Storm from the East

by Joanna Hathaway

  The whole aeroplane seems heavier, like a sinking stone.

  I try to cover the mouthpiece, so the Resyans can’t hear me speaking in Landori. “They want to know where we are.”

  “Vector zero-two-four from Sanseri at 800 feet,” Trigg says.

  “What’s a vector?” I ask.

  “Just say it!” all three pilots snap at once.

  I glare at them and repeat the words, waiting for an affirmation. It comes right as the propeller growls to a halt altogether. The failing plane really does feel as though it might be half falling as we roar down onto the narrow runway, engine coughing. Trigg and I throw ourselves back into the rear, the aerodrome lamps flashing past, and I see that it’s armed with flak guns and even a tank—thank the stars we didn’t need to land without permission! We thump against the tarmac, the entire plane shuddering to a tight halt at the end of a short runway. My head hits the wall as we fling left. Little lights spark in my vision. I wasn’t holding the leather tight enough, and I close my eyes to the pain, let it roll through me sharply, fading with the gathering realization that we’ve stopped.

  We’ve stopped.

  I open my eyes and I can see only trees beyond the cockpit window. Our nose is nearly into the forest, the farthest edge of the tarmac, and Athan’s hands are white against the controls as the plane sputters to death.

  Cyar lets out a shaky breath, loud enough it speaks for us all.

  Night forest sounds filter in from beyond. Distant voices shout in Resyan. The back of my head aches dully, tender to the touch, and Trigg gives me a concerned look. He stands, a bit shaky himself. His offered hand brings me to my feet. The air swirls. I must be swaying, and Trigg grips my arm, leading me for the little door out of the aeroplane. Athan still sits in the front, staring at the trees.

  “I think you’ll need to do the talking first,” Cyar suggests to me.

  I nod, still looking at Athan, at his hands slowly releasing the plane, and I find my anger loosening its own fist. In its recess is something I can’t quite place. I remember the way he told me about his fears, about the terror of life in the air, and I’ve tasted it now. I’ve felt a small, horrible fraction of it.

  How could any father will their child into that world? One who has the power to make the opposite true?

  I think of the Commander entering Rahian’s palace, entirely alone. The Captain with his silence and sea-distant gaze on the balcony in Norvenne. It’s not pity I feel. I could never feel sorry for them—certainly not for the Commander. But it’s a sudden awareness that while my family is far from innocent, there’s something even more wrong at the center of their world, and I want nothing to do with it.

  Nothing at all.

  I ignore Trigg’s extended hand and jump down onto the tarmac. A lamplight swings into my face, blinding me, and Trigg and Cyar immediately put their hands up. I peer over at them, confused. The light moves on and I can see again.

  Guns.

  A lot of them.

  “Mostly Resyan?” a sarcastic voice calls at us.

  “Don’t fire!” I say, fighting to sound more annoyed than terrified. “I’m Her Royal Highness Aurelia Isendare of Etania. These pilots rescued me from Madelan. I’m here to see the Lady Havis.”

  It’s silent a moment. Crickets singing at the edge of the runway. This is as frightening as our dive in the hippo, because if vast portions of Resya are now in revolt against the Safire and the nobility who welcomed them—thanks to me, my pamphlets—then I’ve walked Athan and Cyar and Trigg straight into a deadly trap.

  “Lady Havis?” one finally asks, right as another says, “A princess?”

  “Yes,” I answer both. “Now let us inside. We’ve had a miserable flight here.”

  The guns lower slightly and the soldiers glance at each of us in confusion—a princess who looks hardly like a princess, two Safire boys with their hands up, and another stumbling out of the cockpit in a half daze.

  I pray Lady Havis can devise some story for us.

  As the soldiers motion for us to follow them to the aerodrome, guns still at the ready, I glance back at Athan. In the yellow light, his expression is pale and guarded.

  “There are two unfortunate truths here,” I say to him hollowly.

  He waits.

  “One is that I’ll never look at you the same, no matter how I try.”

  He drops his eyes.

  “And the other, Lieutenant, is that I find I hate your beloved planes.”

