by Ryan Muree
Adalai tapped the table. “That’s it, then. Too many and it’ll be hard to move around.”
“Wait,” Vaughn said. “I want to go.”
“I just told you if we have too many, it’ll be too difficult to be sneaky about it. The rest of you will stay with the airship and wait until we call you. We might need a rescue.”
“Disguise the ship?” Mykel asked.
She nodded. “Just cover it up with something. Be lookouts. Sonora can communicate between the two groups while we’re down there.”
“Then I need to get to work,” Mykel said. He pointed at Clove. “Should I make mining outfits that look like that?”
She looked down at her worn out, ether-stained jumper. “I’m not wearing a miner’s clothes. These are flight suits for piloting, and I’ve been imprisoned here for two weeks without a bath.”
Mykel dipped his head as if to apologize.
“You can give him directions for what to make it look like,” Adalai said. “Tell him wrong, we’ll get caught, killed, and you’ll never find your brother.”
Clove rolled her eyes. If the whole trip was going to be like this, then so be it. She’d win in the end.
Chapter 5
Bridge — Zephyr Airship — Revel
Adalai had never been in charge of a plan like this. It had been hours since they last discussed it, and she’d spent most of it second-guessing herself.
Of all the things. She never second-guessed herself. But this…
Urla had given her full control of the Zephyrs ever since Marana, and she would not fail. She couldn’t. They’d get over to Ingini, find out how the grimoires were getting smuggled in, report it, and be heroes.
Right, heroes.
Heroes got killed, and she didn’t care anything about being a hero.
She wanted to stop pointless slaughter against her people, get back in good with General Orr, and eventually become General. She wanted the best damn army in the world at her fingertips. That wasn’t exactly being a hero.
She’d trained Emeryss to do the impossible, they’d successfully navigated the Battle of Marana by stopping that ether-cannon. If she had to go the extra distance into Ingini to get General Orr to see what she could do, then she’d do it.
Once in academy, she had defeated an entire unit in Warstory, sending every one of her classmates to the infirmary. Their trainer was furious at them but mostly her. When Orr had found out, he was just as pissed until she got him to see reason. They were the ones who had stupidly agreed to play this drinking game with her and continued to lose, so clearly it meant they were easily manipulated; what would they give away to the enemy if they had been captured? And considering how terrible they were at their history facts, what exactly had they been doing all this time in the academy? What were they actually learning?
General Orr had made a big show of punishing her but had congratulated her in private. The entire troop was sent home for disobedience, and she had been promoted to join up with the new Zephyrs. This grimoire problem was the same thing. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be back in Aurelis with General Orr and King Fhaddwick congratulating them, too.
She raised her chin and nodded to Sonora. “We’re in position.”
Sonora’s dark hair was impossibly straight and parted to the side. Her arms were crossed, and her face was still and rigid. She was nervous. She’d seen this expression only once before.
“You ready?” she asked her.
Sonora nodded and returned her focus to the front window along with everyone else. Her eyes glazed over as ether moved through her feet into the airship to silence it.
On either side of them, the land was shaped into a valley with sheered cliffs between Stadhold and Ingini. A natural border, the slope of the land was practically vertical, jagged, and deep. If the Zephyr went down here, there’d be no soft landing.
To the right, the Great Library loomed on the horizon. The last speck of sun was highlighting the spires at the top. A multitude of smaller buildings surrounded the campus to the border, but there were mostly just stone towers for monitoring. At night, Stadhold relied on the Revelian Conductor Army for seeking out trespassers.
To the left, the land inclined just as steep, and at the top of the rift valley was the wall from Ingini made of dark stone with its own towers spaced evenly down the length of it. They probably used their machines to check for trespassers. As if the wall wasn’t enough. As if any Stadholden or Revelian wanted to visit a living nightmare.
“We’re leaving Revelian airspace,” Jahree reported quietly.
Eyes to the front, they watched for a shift, a sign… anything that signaled trouble.
If ships were traveling from Stadhold to Revel, they’d need to react quickly. They couldn’t let them go, regardless of what Grier thought. Or wanted to be true for that matter. There was no waiting around and seeing where they went. They could figure out what to do with them after the fact.
Nothing was in the air. Not even a bird. It was eerily silent and still.
The rift valley darkened with the sunset, and wide shadows cast the ravine in an early night. There wasn’t any sliver of moon left to help either.
“Can we do this with the lights on?” Emeryss whispered.
Jahree replied low. “I don’t want to turn them on and give anyone a reason to contact us. It’s just straight through. I can tell from the air. There’s nothing ahead of us all the way to the coast.”
“Hearing anything yet?” Adalai glanced back at Sonora, who shook her head in response.
“We’re nearly at the border between,” Jahree announced.
Adalai took a deep breath, knelt to the floor, and checked her wrist.
Glamour - 78
The rest of the Zephyrs took their seats and buckled in.
“300 out,” Mykel called from his chair.
Both palms on the metal grating, Adalai let the ether slide through her and out of her hands as magenta dust into the parts of the ship.
“280 out,” Mykel said.
Jahree was flying too fast.
