Empire of Sky

by Gabrielle S Awe

  His mouthless face is near mine now and I stare up at the orb he has in place of a head. I imagine I can see things swirling in it; if I look closer, if I could spend long enough looking at it, I imagine I could see all things, all the things the gods have done and all the things they could do. But this is not allowed and he finally completes his movement and he whispers in my ear: “Beware the Arid Lands, my sweet. Do not travel through them to get to the Forest of Nevel; for one such as you, if the Arid Lands let you in, they will surely not let you out again.”

  I try to reach for him but I cannot move; it’s that paralysis that grips you in your sleep and sometimes crosses over into dreams. I desperately want to ask him if he is helping us, because one should not make assumptions when it comes to the gods, even though I have been raised to believe we are doing his bidding at all times. He is fading like smoke in the wind but he gives me a gift; he speaks to me once more.

  “I see the end of all things, human. Entropy comes for you all.”

  ◆◆◆

  In the morning I dress slowly, wondering if a god really came and spoke to me in my dreams, but then I tell myself not to be silly. Of course he did. Just because Zair doesn’t believe in the gods it doesn’t make them not real. The Joker had already left me a note on the airship; if the Masters were to be believed, he founded our Guild, teaching us that even chaos serves order. The Priestess has long been their Voice, directing us, telling us who to strike down so that the Gods’ will is enforced in all things, and there is no dissent disrupting the working of the Empire.

  When I get to breakfast I see that Freyja has joined us. Alexsi and Zair have a map laid out among the plates of food and barely acknowledge me as I sit and fill a plate. Freyja leans over and gives me a kiss, her hand squeezing mine briefly, and then she turns to the guys and simply says “No.”

  They turn to us, confused. “Freyja, we need to get to the Forest,” Zair says. “We have money, we can buy the travel spells ourselves.”

  Freyja nods at Alexsi. “You should know better.”

  He tilts his head, amber eyes studying Freyja in confusion, and then his face clears. “Ah. Freyja, that is just a legend told by us to keep people out of the Arid Lands.”

  I put down my biscuit and listen, interested.

  Freyja looks sad; I decide she doesn’t much like having this secret knowledge that she has as a queen. She makes up her mind. “It’s not just a legend. Travel spells won’t work across the Arid Lands. I don’t know why but they don’t. You have to find a different way.” Her right forefinger twitches when she’s lying. I can’t quite tell what she’s lying about; if we were alone I’d find out. The Masters taught us - wait. What am I thinking? I have friends now; these are my friends. I set aside my training and try to shut down the voice that tries to talk me into doing things you shouldn’t do to your friends. I suddenly understand how Freyja feels. Some secrets are a burden to carry alone, but when you love your friends, you don’t want to pass that burden on to them.

  “The Arid Lands lie between the mountain of Winter and the Forest of Nevel. We must cross them. We can find an airship, right?” Alexsi looks almost desperate.

  “No,” Freyja and I say at the same time. She looks at me, startled. Everyone waits for me to continue, wondering why I suddenly have an opinion about traveling these lands I didn’t even know existed.

  “We can’t cross the Arid Lands,” I said. I don’t want to mention the Joker and get in another argument with Zair about the Gods. “I had a vision last night. If we cross them we will fail our quest; we’ll die there.”

  Freyja has a question in her eyes as she realizes we both have our secrets, but she doesn’t ask me. Instead she turns to Alexsi.

  “Alinya is right. Crossing the Arid Lands is death. There is only one way, Alexsi, the same way you got here.” He pales and shakes his head. “Yes. You must take the Night Train, just like you did when you were a child. You will take the Night Train back home.”

  Alexsi looks terrified and Zair argues with Freyja, insisting we can go a different route, but she points out it will take weeks if we airship back to the City in the Sky (which she calls “that ridiculous floating island”) and travel from there to the Forest. I’m curious about the map but Zair wads it up and shakes it at Freyja during the argument.

