord Farran is going after it?’

  ‘Sealed in magic, sealed in stone,’ Annalísa whispers. ‘Time for power, time alone.’ Her voice has a sudden singsong quality, as though reciting a long-forgotten tune. She blinks up at me, eyes urgent. ‘That is why he kills them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘People with tem … temporal proclivities. People whose magic links into time.’ Annalísa fights for another breath. ‘Only they can control the Hourglass.’ She raises a shaky finger. ‘You. You, my dear …’

  She twitches on the bed. I realise I’m barely breathing.

  ‘Time, time, time …’ Annalísa’s body jerks as she sucks down a gasp. ‘Oh frozen night … how the dark –’

  She gurgles, her head falling backwards. There’s a rasping in her chest now: a terrible rattle in her lungs. She clutches my hand. ‘You stayed with me,’ she whispers, barely audible. ‘Just like my daughter.’

  Annalísa’s fingers are gnarled and hard against my skin: the brittle remnants of a life almost lost. She meets my eyes for a good long moment. Then her head falls back. Her eyes dim. Her breath breaks.

  I lean across to close her eyes.

  ‘Danika?’ Clementine says urgently. ‘Danika, you’d better …’

  I turn. She’s staring at Lukas, her face pale. And in a moment, I forget all about Annalísa. I forget about hourglasses and songs and firestones. All I see is Lukas, as pale as star-shine, and the bloody mess of bandages across his body.

  His lips part weakly. ‘Danika …’

  I press myself to his bedside, leaning over him. I fight to hear his words, to quell the terror in my stomach. ‘We’re going to save you,’ I say. ‘We’re going to get you out of here. I’ve got a healing charm.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he whispers.

  I cup a hand to his cheek. His skin is warm beneath my own: warm and alive. I’m suddenly struck by the thought that his mind lives beneath this flesh. His thoughts and feelings and magic and everything that makes him Lukas is here, behind those bright green eyes. And at any moment, it could all be erased. Gone. Nothing. An empty shell.

  ‘No,’ I choke. ‘It’s not okay.’ I look up at the others, anguished. ‘How far are we from the borderlands?’

  Teddy hesitates. ‘Not far. The camp’s right at the edge of the Valley. But Danika, I don’t think –’

  ‘We’re going,’ I say. ‘We have to try.’

  Quirin’s sólfox is still chained outside, flapping and screeching in the chaos of the battle. I unbuckle the metal plates from its wings, ducking a deadly blow from feathered bone and sinew. ‘Help me get him on!’

  We balance Lukas on the creature’s back. Teddy slides in front of him and I sit behind, propping up his body. The air is colder than ever. Every breath is ice in my throat. Lukas trembles. I should wrap him in a blanket, shield him from the whip of the wind – but there’s no time.

  No time for anything.

  ‘We’ll come behind you,’ Maisy whispers. ‘We’ll find another sólfox. Just go. Hurry!’

  I don’t want to leave them here. The thought of splitting up – after all this time, after all we’ve been through – is enough to make me sick. But Lukas doesn’t have time to wait.

  ‘The edge of the borderlands,’ I say. ‘We’ll wait for you.’

  And without another word, we steer the sólfox out into the fray.

  The world outside is a blur. I barely hear it. I barely see it. All I know is Lukas: slumped between us, balancing between our bodies. His eyelids are still open, but barely. They flutter a little, as limp as half-crushed moths.

  ‘Ready?’ Teddy says.

  The word reminds me of Lukas, in an alleyway of the city of spires. A mask upon his face, ready to attend the ball. A smile. An extended hand.

  And now, his body limp against my own.

  ‘Go,’ I say. ‘Just go.’

  Teddy kicks the sólfox’s sides. We gallop, wild and panicked, through the camp. There are screams around us: cries and shouts, blood and death. But we ignore it all, clinging to the sólfox as it charges towards Taladia.

  Then I hear it. A tumult of screams. It’s more than just the roar of general battle. It’s more intense, as though a crowd has converged upon a single point, their voices raised in a cry of hope and despair.

