Skykeeper (The Drowning Empire Book 1)

by S. M. Gaither

  So much of this is the same as my brother’s last day. Many of the same keepers, the same Energeia.

  But it is so, so much quieter this time.

  No one anticipating a celebration, no spectators to sing songs and wave ribbons—though there are still some non–magic users; several dozen brave souls wielding only traditional weapons. Bows, mostly. A small regiment of archers armed with poison-tipped arrows to shoot from a distance, to paralyze as much of the enemy as possible. But anyone who can’t fight, or who won’t fight, has been left behind. My mother isn’t here this time, nor are most of the palace advisors. The city is no place for golden carriages anymore.

  So the emperor walks by my side instead. A sword hangs from his hip, and it’s encased in an ancient-looking scabbard covered in yellowed cracks instead of jewels. I may be imagining it, especially with the way my heart is thumping so loudly in my ears, but every now and then I keep thinking I hear it humming a soft, melancholy sort of song.

  Coralind is walking on the other side of the emperor. Maybe she is the one actually doing the humming; she looks melancholy enough. She hasn’t said much during our trek, either, and although she has sworn not to leave my side, I wonder what she is thinking now. If she ever expected it to come to all this, when her life got mixed up with mine.

  On my other side is West.

  I wanted him to stay at the palace. He isn’t a keeper, and this isn’t even his city, but there was still no stopping him. Not after he proved to be astoundingly good with the bow Lord Fane gave him—so good that most everyone claimed he was too much of an asset to leave behind.

  Easy enough for them to decide, I suppose, since they haven’t already lost him once.

  And directly behind us are more assets, who just happen to be the other two people in this world whom I would have given anything to leave behind. To be able to lock deep in the safety of the palace’s dungeons, and then leave them there until the end of all this.

  My sisters.

  They have come along as healers; not necessarily to fight, or to seal—but to help take care of the ones who will, because we needed all the help we could get. And they are completely silent for perhaps the first time in their lives.

  I keep looking back, shocking myself when I take in the serious expressions on their faces. They’re dressed as if they will be sealing, in the protective tunics and arm sleeves and leggings that are supposed to cling tightly to them, but which are still a little loose.

  They will have a much less pressing need to grow into them after today.

  One way or another, I am going to make certain of that.

  The ground is cold against the bare soles of my feet. Cold and wet, mud squishing between my toes, sliding up my ankles and sticking to the silver charms fastened around them.

  The mud never doesn’t have much chance to build up against our skin before we reach one of the city’s lower-lying areas, and we have to wade through water up to our knees—water that rinses clean but that feels dirty at the same time.

  Soon, more of that water is falling from above, striking through the tree leaves and leaving me drenched after only a few minutes. The puddles are no longer knee-deep, but waist-deep, and our march becomes more like a trudge.

  Then, almost without warning, the darkness begins to thin. The heavy downpour becomes a mist. Foggy beams of light stretch out of the blackness ahead, and what little bit of noise our company was making falls away to silence.

  The burial lake is in sight. I can see it through the bent trees, water glistening through the spaces between sideways trunks and spindly roots that have pulled free of the damp ground. They must have Energeia with them, because that water has been set. There are people—over a hundred, at least—standing on the solidified surface. And in the center of the lake, even from here, I can make out the tall silhouette of Varick. Just watching. Waiting from beneath their created sanctuary of a reinforced green magic-lit sky.

  From this close, the sky around that sanctuary looks as though a giant reached up and peeled away black to reveal the calmness underneath. The edges where the radiance gives way to shade are smooth, and just past them are familiar sights: the rolling, thunderous movements of sky. The sort of rippling movements that take shape around rifts as they break. There are traces of electric-blue magic sparking through the air below these movements, and it confirms what I thought earlier: that shadow that’s spreading over the city is a side effect of the enormous tears spreading through the sky here, around their haven. The same tears that are responsible for the downpour we walked through, for that water rising behind us.

  “We need to split up,” I say, and I quickly turn to Brynn, because I see a chance for her to take Nell and get out of the direct line of fire, at least. “Some of us will face Varick and the others directly, but a group of keepers needs to focus on stopping the rifts they’ve already opened from spreading and destroying anything further.” My sister looks startled at first, but then determination overtakes her features, and she nods.

  “Take archers with you, for cover fire,” the emperor adds, his voice adding further authority to my plan as people begin to crowd around us, listening closer.

  While they sort out who will go where, I grab Brynn and Nell’s hands and pull them both aside. “Keep to the trees, the shadows,” I beg them. “As far from sight as possible. Only heal who you can without putting yourselves in danger—do you understand me?”

  Nell only stares, but Brynn nods. Impatiently, of course.

  Be safe, not stupid. I still remember my brother telling me that before my first ceremony. And I have a feeling Brynn won’t listen any better than I did.

  West is back at my side now, and I reach for him while still watching my sisters out of the corner of my eye. “Go with them,” I say. “Please. Keep them safe. And if things start to get bad, you take them and you run, swim, whatever you have to do—I don’t care. Just get out of this city.”

