by JMD Reid
“Good enough.” The man whirled to the pavilion. “They’re ready, Lieutenant-Captain. Well, as ready as this Storm-kissing bunch can be.”
“Thank you, Shefe,” Lieutenant-Captain Myxo nodded as she strode out of the pavilion, her shoulders set, red eyes hard. For a moment, a ghost of a smile played on her lips as her gaze lingered on Ary and Chaylene.
“For all the citizens of the great Autonomy of Les-Vion, I thank you for your devotion to our mighty nation and hope you serve her with honor! The hopes and dreams of our fellow citizens rest in men and women like you. The dangers facing our great nation are many, from Agerzak pirates to Cyclones.”
Angry clouds. Roaring winds. Riders in metal.
Ary shuddered.
“The Vaarckthian Empire is ever covetous of reclaiming her lost provinces, and we must remain vigilant and strong lest the Empire again try to reconquer our nation. And while the Tribes of Zzuk are our allies now, only power will keep them subservient. Much will be asked of you over the coming four years. Some of you standing here may give the ultimate sacrifice for our great nation.”
She paused, examining them as her words sank into their thoughts. Everyone fidgeted.
“If you think you are unable to serve facing such risks, you may take the craven’s route and spend your four years working hard labor. Step forward if there are any cowards among us.”
Chaylene swayed, swallowed.
No one stepped forward.
The lieutenant-captain nodded. “Good. Glory and honor shall be yours. Hold out your hands to our great Goddess and repeat after me.”
Ary, and everyone else, raised their right hands to the sun. Lieutenant-Captain Myxo spoke, and he recited: “I, Briaris Jayne, affirm that I am the Stormwall of the Autonomy of Les-Vion. I shall defend my fellow citizens from all enemies above or below the Storm with courage and fidelity. Serving with honor and pride for a term of no less than four years and for so long as the Autonomy requires.”
“Welcome to the Navy,” the lieutenant-captain smiled. “Shefe, the duty-schedule.”
The scarred petty officer unrolled a parchment. “Half of you shall head to Camp Chubris and the other half to Camp Sele for training. For Camp Chubris: Dhevene, Jayne, Jayne, Tloay, and Xohly. Your boat arrives in a week. The rest, you’re for Camp Sele and’ll be shipping out in three days.”
Ary swallowed. Five days, a week, and he, his wife, and Vel would leave Vesche.
Chapter Thirteen
Yruoujoa 7th, 399 VF (1960 SR)
Ary swung the canvas rucksack over his shoulder, dressed in his marine uniform: white, wool shirt tucked into blue wool trousers bloused into black boots. Over his shirt, he wore a heavy, red coat. He broiled, even this early in the morning, sweat soaking into the woolen uniform. He gave an envious look to his wife, dressed in her scout’s uniform: white linen shirt, white trousers bloused into her black boots, and a light-blue linen coat.
“The wool helps generate your static charge,” Petty Officer Shefe had bellowed when he’d heard Ary and Thamen, the other marine, complaining in the barrack’s mess hall three nights ago. “When you’re in the fray, you’ll be wantin’ to generate your charge as quick as thunderbolt.”
Shefe chuckled at his pun, then scowled when no one joined him.
The static charge always tingled across Ary’s skin—a manifestation of his Moderate Lightning. It sometimes became unbearable, always itching on his skin. But every day he grew more used to the sensation. With a touch, he could discharge the static through his hands, choosing either to stun or kill his opponent. Thanks to his Blessing, he would train with the thunderbuss, learning to fire bolts through the weapon, felling enemies at a great range.
“Ready?” Chaylene asked him, slipping a small book into her coat’s inner pocket. She’d pressed the moonflower and the red daisy between those blank pages to keep them safe and “close to my heart.”
“I guess so.” He forced a smile. “We’re off to have our adventure.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” she sighed, hefting her rucksack full of her meager possessions. “Well, we best get this over with.”
A week had passed since they’d reported for muster on the second. Today, they shipped out to Camp Chubris. Before the city’s barracks, they joined their fellow recruits. Vel grinned at them, nodding his head. Ary returned the smile, glad Vel would train at Chubris.
Maybe we’ll even serve on the same ship, Ary thought for the dozenth time in the last week. But the Navy preferred to separate those from the same villages.
“They’ll split us apart for sure,” Vel had complained yesterday over a breakfast of barley porridge and dried oranges.
“Maybe not,” Chaylene smiled, reaching over the table to pat Vel’s hand. “Maybe they’ll overlook it. We’re going to the same camp.”
“At least we’ll have the next three months together,” Ary said.
“Besides, think of all the pretty girls serving on your new boat. Perhaps one will catch your heart.”
Vel shrugged. “Maybe I just need to convince her that I’m the right one.”
Ary still puzzled over who his friend had meant yesterday.
“Out late drinking again?” Chaylene asked Vel when he emerged for muster.
