Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  I frowned at Aiyanna as though she’d become a person I’d never met before.

  “Hehewuti told me to find the programmer a vessel, and Tarot has sent me a message. Tokarz is that vessel.”

  Skah shook her head slightly in Neira’s direction.

  I frowned. Did Skah know something I didn’t?

  Neira waved Skah aside and stepped forward. “Do what you must, priestess. I have questions for our programmer.”

  Skah opened her hands palm up behind Neira’s back.

  Neira glanced skyward and sighed as though she’d seen Skah’s gesture.

  I turned back to Aiyanna.

  She had knelt beside Tokarz and grasped his chin.

  I could have stopped her. Had I wanted to. We had no court. No judgement had been passed. No evidence had been offered up for review.

  I saw no one else moved to stop Aiyanna.

  The silver liquid was poured down his throat. He kicked out with his booted feet, pushing her with his one good hand, though the action seemed weak.

  The man didn’t look like he’d survived Ryo’s wrath well.

  Aiyanna released her hold on his head and rose, stepping back to watch.

  Neira folded her arms over her chest and tipped her head to the side.

  Tokarz jerked, his entire body convulsing once, twice. He went so still for so long, I wondered if he had died.

  I glanced around to see if anyone else was going to check on him.

  He sat straight up, his good eye open. He twisted around to look at me, then he scrambled to his feet. “Synn, by the graces, you are alive. I thought you had died.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the body of my enemy, trying to remember that Tokarz wasn’t in control of his body. I was speaking to the programmer.

  He grabbed my arms, studying my neck.

  My Mark.

  I bit my bottom lip and looked away.

  “They’re still there.” Tokarz—the programmer sighed with relief and stepped back. “What happened? You went dark. I couldn’t see you, hear you, contact you.”

  I raised my eyebrows, glancing around us. “We were in a battle.”

  “No. I know that. I was there. But what happened to you?”

  “You were where?”

  “In the control room. Synn.” He brushed away my questions. “What happened to you?”

  “I was struck by lightning.”

  He blinked and took a step back. “Oh. Well, that’s not good. But your Mark is still there, so the chips are still active. How long ago?”

  “Half a day?”

  “Hmm.” The programmer pulled the corners of Tokarz’s lips down. “You’re doing really well for having been struck by lightning a few hours ago. So, the nanites are working. Great. Excellent. They should be coming back online soon. Very good. Well, um, drink lots of water. Where’s Nix?”

  “Escaped.”

  “Escaped?” he demanded incredulously. “I told you to keep her close to you.”

  “I had other things to worry about.”

  “So you let her escape?”

  I rolled my eyes and shifted my weight to my other foot. “What was your name again?”

  “Boubmadnomon.”

  There was no way I was remembering that. “So, Bob.”

  The programmer sighed, his expression falling. “Fine.”

  “We were informed,” Neira said, stepping into the programmer’s line of sight, “that a programmer orders the Han.”

  “Huh? Oh.” Bob straightened, then slumped to one side. He peeled away the blood soaked bandages at his abdomen. The pieces of skin wove back together as we watched. “The other programmer.”

  I took a step closer. Nanites. That had to be the reason why I was still alive after being struck by lightning. But that didn’t matter. It was time to get answers, to get more than a fleeting few pieces of information. “How many programmers are there?”

  Bob grimaced. “Honestly, I don’t know. I know for sure there’s me and—well, one other. But now it makes sense. Do you know where Nix is?”

  “She was captured,” I said. “By Ino Nami.”

  He groaned. “That’s great. That’s just excellent.”

  For all that he said it was good news, his tone said otherwise.

  “He knows. He knows there’s another code out there. That means he’s going to be looking for me. It means he’ll be trying to find my code, will try to hack into it.”

  Neira frowned at me, holding up a hand to silence my next question. “Do you really fight for us?”

