Heir to the Sky

by Amanda Sun

  I step past the wide leaves of the blue-and-yellow ferns and follow the line of trees toward the shadow cast by Ashra. The ground slopes down toward the gaping hole of missing land, where the floating island fit centuries ago. The land is jagged like the edges of a deep wound, sharp caverns and deep chasms. Nothing grows in the shadowlands, but on the edges, where the sunlight filters in, sprigs of hopeful trees and vines and weeds sprout in a desperate tangle.

  It would be a good hiding place, but the road is steep down to the shadowed crater—climbing back up would be difficult. And the airships won’t see me underneath the continent. I imagine they’ll search the perimeter where I fell. Jonash will be able to show them the spot, so I shouldn’t stray too far.

  I know they can’t reach me, but I cling to the hope anyway. It’s all I have.

  I walk along the perimeter of the steep hillside for a while, listening carefully, watching my step, watching the skies. The Phoenix is with me, I think. She wouldn’t let her heir be extinguished. It’s a test and also maybe a blessing. I’ve always wanted to see the earth, and it’s every bit as wild and breathtaking as I’ve imagined.

  The forest is full of insects I’ve never seen before, long iridescent bugs that beat two or three pairs of wings as they float from one strange plant to another. A tiny yellow lizard with a bright and glittering blue tail spreads out on the wide leaves of the ferns. And the breeze, that strange wind, carries warmth and heat in it. Surely it must be still warm from the flames of the Phoenix tossing Ashra and her lands sky bound. There’s no other explanation I can think of. The winds on Ashra are cold, but we’re closer to the sun, so the reason must be residual heat left from the Phoenix’s ashen sacrifice.

  I walk along the perimeter of the forest for what seems like hours. There’s no end to the wild lands, no place I can find shelter or a clearing to wave at the airships if they come.

  My stomach growls, and I tense at the sound. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? I think of the honeyed chicken and the puffed cakes at the festival. I reach into my pockets but only find the small piece of flint Elisha passed me with the lantern in the outlands.

  I look around the sparse forest, wondering if there’s anything I can eat. The clusters of tiny red berries cling to the moss underfoot, and I wonder if they’re safe or poisonous. A bird calls out in the sky. Maybe I could take a fallen branch and whittle it with the flint to make a spear. But I’ve never had to hunt before. I’m not sure if I’d know how to lance a bird.

  I bend down and wrap my fingers around a bunch of the berries, pulling it toward me until it plucks free from the brown stem. Each berry is barely the size of a tiny bead. I lift the bunch toward my nose and smell them. They’re pungent, a sickly smell like rotting. I squish one of the berries and the dark red juice runs down my hand like a trickle of blood.

  I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I don’t know how to tell if they’re poisonous or not. But I’ll starve if I don’t eat anything. Surely one cluster wouldn’t kill me. And if I’m sick, then I’ll know for later.

  I reach the berries toward my mouth and bite down on one. The tough skin punctures and sprays my tongue with bitter juice. I cough and sputter, spitting out the taste. The cluster drops and bounces gently against the moss while I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Not edible, then. Not even close.

  My stomach claws against my insides, and my throat is parched. There has to be water somewhere nearby. The trees and moss and birds couldn’t survive without it, could they?

  I trudge forward for what feels like another hour, the remnants of the bitter juice sticking to the insides of my cheeks. My tongue feels like a slab of stone, thick and dry in my mouth.

  At last the trees thin, and there’s a small clearing of bright green tall grasses. The tops of them splay out like the grains we grow in Ulan. I peel the chaff away and pop the seeds I find into my mouth, crunching them desperately before swallowing them. They catch in my dry throat and I cough while my fingers unravel another seed from the grass. If only I’d grown up in the village like Elisha. Then I’d know if this was a crop of wheat or oats or barley, or anything at all that I could eat. My education was all about the Phoenix and how to govern with authority and grace. It was history and language and etiquette, which fork to use when. It seems ridiculous now, standing in this wild landscape. Which fork to use? Why not teach me which wild plants to eat, how to find water, how to identify crops? How far from reality have I been living?

