Skykeeper (The Drowning Empire Book 1)

by S. M. Gaither

  I’m shocked by what I see in that gaze.

  He looks…curious. I expected irritation. More of that cynical amusement. Anything except that inquisitive gleam in his storm-grey eyes, or those lips parting softly, uncertainly. And I can’t help it; I am struck again with the feeling that he really is different than the ones I usually have to slip away from.

  But my next thought, of course, is that this is probably a trick, one as dirty as those spells he carries.

  “The truth?” he says quietly, his grip digging a little tighter into my skin. “The truth is that you’re too late, anyway.”

  “Too late?”

  “The northern islands are all but reclaimed by the Sea-Above. And the southern ones weren’t faring much better when I left. It’s partly why I left—and I’m not the only one who did.”

  So it’s true, then.

  Despite his dark tone, I suddenly feel lighter than I have in weeks. Because this means my brother was right. It means I was right: to believe that there was more than what the emperor was telling us, and to set off to find the truth.

  “You said it’s already spreading from the north to the south in your homeland,” I say, thinking aloud. And suddenly I can picture exactly what my brother was talking about that day, even though I don’t want to now any more than I did then. The lightness I felt rapidly disappears. “It isn’t going to stop there, either. A tidal wave of falling sky…”

  The hunter keeps his eyes straight ahead as he pulls me back into motion. He seems to have retreated into his own thoughts, altogether finished with our conversation.

  His hold on my arm is still unrelenting.

  For a moment I think this might be an easier fate—to just let him keep dragging me back to the emperor, instead of breaking away and continuing north to see things for myself. Because I was already so tired, so worn thin and ragged with the impossibility of simply reaching the islands…and now I am even more certain of the true impossibility waiting for me there, and even less sure of what I am going to do about it.

  I had thought bringing proof back to the emperor might be enough, that he and his army could deal with it from there.

  But the further I get from my kingdom, the less I trust anything and everything I thought I knew of it.

  I hear hoofbeats again. Loud enough this time, and close enough, that I know I am not imagining it. And now they seem to sync with my heart—pounding, dauntless, determined to reach the place they’ve been called to.

  It isn’t just about finding proof anymore.

  Because I feel, with a growing certainty, that the emperor would deny it all, up to the very moment the sky fell on his own palace.

  “Somebody has to meet it,” I say quietly. “Somebody has to stop it.” The words are still more to myself than to him, but they pull the hunter from his thoughts anyway. He looks over at me, eyes searching, head canted in a disbelieving sort of way.

  “Here I thought you were nothing but a runaway brat,” he says. “But apparently, I was wrong—you’re actually just out of your mind, aren’t you?”

  I say nothing.

  “Or do you have an army hiding somewhere?” He glances back behind us, as if that army might be following, somehow hidden in the mist. And I still say nothing, because I understand his incredulity, but I don’t know how to answer it.

  But I don’t have to answer, because suddenly we’re distracted by the sound of something large crashing through the brush.

  Finn hurtles into sight, water dripping from his mane and droplets of it gleaming on his slick skin. He’s a beastly sight—black jewel eyes glaring, puffs of steam rising around his mouth and erupting from flared nostrils with each snort—and the scene is enough to make the hunter flinch.

  Which is all I needed.

  The second I feel his grip on my wrists weaken, I twist away as hard as I can. I manage to get one of my arms completely free, and what happens next is mostly reflex: he reaches for me again, and my freed hand strikes forward, palm upturned toward him.

  The magic comes surprisingly quickly.

  Like liquid fire, it streaks up through the veins of my arm and explodes in a flash of light between us. It isn’t particularly solid or strong, but it’s bright and sudden enough to send him stumbling backward, clutching at his eyes.

  I scramble around him, racing toward Finn. But I’ve underestimated the strength that even that tiny bit of magic took to summon. My head spins. My skin is broken, because of my weakness and the magic’s poorly controlled exit, and blood pools in my palms, icy hot and steaming in the chill air.

