As She Ascends

by Jodi Meadows

  Because of what I’d done tonight.

  ::You saved me from the Pit. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to go home ever.::

  Oh.

  “We’ll have to tell Captain Pentoba to cancel any agreement she made to get you to Idris.”

  ::Already did.:: He smiled.

  Hesitantly, expecting him to slip away like a cat not wanting to be petted, I leaned my head on his shoulder. When he didn’t move, I closed my eyes and counted the heartbeats he let me stay there.

  Ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five . . .

  He didn’t displace me.

  “Are you afraid of me?” I whispered.

  ::No.::

  “But what I did earlier—I could have killed everyone.”

  He turned his head, breath rustling loose strands of my hair. ::But you didn’t.::

  “Because you came.”

  ::No. I saw you move the energy back. Hristo said he saw wings. I saw, too.:: Haltingly, awkwardly, he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. The side of my body touched his. ::Saw you stagger. Saw you push the magic away. That was you.::

  But he’d helped. By muting everything, he’d helped me release the power at a safe rate. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For helping.”

  His hand on my waist tightened, and his thumb rubbed toward my ribs.

  I wanted to relish in this closeness, to savor and feel every place we touched and for how long, but despair smothered everything good. It was a fog, making thoughts flat. Suffocating emotions. Dampening the thrill of being held by the boy I’d admired for so long.

  “You’re getting better at your gift.”

  ::Said I would practice.::

  I had said the same thing, but somewhere between then and now, I’d decided I knew enough. Clearly I didn’t. “Can I practice with you?”

  He nodded. ::Tomorrow.::

  “How did you know?”

  He drummed his fingers against my knuckles, the quiet-code equivalent of hmm?

  “How did you know I needed you?” My face warmed; I’d meant I’d needed his help.

  Aaru’s shoulder moved up and down with a sigh. His hands both tightened. And then he pulled away to look at me fully. His night-black eyes studied my face down to my throat, and cautiously he pressed the tips of his fingers against my racing heart. ::Heard you. The noorestones.:: He bit his lower lip. ::Felt you.::

  I couldn’t speak.

  ::Started to leave, but Ilina came back with dragons. Stayed to hear what she said, then . . .:: He fluttered his fingers away as if to indicate his departure.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “For coming to get me.”

  He glanced downward, toward my mouth, and for a heartbeat I thought he might lean forward. I thought he might touch his lips to mine, even for just a breath.

  Instead, he nodded toward the door. ::Ready to go out?::

  If the others were still talking about me, I couldn’t hear it. Only when I thought about it did I realize there was a bubble of silence around Aaru, preventing us from hearing anything in the other room, but also keeping our conversation private.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere right now.”

  I didn’t want to stand. To walk. To make an effort to be anything more than a puddle of numb emotion.

  ::Want me to stay?::

  Yes. Yes, I wanted him to stay here with me, even though here was the washroom floor and normally that would disgust me beyond measure. Just . . . I couldn’t bring myself to care at the moment.

  “We can’t stay. Neither of us.” The mind fog was hard to think through, but a piece of me realized that remaining here would be dangerous. “The girl pretending to be me—it’s Tirta. From the Pit.”

  Aaru scowled and squeezed my hand. ::Did she see you?::

  “Not my face, but she saw what I did. And she’s seen me affect noorestones before. Not to this level, but she’ll figure it out if she hasn’t already.”

  Which meant she knew I was here, and she’d tell Elbena, and they would send the Luminary Guards to search every part of the city. We weren’t safe here.

  Aaru understood all the words I’d left unsaid. Of course he did. He climbed to his feet and offered a hand.

  I took it and let him pull me up.

  I followed Aaru into the bedroom.

  “We have to leave now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WITHIN THE HOUR, WE’D LEFT THE RED WINE INN IN pairs. Ilina and me. Hristo and Aaru. Gerel and Chenda.

  We didn’t have much to carry, save our dragons (in their basket), our new clothes, and our forged residency papers, so it didn’t look strange for us to leave the inn without telling the owners we were finished with the room; they’d find out in the morning.

