by Amanda Sun
NINETEEN
THE WORLD IS too bright when I try to open my eyes. There’s a sound like rushing wind, but I don’t feel cold. It takes a while for things to come into focus—the sunshine is bright in the room, the walls whitewashed and clean. I turn my head and hear the whistling of fabric against my hair. I’m in a bed, covered with patchwork blankets. White bandages are looped around my right arm up to my elbow and around my head. I’m not in my red dress now, but a simple white linen shift.
My head throbs as I try to remember what happened. Then it floods back, hitting me with the force of a tome dropping on my skull. The airship—Jonash staring at me with wide, panicked eyes. The ship firing on me. Firing. Tumbling over the mountainside into the prickly branches, and darkness after that.
I try to speak, but it comes out as an incoherent moan.
I hear a chair push back and someone stumbles in the corner of the room. Warm, calloused fingers slip through mine. “Kali,” Griffin says. “I’m here.”
“Where are we?” I blink a few more times, the room coming into clearer focus. There’s an arched doorway and a window; the breeze is pleasant and salty and warm.
“The ocean,” he says.
The ocean? “What’s that sound?” The rushing rises and falls, but the wind is steady, so it can’t be the same.
“It’s the waves,” he says. “The waves on the shore. Remember when we saw the huts on the shore from the mountain? We’re safe for now. Don’t worry.”
“I can’t remember what happened,” I say. “After I fell into the bushes.”
“They thought you were dead and just came after me,” Griffin says. “So I led them away from you and managed to fool them into thinking I was dead, too. When the airship was gone, I managed to reach you and bring you down the mountain.”
He’s saved me again. He probably came here remembering the huts, thinking I was in no condition to cross the marshlands back to the haven.
“Ashes,” I say. “My head feels like a stone wall collapsed on top of me.”
Griffin laughs gently and reaches to smooth my hair behind my ear. “You’ll be okay.”
“She’s awake,” says a voice I don’t know, and there’s a new person there, blocking the light streaming in from the doorway.
He’s tall and slender, dressed in cropped brown furs and leather. There’s a medium-sized dagger hanging at his hip and a shorter one beside it, but the double sheath is made of braided palm branches instead of leather. His hair is black and cut short on his head. He wears one of the brown furs as a cape, the way Griffin and I wear the karu cloaks—his is sealskin, Griffin later tells me, a brown creature from the ocean. And the man’s ear is pierced with wire, attached to a dangling spiral of iridescent shell.
He reaches his hand out to me, and I take it. His fingers are much thinner than Griffin’s, but also calloused. His arms are less muscled and tanned, but there’s a strength to him that I can feel in his hands. He’s worked hard to stay alive—it shows in his chestnut eyes.
“Welcome, Kallima,” he says. “My name is Tashiltu, but you can call me Tash. And I’m glad to see you feeling better.”
“Thank you,” I say, but I’m thinking what a strange name he has. It sounds a bit like the names we have on Ashra, inspired by the words associated with the Phoenix. But I’ve never heard a name quite like it.
“Kali,” Griffin says. “Tash is the one who dressed your wounds. He’s one of five survivors here. Five! Living in one place!” His eyes are gleaming. It’s small, but this is one of the rumored villages that he’d hoped existed. This is a place of survival.
Tash nods. “We’re not as brave as this monster hunter here. We’ve survived by hiding, mostly. We fish, and we hide from the airships. There aren’t many monsters in this area except Leviathans, and they don’t often come this close to the shore.”
“You do get behemoths, though?” Griffin asks.
Tash nods. “It’s hard to find a landscape that doesn’t. But the barren shoreline makes them easy to spot.”
Something he’s said sluggishly makes its way through my aching brain. “You...hide from the airships?” I say. “Are you fallen? From Burumu?”
“Ah,” Tash says, exchanging glances with Griffin. “We can talk about it when you’re feeling better.”
