by L. L. McNeil
Though she seemed familiar, as did everything here, he did not recognise her. She was definitely not in his memories. She bared her teeth again, tail lashing, taking one step closer to him, then another, then another.
Suddenly, about five paces from him, she stopped.
Her demeanour changed, and she stood up straight, ears pressed forward, nose twitching. She looked him over and engulfed herself in light as she transformed.
‘You…you’re Palom, aren’t you?’ she asked, hesitant. Her short, dark hair hung in different lengths, and her deeply tanned skin was darker than his own—but she had the unmistakable green eyes of his brother.
Palom, too, transformed, and dropped immediately into a crouch once he had two legs again. ‘Solvi? Leil Solvi? It…You…You have grown much.’
‘I should have known it was you. Tigers are such a rarity,’ she said, shaking her head, long, dangling earrings clinking together as she moved. ‘I can’t believe you’ve come back after all this time!’
Her words spoke of surprise, but her tone was still aggressive. He didn’t know whether she was welcoming him or guarding her home from an outsider.
‘Solvi…’ he said, voice barely above a whisper. ‘You were new born when I last saw you... Look at you now.’ He stood back up and stepped towards her, hands outstretched.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she jumped back. ‘You left us! You left us!’ She shook, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She wore bracelets of thin silver, each covered with multi-coloured beads and jewels, around her wrists and ankles. Her feet were bare, and she almost danced on her toes as she avoided his touch.
‘How is Manilo?’
Her eyes narrowed at the name, and her lips turned into a frown. ‘Your patera lives. My pali matera does not. You didn’t come back when we sent word of her death.’ She turned away, threatening to race off.
‘I did not know about my mother,’ he replied, taken aback at the accusation. He raised a hand to his chest and shook his head.
She scowled. ‘I’m sure pali would have something to say about that. Showing your face after everything you’ve done?’
‘Solvi, please,’ Palom said, his heart aching at her harsh words. Her reaction was exactly why he’d wanted to avoid returning to Sol. ‘Do not be like this. What happened…what Manilo told you, may not be same thing.’
She shook her head. ‘I know all I need to know. You’re a coward for leaving, even pali says so.’
‘Will you not listen to what I am saying?’
‘No. Am I taking you to pali or not? I’ll tell him I saw you, even if you don’t come.’
Palom sighed and shook his head. Her reaction of surprise and loathing worried him, and he didn’t want to make anything worse. ‘Would it make you happy if I went with you?’
‘No.’
‘Would it make you happy if I left?’
She thought about it before shaking her head. ‘No.’
‘I will see him soon, then,’ he said. He had no other options. He hoped he would not displease his niece, and at least by giving them both time to digest their meeting, it would help strong feelings settle and pass.
He could hardly believe the baby he’d seen was now a grown woman and with access to her own meraki. She was fierce and strong, light on her feet, and seemed every bit the hunter his brother had been.
How he wished to have seen her grow and blossom into who she was now. He’d been so preoccupied about his Valta Forinja and the idea of seeing his father that he’d forgotten about his brother’s baby daughter—and how she might feel about him now she had grown.
Palom suddenly thought back to the attack. ‘Have you seen Varkain here?’
‘Varkain? No. They don’t come near Sol,’ she replied, tilting her head to one side.
‘I met three on my way here, in an ambush. You should ask Archigo to set up patrols in pairs, for a while.’
Solvi nodded. ‘I’ll pass on the message.’
‘Asfali niji.’
Her eyes widened as she turned to race off. ‘Asfali,’ she called over her shoulder, and loped through trees, transforming as she did.
He watched her leave and listened as her footsteps faded away, until he was left with no noise but the rushing of the river water and the trees bending in the wind.
Chapter Nine
Amarah walked through the village a little after dawn, a small crowd of new companions trailing her. Most were children, who would race forward and beat their wings, swooping past her or overhead, before circling back to the rest of the group. The sun came up somewhere below their floating island home, bathing everything in soft, golden light.
‘Give her some room, younglings. Poor thing hasn’t been left alone since she landed!’ Tymē, an Arillian a little older than Amarah, called to the group of children who flew nearby. They scattered into the air, giggling.
‘They ain’t doing no harm. It’s all right.’ Amarah said, though she appreciated having some space.
The Arillian’s long, blonde hair was tied back, with the loose ends braided and threaded with bones and varnished pebbles. Her wings were almost white-blonde, matching her hair. ‘Even so, it’s better for them to leave you alone. I’m afraid they’ve only heard tales of on-ground. Oren is all they know.’
Amarah shrugged. ‘Haven’t they been down to see the Golems? Kohl spoke pretty damn highly of ‘em.’
‘Kohl certainly would. His direct ancestors created the ice golems—his frost-touch is ancient. Hah, it transcends the dragons, you know.’
Amarah wanted to ask her about the powers of the Golems, and whether they truly could free Moroda from crystal. However, having a little tact when getting people to give up information always helped. Better to not go for the jugular straightaway.