  “Well.” He licked his lips. “I don’t fight for them. They want to destroy all of you. I don’t see how we could allow that, but we are dying. If we don’t repair our ship, we will die soon. And the other programmer won’t allow us to simply die. They will—they’ll remake your planet, make it so it supports us. Not you.”

  “What do you need?” I asked.

  Neira shushed me with her hand again.

  I waved her off.

  “Oxygen,” he said simply. “We need lots and lots of oxygen. We had thought that with all the water and the plants, that you’d have enough oxygen for us. But you don’t. Weird.”

  “What is oxygen?” Neira asked.

  “Air.” He paused, meeting first Neira’s gaze then mine. “Imagine living in a world you can’t breathe.”

  I’d tried picturing that earlier, when I’d first heard of the Skyborne.

  “Look, I don’t have much time.”

  “You never seem to have much time, Bob.”

  Bob twisted Tokarz’s face in a look that begged me to shut up because there were things I didn’t understand. “This is a good vessel, so keep him around, if you can. Anyway, go to Ino City. She has a vault and in that vault are all her nanite vials. If you steal those, they’ll have no other way to contaminate more people to her side.”

  Neira shook her head. “How do we know where to find Ino City?”

  “I know,” I said. I met Bob’s one blue eye. “But when I go to Ino City, I will destroy her.”

  “Nami?” the programmer asked. “No one cares about her. Kill her.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m out of time. Get the nanites. And get Nix back!”

  Tokarz slumped to the soggy earth.

  Neira met my gaze and raised an eyebrow.

  “MY LANDS ARE SAFE,” NEIRA said, pointing to the ground with one finger.

  The orange sun, Kala, reigned high in the sky. Blue Sang was just starting to rise. The red planet, Kel’mar, was nothing more than a large, red semi-circle in the might of the two suns. The sky was a brilliant blue, but a storm hovered over the eastern horizon. Not another hurricane, thankfully, but another storm, nonetheless. Thunder rumbled in the distance, heralding its arrival. The insects chirped to one another as if preparing the coming invasion.

  The entire El’Asim fleet sat in the meadow along the outskirts as if protecting us from the trees. Jamilah had worked with the other commanders to incorporate landing legs onto the Layal. They were more like landing pegs, but at least the Layal wasn’t listing. She didn’t look like the flag ship of the great El’Asim fleet. She looked more like its orphan.

  I sighed. The old ways could be a hindrance.

  Chie stepped forward, her round chin high over her bright purple vest. “Look at what we’ve lost to protect the old ways of thinking. If we allow the Great Families to regroup, we would be allowing them to grow stronger. And then, how would you protect your lands?”

  Pavel nodded, his thumbs hooked in his belt. The great Kowka ships with their sky cat mastheads and white sails dotted the skies above his head and just behind him. “I agree vith the Yasu Noriko.”

  It was going to take me a while to get used to hearing my sister’s people referred to as the Yasu Noriko. They’d been Ino my entire life.

  “To allow dem to regroup vould be suicidal. How quickly do you vish to die?”

  Bartolo Cruz expelled a breath, his darkly bearded cheeks puffed out. He scratched his nose then f
licked his fingers in Neira’s direction. “I feel for you, I do. You have great lands. Many would wish to take from you. Yes. But you are the leader of the League of Cities.”

  We were not nearly the same numbers as we had been during the Games. Many of the tribes hadn’t returned. Bartolo had said he’d heard word the El’Asim had risen to fight the Han. That had been reason enough to draw him out of hiding.

  We had, maybe, a third of the number we had before.

  Yvette stepped up. She wore a silk tunic and pants that swayed with the wind like water. Her long, black hair hung loose, pinned behind her ears to stay out of her face.

  This was a much different woman than the one who’d worn ridiculous hats and shoes that were barely fit to wear in the cobbled streets of Sky City.

  Her voice was clear as a bell as she spoke. “We have lived too long in the oppression of one tyrant or another.” She turned, the wind lifting her hair and tossing it about. “It is time for you to decide if you wish to continue to live in oppression.”

