Kingdom

by Kyle West

  “We can always refuel near Shensi,” Pallos said. “However, our permit only extends for another hour. They gave it to us under duress, owing to your condition. They’ll be much less understanding now that we’ve left.”

  “Even with you on board?”

  Pallos nodded. “Even with me. They’ll see bringing outsiders this close to the city as a slight at best, and will react with hostility at worst. As powerful as Odin is, it would be vulnerable to Shen artillery while refueling. I’d rather not risk it.”

  “Would have been nice to refuel while we were docked there.”

  “I tried, but the building we landed on doesn’t have the pressure to refuel Odin’s tanks. Trying to move the ship off the building became a bureaucratic nightmare.”

  “So, what do you suggest?”

  “We have enough fuel to get us to Baja,” Pallos said. “The Californian coast is Shen’s territorial waters. The Gulf Coast, compared to Baja, is far more dangerous. Baja has pirates, but the Shen periodically clean them up, and they usually have access to nothing more advanced than the basic gunpowder cannons they raided from South America. If we find ourselves some nice cliffs on the beach, we might be able to put down without being noticed.”

  I changed the LCD to display a flight map. I zoomed in on our position. “Weird. There’s a location here stored in memory. Apparently, this ship’s been there before.”

  Pallos squinted. “It would appear so. In your old life?”

  “Probably.” The thought felt a bit eerie. “I know I can set the autopilot to take us there. If it was safe then, maybe it’s safe now.”

  “I don’t see any other options,” Pallos said. “It doesn’t look too far south on the peninsula. That’s where Porto is.”

  “Porto?”

  “Porto Corsario. We need a hundred miles or more between us and them. If we see their ships coming, we’ll have to hurry to get the intake lines in before they get close. Not many of their ships use steam power, but their clippers are almost as fast.”

  “There’s a lot of us,” I said. “Should be easy to get the lines drawn in. I can set sentries if we find some cliffs like you talked about. Worse comes to worst, we fight.”

  “They’ll have cannons, most likely,” Pallos said. “Likely, though, they wouldn’t want to harm the ship. We’d just have to be quick.”

  It sounded like we had a plan, even if it was the best of bad options. I picked up the intercom once again. “Attention. We’re going to be making a stop in Baja to refuel. It’s about a hundred miles south of here. The process should take a few hours, most likely until evening. I need everyone to gather in the wardroom for briefing.”

  I engaged the ship’s autopilot, setting course for the coordinates saved in the ship’s memory. The screen indicated we would arrive in forty-five minutes.

  “Come with me, Pallos. I’ll need you for this.”

  Pallos looked slightly surprised at being included, but he got up and followed me to the wardroom, where everyone was already gathering. Their murmurs broke when I entered.

  “We’ll be landing in forty-five minutes,” I said. “Pallos has told me that Baja is pretty dangerous these days. There probably won’t be any trouble, but in case there is, I need everyone to be on full alert.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Ret asked.

  “Pirates.” I looked around the room. “We should be out of reach, but there’s always the possibility of being attacked. In case we see any, we’re going to have to hurry to get the fuel lines towed back in and get airborne fast. There won’t be time for a fight, nor will we take the risk.”

  “Pallos,” I said, “why don’t you brief us on what to expect should it come to a fight? You seem to be more familiar with these pirates than us.”

  Pallos cleared his throat and went slightly pale. The man didn’t like being the center of attention. “Right. Well, the pirates are mostly exiles of the Novan Empire, though they come from all walks of life. Some come as far as South America. They are especially thick on the Pacific shoreline since the Novan’s naval presence is laughable. Anyhow, you can consider the thousands of miles of coast stretching from Baja to the tip of South America as their territory. Their tech isn’t on par with the Collective, of course—not even close—but they are still ahead of most North American nations, and Shen doesn’t take much of an interest in eradicating them unless they range too far north. Their ships are equipped with cannons that are highly accurate, for example, and they are as likely to use crude gunpowder weaponry in battle as they are sword and shield.”

