by JMD Reid
“You’re not coming back,” Gretla whispered.
“How did you know?”
“I heard you and ma this morning.”
Ary grunted, hiding any emotions.
Gretla reached out and grasped his hand with hers, warm and comforting. “It wasn’t right what she said. You weren’t responsible for Srias’s death. Or Pa’s.”
Ary knew the truth, though. Srias had died of the plague, but his pa would be alive if he hadn’t walked the skyland’s edge that day to watch the Cyclone. He knew it with every sinew of his body.
“So what are you gonna do, Ary?” Gretla asked, concern staining her voice.
“Master Arshev has offered to rent me a small croft. He’s got too much land to work himself.”
Mildan Arshev had grown greedy after the Cyclone. He received a fair breeze when he found two Stormriders, and all their metal armor, dead on his farm. He sold their metal to the government for a thousand emeralds and bought Widow Rheyn’s farm at auction. Ary’s pa hadn’t been the only person to die—a stray arrow had pierced Ol’ Widow Rheyn’s chest.
“Are you going to propose to Chaylene?” Gretla asked, voice casual.
Ary gave his little sister a considering look, weighing how well she could keep a secret before glancing at Jhevon. His younger brother still whistled. Jhevon couldn’t be trusted.
“Yeah.” He touched his breast pocket without thinking, feeling the dried and flattened moonflower wrapped in cloth.
Gretla chortled. “Ma’ll have a fit.”
“Ma wants nothing to do with me, so she can leap into the Storm for all I care.”
Gretla clapped her hands over her mouth. “Brother, you shouldn’t say such things.”
“I’ve heard you say worse that time you stubbed your toe.”
“Liar. I’m a proper lady.”
“Proper ladies wash their faces in the morning.”
“Did, too.” She rubbed her cheeks with her sleeve. “Where at, Ary?” Her expression turned frosty as Ary laughed, his anger fading. She balled her fist and punched him in the shoulder.
“Proper ladies don’t hit their brothers, either,” Ary said with a grin. He was rewarded with a second punch. Followed by a third and fourth. It only made Ary laugh.
The shouts and laughs caught Jhevon’s attention. He shook his head. “She’s gonna punch your arm right off, Ary.”
“This little thing? She’s lucky I don’t grab her by the scruff of the neck and shake her.”
“I’d bite,” Gretla warned, gnashing her teeth.
“Jhevon, is Gretla a proper lady?”
Jhevon studied their sister and nodded. “A right proper lady,” he said with a calm breeze. “For a shark, anyways!” Jhevon kicked his ostrich into a trot as Gretla gnashed her teeth and took off after him.
They reached the village of Isfe not long after Gretla tired of chasing Jhevon. The village had transformed since the Cyclone seven years ago. The storm had devastated much of the town, destroying the schoolhouse, the tavern, and many of the whitewashed crofts and houses. The townsfolk and the farmers made improvements when they rebuilt—many of the houses had slate roofs rather than thatch. The schoolhouse used to double as the old grange, but now two separate buildings faced each other across the Village Green.
The Green remained the heart of the farming community. On Skyday, it became a market where the farmers and villagers sold crops and goods. When the merchants came from Ahly—their trains of wagons pulled by hulking, black-furred bristleback boars—to buy the barley and citrus harvests, they occupied the Green. In the center thrust the Isfe Weathertower, one of the few structures to survive the Cyclone. Weathermaster Xorlen manned the gray granite spire, controlling the weather with his Greater Blessing of Mist and the tower’s large smoky quartz crystal engine.
All those who’d turned seventeen since the last Summer Solstice gathered at the Village Green along with their friends and family leaving soon for Ahly. In two days, Ary and the other youths would enter the Solar of the Goddess Above, receive her Blessing, and become adults. After the ceremony, they’d register for this year’s naval draft.
Once, Ary had dreamed to serve in the Navy as a marine. If he received the Blessing of Lightning, he could join them. But even serving as the lowliest sailor would have thrilled him. He used to burn for grand adventures in the skies, to fight Agerzak pirates and Zzuki tribesmen. The Intrepid’s crash had shown Ary the true price of adventure.
Now he only wanted Chaylene. To start a new family. A whole one.
