Kingdoms of Ether (Kingdoms of Ether Series Book 1)

by Ryan Muree

  “Ah, look how sweet she is. Careful, dear, get a little bit older, and I might have to marry you next.” O’Brecht laughed at himself, expecting her to laugh with him and knocking Nendrik with his elbow to join in as well.

  She swallowed her salty retort for the sake of her team’s future.

  Nendrik pointed at her. “I look forward to seeing your hearing, Miss Solus. Perhaps, we can find ways for you to turn this into a promotion instead of a demotion.”

  There he was again, inserting himself as if he was part of the council and the final decision, as if he had sway. Her nostrils flared as she sifted through the best comebacks and came up short. She had nothing that’d be appropriate or get her any closer to keeping the Zephyrs together. It was mostly foul-language.

  “Excuse me, Advisor O’Brecht and Lieutenant Nendrik.” Jahree appeared beside her, looking impressive in his full uniform. Stately, strong, he could pass as one of these elites if he wanted to. “I need to speak with Adalai.”

  She gave her fake apology and walked with Jahree to the farthest edge of the room. Every step away from Nendrik made it slightly easier to breathe. “Ugh, you saved me. I was dying.”

  “You’re welcome, but I didn’t get you because of that,” he whispered. “You know we’ve been trying to get the Ingini to speak.”

  “Is she too stupid to answer questions?”

  “No.” Jahree half-laughed. “Not in the least.”

  “Can she read?”

  “Yes, and then some. I told you before she’s a pilot.” He looked over his shoulder and then back to her. “She’s fighting us, and it’s pointless. We’re thinking maybe if she speaks to you… she’ll give in a little bit?”

  “So why right now? Can’t this wait until after dinner?”

  He shook his head and leaned into her ear. “Mykel also got into the crates.”

  Her eyes widened. Vaughn, Urla, Sonora — none of them could get into the crates found on the girl’s ship. She’d wanted to see what was in them before reporting anything to Orr, but the ether-seals proved almost impossible to get through.

  “Finally?” she whispered. “And?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t say it here. You have to see it.”

  After a quick scan of the guests, it seemed possible for them to leave undetected. She followed him out of the ballroom. “What is it?” she asked in the hallway.

  He shook his head. “I’m not saying.”

  What in the world could be so bad in those crates? They’d had the word “BOMBS” written on the side, but it was so obvious and such a funny way of packaging weapons, she’d written it off as Ingini stupidity.

  “Grenades?”

  They turned down hall after hall.

  He shook his head.

  They descended the grand staircase and took a shortcut through the formal dining areas.

  “More lasers?” she whispered.

  He shook his head.

  “Bigger than lasers?”

  He nodded as they passed through the back door out of the kitchen and onto the lawn. Finally out of earshot from any of O’Brecht’s servants, she asked, “What in the world is worse than lasers?”

  But he still didn’t respond.

  They hurried across the manicured lawn, past the bright orange gardens and into the landing zone where the Zephyr was parked.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asked.

  “Grier and Emeryss are up on the observation deck. Mykel is waiting for us with the Ingini, and the rest are at the party.”

  Good. The fewer witnesses the better.

  They stepped into the Zephyr and headed for the cargo hold.

  Strong. Confident. Don’t let the girl smell fear.

  Whatever was in those crates, Adalai would deal with it. And then she’d deal with Orr, and the Zephyrs would stay together.

  Don’t give anything away. Be the one to ask the questions. Strong. Confident. Don’t let them see weakness. Clove paced in her prison cell.

  Their healer had been killed in the battle, but they’d still managed to repair her ribs and stitch the gash on her head. And that hadn’t even been the crazy part. This loser in front of her, Mykel, had been able to create a cage for her out of a palm-sized piece of metal. He’d made it essentially from nothing!

  It was downright ridiculous. To sit over here with this sort of power and horde it for themselves.

  The longer she sat and watched what they could do, the more it infuriated her that her ancestors had struggled. That everything in Ingini was harder because of them. These stuffy elites deserved every sort of death. A miner’s death.

