by Jenn Reese
“Daughter,” the president said, “I’m glad you could finally join us.”
Calliope blushed and dropped her head even lower. She rushed to the small throne at Iolanthe’s side and tried to disappear into it.
If the president was embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior, she hid the disappointment well under a heavy veneer of disgust. Hoku balled his hand into a clumsy fist. He’d never hit anyone before, but for the first time, he wanted to.
President Iolanthe glared at her daughter for another long moment before turning back to Aluna and Hoku, a dangerous new spark in her eyes.
“And so tell me, children,” the president said. “What brings our ocean cousins so far from their watery sanctuary?” She leaned closer. “We found you amid the slaughtered bodies of your foes. Have the mermaids joined forces with Fathom and his army of Upgraders?”
“No!” Hoku blurted out. “Those other people killed the Humans. They flew across the water on a dragonflier. They tried to kill Daphine, too, but she got away. We didn’t have anything to do with the Deepfell. Except that Aluna saved one of them. That’s what happened to her necklace.”
“Hoku, stop!” Aluna’s dark face was tense and pinched. “Don’t say another word.”
He ignored her and continued to babble. She’d be mad later, but right now, he wanted the Aviars as allies, not enemies. “The Upgraders — is that your name for those people? For the people who change their bodies with tech? We’re not on their side. And we’ve never even heard of Fathom.”
“We’ll trade with you,” Aluna said, cutting him off. “We have information you want, and we need help. We’re looking for HydroTek — our people’s safety depends on us finding it. If you help, we’ll tell you everything we know about what happened on the beach and the Upgraders we saw.”
No one said anything. Aluna stared at the president, and the president stared back at her. For a brief, wonderful moment, Hoku thought the Aviars might actually be willing to help them.
President Iolanthe laughed. Not a nervous giggle, like he was prone to, but a full-throated belly laugh so loud that it filled the entire Oval Chamber and echoed off the carved Aviars watching from the ceiling.
“Our people are dying, and you think it’s funny?” Aluna said quietly. Hoku recognized the look in her eyes. He grabbed for her arm, but she shook him off as if he were a stray strand of kelp. “Stop laughing!” she yelled, and launched herself at President Iolanthe.
High Senator Electra intercepted her halfway to the throne. The Aviar held her spear sideways, creating a barrier. She was trying to stop Aluna, not kill her.
Aluna didn’t even break her stride. She just jumped, used Electra’s arm and spear as a launching pad, vaulted over the Aviar’s shoulder, and kept running for the president.
The other Aviars started to move, but they were so much slower than Aluna, who had grown strong in the ocean’s dense waters. Hoku watched her heading for the president, who had, thankfully, finally stopped laughing.
Aluna sprang for Iolanthe, arms outstretched, fingers curved like claws.
The president moved in a blur. She raised an arm and swatted Aluna in midair. Aluna crashed to the stone floor, rolled, and came up in a crouch. Her cheek blossomed red from the hit, and blood dotted the corner of her mouth.
Four guards surrounded her, their spears set to kill. High Senator Electra positioned herself between Aluna and the president, a murderous look in her eye. Aluna studied them all like a trapped animal waiting for its chance to strike.
Hoku couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t blink. If anyone moved, people would get hurt. People would die. He couldn’t bear the thought.
“Enough!” President Iolanthe yelled. “Stand down, Senators. Release the warrior.”
Reluctantly, the senators raised their spear tips and stepped back. Electra was the last. She moved ever so slightly to the side, still trying to keep herself in between Aluna and the president.
Aluna stayed crouched and wary.
“Well done, Aluna of the Kampii,” President Iolanthe said, smiling. “I am greatly impressed.” High Senator Electra looked as if she’d swallowed a stinkfish.
The president continued, “If only our own children exhibited such bravery and resourcefulness.” All eyes turned to Calliope, who squirmed in her throne and kept her eyes down. “Yes, we are quite impressed with the gift our waterlogged brethren have sent us. We are impressed, and we accept.”
“Gift?” Hoku ventured. “Gift” didn’t sound good. Not good at all.
