by Amanda Sun
I look at Griffin, his face earnest and concerned. “You’ve got that look again.”
I lift a hand to my cheek. “What look?”
“Like the world is on your shoulders. Whenever you think about going home, you get this faraway look. I know it well. It’s something monster hunters do, too.” He rests his hand on the karu fur and nudges himself closer to me. “Give up our lives for others. But you don’t look like it’s a choice you made. It was made for you.”
I don’t say anything. He’s right again.
He shakes his head. “I wish you’d tell me,” he says. “It’s important to give of ourselves for others, yes. But you look so unhappy when you talk about going home. You have to give yourself a choice, too, Kali.” His face is so close to mine now that his breath gently ruffles the wisps of hair that coil near my ears. “What do you choose?”
What do I choose? I’ve asked myself so many times, but the choice I’ve made has always been with others in mind—my father and his respect, my people. I’ve never been forced, but guided toward a path. And I chose it because I felt like I didn’t have any other choice, because I didn’t want to let anyone down.
But looking into Griffin’s gleaming eyes, I know that I can choose for myself, without worrying yet about the consequences.
I choose this moment, I think. I choose this chance.
My voice comes out as a whisper. “I...I choose...”
Griffin’s hand rests on my cheek, his palm calloused and warm. His eyes are endless hazel like the fields at harvesttime, like comforting bread, warm from the oven.
I lean in toward his soft lips, only inches away. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to care.
I choose Griffin.
His eyes close, and he leans in toward me.
And then I realize with horror that I’ve betrayed him. The only person who ever truly asked me what I wanted. I can’t let him get hurt like this.
I turn my head to the side and look down. His lips stop near my cheek, and his eyes flutter open, confused. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m...I’m engaged.”
Griffin exhales, the breath warm against my cheek. He leans back on his karu fur, staring at his hands.
“It’s not by choice,” I say quickly. “I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. But I’m bound.” There’s so much I’ve been keeping to myself that it floods out in a horrible gush that I can’t stop. “I’m the daughter of the Monarch, the heir to Ashra and her lands. That’s why my life isn’t my own, Griffin. I’m supposed to take over ruling the floating continents. I’m supposed to be the wick and the wax, the Phoenix’s heir. I’m supposed to burn so the people have light.”
He doesn’t say anything at first. Then he says quietly, “When candles burn, Kali, the wick gets charred and thrown away. The wax crumbles into nothing. And then the light goes out.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I wanted to tell you. But after Aliyah told us about Operation Phoenix, and all the horrible things our people did... And before I fell, I found out about a rebel force moving in Burumu. I have to warn my father, and I have to stop it. I’m so sorry, Griffin. I didn’t want you to think the humans up there haven’t changed. I didn’t want you to think I chose someone else. I only wanted to go back and fix everything.”
Griffin is silent, and I know I’ve hurt him. “Of course you wouldn’t want to tell me all that,” he says quietly, and he’s so giving and forgiving that my heart aches and my conscience wails at me. He looks at the waterfall, at the ripples that form on the surface of the little pool that laps against the rock. “What’s his name?”
I don’t want to give it voice, to make it real. But he deserves the truth. “Jonash. He’s the son of the Sargon, who governs the continent of Burumu.”
Griffin lies on his side with his back to me. I want to reach out to him, but I don’t know how. The scars carve down his back in their crescent shapes, and I can only think how I’ve scarred him now, too.
“Griffin, I want to fix it,” I say. “I’ll go back, and I’ll break off the engagement. I’ll tell my father I’m alive, and I’ll get everything sorted out. And then I’ll come back.”
“You can’t,” Griffin says, turning to look at me. “They can’t know humans have survived down here. We know about the past, like the fallen they’ve tossed over the edge. The rebellion has found its way to us through them. They’d think we were part of it, and they’d hunt us down.”
I shake my head. “They won’t. My father isn’t like that. He’ll listen, I know it.”
“But you promised Aliyah,” he says, and the weight of the promise in his eyes burdens my own heart. “You promised you’d keep our secret.”
The last of the sunlight has faded, the world around us growing dark. I listen to the rush of the waterfall. This moment is slipping from me like the water, rushing through my fingers no matter how hard I try to hold on.
“It’s my father,” I say quietly, lying on my fur beside Griffin. He rolls onto his side to face me, even though we can’t see each other well in the dark. “He thinks I’m dead. I need to see him again, to let him know I’m all right. I... I have to go.”
Griffin reaches for my hand in the darkness, lacing his fingers through mine. “I know,” he whispers.
There’s nothing else to say. The current has pulled the bubbling moment away from me. Whatever this was, whatever it could have been...it’s past now, shining like an ancient star floating in the sky.
EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING we climb in silence. We climb before the sun rises through the plumes of fiery orange and red that saturate the sky. We climb through the hot midday sun and the cool of early evening. We wrap around and around the mountain, and I keep trying to think of ways that I can be with Griffin and go home, but I keep coming back to the same fork in the road.