  Outside, rain pounded on the streets, but we made it back to the port without trouble.

  “Look there.” Gerel paused and pointed toward a nearby pier.

  I squinted through the haze of rain and glowing noorestones, but I didn’t see whatever she was looking at.

  “It’s the ship,” she said. “The black one we saw the other day.”

  A dark scowl passed over Chenda’s face. “The more I consider it, the more I am persuaded the ship belongs to the empire. In all my time as the Dawn Lady, I’ve never seen a ship like that. Never heard of one.”

  “Did the Twilight Senate tell you everything, then?” Ilina asked.

  Chenda shot her a glare. “More than the Luminary Council told Mira, it seems. I was an actual part of the government, my voice heard and considered, not a puppet with a convenient face.”

  My heart shattered to a stop.

  “You’re wrong.” Ilina’s voice was low and dangerous. “And you’d do well to never say anything like that again.”

  “Why?” Chenda quirked an eyebrow. “Does it hurt your feelings to hear that? Or does it hurt Mira’s feelings? If she wants to say so, she can.”

  Gerel, Hristo, and Aaru had been quietly looking between Ilina and Chenda. Now, they all looked at me.

  “I—” I glanced at the black ship once more. “I’d like to get out of the rain.” Without waiting for the others, I turned on my heel and marched down the pier, hunching my shoulders against the cold onslaught from the sky.

  Confrontation made my head spin. There had to be a way to ease the tension between Chenda and Ilina. But how could I placate Chenda without also upsetting Ilina? And did I need to apologize to the others for what they’d witnessed? I hadn’t actually been part of the argument, except that Chenda had brought my name into it.

  I climbed up the gangplank, sharply aware of the crackling anger behind me, both Chenda and Ilina biting their tongues. When I glanced over my shoulder, Gerel and Hristo were walking between them, with Aaru in the back.

  Teres was watching the gangplank again. If she was surprised to see us in the middle of the night, she didn’t show it. She just sent us to Captain Pentoba’s office, where Hristo explained the situation, and shortly we were deposited in a small cabin belowdecks. It was the same one I’d shared with Elbena when they’d transported me from Khulan to Bopha, with one small porthole and three small noorestones in lidded sconces.

  There’d been two beds before—an upper bunk and a lower bunk—and a large trunk for our belongings. Now, two hammocks were strung over the trunk, and a third between the door and the porthole. They were slightly crooked, but they were clean and had folded blankets in them.

  Two beds and three hammocks.

  Six people.

  “It’s not ideal,” said the captain.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “Someone will either have to share or sleep in shifts. I can’t do better than this.” She glared at each of us in turn. “I could make the crew double up or trade off, but that doesn’t seem fair when all of them are working and none of you are.”

  Chenda and Gerel glanced at each other, and then Gerel said, “We’ll take the top bunk. Hristo, you take the bottom. I can only imagine you wrestling with a hammock while y
our arm is bound like that. The rest of you can figure it out.”

  Aaru pulled out his pad of paper, wrapped in a strip of waterproofed linen. Will work, he wrote, and showed it to the captain.

  “Very well. Once we’re away from the port and any prying eyes to see you on deck, I’ll send One down with orders for anyone who wants to be useful.” Captain Pentoba started down the corridor, but Gerel stopped her.

  “How long has that black ship been docked?” she asked.

  “Came in yesterday morning.” The captain crossed her arms and tilted her head in thought. “No name painted on her, at least that anyone mentioned. No crew that I could see.”

  “That’s unusual.” Hristo shifted his weight toward me.

  “It is.” The captain glanced at him. “One young man stepped off first thing, but I didn’t notice anyone else.”

  A shiver wove through me. “What did he look like?”

  “Normal, I suppose.” The captain shrugged and turned away—back to work. “Young, like I said, but I didn’t get a good look at him. Now, get some rest, all of you. Since you’re back early, we can be off within the hour.”

