Imprison the Sky, page 26
I watched him go, and the gray woman clucked at me. I scowled at her.
She lifted her shoulders, wrapping bandaging around my middle. “There’s less kissing when your entire family is murdered, that’s all I’ll tell you.” She dipped her hands back in the hot water. “Now, let’s see about that face.”
Kamaria Save Us All
I slept like the dead. I passed out in the old woman’s hands and woke alone in the room, the fire stoked high, furs piled on me, the room oppressively hot. I couldn’t tell if it was day or night.
I felt him before I saw him. There was just something about Kairos, there always had been. Some kind of link between the two of us, and I could feel my power curling around his.
My power. I drew in a deep breath, sending air to flicker over the flames. My power. I was whole again.
But Kairos sighed. “He’s gone,” he told me. I looked to where he sat beside me. “The quaesitor came and got him before I even arrived. I searched the docks for word of him and Bast both. Your brother is on a ship bound for the Trifectate, and no one’s seen Bast.”
A dull burn curled through my throat and down to my stomach, like swallowing fire. He betrayed me. But then I took a breath, thinking. “No one?” I asked.
His eyes met mine. “Not even any number of places he could have fenced that jewel or purchased a boat.”
Slowly, I sat up. I still felt miserable and sore, but it was better having my power. My strength was back, my shield, my sword. I grunted, heaving the blankets off me and throwing my legs over the side. “That’s not good.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t have enough contacts here, but people know Bast. He couldn’t just disappear.”
I nodded. “I know a few people to ask. When did Gryph set sail?”
“Last night,” he said.
I cast around, but remembered there were no windows. “How long have I been out?”
“About a day,” he said. “Though it’s been a raging storm that entire time, so they won’t have gotten far yet.”
I cursed, rubbing my fingers over the bandaging on my stomach. “As soon as the storm eases, they’ll have good strong wind to take them. It will take a normal ship eight days to sail to the Trifectate. We’ve already lost one.”
He wasn’t looking at me now, his elbows braced on his knees, his fingers braced against one another, waiting. Tense. Not wanting to ask.
“It’s not my decision,” I told him softly. “We have to get the crew, and they have to vote.”
He shook his head. “Not about this. You could tell them what to do, and they’d obey. You could do it if you wanted to.” He looked up, his eyes accusing me, and I met the challenge.
“I don’t want to,” I told him. The depth of the wound was immediate and sharp on his face. “It’s risking everyone’s life. It’s risking everything I’ve ever fought for. But I’m still going to ask them. I’ll make a case for it.”
The wound softened, only a little, but he peered at me like he had when he first heard what I did on Altia, not understanding me. Not understanding me when I so desperately wanted him to.
“We need to go,” I said, heaving up to stand. “We’ll talk to the king, we’ll find Bast, and we’ll get the crew. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
He stood, and I flinched a little as I stepped, but I straightened up, shoving a sigh out of my lungs. “I’ll get Favo,” he told me.
The door opened, and the suspiciously canny man was standing there. “This way, Captain.”
Favo led us back to the room, but it had changed. The maps were gone, and in their place were a small banquet of food and two big hounds filling the floor with their bodies and paws. It was only the king and his daughter now, talking in serious tones.
The king stood at the sight of me—they all did, except the dogs—and he gestured to two empty seats with empty plates. “Eat, please,” he said.
Kairos looked to me, and I sat, slowly. I felt something tugging at my power, and curiously, I tested the threads, looking at the king and then at his daughter.
She was an Elementa.
I took some of the food, and my stomach lurched with need. Kairos sat beside me, and one of the dogs lifted his head. With a long sigh, he pushed up to his paws and came to sit at attention beside Kairos, who stroked his ear. The big hound put his head on Kairos’s leg.
The princess stared at the dog, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline, but she didn’t say anything. “So,” I said.
The king leaned back, tilting his head, waiting.
“You have a ship for me to take?”
He nodded. “The Serobini.”
I had a large chunk of spiced meat in my mouth, but I smiled.
“Named for the Wyverni goddess of chaos,” he said. “This pleases you?”
I swallowed. “Very much so.”
“It’s crewed and full of provisions, waiting in the harbor,” he told me.
“We don’t need the crew,” I said. He opened his mouth, but I continued. “Furthermore, I haven’t fully agreed yet.”
“Oh?”
“No. In addition to my freedom, I’d like my purchase price refunded to me. Additionally, I would like to form an arrangement with you.”
The woman coughed on her meal, but the king ignored her. “What kind of arrangement would that be?”
“Go after the slavers,” I told him. “Wyverns be damned. Slavery is illegal here and yet your new road has opened up a whole new level of trade. You want to cut the Trifectate off at the knees, but they are buying Elementae from Sarocca to experiment on and use, to make them strong. Cyrus displays her wealth and fears no retribution because even you buy from her.”
“I have never purchased a slave before this!” he roared.
“No? Then why didn’t you march in there with the army and free my brother and me? Why pay her? Why give her money?”
“Why do you trade in men?” he demanded, leaning forward. “You think I can just stomp my foot and tamp slavery out? You think it’s that simple? I will have revolution on my hands. I will destabilize the realm as war threatens.”