“Slow down, Jahree, or they’ll know.”
There was the telltale drag of the ship as it slowed, and she refocused on the Glamour she was willing into existence. Normally, she’d Glamour the item and be able to walk away, but this was too important. She’d have to burn through most, if not all, of her Glamour uses to maintain a disguise this big.
The good news was that she didn’t have to change everything inside and out. She just had to make the outside look convincingly enough like a Stadholden shipping vessel that any sort of detection devices would register the right shape. Sonora could take care of the rest.
“275 out,” Mykel announced. “270.”
Sonora stood and lifted her hands. “At 250, I’m starting. No one break our concentration no matter what.”
The crew nodded, and Adalai recalled the ships she’d learned in training at the academy. Stadholden ships were boxy, meant for carrying large shipments of crates. They were hardly stealthy and ineffective at fighting. Instead of weaponry, they had spots for Keepers to sit and fight from.
She tried to let that seep through her thoughts and mold how the ship would appear. She was an illusionist skilled at tricking people into seeing different things. She would not fail.
“250,” Mykel said.
She eked out the last bit of instructions through her mind for how the ship should look and held it there.
Sonora closed her eyes with her palms out to the side. The ship fell silent.
Nothing would go wrong. Adalai was good at this sort of thing, and Sonora was, too. They could do this. They would do this.
Sonora’s eyes shot open. “Something reached out to us. I-I think it’s Ingini,” she whispered.
It’d be fine. Maintaining a Glamour over a ship like this probably had never been done. She was probably the first, which meant she was doing the unthinkable.
“They accepted the response, but they’re asking
us to come in,” she said. “They think we’re too far off course.”
“Keep going,” Adalai strained. The constant feeding of ether into the ship was a feeling she wasn’t used to. Like being drained dry and empty, her spirit yearned to breathe.
Alarms blared, flashing red across the bridge.
Everyone jumped up and ran to check the panels.
“Calm down!” Adalai roared. “Don’t move!”
But it was too late, she felt the tug of the ether returning to her and the Glamour fading.
“Turn off the alarm!” Urla pointed at Mykel.
“I can’t! We have Ingini coming.”
“We’re only a third of the way through, guys,” Jahree said, his fingers furiously working at the panels.
“I can’t silence them. It’s too much between the ship and the communication.” Sonora winced and whimpered before gasping and opening her eyes. “There’s another ship—”
“What kind of ship?” Grier asked, unbuckling his belt.
Every eye and head turned toward the window.
“Anyone see it?” Emeryss asked.
Vaughn ran to another nearby window and peered out. “Are you sure, Sonora?”
Her eyes widened. “It’s behind us. It’s definitely Ingini. They didn’t buy my response.”
“Of course, not. We look like a Stadholden carrier, but respond with Ingini communication,” Grier cut.
Adalai gripped the metal floor with her fingers as sweat began to bead down her temples. She was losing focus. Could no one do anything right?
“Let’s just shoot back,” Vaughn said.
Sonora groaned, her arms drooped. “I’m getting tired. I can’t keep our ship silent with all this chatter.”
“Let it go,” Mykel hollered at her. “Don’t respond to them.”
“No, we can still make this work,” Adalai bit out.
Sonora cried out as the airship rocked forward, followed by a whine reverberating through the entire hull.
Latching on to anything they could, they all held on and tried to cover their ears.
The ship lurched forward again.
Sonora squeezed her eyes shut. “They hit us!”
“We’re flying too slow,” Vaughn said.
“I think some vents were hit,” Jahree shouted.
Grier grabbed Vaughn and Emeryss and ushered them somewhere off the bridge.
Adalai panted, the Glamour slipping like sand through her fingertips. “Where are you going?” she yelled at them.
They were already gone, racing through the corridors toward the back of the Zephyr.
Grier pounded down the metal corridors to the stairwell with Vaughn and Emeryss at his heels.
“Sonora, where did it hit?” Vaughn called out, his voice echoing between the alarms.
I think back by the cargo, her voice echoed in Grier’s head.
The ship lurched again, throwing him back against the stairs. He turned for Emeryss, but she held fast to the railing. Vaughn had fallen to his backside but was already fighting to stand.
Once they were up and running through the corridors again toward the cargo hold, Vaughn cried out, “What is the plan, Grier?”
He didn’t know, but he had to see what they were up against before they could make one. If it was Ingini, they had options.
Jahree says he thinks several fins have been blown. He’s using everything to keep us up, but he’s going to have to fly evasively. Hold tight.
The whole plan had gone upside down too fast, and if they didn’t get this Ingini ship off of them, they’d be careening into the crags below.
He swallowed, and Emeryss’s hand slipped into his. “It’ll be okay.”
He would never consider falling to their painful and terrifying death in a metal box ‘okay.’
Vaughn shoved past him into the cargo hold. It was intact with only the slight whirr of rushing wind outside its walls. “We weren’t hit in the cargo hold,” he called out to Sonora.
“The underside then,” Emeryss said. “That’s where some fins are.”
The ship banked left and then up as Jahree seemingly navigated the ship out of yet another hit.