  The rough metal cage they’d put her in was only a few inches taller than she was and with just enough room for her to pace in a circle. The ship, however, was too nice. It flew without actual ether-fuel. The cargo hold wasn’t a good indication of what class ship she was on, but it wasn’t a mid-size. The constant running ether lights and the automatic doors meant it was well run and taken care of.

  Mykel crossed his arms. He was self-righteous and pompous because of his skill, and that had given himself away.

  “So, your dead healer couldn’t have helped you out with your problem?”

  Mykel sneered at her from across the cargo hold.

  “You mean to tell me that you have all this power, and you’re still so short?”

  “Do you ever shut up?” he asked, showing his cards again.

  She grinned. “Good argument. Want to try again?”

  He squinted at her. “Wait until Adalai gets here.”

  “Is that your mother?”

  He shook his head and stormed out of the room.

  Weak, pathetic bastard.

  The other one, Jahree, wasn’t as easily tricked into giving himself away, but he wasn’t exactly threatening, either. He’d claimed he was a pilot, but he hadn’t answered one question about the fleet sent to destroy Fort Damned and its people.

  If they wanted information, she needed information, too. Give and get. They could start by telling her where they must have hidden her brother. If she’d crashed in Revel, there was no way Cayn could have walked all the way back to Ingini on his own without being spotted. These bogweeds probably had them separated and were trying to get information out of both of them to see who’d cave first.

  Footsteps clanged louder on the metal floor in her direction.

  She stopped pacing, adjusted her posture, and lifted her chin. She’d give nothing away, and she would be the one to get some answers.

  “Ada, I don’t want to anymore,” Mykel whined. “She’s really mean—”

  Clove smirked.

  Jahree, Mykel, and a young woman as short as she was stepped into the cargo hold and stopped.

  The woman was small-framed in a full fancy-dress uniform with big, silly purple curls on her head. She had a terrible snarl on her perfectly smooth face. What could she do? Materialize money in thin air to pay for her spa treatments?

  “I’m acting leader of this squad—”

  Clove snorted.

  Adalai tilted her head and glared. “You think that’s funny?”

  “Extremely. You’re too pretty. Might break a nail.”

  A flame lit behind Adalai’s eyes, and Clove got the sinking feeling that she might be able to manifest fireballs from her hands. She swallowed. No weakness.

  “Name?” Adalai demanded.

  No response. Clove wouldn’t answer.

  “Name?” she repeated. “Rank?”

  She kept her mouth shut.

  “I figure this is a good time to tell you that I’m an illusionist. I can control your mind, convince you that you’re going insane, and I can do it in seconds.”

  Clove rolled her eyes, and Adalai disappeared into pink dust. Clove’s right arm was suddenly twisted against her back and a cold blade was against her neck. The woman, who had just been outside of the cage, was inside with her and pressing her against the bars ready to kill.

  Clove froze. “What is wro
ng with you people? Do you just like bragging about what you can do?”

  “Name?”

  Clove huffed.

  “Name?” The blade pressed harder against her throat.

  If she had a gun, this chick would be burnt already. If she had Cayn… “Clove.”

  “Rank?”

  Clove rolled her eyes again. “I’m not military. I don’t have a rank. I’m a shipper. I pilot an airship and make deliveries.”

  “And what were you delivering to Revel?” Adalai tightened the twist on her arm.

  “Ow! I wasn’t shipping anything into Revel. I wasn’t even in your precious Revel. I was in Ingini when you attacked us out of nowhere.”

  “That’s cute,” Adalai hissed. “You think I believe that? After what you all did? After what I saw?”

  Clove licked her lips. “All I saw was a fleet of murderous Revelians taking down Ingini for no reason.”

  Adalai pressed her into the cage bars harder. “What were you delivering to Revel?”

  Clove sucked in a breath and arched her back to get some room for her arm. “Nothing. I was in Ingini just on the other side of the wall. I was shot down by some electrifying thing from a Revel Super S-Class ship—”

  Jahree squinted. “There were no Super S-Class ships in the area.”

