Skykeeper (The Drowning Empire Book 1)

by S. M. Gaither

  “But I won’t be the only one who notices that beauty, I bet,” she says, leaning closer to the water.

  Instead of answering her, I entertain myself with thoughts of her vanity leading to her falling into the stream.

  Because I have a sick feeling that I know exactly where she is trying to lead this conversation, and I will not be taking her bait.

  I cast a few desperate glances back toward the gate, silently willing Eamon to hurry up.

  “You couldn’t have picked a more exciting ceremony to debut in, you know,” my mother goes on, because she is apparently perfectly content to have a conversation with herself. “The emperor has said he hasn’t felt a rift this large in years…can you imagine? What a party we’ll have afterwards! And it seems we’ll finally get to see that charming young man from Alturas in action. I think they’re allowing him to lead the ceremony, even—oh, what was his name?”

  And here we are again.

  Aidan Varick is his name, but I keep my silence because I know she remembers this perfectly well, as she brings this boy up every chance she gets.

  Although, to be fair, the majority of Garda seems to find him just as fascinating and worthy of conversation as my mother does. The rumors following his every step claim he was even younger than me when he proved himself as one of the Pure, as one of the few remaining descendants of Enyo, the northern kingdom’s Creator god. That divine essence he carries is likely why he was sent here for a visit—no doubt so he could make diplomatic niceties with the emperor on behalf of Lucian, the king of Alturas.

  I don’t know much about the politics of the northern kingdom, but I assume it’s the same as here. His Pure blood likely grants him the same luxuries and comforts of palace life, but also the duties of nobility that come with it.

  But his visit must be going well, at least, if they are allowing him the honor of leading the ceremony instead of my brother.

  “Oh! Aidan, wasn’t it? Aidan Varick.” my mother says, snapping her fingers as if she’s just remembered it. “I think I heard that was his full name, although I suppose he’s going by Varick, isn’t he? They still do things in the old Pure ways up north, you know—lineage first and all that.”

  “Right,” I say, in the most uninterested voice I can manage.

  “Speaking of him,” she says, “you could stand to be a little friendlier toward the boy, you know. Especially now, because it seems a bit like fate at work, doesn’t it? Another Pure arriving, and your own power awakening so soon after? Almost as if the gods wanted to be sure the two of you had a chance to bring your magic together. It used to be the way of things, you know—always a Pure marrying another Pure. Maintaining thinning bloodlines and magic and all that.”

  “How lucky for you that not everyone still believes in that particular tradition."

  She bristles, but there is nothing else for her to say. My father was a Pure, while she only has the scantest trace of sky-magic in her blood, which she never did learn to summon properly.

  And I could have just as easily taken after her.

  So I know she isn’t concerned about thinning magic; only about forging a marriage that would result in more splendors for her to steal.

  The pressure against my insides is building again, to the point that it’s becoming painful.

  Part of me wants to take out some of that pain on her, to bite words at her and swipe my hand at the water and break that reflection of her that—ridiculous wig aside—looks entirely too much like my own.

  I don’t get the chance.

  Because in the next moment, Eamon finally shows up and rescues me.

  Our mother attempts to restart our conversation about Varick, but Eamon interrupts her by saying, “Aven should probably be focusing on this ceremony first, before worrying about any marriage ceremony.”

  I mouth a silent thank you that makes his mouth quirk into an almost-smile.

  Mother waves her hand at him the same way she did me earlier, but she finally drops the subject of the Alturian boy and starts fussing over Eamon instead—straightening the necklace he wears and cleaning up one of the painted designs on his arm that’s been smudged somehow—until he insists that we have to go.

  I don’t look back until we reach the bottom of the steps. “I think I am going to take a vow of celibacy,” I say. “Just to annoy her.”

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” my brother replies, and I expect him to keep teasing me about the matter.

  But he doesn’t.

  He only stays uncharacteristically silent as we head into the city, while the bells ring more and more loudly around us.

  Chapter 3

  We are less than half a mile from Sirona’s temple, passing the massive ritual training grounds that stretch around it, when I decide I can’t take Eamon’s silence any more.

  “Something is wrong.”

  He doesn’t try to deny it. Only glances over at me as we walk, and then quickly refocuses on the path ahead. And all the while, he is fidgeting with his stone necklace in a way that seems completely, terrifyingly out of character for him.

  He looks nervous.

  My brother never looks nervous about anything.

  “You don’t want me here,” I say quietly, my eyes drifting to those training grounds, to the towering labyrinth of walls that I’ve spent years securing practice barriers of magic to, and to the open fields where I’ve stood side by side with other keepers and painstakingly memorized every step of every type of sealing ritual we have to perform. “You don’t think I’m ready.”

  He still says nothing, and I feel heat rising along the back of my neck that has little to do with the rift warnings ringing through my blood.

  Because I am ready.

  I have been able to call magic since I was only ten years old. And even if the divine, Pure part of my power—that intimate connection to the sky that lets me feel its cries for help—had never awakened, it was still only a matter of time before I joined these sealing ceremonies in the role of a common keeper, at least.