‘Most people would disagree. The Dragon Goddess Rhea created Linaria. So…she and the dragons were around before the world was. The ice can’t be older.’ Amarah glanced away as the Arillian children flew around each other in circles.
‘You’d be surprised what “most people” are wrong about. I’ve been on-ground before. I’ve spoken to people. In Val Sharis, they say the Varkain are a lost, sick people, split off from the Ittallan. The truth is the other way around. On the ground there has always been ice. Above ground, there have always been Arillians. Under the ground, there have always been snakes. The Varkain are the oldest race, you know. It is the Ittallan who split off from them.’ Tymē laughed, loose feathers falling from her wings.
‘Well that goes against the Samolen teachings.’ Amarah said, hands on her hips. She was hard pressed to say whether she agreed or not with the “traditional” mythos in Linaria.
She knew dragons weren’t to be messed with and could understand why they demanded such reverence. But to believe that one had actually created the world? It did seem a little far-fetched: something to tell children when they went to bed. Some way of instilling a belief of respect of the land and animals who inhabited it.
If she thought hard about it, she didn’t believe, nor did she really care to. Amarah had never believed in the Samolen magic, either, despite there being plenty of evidence for that: she had lost Moroda to some concoction of Samolen magic and dragon power, after all.
Arillians, though? Did their skills transcend the dragons? Their magic was ancient, powerful, tangible. There was no reading of spell books, or uttering incantations and silly chanting.
Topeko had told her the Samolen power came from the dragons: from their stones, created from water in the sacred lake.
Rhea’s breath, he called it.
The Arillians were from another branch altogether—completely different to anyone she had encountered anywhere else—and their plight and troubled history with the rest of Linaria reminded Amarah so much of herself.
‘Wrong or right, it doesn’t make anyone any better.’ Tymē continued, ‘Aciel thought he was right. Thought it was time for Arillians to rise again. No-one listened, no-one wanted to. So, he used that secret powe
r of his.’ She shivered, her hair blowing in the sudden breeze. ‘Hardly the way to change history, is it?’
Amarah and Tymē walked past a number of buildings through which children and adolescents flew in and out.
Khanna lay a short distance away, and Amarah had been keen to keep her ship in her sights every time she wandered the streets. After their initial curiosity, the Arillians had been happy to leave Khanna alone.
Khanna made Amarah think of her warship docked in Taban Yul; part of the fleet that had battled Aciel and those under his compulsion. It had been responsible for the deaths of many Arillians.
Amarah felt a pang of guilt—but when you had a weapon in your hand and there were people charging down on you, fighting back was the only option. ‘Hardly the way to change history.’ She repeated.
‘And now we hide and lick our wounds. The survivors suffer.’
‘Suffer?’
Tymē nodded and gestured to a large, squat building on the edge of the residences. Amarah squinted. The wailing she’d heard before had quietened, and she hoped it meant they’d healed, rather than died.
Tymē said, ‘Those who were under Aciel’s compulsion the longest…they... well.... Their minds are not completely theirs.’
Amarah followed her to the entrance, where she spotted a male Arillian sat against the rock, head bowed, muttering to himself.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the building, she saw others—young and old—acting similarly. Some shuffled around in circles, others picked at their wing feathers, and some sat and stared into nothing. Amarah swallowed. They all shared a blank, haunted look.
‘Some are worse than others. A few have recovered, only to seclude themselves.’ Tymē said, her voice soft and low. ‘They only have the faintest memories of what transpired, even over the long months of Aciel’s campaign. Isn’t it terrifying? To know you weren’t in control of your actions, or able to remember them?’
Amarah shuddered at the thought, Aciel’s cool voice suddenly in her mind.
‘Give me back the sphere you thief.’
She remembered, clearly, the heat of Jato’s warship as flames enveloped the deck. She remembered the heist to steal the ereven sphere from Aciel, and she remembered him taking control of her mind for a few seconds, before Moroda broke the spell.
That had been a close thing. Sapora had kept them alive, of that she was sure. But she’d taken on Aciel himself—had him pinned down, nearly sliced his arm clean off with her scythe.
She wondered how much more death and destruction she could have prevented if she’d been able to kill him.
Amarah also remembered Jato’s scream. Dragons above, she’d never forget that. Apparently in love with him and following him of her own free will.
‘His compulsion is a rare talent, even among Arillians. There’s no-one in all our history to have used his gift to such an extent—to have controlled so many of us. Who knows if they’ll fully recover.’ Tymē walked away, leaving the sick Arillians in peace.
‘What a bastard.’
Tymē laughed and shook her head. ‘Kohl did say you aren’t one to hold back with your thoughts!’
‘Why would I?’ Amarah shrugged. ‘No point in not saying stuff that needs to be said.’
‘This is true. Though many struggle with it.’
Amarah had learned quickly that her preconceptions for Arillians had been mistaken—they weren’t death-wielding, callous creatures who destroyed their land with wild storms and lightning. If anything, they were more peaceful than the Samolen.
Two devastating wars had made the divide between Arillians and the rest of the people within Linaria all the greater.