I haven’t known him that long, I understand that. But there’s a spark that spreads through me when I look at him. I want to know more. I want to tell him more. I want the fire I feel to kindle and blaze beyond stopping. I want to see what’s left when it’s all ashes, whether it will rise anew like the Phoenix, whether it will burn through to the real core of me.
I feel like it might.
Instead, we trudge up the mountainside without even a basilisk to distract us. We stop near a plum tree and pick from the laden branches. The fruit is sweet and juicy, a luxurious treat after the dried jerky and berries and gamey basilisk meat. Griffin scales the tree to the very top and picks the finest plum he can find to toss down to me. It makes my heart ache.
I tell him more about the strange scene I saw between Elder Aban and the lieutenant. He doesn’t patronize me the way Jonash did. He asks questions, ponders the meaning, validates my worries. “Something’s not right,” he says, and I see the concern for me in his face. “Shouldn’t the Sargon be more capable than that?”
“He should,” I say. “My father is well loved in Ulan. I can’t imagine a reason for rebellion to rise, unless the Sargon isn’t ruling fairly. I’ll launch an inquest when I get home.”
“But the rebels,” he says.
“The Elders and Elite Guard would never let anything happen to me,” I reassure him, but when I think of the lieutenant’s face when he burned that paper... I’m not sure anything’s under their control at all.
By the time the sun is setting, the air around us has grown so cold we wrap the karu cloaks tight about our shoulders. Frost dusts the ground with a glittering crystal sheen. The sun is setting, and before the world turns dark, I search the skies for airships. But there are none, and we sleep in a small crevice of rock near the summit.
The next day we reach the very top and look out over the world. Everything is miniature from here, but not as small as from Ashra. I can still make out the dragons and hazus on the plains. One of the dragons
’ screeches carries on the wind, the frequency of it carving through my skull like a migraine. The power is awe-inspiring.
“Try this view,” Griffin says with a smile, and I turn away from the plains to look at the landscape from the other side of the mountain.
I can’t breathe for a moment. In the distance, in the sky, I can make out the floating continent of Burumu. But on the ground—no trees, no plains, no marshlands. Just glimmering azure blue, as far as the eye can see.
The ocean. It’s the ocean. I can see tiny white caps of foam like snow spread over top. The water is turquoise near the shore, where a thin strip of white sand snakes between waves and land. There are a couple small huts on the coast, though they’re probably long since abandoned like the other dwellings we’ve passed through. Gulls spread out their wings and float above the sea, hovering on the salty air.
Just then the sun blazes from behind a cloud and lights the whole ocean on fire. It gleams and sparkles like the wings of the Phoenix. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life. The illustrations in the annals could never have captured what it’s truly like.
Griffin passes me a plum and we sit watching the ocean from our mountaintop. We’re too high up to hear the gulls or the water. I wonder if it babbles like the stream, or rushes like a waterfall. We watch the ocean until the light fades, and even then I can still see it in my mind. I dream of standing on the shore with Griffin, searching for seashells and driftwood and slippery silver minnows.
In the morning, Griffin shakes me awake. I rub my eyes while he points upward. “Is that it?”
There’s an oval shape up in the sky, heading toward us over the plains. I can’t see its color, only the black shadow of its underbelly, but the way it tilts and sways, there’s no doubt. It’s an airship.
Adrenaline courses through my veins. The moment has come. The airship is puttering on its path to Burumu, and I have to make sure it can see me. But I frown as I watch it approach. “It’s still too high up,” I say. “They’ll never see me.”
“On it,” Griffin says, and he’s gathering armloads of branches and tufts of dry grass. I gather even more as he strikes his flint and blows gently on the cluster of tinder in his hand. It smokes, the thin trail curling in the cool air.
When the fire has caught on the kindling and is spreading to the branches, Griffin opens his pouch and places the basilisk scales around the fire. He finds rocks to tilt them upward, so they reflect the firelight into the sky. “We’ll make a beacon they won’t miss,” he says. “Hope I don’t blind the pilot.”
The flames are soon roaring into the sky, the basilisk scales glowing brightly with the firelight. It must look as though the mountain is on fire, I think. There’s no way they can miss it. Griffin stands me beside it; it’s not long before they’ll fly directly overhead.
“I have to get out of sight,” he says, and that’s when his words bring me out of the frenzy of building the beacon. This is it. Our final moment together. I’m not ready, but I don’t think I ever could be.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “And I’m grateful.”
Griffin reaches around his neck and unties the cord of seashells. He wraps them around my neck, and I breathe in the warmth of him as his floppy brown hair tickles my cheek. He ties the necklace gently, his hands resting on my shoulders for a moment. Then his hands drop, and his eyes gleam like the garnet gem on my dagger.
My dagger. I move to unlace the sheath, but he shakes his head. “Tell them you found it,” he says. “Tell them you found the karu fur and the dagger on the remains of a fallen monster hunter from a hundred years ago.”
I want to give him something, too, but I have nothing. In desperation, I reach into my pocket and find I still have the piece of flint I’d attached to my flimsy wooden spear. It’s all I have to give, and I place it in the palm of his hand, folding his fingers over it.
“What’s this?” he says.
