The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives)

by Courtney Grace Powers

  His proposal was met by disbelieving silence. Hayden almost made the mistake of chuckling nervously, sure he had to be joking. That was before he saw the set of his jaw and his armored expression and realized with a dull shock Reece was being deadly serious. He really meant to leave Gideon, his best friend, in the Oceanun prison, probably with Owon as a roommate.

  “But…we can’t!” Po burst out while Hayden was still processing his shock. “He didn’t do anythin’!”

  “And even if he did,” Scarlet added, “since when do we turn on our own?”

  Laying a hand on Reece’s arm, Po looked up at him with big, dark eyes Hayden didn’t know if he could have said no to for anything. But Reece’s frown was uncomfortable and unwelcoming, and it was hardening into something fragile by the second. “Reece,” Po pleaded, “we can’t let them take him. It ain’t fair. He—”

  Hayden saw the break coming a second too late to stop it.

  “Will you stop that?” Reece’s voice cracked as he shook a white-faced Po off his arm like a bug that had landed on his sleeve. “Stop…talking to me like we’re…something! We’re not ever going to be something, Po!”

  If Hayden wished he could quietly duck behind the bar and hide in that moment, he couldn’t imagine how Po must be feeling. She stared at Reece, mortified, and backed away from him with her brown eyes brimming even as he grimaced apologetically and sighed, “Po…”

  It was too late. She spun and fled without looking back.

  “Brute,” Scarlet muttered contemptuously, and picking up her skirts, hurried after her.

  Groaning, Reece collapsed back onto his stool. “Burn it all,” he cursed miserably.

  Nivy hailed the bartender and gestured for a round of drinks to be brought out. When Reece looked at her gratefully, she smirked and made a swooping motion with her hand. Smooth. Hayden’s thoughts exactly. Reece was outdoing himself today.

  “For the record, that wasn’t the end of my plan,” Reece told what was left of his audience, spreading his hands helplessly. Of all of them, it was Mordecai who clapped him on the shoulder and kindly handed him his new drink.

  “You were thinkin’ if Gideon was in the brig when another anai was stolen, he’d be proven innocent,” he guessed. Reece nodded. “It ain’t a bad plan. But you can see why Gideon might take issue with it.”

  “Whatever you mean to do…” Talfryn spoke up from behind Hayden with a grimace. She rubbed the shoulder of her sword arm as she spoke. “…you ought to do it soon. My father has left the city for an off-world negotiation, but Hannick is always put in charge in his absence. He was the one who ordered your friend the Pantedan brought in for questioning. I think he ordered the arrest in haste, because he was annoyed by the tournament being interrupted, but—”

  “I’ll find my grandson,” Mordecai said levelly, looking Reece hard in the eyes as if to make sure he was listening closely. “You talk to that friend’a yours. If he’s in charge, mayhaps he’ll do us the pleasure’a releasin’ us from Pryor’s house arrest. I think it’s long past time we were off this planet.”

  Mordecai, Nivy, and Reece all tipped back their heads and drank as Hayden stood there, having contributed nothing to earn the drink Nivy had passed to him, and feeling more keenly aware of it by the second. He swilled his tall, tapering glass uncertainly, not altogether sold on the idea of drinking something that smelled as though it should be cleaning wounds in the infirmary, until Talfryn tapped his back with a finger.

  “Come with me,” she whispered mischievously.

  For once, Hayden didn’t let himself think twice. While his friends’ faces were still buried in their cups, he let Tallie’s tug on his hand jerk him into a lumbering run. He barely remembered to drop his cup on a table on his way out.

  When Tallie had instructed him to roll up the legs of his trousers, he’d hesitated, dismayed at the thought of her seeing his scuffed shoes and badly-darned socks. Now, he was glad he’d listened. The frigid water lapped at the edge of the open door and every once in a while managed to push itself far enough into the translocator shaft to sweep up to his ankles. The Oceanuns’ knee-high boots weren’t all about being fashion forward, after all.

