by Blooding, SM
I shook my head. No. I was thinking I was the only one capable of doing it with any margin of success. Had I been hallucinating on drugs to think I could do this?
Keeley’s cool hand touched my shoulder. “I brought you a shirt.”
“Oh.” I focused on her and took the shirt from her. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
She raised her pale eyebrows and shook her head. “Do you want me to look at any of those?”
I winced. I didn’t, but I knew she’d better. I nodded.
She pushed me toward a tall stool, setting down a brown leather bag on the table. “How are you doin’?”
I shrugged. “Aside from the fact that I hurt just about everywhere, thanks to the city exploding around me, I’m doing pretty well.”
She was silent for a while as she worked. She wasn’t too gentle about pulling out the fragments of thick dried flax or the other bits of shrapnel embedded in me.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I suppose I’m okay.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But then I tried putting myself in her shoes. She’d escaped, knowing that a lot of people wouldn’t make it. “Almost everyone survived, Keel.”
She nodded, dabbing something that bit onto my wounds. “I know. It just—It brought back memories, I guess.”
Oh. Right. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I need to get over it. I mean, we were able to help for a change, right?”
“Yes. We were.”
Keeley was quiet as she tortured me with her healing. “What are we doing, Synn? Are we helping?”
That was a good question and one I didn’t have an answer for. So I didn’t provide one.
The days slipped by slowly and tensions grew as we continued to hide. The submersibles communicated several times. We discovered that embedded in their communications, there were codes that said when they would broadcast again. With their frequency and their codes in hand, we decided it was time to get them off our tails. Especially since the last communication had been a request to send reinforcements. They’d somehow confirmed that I was onboard the lethara they were following. The Hands were calling us Asim City. Why not?
Yvette volunteered with a vengeance I’d never seen in her before. Since escaping from Sky City, she’d changed a great deal. Gone was the girl who loved clompy shoes and ridiculous hats, and in her place stood a warrior, ready to take on just about anything that came at her.
I was glad, not for the first time, that she’d decided to escape with us.
I pulled her aside. “I have a question for you. I don’t know how you’ll take it.”
She looked up at me, her violet eyes gauging me. “What?”
“Are you still spying for the Hands?”
She paused, blinking once, twice. “Yes.”
I nodded, my eyes scanning the room of the observatory. “Are you working for them or are you helping us?”
Her pink tongue darted out, her lips flat. “I’m feeding them the information you want them to have, and giving them some bad information.”
“And how are you doing that?”
“Joshua knows. He’s been helping me.”
“And you two didn’t tell me because?”
She frowned, taking a step back. “You’re compulsed and you’re supposed to be leading us, so as far as people being able to tell me I’m wrong, you’re not the right person for the job.” She glared and turned away. Removing the robe, her black hair falling around her, she leapt into the pool.
All in all, that hadn’t gone as badly as I thought it might.
Sabine was staring at me through her cool violet eyes, not saying anything.
I met her gaze. “I had to be sure.”
She nodded, walking with a sedate grace to the pool, her robe pooling on the floor behind her, her hair shielding her body from the prying eyes of the visitors clogging the hallway outside. “So did she.” She disappeared with a small splash.
I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself. I was pretty useless in the water, and there wasn’t much I could do that was helpful on the lethara. Joshua had everything under control in his lab. Keeley didn’t need my help with whatever she was doing, and she was busy a lot. Half the time, I couldn’t even find Haji.
With a deep sigh, I headed out of the observatory and towards the stair that would take me to my room.
Before I could make it very far, I was stopped by a man, his face shadowed with the rough starts of a beard. “Primus, you and I need to speak.”
I closed my eyes for patience and stopped. “I’m not a Primus.”
“The Hands say you are.”
I took his hand and removed it from my shoulder. “I’m not. Now, what do you need?”
“What do I need?” He turned to the people scattered along the wide corridor for support. “We need off this damned lethara. We need air, sunshine and most importantly, we need to get away from you.”
Obviously he hadn’t heard that I’d managed to save the people of his city even if I’d failed to save their city itself.
“You’re a danger to all of us just by being here. We have kids we need to protect.”
I nodded. “I understand that.”
He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and took a step back. “Name’s Garrett.”
“Garrett.” Great. What was I supposed to do? “We just need you to stay calm—”
“Stay calm? Seriously? Not likely.” He leveled a frustrated glare in my direction. “What’s your plan? What are you going to do with us? We’re not pawns in whatever is going on between you and your rotting queen.”
My teeth gnashed together. “She’s not…” My hands fisted and I had to work really hard to calm my Marks. “…my queen.”
“That’s not what we hear from her,” he said, his face in mine.
I bit off the words that came instantly to my tongue. He was scared and had no idea what we were doing to try and save them, to keep them safe. I took a step back, relaxing my hands. “We think we’ve found some islands that will be a safe place for you and your people.”
Garrett stopped what he was about to say and looked at me, his stance relaxing. “Where?”