“Need something to do while Ary steals you away every night.”
Ary tried not to smirk. Part of him felt bad abandoning his friend each evening, but he and Chaylene had their own room in the barracks. They put it to good use. He could spend all night just touching her, exploring her, discovering things about her he never knew. The sounds she could make . . . The things she could make him feel . . .
He felt united to her, sharing one flame, one life. He pulled his wife closer, and her gray eyes found his. The world stopped around them. Even if Vel wouldn’t serve with them, Ary had her. His family. Wherever the Navy took them, they’d make a life.
Vel scowled. “Don’t go kissing her now. We’re about to form up. Shefe’ll pluck you naked like an ostrich for Wedding Day.”
“And there’d be so much to pluck,” giggled Chaylene, breaking away. “And—”
“Jayne!” Shefe backed. “Stop pawing your wife.”
Ary yanked his hand away, cheeks burning as Vel smirked.
“Tloay! Wipe that grin off your face. You look like a wide-mouth bass with the hook set.”
Ary fought his own smirk.
“Alright, you minnows, let’s see if you storming remember how to march.” Shefe scowled at Ary. “And lead with your right foot, not your left.”
“I remember, sir.” Ary kept his back straight, a flush darkening his cheeks.
Vel snickered.
“Right, let’s get moving. On the half-step. March!”
The petty officer led the recruits through the streets, winding down the King’s Bluff and through the bustling streets of Ahly. The Xorlar, a twin-masted merchantmen, awaited them at the docks, ready to carry them to the Skyland of Les for their training.
Families waited to see off their sons and daughters. Vel’s sisters waved, then his ma swept him up in a sobbing hug. Ary didn’t expect anyone, so the sight of the severe blonde woman standing before the Xorlar, her arms crossed before her, trampled over Ary like stampeding ostriches.
“Ma?” he gaped.
Ionie Jayne fixed him with her hard, red eyes. She took a step to him, hugging herself even tighter. Her gaze flickered to Chaylene, a grimace twisting his ma’s expression. “So you married that hussy’s daughter?”
Chaylene’s face tightened.
Anger swallowed shock in a storm of black winds. He tried to fight it, to beat it down. For seven years, he’d never given her that satisfaction. He left her behind. And she followed him to heap more pain, more insults, on his wife. Finally, he gave his mother what he’d long suppressed.
Fury gusted out of him.
“Did you come all this way to throw dung at my wife? Or was it merely to gloat as I sail out of your life forever?”
&nb
sp; She flinched before his words, her face flushing dark. “No. I’m . . . That’s not why I came.”
“Then why? I’m in no mood to be torn apart by your words today.”
“I just wanted to say . . .” She took a breath, her jaw trembling. “Briaris, I . . .”
“What? That you’re thrilled I’m sailing off to die?” His anger generated a fierce breeze that gusted out of him. “That you’re glad to be rid of me so that all the terrible things in your life will end and everything will be perfect? No more Theisseg-touched monster to threaten your other children.”
The other recruits and their families watched. Ary didn’t care.
She shrank before his words.
“Well, I’ll be back in four years to spite you.”
“I . . . I’m afraid for you,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Afraid for me?” The angry wind inside him swirled into bewilderment. Is this a new tactic to hurt me?
“I’m . . . sorry, Briaris.”
“You’re sorry?” he sneered.
She nodded her head. “You . . . could die.”
“That’s what you want! You’ve as much as said it to me every day since Pa’s death. That I should have died instead of him. Instead of Srias! And now you care? Why?”
“You’re my son. I . . . was confused . . . Everything was covered by this . . . this fog.”
“You were more than confused.” His fist clenched, his lightning charge gathering, itching for release. “You spent every day for the last seven years showering me in pig slop.”
“I’m sorry, Briaris. I just . . . wanted you to know that before you left. I’ve been horrible—”
“You have been more than horrible! You wished me dead.”
He pushed past her, ignoring her startled cry, and strode to the gangplank. Anger threatened to overwhelm him and inflict upon her all the wounds she’d cut into his soul. How he wanted to hurt her.
“I’m your mother, Briaris!” she wailed.
“No, you’re not!” He marched up the gangplank without looking back, ignoring her cries. “I don’t have a mother!”
He reached the ship’s far railing, dropping his rucksack. The churning Storm drew his attention. He exhaled. Moments later, Chaylene found him and hugged him. He clutched her tight. She was all the family he would have for the next four years. He would never let her go. His mother could jump off the skyland for all he cared.
He ignored that tiny voice, whispering guilt, inside him.
Chaylene didn’t say a word as the ship prepared to sail, crew bustling. Ary finally stood on a ship about to soar across the skies and, instead of feeling excited or scared, frustration gripped him. Why now? Why couldn’t she just leave me in peace?
