Above World

by Jenn Reese

  “Calli!”

  “Hi,” she said, panting. Her cheeks glowed lobster red and her smile made his heart somersault in his chest.

  “Go!” Aluna yelled.

  Dash directed the rhinebra toward the path that wound around the outside of the plateau and led to the forest far below. They barreled down it in the near dark, and the two trailing Upgraders were quickly out of sight.

  Hoku burned with questions for Calli but didn’t speak. None of them did. Not until they’d reached the ground and the rhinebra plunged into the thick foliage of the forest. Only then did his words come tumbling out.

  “Calli! But what about your mother? How did you get away?”

  “Logic,” Calli said, her eyes sparkling. “I pointed out to my mother that her grand plan had actually worked. Aluna did teach me about courage and honor, and I felt it was my duty to aid you in your quest. Mother tried to object, but I think it was mostly for show. She was so proud, she practically kicked me out of the palace.”

  “Well, I’m grateful she let you go,” Aluna said. “You saved my life!”

  Calli lowered her eyes, embarrassed, then looked up again. “I kind of did, didn’t I?”

  Hoku laughed. And if he hadn’t been holding on to the rhinebra with every ounce of muscle he possessed, he would have leaned over and kissed her.

  ALUNA COULD SEE through the nighttime forest, but the rhinebra’s eyesight wasn’t much better than Dash’s. The third time the massive creature stumbled, she said, “We should make camp.” Dash seemed intent on getting as far away from the SkyTek dome as possible. Good instinct, but they were all exhausted.

  Dash nodded. “I agree. Do you see a good place to claim for the night?”

  She directed him to a small, tree-covered clearing and he pulled the rhinebra to a stop.

  Aluna jumped down first, eager to get her feet on solid ground, and collapsed in a messy heap. The long ride had not only bruised her backside but rendered her legs useless. Hoku landed next to her with even less grace and an “Oof.”

  Calli drifted down and landed gently on one foot.

  “How is your ankle?” Aluna asked.

  “Better,” Calli said. “It’s only a sprain. We need light bones for flying, so SkyTek gave us superfast healing to compensate. It was a good trade.”

  Behind her, Dash slid easily off the rhinebra, even with just one good arm, and looped the animal’s reins around a tree branch. He moved with such grace and fluidity. If he had a tail, he’d fit right in with the Kampii.

  “I will go back and misdirect our trail,” Dash said. “Build a fire while I am gone. It will be cold tonight.”

  “Cold?” Hoku said, pushing himself to his feet. “It’s not like this is deep ocean.”

  “We don’t need a fire,” Aluna said. Aside from the fact that she had no idea how to build a fire, they hadn’t been cold once since they came to the Above World. Not even a little. Thick Kampii skin kept them warm in the frigid ocean and kept them sweltering in the Above World sun.

  “You never need torches?” Dash asked.

  Hoku snorted. “Why would we need torches when we have glowfish? Besides, fire doesn’t work that well underwater.”

  Dash’s shoulders seemed to deflate. “Well, I will need a fire. Both for warmth and to see.”

  “And to honor the sun,” Aluna said, remembering what Dash had said about the Equian word-weavers keeping a fire blazing all night.

  Dash looked at her strangely. “Yes,” he said quietly. “And to honor the sun.”

  “I’d like a fire, too,” Calli said. “We’re built for the cold of high altitudes, but I can’t see in the dark.”

  Dash walked into the clearing and squinted in the darkness. “Can you please clear a spot here? And fetch some twigs and small branches?”

  “I can do that!” Aluna said. She jumped up and limped toward the forest, picking up sticks as she walked. She had no idea what would burn, so she grabbed everything she could find and piled it next to the fire spot. Her legs threatened to stiffen whenever she stopped walking, so she kept at it, bringing armful after armful. She would have brought the rhinebra some food, but it seemed content to munch on the nearby bushes.

  “Hey, fish breath!” she called to Hoku. “You want to help gather twigs?”

