Kingdoms of Ether (Kingdoms of Ether Series Book 1)

by Ryan Muree

  Chapter 25

  Advisor O’Brecht’s wedding — Marana — Revel

  Adalai lifted her fuchsia mask and took another sip from her champagne. Weddings were horrible, terrible things.

  She wiggled the front lining of her bright-pink-and-purple dress a little higher and pressed it in place. It was only the hundredth time of the night that she’d had to do it. Stupid Mykel and Jahree had bought her a dress that required an actual chest to fill it in and hold it up. Even the mask was irritating her. It was sticky on her forehead, and her moist breath was only making it worse.

  Under a wide cream tent with its bright ether-lamps dangling between highwood vines and bright-red kipperberry flowers, three hundred guests mingled at the small party.

  She snorted.

  The chairs were high-backed and upholstered in deep-red fabric. The tables shined and glittered with bright, white sunstone plates and gold cutlery. Lit candles glittered in their mosaic glass holders.

  No expense had been spared.

  Wasteful jelts.

  The near-ancient groom was in his official advisor garb—dark-gray jacket with tails, matching trousers with a ribbon of yellow down the sides, and a hideous, gold advisor medallion pinned to his chest. His bride was about thirty years younger and wore a sultry red gown with a massive train. It was gorgeous, honestly, and made it fun to watch all the old guests clucking about how inappropriate it was for a bride to wear anything but cream.

  The rest of the reception wore typical evening wedding attire for Revelian upper-class—full-length gowns brought in from Lenid, flowery masks on the elderly, jeweled masks on the young.

  They all looked ridiculous wearing cloth worth enough to feed an army. Just in gowns and suits alone, all the orphans and neglected children in Aurelis could be well taken care of for the rest of their lives. She wanted to smack each one of them for their fake niceness and fake boredom.

  Oh no, siiir, I couldn’t possibly have more champagne, siiir. Oh why, thank you, siiir. This is nice, isn’t it? Positively relaxing and uneventful, reeeaaally.

  She grumbled to herself. Spirits, I hate weddings.

  The Zephyrs had maintained their disguises and roamed the perimeter of the wedding tent while chatting with guests.

  “Has anyone seen Emeryss?” she asked aloud.

  Sonora, standing several tables away, whispered in her head. She’s left the airship and is headed this way. Everyone is patrolling, but nothing’s out of the ordinary. Grier is on the eastern side. Everything still looks good.

  “Any sign of the escort?”

  No, sorry.

  Dammit. What was the point in Orr making it a huge deal, demand that she follows the rules, and then not show up on time? “Can you bring them in for a minute?”

  Sure, Sonora said.

  A throat cleared behind her.

  She spun and found a woman in a dark-blue-and-purple dress shimmering under the yellow ether-lamps. She almost didn’t recognize Emeryss, save for the faint scar on her arm and up her neck. Her dress had skinny shoulder straps, and it puffed out at the waist. She had no problems filling her top. Mykel had made her mask to look like she had dunked her face in a cloud of ethereal ink. It was nice.

  Emeryss’s eyes darted left and right. “Still no escort?”

  Adalai took another sip from her glass. “Not yet, but Sonora’s listening for it. You look great, by the way.”

  Emeryss’s eyes lifted from what must have been a smile under her mask. “Thanks. You do, too. It’s really your color.”

  She pressed her hand against her front panel. “Too bad I don’t have the boobs to fill it. I think it was Mykel’s wishful thinking.”

  “You let him pick out your dress?”

  “I usually don’t worry about stuff like this.”

  Emeryss’s hands fidgeted as she scanned the crowd of wedding guests. Looking for Grier, probably. “Any trouble?”

  Adalai finished her champagne. “If you count Advisor O’Brecht and his bride already getting into a fight over the fact he grabbed a bridesmaid’s ass when she bent over, then yes.”

  Emeryss giggled.

  The music switched to something slow, something from eastern Revel—Lenid or Lamnira. They had a weird preference for arts over combat. Several couples moved in to dance to it.