  “We were not oppressed,” Neira said. She flexed her grip on her walking stick. She wore her leather battle armor, that bound her breasts, but left much of the rest of her open for attack, like her abdomen. Her full, black hair cascaded down her back, but the slight wind didn’t budge it.

  “Then why did you join the Games?” Yvette demanded.

  Bartolo stepped up, his dark brown hair battened down with grease. His brown pants ballooned before being tucked into his boots. “We joined the Games to prove our worth. We joined the Games to tell the Great Families we were no longer someone to ransack over, to steal from, to loot.” He stepped closer to Neira and sneered. “We joined the games to stand up for ourselves because the El’Asim invited us, showed us it was time.”

  “And how did you feel when he deserted you?” Neira demanded softly.

  Bartolo leaned forward, a frown furrowing his thick brow. “He had lost his tribe in great numbers.” He twisted at the waist to meet my gaze. “We understood.”

  Pavel lowered his gaze on the other side of the gathering before licking his lips and looking toward the sky.

  Ga’a’dool, a tall, formidable dark-skinned woman rose from her crouched position and raised the stick in her hand. “The time for rest is at an end.”

  I didn’t know much about her tribe. I didn’t know her last name, what language they spoke. I didn’t know her histories.

  She lowered her stick and landed her gaze on Neira. “The Great Families are wounded. They are down to three, and of those three, two are divided in half. Now is a good time to strike.”

  The two divided were Ino and LeBlanc, though, in half? I couldn’t swear to that.

  Yvette put her face to the wind and closed her eyes.

  Rajih, commander of the Jihan, straightened, appearing like a giant unfurling himself. “Kadar El’Asim taught me many things, best of which was how to stay out of a battle. He taught me that it is best to live to see another day than to fight and die senselessly in a war we know not why we fight.”

  I frowned.

  Neira bowed her head and took in a deep breath, her lips pinched as if knowing what he was about to say.

  I didn’t, however, and he was my commander.

  “But in this fight, we do know what we fight for. We fight for the right to rule ourselves in peace. We fight for the right to mix our lines, to interbreed as our hearts command.”

  Qamar, commander of the Karida, ran a hand over her stubbled and dented dark head before raising her raspy voice to the circle. “And we have an advantage. We have fought the forces of the Han, their greatest weapon, and we have won.”

  “They have long range cannons,” Najat said, stepping close to Neira. “Those cannons could cut through the Najmah as if it was nothing more butter grease.”

  “But we know how to take care of those,” Yvette said. “The cannons are heavy and cannot be lifted into the air. They can only be carried by lethara, and my people can remove them from the battle.”

  The commander of the Maizah, Mudar, sank onto a large boulder and stripped a blade of grass. He lifted one burly shoulder. “We have been gathering information. Lots of it. The Great Families are planning something big. They do not care to keep us alive.” He looked at Neira through his eyelashes, his beard lying flat against his thick chest. “They mean to slaughter us all.”

  Not them, necessarily. The Skyborne.

  “And,” Jamilah demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, “who is this Bob?”

  I had forgotten that not everyone in this circle understood the real battle. “There are people who fell from the stars on our planet.”

  Najat pursed her scarred lips. “Gods?”

  “No. People. They flew through the stars in a ship. That ship crashed here and was damaged. They cannot breathe our air.”

  “I don’t understand why I care,” Najat said bluntly.

  I searched for the words that would bring this point home quickly. “The Skyborne gave us our Marks as a way of controlling us. The Great Families are the ones easiest to control. The more mixed our bloodlines are, the harder it is for the Skyborne to control us.”

  Yvette pulled her head back in confused disgust.

  “They need metal to rebuild their ship, but our pleron is limited and not strong enough for what they need.”

  “Then,” Yvette asked quietly, “what do they intend to do?”

  “They are going to destroy our world.” I had to make sure they understood who the real enemy was. It wasn’t the Great Families. It wasn’t Ino Nami. Bob said point blank that we could kill her and none of his people would even care. That had to mean something. The Great Families were nothing more than puppets.

