The Secrets of Solace

by Jaleigh Johnson

  “Zara shouts at me plenty in private,” Lina said. “We argue all the time.” And though she didn’t say it, she would have given anything for her parents to be alive to scold her about not performing adequately.

  Simon shook his head. “But you still get to do whatever you want to. You have the perfect life.”

  “The perfect life?” Lina repeated. “How can you think that I—” But then she stopped. Simon’s miserable expression, his slumped shoulders, made her hesitate. She’d never considered things from Simon’s perspective, what it must be like to have Tolwin for a teacher. Lina and Zara had their share of problems, but Zara had always been kind to her. Lina tried to remember a time when she’d seen Tolwin show kindness to anyone. She’d thought that uncaring nature made the two of them a perfect match, but now she was starting to think she was wrong. Before, when Simon had told her he’d never intended to hurt Aethon, maybe he’d wanted her to realize that he could be different from Tolwin. Maybe Simon was just as miserable as she would be under Tolwin’s tutelage. It was no excuse for making Lina’s life hard in return, but in that moment, she felt a pang of sympathy for Simon that she’d never felt before. It also gave her an idea.

  “Listen, Simon,” she said. “I’m sorry that you can’t go down to my workshop, but if you let me go now and don’t say anything to Tolwin, and if everything goes the way I hope in the next few hours, I’ll be able to show you what I’ve been working on down there all this time.”

  He snorted. “Right. Because you’ve got a functioning airship squirreled away in your workshop? I’m not stupid, Lina.”

  “Just give me a few hours to prove it to you. That’s all I’m asking,” Lina said. She grinned at him. “Come on, Simon, doesn’t a little part of you want to be involved in a secret, high-risk plan that’ll have disastrous consequences if it fails? Everyone needs to do that at least once in his life.”

  Simon shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said, and Lina’s hope faded. He wasn’t going to let her pass. Well, it had been a long shot.

  And then, miraculously, Simon stepped out of her way. “Fine, go ahead,” he said, gesturing down the tunnel impatiently. “But don’t expect me to cover for you when you get caught.”

  “Thanks, Simon!” Delighted, Lina took off. “Watch the skies,” she called over her shoulder. “You might see something amazing.”

  Hopefully, it wouldn’t be her and Ozben crashing into the side of a mountain.

  “You were gone a long time. What kept you?”

  Ozben was sitting on the floor playing with Aethon when Lina ran into the cavern. He jumped to his feet when he saw her, and Aethon ran over to twine his warm body around her legs. The workshop seemed even more frigid than usual, and the cat’s heat was a welcome presence. Lina reached down and scratched him under the chin.

  “I ran into Simon on my way here, but he’s not going to turn me in for stealing the sphere,” she assured him. Actually, she had a weird feeling that things might be better between them from now on. “Did you have any luck with the door mechanism?”

  “See for yourself,” Ozben said, grinning. He took her hand and led her around the Merlin toward the back of the cavern, but Lina was able to see almost at once that he’d been successful.

  It looked as if a large slice of the wall had peeled back like a sliding door, to reveal a snowy landscape beyond. Small drifts were beginning to form in the doorway. Lina shivered and buttoned up her coat. That explained the extra chill in the air. She glanced down at Aethon to make sure he wasn’t going to make a run for it, but the cat pressed against her, meowing and bumping her knee with his head. He didn’t seem the least bit interested in going outside. In fact, when she took a step closer to the door, he let out a little hiss of displeasure and shrank back, refusing to follow her. Maybe carnelian cats, with their love of heat, hated the snow.

  “The machinery was rusty, but it still worked,” Ozben said, drawing her attention back to the door mechanism. “The cave-ins must have partially blocked the door, though, because I couldn’t get it to open more than three quarters of the way, but I’m pretty sure it’s big enough for the ship to fit through.”