Ary scanned the crowd, eager to lay his eyes on her. Instead, he found Thush Shardhin’s flinty face. The man was a few years older than Ary, with folded arms, his face hardening into coral. A twinge throbbed Ary’s nose, and the taste of coppery blood thickened upon his tongue. The first stirrings of angry winds surged through Ary. He returned the stare, not caring about the man’s pregnant wife, Estilia, stood beside him, hands wrapped about her swollen belly.
Ary knew Thush had never forgotten that day two years ago . . .
~ * * ~
Blood poured across Ary’s upper lip, filling his mouth with salt and tang. It spilled over his chin, dripping down the front of his shirt. He paid it no mind as his punch landed hard on Thush Shardhin’s chin. The seventeen-year-old boy reeled back, tripping over the prone form of his dazed brother, Veneth.
“Theisseg’s cursed Storm!” Thush snarled, arms windmilling to hold his balance.
Ary’s next punch took Thush in the torso, right beneath his sternum. Though both youths were of a similar size, Thush fell and crashed on his younger brother’s arm. A grunt wheezed from Veneth’s lips, gray dust from the gravel path plastered across his face.
The fire raged in Ary. His heart thudded, demanding action. With a howl, he threw himself over Veneth, boots crunching. His knee slammed down into Thush’s midriff. The brawny youth grunted, ribs cracking. He struggled to catch his breath, a wheezing cough erupting from fish-wide lips. His tan face darkened to puce as Ary ground his knee into Thush’s sternum. He grabbed a fistful of straw hair, lifting Thush’s head.
Fire demanded more.
Ary’s fist smashed into Thush’s face. A sickening crunch preceded a spurt of bright blood. Thush coughed, crimson spilling from a broken nose. His eyes flashed all whites as he spasmed on the ground. Knuckles throbbing, Ary drew back his fist again.
“Theisseg’s scrawny tail feathers, Ary!” Vel called. His friend peered from the ditch, clothes smeared in clots of dark mud, face swollen. “You whooped them.”
“Not all of them!” Ary’s eyes flashed to Huchen. He wanted to keep hitting. Cyclone should have taken you, Ary! his ma cackled in his mind. Theisseg cursed you!
Every blow cracking onto Thush’s skull brought vicious satisfaction. Ary found release in the violence of spilling blood. Flashes of his ma, her nose broken, bloodied, sparked through his imagination as he stared at Huchen Shardhin. Cousin to the two lying stunned and groaning.
“Now, Ary,” Huchen said, his face bled pale from its normal brown to a sickly tan, “your friend was dishonoring their sister.”
“Just a few kisses,” Vel muttered, his words slurred. He rubbed at his split lip, grimacing. His pretty face would take two weeks or more to make the girls of Isfe sigh after him again.
“Then what was your hand doing beneath her skirt?” Huchen exclaimed, quivering hands balling.
Ary rose. “You want to drub him?” He savored the crack of knuckles as he formed his fist. “Do it.”
Huchen’s eyes flicked to Ary’s bloody fist. “Come on, Ary. What if it was your sister he was diddlin’?”
Ary charged.
Huchen let out a yelp and ran.
Disappointment soured through Ary as Huchen’s longer legs sped him down the road. Ary stopped after a few steps, breathing deeply. The throbbing faded in his knuckles, the blood slowing from his nose. A dull fire ached in both. With a grunt, he set his broken nose. The crack made Vel flinch and Ary gr
unt.
“You okay?” Ary asked, turning to his friend.
“Mostly.” Vel let out a laugh, a grin on his cracked lips. “Better than the Shardhin boys. Huchen’s gonna need to change his britches.” He climbed out of the mud and sat on the edge of the ditch. Nearby, Veneth dragged his dazed brother away. “Thush won’t live this down. The Shardhin boys whooped by a youth two years their junior.”
“Veneth’s sixteen,” Ary pointed out. “Only a year older than me.”
“Still.”
Ary smiled at that, sitting down on the edge of the ditch, his boots resting in muddy puddles. He opened and closed his fingers, the fiery ache fading. “Iatlisa Shardhin? Really? What about Estilia?”
Vel Shrugged. “Bored. Besides, Iatlisa’s pretty. And she was willing. Why not?”