  44

  ATHAN

  The woman called Lady Havis shows up right when I think the Resyan soldiers are going to forget waiting and start using us as target practice. Their immense hatred is palpable in the tiny airfield hut, and if they find out my brother’s already gone ahead and executed the Resyan officers who helped organize the revolt, I’m sure they’ll put a gun straight into my damn mouth.

  Ali, however, they afford every courtesy. They bring her hot tea and offer her a chair with cushions. In fact, they manage to scrounge up so many cushions, she’s practically burrowed in a ridiculous nest.

  We’re given the cement floor. As close to the drafty door as they can put us.

  It’s well past midnight, exhaustion kicking in, but we sit with tailbones smarting while Ali waits on her chair stoically. She has no idea how close to disaster we actually came. Three Nightfox fighters and not one of them managed the killing shot? It’s a miracle. I have no idea what’s going on back in Madelan, or where Father and Sinora escaped to. The radio’s playing, but it’s all in Resyan, and the announcer jabbers away furiously. Doesn’t sound hopeful.

  My eyes ache, and I let them close briefly.

  One moment.

  “Stars, what have we here?”

  The piqued Landori words rouse me from momentary sleep. An old woman stands in the doorway, eyes skipping from Ali to the Resyan soldiers to us with increasing disbelief. She looks about as furious as how I’d imagine that man on the radio looking. Ali’s out of her nest with terrific speed. They talk emphatically in Resyan, then to the soldiers. They each take turns, sometimes waving at us discarded on the floor, and everyone looks very passionate about their position. I hope it’s in our favour.

  “I never wanted to be a prisoner of war,” Trigg mutters.

  “We’re not at war anymore,” Cyar reminds him.

  I’m not so sure about that.

  There’s a climactic rush of words before us, the soldiers and the old woman facing off against Ali, then Ali turns on a heel and marches back for her nest. She sits down on it, chin raised.

  The woman shakes her head and waves in assent. She disappears out the door, and the soldiers hover near the radio awkwardly. Ali strides for us, kneeling down to be level with our faces.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “They think you should stay here until they know what to do with you.”

  She apologizes to Cyar and Trigg. She doesn’t even look at me, and I feel it like a kick to the ribs.

  “Makes sense,” Trigg replies. “That’s what you do with prisoners.”

  Cyar elbows him.

  Ali looks upset. “But I’m staying with you. I don’t trust them.”

  That explains the defiant march back to her cushions. I can’t help but wonder if all of this is for Cyar. Not me. Separating the innocent from the guilty.

  “Please rest,” Cyar says to her. “They won’t hurt us. They have no reason to.”

  He lies pleasantly, but she sees right through it.

  “I’m staying,” she replies firmly.

  “As a prisoner,” Trigg intervenes, “am I entitled to some water? Possibly?”

  It’s a good mission to give her. She marches off again to face the Resyans, who now look supremely annoyed by our presence—and the fact that a Northern royal is providing us unearned protection. She fights with them a moment, but of course they give in. Soon she has water for all of us. Then she brings one of her cushions closer, settling on it. Even when she sits on the floor, she sits straight and
delicate, like a princess.

  “Sleep,” she tells us. “I won’t move from here.”

  I watch her through half-shut eyes, full of things I can’t speak out loud, wanting one more sliver of a chance to set things right and give her what she deserves.

  But I’m grasping at air.

  She looks at me now and she sees only one thing. This uniform. This thing that has never felt like me. We’re only a foot away from each other and it might as well be the entire Black Sea between us. A cold void of buried secrets and shipwrecked wounds.

  I surrender to the exhaustion.

  * * *

  Dawn comes and I think my tailbone is about worn right off. Beside me, Cyar and Trigg were smart enough to sprawl out on their backs. Ali’s still there, hunched over, sketching something on a piece of paper.

  “Keeping yourself awake?” I ask, a bit bleary eyed.

  It works. Surprised, she glances up with a weary gaze, forgetting to ignore me, to hate me. She hesitates, then reveals the paper. It’s an impossibly intricate design, a maze of spirals and angles and flowers. No doubt it took hours. She began in one corner and is now halfway across the page.