  I scrape at the tops of the prickly grass until my fingers bleed, swallowing down every seed I unwrap. They scratch my throat as they go down, and still my stomach growls as if I’ve eaten nothing at all.

  The wind dips the grass, and I notice a small mound in the distance that doesn’t move with them. It’s just a little curve, a tuft of grass that doesn’t match the others. It’s pale yellow, sticking up just above view. I narrow my eyes and try to see more clearly.

  Two dark black eyes stare back at me.

  Every nerve in my body pulses. A beast. And it’s watching me.

  My mind races. Is it a monster? An animal? It’s immovable, like a stone. I raise myself onto the balls of my feet to see its head better. Its yellow tufted hair fades to purple stripes on either side of its eyes. Its nostrils drip with condensed breath as it stares back at me. But that’s all I can see.

  I pull my hands slowly back from the grass tops. What now? If I run, it will chase. If I yell, maybe I’ll scare it. If I fall over dead, perhaps it will go away, but it may also devour me.

  I reach into my pocket for the sharp piece of flint. It will have to do until I can get my hands on anything else. If I survive this, I’ll whittle a spear from a branch. Ashes and filthy soot, why did I spend all that time aimlessly walking in a world of monsters?

  My foot lands on the leathery leaf of a yellow-and-blue fern, and it snaps in two with a loud crack. The beast lurches forward, a horrible growl echoing through the clearing. It looks like a giant barn cat from Ulan, but massive, the size of the giant Phoenix statue in the citadel courtyard. Its matted fur is striped bright yellow and vibrant purple, and its fangs look like horns curving out of its mouth. Its paws pound against the ground as it comes for me.

  A monster. Not an animal, not harmless or friendly. It’s a monster, out for blood.

  I dart into the trees, clutching the flint in my bleeding fingers. I hope the maze of trunks will slow him down, but I don’t dare to look. I run as fast as I can, my legs tangling in my long red skirts. I can hear his panting and the fall of his huge paws as they tear up the carpet of moss beneath us. I know I can’t outrun him, but instinct takes over. My chest burns as I try to take deeper breaths.

  Then a force like a stone wall shoves me to the ground. The monster’s foul breath floods my nose and his sharp claws dig into my shoulder. I wrench myself to the left, reaching with my flint as his weight holds down my right side. I slice wildly at the air above me, hoping to hit him. The jagged rock scrapes across his moist nostrils and he cries out, shaking his head as dark plum-colored blood trickles down his nose and on to his curved fangs.

  I twist onto my back as the hold of his paw loosens and I strike again, going for his eyes. He rears back and I scramble to my feet, taking off across the field. He’s behind me, and we’re running again.

  A shadow falls over me like a dark cloud. The entire clearing becomes night in an instant. A screeching sound vibrates through my head and I cry out, falling to my knees in pain from the high-pitched noise. The giant cat screeches a horrific version of the wails I’ve heard from barn cats in Ulan, and then a blast of wind nearly knocks me over.

  The shadow lifts from the clearing, the sunlight streaming back in, the tall grasses flattened to the ground from the gale.

  I look up and swear under my breath. A dragon has snatched up the massive cat in its talons. A dragon. A real one. Its black-and-red w
ings stretch out across the clearing as it lifts into the air. Its snout is long and sharp like a beak, and tufts of spiky fur sprout from its head and its breast like a shield of bone needles. Another gust of its wings flings me against the ground. The giant cat squirms in the dragon’s sharp talons as it lifts him away. It shrieks once more, and I clasp my hands over my ears from the pain.

  Then the dragon and the cat are gone. My ears ring as I sit there in shock, panting, my hands bleeding over the flint at my side. After what seems like an eternity, the birds in the forest start chirping again.

  And then the tears come, fast and hot in my eyes. I sit there as the sun begins to set, as the sky tints purple and orange and red, all blurred through my blubbering.

  I’m going to die here on this forsaken wasteland.

  No one is coming for me.

