Kingdoms of Ether (Kingdoms of Ether Series Book 1)

by Ryan Muree

  Clove cringed and approached the body slowly. Oh, he was dead, but she wasn’t sure she was comfortable witnessing how dead he was. He had to be only a year or two older than she was, and he was skinny with the dirtiest fingernails she’d ever seen. Blood pooled beneath his body, and a perfect entry and exit hole in either side of his head oozed.

  “Damn good shot,” Cayn said, walking up to her. “You are a beautiful piece of work my friend.” He kissed the side of his gun and thanked the Goddess of Ingenuity.

  “No. You took too long.”

  He shrugged. “I got him though.”

  “You didn’t have to kill him.” She rifled through the guy’s jacket and pockets and got their bag of money and a couple other things Cayn thought he might sell back in Dimmur. “What happened to make love and make love again?”

  “So now you’re upset when I finally shoot someone?”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, I’d like to know why you made me chase after him if you were going to kill him.” She wrestled with the frizzy strands of her hair, trying to get them back in her too-loose elastic.

  “Well, I didn’t shoot him because you chased after him. Can’t risk shooting my favorite sister.” He smirked and dusted his hands off. “And once you’d started, I thought: Why stop you?”

  She shook her head and scowled at him. “Then why let him get nearly to the roof?”

  Cayn bit his lip and smiled wide. “If I have to shoot, it’s good to know I still have it.”

  She rolled her eyes and picked up the thief’s feet with a grunt. “We need to hide the body.”

  “There were no witnesses.” He didn’t move to help. “We don’t have to do anything. It’s Luckless.”

  Spirits, she despised Luckless.

  “Fine.” She dropped the guy’s legs and turned for the main street. She didn’t want to think about it anyway. She wanted to get the things they needed and get out. She couldn’t stress enough that the sooner they left the better.

  “Where are you going?”

  She waved him to join her. “To the market or whatever. Trent said we had to get weapons—”

  “But I’ve found that, too.”

  Cayn made finger-guns at a miniature metal door at the bottom of the brick wall the thief had been climbing. Chicken-scratch had been painted on it in a random order, but the last half at least looked like the word market. It wasn’t big, no bigger than a crate, at least.

  He knocked on the bricks in a few places around the door, and the metal swung open with a creak and a bang. It revealed a broken staircase descending underneath the building, and it was only wide enough for one person at a time. There were at least a few ether-lamps at the bottom.

  Cayn smiled. “Ladies first?”

  Chapter 17

  Observation deck — Zephyr Airship

  Emeryss took a cleansing breath.

  Too many things were swimming through her mind and distracting her from casting. Mainly, she was excited for the escort ship, thinking about actually going home after waiting for so long. The situation wasn’t ideal, but with the sea, the air, her family, their food, all waiting for her, she couldn’t help it. There were so many things she wanted to share with Grier.

  And Grier…

  That was the other thing she’d obsessively thought about. She had a hard time believing her memory of the zipper incident from those few nights before. It’d happened—certainly. But not anything like it had happened since.

  I need more time, he’d said.

  She snuck a glimpse at Grier during her break in casting practice. His eyes seemed to be studying the sky beyond the stormstone dome above them.

  That night with the zipper had been more than a little confusing. She’d been happy he was safe, that Avrist had shown his true colors, that Grier had defended her. She’d wanted to thank him and tell him she understood how twisted he was over the library’s actions. Instead, everything between them was somehow… messier.

  So, he had feelings for her? Or wanted to? They’d barely said a few words since, so it didn’t seem likely. But he’d implied that he couldn’t let himself act on those feelings because of the rules. Or was it because of his captain? Because of his future? Or all of the above?

  Was it his way of saying he wasn’t rejecting her, and he just couldn’t be with her?

  I need more time.

  And then what? Then they could have a relationship? No, not possible either. It was too confusing, especially when she remembered his finger trailing along her spine.