“I think you’re willing to let people like me die so that you don’t have to face this. I think you’re only worried about the Trifectate now that it is coming to your house.” I looked pointedly at his daughter, and she gasped.
The king turned scarlet, leaping to his feet, but I didn’t back down. “Keep your mouth shut,” he growled.
I let a moment pass. “Cyrus is selling Elementae in private auctions. Slaves are being purchased and used for their powers. Children. Does that mean nothing to you?”
The princess put her hand on her father’s, and he looked at her, an unspoken conversation going on between them. She shook her head a little, and he bellowed out a sigh before sitting down. He filled his cup with wine, swallowed it, and filled it again.
“I cannot risk my relationship with the Wyverns. Not right now.”
“They worship the Elementae. It’s an easy platform to say that you are cutting off slavery to defend their kind.”
He scowled. “I promise that I will consider it. It’s not as simple as you claim, but I will speak to my advisers. Tell me what you need today to agree to what I’ve asked.”
“Protection,” I told him. “And finances. You will keep my crew fed and safe, and after this mission, I will use my crew to free as many people from slavery as I can. You will make that happen.”
He knit his fingers together, considering me. “When I need your skills, you will make yourself available to me.”
“We can discuss it,” I told him, shaking my head. “But I will not be a slave again.”
“You will destroy the communes.”
“I will attack the communes. I will do my best to destroy their dry docks and their ability to make new ships. This is if, and only if, my crew agrees. If they refuse, I will come back here and return the funds.”
He straightened up, looking first to Kairos and then to me. “That’s unacceptable.”
“I can’t do it without them, and I’m not risking their lives without their agreement,” I told him. “It is not up to me.”
“Yet you reap all the benefits.”
I looked down, considering this. “You could choose to look at it like that, yes.”
He drew a slow breath, watching me. I saw something thoughtful in his eyes, so many hidden things that he was sifting through. “I cannot imagine this will be the end of the Trifectate,” he said. “War is coming.”
“It seems that way, yes.”
“This is a blow, but it won’t be a killing blow. They still have ships, and they have a zealotry that’s hard to counter.”
I waited to hear how this involved me.
“I will most likely need your skills for a while before you can single-handedly take on slavery.”
A grim feeling settled in my stomach, and I wondered if I would ever truly get away from being a slave, from being chained, by money or iron or circumstance. “As I said, it will always be a discussion. Consider me another mercenary in your stable.”
His mouth fell into a line that matched the leaden weight in my stomach. “I want your loyalty,” he said. “I want to know you won’t turn away and help another sovereign when I need you.”
“No,” I said, pushing back and shaking my head. “You want a slave. You want something you purchased to always come running back to you.” I looked at the dog taking meat from Kairos’s hand. “Do you know why dogs are loyal? Because they trust you. Because they see how you treat them over and over and they devote themselves to you. I am loyal to those I love, but my trust cannot be demanded. No slave will ever trust a master.”
A muscle in his jaw flared. “You’re free. I own no other slaves.”
I nodded slowly. “And now we can begin the long business of trusting each other.”
He sighed, leaning back, rapping his knuckles on the table. “Very well. My men will take you to the ship.”
“We need the letter,” I said rashly. I hadn’t planned on that, but I felt the awareness run through Kairos’s body. “That the rebels sent. It will help us coordinate our efforts.”
The king motioned to one of the men, and he stood, leaving the room. The king looked back to me, his mouth tilting up as he examined me. “How old are you?” he asked.
“Eighteen,” I said, and immediately frowned. That was right, wasn’t it? Honestly, it had been a long time since I’d marked a birthday.
He smiled. “Kamaria save us all,” he said, and raised his glass to me.
The king’s men led us on horses down to the dock, but as we approached the city square, I couldn’t follow them. I nudged my horse in the other direction, and she obeyed my command—which was a little impressive because I wasn’t exactly an adept rider.
“Asp,” Kairos said, his tone warning. Osmost dove in front of me with a shriek, and my horse halted.
“Hey,” I snapped, turning to Kairos. “Do not get your bird to do your dirty work.”
“Please. You use the wind. And Osmost does what he wants.”
“Sure he does,” I grunted, and spurred my horse. Osmost tried the move again, but I pushed forward as the horse tossed his head.
“Asp, you can’t do this. Not now, not when we have to go.”
“I assure you, I have plenty of time for this.”
“Think of your brother.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Any doubt filtered out of my veins, and in its place was ice and fire, rage and fury. I spurred the horse and heard Kairos sigh behind me as I rode straight to the door of Cyrus’s palace, letting my power feel ahead for me as I swung off the horse.
She was in there. There were at least two others, but they were of little concern. I shoved the doors so hard with my power that one banged off its hinge, hanging off-kilter as I passed through.
Guards came for me, and I threw them back, slamming them into a room across the hall and shutting the door, barricading it in seconds. I pushed into the room with her in it, and she stood there, unafraid, with Abla and Tommaso by her side.
She grinned at me. “My sweet girl. Back already?”