  By the time I reach Finn, my run has become more of a stumble. I fall against his side. Throw an arm around his neck, and hoist myself up in the most ungraceful mount I’ve ever managed to achieve. Or half-achieve, really; I don’t manage to properly center myself before I feel a hand on my leg, trying to pull me back down.

  This hunter is persistent.

  I will give him that much.

  Finn reacts quicker than I can. Before I can even try to kick free, the river horse slings his head around and snaps viciously for the hunter, who just barely manages to lurch aside. The two of them circle each other for a moment in a deadly, dizzying sort of dance—which doesn’t exactly help my attempts to right myself in the saddle.

  “Could we call off the killer horse?” the hunter shouts. “Let’s just…can we just talk for a minute, maybe?”

  “Oh, now you want to talk?” I say crossly. But when I finally straighten up, I pull Finn to the side and lead him around in several circles, trying to work out his irritation before squaring myself back up with the hunter. Why I don’t just turn and bolt away, I’m not sure. Maybe because for the moment I am impressed—or perhaps just stunned—by how close the hunter still is to us. I tower above him now, and he remains easily within Finn’s biting range.

  And yet he is just standing there, as if he could actually block my path when I do decide to run.

  He is either very brave, or astoundingly stupid.

  “Move,” I demand. “Or I will run straight through you.”

  “No, you won’t,” he says, pulling another sham magic artifact from his pocket. I recoil automatically at the sight of it, but when Finn starts to move with me, I pull him cautiously to a stop. This artifact looks different than the one he used earlier—more oval-shaped, and darker in color. And there’s no telling what it does.

  I’m wary enough at this point that I wouldn’t be surprised by anything he is carrying.

  If I run, what is he going to throw after me?

  “What is that?”

  He tosses the artifact up and down in the air, but ignores my question. “So that’s where you were running off to, then?” he asks. “To the islands?”

  The curiosity that was in his eyes earlier has fallen to his voice now. And despite every instinct in my body still screaming at me, still warning me that this is a trick, I nod. Slowly, carefully, and without a hint of emotion in my voice, I echo his words from earlier: “Not that it’s really any business of yours, but yes. I am.”

  “Even after what I just told you?”

  I squeeze Finn’s reins a little tighter. “Especially after what you just told me.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” he repeats. But for the first time, there is nothing at all antagonizing about his words; it’s as if he has forgotten, just like that, where we are and how we got here.

  It’s strange.

  His fingers twist the artifact around, walking it over and under in his hand, making it disappear and reappear in a way that reminds me of tricks my brother used to play with coins. Suddenly it feels like I’ve swallowed a handful of those coins, like they’ve settled cold and heavy in the pit of my stomach.

  What would my brother do, if he stood where I do now?

  I give my head a little shake and force myself not to reach for that bit of cloth tied around my arm.

  “You have an obligation to your emperor, don’t you?” the hunter says. “Pure-b
looded and all that. That’s the reasons for those posters, isn’t it?”

  “My obligation is to the sky, not the emperor,” I say, fingers lightly tracing the four skies symbol on that ribbon around my arm. “The two of them are not the same.”

  But the words just make him laugh again—although it’s quieter, this time.

  “Not that it matters,” he says. “You won’t even make it to the islands on your own. I would bet my life on that.”

  “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I? Within five days’ ride from the Silverwater causeway.” I pull a scrap of fabric from the saddlebag and wrap it around my bloody palm before lifting my gaze back to him. “And I am not stopping now.”

  “I’m telling you: the skies are worse the further north and west you go,” he says. “And even if you did somehow, by some miracle, manage to reach the causeway—and it’s even still there—my guess is you’d make it halfway across it before you get swept off by the waves and then dashed to lots of lovely pieces against the rocks below. Assuming, of course, that you don’t get hopelessly lost, or shot dead by bandits first.”