“A spark,” I say, and he smiles. I want to kiss him more than I’ve wanted anything before, to rest my lips on his and hear my heart break. But it wouldn’t be fair of me to do that to him, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same, because he doesn’t lean in. Instead he puts the flint in his pouch and takes my right hand in his. His lips press against the back of my hand, and I think how soft and smooth they are when the rest of him is calloused and strong.
“Goodbye,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “May happiness follow you.”
I blink back my tears. I’m the wick and the wax, I think. I’ll burn for you, so you don’t have to. This memory will keep me alive when I’m crumbling to nothing. I don’t want him to burn with me. I want this to hurt as little as possible. “And you.”
The airship putters and snorts, and Griffin slips into hiding in a fracture under the rock ledge where we sat and watched the ocean.
I have to wait several minutes until the airship is close enough. I throw more logs on the fire and wave my arms wildly. The mountain summit is bare and pale brown, with a dusting of crystal-white frost. The deep scarlet fabric of my dress will surely stand out as much as the flames on the fire.
I wave until my arms ache, until my eyes blur with tears and I can barely see the airship in the sky. I jump up and down and shout, and I race around the fire in a circle, not knowing if any of it will make a difference.
But then I see the airship getting larger and turning toward me. It’s descending. They’ve seen me. They’re coming.
I cry and laugh as I wave wildly at the oncoming ship. I’m heartbroken and elated, lost and found. I will see my father again. They’ll know I’m alive. Elisha will be waiting on the landing pitch with Elder Aban and Father, and there’ll be feasting and celebrations and the music of the goat-string harps and the whittled wooden flutes. I’ll warn my father of the rebellion and stop it in its tracks.
The airship moves slowly, and still I keep waving and jumping. I let the fire start to die down, because it’s served its purpose. Griffin will collect the basilisk scales when I’m gone.
I should’ve kissed him. I should’ve had the courage. Why did I give up the chance? But it’s too late to think about that now. I have to move forward, as painful as it is.
Two panels open along the sides of the airship, almost the length of its belly. Metal pipes slide out and into place with a sound like a hundred gears catching against each other. I wonder if it’s landing gear. I’m not sure quite how they’ll land on the summit with the fire roaring away. I guess I’d assumed they’d put down a rope ladder.
The pipes wail and spin, clicking and whirring as they zoom in on the mountain top.
When I went on the Rending Anniversary tour with my father, we rode on an airship, but I don’t remember it ever using landing gear quite like that. Why on the sides, and not on the bottom?
And then I hear Griffin’s frantic voice. “Kali! Kali! Get away!”
Get away? I don’t dare look at him and give away his hiding place, but something’s not right.
The airship’s nearly stopped in the air, swaying like a balloon as the pipes whir and home in on me. They’re hollow inside.
“Kali!” he shouts again, slipping out from under the rock. He’s on the summit, racing toward me.
Panic catches in my throat. They’ll see him.
“Griffin, no!” His karu fur is swinging around his neck as he bolts toward me. We collide and he shoves me to the ground.
The metal pipes on the airship fire rounds of ammunition at the place where I stood. One of the bullets ricochets into the fire, and the branches snap and collapse, exploding with flame.
I look over Griffin’s shoulders at the bullet-ridden ground, then at the airship. It hovers there, its metal pipes slowly turning toward our new location.
“Come on,” Griffin says, pulling us to our feet.
The airship is low enough now that I
can see into the row of windows that runs along the perimeter. I can see the wide eyes of soldiers from the Elite Guard as they stare at us. Shouldn’t they have returned to Burumu weeks ago?
And there at the helm, a familiar face looks back at me, his blue eyes wild and panicked as he hunches next to the pilot.
Jonash?
“Jonash!” I call out, waving my arms. He has to recognize me now. But Griffin grabs my arm and pulls me away as another round of bullets drum against the summit, landing a step behind us as we run.
I follow Griffin, my thoughts reeling. None of this makes sense. Jonash saw it was me—I could tell from his expression. If he was close enough for me to see him, then he would definitely recognize me. Maybe he’s afraid of Griffin, but that wouldn’t be any reason to fire on us.
The airship putters around the mountain, following us like a wobbling bubble that we can’t escape. We’re trapped on the mountaintop; every time we wind down, the airship lowers to our height and fires. If we wait, it putters around to the other side where there’s no shelter. If we can get to the cave with the waterfall, perhaps we can hide behind it, but it’s a full day’s walk down the mountain, hours and hours below.
We spiral as quickly as we can, every breath burning in my chest. We stumble across a surprised basilisk, which startles and dashes into a fissure in the rock face. I’m scanning the landscape for a place to hide, but I can’t find one.
Then the airship is in front of us, and a second pair of metal pipes clank into place behind the first two. We dash out of the way, but the ammunition explodes behind us. I hear Griffin cry out as I go flying through the air. It feels like I’ve fallen off Ashra again, like I’m tumbling toward the earth. The cliff of the mountain races away below me, and there’s nothing but underbrush and green and the earth far below.
I hear Griffin shout, “Kali!”
And I feel the impact as my body collides with the jagged bushes that cling to the side of the mountain.
And then my eyes close, and the world goes black.