  ‘Teddy, what …?’

  ‘Look!’ Teddy lifts a hand from the reins for a moment, pointing urgently towards the crowd. ‘Danika, it’s the king!’

  Then I see it. King Morrigan’s tent is burning. I can smell the smoke. A hundred soldiers surge around the tent, torches in their hands, swords held high. They’re screaming, shouting, chanting. Not just the fury of battle. The fury of something else. A deeper betrayal. A deeper hatred, one that has burned for a lifetime.

  I focus on their uniforms and understanding hits me, cold and sharp. These aren’t Víndurnic soldiers. They’re Taladians.

  ‘Lukas,’ I gasp. ‘Lukas, look!’

  He forces his eyes open, bleary. I hold him up a little higher, letting him peer over the sólfox’s folded wing. He blinks, clearly struggling to focus. Then he sees the flames. ‘My father …?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t –’

  A figure dashes from the tent. I see the flash of gold upon his head: the arch of a crown. And then the crowd is upon him – a whirl of fire and steel and death. The mob rushes down to the shoreline, screaming wildly, a broken body thrust above their heads. They toss King Morrigan into the deep, the crown still glinting upon his head.

  His body sinks into the dark.

  In my arms, Lukas lets out a quiet moan. It’s a strange sound. I’m not sure whether it’s relief, or despair, or simply exhaustion.

  ‘Lukas …’ I whisper. I don’t know what to say.

  And so we charge on. We ride beyond the battle, onto open slopes, to the shadows and silence beyond. From tents to boulders, from muck to grassland. And finally we’re charging across the grassy slope – a fox in a meadow, wild and free, chasing those distant deserts of green …

  The Valley ends in a wreck of stone: the remains of a dam wall, broken by our own desperate assault. As we rush towards the edge, I feel a prickle in my veins – the briefest touch of Night, as we escape
the Valley’s magnetic seams. But we can’t stop here – not so close to the heat of battle, within the range of arrows.

  The great wings flap. Air rushes beneath us.

  I clutch the necklace of charms. The metal feels slick with sweat in my palm. I don’t want to let go, but I need both hands to hold myself, and Lukas, against the flap and sway of the rising sólfox.

  I shove the necklace into my pocket and lean forward, clutching Lukas to my chest. My legs clamp around the sólfox’s torso, pressed up high above its wings. Then I peer back down behind us. There, falling away, lies the battlefield. The darkness. The water. The blood.

  Lukas’s head lolls back against me; I feel his breath beneath my chin. ‘Danika …’

  ‘Shhh.’ I clutch him with one hand, and hold the other tightly to Teddy’s shoulder in front. ‘Save your strength. It’s all right.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Just a bit further, and we’ll be safe.’ My voice cracks. ‘Just a bit further, all right?’

  He looks up at me, struggling to focus. And as the wind rises beneath us, our sólfox soars into the night.

  In Taladia, we land on the southern shore of the lake. I recognise the old site of the army camp – the place we stood when the dam wall fell.

  The earth is ruined, washed away, broken and strewn in chunks. Debris litters the surface. Canvas tents, broken wood, ration packs and rotting supplies. Clothes and sheets and sleeping sacks, thick with the stink of mildew.

  I tumble from the sólfox, Teddy beside me. We lift Lukas down gently and lay him on the earth. The mud bristles with frost. I wish there were grass. I wish there were something – anything – to make this place more gentle.

  I can’t let him die here. Not in this harsh, ugly place.

  I can’t let him die at all.

  Teddy restrains the sólfox while I fumble for the charms. Lukas is barely breathing now. His eyes are closed, his chest still. I can only feel his life in his pulse: a thrumming in his wrist, clutched in my own fingers.

  I press the healing charm against his first wound. Heal.

  Nothing happens. I can’t feel the magic. Are we still too close to the Valley? No, we can’t be – we were just flying. And I know that magic works on this shoreline; I once saw alchemy pistols fired here, in the old army camp. I take a deep breath and force my mind into the chunk of silver, straining to feel the alchemy within. It has to work. It has to …