Air

by Rosie Scott

  Altan exhaled heavily. “I am worried about the same thing, Kai.”

  “It's up to you to do something about it,” I warned him. “Because we will be leaving here in two days, and you will be the only Sentinel left here with the queen. This quest of ours may take a while. The world is changing fast; who knows how quickly she will relay the order?”

  “You saw what she said to me today,” Altan replied. “She won't listen to me.”

  “Try,” I pleaded. “She should care about what this will do to Esen, Makani, and Scirocco. It has the potential to wipe out her navies and her cities. At the very least, we will need to evacuate all coastal locations, and I will need to send correspondence to the Naharans and Silvi. They need to be warned if they are going to protect their people.”

  Altan nodded. “I will do everything I can,” he promised.

  We all quieted as our drinks were served. Afterward, I felt Maggie's eyes on me even before she finally broke the silence. “Kai, you said I had options available to me. What did ya have in mind?”

  I turned to her while pulling my fresh mug of ale toward me. “Join us.”

  Maggie's blue eyes scanned down the line of others at the table before they came back to me. “To fight for Eteri?”

  “No, to fight for me. For the Seran Renegades.” I shrugged light-heartedly. “To be fair, yes, we'll be fighting alongside Eteri for a while. But when I eventually take Sera, you will be welcomed there. I will give all of my Renegades as much prestige as I can as ruler of Chairel.”

  Maggie was quiet for a moment. “I appreciate the offer, love.”

  “But?” Nyx prodded from down the table.

  Maggie shook her head. “But nothing. I really do appreciate the offer. I just didn't expect it, is all. I'm not one of your friends, and I certainly ain't as pretty as you lot.”

  “I saw you fight in Tal,” I replied. “Strength like yours is rare, and you'd be a great help once we go to Hammerton.”

  “What are ya plannin' on doing in Hammerton?” She questioned.

  “Stealing siege weapons for our conquest of Chairel.”

  “Ah.” Maggie chuckled. “I suppose I would be a great help to ya, then.”

  “Afterwards, I'd love to have you in Sera developing weapons and defenses for me, if that sounds good to you. This is all just an idea, of course. Feel free to leave at any time or say no entirely.”

  Maggie smiled warmly. “Nah, love, that sounds like quite the deal. I think I might take ya up on that offer.”

  “And that's how you treat people,” Altan piped up, his voice tinged with admiration.

  “Yes, have we learned anything?” Nyx teased him, to which the Sentinel sighed heavily.

  “Have you mistreated our guests, Altan?” Uriel asked. It was the first time I'd heard the healer talk in a while. I hoped our upcoming trip to find Aleyah would allow us to get to know both him and Cyrus a bit better.

  “The queen put me in charge of the whole test fiasco,” Altan replied, motioning toward Azazel, who sat beside me. “He was nearly blinded. Who do you think was blamed?”

  I turned to Azazel. I hadn't checked on his eyes in the last few days of travel back to Mistral. The archer wore his black hood, and the side of its fabric separated his face from mine. I reached up, brushing it back. Azazel jerked a bit in his chair, surprised.

  “Oh.” He laughed softly. “Kai.”

  “You're still having trouble seeing out of this side?” I questioned, since he hadn't noticed movement until I'd pulled the side of his hood back.

  “Yeah...” Azazel lifted a finger, putting it before the center of his right eye and then moving it outward, stopping the digit in the air beside his cheekbone. “This is where my blind spot starts.”

  I nodded. At this point, there was no saving the peripheral vision of his right eye. We had done everything we could, and it had a chance to heal for the past weeks. Azazel's vision was mostly back to normal, save for that one impairment. “To be fair, Azazel, your peripheral vision is still good over here. Not as good as it used to be, maybe, but just as good as a human's.”

  “We'll just call this my bad side,” Azazel jested.

  “Ah, ain't that precious,” Maggie mused. “The boy thinks he has a bad side.”

  “That's what I was thinking,” Nyx laughed, fanning herself as if she were hot.