  There was no privacy in the small cabin, but there was a washroom down the passageway, just on the other side of the medic’s office. Two at a time, we took care of our business and hung our clothes in the washroom, and for about five minutes I hoped we might avoid rekindling the argument from earlier.

  When Ilina and I returned to our cabin, she tucked all our bags into one side of the trunk, and in the other side, she made a nest for the dragons. Not that the dragons wanted to be in it. As soon as she opened the basket, LaLa stretched toward me, flapping her good wing pitifully.

  I scooped her up and cradled her in my arms, then sat on the closed trunk next to Ilina. She, too, had given in to Crystal’s demands for affection.

  Guilt wormed itself inside of me. Even now, while we were here safe on the Chance Encounter, the ten dragons were being removed from the sanctuary. Drugged to sleep as they were rolled through the gates.

  And I hadn’t been able to save them.

  Then the door creaked open. Gerel and Chenda returned from the washroom, and the boys left for their turn. And that was it.

  Chenda cleared her throat. Looked at Ilina askance. Heaved a put-upon sigh.

  The silence between them was oppressive, filled with gritted teeth and caught breaths, as though they had just narrowly avoided speaking their minds.

  The angry silence between Chenda and Ilina was too much. I broke it.

  “Chenda,” I started, but my voice caught. I tried again. “You know what happened in the dragon sanctuary today?”

  She and Gerel had been leaning against the outer wall, still in damp clothes. Chenda looked up from her whispered conversation with Gerel and frowned. “Yes, I know what happened. And I know what happened in the theater after.” She shook her head. “Really, Mira. Running in headfirst didn’t go well for you, did it?” Her mouth thinned into a line. “For your sake, I wish you’d just listened to me from the beginning.”

  My heart thudded in my ears, impossibly loud. She’d told me. She’d told me and I hadn’t listened. Now, she had every right to rub that in my face. “You’re right. We should have made plans to go to Crescent Prominence and speak to my parents. But I’m ready to go there now.”

  Ilina glared at me.

  Chenda raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “To talk to them about the Mira Treaty?” Wasn’t that what she’d wanted in the first place?

  “We don’t need their confirmation anymore. The black ship is proof enough of the empire’s control of the Fallen Isles.” Chenda gazed around the cramped cabin, eyes widening with a sudden thought. “In fact, our enemies are within reach. The empire. The false Mira. Likely Altan, as he will come as soon as he hears what happened in the theater. We shouldn’t leave Harta yet. We need to take this opportunity.”

  “To do what?” Ilina asked.

  “To make people listen. We have so few assets, but right here is the real Hopebearer. We can make people hear the truth.”

  “We can’t stop them from hearing the wrong Hopebearer,” Gerel said, “unless we do something Hartans wouldn’t approve of doing.”

  My heart knotted up. “Kill her?” I breathed, horror filling the words. No matter that I’d nearly done that myself.

  Gerel scoffed. “No. What’s wrong with you?”

  “You said something Hartans wouldn’t approve of.”

  “I meant kidnapping.” Gerel snorted softly. “But we’d have to find her. And then we’d have to be able to keep her safe. And feed her. Honestly, it sounds like a lot of effort.”

  Ilina made a noise of agreement. “At the very least, she will distract Altan while we go to Damina.”

  That didn’t bring me as much comfort as it should have. I turned to Chenda. “How do you propose we take all this as an opportunity?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “We should recruit Altan.”

  “What?” LaLa squawked as I lurched to my feet. “Why would we ally ourselves with Altan?”

  “You know what Altan is.” Ilina stood, too; Crystal flew up to one of the posts holding up a hammock. “You know what he’s done to people in this room.”

  Just then, the door groaned open and Aaru and Hristo stood there, their expressions dark enough to show they’d both heard Chenda’s suggestion.

  “What about going to Damina?” I asked.

  “We don’t need to see your parents anymore,” Chenda said. “We know they’ve betrayed us. Like I said, the ship is proof enough.”