  SEVEN

  LIGHT HAS NEARLY left the sky by the time I get a hold of myself. There’s only a pale purple glow that lights the clearing as I wipe away the last of my tears with the sleeve of my dress.

  Reason starts to flood back into me. For shame, I think. Would I sit and sob about rebellion with Burumu? Would I merely weep if a dragon attacked Ashra? What kind of leader would abandon hope and logic in a time like this?

  I still don’t have a weapon or a safe place for the night, and now I’ve wasted what was left of the daylight. I’m an idiot, a complete and utter dull cinder. I don’t have a chance to survive, but I refuse to die. And so there’s nothing to do but keep burning, like always.

  I clasp the flint in my hand and search the underbrush of the trees for a fallen branch. It’s hard to see in the plum-colored light, but eventually my hand falls on a stick that’s about as long as my arm. I sit down with my back to the trunk and pull the tiny sprigs off along the length of the branch, then take my flint. I squint in the fading light to see what I’m doing. Should I use the flint to make a fire? But I’m frightened it will attract more monsters.

  My whole body aches for water. I put the branch aside and grab a wide leaf from the yellow-and-blue fern. I snap its wide center vein apart and suck on the sticky sap inside. It doesn’t help much, but I’m clueless and desperate. At least I can pretend it feels better.

  I scrape the flint against the wood again, and this time the rock splits in two. I feel around the ground for the second piece. Its sharp edge nearly cuts into my fingers. It’s a better weapon than sharpened wood, I realize, if I could tie it to the spear somehow.

  I reach for the rope belt around my dress and grasp a length of it in my hand. I hold the tasseled end across the flint, sawing back and forth with the sharp edge. The fibers slide apart and I tie the smaller flint piece to the top of the branch, wrapping the string round and round and tying knots. There’s a small but natural groove in the branch that seems to hold the flint in place. I can only hope it doesn’t completely fall apart when I thrust the spear at something. I take the original piece of flint and slip it into my pocket as a second weapon. It’s completely dark now, and I can’t see my handiwork, but there’s a small comfort in holding the homemade spear in my hands.

  The two moons shine high above in the pitch-black sky. The breeze isn’t as warm as it was in the daytime, and I find myself shivering as the night goes on. Sprays of stars glisten through the dark clouds that float above, but a large and vacant blot in the starry map lets me know Ashra is hovering there, silent and safe in the sky.

  I stare up at my home. The fireflies will be out in the outlands. The pikas will gather fireweed and thistles on my outcrop realm of one. The Rending celebrations will continue, the candles flickering along the stone wall in Ulan. Burumu will bustle with its own festivities, and the scribes on Nartu will have tea and cakes and discuss politics with each other until dawn.

  Or maybe they’ll think their princess is dead, and the festivities will stop. Maybe they’ll trade the bright red-and-orange garlands for black veils, the goat-string harps for the mournful carved flutes.

  I have to get back to Ashra. I have to let my father know I’m alive, that I need him to come and get me. I doubt they’d see a fire from up there, even if they were looking. They’d never know it was me who’d created that pinprick dot of flame on this vast earth below.

  In the distance something shrieks, and another thing howls. The sounds are inhuman, monstrous and strange. Throughout the night I find myself starting to doze off, my head slipping against the tree trunk, and then one of those shrieks will pierce the sky, and I’ll jolt awake, my blood running cold. What’s even out there? It looks as though, now that humans are gone, the monsters eat and fight each other. Or perhaps they’ve always done that from what I’ve read. Except for the Phoenix, they’ve never shown sentient thought about anything.

  I close my eyes, and the nighttime blurs into strange thoughts that dance around my head. I wake to thunder that rolls above me in the clouds and air that tastes sour on my tongue. The sky flashes lavender, and then everything is black again while the thunder rumbles. Why hasn’t the daylight come yet? My back aches from the thick bark digging into it, but it’s the only reassurance I have that nothing is creeping up behind me.

  The air buzzes with electricity as another bolt of lightning streaks through the sky. I try to lick my parched lips. Please, I think. By the ashes of the Phoenix, please, let it rain.