  “That’s great news,” Lina said, giving him a quick hug. Then she knelt and let Aethon lick her hand. “Sorry I ran off earlier,” she told him. “I have to leave again for a little while, but I’ll be back soon. Look after the place while I’m gone, all right?” She kissed his wrinkled head, and Aethon curled up on the floor, a tiny ball of heat in the cold cavern.

  Ozben watched the cat with a troubled expression. “I hate to be the one to bring this up, but what if we don’t?” His voice dropped. “What if we don’t come back?”

  Lina didn’t want to think about that, but Ozben was right. “Zara knows Aethon is down here. If the worst happens, or even if we’re hurt and can’t get back here right away, she’ll coax him out, or have one of the other apprentices come and get him.”

  Ozben nodded. “But are you sure you want people to know about your workshop? It’s your secret place.”

  Lina shrugged. “If I’m dead, it won’t matter, and if I’m not…well, in a few hours, most of my secrets are going to be revealed anyway,” she said. “I think it’s for the best.” She looked up at the Merlin. “We’ve all been in hiding too long.”

  Holding the sphere in her hands, she walked over to the ship. Ozben stayed beside her, and with every step Lina took, she felt a change in the air. It became denser, with crackles and bursts of emotion—anticipation, hope, fear—all emanating from the ship.

  Before they reached it, the gangplank began to lower on its own, inviting them in. Lina walked up into the dark ship and was prepared to call on the lumatites for light when she noticed that the sphere in her hands was changing. The light grew brighter, filling the room with a yellow radiance that made orange spots pop in front of her eyes. She expected the light to burn her fingers, but it gave off no heat, only the steady, dazzling glow.

  “Wow,” Ozben said, his voice hushed. “They’re reacting to each other, aren’t they?”

  “Its heart has been missing for so long,” Lina said. A lump rose in her throat. How had the ship survived all these years without being whole? It would have taken unimaginable strength.

  By the time they reached the bridge, it was too bright for Lina to look directly at the sphere’s light. She sat down in the pilot’s chair and waited while Ozben sat in the other seat. She squinted, shielding her eyes as she held the sphere over the empty, burned-out spot in the center console. “Put your hands over mine,” Lina told him. “We’ll do it together. Remember what I told you about your memories?”

  “I remember,” Ozben said. He put his hands over hers, and Lina felt the trembling in his fingers.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said, trying to soothe him. “Ready? Close your eyes.”

  Lina held her breath, and they gently lowered the sphere into place.

  She didn’t see what happened next, but she felt it. The loose wires on the sides of the console sprang to life like the feelers on a sarnun’s head. They glided over her fingers, weaving themselves around the bands of the sphere, tightening, securing it into place as if it had never been gone. Lina and Ozben jerked their hands back so their fingers wouldn’t get tangled in the wiring. Lina tried to open her eyes, but the light filled the small space, blinding her, and suddenly, she was overwhelmed by a rush of emotion so intense it made her heart flutter in her chest. Beside her, she heard Ozben cry out in alarm.

  “Don’t worry,” she tried to say, but the words stuck in her throat. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she identified the emotions racing through her.

  Hope.

  Excitement.

  Joy.

  Gratitude.

  They bombarded Lina, but she forced herself to focus, to push back against the tide and assert her own thoughts. Time was running out. She needed to communicate with the ship. With her eyes squeezed shut tightly, Lina opened her mind to the Merlin, letting her thoug
hts and emotions blend with it. She hoped that Ozben was doing the same.

  And that they wouldn’t lose themselves in the process.

  —

  Ozben was terrified.

  He’d never felt anything as strongly as he felt the Merlin’s emotions. Wave after wave, they crashed into him, and he was drowning.

  It reminded him of the time he’d gone swimming in the ocean, years ago, when he visited Noveen on a diplomatic trip with his father. The current had been so strong. The waves had swept him up and slammed him down on the sand. He’d sucked in a breath of foamy water that left him coughing and gasping until his father pounded him on the back. After that, he hadn’t wanted to go back in the ocean until his father showed him the secret.