  “Err . . . gunpowder?” Ret asked.

  Pallos shook his head. “It’s been in use in South America for the past half century or so, but its use hasn’t proliferated as far north as the Red Wild or Colonia, or the Eastern Kingdoms, as far as I know. What I’m saying is that swords will be of little use against them in combat if they are armed with muskets or, worse, rifles, which have some limited use among them. However, aside from their cannons, handheld firearms are highly inaccurate at range and only effective when used in mass, shot in volleys. For that reason, we should have time to disengage if pirates are sighted.”

  “So, we need to stay out of range, and be quick,” I said.

  Pallos nodded. “Precisely. The largest threat is to the ship itself. Odin’s hull can probably sustain a few direct shots, but there is always the possibility of a hull breach, which would make high altitude flight impractical. Of course, that means we would be greatly slowed until I found a way to repair the ship.”

  “We should scout the water beforehand,” I said. “Make sure there are no ships.”

  “A good idea,” Pallos said.

  “Anything else, Pallos?”

  “We’ll probably be safe. We’ll only be on the ground a few hours, after all. Just remember, bringing a sword to a gunfight is a death wish.”

  I knew Odin came equipped with its own turrets, and as far as I knew, they were functioning, if they had been repaired along with the rest of the ship.

  “Unless there are any questions, let’s break,” I said. “We should be landing shortly.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I PUT US DOWN ON the coordinates stored in Odin’s navigation. Despite the passage of centuries, I instantly recognized the place. The desert coastland was home to sheer cliffs, offering protection from the calm blue ocean. The beach below was just wide enough to land the ship.

  “I know why we had those coordinates,” I said. “Anna and the others fueled here four hundred years ago, after visiting Nova Roma.”

  “That makes sense,” Pallos said. “Nova is surely a bit different these days. We’ll have to be on our guard.”

  Before landing on the beach, I let out Nabea, Samal, and Ret to keep watch on the cliffs. With a hand signal, they could let the rest of us know to get the fuel lines packed in. After that, I landed Odin on the shaded beach below.

  Getting the fuel line out to sea and turning on the intake didn’t take long at all, maybe ten minutes. Pallos was confident everything would work, and sure enough, when I flipped the switch, the water started pumping immediately.

  It would be desalinated first, restoring our water reserves for personal use, but after came the complicated process of filtering for deuterium. That meant most of the water we pumped was let right back out into the sea untouched. Given a few hours, though, we’d collect enough of it to see us on our way.

  The day wore on, so those of us on the beach took the opportunity to relax, with two always on watch—one looking out to sea and one keeping an eye on one of the boys on the top of the cliff. Once the sun was past its noon zenith, we were already halfway refueled.

  With just a few hours left, I decided that it was enough relaxation, setting everyone to practice with dull edge blades meant for training. I included Mia and set her to train with Fiona. Even if I was better now, all I said to her before still applied. She needed to learn how to fight in case none of us were around to protect her, and given
the strength of her Xenofold connection, she would, in theory, make a great fighter.

  As I watched, though, she seemed to be struggling.

  “Reach the point of Stillness,” Fiona said. “It’s the very same as if you were prophesying in your old life.”

  Mia closed her eyes. A sudden gust of wind blew, throwing back her dark brown hair. “It’s hard. It keeps slipping from me.” She opened her eyes. “It’s as if this body doesn’t have the training of my past body.”

  “You’ll have to redevelop the connection, then,” Fiona said. “What you once knew can be relearned.”

  “I was training ever since I was a small child,” Mia said. “How is it possible to acquire all that as fast as I need to?”

  “You have to try,” I said.

  Mia jumped, apparently not aware I’d been watching.

  “I am trying,” she said.

  “Stillness, Movement, Acceptance, and Resistance,” I said. “Each of the Gifts uses these disciplines to different effects, but all four need to be mastered to unlock your Gifts.”