  She stops and looks up at some signal only she can hear, and then she stands. “Enough. I summoned the train earlier this morning and it’s arriving now. You don’t have weeks for a silly detour. Alexsi, I know you’re frightened, but you’re older now, and you will have friends with you. Last time, you were a small child, alone in the dark. I promise,” and she reaches out and holds his hand in hers, gazing at him with the eyes of a queen, “I promise it will be different this time. You’re safe.”

  ◆◆◆

  We’re so rushed packing and running to the Night Train that I barely have time to feel sad about leaving the Winter City. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the city, or of Freyja; I wonder how much else there would be if we’d had more time. I wonder if I’d be able to feel something for her, different than the love I feel for my new friends. I wonder if that kind of love really exists for anyone. Then I look at Zair and Alexsi, holding hands as Zair jokes around with him, trying to erase the fear in Alexsi’s eyes. I know their love is real; I know it’s not for me.

  We take a path down, down, deep into the mountain to get to the Night Train. There are no portals that lead directly to it; instead we portal a ways, and then take stone steps, and then another portal, on and on and on. Alexsi is pale and sweating the deeper we go. Even Zair has run out of jokes and now he just holds him like he’ll never let him go.

  The mountain is heavy above us; I can feel it pressing down. Alexsi looks at me in sympathy. “I didn’t like the dark even before,” he whispers. “But being under the mountain, under the dirt…” he trails off, then starts again. “It’s not natural.”

  It feels wrong to me too, but different than that. Not just unnatural, but like the mountain doesn’t want us down here. That’s why there’s no shimmering wall to take us directly down. We’re forcing our way to a place humans weren’t meant to go, deep into this planet that isn’t really ours, isn’t really meant for us.

  And then we get to the Night Train. The three of us don’t speak as we walk down the stone steps to the platform. I’ve never seen a train before. My people, the ones I came from before I joined the guild, aren’t told about other cities. We don’t know about airships and trains and portals. We think travel spells are only for going up to the City in the Sky. I wonder if the Guild would have sent me to other cities if I’d stayed; I wonder how they manage to keep all this a secret.

  The train is matte black. Its head is pointed and the train has segments to it. When we get closer I see that it isn’t touching anything; it’s six inches away from the platform and the ceiling. I don’t see any wheels or any other means of propulsion and it hums quietly as it waits. “How does it move?” I ask in wonder. Zair shrugs. He takes our world for granted, but Alexsi doesn’t.

  “I heard something about magnets and magic,” he says. The magic I expected. I just wish someone would explain how magic really works for once.

  As we get close to it, the doors in one of the segments slide open and the platform extends on its own so there is no gap to step across. Carrying our bags, we walk into the train; I was expecting it to be dark, based on everything Alexsi had said earlier, but the train has its own lighting. It also has racks for our baggage and large leather seats, almost like personal couches. The guys sit next to each other and I take a couch across the aisle from them. The air in here is cool and dry. I notice a slider on my seat; I can make it warmer or cooler, and I can adjust the lighting over my couch and slide down a privacy shade as well. The couch leans all the way back but I’m not ready to sleep, it’s just midday. Instead I leave the guys and go exploring.

  A chime sounds and the train starts to move with a jerk. I almost fall but I catch
myself on a seat. After a moment the train smooths out and I can’t feel the movement or the acceleration anymore; as I look down the back of the train I can see the lights of the platform fading behind us. The train is still lit inside but outside all I can see is black, like a night without stars.

  Each of the train sections has a door that leads to the next; I pass rows and rows of empty seats and couches. I wonder who they are meant for. There are bathrooms in every other section, and after walking for five minutes I find a dining room, just empty tables. There’s a kitchen on the other side of the dining room but no cooks. I poke around in there and see things that look like small ovens; everything is metal, gleaming and cool. I open cabinet doors and find chillers filled with food, drawers filled with cutlery.