  “Emeryss?” Vaughn stood beside Jahree with a concerned look. “I wanted to ask if you had gotten around to writing some more sigils for me?”

  She swallowed. She had, but she’d been slow—incredibly slow—these last few days. Not that she needed the voices to repeat things for her to get them right. It was more she couldn’t hear them at all in some moments, and in others, the ether phased in and out of view. Her fingers had worked slower, and the most she’d gotten done was a few pages—an abysmal result for a couple hours of scribing. It was as if she had been learning for the first time.

  It had to be because of her casting and staying up late practicing. She’d worked harder these days than she had at the library. It was bound to take its toll.

  “I got some done,” she said. “I’ve just been… exhausted, I think. Stressed about casting and going home. I’ll finish the rest of your book tonight.”

  He nodded.

  “All right. Let’s try this again,” ordered Adalai.

  Emeryss stepped into the center of the small courtyard on the observation deck and turned to face the other Zephyrs who’d made it routine to watch her practice from the entrance. Almost all of them were there to watch this time since the ship was parked and refueling.

  Adalai handed her a grimoire. The smooth cover had scarlet glittering ink: Basics of Fire. It wasn’t even a specialty grimoire like the ones she used to scribe in. It was a basic, typical fire grimoire for everyday Casters.

  She’d spent the last few days trying all the others—air, water, and even some of the more advanced ones like sound, time, and life. But she’d been unable to get more than just a corner of the sigil up. Sure, it was progress, but it wasn’t much—definitely not enough.

  Adalai sighed. “Last one. If this doesn’t work—”

  “Then I can’t cast.”

  Adalai shook her head. “No, then we try something else. No one told me I’d be able to Glamour other people or Blink other things with me. But I figured it out. We’ll figure this out, too.”

  She looked up from the book and nodded. It couldn’t have been easy to spend her free time trying to help her train. There may have been a promotion in it for her if they ever figured it out, but Adalai was as devoted as she was. She cared and wanted Emeryss to succeed. It must have been why she’d been so militant about practicing these last couple days. Ever since the wedding assignment and escort had been announced, Adalai seemed to be hyper-focused on getting her casting, and she couldn’t be more grateful.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Adalai started, “you were able to recall a specific sigil for that Delour boy, right?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure it’ll matter anymore. I thought it did, but the grimoire tells you what you can cast—not the ethereal plane.” It was refreshing that someone actually believed a Scribe becoming a Caster was possible and it just had to be solved like a puzzle, but scribing and casting weren’t similar.

  “I know, I’m just thinking that Sigilists pull specific sigils from the ethereal plane and put them onto Keepers. That makes them kind of like Casters—pulling what they want from the ether, branding Keepers.”

  That’s not how Casters worked either, though. They’d gone over this a couple times before, but Adalai was certain there was something to that possibility—whatever it meant.

  “Even so, they’re technically just Scribes that write on skin instead of grimoires,” Emeryss said.

  Adalai rubbed her forehead. “
Sigilists are like the midway point between Scribe and Caster if you think about it. You pulled down something specific and scribed on an inventory sheet—”

  “—that was probably made from m’ralli trees, too. I was wrong to get excited about that before. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize of course that would work. But it’s not skin, and it doesn’t help me cast.”

  “Have you tried on skin?”

  “No…”

  They both eyed Grier, and his wide irises and slow shake of his head made them both chuckle.

  “Absolutely not,” he said, arms crossed. He’d refused to wear a Zephyr uniform, so he’d taken to wearing a sort of mechanical flight suit Mykel had made for him. He looked strong in it. “It was not a great experience with an actual Sigilist, and I’m not willing to let you experiment on my skin.”

  His skin. The long zipper down the front of his suit glinted, and she had to push thoughts of unzipping him out of her mind. She cleared her throat and flipped open the grimoire’s cover to the first page.

  Spark.

  Spark was this book’s strongest sigil? This book wasn’t even for beginners—it was for training in school with children.

