by Lelia Eye
“I thought you’d be back with your people by now,” Skye said as an aside to Gusty, cringing at how short and rude his own voice sounded.
Fortunately, Gusty appeared to take no notice. “Oh, I suppose I never told you. I’m from the town. My father is the fletcher here.”
Skye turned to his friend. “The fletcher? No, you didn’t tell me. Were your parents happy to see you?”
“They were,” Gusty replied with a fond smile. “My pa said he would’ve accepted me back even if my honor hadn’t been restored.”
The two continued to chat, though Skye’s heart was not in it, nor was his mind on the conversation. Gusty was exuberant, his excitement at being free and back among his people evident for anyone with even half a wit to understand. Skye envied him to a certain extent. Gusty did not have to worry about mad kings or evil seneschals, nor would he be caught up in negotiations with the Skychildren’s mortal enemies to facilitate the return of a creature that had not been seen in millennia. For a moment, Skye wished for a life free of such weighty cares.
Skye moved them through the town steadily, keeping an eye on the smiling princess and the giddy queen. In the meantime, Gusty chattered on, appearing unaware of what Skye was doing.
It was obvious that many of the townsfolk were taken aback by the petite dark-haired princess who had appeared in their midst, but Skye could not detect that anyone had been overtly unkind to her. Most seemed curious more than anything, but when she talked to someone, they appeared to speak to her with kindness, if not perfect ease.
“Why are you watching them so carefully?” Gusty asked when he and Skye had been walking for some time.
Skye looked at Gusty in surprise. Apparently, the other young man had been paying more attention than had been apparent. “I want to make sure nothing happens.”
Gusty frowned. “I’m sure she’s safe here. She’s with the queen.”
Skye bit back a retort concerning how that was why he was worried. He had to admit to himself that it was beginning to look like he was overreacting. It seemed as though nothing would happen.
Thus, when something did happen, Skye had been lulled into a sense of security, and he almost did not react in time.
The two women had paused at one point along the lane, exchanging a few words, and then Mista had entered one of the shops, leaving Tierra alone in the street. Mista had not been gone for more than a few moments when a man appeared from the other side and accosted Tierra. The princess, though startled, stood her ground and spoke to the man, whose angry words carried down the street.
Gasping, Skye raced up the street to protect Tierra. The man raised his hand to strike her.
Skye shot a gust of wind forward. The man was flung several yards down the street to land in a heap among the cobblestones.
Skye closed the remaining distance, stopping in front of Tierra. She peered at him with a startled look.
“Are you all right?” Skye asked, watching as her accoster began to get to his feet.
“I am fine,” Tierra replied. It was clear from her slight tremble that she was shaken by her brief encounter. “What are you doing here?”
Skye shot her an angry look. “Apparently protecting you.”
There was no response forthcoming, as at that moment, the assailant approached. Skye suppressed a gasp upon recognizing the man as the surly Sentinel from the gate the morning he had returned to the palace. Even now, the guardsman was looking on them with murder in his eyes.
“What is the meaning of this?” Skye demanded.
“Nothing, Your Highness. Just dealing with a bit of trash which has the audacity to be dirtying our streets.”
A squeak drew Skye’s attention, and he turned to see Mista step outside the shop, a confused and frightened expression plastered to her face. “Tierra?” she asked, clearly not comprehending what was occurring.
“I’ll deal with you later,” Skye snapped. He turned back to the guard and, stepping closer to him, growled, “This woman is under my protection. You will not touch her, address her, or even meet her eyes in passing unless you treat her with deference and respect. And that goes for everyone else in the Cloud Sentinel. Do you understand?”
Eyes smoldering with anger, the man nodded. “Perfectly.”
“Very well,” Skye replied. He then made as if to turn away before whipping his hand out with blinding speed, catching the guard across the mouth. The man’s surprise was almost comical as he went down in a heap, but his expression soon turned venomous.
Skye stared at him with an implacable and unyielding contempt, daring him to rise and start a fight, but some unseen well of discretion seemed to take over, and he stayed down, though his thunderous gaze never wavered.
“I should not need to remind you, but it appears that I must,” Skye said, speaking to the crowd which had gathered to see the spectacle. “We are Skychildren. We are not barbarians. We do not keep slaves, and we do not attack defenseless women in the streets. We are ruled by honor, not by our emotions.” He turned and faced the fallen guard. “If I ever hear of this type of behavior from you again, I will personally discharge you from the Cloud Sentinel in disgrace. I will do the same to anyone else in the company who might hold similar views. The lesson to be learned here goes for all of us,” he said, his gaze sweeping across the assembled. “It is true that we have an eons-long dispute with Princess Tierra’s people. But we have no quarrel with her personally. In every way that matters, she is the same as we are.”
There appeared to be some rumbling of agreement among the crowd, and Skye wondered at just seeing this now. It seemed that what he had been told at the fishing village was nothing more than the truth. The common folk held little antipathy for the Groundbreathers any longer. Perhaps their two peoples were not so far apart as they had once been.