  “Not really,” Hoku replied. He was sitting with his back against a tree, talking to Calli and fiddling with his water safe. “Calli and I are teaching Zorro how to try combinations.”

  “That sounds useful.”

  “It is! He can test numbers much faster than I can. His paws are like little hands.”

  She glanced over and saw Zorro pressing numbers with blurring speed. But Hoku and Calli weren’t even watching him — they were staring at each other instead. Aluna shook her head and headed back into the forest.

  By the time Dash stumbled back into camp, the forest was dark as deep ocean, and Aluna had made a little ring of stones around some of the twigs she’d collected. She remembered the configuration from the Human village they’d stumbled on back when they’d first come to the Above World.

  “Good,” Dash said, sounding surprised. “You are sure you have never done this before?”

  “Not even once,” she said, feeling a bit too proud for someone who had merely pushed some stones around and picked up some sticks.

  Dash knelt by the circle — looking a little less graceful and more tired than before — and motioned to her. “Come, sit here. I will show you the rest. And besides, I need your eyes until we get the flames started.”

  She hobbled over and sat a foot or so away from Dash, close enough but not too close. At least that’s what she hoped he would think. Had he wanted her to sit closer?

  Barnacles, she thought, I’m turning into a gibbering mermaid. In her mind, mermaids spent the whole day combing their hair and thinking about boys, two things that normally bored her beyond reason. Aluna ran a nervous hand through her hair. When was the last time she’d bothered to untangle it? Good thing the Aviars’ chief groomer had chopped off most of it for her before they’d left.

  Dash plopped his satchel in the space between them — the perfect amount, Aluna decided — and dug around inside it.

  “Aha!” he said, pulling out two unimpressive pieces of stone. “Here is my flint. We are going to scrape these together until we get a spark.”

  He did it once to show her how, then handed her the stones. It took her twelve tries. She knew the exact number because Hoku and Calli counted them aloud.

  “Excellent,” Dash said. “Now we will use the spark to ignite some of our dried leaves and tiny sticks.”

  She followed his instructions and even let him reposition her hand for a better angle. Eventually, one of the leaves started to smolder.

  “Now blow gently on your tiny fire,” Dash said. “It is your way of asking the flames to grow.”

  The flames surged briefly when she blew, but quickly shrank back to embers.

  “Softer,” Dash replied. “Let me show you.” He blew, and within a minute, they had a real fire blazing.

  She didn’t need the warmth, but she loved the fire anyway. It crackled and sizzled, dancing wildly to some unheard rhythm. And the smell! So unlike the stench of the Human village. A fire didn’t just warm your outsides; it warmed your insides, too.

  The wind changed, and the smoke blew in her face. She coughed and tried to blink away the soot. Her face stung, as if the fire were trying to burn out the orbs of her eyes.

  “This way,” Dash said, and pulled her to the other side. “Never sit downwind.”

  Her lungs cleared. She stared at the fire again, a little more warily.

  “This really is your first fire,” Dash whispered. He motioned to Hoku, Calli, and Zorro, who had curled up by their tree and fallen asleep.

  Aluna nodded. The firelight flickered off Dash’s face. He looked strange and wild — and unlike any of the Kampii boys back in the city. Some Kampii shared his coloring, but none had the same eyes
. What were the girls like where he came from? she wondered. In her mind, they were tall, strong girls with the bodies of horses who could run for miles and miles and never get tired. Their hair streamed behind them as they ran, much like their horsey tails, and they laughed in the sun.

  “When do the Equians grow their horse legs?” she asked. “Do you have a ceremony, like we do, and swallow a seed that makes them grow? Or does half a horse sprout out of you one day when you’re not expecting it?”

  Dash’s brow furrowed, but only for a moment before he regained control of himself. He finished chewing a bit of jerky the Aviars had supplied them with and swallowed slowly.

  “It’s not a difficult question,” she pushed.

  Dash looked down at the strip of dried meat gripped in his hand. “Equians do not grow their horse legs,” he said. “When everything . . . goes correctly . . . they are born with them.”

  She looked at his legs, legs not much different from her own.