  And then the drops fall thick and hard, drenching the tall grasses as they sway from the weight.

  I try to catch the water in my hands, but the sticky blood on them taints it. I rub my fingers together, washing as best I can and trying again. Then I gather up my skirt to catch water, but it soaks into the fabric, weighing down the cloth. I take the corner and squeeze it into my mouth, but only a few drops come out.

  I feel around beside me in the dark and rip off one of the wide fern leaves, shaping it between my cupped hands. It’s almost impossible to wait until it fills, and I tip the raindrops I’ve caught over and over into my mouth. They taste sweet and warm, and though most nights with dinner I have honeyed berry juice in a golden goblet, right now I’ve never had anything more delicious than tepid rainwater in a fern leaf.

  But once the edge of my thirst has faded away, all I can feel is the cold of being pelted by the rainstorm, my dress waterlogged and pulling me firmly to the ground. If a monster came now, I probably couldn’t run fast enough.

  I shiver in the rain, reaching for the flint in my pocket. But I can’t make a fire now. Everything is soaked, the tall grasses bent over from the heavy deluge.

  I close my eyes and think of the warm fireplace in my bedroom of the citadel. I think of the crackle of the logs at night as they sputter and pop with bright flames. I shudder in the cold even as the rain slows and the clouds move on, as the shrieks and piercing wails of monsters echo in the dark around me. I think of my father smiling, of him dancing me around the room when I was only seven on our trip to Nartu.

  The rebellion. I have to warn him, have to find out what’s going on. I think about the strange light I passed through as I fell from Ashra. The pale rainbow glow was as slow as honey around me. Is that why I survived? Was that part of the drawing that had been scratched out?

  Thoughts drift to strange images. I jolt awake, and the sky is flooding with light. The sun is starting to warm the breeze that drifts over the muddy field the clearing has become. The battered tall grasses are hunched over but starting to reach again for the sunlight. Birds are chirping in the trees, and squirrels and pikas are chattering.

  I reach for the spear beside me and stand. Every muscle aches. My muddy skirts pull with weight, so I lean the spear against the tree and wring them out. I consider cutting them shorter with the flint, but I worry I’ll freeze if the nights get any colder. My feet and sandals are covered in cold muck, and they squelch as I shift my weight to stretch. I take a careful breath, but the horrible pain in my ribs is still there, like a rope tied too tightly aro
und my chest. At least my left wrist feels a little better, so it must be only twisted and not broken.

  I’ve survived a whole day in a land overrun by monsters. I will survive another.

  I take my spear and start walking along the edge of the clearing. My stomach throbs with hunger. I search the skies but keep going. I don’t want to go too far from the edge of Ashra’s shadow, in case the airships are looking for me, but I also need to find food, more than just those sharp grains from the tall grasses.

  Ashra floats in the sky like a beacon. I lift my hand upward, as if I could touch it.

  “I’m right here,” I say quietly. “I’m alive. Come find me.” I think of Father and Elisha, of trying to hold on to Jonash as I slipped off the edge. How could this happen? I’ve walked that edge a hundred times. I bitterly wish for a minute that I’d left him to fall off the edge himself, instead of me. But then hot guilt curls in my stomach. I wouldn’t wish this monster-ridden landscape on anyone.

  I feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, so I blink them back and try to think rationally. Food first, water and shelter, and then self-pity. The forest stretches around the perimeter of the shadowy land as far as I can see. In the distance is a line of mountains looming far away, some of the peaks dusted in snow. Winged beasts in the sky far away, some like giant birds and others more like the dragon I saw yesterday. Ashes. This world really is flooded with the beasts. The rest of my view is blocked by a thick jumble of trees on a wide hill. I look to my right, along the tree line. There’s a cluster of greener bushes and ferns in the distance, where the terrain turns rocky. Could it be a river?

  I walk back along the right tract of forest. It’s not lost on me that I’m almost retracing my steps from yesterday, returning to the patch where I originally fell. If I’m right, that there’s water there, I was probably no more than an hour’s walk from it yesterday.