  “I am not afraid of dying.” I don’t even think about it. I just say it. And it may not be true, but it sounds confident and true enough in my voice, if only because I know there are far more frightening ways this could all end.

  At least if I died, I wouldn’t be around to watch as the building storm completely swallowed up everything I loved.

  Everything I failed to save.

  Strangely enough, it’s those last words—the ones that came out of me with no thought at all—that make the hunter hesitate, and then finally slip the sham magic spell back into his pocket.

  I could run now.

  I should run now.

  But I have a feeling he would follow.

  And there was something in his movement, besides; something that almost suggested an understanding coming over him, and that hope from before flutters defiantly in my chest.

  “Good,” he says, “because once you reach the other side—if you reach the other side—then you most likely will. Particularly since it seems that yes,”—he glances to his left and right, then stretches taller and peers over me, pretending to search some more— “it really is just you, isn’t it? There’s no army at all. Not even a little one.”

  “Not yet. But there are other people on my side, I promise you. I am only the beginning.”

  I want to explain to him how I am only a scout, a messenger of sorts—that a more capable army is forming in my wake. Hopefully. But I haven’t shared the plans Varick and I talked of with anybody else, and this hunter won’t be the exception.

  Even if that ruthlessly skeptical look he’s giving me is getting on my nerves.

  “Never mind anyone else,” I say. “Let’s focus on you and me. Us. We.”

  “We?”

  “We could still make a deal,” I say, sounding much more decisive about this sudden idea than I feel. “You’re after a reward. And you’re right; I may not make it across without a guide.”

  “You will definitely not make it across without a guide.”

  I bite my tongue, reminding myself that throwing more knives at him isn’t going to help us move forward. “Then I’ll hire you,” I say. “Take me to the islands. And then, when everything is finished, I’ll see to it that you get double what is on my reward poster—even if I have to steal the riches from the emperor myself to give them to you.”

  “What makes you think I’d go back there for your sake?” he asks. “Did you not hear what I said earlier? About why I left? That part about the sky completely falling down and everyone drowning?”

  “It isn’t going to fall completely,” I say, somehow forcing calmness into my voice. “I am not going to let it.”

  He watches me without speaking for several moments past the point of uncomfortable, his grey eyes fierce and unblinking. Then he finally sighs, raking a hand through his messy hair. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

  He’s looking at me like he expects more.

  But I’ve already said everything I plan to say, so I just wait.

  It takes a surprisingly short amount of time for him to give the rest of the way in.

  “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” he says, which sends a confusing tangle of feelings tumbling through me. Not excitement, but not complete apprehension, either. Something in between the two.

  “I’ll be holding you to your word about the reward money, though,” he adds. “Just so you know.” He walks backwards as he talks, eyes still on me as he moves to his horse and unties it.

  “We can shake over blood, if you like,” I call drily, holding up my bandaged hand.

  He pauses, gaze shifting from mine to the bloodstained cloth for a fraction of a second. Then he looks away at last without answering, and swings easily up onto the horse and trots back to my side, still not looking at me. “Shall we?”

  I trail a bit behind him as we ride, and we leave the woods in complete silence, stepping from beneath the canopy of trees to underneath a sky that I would swear is growing darker by the minute.

  Chapter 11

  The first day we spend riding together, I almost forget we are together, because the hunter remains so quiet and withdrawn that he may as well not even be there at all.

  On the second day, I grow braver, and I attempt to start a conversation.

  “Tell me what it was like,” I say, pulling Finn up beside his mare—who reacts the same way she has every other time Finn has gotten too close: with a harried look and an attempt to bolt. “Details. About the sky back home, I mean.”

  He settles his horse, and his gaze slides toward me for a brief moment before fixing determinedly back on the path ahead. I keep staring, expectant, but the only answer he gives is: “Dark.” And it is obvious he doesn’t want to talk about it any more than he did the first night we met.