  Azazel tugged his hood back into place but said nothing, embarrassed.

  I turned to Bhaskar. The previous conversation of using his powers reminded me of just how old he was. He barely looked like he was in his thirties in human years, which meant he might have had thousands of years left. I wondered how long the gods truly could live if they weren't so keen on killing each other.

  “Bhaskar,” I said, getting his attention.

  “Yes, Kai?”

  “You have been alive for an absurdly long time,” I started, my eyes flicking around to ensure the others in the tavern were not overhearing. Most of the patrons were already drunk. “What do you know of the Ancients?”

  Bhaskar's eyebrows raised at the question. Cerin turned to me and mentioned, “I didn't think you wanted to know any more about them. The ruins in Nahara bothered you.”

  “The ruins of Nahara?” Bhaskar questioned, curious.

  “We were in Nahara a few years ago, building an alliance with them. We came across these metal ruins in the desert, protected by these dark creatures called anubites. They were killing our men, but they refused to kill me.” I paused, thinking back to that night. I was still disturbed by it because I didn't fully understand it. “I went into those ruins, and the anubites let me. Everything was metal and glass. There were these...” I trailed off, trying to find the right word. “...tubes that looked like they housed the Ancients, but all of them were empty. There were also tiny tubes of glass that held blood. And maps of the stars. The anubites let me see all this, and they didn't attack when I left, but they didn't offer any explanations, either.”

  Bhaskar tilted his head at my story, intrigued. “Isn't that interesting?”

  “...what part?” I asked, before a laugh.

  “You call them anubites,” Bhaskar mused, before taking a swig of ale. “We always called them protectors.”

  “The Naharans called them anubites,” I replied, “though we figured that protecting was what they were doing. Do you...know of more of these ruins?”

  Bhaskar nodded. “All over the world, Kai, but most are unable to be accessed any longer. Nahara's vessels are the most recent. Showed up there a thousand or so years ago. As far as I know, Glacia's were the first.”

  “Wait...what?” I frowned, confused. “What do you mean they showed up a thousand years ago? I've been told that the Ancients created the gods at the beginning of the Golden Era.”

  “Some of them, Kai,” Bhaskar replied. “The oldest gods were created then, when we first started tracking time. But the gods cannot easily breed. They were killing each other before they could repopulate. More of these vessels kept coming, spreading to different lands and birthing gods of various powers. As I said, Nahara's were the last, and that's probably why they are still visible. The others have been overcome with the changing lands. Nahara still needs time to erase evidence they were ever there at all, with its shifting sands.”

  “You talk about the ruins as if they were not built by the Ancients,” I pointed out.

  “No, they were.”

  “Then where are they?” I questioned. “If the Ancients just built the ruins in Nahara a thousand years ago, surely they still live amongst the people, or even in hiding. They created the gods, after all, and the gods live for thousands of years.”

  Bhaskar shook his head. “The Ancients were never here.”

  The rest of the table fell silent. Our waitress came back to serve our food. I waited until she was gone to ask, “How is that possible?”

  Bhaskar absently cut through a slab of venison as he replied. “I don't have all the answers, Kai. None of the gods left do. All
I know is that those ruins are the wombs of the Ancients. The gods were birthed there, at various intervals in the Golden Era. That is why you were able to enter them. The protectors have some method of judging blood types. The secrets of the Ancients were not supposed to be discovered, but they must have anticipated that the gods would need their help to start a civilization on Arrayis, hence why they allowed the gods back through to the vessels. The gods of the earliest days included Jediael, the god of knowledge, and Vita, the goddess of life. Those two gods are the reason civilization was built on Arrayis at all. The rest of the gods were just babes in this world, without a clue as to where to begin or how to utilize their powers.”

  “So you're saying that Jediael built up Arrayis with his knowledge of the Ancients, and Vita created the lesser races?” Anto questioned, trying to follow.

  “Essentially, yes. At least, as far as I know. Again, this was before my time, but I have heard things from over the years.” Bhaskar hesitated a moment, taking the time to chew a piece of venison.