I sit up, and immediately wish I hadn’t. The room spins, and I have to lie back down. Griffin reaches for my arm with concern. “No,” I say. “Tell me everything. Please.”
Griffin nods at Tash, who takes a deep breath.
“I’m not fallen,” he says. “I’m Benu.”
My thoughts swim. Benu. Where have I heard that before? Then I remember—Aliyah’s story of Operation Phoenix. “The Benu were the original people on the floating continents,” I say. “But they were all killed three hundred years ago.”
Tash shakes his head. “Most were,” he says. “We’ve survived in secret, just handfuls of us.”
“What? But...”
“Show her, Tash,” Griffin says.
Tash nods, and turns around. He slips his seal fur to the side, and my aching head can barely understand what I’m seeing.
Wings. Wings that burn with red-and-orange flame that somehow don’t ignite anything they touch. The plumes are folded in tightly from shoulder to hip, with broad spikes of bone at the tops, like a cross between dragon and bird. They look like...like the wings on the Phoenix statue.
The seal fur swings in front of them again, and Tash turns around.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“They say we are half monster, descendants of the Phoenix over thousands of years. And since Operation Phoenix, the Elite Guard of the floating lands have hunted us down,” Tash says. “That’s why we hide from the airships. There are Benu surviving everywhere, even on the floating continents.”
“That’s impossible,” I blurt, trying to sit up again. Griffin reaches out a worried hand to support my back. The room spins a little, but only for a moment. “I would’ve seen people with fiery wings.”
Tash shakes his head. “The Elite Guard catch them when they’re born,” he says. “If they have wings, they rip them out. And if the parents can’t keep the secret, then the children are taken.”
“Taken?” It gets more ludicrous by the minute. And yet, there’s a horror to it that sinks into my skin. Is it true? Could it be? “Tash, with all respect, I’m the daughter of the Monarch. We’d notice if babies started disappearing, or were born with flaming wings.”
“Kali, listen to him,” Griffin urges gently. I look into his hazel eyes as they plead with me. He trusts Tash. There must be truth to it, but I can’t understand.
Tash sits at the foot of the bed. “Let me explain,” he says. “The population on the floating continents is small, yes? And when a baby’s born, a representative of the Elders always comes to present a gift.”
I nod. They bring a customary red feather as a sign of the Phoenix’s blessing. Mine was the good-luck charm I told Griffin about, the plume that swirled over the edge of the outcrop long ago.
“But what they’re really doing is checking the baby for Benu heritage. If one of the parents is already tagged and on file, they know what’s coming. But sometimes even the mother or father doesn’t know the origin of the scars on their back from the ripped-out wings. Their parents never told them, and so they’re alarmed when their baby has them.”
The midwives are Initiates of the Elders. And it’s true that sometimes, very rarely, a member of the Elite Guard will follow up on an Elder’s visit to a newborn.
“There are only a handful of Benu on the continents, mostly in Burumu. And if the family refuses to cut out the wings...well, sad to say, no one bats an eye if one baby doesn’t survive its infancy. And if the parents can’t deal with the truth, then they are silenced, too.”
I swallow, a hard lump in my throat. “The fallen,” I say, and Tash nods.
“Only, the truth is starting to get around, and we’ve had many fallen over the last year. Things are getting worse in the outer continents.”
“Tash and I have been talking,” Griffin says. “We think it’s related to the rebellion you told me about.”
“We have contacts in Burumu,” Tash says. “The unrest under the Sargon is reaching a critical mass. There isn’t enough food or housing. And instead of managing things, he’s riling up the population by blaming the Monarch. Some of the rebels even believe he’s secretly aiding them, that he’s the one who printed the papers to pass around about the true origins of the continents.”
The paper the lieutenant burned. I can hardly speak. “But why? Why would he do this?”
“Using the timing to his advantage,” Griffin suggests. “To take control of Ashra. It’s what a monster would do. Take a moment of weakness to use for his own gain.”