The gathering began to disperse, though the murmuring of the crowd told Skye that the story of what had happened would be disseminated in great detail all over the town, if not all over the sky realm. But he had no time for such thoughts; the guard who had accosted Tierra was about to stalk off when Skye forestalled him.
“What is your name?” Skye demanded.
The man drew himself up and replied curtly, “Stratus.”
“You may go, Stratus. I will be speaking with the Master Sentinel to advise him that you are hereby demoted two ranks. If something like this ever happens again, you will be discharged dishonorably, if indeed you feel you can lay claim to such a thing as honor after what you have attempted today.”
Had the man been able to maim him by nothing more than the force of his glare, Skye would have been laid out on the ground in a heartbeat. But Stratus said nothing; he merely gave a perfunctory bow and turned on his heel before walking away in anger.
Skye turned to the queen and asked her coldly, “And what do you know of this, Mista?”
Mista gasped and turned to Tierra. “I don’t know what happened, Tierra. You’re my friend. I’d never want you to be hurt.”
“She has been nothing but kind to me, Skye,” Tierra said.
“Were you told to bring her out here?” Skye asked Mista sternly.
“N-no,” the queen said, hanging her head. “I just . . . I just wanted a friend.”
Skye studied her for a moment. If Mista was complicit in all that had been happening, then maybe he could use that against Hawkins. At the very least, he did not want her running to his father with false tales of how he had mistreated her.
“I think this incident serves as an illustration of what could happen,” Skye said. “I’m going to accompany you for the rest of your time here.”
Mista looked up, the expression of gratitude on her face so intense that Skye thought it could not be feigned. “Oh, thank you Skye!” she said brightly, her consternation completely forgotten. “I know that we shall be such good friends.”
She turned to look at Gusty, who had come up behind Skye. “And you can be my friend, too!”
she exclaimed with joy, causing Gusty to blush.
Tierra shot Skye a look which spoke to her amusement, and she and the queen continued their walk through the town, Skye following behind with Gusty and keeping a close eye on them both. Nothing further appeared to mar their day, and Skye believed that whatever scheme had been hatched—if there had indeed been one—had been thwarted. But he did not let up his vigilance.
“What’s going on, Skye?” Gusty asked from his side.
Skye glanced at Gusty. This was the one Skychild he knew he could trust, and he could not simply brush off his question. So he told him, “I’m not sure. But something is happening here, Gusty. Things are not as they appear. Keep your eyes open.”
Though he looked confused, Gusty nodded his head. He seemed to understand that there was a deeper meaning underlying Skye’s words.
In the meantime, Skye turned the entire situation over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of not only Hawkins’s game, but also how Mista played into it, what his father’s goals were, what role Cirrus and the Fenik had in the drama, and why the Seneschal might want to harm Tierra. Skye was missing something. He was sure of it. But what it was, he could not for the life of him determine.
The Groundbreathers, with stealth born of desperation, made their way from the Skychild palace with their captured beast, eager to return to the safety of the ground. They returned to the stolen glider, convinced their own cleverness had allowed them to deceive the Skychildren. But they did not expect to witness the sorrow felt by the Fenik as it left its home behind.
As Celesta’s protector of her people, the Fenik had been commanded to watch and obey. Because it had not been commanded to guard against Groundbreather incursions, it was powerless to stop the invaders. However, the Fenik longed for the Skychildren to prevent the Groundbreathers from carrying it to the colorless ground world below, and it let out a mournful cry, alerting the Skychildren of what was happening.
—The Book of Celesta
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Flight
That night, Skye was awoken by a soft creaking. The door to his bedroom was opening.
He jolted upright in bed. For a moment, he thought he was once more a slave on the ground world. Then he came to his senses. He was in the Skychild palace. No one should have been entering his room without knocking.
Skye leaped onto the floor. His hand shot out and grabbed the sword he kept beneath his pillow for such an event. He understood the benefit of a blade at a time like this.
“What do you want, Sentinels?” he hissed. He pointed his sword at the two unknown men standing in his room. Protect Tierra! was the thought screaming through his head.
“Skye?” the Groundbreather princess asked, her voice groggy.
“Intruders,” he said curtly. He was glad he had insisted that he sleep on the cot instead of her. It meant he was in front of her. He could act as her shield.
The guards held up their hands to show they meant no harm. “We’re here to help you, Your Highness,” one of them said.
Pausing, Skye studied the two men. They wore dusty brown leathers over gray pants and shirts, which was the typical uniform of the Cloud Sentinel. But that was where the similarity between them ended, for though both were fair and blue-eyed like the vast majority of Skychildren, the taller one was whip-like and lean, sporting slightly longer hair and a long, narrow face, while the other was barrel-chested and as stocky as a Groundbreather, with a bluff, kindly appearance.
“Explain yourselves before I decide it’s better to act first and ask questions later.”
“Fair enough,” the shorter of the two men said. “It’s better to be brief anyway. To put it bluntly, your father has been murdered, and the Seneschal is going to frame you for it.”