  “Where are Jediael and Vita?” I asked the other god.

  “Dead,” Bhaskar replied. “Once civilization was started and the lesser races began to populate themselves over the continents, the gods were fighting for precedence and power. Jediael and Vita were the most highly revered of them all. So, naturally,” Bhaskar waved one golden hand through the air as if to mimic the motions of life, “they had to go.”

  “Taking any chance of learning more about the Ancients with them,” Cerin murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “How did the Ancients birth the gods without being here?” Jakan piped up, lifting up one finger. “I'm still stuck on that one.”

  Bhaskar pointed to the ceiling of the tavern. “Their vessels came from the skies, friend. Those ruins you are talking about were not built on Arrayis. The lesser races have scurried around the world for centuries trying to figure out where they can find the metal of the Ancients. It is a fruitless endeavor. It is not of this world.”

  The skies. I thought back to all of the artwork the Ancients had plastered in the ruins. All of it had been of the sky and its constellations. To think that anything else could exist outside of Arrayis intrigued me. I'd just never given it much thought before.

  “Why was there blood in their...vessels?” I questioned, confused.

  Bhaskar shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps it was to aid the gods in some way. Whatever purpose for that is lost to us, with Jediael and Vita gone. We know the Ancients were not perfect with their creations. After all, most of the gods have exterminated each other by this point, and...” He looked over at me knowingly.

  “What?”

  “You are a mistake in their design,” the god finally said. “The blood of the gods was not supposed to be able to mix with mortals. It never has, but here you are. It is part of the reason why the other gods fear you, by the way. You are an anomaly of the gods. Some of them fear what that means. Some of them wonder if the Ancients are reasserting their power over the world by changing the rules.”

  I frowned. “I know so little of the Ancients or why I was born the way I was. I have no idea why they would think that.”

  “Because they don't care about what you know, Kai. They care about what you are. And what you are has never been seen before, and it scares them. They are used to having power. Now that we're in the Mortal Era, most of them are used to being safe while also holding the title of legend. You threaten all of this, not only because you are an anomaly, but because you refuse to abide by the rules they set for themselves centuries ago. You are...what, in your twenties? The youngest gods other than you are centuries upon centuries old. There may come a day when you and you alone rule this world as a god, and that frightens and enrages them. Besides, you are seeking power. You could undo their history.”

  “That is not why I fight,” I protested.

  “No, but that doesn't really matter, does it?”

  I exhaled heavily. “What do you think, Bhaskar? Why do you think I am here, as a half-breed who shouldn't exist?”

  “Truly?” Bhaskar sat back in his chair, pondering it. “I don't think it has a gods damn thing to do with the Ancients. I think you are a mistake of nature. It happens from time to time. The blood mutates in the body and births a child with a defect. Your mother fucked every man she ever wanted, Kai, and she is...what?” His eyes rolled upward as he thought. “Six hundred or so years old? The fact that she's only ever been pregnant once is weirder to me than the fact you exist. It was bound to happen. Your father was powerful, for being a human. Somehow, the rules of the gods were passed to him, and you received his powers, only they are magnified.”

  “Why am I the only one?” I questioned. “I have never heard of any gods of magic before. Why is this?”

  Bhaskar chuckled. “Kai, what do you think all of us gods are? We are mages, in one form or another. The power of the sun is magic. Hades's necromancy is magic. Cicero's powers stem from magic. Can you imagine how powerful each of them would be if they had access to everything you do? They would be unstoppable. This is another reason why I don't believe the Ancients intended on you happening. They created the gods to complement each other, to be able to fight one another in even combat. You have the potential to be the most powerful god who has ever existed. You have the everlasting and growing power potential of Hades, combined with every other magic this world has ever known.”

  That was true. Hades was the only man I'd met that I couldn't kill, and he just had access to one element. I had all six, plus I'd learned the lesser schools of magic as well.

  “There has never been a god of magic before you,” Bhaskar finally said, “because I think the Ancients knew the immense powers of such a god could get out of hand. The Ancients were afraid to create someone like you.”

