Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  Ghaz raised her narrow chin, her thick, black eyebrows settled firmly over her eyes as her hands shook.

  “That’s because you’re thinking in the old ways,” I said as calmly as I could. Every moment of every day, reminders of my past fits of rage echoed across the faces of those around me. Few had the courage to stay with me.

  Keeley hadn’t.

  I clenched my right hand, biting off the bitter disappointment attached to that thought.

  Ghaz cleared her throat, her trembling fingertips resting on the brown screen.

  I sent her a tight smile. “Before, our navigation—”

  “Sayyd,” a female said, her tone laced with concern. “Ino City is under attack.”

  I stilled. Ino City would never allow herself to come under attack unless this was a trap.

  “Did you hear me, El’Asim?”

  “He heard you, mita.” Jamilah turned toward me. “What do you want to do?”

  Four months ago, I would have gone straight away, no questions asked. Now, I knew better. If the city were under Ino Oki’s rule, why would she have brought Ino City into the rage of the storm instead of hiding within the protection of the ocean? No. There was no reason to be out in this storm. Not for a city like hers.

  My mother was in control. It was the only thing that made sense. She had breached her city for a reason. She must have seen we were close by, must have heard or gleaned it somehow. Perhaps I had a mole. Perhaps Officer Carilyn, the leader of our information network, had leaked location to draw my mother out. That was something she would do. What would my mother gain by allowing her city to fall under attack?

  Information. On me. I clenched my hand into a fist. “Bring me Nix.”

  Someone scurried to retrieve her.

  I narrowed my gaze, concentrating on calm, focusing on unfurling my clenched fists.

  Part of the treaty agreement was Nix’s incarceration. As Queen of Wands, she’d wreaked damage to the world. She’d destroyed three of the seven Great Families. She’d burned my father in front of me alongside Haji’s tribal members. She’d kept me prisoner until I’d figured out how to escape. She’d bound me to her somehow, maintaining control even when I’d left her Sky City.

  I kept her close. She cleaned our latrines. She washed our clothes. She baked our bread. She wiped our floors.

  The great queen had fallen.

  But the reason I kept her close was because of her knowledge. She understood politics. I did not.

  Within moments, Nix sauntered into the control dome, her bound hands in front of her. She wore loose, black pants and a fitted red tunic. Her dark hair was tied into a braid. Even without the normal amounts of kohl, her lashes were long and full, framing her eagle gaze perfectly.

  I kept my expression cool. “Nix.”

  A slight smile graced her full lips. “Ino has called you, hasn’t she?”

  I faced her fully. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Believe me?” She straightened, studying me. “Why would you believe in her, Synn?”

  “You will not call me that.”

  “Oh. My pardon.” She chuckled smoothly. “El’Asim. Why would you trust that your mother—who shunned you for most of your life—wouldn’t do as I say.”

  “You said she was behind the attacks on the Samma’s.”

  “I did.”

  “Yet, you have no proof.”

  “Which is the reason you stand there and I stand—” She raised her bound wrists. “—here.” She let them drop, her expression losing its sharpness. “What has you worried? Why do you tempt the idea now?”

  Why, indeed. I turned away from her. “What is your reasoning for believing my mother capable?”

  “She is ruthless, for one.” Nix cleared her throat. “And she is of the blood-rite regime.”

  I turned on her, my lips flat. “Stories told to children.”

  “No.” Nix shifted her weight to her other foot. “Or do you forget how I ended up with the Hands of Tarot?”

  She’d been Shankara, but when her powers came to fruition, she’d carried the Mark of Ino. Fire. Shankara had stripped her of her family, her husband, her children, and had banished her in the dead of winter. She was lucky to be alive.

  The Hands of Tarot was a religious organization. I didn’t know what Tarot was; a god, an entity, something else. But they had saved a lot of people from dying when they’d been cast out of their tribes. Or so my father had told me. Before Nix’s reign of terror.