“The Sargon isn’t a monster,” I say. “He’s the Eye of the Phoenix that watches over us. It’s always been that way. And I’m marrying his son, for ash’s sake. He’s already secured the Eternal Flame through our betrothal.” Griffin’s face blazes red.
“But he didn’t know for sure until your engagement was announced,” Tash says. “And now that you’ve fallen, he’s back to his original plan, I imagine. This has been building for years, Kallima. It’s just coming to a boil after all this time.”
Then Jonash and I have been nothing but pawns in a dangerous game of politics. How dare the Sargon use us like this to his own gain? But Jonash...he fired on me. A chill swirls around me as I start to wonder. Could he be in on it, too? Was he not ignorant when I asked him, but merely pretending to be?
And my heart breaks for the children and the parents thrown over the edge of the continent, without my father’s knowledge, or mine. Betrayed because their child was born with wings and they refused to rip them out.
Outside, the waves wash against the shore in their soothing rhythm. It’s warm inside the hut, and Griffin’s karu cloak hangs over the back of the chair in the corner. He turns to look at Tash, and I see the crescent scars on his back, still as deep as ever, while the hazu bite has paled to almost nothing.
And then I put my hand to my mouth as the realization hits me.
The warm bread his mother used to bake. The toddler found crying in the fields below Ashra. The scars on his back.
“Griffin,” I breathe. “It was you. You were the child in Ulan who fell off the edge fourteen years ago.” The one whose mother jumped to her death with grief—or, perhaps, was pushed when she threatened the truth.
“Yes,” Tash nods, as Griffin’s eyes gleam with the weight of the realization. He and Tash have already figured this out while I was resting. “The scars on his back are those of the wings ripped out in infancy. He’s a fallen, and he’s Benu, from the royal lineage of the Phoenix herself.”
“But the barrier—your mother. She must be alive somewhere!”
“It’s possible,” Griffin says, but his eyes show he doesn’t believe it. “It was fourteen years ago. Even if she survived a while, she would’ve lacked the skills to fight monsters. She’s likely long gone by now.”
Did Griffin tumble from Ashra’s edge? Was he thrown? I can’t be sure anymore, but I do know this—Griffin is from the floating continents. He’s from Ulan. He was born to my world, and he is Benu, descendant of the Phoenix.
And he’s one of the rightful heirs to the floating lands.
“Is that why the Elite Guard fired on us?” I ask.
“Their lieutenant is probably worried you’ve found out the truth,” Tash says, tapping his finger thoughtfully against his cheek. The motion makes his earring spiral and sway. “And when they saw Griffin with you, wing scars or not, they’d know you’ve seen the survivors.”
My head throbs with confusion. “But they don’t know humans are alive down here.”
“They know the fallen are here,” he says, “and they know somehow they’re getting allies into Burumu and Nartu. They’re frightened, because the humans and Benu are forming an alliance to confront the Monarch, and somehow dropping them off the continents isn’t stopping the rebellion or the word from getting around. The rebels are planning to overtake the Monarch to stop the atrocities against the Benu and our allies.”
“That can’t be right,” I say. “If my father knew, he’d stop it immediately. He wouldn’t tolerate treason from the Sargon, and he’d certainly never stand for children being victimized like this. If he knew of survivors struggling down here, he’d welcome them to the floating continents.”
“Your father is the one who ordered the rebels thrown off Burumu,” Tash says. “And one of his duties is to oversee the register of Benu children.”
“My father would never do that,” I whisper, but I’m not sure what to believe anymore. I fall back to the bed, my head spinning.
“It’s too much,” Tash says. “I’ll see if Lilia can bring something for her.”
“I’ll stay here,” Griffin says, wrapping his warm hands around mine.
Tash smiles. “You always do,” he says, and then he’s gone, the sunlight streaming in from the doorway where he stood.
“Griffin, it’s not true,” I tell him. “My father wouldn’t do that.”
Griffin holds my hand tightly. “I believe you.”