“Gift,” the president said. “The Kampii girl Aluna will be appointed aide to the vice president. She will instruct my daughter in the ways of the warrior spirit and help prepare her for her future rulership.”
“But —” Hoku and Aluna said together.
“Men are not permitted to stay at Skyfeather’s Landing,” the president continued, “but we will make an exception for the boy Kampii —”
“Well, that’s something,” Hoku muttered.
“The boy will be kept as our honored guest, to ensure the continued loyalty of his friend,” the president finished.
“Mother, no!” Calliope said. “You can’t do this!”
Everyone in the room stared at Calliope. Her defiant pose wilted immediately.
“I see my plan is working already,” President Iolanthe said, clearly pleased with her daughter’s brief outburst. “Yes, yes. This will work nicely. Guards! Take the boy back to his cell.”
“Wait!” Aluna said. “I’ll agree to stay and help your daughter, but only if you promise to keep Hoku safe, and if you give us what we want in return.”
President Iolanthe waved her hand. “Now, this is a bargain I can understand, Aluna of the Kampii. Very well. No harm will come to the boy while you remain at my daughter’s side,” she said.
Aluna finally stood up from her fighting stance. “And you’ll tell us how to find HydroTek.”
The president looked at Aluna for a moment, then nodded. “I will tell you what we know, although I don’t think you’ll enjoy hearing it.”
PRESIDENT IOLANTHE leaned back, her real wing rustling. “History is not a fixed truth. It changes with the speaker, just as no two feathers will ever find the same path in the wind. So first, our story.”
Aluna shifted her weight to a more comfortable standing position. History may be different, but Elders were the same everywhere.
“Hundreds of years ago, when we were all Human, the world started to run out of space,” Iolanthe began. She spoke loudly, her voice filling the Oval Chamber and echoing off the Aviars carved into the ceiling. “Humans were spread across the land, crammed into every niche and nook that could support life. They were using up the world, and their time was running out.”
“So they changed,” Calliope said. She blushed when everyone looked at her, but stammered on. “They looked at the places that couldn’t support Humans, and they made themselves fit anyway.”
“Like the Kampii and the Deepfell, and the Aviars,” Hoku said. “We live in the oceans and you live in the skies.”
Calli grinned at him, and that silly fish grinned back at her.
“Yes, boy,” President Iolanthe said. “And like the Equians and the Serpentis in the deserts, and like all the splinters whose names have been lost to us. Some Humans even made skyships and left the world altogether.”
“The legends say they wanted to go to the stars,” Calliope said.
“In order to live in these places, the LegendaryTek companies — HydroTek, SkyTek, SandTek, and the others — gave us wings or tails, or four fast hooves to cross the endless sands. They became our saviors. Do you see? Once we agreed to modify ourselves and rely on the tech they created, they exerted complete power over us from their domes. They kept us weak.”
“Yes, weak,” Aluna said. “And helpless. That’s how I felt in the City of Shifting Tides. That’s why we need to find HydroTek.”
“You don’t need to find HydroTek,” President Iolanthe said.
“You need to take it.”
“Take it?” Hoku asked. “How?”
“We were lazy at first,” High Senator Electra said. “We did nothing to protect ourselves until it was almost too late.” She looked at President Iolanthe with admiration, and maybe something more. “It took a young leader to show us the way.”
Iolanthe waved off her praise. “A man came,” she said. “His name was Tempest, and he called himself Master of the Sky. He’d been Human once, but born from some process that twisted his body almost as much as it twisted his mind. He and his warriors — Upgraders more metal than flesh — assaulted the SkyTek dome and claimed it for their own.” She leaned forward on her throne. “They thought we wouldn’t fight. They were wrong.”
“The battle was bloody and we lost many warriors,” High Senator Electra said, glancing at the president’s missing wing, “but now all Aviar strongholds that were once beholden to SkyTek are self-sufficient. We don’t need anybody but ourselves anymore.”
“The SkyTek dome has been broken, rendered useless. No one will ever use it again,” President Iolanthe said. “We earned our freedom on that day.”