  “Ino mated with El’Asim.”

  Nix nodded slowly. “She did. But were all her children tainted?”

  Tainted. The word sounded dirty. “We are all mixed.”

  “Are you?”

  “What do you hint at, Nix?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you really not know? It’s on the tip of all the gossips tongues.”

  “Maybe in the House of Tarot, but out in the rest of the world, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Makoto’s father is not yours.”

  I stopped and frowned at her. “Of course he is.”

  “Does he share any of your El’Asim markings?”

  It was difficult to say. The El’Asim were rugged, dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned. The bone structures were more rugged. Oki, Zara, Ryo, and I looked more Ino than El’Asim, though. The slanted eyes. The paler skin. The finer bone structure.

  “Wasn’t he always treated just a little different?” Nix asked. “Didn’t it ever bother you that he had different tutors?”

  It might have bothered Ryo or Oki as they’d been raised with Makoto, but I barely knew the man. We’d met. We didn’t like each other. No more had to be said. I was an airman. He lived in the belly of a fish.

  “Why would my mother destroy my fleet?”

  “You stole her power.” Nix’s words were blunt. “She was prepared to rule the world through you, probably only for a time. Then you gave the league to someone else. You stripped her of power. You put a tainted bloodline in her place. Yes. You had to be put in your place.”

  I turned away from the ex-Queen of Wands and stared redly glowing storm tops. “We have had no word from Oki. Ino City has breached the storm and appears to be under attack.”

  “I would say that’s a trap.”

  But Ino City had reared her head. She was under attack. We had our invitation. Now was my chance to see if Oki was all right. I’d already lost one sister. I didn’t have another to lose.

  “She is the better player, Synn,” Nix said. “You are getting wiser, stronger, but she will out-play you, whatever you try.”

  I pressed my lips together and turned my attention to the communications console. “Any word from the Maizah?”

  The Khayal Maizah housed our intelligence network, where Caitlyn was stationed, doing what she did best.

  The man at the communications console glanced up, pulling one headphone off his ear. “Yes, sir, but the storm’s providing too much interference.”

  “We need to act now.” Jamilah clenched her hands, glancing at her controls. “Sitting here solves nothing.”

  I’d run headlong into too many situations, hoping against hope that I’d mysteriously find the right solutions. I’d learned my lessons. No. We were going in there with as much information as I could gather. I strode to the communications console, requesting the headphones with my open hand.

  He pulled them off his head and handed them to me, scrambling out of my way.

  “El’Asim,” Jamilah said, her tone filled with chiding, “I thought today’s mission was to allow others to do their jobs.”

  I ignored her and fiddled with the dials and levers until the static and chatter had cleared. “Maizah, this is the Layal. Come in.”

  After a brief moment, a deep voice came over the line. “Commander Mudar speaking, El’Asim. What can I do for you?”

  Three of my father’s commanders had survived. Mudar was one of them. He was not a war commander, but, as my father had told me often
, sometimes, you didn’t need everyone to be a war commander. Sometimes, you needed someone who understood war and knew better than to join it. Mudar was that man.

  “Any word from Oki?”

  “Negative, sayyd.”

  “And the situation in Ino City?”

  Static clung to the line for a moment, then cleared. “Our scouts report that it does appear as though Ino City is under attack from strange, unmarked air vessels.”

  “Vessels?”

  “They are not all airships, El’Asim.” His deep voice rumbled through my ears. “You are not the only one making modifications to his ships.”

  “Where is Carilyn?”

  “I am here, El’Asim,” her soft voice said.

  My gaze drifted around the dome, catching the faces pointed in my direction as they waited. “What about your spies?”

  “It’s not good, Synn. According to my contact, Oki has just been arrested. Ino City breached to get word to you. Your sister will be executed tomorrow morning.”

  Four months ago, any hint of this level of betrayal would have been disbelieved. However, I’d done a great deal more than simply rebuild my fleet. I’d gone on information gathering missions.