  I walk over to a square thing with flat buttons on it. I press them and they make noise but nothing happens. I hope Alexsi knows how to use the kitchen because we’re supposed to be on the train for three days and it would be pretty embarrassing for all of us to arrive famished because we couldn’t figure out how to use the kitchen.

  I head back to our seats and find Alexsi asleep with Zair watching over him. “He’s tired,” Zair explains, “and he can’t sleep if I fall asleep first.” I try to hold back my smirk; I wonder if it’s because of the snoring. But no; I see how Zair feels about Alexsi and I understand why Alexsi followed us onto that airship, not even knowing if Zair were still alive. If someone felt that way about me I’d follow them to the ends of the world, even if I never felt the same way back.

  “I can’t imagine what it was like for him as a child, alone on this train. Who would do that to a kid?” Zair shakes his head at my question.

  “The nobility are different,” he says, but it’s not really an answer. “Our parents know that they may have to give us up for any number of reasons. Fostering is the easiest.” We both think of his mother, faced with the Sky Priestess’ order of assassination. I thought my people were the only ones whose children are taken away but even the royals can’t protect their children. What kind of a world is this?

  We don’t talk for a while.

  The hum of the train is barely audible now but I can still hear it. It’s soothing and hypnotic and I stretch out in my couch and find a blanket in a small compartment and I lie down and take a nap and sleep dreamlessly.

  CHAPTER 13

  When I wake up there is light outside the train windows again and I sit up, trying to understand what I’m seeing. Alexsi is waking up Zair, who grumbles and tells him to fetch a servant before he remembers where we are.

  “What is this light?” I ask, rubbing my eyes to get them to focus.

  “This is the best part of the trip,” Alexsi says, happier than he’s been all day. “These are the crystal tunnels.”

  The light only looks blurry; once I realize what I’m seeing it makes more sense. Crystals of all colors are speeding past us. Alexsi explains that the train has lit its exterior so we can see the crystals. The train slows down and we can watch the walls as they slide by; chunks of purple and pink and black, with dustings of blue and green and clear and then a vein of yellow all rush by us. My parents were miners and I recognize some of the crystals, chalcedony and fluorite and lapis and jet and carnelian. I don’t recognize all of them; my mama told me once that the crystals here are slightly different but we try to use the same name for them. Either way they are lovely. When we pass a two minute stretch of rose and clear and smoked quartz all jumbled together I almost lose my breath from the beauty.

  “All of this is under the world?” I ask, thinking of how hard my parents worked in the mines.

  “Not everywhere,” Alexsi answers. “It’s like the raw magic we harvest; everything grows in abundance but it’s not always easy to get to. These tunnels were set by the gods for the trains; we aren’t allowed to mine them. We can only mine in certain places, and only by hand.”

  I’m curious why he mentioned by hand. How else would you mine?

  We spend hours watching the wonders move past us until we reach the end of the crystals. The train turns off the exterior lights and speeds up again. Just as before, I feel the acceleration tug at me at first and then nothing.

  Alexsi makes us all sandwiches and we eat at a table in the dining car, which is somehow depressing after the lavish feasts with Freyja. I mention the ice dragon again and the guys look at each other and chuckle. I realize I’m missing something.

  “What?”

  They both shake their heads, amused.

  “So you found the ice dragon...attractive, did you?” Zair asks with a smirk.

  “That’s an odd word choice, prince. It was beautiful, and amazing to see such a natural wonder.”

  They are full on laughing now. Alexsi coughs on a piece of bread and then takes pity on me. “That was Freyja.”

  What? No, he can’t mean what it sounds like he means. Can he?

  He’s nodding along, watching my thoughts play out on my face. I need to get my assassin face back; these guys read me too easily.

  “Yeah, that’s her power. You know each of the Five Families has one, right?”

  I want to snap that I’m not an idiot but around the royal families I feel like one.