  “Was that why you were exiled?”

  “I was born without a horse heart, or four hooves, or a tail. I am a mistake,” he said quietly. “I am . . . I am only half a person.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed so . . . useless. Dash was kicked out of his family because he was different, because he didn’t fit in. She didn’t fit in with her family, either, but they’d never make her leave — not the family nest, and certainly not the City of Shifting Tides.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally. Because, really, there was nothing better to say.

  DASH, ALUNA, AND CALLI were already awake when Hoku finally managed to open his eyes. Sunlight streamed through the treetops in slender rays. For a moment, he thought he’d fallen asleep atop the old broken dome back home. Light used to refract through the ocean in much the same way. He’d spent dozens of tides there, trying to figure out how the light’s path was altered when it hit the surface of the water. Zorro’s small pink tongue on his cheek washed away the memory.

  “Time to wake up, sleepy-bones,” Aluna said. “Dash found some nuts and leaves for us to eat.”

  “Nuts? Leaves? Are those even food?” Hoku mumbled. Then he made the mistake of trying to stand up. His legs and back felt pulverized, as if a shark had munched on him for a while then spat him back out. He tried to walk, but his legs would barely obey. The best he could manage was a slow hobble, and even that required moaning. Cutting the rhinebra’s saddle off had been a very bad idea after all.

  “Can I use some of the spices that Senator Niobe gave you?” Calli asked him. She looked far too happy to be awake and stranded in the middle of a scary forest. “I think I can make something a bit more tasty from our ingredients if we can spare a few minutes.”

  Aluna spat out the leaf she’d been chewing. “If you can make this stuff taste good, you’ll save my life a second time.”

  Calli laughed. “Well, I’m not really that good at it, but I learned a few tricks while I was hiding in the kitchens when I was young. And besides, cooking is a lot like science.”

  Hoku hobbled over, handed her the spices from his bag, and collapsed near the glowing embers of the fire. If anything could distract him from the pain, it was a certain winged girl with bright brown eyes. He watched her clean a piece of her armor and use it to toast the nuts and tubers Dash had found. She sprinkled spices on the food and hummed while she worked. Soon the sizzle and the smell had his mouth watering and everyone gathering around the fire to eat.

  “This is truly amazing,” Dash said with his mouth full. “Spices are highly valued in the desert. My people would trade generously for even a small vial.”

  “Let’s try the mustard tomorrow,” Hoku said, grabbing another leaf and stuffing it with nut mash. “Everything tastes better with a smear of that stuff.”

  Aluna licked her fingers. “Dash and I will be on hunting-and-gathering duty if you two share the cooking.”

  Hoku looked at Calli just as she looked at him. They both grinned.

  “Let’s go,” Aluna said. “We have a lot of distance to cross.”

  Amid groans and curses, they put out the fire, wrapped up their leftover food, and managed to get back on the rhinebra. Dash started them at a walk, but even the slow pace felt like torture. Hoku distracted himself by discussing the angle of light refraction with Calli and by teaching Zorro to balance on his hind legs.

  The next few days blurred together. Physically, Hoku suffered almost every minute from the rhinebra’s unforgiving back and the soreness it created. Even so, he’d never been happier. His conversations with Calli ranged from pulleys and aerodynamics to electronics and cooking. When they set Zorro to work on water safe combinations, he and Calli had fun modifying one of his Extra Ears to work on the radio she’d brought. The radio was already stronger than the Kampii internal ear artifacts. With the added reception boost, there was no telling how far away the radio could receive a signal. They vowed to test it out as soon as they got a chance.

  Hoku still hadn’t found the courage to ask about the note Calli had written in his book. Were they friends, and nothing more? Is that what she wanted? He understood his own feelings, at least. He wanted more kissing, true, but he wanted more of everything else as well. Talking, laughing, fiddling with tech . . . If he ruined all that just because he wanted something that Calli didn’t, he’d never forgive himself.

  At night, they cooked and ate around their campfire. He loved the flames. Not just the flickering light, but the way it drew them together around its circumference. Fire had a gravity all its own.