  Just words. These were just words until she confirmed. Ploys to draw me out.

  “Get word to your contact, if her information is real—”

  “It is, Synn.”

  “—then tell them to gather their troops. I’m coming to Ino City.”

  Ino City: Chie

  CHIE HURRIED THROUGH INO CITY, her hands fisted at her sides, her steps clipped. The big bow of her blue obi bounced with each step at the base of her back.

  Synn was close. He knew Oki was in trouble. Chie just hoped he would arrive in time. She’d warned Oki so many times over the past few years of their friendship about Ino Nami, but each time, Oki’s laughed her warnings away. “No,” Oki’d said, “My mother would never do anything like that.”

  But Chie knew things Oki couldn’t. There was a certain brilliance to being a servant. A true-blood servant, so, in some ways, stronger in political standing than others, including Oki. But still, a servant, and, thus, invisible. As such, she was able to slip into places she shouldn’t be during meetings she shouldn’t even know about.

  Like the true-blood meetings.

  They’d been banned years ago. Shortly afterward, Ino Nami had joined her house with Kadar El’Asim and they’d produced children. On the outside, things looked great. It appeared as though progress was being made.

  Then, the true-blood meetings continued, without the El’Asim being present.

  The El’Asim tribe wasn’t pure. It was a blending of several different tribes. The only reason the El’Asim had been accepted into the Great Family ranks was because their Mark was consistent; lightning. Also, they were large and powerful. However, Chie had seen other “powerful” tribes wiped out of existence before. So, there had to have been something else that Ino Nami had been looking for.

  Chie had listened to the secret meetings. She’d heard Ino Nami proclaim that Oki, Ryo, Zara, and Synn were not her children and would never inherit. That left only Makoto who had obviously been fathered elsewhere. They talked of purging the Great Families of all the tainted blood.

  Tainted blood. Chie went cold just thinking about it. When they “purged” the ranks, the tainted were either turned out with nothing to call their own, or they were slaughtered. How far would Ino Nami go?

  Well, they were seeing it. She was going to kill her own daughter, whether she claimed her or not. She’d given birth to Oki. Chie wasn’t stupid. The other tainted bloods would follow and the only people who knew about it that could spread the word were her and Oki. Oki hadn’t taken it seriously, and no one would listen to a mere servant.

  The El’Asim needed to get his sister and all the other tainted bloods out of there. But how? He wasn’t that smart.

  But he was their only ally.

  “Eto Chie,” an older woman called from her market stall. “Eto Chie!”

  A frown flashed across Chie’s face as she stopped. “I do not have time, Oshiro Kota.”

  Kota grasped for Chie’s fingers, worry folding her worn face, calculation lighting her dark eyes. “What is going on? Everyone runs about, and no one says anything.”

  Chie gave the older woman’s fingers a squeeze. “As soon as I know anything, I will send a message, but right now, I must go.” She extracted her fingers and continued through the market.

  Who could Chie trust? Who could she tell? Who would she try to save? Who could she try to save? Oki. Obviously. Their husbands. Of course. But who else?

  Little shanties filled the market, temporary buildings made of dried sea flax with thin drapes for doors. A storm raged outside the protections of the letharan walls. Ino City had breached the protection of the ocean’s surface, so the market was closed. Being in the storm was dangerous. Breaching had been dangerous, but that had been the only way they could get the message to Synn.

  It was probably why Ino Nami had decided to act, though. Blessed waters! What could they do?

  Chie ducked behind a faded red drape and stepped into a potter’s shop. The old potter sat on a stool, painting his latest ware. He didn’t even glance up when she entered.

  She slipped under the horizontal board along the back wall, and pushed the hidden door open, ducking into the small room in the back.

  Kenta, Oki’s husband, had already arrived. He wiped his palms on his turquoise pants as he stood, the hard leathers of his haidate, or thigh guards, falling into place. The barest of light trickled through the slats above and glinted on his black top knot. “Have you seen Oki?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  How did some not hear the gossip that spread like wildfire amongst the servants? “Ino Nami has seized control of the city and has incarcerated Oki.”