  Clove nodded repeatedly. “There were, and it electrified me right out of the sky. It was huge.”

  “And you fell into Revel?” Mykel asked.

  “Obviously, dumbass.” Clove glared at him. “I only crashed because you shot me down on our side.”

  Jahree stepped closer and crossed his arms. “We didn’t shoot you down—”

  “Maybe not you, but someone did. I dodged about twenty of your fleet before you dropped my ship from the sky. You found me, but where’s my brother?”

  Adalai released her arm and popped back onto the other side of the cage. A pink cloud floated in the air where she’d been. “We don’t have your brother.”

  “I’ve tried telling her that,” Jahree said.

  Clove checked the skin of her neck for a cut.

  Jahree proved to be the nicest, honestly, but he was still Revelian. Mykel was a baby, and this Adalai had an obvious chip on her shoulder. Jahree at least spoke to her like a human being.

  “And why would I believe you?” Clove asked.

  “Because we’d have him in a cage, too, dumbass.” Mykel walked off to the other end of the cargo hold and reached for a clipboard.

  She gripped the bars as tightly as she could. “So, my brother and I crash into Revel, and you find me but not my brother? You missed a young, tall Ingini walking back across the border in the middle of Revel attacking us?”

  “In the middle of Ingini attacking us.” Adalai smirked. “And maybe he was shot out of your airship, and his body is somewhere here… and there?”

  Clove shivered. Strength. Confidence. Don’t show weakness. “You murderers would like to think that, wouldn’t you?”

  Adalai walked toward the two crates of bombs propped against the wall near her cage. “What’s in the crates?”

  Why were they so obsessed with those? What a dumb thing to focus on. Bombs were bombs. Honestly, they should have expected bombs on her ship so close to the border. Did this woman think they made all their explosives at the wall? She couldn’t have been the first shipper Revel had gotten their hands on. A quick look around this fancy ship said they had access to more intelligence than they’d deserved.

  “Mykel was able to open them,” Adalai said.

  “So?” Clove shrugged. “It’s not exactly ethereal thermotics.”

  Adalai tossed the tacky gold medallion over her shoulder as she bent over the crates.

  “You get that medal for having the prettiest hair at the ball?” Clove dropped her smile. “Or did they congratulate you for killing innocent Ingini?”

  “The latter.” Adalai gripped the crate’s lid and lifted.

  Clove twisted her hands around the crude bars. “Do explosives surprise you? I may not be able to poof myself around the room in pretty pink dust, but I can throw an explosive or shoot or stab…”

  Adalai dropped the lid to the side. “What the shit is this?”

  “It’s not that surprising,” Clove bit. “They go boom, you die, we win.”

  Adalai’s eyes sought Clove’s for only a second before she disappeared and reappeared back into the cage with her, this time slamming Clove’s face and chest against the bars. “Who sent you?” she shouted.

  Cheek and jaw pressed tight against the metal, Clove winced. “My boss?” Adalai slammed her head into the bars, and warm liquid trickled down Clove’s lip and into her mouth. “Ow! Shit!”

  “Who sent you to Revel?”

  This bitch had better hope Clove didn’t get a gun or get out of this cage. She wasn’t as good a shot as Cayn, but she wasn’t the worst, either. The knife at Clove’s throat stung. “No one! I already told you I was in Ingini, and I was shot down!”

  “Then why did you have grimoires on your airship?” Adalai shouted.

  Grimoires? “I don’t have your stupid books—”

  “These were taken from your ship. These are your crates with our books inside of them. Where did you steal them from?”

  The pressure building at her cheek grew to the point Clove wondered if this Adalai chick would actually crack her face in. She bit back a cry of pain.

  “Adalai…” Jahree warned.

  “They’re just bombs!” Clove shouted, eye swelling against the metal. “They’re supposed to be bombs! I don’t look inside the crates. They tell me what it is, and I deliver them. They could have been lying to me.”