  He sat next to Calli, grateful that she never seemed to mind. Her hand rested on the ground just a few millimeters from his. And yet . . . those millimeters meant everything. Would he ever be brave enough to cross that distance?

  They sang at night. He was surprised to find that in the Above World, Aluna’s voice was strong and true. Not refined or really beautiful, but full of passion. She sang her heart in every note. Calli’s songs were sweeter and softer, usually ballads about Aviars fighting and dying in heroic ways. He liked the love songs, too, although they almost always ended unhappily.

  Dash refused to sing at first, but Aluna and Calli worked away at him until finally, after several nights, he relented. He began not with melody, but with ritual. A series of hand motions and stomping around the fire, clearly intended to be performed by someone with horse hooves. And the song, when he finally started to sing it, came low out of his throat. It had rhythm and power, but no words.

  When he had finished, no one spoke. Hoku stole a glance at Aluna and saw that her eyes were wet. He looked away quickly. Then, without even thinking about it, he reached out and took Calli’s hand. Her fingers wrapped around his hand immediately, as if they’d been waiting all night for the chance. His heart thundered in his chest, but he didn’t dare look at her. He stared at the fire, pretending to be mesmerized, when all he could think about was how warm and light her hand felt in his.

  He fell asleep each night listening to Aluna and Dash on watch. The truth was, they mostly sat together in silence. Sometimes they’d talk about hunting rabbits and squirrels, but since neither of them could walk easily, those plans never amounted to much. Aluna filled Dash in on the Upgrader attack at Skyfeather’s Landing, and they debated strategies for handling their enemies with greater efficiency. Hoku found the conversations boring, the perfect way to lull himself to sleep at night despite all the excitement.

  On the seventh day of travel, the trees thinned. More sunlight speared through the branches as they rode, and the rhinebra was able to galumph in straighter lines.

  “We made good distance,” Dash said. “I would have bet both sand and sky that the Upgraders would have caught us by now.”

  “Will we reach the shoreline soon?” Aluna asked.

  Dash shrugged. He seemed more comfortable with her questions now, although she could still catch him off guard with her enthusiasm. Hoku knew the feeling.

  Not long after, the trees thinned even m
ore, and they spied gold and blue through the green and brown trunks.

  “Sand!” Aluna yelled. “Ocean!”

  Hoku grinned at Aluna and they both cheered. Calli cheered, too, in support.

  The rhinebra hurtled toward shore. Dirt changed to sand, and blue once again filled the sky. They were finally free from all that suffocating foliage. Hoku heard the waves crash against the beach and laughed. It was like hearing his heartbeat after weeks of silence. He wanted to leap from the rhinebra’s back, flop into the water, and dive down as deep as he could go. He wanted to feel the water around him like a hug.

  And if he hadn’t been wearing his satchel strapped across his back, and if it hadn’t been full of books, he would have jumped in right then. As he started to remove it, he heard Calli gasp.

  “Over there!” Aluna yelled, pointing up the shore.

  Hoku followed her gaze, and the wave of joy swelling inside him dissolved into now-familiar fear.

  “Six of them,” Dash said. “And two flying devices. They must have been waiting for us. That is why they did not follow. I should have anticipated this!”

  “We can’t handle eight,” Aluna said. “Four maybe, but not eight.”

  Hoku could hear fear creeping into her voice, and it scared him.

  A cry went up among the Upgraders. Six huge beasts — two rhinebras and four massive insects — thundered toward them, with the two dragonfliers in the lead. They were far away, but moving fast.

  “Into the ocean,” Hoku said. “Now!”

  “But —”

  “He’s right,” Aluna said. “It’s our only hope.”

  Dash kicked the rhinebra, hard, and the huge animal lumbered into a gallop, straight into the waves.

  WHEN THE FIRST drop of salt water touched her lips, Aluna shivered. The taste unleashed a flood of feelings inside her. It was as if the ocean itself were speaking to her: You never should have left. You never should have abandoned the sea.