by Ryan Muree
Grier’s eyebrows drew up in the middle. “No, I—”
Urla tipped her chin up and looked at Emeryss. “Consequences for your choices with the library.” She looked to Sonora. “Reality of going back to an empty home.” She looked to Grier. “Confrontation with your family. Everyone on this airship is running from something, and Kayson didn’t die for nothing. Don’t reduce his existence and contribution to this one mission.”
“What are you running from?” Emeryss asked.
Urla’s cool stare met hers. “Retirement. My old age. A life of baking stupid cookies in a kitchen.”
Sonora shook her head. “The way I see it, we’ll face those things going into Ingini, too. Ingini coming into our home, hurting our people, is the reality. We know what the consequences are, and I’m ready for another confrontation to stop it.”
Grier smoothed back his golden hair. “I know it looks like I’m avoiding my family, but—”
“And the marriage matches…” Emeryss dared to look him in the eye.
They both knew it was coming. When they’d agreed to be together the night the war had started, she’d accepted she wouldn’t have him forever and he’d have to go back to being a Keeper in Stadhold eventually. She still accepted it; his mother, Captain Lerissa, had merely sped up the timeline.
His eyes dropped away for only a second before returning to look into hers. “Fine. Maybe I am, but this is what I want to do. Helping my country and people, and I mean actually helping them, is important to me. Now that I know there’s more going on, I can’t do that by sitting in a library and getting married years too early.”
He sounded like her before she’d left the library, and it was one of the reasons she’d agreed to support him.
Urla grinned, and her wrinkles around her mouth deepened. “I agree, as long as we’re all being honest about our goals going into Ingini and living long enough to face our fears. Let’s go again, Emeryss. You want to do more than shield, then do it.” Urla disappeared.
Emeryss let the regular world drop from view, replacing everything around her with its raw ethereal energy. She drew ether into her left hand without even thinking.
Grier’s voice cut through the veil of purples, blues, and reds. “I know that one. It’s a shield again. Come on, Em. I thought you said shields were boring.”
They were, but it was a gut reaction to Urla being anywhere around her.
“You can’t be on the defensive the entire time, right? That’s what you said. Now, move. You can move, can’t you?” he hollered to her.
She’d forgotten her feet.
Sonora’s aura whipped out a few narrowed bolts of sound, threatening to stab her as they flew.
Emeryss deflected two, but the third sliced the side of her neck. Damn, it stung.
Fireball. Fireball.
She rotated her hand back and forth, index finger out. The sigil hovered above her palm, and a spark erupted.
Sonora spun out of its path again, and the ball of fire thumped against the stormstone behind her.
Emeryss doubled over as she was struck with something hard and skinny to the gut. An arc of bright, hot electricity expanded out toward her, and she struggled to get out of the way. It caught her in the foot, and she wheeled back, hopping on the good one.
“Come on,” Grier groaned.
“Don’t Come on, me. You missed Urla coming for you, too.”
The electricity jarred her nerves, sending tingles like being lit from the inside out up her entire leg. She gripped the wounded foot and panted.
“Move,” Grier said. “You have to be ready at any moment. Keep moving.”
Both hands out, she drew up ether again.
Air Slice and move. Move.
She readied another sigil with her right hand while she ran forward and spun the Air Slice out of her left.
It shot out sideways at Sonora, who buffeted a blast of sound and canceled the air wave.
Urla arced another bolt of electricity toward her.
Ready this time, Emeryss jumped back and Blinked.
She’d done it multiple times with Adalai, but only two other times by herself.
The familiar mask of the ethereal plane went to a blinding black. An empty void. She popped out the other side gasping for air.
There was a slight sting in her back. She glanced back and found Grier smug as ever with the tip of his swordstaff poking her.
“And you’re dead.”
She let the dark haze at the edges of her vision pull her from her trance. Sweat ran off her in buckets. The Zephyr flight uniform, covering her from neck to ankle, was clearly not suited for heat like this. The gauzy shorts and sleeveless tops of her Neerian home in the summer would be a welcome change, but it wouldn’t do much against Air Slices and mini-bolts of lightning.
He handed her his water. “Stop and take a drink. You need to stay hydrated.”
She followed orders. “You’re grumpy, but admit that I’m making progress.”
“Not enough to be safe.”
“Well, like I said, I don’t expect to take on three Ingini at a time without you beside me.” She raised her eyebrows to challenge the notion of him just letting her run off into the sunset to annihilate dozens of Ingini by herself. It was a laughable thought at least. “And we’re not supposed to be fighting Ingini. We’re sneaking in. That’s Illusion work.”