  “Unlock my Gifts.” Mia shook her head sadly. “It’s as if I’m a novice all over again.”

  “If you’re anything like me, you will progress quickly.”

  “You are Anna Reborn,” Mia said. “How could I be anything like you?”

  “Isaru, too, progressed quickly,” I said. “He is the strongest I can think of besides me. You are of stronger blood than he is. His mother’s genealogy is probably not unlike yours since she was a Samalite as well. If he can learn what he has in just a few months, then I have no doubt you can, too.”

  Mia nodded but lowered her blade. Her expression was neutral, but I could detect a hint of numbness.

  “I do not want to fight,” she said so quietly that I could hardly hear her above the wind.

  “Don’t think of it as doing violence,” I said. “Think of it as protecting your friends.”

  “Protecting my friends,” Mia said. “How many times do I have to say that to myself before I believe it?”

  “It’s the truth,” Fiona said. “I have read, in the past, that many Seeker Sects were strictly nonviolent and pacifistic. Things have changed since then. We live in a dangerous world. We don’t have Hyperborea to protect us anymore.”

  “I suppose that’s true. In the past, Prophets like Fiona would never have even learned the blade. In fact, only Champions would have, and even then, it was mostly ceremonial. At least, until the Shen War.”

  It must have been nice to live in an era that had mostly forgotten violence. I couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  “Remember, you probably won’t be fighting people, either. Monsters are going to be the greatest threat going forward.” Remembering my injuries, I added, “Even I’m not safe from them.”

  “It was said that even the crawlers became tame at the end of the Ragnarok War,” Mia said. “That they would obey the command of any Elekai. That was long before even my time, though.”

  In one of my dreams as Anna long ago, she had commanded a crawler herself. Apparently, this Gift of Synchronizing had not been open to just Anna, but others as well.

  “How was it done?” I asked.

  “As the Xenofold unravels, it becomes even harder to do,” Mia said. “If synchronizing was obscure in my time, it is surely even more so now. Perhaps to the point of being impossible. There’s an easier version of it, called Tethering . . . but its effects are temporary. Synchronizing describes a bond that is meant to last in perpetuity.”

  “That would explain why it was difficult for me . . . I must have been tethering rather than synchronizing”

  “Well, everyone has their limits,” Shara said, stepping up next to me. “I suppose you found out the hard way.”

  I supposed I had at that.

  “There were a lot of Gifts that faded out over the generations. Synchronizing was one of many, along with Bonding—where a powerful Elekai would draw power from others, forging a single, strong connection that was far more powerful than anyone could do on their own. That Gift was also rare, and required someone with a particularly strong connection to the Xenofold.”

  “Bonding . . .” I said. “I’ll have to try that one some time.”

  “You managed to connect your father to the Xenofold. Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the lost Gifts, too?”

  “Yes,” Mia said. “We called that one Consonance.”

  “Serah mentioned it as well,” I said. “But we diverge from the task at hand.”

  Mia sighed. “Just as I thought I was getting away with it.”

  “Shara, why don’t you jump in and help?”

  “Will do.”

  I left them to it. I looked at the cliff above to make sure one of the boys was still on lookout. Nabea had a hand above his eyes as he peered off into the distance in the direction of the ocean.

  So far, so good.

  The Elders were talking near the water. At that distance and from the sound of the wind and waves, it was impossible to hear them. I didn’t know what the two could be talking about.

  I stood and stared out at the water. For a rare moment, there was nothing to do. Pallos was on board alone. It was his job to fire up the ship in the case of an emergency. Everything was taken care of. It felt strange to sit still and do nothing.

  I returned to watch Mia’s progress, who was now moving slowly through the basic movements of Treeform. Fiona worked with her patiently, stopping her every time she made a mistake, which was often.

  “Suspend your thinking mind,” Fiona said at the next break. “That’s what we call it. When you achieve Silence, you can allow your instincts to take over. All the memories of our ancestors will be opened to you and channeling those memories is what gives us our power.”