“Could Tempest have gone to HydroTek next?” Aluna said.
“No, Tempest did not live past the Battle of the Dome,” President Iolanthe said. “But during the battle, Tempest sent word to his brother Fathom, asking for reinforcements. Fathom calls himself the Master of the Sea, and it is he who has taken control of the HydroTek dome.”
Electra nodded. “The journey from HydroTek must be a long one. Fathom’s forces arrived too late, after we’d defeated Tempest and his minions. Since then, Fathom has continued to attack us, seeking revenge for his brother’s death and killing everything else in his path.”
“Fathom,” Aluna said, feeling the shape of the word, letting it settle into her mind. Finally, her enemy had a name. Whatever was happening to the Kampii, Fathom must be the key. “How do we get there? To HydroTek?”
President Iolanthe shook her head. “I don’t know. Our scouts fly a few days in all directions from Skyfeather’s Landing, but they have never seen HydroTek. Someday we may follow Fathom’s warriors back to their home, but not until our numbers are greater. Not until we are ready to fight.” She sat back in her throne with a sigh. “I think there has been enough talk of battle for one day.”
“But —” Aluna said.
“Enough,” the president repeated, her eyes tired but holding the promise of wrath should she be disobeyed. Aluna’s father had used the same look almost every time he spoke. “I have honored our part of the bargain, and now I have other matters to attend to.”
Aluna glowered. She saw Hoku clamp his mouth shut, clearly biting back another question, and reluctantly followed his lead.
She looked at Calliope. The girl was barely able to sit up straight on her throne. Did she hold the answers they sought about HydroTek? President Iolanthe wanted Aluna to teach the girl bravery. Well, one of her first lessons was going to be “When to defy your parents.”
“This audience is now over,” the president said. “High Senator Electra, give our guests quarters near my daughter. I’ll expect you and your senators to . . . ensure their safety . . . during their stay.”
“We’re prisoners,” Aluna said. “You can just say it.”
President Iolanthe smiled, but her eyes lost none of their dangerous promise. “You say tomato, I say watermelon,” she said.
Aluna had no idea what she meant, but it didn’t sound good.
Two of the senators escorted her and Hoku to their new rooms but made them wait outside while the previous occupants vacated. A pair of very irritated Aviar girls, their arms full of clothes and other personal items, shoved past them not long after.
Don’t shoot your ink, she thought at them. You’ll have your rooms back as soon as I can get us out of this place.
Aluna’s room was huge, bigger than her family’s whole nest. Six Kampii could have slept on the bed all at once. She gulped it all in: the desk, the sitting stools, the mirrors, the colorful pictures covering the walls. And everything was designed for feet! She glanced up at the high ceiling and saw perches high above her head. Okay, so everything was designed for feet and wings. Still, it was a nice change from the tail-centric City of Shifting Tides. She couldn’t wait to explore. But first, she longed to throw herself on the bed and sleep for a hundred days.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Senator Niobe said. “Vice President Calliope has warrior training now, which means that you do as well.”
Aluna stood in the doorway of her new room and stared at the bed.
“Warrior training?” she asked.
“Yes,” the senator replied. “The vice president must train for several hours every day. The boy is not invited. He will remain here.” She nodded to Senator Hypatia, who took up a guard position outside Hoku’s door.
“I’ll be okay,” Hoku called. “Fins and flippers, did you see all this food?”
“Food?” So that explained the glorious smell wafting through the hallway.
Senator Niobe said, “You and the vice president will dine with the president tonight, after warrior training, bathing, and a lesson in etiquette.”
Aluna scowled at the mention of etiquette, but didn’t fuss. She’d put up with far more than social humiliation in order to train with the hunters back home. Warrior training! Suddenly, being a prisoner didn’t seem like such a bad fate after all.
NIOBE ESCORTED ALUNA through passageway after passageway until they emerged in the bright afternoon sun at the base of Skyfeather’s Landing. Aluna blinked up into the sky and gaped at the flocks of winged women swooping and darting through the air. Even higher still, Aviars no bigger than dots drifted in wide circles on invisible currents. Watchers, Aluna thought. From way up there, they could probably see for forever.