“You knew it wouldn’t be long,” I said, and my power lifted every small object in the room, flying them in a lazy loop over their heads, paperweights and bowls and small oranges that were bright dots of color in the swirling band. Cyrus faltered at this, looking up at them, watching with dread as a bowl full of flashing silverware rose up. “Like I cared if you ever hurt me. Like it even mattered. But you came for my brother. You kept him from me. You bled him,” I growled, and my rage was such a living thing that I trembled with it, and the objects responded, crashing into one another unevenly in the air. An orange got knocked out of the loop and hit Tommaso in the face, and larger objects were rising, pulling to me. A table leaped up, a stool, a bench.
“You can’t hurt me,” she said, tugging at her dress to show dried blood on her neck like a weak echo of the wound I wanted to leave there. “I have his blood on me.”
It was true—my power seemed to break around her. I would have a hard time choking her to death. But that was fine—I could propel anything at her from a distance.
“Does it look like you’re safe from me?” I asked, whipping a knife around them so they jumped closer together. “What will save you now, Cyrus? What god will protect you?”
Her lip curled back. “Try it. We’ll see who lives, slave.”
I felt Kairos’s power behind me, warning me away from this. Begging for me to keep control and forget this vengeance. “Not yet,” I assured them both. “Tell me where Bast is, Cyrus. It’s the only thing that will save your sister’s life right now.”
Abla looked stubbornly strong, but Cyrus had known to use that particular bait against me for a reason. Abla was the one thing in the world she loved, and her eyes looked from her sister to me. “You wouldn’t dare,” she snarled.
I sent a knife whipping to Abla, stinging a cut over the side of her neck. She yelped, covering it, but it was a shallow graze. “I’ll do it piece by piece if I must.”
“You wouldn’t hurt my sister,” she spat back at me. “Not when you spend so much of your life protecting siblings. I don’t believe you, little slave. What about your code?”
Another knife nicked Abla, this time on her hand. “You clearly don’t know what my code says about vengeance. You bled my brother, and I’ll bleed your sister.”
The next slice was deeper, and Cyrus tried to huddle Abla between her and Tommaso, but my strikes were deadly and precise. I stabbed a fork deep into her arm, and Abla wailed.
“Skiver has him!” Cyrus shouted, stepping in front of her sister to block her from me. “Skiver wants to see your whole crew burn. Do you think he’s found them yet? Do you think he’s peeling the skin off that little girl? Do you—”
Her words ended in a scream as I sent two forks arcing with sickening accuracy into her eyeballs. She dropped with bellowed howls, and I let everything else in the room fall. Abla and Tommaso huddled on the floor to cover themselves.
I stepped closer as Abla cradled her screaming sister and even Tommaso shrank away from me. “You get to live,” I snapped at her. “For now. Because if I kill you, three more will step up in your place, and I have better things to do than murder every foul, filthy shit that feels like they can own or beat or sell another human. Because now, you will be afraid of me for the rest of your life. When it is your time to die, you will never see me coming.”
I turned, seeing Kairos standing beside me, a sword drawn and ready that I didn’t remember him having before.
Even though I hadn’t killed her, it wasn’t the same thing as forgiving her, or letting this go, or going out to face the much bigger problems. I had chosen revenge, petty and swift, and I saw the judgment of that in his eyes.
He sheathed the sword, reaching for my hand. My power ached to connect to his, but I moved out of his reach, storming back to the horses and the Saroccan guards, who were watching us with impassive, unconcerned faces. “Finished?” one asked.
“For now,” I told him, swinging up onto my horse. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
Little Shards
Kairos hadn’t even unfurled the sails before I guided us out of the harbor, new fear raking claws up and down my spine. Skiver had Bast for days. If he was torturing Bast, would Bast have told him where the crew was? Would Skiver have been able to get there by now, and climb up the steep cliff?
When the sails were unfurled, my power rushed into them and took us even faster out of Sarocca. Osmost flew in the updraft of my power, looking happy and proud of himself, but his owner came to me with a sigh, leaning his hip against the railing in front of the ship’s wheel.
“You need to think this through,” he told me.
“We need to get to the island, save our crew, and save Bast. Then we go after both our families. That’s all I need to do.”
“You’re weak and hurt and you must have just used a ton of energy taking down Cyrus. If you push yourself like this you won’t be able to fly us up to the island.”
“Have you had any visions about the island? The crew?” I asked.
“Yes. Nothing worrisome—I can see Navya and her siblings in their house. I see others finishing a new house, and Charly cooking. Nothing bad.” He reached for me, but I avoided his touch. “Why are you pulling away from me, Asp?” he asked, but the way he said it, he knew the answer.
“Because you’re trying to see where my energy is, and it’s not your business. I’ll get us there.”
“Then what?” he said. “Say you fly us up, save the day, everything’s fine. We’re going to have to leave straight off to have any hope of catching your brother, and that’s including your power at full tilt. You don’t have unlimited power.”
“My power is strong,” I told him. “It’s just me that’s sore.”
“Aspasia—”
“What is the alternative, Kairos?” I yelled at him. “Skiver could be there already. You didn’t see him at Cyrus’s. You didn’t see the hate in his eyes.”