  This was the top floor of Neserus’s outermost tower, and it barely topped the waves enough for there to be dry standing room. It was a dock, Talfryn had explained, a place where fishermen could pull up their boats and step directly into the translocator to ride down to the city. To Hayden, it felt more like a closet had been supplanted and left bobbing in the middle of the ocean. As far as he could see in any direction, black velvet water striped with starlight rippled and rolled. He half believed he could walk out on it, like a marble ballroom floor. The sight was eerie, vast, and dizzying.

  “Imagine if the water wasn’t there,” Tallie mused, holding onto the doorframe and swinging out over the water. “This would be a thousand foot drop.”

  Hayden’s stomach tightened queasily at the visual, and he pulled her back into the translocator with a shiver.

  She giggled. “You don’t like heights, do you?”

  “I’m afraid they don’t like me,” he admitted sheepishly, staring out at the view, which ironically enough, made him think of a cold black desert. Of Leto and its never-ending rolls of sand. “I get airsick, too.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest about it.” Talfryn squatted and sat with her back against one side of the doorframe. “You’ll be leaving soon, won’t you?” she asked, head canted to one side. “With my father gone and Hannick in charge…your captain will probably try to slip out.”

  “Maybe,” Hayden said doubtfully as he sat down across from her, remembering how totally sapped Reece had looked in the men’s changing room. “I don’t know. Reece is…things have just been different with him, these last few days. He’s not himself. I can’t tell what he’ll decide to do.”

  Tallie barely waited for him to get his last word out before she said all in a rush, “I want to come with you when you go.”

  “What?”

  “With your crew, I mean. I know you’re on some sort of quest, and I promise, I’ll stay out of the way, and I won’t ask questions. But I can’t just keep existing here. I’m utterly stationary, Hayden.”

  “Tallie…” Hayden hesitated, conflicted and not sure why. Like Reece, he hadn’t been himself lately. His feelings were the one thing he should be able to quantify in all this muddled chaos, but they were the thing making everything else so much harder to get an angle on. He didn’t want to leave and not see her again, and yet…

  Talfryn was waiting on his reply and looking less and less hopeful by the minute. She slumped dejectedly against the doorframe as he spread his hands and sighed, contrite, but also frustrated with himself.

  “That’s not really up to me.”

  “That’s not really an answer,” she bounced back.

  “What was the question? Maybe you should clarify.”

  “You don’t have to be rude.”

  “What? No I—I really meant that. I don’t think I understood what you were asking.”

  “Oh.” Talfryn ducked her head, embarrassed, and then started laughing in that self-deprecating way of hers. “I’m sorry. I’m too used to Hannick’s antics. It’s always safer to be on the defensive side with him.” She absently rubbed her shoulder again.

  Something about the way she did it this time made Hayden go very still and hold his breath. Back in the lounge, he thought she’d been working the knots out of her sword arm, but she was being too gentle for that, not kneading, prodding, testing the skin, not the muscle. An ugly inspiration hit him in the chest so he inhaled sharply and readjusted his bifocals, leaning forward. It was next to impossible to tell by the starlight alone, but he knew even without seeing the bruise for himself that it was serious.

  “Did he do that to you?” he gasped, horrified.

  Blinking, Talfryn dropped her hand and shrugged self-consciously. “I told you he was in a temper. Don’t worry. Father is always ster
n when he strikes me out of turn.”

  “He—” Hayden’s throat felt raw; he had to clear it roughly. How could she just sit there and act like this was okay? “Not stern enough. Talfryn, people go to prison for that sort of thing on Honora!”

  Talfryn looked confused. “But it’s family business.”

  For a minute, Hayden was completely confounded. Tallie’s eyes were bright and inquisitive on his face, so much like Sophie’s, his heart thumped painfully offbeat. The thought of someone hurting her simply because they could…hurting Sophie because no one would tell them not to…it made him angry and simultaneously distraught, so afraid he wouldn’t be able to protect either of them if it came down to it, when they were the only two people he’d ever felt capable of protecting. How could he, if they were a thousand light-years away? He’d left Sophie behind on Atlas with nothing but a hope and a promise he’d see her again. How could he leave Talfryn, too?