“You have to settle down. We’ll be men in two years. Most know who they’ll be marrying. You should pick one. There are plenty of great girls that’d make great wives.” A smile grew on Ary’s lips, Chaylene’s ebony face whirling through his thoughts. The memory of their first kiss last week was hot in his mind and upon his lips. The feel of her against him, her softness, her curves . . . “The best is taken, but second best ain’t bad.”
Vel grunted, looking down at his muddy pants. He picked at a clot of muck tangled with grass.
Ary’s shoulders squirmed, cheeks warming. “I didn’t mean it that way. Plenty of girls as great as Chaylene. She’s just the best to me.”
Vel gave Ary a hard stare. “Do you think she’s only courting you because no other goodwife would let her son marry her?”
Anger battered down the spike of fear. He spat into muddy water. “What would you know? You can’t court one girl longer than a week. She loves me!”
~ * * ~
Even after two years, Vel’s question echoed through Ary’s head. Only Ary had ever courted Chaylene. Most boasted about her Vaarckthian fires, claiming they’d steal to her hovel to receive her kisses. Or they had until Ary’s fists knocked out a few teeth.
A flash of blonde against ebony drew Ary’s attention from Thush. Chaylene waved, standing beside Vel. A smile lit up her dark face. Ary’s cheek burned, a different memory than the pain of Thush Shardhin’s punch. Seven years, and still he remembered the heat of her lips on his cheek the day of the Cyclone.
Over the years, Chaylene had kept him from doing something he’d regret. He could talk to her, tell her about his ma, admit the horrible things she accused. He could be . . . open with Chaylene. He didn’t have to worry about the other boys seeing him weak, smelling blood on the wind like a frenzy of sharks. Since his pa’s death, he’d had to be strong. For the farm, for his siblings.
“Sh-she . . . She says I’m cursed, Lena,” echoed through his head. Memory of her soft hands on his cheeks, brushing back tears. “Said Theisseg touched me and . . .”
“Of course Theisseg didn’t.” Chaylene’s younger face, still rounded by baby fat, stared at him with concern. “You’re not cursed, Ary.”
“But wh-what if I am cursed?”
“Why would you think that? Because your ma said it?” A sneer curled her lips.
The hesitation seized Ary as it always did when he thought about Theisseg’s curse. The puckered scar on his side itched. The strangling darkness reached up to his heart, trying to snare it. But seeing Chaylene’s smiling face as she crossed the Green forced it back. She reminded him of the answer to Vel’s question: She loves me not because there’s no one else, but because she’s got a big heart and a gentle touch.
Pushing down foolish fears, Ary booted his ostrich, trotting across the Green to join them. He reigned up and dismounted, sweeping off his hat, exposing his mop of blond hair. “Chaylene, you are looking as radiant as the sun.”
“Good morning, Ary,” she said, her gray eyes growing soft like clouds after rain. She pursed those plump lips Ary loved to kiss in private moments, her small nose wrinkling with delight.
Chaylene no longer stood taller than Ary; he had several fingerswidths on her. Her lanky form had ripened with a maturity he appreciated. His eyes fell on her dark-blue blouse embroidered with red songbirds placed to draw his eyes to her lush curves pressing at the fabric.
“Good morning, Vel,” he nodded to his best friend, tearing his eyes away from Chaylene.
“Morning.” Vel grinned, his narrow face framed by lustrous brown hair. Many of the village girls grew glossy-eyed around him. Ary didn’t think his friend was that handsome. “How’s your ma?”
Ary soured. “Fine.”
Chaylene shifted closer to Ary, her blonde braid swaying behind her. Ary yearned to embrace her—kiss her—but they weren’t betrothed. Yet. He settled on brushing back an errant curl behind her round ear, caressing the silk of her neck.
Chaylene’s smile deepened, transforming her face into a breathtaking sunrise.
Vel cleared his throat. Ary jerked his hand away.
The Village Green swelled with those making the trip to Ahly. A cacophony of shouts, cheers, laughter, and the honks of ostriches roared across it. Children, excited to visit Ahly and see a city, darted through the crowd, chased by the reproaches of their parents.
“It looks like it’s time to mount up,” Vel said.
“Will you ride with me, Vel?” Brelyn, a plump village girl, smiled, her eyes glossy like an ostrich hatchling as she stared at Vel.
“Maybe I will,” Vel grinned. “Riding is such a dusty affair. It’s always a delight to have a pretty flower perfuming the air at your side.”