  “You have to swim out past the breakers,” he’d told Ozben. “There’s calmer water just a few more feet from the shore. But you have to let go of the land to get to it.”

  Ozben didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to lose his mind or be overcome by the ship. He thought he heard Lina calling to him from a distance, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  You have to do this, he told himself. He had to open his mind and memories—but where to begin? How could he sum up everything his family and his kingdom meant to him and communicate that to the Merlin? Would it even understand?

  It had to. Its emotions were so strong—so human—that it had to understand.

  He started with the memory of his father taking him swimming in the ocean, how they’d floated in the calmer waters offshore. Ozben’s fear had disappeared, because he knew his father would be there if anything happened. From that memory, he sent his mind spinning away to that day in the garden, the swordfight with his sister that the memory jar had shown him in such vivid detail. He recalled how he’d wanted to protect his sister, to be brave, but he’d been cowed by his grandfather, who it turned out had never really cared about any of his family. He’d only cared about strength and power and how he could use them to get what he wanted.

  He’ll destroy everything if we don’t stop him. Ozben imagined Easmon’s army charging into battle, sweeping through the city of Kalmora and burning everything in its path. And the only person who could stop it was Elinore. But she was lost somewhere in Hawthorn Pass, alone in the middle of a storm where Ozben couldn’t reach her.

  I want to protect her. Was she safe? Was she thinking about Ozben, wondering if he was all right? She wouldn’t believe it when he told her about his and Lina’s escape from the assassin. She’d demand to hear every detail, from their run through the museum to the dangerous trek on the ledge. Ozben hoped that at the end of the story she’d be proud of him. He wanted to tell her all about Ortana too, and finding Lina. Oh, she would love Lina. Five minutes after they met, they’d be like sisters.

  Somewhere in the storm of memories, Ozben felt moisture on his cheeks. He hardly ever cried, except in front of his mother and now Lina. He missed his family so much. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of a cliff, teetering back and forth, trying not to fall.

  So close to losing everything.

  “I know I don’t have the right to ask you to care about any of this,” Ozben whispered, needing to speak the words aloud. He hoped the ship could understand him. “You came to this part of the world to explore, and look how we welcomed you. You don’t have any reason to trust us, but I swear we’re more than what you’ve seen. We can be selfish, cruel, and heartless to one another, but we can also love.” That was a legacy to fight for. Did the ship know what love was? Could it recognize that emotion shining from the memories Ozben offered it? “There are so many things here worth saving,” he said, “but we can’t do it alone. We need help.”

  He waited, tense and adrift, for some kind of acknowledgment from the ship, but there was only silence. The emotional storm receded, replaced by a void that Ozben couldn’t penetrate. He couldn’t tell if this was a good sign. Was the ship considering his request? Did it want to listen?

  As he waited Ozben slowly became aware of himself again. His legs sank into the padded chair he was sitting on, and the chill of the air touched his face. He opened his eyes and saw that the blinding light of the sphere had subsided to a dull glow nested in the console.

  If nothing else, the Merlin’s heart was back where it belonged. Lina deserved most of the credit for that, but Ozben was proud to have played his part. He looked across at her. She opened her eyes and gazed at him, her mouth pinched tight in concern.

  “I didn’t get an answer,” she said. “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t feel anything. What do you think it means?”

  Tears shone in Lina’s eyes. “Maybe it means no,” she said. She stood up and wiped her eyes. “Come on. We’d better leave. You’ve opened the door, and now that the ship has power, it should be able to take off on its own.”

  Ozben stood up and trudged after Lina. The weight of hopelessness settled on his shoulders and spread like a fog in his mind. What would they do now? What would become of the war? What about his family?

  The questions piled on top of each other, then suddenly Lina stopped short and Ozben ran into her from behind. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  And then he caught his breath.