“Just south of Kiwidinok.”
“Koko Nadie?”
I shook my head. Everyone knew that the islands of Koko Nadie were uninhabitable due to the violently active volcanoes. “They’re newly formed, which means they haven’t been civilized yet. Things will be a bit rough, but all things considered, we think it’s your best bet to stay safe.”
“Safe because now we’re known to have sided with you?”
I held out my hands. “Safe because we tried to keep you protect and because you’ve had free reign of my home, which means you have valuable information for the Hands. They won’t be gentle.”
“They’ve helped more than the Families,” one woman said, holding her daughter close. “They’ve given us technologies the Families kept for themselves.”
I had no idea what the Hands had given to their cities. “But at what price? How many of you lost your children because the Hands demanded it?”
The people were quiet.
“They might give you things, but they demand a lot for it. They don’t just ask for your sons, they take them, and if you resist? They kill everyone in your family so there is no thought of resisting, there’s no seed. You just do what you’re told and follow blindly.”
Garrett’s jaw twitched, his gaze dropping.
I wasn’t going to ask him who he’d lost. Too many of us had lost too many. “I’m trying to ensure you have a fresh start, away from the Hands, away from the Family. You can do whatever you want. You can search for a city if you want. You can set up your own trade if you’d like.”
“We just want to be safe,” Garrett said softly, finally meeting my gaze again. “A place to raise our children in peac
e.”
I nodded. “Well, we’re trying to make that happen for you. We’re working right now to eliminate anyone who might be following us. We have devices that lets us hear what the Hands are saying, and what they’re coordinating. We can give you a device that allows you to do the same, because being forewarned of an incoming attack is better than nothing.”
Garrett listened.
So did everyone else.
“This device, however, will give you the ability to hear what the Families are communicating as well, so I ask you to trust us and not give this device to the Hands. Not everyone is willing to submit to their rule.”
“Whatever we need to do so that we don’t have to eat any more of those ready-made meals,” someone shouted with disgust.
I chuckled and nodded. “I agree. I agree.”
“How far away are these islands? We’ve been traveling a long time, a lot longer than necessary. Koko Nadie wasn’t that far away.”
I looked at Garrett. “We had to keep someone off of our tail. We should be back on course within a day, and then we should reach the islands in a week.”
His shoulders slumped as he shoved his hands in his pockets, his ragged scarf catching on the scruff of his jaw. “And are you just going to dump us?”
I shook my head, my expression earnest. “We’re going to check them out first. If they don’t work, then we’ll find another place. Newly formed islands are risky. They could be active. There could be dangerous wildlife, plant life. The soil could be lifeless. We’re not going to just dump you.”
“But in the meantime,” one of their elders said, “while you’re protecting us, the Hands will destroy more cities trying to find you.”
I paused, but nodded. “Yes.”
Everyone looked at each other, nodding with unease, but at least the tension had dropped. Just a little.
“Then we’re going with you to check out the island,” Garrett said.
“Not everyone.” I frowned. “That would be—”
He shook his head. “A team of us. I’ll gather them. We’ll go together.”
It seemed like things were starting to work for us.
He held out his hand.
I clasped it in mine. Now if we could just keep it up.
CHAPTER 34
OUT OF TIME
Word spread quickly through the survivors of Egolda City. Excitement was thick in the air as they speculated on what they would find. They huddled in groups, sketching things on scrap pieces of paper that we’d scrounged. We’d harvested enough sea flax for them to get started. It was drying on strings strung across several corridors. It made everything a bit tighter, but we were managing.
People were at least in a better mood.
They were making plans for the kind of city they would build and what needed to be built first. Boats would be needed for travel and trade. The big question on everyone’s mind was how they would survive the winter.
A city couldn’t exist unless it had a good winter camp. To be honest, that was one thing I needed to think about.
However, after spending so much time under the ocean, I now wondered if the letharan could survive under the ice. I ran through our past winter travels and noticed that there were quite a few holes. Some of the major cities had remained on the ice, camping there through the long winters and notifying the Hands, and everyone else knew where they were.
But there had been several that couldn’t be found. Father had always shushed me when I asked to stop at this city or that one for whatever silly reasons I had. I had friends in a lot of places. I didn’t get to see them all the time because they didn’t live on an airship, but I never thought anything of it. The airmen didn’t appreciate visiting the tent cities. They found it uncomfortable, and they didn’t like leaving their ship in the middle of winter for many reasons.
I had to consider the letharan themselves. The undomesticated ones would never allow themselves to be frozen. It was a constant fear that there would be some irreparable damage done or that the lethara wouldn’t come out of it in one piece.
Which got me to thinking. Suppose we docked the air fleets on the lethara and then went below water before the big freeze? We’d need to stock up on supplies, but not nearly as many because during the ice storm, the food was here, in the water where we couldn’t get to it. If we were here, we wouldn’t have that problem.