  In our kingdom, anyone who proves to have summonable sky-magic in their blood is expected to take their place within the rituals once they turn eighteen.

  It is an honor.

  A privilege that no one denies.

  I remind Eamon of that now, but it only makes him sigh and say, “If any of the apprentice keepers are ready for this rift, it would be you. I know that.”

  The way he says this rift doesn’t do anything to still that nervousness that is growing and rolling around in my stomach. It only makes me feel as though I might stumble, even on this flat, solid ground, because it makes me think of the way I saw him flinch earlier. As if even he wasn’t ready this time.

  I grab his arm, both to steady myself and to force him to stop.

  My eyes rest for a moment on the scar beneath my fingers—one of the dozens he’s earned from years of summoning magic. They are all proof of his power, of his place as a savior and protector of our kingdom.

  Someday, he will have too many of them to keep performing sealings. He will have to retire, for his own safety, like most keepers do by their mid-twenties.

  But that day is a long way off.

  “Our keepers have dealt with powerful rifts before,” I say, tearing my eyes away from his scars, “and we will do it again. And you’ll still be there, even if you aren’t technically the one leading things. Nothing is different.”

  “It is, though,” he says, gently pulling his arm from my grasp. He looks as if he wants to turn around and keep walking, but my stare holds him in place, keeps him silent and motionless.

  At least until a moment later, when a particularly sharp warning shoots through my veins. My whole body shudders, and I have to swallow a cry. His reaction is subtler—a small, sharp intake of breath, a clench of his fist, a hasty glance skyward—but it’s still there.

  Just as it was earlier.

  And when it settles, a feeling of inevitability settles with it, and he finally, truly meets
my eyes for the first time since we left the palace.

  He sighs. “I’m leaving, Aven.”

  It takes the words a moment to register in my brain. “Leaving? What do you mean, leaving? Where are you going?”

  He glances around as if checking for eavesdroppers. “Out of Garda. There are strange things happening in the west—things I want to see for myself.”

  “This is an assignment, you mean? Something the emperor has ordered you to do?”

  His hesitation tells me that this is not the case.

  I can only stare in shock as he continues.

  “There are rumors that the skies over the western islands are becoming dangerously unsettled. That there are rifts beyond count—too many for the keepers there to seal in time, and the ones left unsealed are only triggering more.” He runs his hand up and down his arm, as if trying to smooth away a chill, despite how unbearably hot and suffocating the air around us suddenly feels. “Honestly, it sounds a lot like the storm we had here all those years ago.”

  My heart pounds into my throat.

  Because that storm is a black spot, a mishap in our kingdom’s history that no one likes to talk about.

  Especially not my own family, since the breaking skies and massive flooding it brought with it are the reason I don’t have a father.

  But I was only four when that happened. And so just like my father is to me, that storm is something unreal. The only memories I have of it are rough-edged, threadbare, and stitched together from the few hushed stories I’ve heard the elder keepers tell. Nothing that I worry much about now, or cling especially tightly to, because I wouldn’t know what to grab hold of.

  So I forget, sometimes, that Eamon was at my father’s last sealing ceremony.

  That he watched the sky rage out of control, and he watched our father die beneath it.

  And I wish I could forget it now.

  “That storm ended a long time ago,” I say softly.

  “That doesn’t mean a new one couldn’t be brewing over the islands."

  “It’s not happening here. It isn’t Garda’s problem.” I realize how selfish that sounds the second I say it, but I will not, cannot, take it back.

  “It isn’t our problem yet, no,” he says with a frown. “But what if it’s only a matter of time until it is? If what the rumors say are true, and this storm keeps spreading? Can you picture it? A tidal wave of falling sky, washing away the entire empire…”

  I don’t want to picture it, so I just stare hard at the ground instead.

  “And it may not be far off,” he says, his tone turning soft, the way he used to speak to me on days when my keeper trainings had been particularly rough. “We don’t know all of the sky’s secrets, after all. But this rift we’re preparing to seal already feels different than most—too large, too unstable. No offense, Avy, but I’m not surprised you were able to sense it. It’s your first, though, so I wouldn’t expect you to be able to tell that it’s different, or that it’s…I don’t know, wrong somehow.” His words trail off and he breathes in deeply, casting another glance at the barrier above before adding, “And the emperor doesn’t seem to want to investigate any of those rumors about the things happening in the west, which worries me even—”

  “Stop it,” I hiss, and now I am the one looking around, searching for eavesdroppers, because I am terrified and embarrassed by the thought of anyone overhearing these treasonous words my brother is saying. “Listen to yourself, Eamon: you sound positively mad. If the emperor doesn’t want to investigate, I’m sure he has his reasons for it. And do you really plan to go against them? To risk being labeled a deserter?” I lower my voice further. “You know as well as I do how the emperor treats deserters.”

  “Which makes me question him even more, to be honest.”

  “You would be considered a fugitive, Eamon!”