“That I believe I countered right after you Blinked. It sounds like you’re saying we should just go easy on you. That you’re not good enough to beat me or Urla or Sonora.” His smile reached all the way up to his abyssal-blue eyes.
She held out her hand. “That’s it. Give me your javelin.”
He barked a laugh and jumped back.
“I’m going to take you down.”
“Come get me. Prove I shouldn’t go easy on you.” His blond hair bounced as he moved away.
He lifted his swordstaff at her, and she ran at him. The moment his hands moved, she Blinked beside him.
She was avoiding his swings and thrusts, but the Blinking and lack of air between jumps were nauseating. His next jab forward, she panicked and lifted a small purple shield to deflect it.
“Good!” he called to her. “But keep your arms up and ready.”
She shoved her shield at him, pushing him back, and Blinked.
He spun, the blade of his weapon coming around with him.
She held up another shield to block. The metal clunked against it. Blinking again, this time she aimed for directly behind him with her knees and hands out. Pulled through the darkness of the Blink, she appeared on the back side of him.
He hadn’t been fast enough.
She launched herself on top of top him, shoving him to the stone. It wasn’t pretty. More like a tackle than any sort of fighting move, but she’d take it. The ethereal plane washed away, and she straddled Grier’s lower back, fingers pressed into his spine between his shoulder blades.
He’d grunted when he landed and laughed at her. “You got me.”
A sharp pain expanded out from her ear, forcing a thunderous headache across her scalp and forehead. She yelped.
“And you’re dead,” Urla said.
She sighed. “You took advantage—”
“Of you being distracted? Yes. The Ingini will use and abuse that. It’s a strategy. It’s smart. It’s you or them.” Urla turned for the doors. “Time’s up.”
Sonora headed toward the door with her.
Grier stood easily, forcing Emeryss to slide off the back of him to her feet as if she hadn’t really been pressing him down into the stone at all.
“It was good though,” he said. “If you can manage to Blink directly behind me, I can’t see where the trail of ether is leading.”
“If I had a harpoon, you’d be dead.”
He snickered and nuzzled in where her ear met her neck. “You wouldn’t kill me.”
She wanted to curl into him, but she pushed him away—or tried to. “I’m all gross and sweaty—”
“Like we haven’t been before?”
“I need a shower. These suits make me sweat a sea’s worth.” She put her hands against his damp shirt.
“I can help you with that.”
She giggled. “Oh, can you?”
He shrugged and pulled her closer. “Or stay like this. I happen to like it,” he mumbled into her cheek.
It was easy to fall into him, to love him, to let him love her. It was also easy to give him whatever he wanted the moment his hands or mouth came near her.
His fingers found her nape and wound through the small, damp curls that had slipped out of her ponytail. It brought a heady, dizziness that lured her deeper into his tide.
She reached up and pulled him down to her, pressing her lips against his. Soft and salty, their sweat mingled. His tongue slid over hers, and he tasted like the sea, like something she could wade into and forget herself between sky and wave.
She wanted to bring him to Neeria, to show him her home. She wanted him to see her in her home, to get to know her family, to eat her people’s food. To see him hauling fishing nets, to see how the sand settles on his face and hair, to see his skin tan under breezy sunsets and early dawns. The need to immerse him in every aspect of her life tugged at her heart.
Sonora’s throat cleared. “We’re still here.”
Emeryss pulled away.
“The least they could do is let us watch, eh?” Urla nudged Sonora with a smirk.
They stopped with a slight laugh, and Emeryss lowered her hands from his scratchy face.
Sonora held up an index finger as her eyes glazed over. “Adalai wants us on the bridge. She wants to discuss getting into Ingini and convincing Clove to tell us how.”
Grier sighed against Emeryss’s forehead and kissed her there. “To be continued.”
Want more? You can preorder Architects of Ether (Book 2) now!
Pronunciation Guide
CHARACTERS
Emeryss – EM-err-ess
Adalai – ADD-uh-lye
Grier – Greer
Vaughn – Vonn
Jahree – JAH-ree
OTHER
Neeria – NEAR-ee-uh
Ingini – Engine-eye or Inn-GIN-eye
Delour – Duh-LORE
Ethrecity – Eth-RISS-itty
Aurelis – AW-rell-iss
Ethyrol — Ether-all
Zephyr — ZEFF-er