  Fifteen

  Altan's farewell to us and the small army we were leaving Mistral with was plagued with longing and regret. Since we had leveled with him after our fall out in Tal, he'd opened up to us and seemed generally happy to have new friends with which to mutually complain about the queen. I wasn't sure how far Queen Tilda would go in her punishment of the first Sentinel, but he had shown her no signs of dissent, so I didn't spend much time worrying for his well-being.

  Altan had informed us that the queen's primary concern, for now, was the protection of Makani. It was the closest city to Narangar, which made it convenient for Chairel to attack. Also, given that Narangar was a dwarven settlement of Chairel, it was possible they would have more incentive to attack to distract Eteri from thinking of invading their kin in Hammerton. Makani and Scirocco were the two cities of Eteri with harbors large enough to launch navies from, and Scirocco was currently defended and guarded by Zephyr, the fourth Sentinel. Makani, then, was the only port city left without a Sentinel. It was impossible to know just how much intel Chairel had of the movements of Eteri's armies. Makani was leaderless, yes, but its harbor was nearly full of warships, save for the few Naolin and her army had taken to defend Esen in the north from the Icilic. On the other hand, Scirocco was guarded, but its harbor was mostly empty. The warships kept there had been used to transport Kirek and her army to Nahara in New Moon. Even so, Scirocco was held out of view of the open seas between Eteri and Chairel given its placement on a long and narrow canal.

  Had Chairel been studying the movements of Eteri's navies? Did they have spies reporting information back to them? We had no idea, but we had to be prepared for the worst. It was this reason that Altan and I theorized the queen would soon send him with his army to Makani. Bhaskar could fight without his power of the sun, but Queen Tilda's plan for Glacia required him alive, so her protection of him was stringent. She'd always wanted to keep him in Mistral. That left only Altan. As much as the queen wished to make a point and punish him, he was needed elsewhere.

  Our Renegades were joined by Cyrus and Uriel, along with five hundred Vhiri soldiers. It was a smaller army than the past few I'd led, but we weren't planning on coming across a
ny considerable threat. Our only mission, for now, was locating Aleyah and taking her out, which would hopefully keep the gods off of my trail and Bhaskar's. The last thing we needed was to have to worry about the gods during a war in which three countries were our enemies. Given that Aleyah was the goddess of communication and travel, I had hope that her powers would not be offensive in nature. The stone creatures that were said to protect her would optimistically be all we would have to contend with. Even if everything went well during our mission, however, we weren't planning on returning to Mistral for at least three moons. The trek from the capital city to northern Eteri was long, and we only had clues pointing us in the right direction of Aleyah's hideout. Depending on how long it took us to find her, it could very well be a year's long journey. That worried me, for the war would not rest.

  We headed northeast on the Ternion Trail, the same branch which would take us to Makani if we didn't have to divert from the path in the middle of Eteri. The Orna Cliffs rose high on our left, while the famous Eteri plains opened up to our right in waves of green. In the midst of High Star, the weather was the hottest it would ever get, and central Eteri was known to be the hottest, given its lack of shade. The constant breezes of New Moon had died down quite a bit, only blessing us sparingly with bursts of cool air. Everything I'd heard so far from the Vhiri led me to believe that northern Eteri had the fiercest weather and land so our journey would change drastically over time.

  Cyrus and Uriel were much more talkative without Altan around, which was a relief since I wanted to get to know them. Altan's fiery personality matched his element, and given that Cyrus and Uriel wielded water and life respectively, it seemed that the personal similarities to the elements could stretch farther than appearances. The two Sentinels talked to one another with a familiarity that I found interesting given that Cyrus's rank was far above Uriel's.

  On the first night of travel, we set up camp just between Ternion Trail and the Orna Cliffs. Eteri's armies were as well-equipped for camping as they were for anything else, for there were enough tents and bedrolls for everyone. Even though the sun had barely started to set, it was darker than usual as we settled down for the night, since the last of the light from the skies was blocked by the looming walls of rock to the west.