  She inhaled and pressed her palm against the m’ralli paper. The smell of the tree’s fibers wafted across her nose between the scent of fresh soil and blooming flowers. The shapes and markings shimmered at her as if recognizing that one of her kind had put them there.

  Closing her eyes, she willed the ether into her palm.

  It was there again, just like every time before. It was a tickling and definite movement within the page, but it was hard to tell if she was imagining it. She followed it anyway, chasing after the tickle until the tips of her fingers ached. It wasn’t as thrilling or as comfortable as Casters seemed to make it look, but it was progress. Keeping her eyes shut, she envisioned all the ether leaving the page behind and going into her palm.

  Slowly, her fingers tingled and grew stronger. Like marching bugs, it traveled up her arm.

  Don’t let it go. Hold on to it. Hold on…

  She always lost it there, but not today. Not something as basic as Spark. Focused and tuned to the ether, it continued up her arm, into her shoulder, and settled in her chest. She was doing it. It drew up into her. This is what it must have felt like to be a Caster. In the bigger picture, it wasn’t much progress for anyone else, but for her—someone who hadn’t made progress in years—it was still remarkable to feel the ether this way. To have this strength, this power pulled inside her. All she had to do was leave Stadhold, to leave her scribing behind, and it was easy.

  She let out a chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” Kayson asked.

  She opened one eye at him. “It feels amazing.”

  Their lips turned down with their eyebrows. Grier looked at his boots.

  She glanced at the page. The ethereal ink was still there, still glittering at her. It hadn’t gone into her hand and into her chest. It hadn’t been pulled in by her fingers at all.

  “But I felt it,” she said. “I felt it tickle my fingers. It went up into my arm and settled in my chest.”

  “That’s certainly something,” Vaughn said, “if you were a toddler.”

  No. She hadn’t imagined it. “I don’t understand. I did it, I swear.”

  Adalai tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear and rubbed her chin. “I believe you, but Vaughn’s right. I mean, I guess it’s something…”

  Kayson shrugged and walked off while Sonora followed and whispered things at him.

  Adalai inverted a clay pot and perched herself on top. “I think it means you can do something. Try again. This time really concentrate. Think of each little piece or—”

  “Particle?” Vaughn suggested.

  “Sure. Think of that, but of the ether.”

  Think of them as particles? But they weren’t particles. Ether was just one giant strand of whatever ether was. Particles—lots of tiny things broken apart—sounded like the wrong way to describe it. To her, at least. Ether was connected, a loop, ink, clouds, more liquid than solid, and damn near impossible to grab hold of. It was everything and nothing at the same time. There was no thinking of it as particles.

  She pinched two fingers and pretended to pull the sigil up like a string. It didn’t budge.

  No tugging, no tickling, nothing.

  “Take a breath,” Vaughn said.

  She did. “That’s the other thing. I keep trying to stay calm, but you guys never have to think about any of this stuff.”

  “How did you start out scribing?” Grier asked.

  She looked over at him. “Visualization of nothing… meditation on nothingness…”

  “Well, if you’re learning something new, then you probably have to breathe and stuff to focus.” Adalai rested her chin on the back of her clasped hands.

  “Somehow, I can’t imagine you as a little kid taking deep breaths,” she said.

  Adalai grinned. “You’re right. I never worried about it, but it sounds good for you to do at least. Come on, try again. Except different. Particles and all that. Don’t quit early.”

  Emeryss closed her eyes and pressed her palm flat against the page.

  It tickled again…

  She relaxed her palm. It was like tiny hairs moving under her hand. She willed them to jump, to leave the safety of the page. The strong tingling in her fingertips returned until they ached. She wasn’t imagining that. Something was reacting within her. The paper, the ink, it was all reacting to her. They were communicating. They had to be. She just had to tune herself to the right language.

  She tried envisioning the shapes on the page, undoing themselves into the center of her palm, but that started to hurt.