“Open the cargo hold,” Grier said.
“No.” Emeryss gripped his forearm. “We are not having a repeat of the last time we all fought out of this thing.”
Vaughn opened it anyway, and the metal panels slid open slowly with a slight mechanical groan. The cacophony of air rushing by nearly drowned out the alarms. “We have to see what we’re up against. Right, Grier?”
Grier nodded once.
The rift valley was dark and cold. They were probably only about halfway through it, and on the horizon, the last remnants of light beyond the Stadhold-Ingini border were bright orange.
The assailing ship bobbed and weaved behind them. It was definitely Ingini with its swollen belly and fishlike appearance.
“That’s a shipping airship,” Vaughn shouted. “Like Clove’s.”
A beam of bright-blue light erupted from the airship and struck the right side of the ship.
The ship spun nearly ninety degrees, tossing them against the wall.
Grier’s ribs and hip crunched, eliciting a grunt. His arm had slammed against a beam, scratching and denting the bracer protecting his seven sigils on his forearm. Emeryss crashed into the wall beside him with a thud and cried out. Vaughn had fallen somewhere above their heads, cursing as he did.
The ship hadn’t righted itself.
“We’re falling,” Vaughn screamed, crawling along the wall of the ship to the opened door.
“Don’t Vaughn!” Emeryss shouted.
Maybe he didn’t hear her or maybe he ignored her, but he hung his head and arms out the back as a blue light glowed before him.
“Vaughn, get down!” Grier struggled to reach him, to get him out of the way of the oncoming blast of ether.
Both he and Emeryss stretched out for him.
His fingers grazed the back of Vaughn’s suit, and the blue light faded.
Vaughn flew back.
The ether beam should have disintegrated him or at the very least burned him to a crisp.
Instead, Vaughn reached up and rubbed a deep red spot on his cheek. “Those jerks shot at my head!”
He was fine. The Zephyr was fine, too.
Grier peered around the edge of the cargo hold.
The Ingini ship was gone.
“What happened?” Emeryss asked.
Vaughn licked his finger and rubbed the dot some more. “I shrunk them.”
“You shrunk them?”
“Now, they can’t fly fast enough to catch us, and they’ll run out of fuel, and they’ll be little forever. They’re pretty much dead.”
Get back up here now! Sonora’s command came through loud and clear.
The ship still hadn’t fully corrected itself, which had to mean they were still technically crashing. It must have been Jahree’s skill keeping them from plummeting.
Vaughn closed the cargo hold’s doors, and they scrambled to get back up and through the ship while on its side.
Get Clove!
“Clove? Now?”
Together, the three of them ran back to the deck with the rec room.
“Go back to the bridge,” he told them. “I’ll grab Clove and bring her. I’ve got my shield in case something happens.”
The ship groaned and creaked. The alarms had thankfully stopped, but the rumbling through the ship’s metal hull was not a good sign.
Emeryss and Vaughn dashed the rest of the way through the stairwell above him, and he ran through the corridor. The blue lights flashed through the dark hallway.
He turned the corner and found the Ingini leaning against her door frame and holding her side.
“Don’t tell me you all are crashing the ship?”
He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her along through the corridors and the stairwell. “We don’t have time. Let’s go.”
She panted and wasn’t nearly
as fast as Emeryss or Vaughn had been.
“Come on!” he urged.
She huffed at him. “I’m a pilot! I don’t do running.”
His grip firmly around her arm, he got them to the bridge.
The shaking of the ship had become so violent, he hadn’t felt his own nerves rocking through his core. But on the bridge, where everyone was in their seats and all their faces were serious and focused on the front window, his nerves gripped him.
“Hurry,” Emeryss ordered.
Clove went to an available chair and buckled herself in while he sat next to Emeryss and buckled himself.
They were crashing. Buckling was a waste of time. What good would a tiny seat belt do if they were crashing into the planet at an incredible speed?
Jahree and Mykel worked furiously at the panels.
Emeryss’s hand slid into his palm, lacing her fingers through his. He hadn’t noticed he’d been gripping the arms of the chairs so tightly his knuckles were stark white in the low light.
“We’ll be okay,” she said.
He blinked at her and then back at Jahree.
“Look at me.”
The ship banked hard left and down. He gripped the arm of the chair and squeezed his eyes shut. This was it. Of all the things to be afraid of… falling. He’d slaughtered Ingini on that battlefield, he’d trained in the most efficient ways of killing and protecting people, and here, he couldn’t do a damn thing but wait to die.
He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t hold out and just wait. There had to be something.
“What can we do?” he yelled.
Emeryss placed her warm palm against his jawline. “Nothing. Sonora thinks the Ingini have sent two more ships after us.”
He shot a glance to Sonora who was shouting information to Jahree. He spun the controls, and the ship cut hard right. “Can Vaughn shrink us now?”
“Jahree thinks that’ll make it worse. We’ll be too small, still crashing, and most likely tossed around by the air currents in the valley,” Vaughn said.
“Jahree is keeping us up with his casting alone,” Emeryss continued. “We’re trying to make it to the beach.”
He shook his head. “That’s not good enough.”