  Adalai poofed out of the cage and back to the crates. Clove stumbled back away from the bars and drew a shaky hand to her cheek and eye.

  Adalai had a look that could murder anyone turned the wrong way at her. Instead, she lifted one book for Clove to see, opened it, and fanned the pages. “Do you know what this is?”

  Clove glared at her. “A book, obviously, but I already told you I’m a shipper. I deliver. I don’t open, and I don’t inspect. They put crates on my airship, and I deliver them somewhere else and get them pulled off. I was told those were bombs.”

  Jahree took a deep breath. “It’s possible she’s telling the truth. It took us forever to open the crates. They were sealed tight.”

  “That’s because you don’t have the tool.” Clove wiped the blood from her lip. “It’s a stupid little piece of metal keyed to the owner’s combination. It’s like a couple coins worth. But it was fun watching you fight with it.”

  “Jahree, suffocate her,” Adalai ordered.

  But before Jahree responded, all three of their faces dropped their expressions at the same time, stared off in a random direction for a few seconds, and then looked at one another.

  “Someone’s here for Emeryss?” Mykel asked Adalai.

  “It has to be someone from the library,” Jahree said. “If Sonora didn’t know, then—”

  Adalai dropped the book back inside the crate and replaced the lid. “We need to speak to Grier and Emeryss, and they better have an explanation for these crates.” She went to storm off with Mykel behind her, but Jahree stopped them.

  “What do we do with her?” He gestured to Clove.

  Adalai looked back. “Keep her. Feed her. Don’t heal her—”

  “But Orr—”

  “Aurelis will kill her.” She squinted at Clove. “We need more info. I’ll decide if she gets sent to Orr by morning.” She walked out with Mykel, and Jahree followed.

  Clove grabbed the bars and tried to shake them as hard as she could. “You still haven’t told me where my brother is!”

  The cargo hold went silent again, and she sucked in a breath, her lip and nose stinging. Fingers at the tender skin, she grumbled at the growing welt on her cheek. Stupid books. What was the big deal? None of the Ingini could use those books anyway. So what if she was dragging them around Ingini and getting rich with
them? It was actually more comforting that she wasn’t toting around massive amounts of explosives.

  But what would Boss Trent want with books anyway? He’d gotten a hold of them somehow. That usually meant VIP’s, CEO’s, the top money. He hadn’t been kidding about having wealthy clients. He had some serious access to get ahold of these.

  Clove chuckled to herself. Did Adalai think they didn’t have access to things from Revel?

  The entire underground market was built around smuggling in things from Revel. Though it was surprising her people had gotten their hands on grimoires—and so many—it wasn’t… impossible. They’d been blocked from receiving grimoires since the revolution. She hadn’t seen one in her entire life. Old Ollie talked about seeing one in his younger days, but that was it. She’d assumed he’d made it up to entertain poor Dimmur kids.

  Either way, it wasn’t her problem. She needed to find out about Cayn, get out, and get back to Ingini before these idiots killed her.

  Chapter 34

  Observation Deck — Zephyr Airship — Lamnira

  Emeryss sat with Grier on a bench. The sun was setting, and the ether-lamps along the stone path and bushes had turned on for the evening. Somewhere a little farther north and west was home with clear water, biting fish, and salty air.

  Grier slid a lock of her hair over her shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Home. You?”

  He bit his lip. “Avrist, actually.”

  The only locator Caster being dead was catastrophic. She hadn’t been lying to Tully during the fight. As much as she hated him, Stadhold and Revel couldn’t afford to be without one. The grimoire shortage would be outrageous. Untrained Scribes would be vulnerable. It’d be a nightmare. Stadhold would have to try and find his replacement immediately.

  He sighed. “They must be livid.”

  “Who?”

  “Stadhold. They must have approved him to go to Marana to pick you up. Now, they’ve lost you and him.”

  “Maybe they shouldn’t imprison their Scribes.” She smiled. “Can you imagine Avrist’s face if he’d seen me casting?”