  I say all of this in a single hasty breath, and I think it takes him a moment to comprehend what I’m asking. He shakes his head. “Aven—”

  “You’re a better shot than anybody here, probably. I just want to know that they are covered, and I don’t trust anyone else the way I do you.” I leave out the other half of my reasoning, the fact that I want him to be as far away from me as possible, too. So I won’t be distracted with more worry, for one.

  And because I can’t help but feel as if the further they all are from me, the safer they’ll be.

  If nothing else, I at least need to know that—whatever happens now—they all have the greatest chance possible of making it away from here. I wish I could come up with an excuse to send Coralind with them, too, but she is already stepping toward the lake, and people are following her, and everything seems like it’s moving too fast for me to keep everything together the way I want to.

  “Promise me,” I whisper, because West is still standing there silently, refusing to take his eyes off me.

  The next few moments pass in a blur of everything all at once. Finally, West nods reluctantly. And then he pulls me into a kiss, right there, right in front of everybody. Brynn makes a gagging noise in her throat. Nell giggles nervously and then joins her in making the same noise. But they’re interrupted almost instantly by a violent crack from the nearby sky.

  We move. Dividing into groups, two of them heading to the left and to the right, and a third following me forward, directly to the lake. To Varick and his waiting army.

  The Energeia haven’t only frozen the lake’s surface; there is more motionless water surrounding it on every side too, reaching up to the broken sky like geysers frozen mid-rush. It’s turned the lake into an almost entirely enclosed, makeshift sort of arena, protecting it from the rising water outside. It makes me feel as if I’ve stepped into some eerie, removed space where time is stopped and irrelevant.

  Varick sees me, turns away from the person he was talking to, and then takes a few steps forward. He motions for no one to follow him.
For me to step forward to meet him.

  And though the coward in me would like to bring the entire army behind me, I follow his example and move by myself toward the center of the lake. I reach absently for my faithful knives, secured now in a sheath slung around my hips. I try to keep the shaking from my steps. Try to focus on the firm surface below me, on the way each of my footfalls lightly disturbs it, sending tiny rings unfolding just beneath the solid top layer of water.

  After a dozen or so steps, everything else falls away. My path is the only thing I am aware of. A straight line, one foot after the other, after the other, until I finally reach him.

  He speaks first.

  “It doesn’t have to end this way. I’d rather it didn’t, actually. I would rather we just talk this out.”

  I would rather talk it out myself, but I know better than to trust anything he says now. I swallow to clear the dryness in my throat, and my gaze moves to the dark sky beyond the lake. It is distorted, wobbly-looking through the pillars of solid water around us. “What, exactly, is there to talk about? I believe you’ve made your point.”

  He smiles. “That, you mean?” He looks at the sky as if he is surprised I’ve even brought it up at all. “Just a dramatic flourish. A warning. Not one we have to completely follow through with, if you care to listen to reason.”

  I glare at him without speaking.

  He is undeterred by it.

  “Tell your army to stand down,” he says. “I don’t want to have to take this city by force. It’s too much work, to be honest. There is already enough cleanup to do; I’d rather not add more to that. So tell the emperor to step down, to surrender control of it to me. To us.”

  “There is no us. There never will be.”

  “Then why did you let me live instead of trying to kill me that night?”

  “Because I am not a murderer,” I say.

  But his smile is too knowing now, somehow too aware of everything that went through my head that night in the stable, and every day since. Maybe he realizes, too, that I didn’t want it to come to this. Maybe he thinks my knife will hesitate because of it.

  He’s wrong.

  I am not a murderer. But I will not be a victim either. Not anymore. And neither will anyone else I love.

  “You claim you aren’t,” he says, “and yet think of all the people whose lives you will be washing away if you don’t listen to reason. You could save your sisters. Your friends. Swear your allegiance to me, and I’ll protect whoever you want me to. I’ll protect you, and we can decide together how this city is rebuilt.” The slightest bit of irritation slinks into the words, tightens the line of his jaw.

  “I have already decided how I’m going to rebuild it. And it does not involve you.”

  “This is your last chance.” His voice lowers with the threat. “Either you accept the deal I’ve offered you, or I will make the entire sky rain down on this city.”

  I stare directly into his eyes, at reflections of still water within their glassy green.

  “Bring it down, then,” I whisper.

  He takes a step away from me, and the entire world feels like it is holding its breath.

  It exhales.

  It’s pure reflex that counters the summoned magic he throws at me. The green light tears its way out of my body on its own, slamming into the blue with a force strong enough to send me staggering backwards.

  The air ripples in the spaces above and around where our magic collides.

  The noise is deafening, a clash of thunder drowning out his voice, whatever words he’s shouting at me.

  My arms tremble, trying to hold steady and push that destructive magic back at him at the same time. The memory of the way it cut so easily through my skin before is vibrant.

  Painfully vibrant.

  I panic at that memory. I falter for one. Single. Second. A quick stumble, and he doesn’t miss the chance; he pushes forward and I fall back under the weight of our combined power, the spheres of light rocketing toward my chest.