  Neira rubbed her eye with her two middle fingers, then raised her face to the sky.

  Ryo knelt, plucking a wet leaf off the ground. “We have already faced a great deal of death, of blood, of battle. We have lost people we loved and cherished.”

  Skah watched him, her expression relaxing around the mouth and eyes.

  He looked up, staring at everyone around him. “Isn’t it time we took back our right to live?”

  “It’s more than that,” I said. “It’s more than how much we’ve lost already. If we lose, we will lose it all. So, it doesn’t matter how much we lose, until we’ve lost it all, until everyone has lost it all, it doesn’t matter.”

  Haji lifted one shoulder. “We are no good on a water battle. Land? Yes. Water? Useless.”

  Rashidi, leader of the shield unit, scoffed at him. “You might not be, but, I assure you, we are.”

  I chuckled at his scorn even though the mood bore no humor.

  “There is no need for that,” Yvette said. “Their base is on an island. The air is bad. The water is poison. The terrain is rocky.”

  Du’a popped her wings and settled on the boulder beside Mudar. We know these islands well. That is our home.

  Neira looked the falcon, her eyes wide.

  I frowned.

  The others around the group stared at the falcon as well, their Marks rising with the power of their element.

  Everyone’s Mark except my own. Mine still hadn’t started working again.

  We can guide you and support you. Her beady eye pointed in my direction.

  Was there something going on that I didn’t understand? I looked to Neira. “Are we agreed then?”

  She shook her head in negative. “I suppose we are.”

  Aiyanna shivered, looking over the vast landscape before her. She needed to get to the sea. She didn’t know how she knew that or what she would find once she got there. She only knew that she had to get there.

  The death of Hehewuti had shook the very foundations she’d built her entire life on. She realized how stupid she’d been to do so, but Hehewuti had seemed so formidable. Aiyanna hadn’t thought anything could destroy her.

  A bomb had, though. A bomb. And Hehewuti had allowed that bomb to find Enhnapi. Why? Why would she allow that? Why had she s
acrificed herself like that?

  Maybe, Aiyanna was giving the high priestess too much credit. Perhaps, she hadn’t been able to see so clearly into the future. Perhaps, she hadn’t seen her death coming. Perhaps, Tarot had decided Hehewuti’s time of guidance had come to an end.

  Tarot. Or the Skyborne.

  Whatever the reason, the one solid structure in Aiyanna’s life was now missing. What did she have now?

  A man she loved but who could not truly love her back. Not in the way she wanted, at least.

  A faith system she didn’t know if she entirely believed in anymore.

  A war she no longer wished to fight.

  She sank to the ground, the wetness from the storm instantly dampening her pants.

  Was she really so unsettled over one death? One. She’d lost one person. One.

  The others had lost so many. Countless. Was she really so weak?

  She buried her face in her hands, unable to shed any tears, the frustration and self-flagging beating away her sorrow. Hehewuti had been someone to look up to. She’d never offered the comfort of a mother. She’d never offered the love of a teacher.

  Why, then, was she filled with such hurt?

  Because the war had finally touched her.

  She raised her face to the brilliant sky, staring at the pocked surface of Kel’mar.

  The war had finally touched her.

  She let that sink in.

  Through Tarot, she was supposed to offer warmth, guidance, and love.

  Three things she’d never truly experienced herself.

  A bug buzzed at her ear.

  A bird trilled. Another answered.

  How could she expect to offer things she’d never experienced? How could she think to guide people through loss when she’d never lived through it? She was so untouched, so alienated and alone.

  How could she be a priestess and so unloved?

  Why was she thinking of these things now? Now, of all the times?

  Because she saw how Zara’s death had affected Synn. She’d tried to help him through it, but had failed miserably.

  And then, she’d seen how Ryo had reacted to Oki’s death, and how Synn supported Ryo, not through tenderness. Not through support.

  He simply met Ryo’s gaze and they’d shared something.