  No, it was burning.

  She held it there as long as she could, her hand trembling from the pain, and then it seared.

  “Ah!” She flinched and looked at her palm.

  There was a slight discoloration on her skin, but otherwise, the page of the book was perfectly intact. The ether sigils were still in one piece and glittering back at her. Had her palm always had that mark? Or was it truly new?

  “There’s no way you’re going to cast if you can’t get the ether from the page.” Vaughn plopped down onto a bench beside Urla.

  “But it burned me. I felt it. I felt the ether tickling me like it was moving.”

  Urla, Mykel, Jahree, Vaughn, and Adalai eyed one another and made faces.

  “What? What did I say?” she asked.

  Mykel crossed his arms. “It sort of tickles, but it feels more like being filled. Like you’ve been thirsty for days, and you’ll die if it doesn’t go into your hand right then.”

  Jahree nodded. “It doesn’t tickle. It tingles.”

  “I feel that, too,” Emeryss said.

  “It makes the hair on my arms stand on end,” Vaughn added.

  Adalai scratched her head and ran her hands through her red waves. “And it doesn’t burn you when touching it.”

  “So,” Grier said, “then it has nothing to do with affinity or being attuned to certain ethers.”

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  “I mean some Keepers will never use a staff or a dagger. Sometimes they reach into their grimoire, and it never forms, or it’s too heavy, and they never gain the will to pull it out. If none of them react the right way, then maybe it’s telling her that’s not the right way, not that it isn’t her type of ether.”

  Adalai nodded. “He’s not wrong. You’re used to working with all types of ethers. None of them are foreign to you.”

  Emeryss rubbed the light ache building across her forehead. “That still doesn’t explain why I feel the ether traveling through my fingertips, my hand, my arm, into my chest, and yet the sigils are still there on the page. Except, it feels off. It’s not like when I scribe.”

  “Of course, it’s not,” Adalai said. “This is taking something in. Scribing is like, I don’t know, pouring something out.”

/>   “How do Caster children find out when they can cast?” Grier asked.

  Jahree cringed. “Well, you accidentally blow the roof off your house.”

  “Or pick up a tiny piece of metal that suddenly grows into a rod and breaks your dad’s window,” Mykel added.

  Vaughn’s eyes and corners of his mouth dropped even further. “I accidentally shrunk my older sister, and we couldn’t find her for two days. My parents were furious.”

  Emeryss’s eyes sought out Urla’s. “This feels like I’m not speaking the same language, even though I can read any sigil in any grimoire.”

  Urla hopped down from the bench she’d sat on. “I’m afraid we might not be able to help you.”

  Her mouth dropped open. She’d been hoping for advice, not for an admission that she couldn’t do this.

  “We were born Casters and learned to cast. You were born a Scribe. It’s more likely no one can tell you how to do this.”

  Adalai shook her head and grabbed Vaughn’s arm. “Let’s get the other basic elemental practice books.”

  They Blinked out of the observation deck.

  “What am I supposed to do then?” Emeryss asked Urla. “Stop trying to think like a Caster?”

  Even then, they all were acting like she was so far behind that it was impossible. They hadn’t known this was the most progress she’d had yet.

  “Maybe you’re distracted by something,” Grier said without looking up at her.

  “That’s true,” Jahree said. “Distractions keep us from staying focused on the job.”

  With that, Grier looked up at her, two precious points of deep blue, and her heart flipped over. Without even trying, her mind raced back to that night. His finger… He’d actually unzipped her suit…

  She’d said she’d wanted more, admitted it to him, and he’d said he needed more time.

  Was this his reasoning? Because distractions—she—would keep him from doing his best job of protecting her and Stadhold? It seemed like such a silly cop-out that she brushed it off. That wasn’t it. He’d already proven how skilled and honed he was in Delour with all the distractions of a riot and Keepers attacking him. No, he might want to use that as an excuse, but that wasn’t it.