  At the last moment, I heave my magic away from me with every ounce of strength I possess, sending it flying up and over my head. It takes his with it. They separate midair, and while mine drifts toward the sky, the crackling ball of his blue energy crashes into the lake’s surface behind me. It cuts straight through the Energeia’s spells, slicing an opening to the depths below.

  As easily as it could have sliced through me.

  Sweat stings my eyes. This summon wasn’t as clean as the one I managed when we fought in the stable, and blood is dripping freely from the fresh scars on my arms, down off my elbows and collecting in a pool at my lap.

  Others are moving around us now, both sides charging forward in a rush of battle cries and blinding light, filling the air with the overwhelming scent of more blood and wrecked, burning flesh. My gaze flickers to my own torn skin as a throb of pain shoots through it. The thought of summoning again right away makes that pain worse, and so I reach instead for a knife. I scramble to my feet as Varick closes the space between us, and I hesitate only long enough to steady my balance.

  I throw, aiming for his arm.

  He knocks it easily aside, in a swath of swiftly beckoned magic that sets the blade aglow and then shatters it.

  Then he keeps walking toward me, not pausing a single step.

  My feet pull me automatically backward, tripping and faltering over themselves until I reach the edge of the opening his deflected magic tore through the lake. My body sways, almost tumbling into the dark water.

  And as I fight to right myself again, I suddenly have an idea.

  It has to wait, because in the next instant another flash of magic is hurtling toward me. I’m forced to parry again, but I’m not as fast this time; it gets close enough to me that, when I finally manage to shove it off, it grazes the right side of my face on the way past. Pain explodes around my ear, quickly deadening to a ringing numbness, and then a tingling that spreads through the nerves of my face. There is so much blood in my right eye that I have to squint it shut.

  “That’s a shame,” Varick’s blurred figure is saying as it moves closer, “such a pretty face, ruined. And all for nothing.” The words are alarmingly difficult to understand over the ringing in my head, and the sound of them is much too loud in my left ear. My hand reaches for my right one, fingers snapping only to have the sound hit a wall of deafness. I feel unbalanced by it. My legs totter perilously beneath me, but I force myself to keep moving away from Varick.

  Space, I think. I need space. I’m not going to be able to finish this unless I can get away from him long enough to summon more than just quick deflections.

  He is following slowly, at least. Still talking, still taunting me. Distracted with his declarations of victory already. Declarations that he likely practiced before coming here, because that seems the sort of thing he would do.

  I clench my teeth, bracing for the pain of trying to move with fresh scars. Then I break into a full run, dodging bodies and flying arrows and ducking under the trails of magic streaming through the air, glancing back only once to make certain he is still behind me.

  I see a clear space up ahead, and I race toward it, head hammering and lungs grabbing desperately for oxygen. Just below those lungs, the magic is pooling in my blood, pounding against my skin like a second heartbeat. And that is where it will have to come from: from the blood around my heart. Solid and pure and strong enough to hold him under for as long as I need to.

  But first, I will have to knock him down.

  I wipe away as much blood as possible from my eye. More only slides down. It clings to my eyelashes and turns everything to a bleary shade of red. But I can see well enough to make out Varick’s shape, parting the crowd as he moves toward me with a much less triumphant look on his face. I’ve seen that same look he’s wearing now so many times before. It’s the look of a hunter who is tired of the hunt. Tired of my escaping and dragging things out.

  The look that means I am almost out of time.
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br />   There are still too many people between us for him to get a clear shot at me, and while he fights his way through them, I have one last chance to prepare.

  From my hands, I call strands of magic strong enough to weave into a sort of web.

  And when he summons this time, I’m truly ready. I catch it. Let it sink into the cave of my own magic. It’s difficult, but this time, I manage some sort of control over the mass of energy.

  I don’t act like I have control.

  I act just as I did before. As if I am struggling to simply hold it at bay, to keep it from ripping through me as easily as if I were sky. I don’t act as though I’m struggling to aim, or to be patient and wait for the precise moment to attack.

  But I am.

  And patience is a struggle, because more than anything I want to hurl this straight back into his face, hard as I can.

  He would block that, though.

  So I wait instead until he is within a mere dozen feet of me. I let him push the magic dangerously close to my body, luring him into a false sense of strength. I breathe in deeply. I think of drowning cities and scarred bodies and my brother’s soul, sleeping so far beneath me.

  I push back.

  Back and then down, so the magic hits the frozen lake and cuts its way through just as before. The surface shimmers and splinters, impossibly bright for the blink of an eye, and then it collapses completely into the dark water beneath him.

  And nearly beneath me. I underestimated the power I was throwing off, and have to half-leap, half-fall backward to avoid being pulled into the destruction myself. I clamor away from the water. By the time I turn back around, Varick has found an edge of the crater and is trying to claw his way back up.

  He’s too quick.

  The magic collecting around my heart suddenly feels heavy and sluggish and determined to stay buried within me.

  You’re too slow.

  I have to move. I know I have to move.

  You aren’t going to be able to stop him.

  I don’t have to.