And yet Amarah was welcomed into their midst, offered food, drink, and shelter. They were curious about her and her life, about her ship, about her desires and hopes and fears.
If an Arillian came to a town, any town—even Berel, capital of the Samolen homeland—they’d be met with suspicion if not outright hatred.
She understood why they treated the Varkain as such—they were nothing but killers and did nothing to dissuade that belief—but the Arillians were something else altogether.
Everything was spoken: their language, their lore, their histories, their magic. They had no need of parchment or writing; everything was handed down through their words, in stories told to their children and grandchildren.
Amarah loved it.
Why couldn’t the rest of Linaria be the same? Instead of the Samolen notion that you had to be huddled in libraries, poring over dusty tomes, trying to understand the black markings scratched onto the pages—which apparently taught you the greatest secrets of the world.
She had struggled to understand the writing of her teachers: shapes and words blurred together or leapt off the page, and her eyes and head hurt when she tried to read for too long. She’d been yelled at for not trying hard enough, or for deliberately failing to understand it.
It had infuriated her—why would she pretend not to understand? The beatings she received and the shame she felt would surely dissuade her from pretending.
Her family gave up schooling her. Instead, they sent her away to Berel—home of the university and greatest school in all Linaria—to study under the scholars there.
No doubt they’d hoped the scholars would straighten her out, as attempting to beat sense into her hadn’t worked. Yet she was passed on from scholar to scholar within the school, from class to class, and none had any luck in getting her to understand the letters in their tomes, nor to harness her supposedly innate magical abilities.
Topeko was the only one who hadn’t forced her, and the only one who had earned her respect. His approach was far gentler and understanding, and he only accepted two or three students at a time, so when she failed, she wasn’t a laughing stock of the class.
She learned more about the Samolen and the history of Linaria with him than from anyone else, but she still could not use magic.
She’d undergone the ritual early, which sealed in her cheek jewel in the hopes that the power embedded in the stone would awaken her dormant powers.
The ritual had been long and bloody, and she’d hoped the pain would be worth it. Topeko refused to believe she had no abilities, and tried to help her day after day, night after night, without success.
Whether she was the wrong person in the right body or the right person in the wrong body, all she knew was that she was no Samolen.
She could not tap into the “innate” magic of her family, no matter how hard she had tried or what methods she used.
Amarah hated the country, the people. She hated being pushed away, shunned, and treated like an outsider over something she had no control over.
She’d had cried herself to sleep, begging Rhea for an answer, asking what she had done wrong to deserve this, but the Goddess was not forthcoming with a response. The books she was made to read did not help—even the little she could understand—and she thought there had to be more to life than being made to feel like this.
For years, Amarah endured her forced education, trying to please her estranged family, other students, Topeko, and his peers.
She'd failed.
When she realised she’d been backed into a corner with no way out and no way forward, she made a decision. She cut out her heritage—literally slicing the Samolen jewel from her cheek leaving her with a scar under her left eye—and struck out on her own shortly before her fourteenth birthday.
Ranski bordered its neighbour country, Corhaven, which was larger and busier, and full of towns and cities, unlike the few villages that dotted her country. Corhaven’s capital, Niversai, had treasures and opportunities galore. Corhaven boasted a population three times as great as Ranski, and the idea of being a face lost in the crowd, unable to be singled out and picked on, appealed greatly to Amarah.
Stealing several artefacts from her university, she bartered a passage north, crossed Ranski’s border and left the desert landscape far behind as she began a
new life in Corhaven.
She stowed away on airships, moving from town to town in secret, hunkered down in engine rooms. She became familiar with the variety of airships as they flew around Linaria. She learned to recognise the engines which would ensure a smooth flight, and those whose journeys would be swift.
She became friendly with junior members of the crew, and it did not take long for her to learn of piracy, and those ships who flew unrestricted in the skies above the world.
Her network of friends grew slowly: some were legitimately employed on Imperial fleets or traders’ vessels, others flew under black sails and their own banners, answering to none but their bellies. She found their way of life appealing, and it did not take long for her to grow attached to various crews.
The idea of going against the rules; against what was expected and demanded, was liberating. The skies offered the freedom she sought, and sky pirates kept to a code more than the established rules of the countries they flew in.
Despite the camaraderie, Amarah believed she was alone in the world and only she would be able to chart the course of her own fate. She kept allies at arms’ length and expected to be betrayed at every opportunity. She sabotaged the engines of those who wronged her, and openly challenged others for power and dominance over the skies.
By the time she bought Khanna, Amarah’s name was well known by people on both sides of the Imperial Guard, and her reputation only grew as she completed heists against well-known and respected Goldstones, getting herself involved in bloody skirmishes leaving their victims dead or seriously injured.
Numbers, she understood—she worked in money and had to know the value of what she was thieving—but words were beyond her.
Apparently, it made her somehow “less than” those around her, never quite good enough, no matter how hard she tried. So, after a time, she stopped trying. If she’d never be good enough in their world according to their rules, she made up her own. She took what she wanted when she wanted, and anyone who tried to tell her otherwise be damned.