  “Thank you,” I say, the only honest thing she might accept.

  She stayed awake—for us.

  She nods, face etched with defeat, studying me apprehensively. But her stare’s a fraction softer now. Less impassive. In the panic of our escape, I think we both let our true colours show. It replaced the hot anger, if only briefly. I know now I’d die for her if she asked it, if she said it might make things right. I also know she’d run herself into danger for my sake, when it’s a matter of life and death. Somehow, despite everything, she doesn’t want me dead—and I almost feel hope. Because I’m an idiot.

  Not wanting me dead is not the same thing as wanting me near.

  Lady Havis returns as the sun charges higher, armed with a basket of food. She might not approve of us, nor Ali’s decision to stay, but at least she won’t allow us all to starve in a tiny airfield hut in southern Resya. She says Madelan’s under Safire command again. The brief revolt was only a flash of rebellion, now contained, and we’re to wait here. Someone will come for us. Soon.

  The Resyan soldiers hate us even more now.

  Fingers itching on triggers.

  They turn on the radio again and fill the room with fuzzy, strange voices. There’s a hush then, the kind of hush that’s all wrong. Expressions turn gaunt. Hatred becomes shock. A rifle drops to the floor, and one of the men moans.

  An impending sense of dread tightens my limbs. I begin to check the windows, the doors. An escape. I need an escape. Anything.

  Frantic voices argue in Resyan.

  One boy even begins to cry.

  The window closest to Trigg might work. It’s propped open with a fan. We could push that out, run for the nearest plane, try to—

  “How dare he!” Ali’s voice demands.

  She says it in Landori, so we all know the depth of this betrayal.

  I want to reach for her. I want to say it wasn’t me. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s terrible. Something Father would do in retribution, to remind this kingdom to stay on its knees.

  My pleading gaze finds Ali.

  She’s temper wrapped in skin. Long, dark hair flutters around her face—wild and unkempt. Exhaustion lines her flaming eyes.

  “He killed him!” she hurls, standing over me.

  I back against the wall. I have nowhere to go.

  “I don’t understand the report,” I say desperately.

  “He’s dead. Rahian is dead. Executed!”

  I think she might actually kick me. Her leg is raised slightly, like it’s a possibility. A drone hums outside in the morning air. Large propellers, possibly twin engines. I strain my ears, hoping for an end to this stale truce. Something to spring us from this prison.

  “The General,” Lady Havis whispers, peering out the window.

  That’s all I need.

  I stand up without anyone’s permission and break free, pushing out onto the tarmac, the drone settling across the airfield like a thunderous bird. The fox and swords flash by, the plane screeching to an impossible halt on the short runway. Nearly damn suicide for everyone, apparently.

  I wait, brow wet in the heat. The door of the airplane opens and the first one out is Sinora Lehzar. I get out of her way fast, let her sweep by me, but her frantic eyes are only for her daughter.

  I don’t watch their reunion.

  I hurry for the airplane and know only one thing.

  My father has killed a king.

  45

  AURELIA

  The General insists we come with him in his aeroplane, and I’m determined to refuse. Mother clutches my arm—a tight embrace—and I know she’d come in his plane to get to me. But never again. She won’t go anywhere he asks, not now, and I acknowledge the very real fact that I’ve placed her in this trap, stranded in Resya.

  Rahian.

  Executed.

  My mind still reels with this treachery. A king lined up for the gun like his rebellious officers. No trial, only a bullet in the midnight hour. The dishonour of those final moments is impossible to imagine, his body ripped open, his royal blood allowed to soak into the earth like spilt wine.

  It should never have happened like this.

  But Dakar has another card to play. “I suggest you come quickly,” he informs Mother, his voice firm, a voice I once thought to trust. “It seems your son is struggling with critical concerns in Etania, and it would be best if you dealt with them straightaway.”

  A gentle, fatal threat.