  Mia nodded. “I’m used to channeling that power in a different way. Things are different now. I’m not dreaming as much as I did in my previous life. I think the Xenofold is closer to dying than any of us realize.”

  It was an uncomfortable thought. Mia would know more than anyone else here. There was still a lot she had to learn, too. Unless someone else had already told her, she didn’t know that many people born from Elekai were completely without the ability to connect to the Xenofold, such as Isa.

  A new thought struck me . . . if I’d done it for my father, then perhaps I could do the same for her. However, that would have to come at another time.

  Mia sheathed my blade and held it out to me. “I think that’s enough for one day.”

  I nodded, deciding not to mention she hadn’t even given it a half hour. Was I making a mistake by forcing her to do this?

  I attached the sheath to my belt and then flourished the blade in front of me until I had assumed the basic stance of Treeform.

  “Reach for Silence, Mia.”

  Her eyes widened a bit, but then she nodded. She closed her eyes, and I waited a moment before reaching for it myself. As the world fell away, I directed my focus toward the only other mind embracing Silence at that moment. Mia’s consciousness shone like a light in the darkness.

  It was easy to reach out and find.

  We’re connected now, I said. Can you hear me?

  It was a moment before she answered, to where I was starting to think it wasn’t working. I’m here.

  Now, observe. I’m taking advantage of the fact that we both can do this, otherwise you’d have to learn the hard way. Like this, all my movements are going to embed themselves in your memory.

  What?

  She split the connection. “How is this possible? How did you . . .?”

  I frowned. “How did I what?”

  Everyone else listened, interested. “Teaching directly. You must be bonded to do that. It’s how the Elekai in the First Century learned and taught. The Old Seekers’ ways.”

  “What is she talking about, Shanti?” Fiona asked. “What did you do?”

  “Apparently, I know how to Bond, like we were just talking about a minute ago.”

&
nbsp; “Well, she hasn’t done it, yet,” Mia said. “But . . . can you do it?”

  “I’m sure I can,” I said. “I connected to you in Silence. You heard me speak because we both have Telepathy.”

  “That’s one Gift that we both share,” Mia said, “but Bonding is different—the direct sharing of images and memories. Only dragons can do that, and Elekai three hundred years dead.”

  It made more sense when she put it that way.

  “What’s more,” Mia went on, “Bonding shares both of our powers, and it only requires one person to direct everything for every person sharing the bond. That’s why it takes a great deal of trust. I have to trust that you’re not going to hurt me by doing it, because if you wanted, you could just read my mind, my deepest thoughts and secrets. I’ve read that the old Elekai did that, too. It can be used for good or evil.”

  “Like any of the Gifts,” Shara said.

  “Yes,” Mia said, “but this is different. Bonding is the most powerful of the Gifts, but it was the first of them to disappear completely. Perhaps the Xenofold didn’t like how people abused it.”

  If that was true, then it wouldn’t have surprised me.

  “Forgive me if that was too forward, then,” I said. “I was just trying to teach you, but I understand if you’d rather do it differently.”

  “No,” Mia said. “I just wanted to make you aware of what you were doing. There’s something else . . . Bonding has the potential to connect more than two people. In the old days, it’s said that as many as a dozen could be simultaneously Bonded, meaning all of them would be privy to each other’s thoughts and secrets. As you can see, it requires a lot of trust, but for the one in control, it gives a lot of power. And that power is not something to be fooled around with. Many think that Bonding was how the Elekai expanded so quickly when the Red Wild was still young. Elekai bonded and added more to their number. This came to an end as the bloodlines diluted, and fewer could do it.”

  “That was probably how the dragons were going to attempt to restrain Isaru,” I said. “They told me they had a plan to do that.”

  “Maybe so,” Fiona agreed. “If you want to test whether you can do it, Shanti . . . I volunteer.”