  “What?” Disbelief folded his normally stoic features.

  “She is set for execution tomorrow.”

  He closed his eyes, his wide nostrils flaring. “You are sure.”

  “Yes. But there is more.”

  Kenta opened his eyes and studied her. “What more could there be?”

  “Oki managed to get a message to Synn.”

  “The El’Asim was within range?”

  Chie nodded. “And he is on his way.”

  “That is great news.”

  “It has happened,” Hitoshi said as he burst through the back, wearing a similar uniform to Kenta. His face was sharper than Kenta’s, his top knot smaller, his frame slighter.

  Kenta turned to him. “Chie has informed me. I would not think Ino Nami to be so bold.”

  He obviously didn’t know Ino Nami.

  Hitoshi met Chie’s gaze, his almond-shaped eyes brimming with saddened disbelief. “Did she get the message out?”

  “Yes.” Chie held up her slim hand and took a step forward. “But we need to—”

  Kenta brushed her off and met Hitoshi’s gaze. “Where is Oki?”

  “The jails below the family quarters.”

  “The jails?” Kenta shook his head as if sluffing off dew from his hair. “Fine. We break in, get her out, and then we seek refuge with the El’Asim.”

  “How do we get that information to the El’Asim now?” Hitoshi asked. “The message we sent out was brief.”

  Chie ground her teeth. To be ignored by others who thought themselves above her was one thing. To be ignored by her best friend’s beloved and by her own husband were another. “I have more information,” she barked.

  Kenta flinched, but turned toward her.

  Hitoshi raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips rising slightly. “My love?”

  She’d give him his “my love” back later. “We sent out a message on the other network.”

  “You did what?” Hitoshi asked.

  “Who did?” Kenta demanded.

  “Do you think you are the only ones capable of such things?” C
hie asked. “I know the El’Asim spy.”

  “The El’A—what?” Kenta blinked.

  “He has a way of getting messages to the El’Asim that Ino Nami doesn’t know about.”

  “Can it be traced?” Hitoshi asked quietly.

  “If Ino Nami doesn’t even know about it yet? No.”

  “Well, then.” Hitoshi straightened his shoulders. “What message did you send, my love?”

  “I told Synn that Oki was going to be executed tomorrow. He is coming himself to Ino City to talk to his mother and, hopefully, barter for Oki’s life.”

  Kenta bowed his head. “And how likely will that work?”

  “Not very. But I sent another message.”

  “What was that?”

  “We need to evacuate the tainted—”

  “Chie,” Hitoshi said in frustration, pushing away from her. “Not this again. The blood wars are ended.”

  “They are not,” she said firmly. “I have experienced the meetings. I’ve heard what they say. I’ve heard Ino Nami. Trust me, my love. Oki will be the first tainted—”

  “Tainted,” Kenta said with a chuckle of derision, his gaze seeking Hitoshi. “Oki. What has your woman been listening to?”

  “Ino Nami,” Chie said, frustrated anger curling in her chest. Tears welled in her eyes from the force of it. She didn’t handle anger well. She didn’t know how to channel it or use it. It just made her look weak. She swallowed hard, pushing the tears back. She had to make them listen. “Ino Nami will make it public tomorrow. She deems all her offspring except Makoto to be tainteds. Oki will be the first. After that, Ino Nami will purge her city.”

  Kenta opened his mouth to nay-say her, then closed his lips, dropping his gaze in thought. “Mass murder. That’s what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s what I’m saying she will do.”

  “We’re in the middle of a storm,” Hitoshi said. “If it still blows tomorrow?”

  “Then when she purges the city,” Kenta finished quietly, “hundreds of people will die.”

  Chie breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. Someone listened.

  “She killed Synn’s people,” Hitoshi whispered, looking at his military leader.