  “I thought she’d have the same power as Zair - you know, the eye-mind control thing.”

  Zair looks offended. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you’re cousins, and royalty. I guess I thought all the royals have the same power.” I think about all the time I’ve spent not looking anyone in the eye. Zair is shaking his head.

  “Peasants,” he starts to say, and I take out a throwing knife meaningfully. “We’ve done a terrible job educating you,” he finishes, and I put the knife away. “Freyja and I are cousins by marriage, but we aren’t the same Family. Each Family line breeds true; Freyja has the power given to the Winter family, the power of the ice dragon. If she has children they will have it too. When her heir takes the throne she’ll be the new Queen of Winter and will be the ice dragon, the guardian of the mountain.”

  I have a million questions at once.

  “Does that mean you don’t have your full power yet? Since you’re Prince? And your parents and your children have and will have the eye control?”

  He waggles his hand. “My mother can control legions if she wants. I can only control one or two people I have direct contact with. If I succeed my mother, if I go through the ceremony and become Queen, I will have the full powers of my family; anyone I see, whether or not they look in my eyes, I’d be able to control.”

  Something heavy lies unspoken between us, something about how his family rules both the City and the people on the ground. Something ugly. Zair looks uncomfortable and I decide not to open that particular box right now.

  In City in the Air; the royal family gets mind control and the Priestess of the Sky. In the Winter City, Freyja is an ice dragon and she gets bears and snowcats and the loremasters. I look at Alexsi.

  “What will we find in the Forest?” I ask.

  “My people... and the Undying,” he says.

  “What about your power? Do you have partial power, like Zair does?”

  He shakes his head. “No. I asked Freyja about it and she thinks it might be because I was sent away too young. I have nothing. Freyja doesn’t even know what our family’s power is, and I was so young I don’t remember seeing my mother use it.”

  I still wonder how his mother could have been so cold, to send him away alone on this train that feels like death, to a frozen mountain where he knew no one. I remember my mama, wailing when the Masters came to get me for the Guild, calling me mija, her corazon, saying she would never forget me, never stop loving me. The masters beat me until I said I wouldn’t try to seek her out, never try to find her again, because they explained to me how many ways they would kill her and my papa if I did.

  I stand and walk over to give Alexsi a hug, a thing I would never have done to anyone before he and Zair came into my life but it feels right.
He holds me tightly, his stubbly chin on my shoulder, and I rub his back.

  “Maybe we’re taking you home at the right time,” I whisper. “Maybe we can help you find your power.” He nods into my shoulder. His strong arms feel good around me and right as I catch myself thinking that the train comes to a jerking, awful stop and all the lights go out.

  We’re deep underground in the dark and there is something wrong with the Night Train.

  ◆◆◆

  After a few minutes the train is still dead and Alexsi is shaking again. He’s so strong; as terrifying as this utter darkness is for me, I can only imagine how much worse it is for him. We wake Zair, who grumbles until he realizes that we’re in serious trouble.

  “Freyja said this couldn’t happen,” Alexsi says, terror in his voice. “She said the train is run by the gods, it can’t break down.”

  “There are no gods,” Zair says, almost out of habit.

  “We’d better hope there are, Zair, or we’re going to die down here,” I snap, then immediately wish I could take it back.

  My eyes keep trying to adjust to the dark but there’s not even a scrap of light to help them. “Does anyone have anything to make a light? Anything in our packs?” I keep my voice steady, confident, to help everyone stay calm.

  “We always have wizards around,” Zair says helplessly.

  That reminds me; if the train runs on magic, who keeps the magic going? There has to be a wizard or someone on this train, it can’t be completely unmanned. I explain my thought to the guys but they’re not sure.

  I try to think of something while my hands absently wander around my clothes, looking for pockets or pouches for anything that might help but these stupid palace clothes have nothing. They look pretty with their saffron silks but even that is useless down here in the dark.