  The gangplank was rising, sealing the ship with them still inside. At first, Ozben didn’t dare to hope, but then a feeling washed over him like a breath of cool, crisp air. It reminded him of the way he felt when his mother came up behind him and put her arm around his shoulders. He always felt safe and reassured, as if no matter how bad things got, everything would turn out all right in the end.

  That was the Merlin’s answer. It was going to help them.

  “Thank you,” Ozben said, reaching out a trembling hand to touch the ship’s hull. Words could never express all that he felt, but he had to say them. “Thank you.”

  —

  Lina and Ozben hurried back to the bridge and strapped themselves into the pilot and copilot seats. The Sun Sphere made a low humming sound that grew louder as the Merlin powered up, and Lina’s heart pounded that much harder in response.

  “What should we do?” Ozben asked her, his hands hovering helplessly over the control panel. The needles on the various gauges were moving, but Lina didn’t have the first clue how to read them. She assumed that the ship could control all its systems on its own, and as for the steam engines in back—Lina didn’t think those were even running. As far as she could tell, the steam engines were meant as a backup system in case the ship’s primary power source failed, probably something that would be used only when the ship had a crew on board to operate them.

  “I think for now we sit back and let the ship do the flying,” Lina said. “It came over the mountains on its own with no pilot. If it needs us to do something, I think it’ll let us know.”

  “But how do we show it where to go?” Ozben asked. “There are no windows up here.”

  He gestured at the wall in front of them and, as if in response to his request, the metal shimmered like the sun on the surface of a lake. Lina’s mouth fell open as the effect faded to reveal a pane of glass. Through it, she could see into the cavern. Unable to resist, Lina shrugged out of her seat harness and pressed both hands against the glass.

  “Amazing,” she said, turning to grin at Ozben. “It’s real glass, or at least it is now.”

  Ozben’s eyes were wide. “What kind of metal can do that—change to glass whenever it wants to?”

  “Organic metal,” Lina said. “The ship must be some kind of shape-shifter, like the chamelins.”

  A low rumble went through the ship. Lina felt the vibration in her legs, and suddenly the ship began to move. Teetering on her feet, she fell back into her chair and strapped herself in. “Hold on,” she said as a thrill of excitement and fear rushed through her.

  She wasn’t sure whether the wheels of the ship’s landing gear would still be functional after having the boulders wedged around it from the cave-in. But aside from a few wobble
s and groans, the ship was moving, backing steadily toward the rear of the cavern, where Ozben had uncovered the exit.

  A flash of light out of the corner of her eye drew Lina’s attention to the center console. The Sun Sphere’s light was pulsing.

  “What do you think it means?” Ozben asked, but Lina had no idea.

  Then a tingling sensation crawled over the back of her neck, as if someone were standing behind her. The ship’s presence seemed to grow around her. On instinct, Lina closed her eyes and opened her mind. When she did, the ship gave her what felt like a mental nudge toward the console.

  Lina opened her eyes. “It’s the Merlin,” she said. “I think it wants me to touch the Sun Sphere.”

  “Maybe it needs you to guide it,” Ozben said. “Can you picture in your head how to get to Hawthorn Pass?”

  “I think so,” Lina said. She’d been there once or twice when the apprentices were sent on field assignments to study the environment around Ortana. They’d covered geology and the seasonal weather patterns of the mountain climate.

  Cautiously, Lina leaned over the console and put out her hand. The Sun Sphere radiated warmth but not enough to burn. She dipped her hand into the bright light and let her fingers rest on the metal bands encasing the sphere.

  An image of the mountains immediately surrounding Ortana filled Lina’s mind. She recognized them. They were from the ship’s memories of the time before it had crashed. The Merlin was trying to figure out where it was and where it had to go. As best she could, Lina added her own images to the mix, calling up every memory she had of trekking through the mountains with the other apprentices. When she came to Hawthorn Pass, with its steep walls and snow-covered valley, she lingered on the image. She thought of the storm that was hitting the pass, imagining fierce winds and blinding snow. She was trying to get across what they were in for. Would the ship be able to navigate through those conditions?