  Kayson and Sonora came up to her with their arms linked together. Sonora was radiant in a pastel-orange-and-pink dress that fluttered when she walked. She wore a flowery mask that covered her whole face, but she didn’t need to. She could have pulled off a younger person’s jeweled mask instead. Kayson’s matching tie and black jacket had already been undone, leaving a half-cocked orange sun-style mask on his face.

  Grier was beside them in a full dark suit, too. He pulled at his collar and the sleeve hiding his bracer. His mask was silver and reflective like the metal on his armor, except with swirls of black ink inside it.

  Vaughn came right after and looked the most unkempt with his jacket and tie missing and his white shirt unbuttoned. His mask rested around his neck.

  “This is boring,” Vaughn huffed. “The only good thing that happened was Advisor O’Brecht thinking that bridesmaid was his new wife.”

  Adalai shook her head. “I think he knew it wasn’t his new wife.”

  “I don’t care what any of you say. I’m glad it’s boring.” Kayson downed his whole glass of champagne. “And glad to see you’re okay, Emeryss.”

  She nodded to him. “Thank you, guys. Thank you, everyone. I’m so sorry—”

  “Eh, enough of that.” Adalai waved her off. “It’s done. You casted. You should be celebrating.”

  She sounded a bit too eager and strained, and it earned her a couple of glares from her squadmates.

  The group lifted their glasses to Emeryss, except Grier. He probably had a stick up his ass about it. One would hope the scare from the other night had sobered him up to what he felt about her. He’d made it pretty obvious in the medical lab. He wasn’t here because it was his stupid job. He could lie to himself all he wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he was here for her—for himself.

  But neither of them looked happy seeing the other.

  “Someone’s having fun.” Emeryss pointed out to the dance floor where Urla was in a soft pink dress, being slowly spun by an elderly gentleman in a white suit.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” Advisor O’Brecht slid in beside Adalai with alcohol heavy on his breath. “Thank you so much for coming, but you should be enjoying the wedding. My wife and I are so grateful you are here! Go dance!”

  “Hey, O’Brecht!” Vaughn bent forward and spoke loudly at him. “You’re drunk!”

  “Vaughn,” Sonora hissed under her breath.

  “He won’t remember tomorrow. Look at him.”

  “If you happen to see”—O’Brecht hiccupped—“any of the Zephyrs around here, let me know. I need to speak with them at once.”

  “Sir, we’re the Zephyrs,” Adalai said. “I’m Caster Adalai, sir.”

  O’Brecht’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes! Of course.” He bent forward into her face and whispered loud enough for the entire team to hear. “I want to meet this Scribe you helped save. Is she here?”

  She shook her head slightly. “No, sir. She’s gone…”

  Emeryss went rigid beside her, while Sonora shook her head.

  “She’s gone back home, sir.”

  “Ah, of course. Well, good thing, too. We need those grimoires, right? She better get back to doing her job for us! For Revel!” He sauntered off, asking random people where his wife had run off to.

  Everyone took a deep breath, and Adalai discreetly scanned the sky for any movement. Perfect white stars twinkled above them in the clear night. She looked to Emeryss. “You should go enjoy yourself.”

  Emeryss stopped fidgeting and might have even sneaked a look at Grier before walking off for the drink table.

  “You going after her?” Adalai asked him.

  Grier looked around,
seeming confused she’d asked him, and then pushed his mask up to his forehead. “I don’t think she wants me to.”

  What a stupid tart-hole. Adalai lifted her chin. “Everyone, keep a lookout for the escort.” She made her way toward the band, blending in with the other guests.

  Heads up, Sonora said. I hear two airships incoming.

  Adalai set her glass at a nearby table and watched as a tiny airship flew over the tent for another set of trees opposite the grassy clearing. “I only see one.”

  There are definitely two. They landed on either side. North and south. One sounds Stadholden.

  Great. Just what they needed. If the ship from Stadholden had Avrist on it, he could be in deep shit with both Stadhold and Revel for causing trouble at an advisor’s wedding. So that might work in their favor, as well as give Grier and Emeryss reason to get on the other ship instead, assuming the other ship was the escort.