  Neither of us knows what ominous thing he’s done with Reni, luring us into polite compliance, enough to compel us both onto his aeroplane. Besides, if we don’t accept Dakar’s offer, we’ll only look suspicious, and Havis said we had to play innocent. He said it was the only way.

  Standing on this runway, countless Resyan soldiers watching Dakar with seething anger, something in me shifts. I resented Mother for never intervening here, for letting her own brother build chaos. For staying away. But understanding crystallizes in this moment, as she stands before her greatest enemy. The realization that she may not be innocent—but she still looks innocent to the world, and no one can accuse her of a thing. To them, she’s the beloved wife of a Northern king, a woman from a great noble family in Resya, and far more appealing than the ruthless General.

  If she’s going to defeat Dakar, she needs to keep it that way.

  He the creature of war and she the star of peace.

  As we climb into the large aeroplane, Athan’s presence hovers somewhere in my vision, sitting in the far rear with Cyar and Trigg, but I refuse to look his way. I stay at my mother’s side.

  “What you did was wrong,” I tell Dakar hotly. “You had no right to execute a king. No proof.”

  My words are bold, vicious, and I wait for the General’s swift anger. I want to see it at last, the wickedness hiding behind this family—see it and know that I’m right. That nothing my mother has done could be worse than him.

  But he doesn’t rise to my provocation. He only tilts his head, listening closely as if I haven’t just insulted him to his face. “But Rahian was guilty, Your Highness. I had all the proof I needed, from the one who would know.”

  I stare at him, not understanding.

  “Jali Furswana,” Mother explains quietly at my side. “She confessed Rahian’s dealings with the Nahir revolt, and it was all true. Every document she offered.”

  I shut my eyes. Jali did it. She betrayed the king who rescued her, turned him over to men who have no respect for the titles they bear. Perhaps she thought she was saving herself. Little Teo. But in the end, all she’s done is put another Southern royal in a grave.

  She’s a fool.

  “You see,” the General says to me, like we’re at a tiny parley in the sky. “Rahian was guilty. He armed this Southern revolt in many places—planes, guns, shells. He kept this madness goi
ng for his own gain, to keep himself in power, but no longer. Anyone who dares aid the Nahir will think twice after our show of justice.” His gaze holds mine. “There’s nowhere to hide, Your Highness, not even behind a crown.”

  I feel cold. Not only from the chilly heights of the endless sky.

  If he knows Mother’s true connection to Seath, then he’s waiting for the right time and place to reveal it, when it can do the most damage. And for some reason, I don’t despise him for this. It only makes sense. It’s what I would do, and now that I’ve breathed a fraction of the desperation that comes with hatred, felt that desire for more, I can’t look at anyone the same. What did Dakar offer my mother long ago? What did she offer him?

  I want to demand that of them both, but it’s pointless. They’ll never reveal the truth, and it’s impossible to see any other version of this moment. I can imagine, and wonder, but this is all I have to work with—this fierce and lovely world with the choices already made, including my own. They wrote the past, but now I’ve written the present, with my pamphlets, and here we are.

  This is what we have.

  And so, I have to beat Dakar at his own game. He’ll try to bring us down, by whatever means he’s gathered, but I have my own, and I can ruin him first.

  “What’s happening in Madelan?” I ask calmly, not letting him see the dark resolve in me—nor my throbbing fear when I think of Tirza left behind with too many Safire boots prowling.

  Dakar smiles. “Don’t worry, Your Highness. My son, the Commander, is dealing with the problem there.”

  I feel, finally, as if I’m going to be sick.

  46

  ATHAN

  I gather clues as we fly, listening to Evertal mutter with other officers. On this one night, revolts have surged across the South, from Madelan to Beraya to Havenspur and beyond. A concerted effort. A Nahir warning.

  Directed right at my father.

  Seath is damning us completely, proving to the world that we’ve kicked a hornet’s nest of trouble by invading Resya. We’ve upset the frail balance of calm Landore has struggled to enforce for years. We’ve become the symbol of arrogance, the rallying cry for anger, just like those pamphlets vowed, and I have no idea what happens next.