  “I’m not the only one going,” he says, almost angrily now. “And if there are enough of us, how can he stop us all?”

  “How can you honestly think it’s worth taking that chance?”

  He folds his arms to his chest. His eyes cloud over, and for a moment it feels as if he has already left me. His mind, at least, is in those western lands. “What if what we’re doing here is wrong?” he asks. “What if there was more to all of this—something we’re not being told?”

  “Stop it,” I say again.

  He laughs gently. “So, I suppose this means you don’t want to join the rest of us on our trip to the islands, then?”

  “This is not funny, Eamon.”

  Not at all.

  Because I have spent my entire life wanting to be like him, believing the things I thought he believed. His truths were my truths; the certainties I held to when the skies began to shift and grow dark.

  But now there is this faint, sinking feeling that perhaps I don’t really know him at all. And it is making that nervousness in my stomach catapult into something far more nauseating.

  I cannot afford to be changing my mind about my truths now.

  I start to walk again, wanting more than anything to just reach the familiar temple. To see the familiar faces of keepers I have been waiting years to join in an actual ceremony. To feel as sure about my place among them as I always have.

  But I can’t.

  Because my brother is back at my side a moment later, and everything he’s said billows around him like our own personal storm, washing over me and drowning my confidence all over again.

  How many of those other, familiar keepers are going with Eamon?

  How many are whispering these same things about the emperor?

  We are supposed to be a single, united force. How else can we keep the sky together, if we aren’t together ourselves?

  Division is disaster.

  The elder keepers say that all the time during our trainings.

  “Wasn’t my first ceremony enough for me to worry about?” I have to fight to keep the bitterness from my voice.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and I know he means it, but somehow that only makes it worse. “But I was serious about you coming with us. And even if you decide not to, I couldn’t leave without telling you, and I may not have had another chance—because we’re planning to slip away right after the ceremony, while everyone is distracted by the celebrations. Hopefully a good head start will help us stay ahead of anyone the emperor might send after us.”

  Only hours from now, and he’s gone.

  “And if so many of us leave, what happens here?”

  He hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But there are bigger things happening outside of our kingdom, I think. It just makes more sense to figure things out at the source. Garda has more keepers than anybody, at least, so she’ll just have to hold out until we get back.”

  I bite my lower lip and keep walking.

  I love him.

  But I can’t agree with him.

  Because I can see the temple in the distance now. A rush of purpose trembles over my skin at the sight of it, and I know that I am not ready to leave this behind.

  “I’m not going to try and stop you.” The words strangle their way out, and it feels as if they’ve taken half my insides with them. “But I can’t go with you.”

  He nods.

  Not upset.

  ‘Upset’ would have been a thousand times easier than the quiet, thoughtful way he turns away from me as he says, “I figured you’d say that. I just wish I could believe you’d be safer if you stay here.”

  Chapter 4

  Between the four of us Pures—Varick, the emperor, my brother, and now me—we were able to pinpoint the location of the rift easily enough: directly above the northernmost point of Isce, the largest lake in all of Garda.

  Hordes of people light our way to it.

  Not only keepers, but half of the city's non-magical population seem to be here for the show as well. They weave their way in front and beyond our march of keepers, the adults carrying lanterns made from hollowed-out marsh frog skulls—w
hich are said to be lucky—while their children swipe clumps of foxfire from the mangrove trees, wrap it around sticks and chase each other with them. It’s hard to keep my eyes from being drawn to the dazzling patterns of light they’re streaking through the air. Hard not to let my mind drift with the songs some of our parade have started to sing, and harder still to keep that infectious enthusiasm from rising in myself.

  I want to let it rise.

  It has always been so easy before, to get caught up in these parties that challenging rifts inspire. And I should be excited at the chance to test the full power of my magic, to make a stunning debut as a Pure keeper at the center of the elaborate ritual that this rift feels like it will require.

  But I can't stop thinking about what is going to happen after it's all finished.

  I lower my head and focus on the muddy ground, on stepping only in prints the keepers in front of me have left with their bare feet.

  “Avy, look! See what I’ve just done?” The sudden voice makes me jump, shocking my thoughts back to the here, the now. I lift my gaze just as Brynn crashes to a stop in front of me.

  I have never been more grateful for the sight of her. Maybe because here is something I can make sense of: my fiery, excitable little sister, and her constantly flushed cheeks and that wildly unkempt bushel of hair. My own personal little shadow, who clings to every movement I make and every word I say.

  “See what?” My tone betrays no hint of the anxiety thrumming through my veins. I’m trying to be the very picture of calm and composure, just like my brother always was for me before tonight.

  “This.” She thrusts her hands toward my face. That smoky green light hovers between the two of us, most of it concentrated just above the heel of Brynn’s right hand. It grows brighter and thicker as the seconds pass, until it clearly illuminates a small cut through the center of her other hand.

  It’s a careful enough line that I know she likely carved it herself—probably using the jewel-encrusted dagger Lord Fane gave both her and her twin, Nell, on their last birthday.