  “That was Mira’s point from the beginning,” Ilina said, “but you still wanted to go to Crescent Prominence even though it could get Mira killed.” Her voice shook.

  Chenda shook her head. “Mira didn’t want to go to Crescent Prominence because she was afraid of the truth. She was afraid of what she might learn about her parents. Now she wants to go because she’s more afraid of her own power and what she can do with it. That’s why she agreed now—”

  “No, she said she’d go before everything happened in the theater.” Ilina’s face was dark with anger. “But you weren’t there. You don’t know.”

  “I know plenty.” Chenda stalked forward, her shoulders thrown back with pride. “You think that because I’m new to your little group that I can’t possibly see things clearly. But I do. I see that Mira is afraid and everything she does is a reaction to her fear.”

  “Her refusal to give the speech in Bopha was incredibly brave. The way she ran to save Lex was brave. Her saving us in the tunnel was brave, too.”

  My throat and face got hotter the more things Ilina listed.

  “And yet,” Chenda said, “those were fear and reactions, too.”

  “They were selfless,” Ilina said.

  Chenda shrugged. “Maybe so, but none of those events were carefully executed plans. And”—she held up a hand—“I am not willing to debate every single one of Mira’s actions with you.”

  “How is recruiting Altan to our side going to help?” Somehow, Gerel kept her tone carefully neutral.

  “We wouldn’t be recruiting him to our side,” Chenda said. “That isn’t possible. But Altan wants to help dragons. You all want to help dragons. And Altan wants to protect the Fallen Isles from the empire. We all want that, too. The best way to do that is have an army, and Altan has an army. He cannot be our friend, but he can be our ally.”

  My hands trembled with anger. “He’s Altan. He tortured us.” I glanced at Aaru, meeting his dark eyes for only a breath.

  “Then what would you propose?” Chenda asked.

  “Go see my parents, like you said before—”

  “The situation has changed,” Chenda said. “We already have all the information they could give us. No, we must recruit aid where we can and prepare to fight the empire. That means the warriors. That means the dishonored. That means anyone who wants to resist the empire’s control and the betrayal of our governments. An
d if you aren’t willing to take risks to save the Fallen Isles, you aren’t the Hopebearer after all.”

  Rain beat against the hull of the ship. Quiet stretched between the six of us.

  Hristo looked between Chenda, Ilina, and me, as though wondering whether he should step in. But he was meant to protect me from physical threats, not people I’d thought were friends. Not lists of my inadequacies.

  “We need to go after the Algotti Empire,” Chenda said, her voice softer.

  “We should learn about them first,” I said. “Maybe my parents know—”

  “They don’t.” Chenda sighed.

  “How do you know?” Ilina asked. “They have connections—”

  “Have they ever told you anything?” Chenda asked. “Has the Luminary Council ever given you anything other than speeches to recite and a scar on your face?”

  I stepped back, heels hitting the trunk, and covered my left cheek.

  “That was uncalled-for,” Ilina started.

  Chenda shook her head. “And you. You need to stop fighting Mira’s battles for her.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Go to Damina if you want,” she said after a moment. “But I will not seek help from the very people who betrayed us—”

  “You’re allying with Altan,” I said.

  “A monster, yes. But a useful monster.” She squeezed between Ilina and me and heaved open the trunk.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Whatever is necessary.” She found her bag and slipped it over her shoulders. “First, I’m going to look at the black ship. If the man Captain Pentoba saw is really from the empire, then I want to have a chat with him. Gerel? Are you coming?”

  The cabin went silent. Three heartbeats. Four. Five.

  Gerel looked from Ilina to me, her eyebrows drawn inward with thought. Then: “Of course.”

  “Good.” Chenda grabbed Gerel’s bag and slung it toward her.

  “Aren’t you coming back?” My chest squeezed.

  “Not tonight.” Chenda strode toward the door, and both boys stepped aside. “The captain said the Chance Encounter is leaving within the hour, and if you’re intent on going to Damina to see your parents, then I don’t want to hold you up. Maybe we’ll meet you there in a few days.”