  But the one she’d seen land was not Stadholden. It was too clean to be Ingini, too small to be Orr’s, and all of O’Brecht’s guests had been there for hours. No one had cleared any late-comers with her.

  “Sonora,” she whispered.

  Yes.

  “Keep tabs on Grier and Emeryss.”

  Do you have a visual on the ship? Is it Avrist? Or the escort?

  “I can’t see the Stadholden ship, but I’m going to check it out.”

  She crossed the field to the tiny airship, slipped between the bushes and trees even in her cruddy heels, and found a small RCA crest on the side.

  “It belongs to the Revelian army, but this isn’t one of Orr’s ships,” she relayed to Sonora.

  Okay. Keeping a lookout for Avrist.

  Two male officers stepped out of the ship and scanned the wedding in the meadow behind her as if they owned the place.

  “Are you two lost?” She crossed her arms and squinted at them.

  “Ma’am, we’re here to collect someone.” The bigger man on the right had a large birthmark on his chin. “If you’d please—”

  “I’m Caster Adalai of the Zephyrs, working under General Orr’s direct orders.” She flashed her ethereal symbols on her wrists. It wasn’t exactly proof, but it was good enough to say she wasn’t some of these old birds with Warm blanket quilting or Make cookies for casting. “Who are you?”

  “We’re from General Orr,” the skinny one said. “We were sent to take your charge off your hands.”

  “In that?” She pointed to their joke of an airship. “General Orr has been in contact with me, and he told me he was coming with an escort. That is no escort. You are no escort. Where’s Orr?”

  Both men looked at one another confused. “He’s not coming. He sent us to get the girl Scribe.”

  That’s not what he’d said, but even then, it might have been acceptable if he hadn’t sent his flunkies to do it in a guppy airship. Something wasn’t right.

  “Identification,” she ordered, hand out.

  They half-laughed, and the skinny guy put his hands on his hips. “We don’t need to show you identification. We work directly for Orr, too.”

  “And if I’m gonna believe that, I need to see proof.” She had to be firm, make them respect her. “You just landed an RCA airship in the middle of a potential Ingini target zone, my zone that I have my people continually sweeping for threats, and you think I’m gonna hand over an asset on your word alone?”

  Birthmark sighed and pulled out his identification; Skinny followed suit. She checked both over, and it was exactly as she’d feared. Flunkies. Level-0’s. Barely allowed to fly an airship. This is who General Orr had sent?

  We’re going to move on Grier and Emeryss and herd them into your direction, Sonora said in her head. Adalai was glad Sonora had heard the whole conversation, but something wasn’t looking right about any of this.

  “What made you two so late?” she asked. “Orr won’t like to hear that you’re taking your time.”

  Skinny chuckled. “We weren’t taking our time. We aren’t late.”

  Adalai narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you are. Orr said you’d be here before the wedding started. It’s nearly over.”

  They both shrugged. “We’re here to grab the Scribe and bring her back.”

  Grab her and bring her back? Those weren’t the words someone used when they were escorting someone crucial to keeping two countries’ peace.

  Sonora’s voice trickled in. I don’t like the way they sound.

  A terrible idea settled in her chest—What if they weren’t from Orr at all? What if they were from Ingini? Was it possible they’d intercepted their Messengers or Sonora’s waves? It was highly unlikely, but not improbable.

  She lifted her nose at them. “The Scribe’s Keeper will be extremely critical if you mistreat her.”

  Birthmark laughed. “We’re not here for the Keeper. He has to find his own way home. We’ve been ordered to get the Scribe only. Hand her over, or we’ll go get her.”

  So, they knew about Grier, but they weren’t taking Grier back with Emeryss? Then they couldn’t be Ingini, but they should have known that Emeryss couldn’t go anywhere without Grier. Stadhold would throw a fit, and it’d only make things worse between them, all things considered.

  She needed time to figure this out, and Emeryss needed to stay out of sight until she did.