  “So your father…he hits you too?”

  Tallie shrugged, still seeming puzzled. “He chooses not to. As the king, he thinks it wouldn’t be—”

  “Proper,” Hayden finished with her, nodding impatiently. At least he’d happened upon something that gave credence to Scarlet’s vague bad feelings about Oceanus and Hannick.

  “You’re coming with us,” he decided aloud. Talfryn’s mouth fell open in surprise as he repeated to cement it in his mind—and because he needed to practice his no-nonsense tone for when it came time to tell Reece and especially Scarlet about this, “You’re coming with us, Talfryn. You have to. I don’t know why, but I just feel like if you don’t…I won’t…”

  Talfryn leaned forward expectantly, making him nervous for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on. Clearing his throat, he looked away, staring out over the ocean for a moment before realizing what he was seeing. He shot to his feet.

  “What is that?” he asked, hoarse.

  “What?” Talfryn stood and peered over his shoulder. “Oh. My father’s ships must be returning early from his negotiations.”

  But the black splotches blotting out whole patches of stars were familiar to Hayden like Pryor’s ships wouldn’t be. Their silhouette was spiky and ridged, like the spiny back of a reptile, and they were huge, as big as whole clouds and growing bigger by the second. A normal ship would have turned on hover lights upon breaking atmosphere. These ships moved in silently. The water started to tick against the toes of Hayden’s shoes as it lapped and rippled in an ominous wind.

  “We have to get down,” he whispered, and started backing into the shaft. “We have to get down!”

  In a burst of decisiveness, he yanked Talfryn away from the water and hit the control panel on the wall, closing them in the translocator. They rode down in silence for the first few moments, staring at each other. Hayden’s heart pounded out the seconds.

  Then the first volley came, and the tower shook like a rattle, sending them sprawling.

  “Cover your head!” Hayden cried, and Talfryn screamed and obeyed as another blast rocked them wildly. “The city is under attack!”

  The translocator screeched to an abrupt halt, its decompressors hissing underfoot, and Hayden hoped against all odds it had at least made it as far as the top of the pier before breaking down. If they were still above water, locked at the top of the spindly tower, and another strike came…

  He groaned with relief as the door tried to open, even though it only managed a few inches. Smoke and the sound of terrified screams and peeling alarms instantly flooded into the shaft. Panting, Hayden stumbled to the door, gripped its edge, and tried to manually slide it the rest of the way open. Tallie’s hands appeared below his. She nodded at him, white-faced and frightened-looking. Together, they forced the door to retract. They were met with a scene from a warzone.

  Most of the lights in this corridor had been blown. The few that hadn’t sparked and sputtered randomly, showing them the damage in sinister flashes. Decorations, tables, chairs, columns, whole walls—things were broken and crumbled and toppling in every direction. People rushed around in senseless terror. Some coughed and groaned for help. Others lay broken on the floor and didn’t move at all. Talfryn choked back a sob as she staggered out into the corridor, turning around in a circle to take it all in.

  “Why is this happening?” she asked as she faced Hayden. “Those ships…who was that?”

  Even if Hayden had had the time, he doubted he would have been able to answer those questions in full. They were The Kreft, and they would plow through one end of Neserus to the other if the crew of The Aurelia didn’t get her off Oceanus. That was all he could say for sure.

  “Tallie,” he said, stepping towards her, but she recoiled like she was suddenly afraid of him. He swallowed, looking around swiftly as another light popped out and someone down the hall screamed. “Tallie, we have to go. They…The Kreft…they’re after our ship.”

  “The Kreft?” she repeated.

  “Yes. I…I can’t explain right now, but listen to me, we need to get to The Aurelia and get out of here. We can still save the city, but to do that, we need to leave it.”

  “Leave?”