Ary rolled his eyes. “Want me to help you mount, Chaylene?”
Her smile dazzled him. “Oh, yes, thank you.”
Ary cupped his hands and helped Chaylene mount her ostrich, on loan from Master Arshev. The ostrich let out a chirp, shaking its naked head. Chaylene sat stiffly, her knuckles clutching the reins with a desperate grip. Her lower lip quivered, sweat beading her forehead.
He patted her hand, hating to see fear in her eyes. “A girl who picks up a stick to play Pirates and Marines or runs laughing up the Bluesnake chasing ducks can manage an ostrich. Just keep a good grip and remember you’re in charge.”
The ostrich turned her head and snapped her beak at Chaylene. She squeaked.
“Just thump the back of her head when she does that. Or flick her beak. That’ll teach her you’re the boss.”
“Okay.” Her voice was tight with fear.
He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be fine. Just rap her with your knuckles.”
She nodded.
“Briaris, son, there you are.”
Ary turned to find Master Arshev standing behind him, a stained handkerchief mopping the sweat from his balding head. “Hello, Master Arshev.”
“How’s your ma?”
Ary shifted. “Fine, sir. She’s . . . breathed bad vapors. So she won’t be going.”
“Probably for the best.” Master Arshev’s green eyes shifted. The entire village buzzed with Ary's ma’s . . . difficulties. “Everything’ll be ready for you and um . . .” He glanced at Chaylene, who gave her ostrich a timid rap on the back of the head. “Well, when you get back, it’ll all be ready. But, just so you know, son, the Mayor and I would support you if you want to press your rights for the farm. Your ma can be ruled . . . incompetent. None of us believe the dung she hurls.”
“No. It’s fine. Maybe she can . . .” Anger boiled inside him, and he fought down the impolite words. “It’s just better this way. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.”
“Your pa was a good man. Helped me out a time or three.” A smile creased his ruddy face. “Well, enjoy the trip.”
“I will sir. I think everyone’s ready to leave.”
“Of course, lad.” He extended his hand. Ary blinked, then shook hands like he was already an adult.
Then winced. Master Arshev’s grip crushed his.
~ * * ~
Chaylene glared at the back of her ostrich’s head. The gray-feathered neck twisted around, and the yellow-black
beak snapped at her. She yelped then remembered Ary’s instructions and flicked the ostrich’s beak. It shook its head before twisting back to face forward.
“That’s it,” Ary smiled, giving his ostrich a practice flick. He almost looked comical on the bird with his thick legs wrapped around its stunted, black wings. He frowned, giving her a look. “What?”
“Nothing.” She giggled, pulling on her bonnet and tying the strings beneath her chin.
The Isfains wound out of the Green, following the road west to the Snakewood. Chaylene gave her ostrich’s flanks a tentative heel. The ostrich ignored her.
“Harder,” Ary suggested, reaching out to put a broad, reassuring hand on her slender shoulder. “Be confident, Chaylene. The ostrich will recognize it.”
Ary always believed in her. “Just lunge for the duck,” he told her the first time she’d chased them down the Bluesnake. “Don’t worry ‘bout getting muddy. I’ll still think you’re pretty.”
Chaylene stared at her ostrich, and took a deep breath. Be confident. It’s only a stupid bird. Its head twisted back around, beak flashing. She flicked it, trying not to wince as her fingernail clipped its hard beak.
“In two days, we’ll be adults. Then you can touch her shoulder all you want,” Vel announced, guiding his ostrich to Chaylene’s other side. His smile was broad, his teeth white.
“In a few days our lives are going to be so different,” Ary said, his hand rubbing at the front of his coat.
Is there something in his breast pocket? wondered Chaylene.
“Some of us might even be in the Navy,” Vel added. “Flying off to have adventures and play Pirates and Marines for real.”
The giddy rush died inside Chaylene, pecked into a ragged pieces by fear. Her voice tight, she asked, “How many recruits are they going to need this year?”
“Only a handful,” Ary answered, giving her shoulder one last squeeze. “There are usually about five hundred or so youths from across the skyland that reach majority, and only about ten ever get chosen. So stop scaring her, Vel.”
“But if there were a lot of losses in the Navy, they’ll need more,” Vel pointed out. “Unless you’re seeing visions in the sun, Ary, you have no idea.”