I reviewed my memories of the people at the Ino City docks. There were creatures there I’d never seen. I was fairly certain that the Leblancs had survived because they’d stayed below the ice.
I shivered. But to be down here for two to three years waiting for the ice to melt, without any sky to look at? That was an unnerving thought.
Was that better or worse than dying out there? The Hands had targeted our fleet and all of the air cities, if the reports were correct. I didn’t doubt they would decimate us when we were at our weakest. The airships could survive the winter, but it was difficult do so when our sails were full of ice.
It was a thought to explore, but today I’d have to put it in the back of my mind because we had arrived at the islands.
Yvette and two other men who looked as if they were her brothers joined me, Haji, Keeley, Garrett and three of his men. We had their clothes in our backpacks so they could dress once we hit land. Technically, Yvette didn’t have to morph into a fish person, but she found it frustrating to swim as slow as the “apes in water” in her human form.
She was changing more and more every day.
The rest of us were swimming to shore with the help of the gel masks. After much discussion, we’d decided it would be best if our lethara stayed underwater. We had found a nice deep bay, which was perfect for camouflage. Even if the submersibles found us using sonar, they wouldn’t be able to see us. That was a good thing. Had it only been us, we might have risked rising to the top. But all the survivors made it too risky.
The El’Asim fleet were meeting with Joshua later in the day on the far side of the long island. He was excited and was nearly packed. The man had no idea how to pack light. He’d never been on an airship, and he was so excited to be going on one, he was almost giddy.
Keeley wasn’t nearly as excited, her expression masked, her shoulders slightly drooped.
I elbowed her lightly and, not for the first time, said, “Why don’t you go with him?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head, her gaze down. “No. I’m needed here.”
“You’ll be needed wherever you are. The way you use your Mark? My Family would love to have you aboard.”
“But what about you?”
I shrugged. “We’ll be all right if you really want to go.”
She opened her mouth and looked behind her, but then her expression turned to one of “settled decision.” When she looked at me again, there was no doubt and no sorrow. “No. I need to find my own way.”
I grinned and gave her a one-armed hug. “Hopefully, you won’t regret that.”
Ryo came around us and gripped my shoulder. “I’ve got things under control here. You have the communication device?”
I patted Haji’s backpack. “We’ll radio with word.”
“Good luck, and may your hunt be fortuitous.”
Garrett grinned and tipped his head. “We’re ready. What are we waiting for?”
Nothing.
I took the plunge first, followed quickly by Yvette and her two siblings as they dashed through the water before us, searching for anything that might be a danger. The water was so dark here, it was hard to see anything but thin swords of light.
Eventually, a massive cliff wall emerged. The cliff face was pockmarked with caves. At least we knew how the island developed. I only hoped the volcano was no longer active. We would soon find out.
As we rose through the water, we discovered a shelf with plant life. The water went from dark-pitch blue to a deep cerulean to pale turquoise in a matter of moments, the sunlight from Kala stabbing through the rolling waves as they ran over
us. Garrett and his two men took a few samples of the seaweeds and other plants and tucked them away for later study. Keeley was nodding and smiling. It was great having a biology nerd with us, though by the look of it, she couldn’t wait to get the mask off so she could tell them what they had discovered.
The shelf led further into the bay, and there were smaller fish and a few not so smaller fish that were edible. The bay looked like a lovely self-sustaining food dream.
It also didn’t look like there were any other creatures on the island who ate fish. That was good news as well.
It soon became ridiculous to continue swimming as the shelf rose to meet the surface of the water. We pulled ourselves up, careful not to disturb the area too much, but by then we were in mostly sand. The water sucked out, snagging us at the knees, and then plowed into us from behind, sending us stumbling forward.
“This place is amazing,” Garrett said with a wide grin as he picked himself back up after being pushed down by a wave. His eyes surveyed the mountains in front of us.
There were two of them and they were huge, covered in wild vegetation. The air was filled with noise, too. Birds. There were a lot of them. There were other creatures I could hear, too, but I couldn’t quite identify them. If it didn’t live in the air, I really didn’t know what it was, anyway.
I hoped it wasn’t a carnivore. I was really hoping this would turn out to be a safe place for the survivors of Egolda City.
The beach was white and long, circling around in a long arc. It looked like a giant crescent moon winging out into an endless, rolling ocean. Bright, orange Kala was high in the sky. Large, red, pitted Kel’mar was a shallow bump on the horizon, and Festos glowed bright and big high overhead. The sea was a pale turquoise with sprays of white foam. It was gorgeous.
But we weren’t there for a great view. We were there to see if a city could be built here and if they could survive.
We traveled up the closest mountain. It dipped inward on this side, though there was no lack of green. I stared in wonder around me. It was hard to believe these mountains had formed through the years of ice. But there were no ash clouds. Maybe they’d been developing for some time and were only now stable enough. I didn’t know. I didn’t pay attention to the land. I paid attention to the sky.