  Hayden grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him and not the corridor crumbling into chaos around them. In the same way, he tried to see her and only her, so as to not let the fear gobble him up. “Talfryn, do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Tallie panted, searching his face, and then slowly nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand.” She winced as the ground shivered beneath them and a whole new set of alarms started blaring. “I need to see that the ferries are running first…evacuating survivors to Lumiel. If the Command Exchange is in tact, I might be able to get a message to the other cities, asking for help.”

  “Then hurry,” he urged, letting her go. “Meet me at the ship. I’ll wait for you.”

  With a nod, she took a deep breath, straightened her back, and bravely charged down the corridor. The moment she disappeared from sight was the moment Hayden really felt what was happening for the first time with terrible clarity. He remembered the ballroom on The Jester, a white, screaming blur, and fire everywhere. He remembered feeling useless and terrified as he was forced to listen to Reece’s dying screams. Not this time. The Kreft were coming, but this time, he’d be ready.

  He turned and ran into the dark.

  XXI

  Over the Edge and Beyond

  “Sisters.” Hannick clacked his empty glass down with undue force and gave it a practiced shove that slid it right into the bartender’s waiting hand. “Do you have any, Reece?”

  With a snort, Reece shook his head and continued stirring the drink Hannick had bought him with his tournament winnings. It was supposed to be Pantedan burnthroat, but whoever had cured it had clearly never tried the real, sinus-clearing stuff. “Sometimes, I feel like I have three.”

  “You mean your crewmates?” Hannick sounded surprised. “I doubt the little one, at least, would appreciate that.”

  It took Reece a minute to work out that the little one must be Po, but when he did, he wished it had taken him longer. Did everyone know about Po’s…intentions? Tasteless or not, he gulped the imitation burnthroat down a good three inches. He’d rather chat about something a little more lighthearted, like The Kreft’s sinister plans for subjugating the known galaxies. Or maybe the stolen anai, since that was the subject he was supposed to be working up to anyways.

  “Honestly, Reece,” Hannick chuckled. “You shouldn’t let her affections go to waste. She’s pretty, and bright enough, if the first part’s not enough to sell you.” He held up his hands as Reece gave him a warning look, apparently amused. “No offense. It’s just not fair, you having all these pretty girls at your disposal and wanting nothing to do with them.”

  “Weren’t we talking about something else?” Reece snapped, and Hannick toasted him, as if his rebuttal had been all that clever. Maybe that was the point.

  For a minute, Hannick was too busy observing a pair of giggling girls strollin
g by with their red heads together to answer. The lounge, which earlier had been one empty table short of dead, was now filled to bursting with tournament-goers still sporting their favorite clubs’ colors. Reece could only imagine what the more popular eateries looked like. This just happened to be where Hannick had found him.

  “Yes. Talfryn,” Hannick finally said as the redheads sank into the milling press of people. “She knew full well when she forfeited that she was leaving me to win by necessity. Where’s the glory in that?”

  “But you did win,” Reece pointed out.

  Hannick harrumphed. “Indeed I did,” he muttered, glaring into the crowd as he reclined with his back to the bar.

  Reece tracked his dark stare to its target: a set of approaching blond men who must have been twins. Their smug smirks were as identical as their long necks, teacup-handle ears, and pointed chins. Actually, the closer they came, the more Reece realized they were probably of an age with him, if not younger, and totally unimpressive despite the dim lighting working in their favor. They swaggered up to the bar and without waiting for an invitation, took up post on either side of Reece and Hannick.

  “Hannick,” greeted the one at Reece’s elbow.

  “Ridley,” Hannick returned wryly.

  “Hannick,” said the other.

  “Trig.”

  “Reece,” Reece raised his glass and inserted, in case anyone was interested.

  The twins scowled at him and straightened the banded collars of their green tunics in unison before resuming their act. One after the other, they said, “Lucky victory there, Pryor.”

  “Plan that, did you?”

  Shrugging, Hannick lazily waved for another drink. He made a show of thumbing through his healthy wad of Oceanun winnings to pay for his newest acquisition. “I always plan on winning.”

  Snorting, Trig snapped out a gangly arm and grabbed the wad of winnings, making Reece start. But Hannick let the wad go, seeming nonchalant, if a little annoyed.