It’s horrible that there was a massacre. It’s horrible that those who are finding out the truth are being thrown over the sides of the continent like unwanted garbage. But I can’t understand exactly why this is all causing such unrest. Should we be ashamed of a massacre from three hundred years ago? Yes. But we aren’t the same generation who made that decision. Surely we can acknowledge it and try to do better. Why would the Elite Guard rip out wings and throw people over the edge and incite anger?
I switch gears in my mind, access my regal tutelage to decipher the politics of it. Conditions on Burumu must be terrible. Food and housing shortages, long work hours in the mines and industries. And the Sargon, fearing for his own family and seeing an opportunity to advance, pins the blame on the Monarch. The rest—the Benu, the concealed shame of our origins on the island, the truth—is oil spilled on a flame, igniting in a blaze that will destroy thousands.
It makes sense, unfortunately. How could we have not seen it coming? We must stop it before it’s too late. But how?
“I have to get back,” I tell Griffin. “I have to talk to my father.”
He nods. “Then we’ll get you back. Whatever it takes. I promise.”
* * *
Lilia brings fish soup a while later, her curly red hair framing her shy face. She curtsies as she come in and helps me drink the pale broth as she talks about her childhood in Burumu. When she turns to put the bowl down, I see the scars on her back, the same as Griffin’s.
“My parents managed to keep the origin of my scars a secret, even from me,” she tells me. “They were too afraid to share the truth and put the watchful eye of the Elite Guard on me. But I met another girl with the same scars, and her parents had told her the truth. We heard there were others with more knowledge about who we really were, about the Benu and their history. I wanted to know more about where I’d come from. But there was a raid by the Elite Guard that night, and we were caught and thrown over the edge.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “If my father had known, he never would have allowed it. We would’ve come for you.”
She smiles, but I can’t tell if she believes me.
“And the other girl lives here, too?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “A Leviathan attacked her fishing boat a year ago,” she says, her eyes misting with tears.
I don’t know what to say, so I apologize over and over, and she tells me it’
s all right.
When she leaves, Griffin helps me stand and we walk slowly along the shore of the ocean together. It isn’t the way I’d imagined seeing it, surrounded by sadness and confusion and the embers of rebellion. But I’m here, and Griffin’s here, and I never dreamed I’d see it in any way except the faded red-brown ink of the annals.
The sand is almost white, and it sinks beneath my feet like warm, soft moss. The grains stick to my soles, and they’re sharp, but pleasantly so. It’s not like the sand around Lake Agur, which is dark and packed and fine. I kneel and scoop a handful of it; some of the grains are tiny fragments of shells or colored glass. They’re like collected shards of memory, millions of forgotten stories laid out against the turquoise of the lapping water.
Griffin and I dip our toes in the cool foam of the waves as they rush up to the shore and soak into the sand before they retreat. Tangles of seaweed are tugged back and forth by the waves, and tiny mussels lie scattered in their dark brown shells. I pick one up and toss it as far into the ocean as I can. It disappears into the water with a slurp.
Above us the gulls call to one another, dipping and diving on the warm salty wind. One of them dives down to catch a fish, but a small Leviathan arches into the air and catches it, disappearing under the surface of the water with a splash of white foam. I shudder, thinking of the Dark Leviathan who almost ate us.
Beauty and danger go hand in hand on this earth. And yet there’s freedom here, a peacefulness in my soul. I’m still with Griffin, and he’s with me.
I slide my fingers into his palm and lean my shoulder against his.
“I’m going to make everything right,” I say. “And when it’s done, I want to come back here with you and see the ocean again, with only gladness in my heart.”
Griffin says nothing, but his fingers squeeze mine more tightly, the beads and lacing on his forearm pressing against my skin.
TWENTY
WE SPEND A few more days recovering in the tiny fishing village of winged and de-winged Benu. It’s getting less unnerving to see the flaming feathers peeking out from under their seal-fur cloaks. Tashiltu and I have been talking about how to get back to the floating continents, although he’s not as supportive of my plan to get home.