  It feels like I am poking a fresh and open wound with a stick, and each word I try prodding with just makes him wince and draw further away.

  It makes me more certain, at least, that I am right. That he wasn’t exaggerating when he talked about the horror above his islands—a horror so sinister, apparently, that he can’t even stand to speak of it. So dark that it makes me sure of something else he said, too: I am not going to be able to face this alone.

  So that night, while the hunter sleeps, I compose a letter.

  The day before I left home, Varick insisted that I write to him as often as I could safely manage to, informing him of my progress. I haven’t risked it yet—not while spending my days avoiding the emperor’s hired henchmen and hiding my face from everyone who may have seen my wanted posters—but I don’t think I can stand another day of carrying these things on my own.

  I have to try to put into words the things I’ve seen and heard—the hunter’s firsthand accounts, the way the skies have grown darker as I’ve traveled further—and I can only hope Varick will be able to use them to rally more people to oppose the emperor. And that this letter somehow reaches him without being intercepted by the emperor, or his council, and their followers.

  Sending it by swift will get it there within days, and I’ve never heard of a swift missing its targeted recipient. But this will require a trip into town— where I’ll most likely be recognized— to find someone with one of those intelligent, dragon-like birds to hire.

  Which is why, as I write the last few words, my gaze drifts toward the still-sleeping hunter, and I decide: I am going to have to ask him a favor.

  So I probably should try being friendlier.

  “I’m tired of calling you hunter,” I tell him as we’re packing up camp the next morning.

  He gives me that half-amused look of his, readjusting the girth strap on his horse’s saddle. “If you name me, you might get attached.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” I say, before I can stop myself.

  It only makes his smile brighten.

  “I hardly know any Westlander
names,” I press. “So I couldn’t even make a proper one up for you.”

  “Then just call me Westlander, how about? That’s accurate enough.”

  I roll my eyes at him before swinging onto Finn’s back, but I do end up calling him that for most of the day, and then I simply shorten it to West, and leave it at that. At least it’s better—friendlier—than the hunter, I suppose.

  We keep a quick enough pace that most of the day’s travel becomes a blur in my mind: occasional streaks of blue streams, tiny smudges of villages, glimpses of snow-fowl and herds of water deer—and all of it painted against a vast landscape that stretches grey and cold as far as I can see in any direction.

  But for the past mile or so, we have been weaving our way through what is easily the most colorful part of Kallmarr I’ve seen yet, and everything seems to have slowed down. All around us there are pools of deep cerulean blue rimmed with green, their water bubbling and sending great billows of steam rising into the air.

  The Devil Pools, West said the locals called them, because the water in them is highly acidic. Cutting through the thick clouds of vapor rising from them leaves an odd tingling on my skin. A dangerous itch, maybe, but I can’t bring myself to move too quickly through it. It reminds me of the burning from the first rift I felt—the first time I’ve physically felt anything like it since I left my city. So I keep hesitating without meaning to, lingering in the warmth even though West warned me to be careful of it.

  Again and again he glances back from his position far ahead of me. Maybe still expecting to see that I’ve disappeared on him, which wouldn’t be hard to do in the places where this steam rises the thickest.

  As a show of good faith and another attempt at that friendliness—and also because I am tired of the impatient looks he keeps giving me—I finally pick up my pace and catch up with him. “So, you’ve been here before, then?” I ask.

  He’s slow to answer, and then surprises me by shaking his head. “I took a different route coming in. Longer, but less dangerous ground. I only know the name for these pools because of my mother.” I keep my eyes expectantly on him, even as Finn leaps, clearing a medium-sized puddle of a pool. West stays right at my side, but waits until his own horse finds solid footing again and catches his breath before he finally continues. “She was a doctor, not just in the islands, but along the edges of the mainland here. She treated a lot of people who bathed in these pools back when they first bubbled up, before they earned the name Devil Pools.”