Senator Niobe pointed to a series of platforms jutting out from the basin wall almost a hundred meters above the ground. “That is the training area.” She pointed below it. Aluna had to squint to see a steep staircase cut into the wall. “Use the breather as you climb, and stop if your vision blurs or the headache returns. But hurry. It’s not respectful to keep your instructors waiting, even for sky sickness. I’ll be watching, so attempt no escape.”
Aluna grunted. “Why would I try to escape before warrior training?”
The senator crouched and sprang into the air. Her wings unfolded and caught the wind. She rose fast as air bubbles in the deep. Wings, Aluna had to admit, were almost as wonderful as tails.
She jogged over to the base of the great basin wall and started up the stairs. She took them two at a time at first, eager not to miss a single moment of practice. Halfway up, her head started to spin and her lungs demanded more air. She puffed on the breather and kept going. By the time she’d made it to the top, she had to drag herself up the final stairs, one at a time, with a rest between steps. Sweat clung to her skin, a sensation she despised. The ocean kept you clean and cool.
The first platform seemed to be a preparation and resting area. Long benches lined the rim around neat stacks of equipment, jugs of water, and piles of towels for wiping away sweat. Water flowed inside three alcoves nestled into the cliff face for Aviars who wanted a more thorough cleaning.
The warriors on the platform pretended to ignore her, but she caught more than one stealing a look. Those beginning their training donned padded armor, then leaped off the platform and flew to another. Aviars finished with their exercise jumped off the edge and drifted out of sight.
Aluna was wiping sweat off her face when Calliope landed next to her in a flutter of wings and a gush of air.
“I’m so sorry!” Calli blurted. “I didn’t want you and Hoku to get stuck here because of me. You don’t really have to be my friend.”
Aluna opened her mouth to speak, but her lungs needed more air. She popped the breather in her mouth and inhaled. Even with the steep climb, she was beginning to need the artifact less and less. After she’d gotten a
few good puffs, she secured the breather in her waist pouch.
“We all have to obey my mother,” Calli continued. “But you don’t have to pretend to like me or anything.” Her face was red, and her arms crossed and uncrossed and crossed again in front of her. “I’ll understand.”
“Calli —”
“I don’t even want to be a fighter,” the girl said nervously. “If I hadn’t been born the daughter of the president, I’d be a tailor, just like everyone else born that month. Can you imagine? Me, making clothes! If I got to pick, I’d be a technician or a doctor. I like figuring out how things work. But those jobs weren’t scheduled to come up for ages.”
“Wait. You don’t pick your job based on what you’re good at?” Aluna asked. “What if you don’t have the skills you need?”
“Oh, we’re designed to be good at everything,” Calli said. “We’ve analyzed all our eggs and only the best ones are grown into Aviars.”
“Aviars lay eggs?” Aluna asked, astonished.
“Not that kind of egg, silly,” Calli said. She sounded just like Hoku. “Let’s go — we’ll get in trouble if we’re late.” She swooped up toward one of the training platforms, leaving Aluna to scramble for the next set of stairs.
When she got to the top, High Senator Electra was waiting, a sharp gleam in her eyes. “Where’s your gear? You should always arrive at practice on time and properly attired for the workout.”
Aluna hauled herself up the last stair and stood at attention as best she could. Now it made sense why their lesson had to take place on the highest of all the platforms. To inflict maximum pain and suffering.
“I’ll practice without it,” Aluna said. She’d rather be covered in bruises than have to climb back down and up those stairs again.
“Never mind,” Electra said. She motioned to a pile of armor. “I brought an extra set. Put it on.”
For once, Aluna did as she was told. She pulled padded leg guards over her shins and wrapped thick foam around her forearms. The chest guard was tight — Aviars were thin as eels compared to Kampii — but she managed to squirm into it. Electra tossed her a padded hat. It fit snugly around her head, even without the straps tied beneath her chin.