“What?” Tierra gasped from behind him. She was standing now.
Skye had to resist the urge to push her further back. He started to speak, stopped, and then tried and failed once again. His father was dead? He scarcely knew how to react.
“Nimbus and I are here to help you,” the Sentinel continued.
“We must go, Your Highness,” the taller man broke in, his tone urgent. “Come with us, and Griffin and I will explain everything.”
Skye growled under his breath. He glanced behind him at Tierra, who was clad in a Skychild nightgown. “Do we have time to change?”
“No. Just grab some clothes. You can change when we—”
A loud crash split the air, seeming to shake the very walls of the castle. Almost as one, the four occupants of the room turned their heads toward the disturbance. Shouts echoed through the corridor beyond the door. Suddenly, Skye thought it prudent to do as the two men said for the time being.
Skye and Tierra both scrambled to find clothes. Once they had some in hand, they moved to where the guards were standing to one side of the room, inspecting the wall beside a bookshelf. Griffin reached out and pushed on a recess in the wall with a grin and a lighthearted waggle of his eyebrows. Then he slid a secret door aside to reveal a dusty corridor which disappeared into a great gloom. The walls within were made of the same rock as the palace, and the state of the corridor suggested it had not been used for some time. It was also a rather small passageway—it looked as though Skye’s head would just clear the ceiling, while Nimbus, who was unusually tall, would need to stoop.
Skye frowned. “I didn’t know that was there.”
“We . . . found some plans with all the palace’s secret passageways noted on it,” Griffin said. “Come on, Your Highness.”
Skye was not sure he believed that, but he gestured for Tierra to precede him through the passageway. She glanced back at the two Sentinels as if she did not quite trust them and then went ahead.
Once they were all inside the passage, Nimbus closed the door. Then he said, “Please change quickly, Your Highness.” He and Griffin both turned away to give them some privacy.
His back to Tierra, Skye pulled on his clothes. He could hear Tierra doing the same behind him.
When Tierra was done, she said, “I am finished,” and he turned to face her.
He grasped her hand, squeezing it to reassure her. He wondered whether her pulse happened to be racing as fast as his was. Glancing at the two guards, who had moved to face him, he said, “Lead the way.”
Nimbus strode forward and set a brisk pace. Though he hurried, he did not run, which made Skye feel a little more at ease. What did not make him feel any better was the narrowness of the rough passage and the feeling that the walls were closing in on him from all sides. Skychildren, as beings of wide open spaces, generally did not appreciate being closed in. Skye found it particularly nerve-wracking. Nimbus appeared to be in even worse straits, as he stooped and muttered to himself while they made their way through the gloom.
“Feel free to start talking at any point,” Skye said in an effort to focus on something other than the narrow passage through which they walked. His words were a bit ruder than he had intended them to be—these two men were, after all, saving him from imprisonment and likely even execution—but his anxiety level was rising due to the confinement of the tunnel. “You can start with how you knew Hawkins was involved in all this mess and how you knew he was coming after me. Sweet Celesta! You might even explain how you know my father was murdered at all.”
“I’ll take this one,” Griffin said. Skye had the distinct impression he was a chatty fellow. “We’ve been investigating Hawkins and his rise to the position of Seneschal for some time now. Our investigation started at Cirrus’s request. He thought we should keep an eye on the man as he started gaining power, so some of us in the Cloud Sentinel—the ones who would proudly give their lives for Cirrus—did so.”
“I’m glad he had some friends in the palace,” Skye muttered, feeling a twinge of pain at the thought of his friend’s death.
Griffin continued. “A lot of things were involved in the rise of Hawkins to Seneschal: mysterious
deaths, suspicious changes of allegiance . . . events that should have raised more eyebrows than they did. Yet by the time our suspicions became certainties, Hawkins had his hooks into your father, and His Majesty would not listen to what we had to say. It didn’t help that a lot of people at court and even among the Cloud Sentinel were loyal to Hawkins . . . whether it was because of blackmail or bribery, well, your guess is as good as ours. But one thing was clear: he intended to make it all the way to the top.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Skye said in disgust. “But if he’s been planning to take over, why has he waited for so long?”
“We think he was waiting because it would have been less messy if he could take his time and try to make the people distrust their king and welcome Hawkins in his stead,” Griffin said. “We’ve been waiting for him to make a big move like this for a while now.”
Skye bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to think about the implication that the group these two men were a part of had been waiting for his father to be killed. Yes, the man had been less than sane in recent days, but he was Skye’s father and their king! To simply treat the king as if he was expendable was beyond comprehension.
“We think the reason he acted now is because of you,” Griffin said. “We think he saw you as a threat and decided to seize power before you regained your footing in the sky realm. There are probably guards in your room right now looking for you. We had some of our people create a distraction to give us time to get you out of here. This passageway eventually leads to an exit from Skymount.”
“Skymount?” Tierra asked in confusion.
Skye glanced at her. “It’s the mountain in the sky that the palace sits on.”