  “Hold, Sonora,” she said aloud, then refocused on the two men. “Why aren’t you taking back the Keeper? The Librarian will—”

  Skinny smiled. “We don’t care about the Keeper or the Librarian. Those weren’t our orders. I thought you worked directly for Orr.”

  The two men breezed past her and headed toward the wedding reception.

  Orr had promised an escort, and he’d sent the two lowest soldiers he had. He’d pressed how important Emeryss’s safety was to them and to Revel, but he’d been willing to risk this? And he wasn’t going to respect Stadhold customs at all when he’d been worried about their nation’s relationship?

  Nothing was adding up… Because they weren’t escorting her back to Stadhold.

  “When do you have to be back at base?” she asked them as they passed.

  “In four days at 0900,” Chin Scar said. “So, if you could point us in the Scribe’s direction, we could move things along.”

  Four days at 0900. There was no way they could fly all the way to Stadhold and reach base in Aurelis by then, especially in a guppy. They’d be lucky to reach Stadhold in four days time.

  The men had walked out of range toward the reception.

  “Sonora, can you hear me?” she asked under her breath.

  Yes.

  “You heard them, too, right?”

  There’s no way they can make that trip in that time frame. They’re not going to Stadhold.

  “They’re taking her somewhere else. I don’t know if they’re Ingini spies or maybe traitors, but I have a bad feeling about this.”

  They might be REV. Want us to intervene and get these guys?

  They couldn’t do anything, not without proof. “No. What about the Stadholden ship? Is it Avrist?”

  Nothing’s happened with the ship, and no one’s come out. We’ll keep looking for him.

  “It might be a good idea to tell Emeryss and Grier to hide on the Zephyr. We need to take care of this as quietly as possible, or we’ll have a panic on our hands. And if we’re wrong, we’ll be in deep shit. I’m gonna search their airship and see if I can find anything about who they really are.”

  Got it.

  Adalai Dispersed into a pink puffy cloud, seeped between the cracks of the cargo hold doors of the tiny Revelian ship, and reformed on the other side. Tidbits flurried beside her. “Paws out, Tidbits. Messenger letters, official orders—anything. We have to look fast.”

  Chapter 26

  Fort Damned — Ingini

  Clove led Pigyll into the Fort Damned landing zone after finally getting clearance from their tower. Her eyes couldn’t pull away from the gargantuan gray wall at the border or the thin line of brig
ht-green woods and pastures in Revel on the other side. A stark reminder they were at war and anything at the border was game.

  The towers spaced out along the wall were filled with military service members, weapons, and equipment for monitoring every inch of the wall to Revel. The flight controller contacted her while in the air, requiring Pigyll’s number before they’d agree for her to land. This time she remembered to put the T on the end, and they directed her to the landing zone equipped for off-loading supplies.

  The sun was burning its final bright orange streaks across the sky for the day. The storm rolling in from Revel still hadn’t arrived, but it was close enough for her to know that the flight out that night wouldn’t be easy.

  Just yesterday, they’d been parked at Luckless and got their first real payment. They’d bought equipment for Pigyll, got it fitted and connected, and now, they were arriving at one of the busiest hubs right on the border.

  She swallowed and tried to remind herself of that last part. The United Architects wouldn’t permit supplies to be dropped off in a spot easy for Revelians to attack. Trent said these were trial runs. Nothing too dangerous.

  She let out a shaky breath. They needed to drop off the crates of bombs, get paid, and get out.

  “Hey, imagine the quality of clients I could get if I took that money we got and bought new clothes?” Cayn was tossing a lighter he’d gotten off the thief in Luckless into the air over and over.

  “Did you see that weather in the west?” she asked.

  He pointed out to the horizon. “It’s already dark there. It’s moving fast. But what about my idea?”

  “What idea?”

  He caught the lighter and stuffed it in his pocket. “New clothes to get higher paying clients. I could get in the VIP lounges without having to know anyone. I bet they want freakier things, too.”

  “First, you don’t need new clothes.” She checked that the landing spot assigned to her was, in fact, clear and rolled the knob to start their descent into the gray maze of Fort Damned. “They look ridiculously better than mine—”