He stared fixedly at the churning-gray Storm Below, a school of Storm bass flying just above the violence of the whirling clouds. A breeze gusted, conjured by the Windwarden’s Major Wind, snapping the white sails. Ropes rasped on wood as sailors slipped the hawsers from the pier’s pilings. The ship creaked as she soared from the docks into the harbor.
Ary risked one last look at the city. His ma stood on the quay, hugging herself, frozen amid the dock’s activity. Pity and guilt stirred inside him. Then anger flared, consumed it. She deserves to feel the same pain she heaped on me! He turned his back and vowed never to waste another heartbeat on her.
She can jump into the Storm!
The Xorlar sailed for the gap between the King’s and Queen’s Bluffs. Beyond lay the open sky of Jhey Strait. The ship entered the passages, cliffs looming on either side. Schools of red-banded minnows and silvery fish darted into the wrinkled protection of the blue coral growing up the bluffs' faces.
He held Chaylene, the pair silent, as they watched their home skyland dwindle until it was only a tiny smear in the vast, empty skies. And then it, and his ma, vanished. The Xorlar sailed alone.
~ * * ~
Pain tore at Chaylene’s heart as she watched Vesche dwindle with Ary. She wanted to savor the moment, to see the hateful place vanish with all the goodwives. But her husband’s hurt deprived her of the satisfaction she’d long imagined leaving would give. How could she enjoy the moment when agony afflicted him? She wanted to remove it. To dab his emotions with a cloth, a doctor tending the ragged wounds of an injured man.
But she couldn’t soothe him. The pain bled through the cracks, his wounds reopened by that hateful woman. Why can’t you just leave your son alone? He was free of you!
She could only love her husband. She leaned against him until his spirits lifted.
Then excitement returned to them both as they studied the ship, observing its twin masts. Sailors moved through the rigging, lacking fear as they scampered across the spars, changing the setting of the rigging at the captain’s orders.
I could never do that, thought Chaylene.
It held their attention for all of a half-hour. And then they learned the truth: there was nothing to do on the Xorlar but stay out of the sailors’ way.
Cargo crowded the deck and hold of the ship, shrinking the amount of space the recruits could occupy without interfering in the sailors’ tasks. The crew bustled at all times, checking the rigging, scrubbing the decks, and performing a hundred other tasks.
They faced days of sailing to reach Camp Chubris on the southeastern edge of the great Skyland of Les. It was one of the two large skylands forming the heart of the Autonomy. Les and Vion’s alliance had allowed the Humans of the southern skies to throw off the Vaarckthian Empire’s oppression and erect their democracy.
Worst, Ary and Chaylene lacked privacy. Their bed hammocks were slung with the crew in the hold. Nowhere to share kisses or other delights. Chaylene’s hot blood boiled for those pleasures. The last week had opened her eyes to all the things she and Ary could have done before their marriage.
She was glad they had waited, that she’d proved to all she wasn’t a Vaarckthian hussy.
So instead, she passed time with idle talk as the endless Storm slid by beneath, chatting with Ary or Vel or both. Away from the skyland, a vast, blue void surrounded them. Occasionally, a floating tangle of green kelp drifted past, swarming with silvery fish while gray sharks and broad-winged albatrosses prowled the edges. The ship soared by schools of tuna, silvery halibut, or flat-head cod eating the hazy, red patches of krill peppering the skies.
The ship reached the Skyland of Oname early the day after sailing from Vesche. It grew on the horizon, fading from black to brown to a riot of clashing orange and purple coral growing up its sides. Black-winged gulls cawed a racket as they soared alongside the ship. “Stealing the wind,” laughed a sailor. “They’re usin’ our breeze to take ‘em to land.”
At Ayech, Oname’s capital, the Xorlar picked up eight sailors and a pair of marines heading for Camp Chubris. Then the ship slipped harbor and tacked northeast towards the Onamen Sky and the Skyland of Elemy.
Near evening, hours after sailing from Oname, Chaylene spotted Vel lounging against the captain’s cabin while Xoshia—a slim, Onamen recruit with a delicate nose and round face—spoke with him. The way she stood, her arms behind her back, her body twisting, brought a smile to Chaylene’s lips.
He deserves a nice girl. Pity stirred in her heart for Vel and the feelings he’d swallowed out of respect for Ary.
Vel’s eyes found hers. A shiver ran through her body, his gaze a reminder that he hadn’t abandoned his feelings for her. The intensity struck her like a force, his emotions reaching out to her, begging to grab her, to hold her. She gave him a sad smile and turned away, seeking her husband.
Ary leaned against the railing at the front of the ship, staring down at the Storm, his shoulders tense. Another dark squall beset him. Heart aching, Chaylene glided across the deck to him and climbed the steep stairs onto the higher bow deck. Behind her, two new marines lounged against the mast, their laughter coarse.
“You should say hi to the new marines,” she said, coming up to her husband, her hand scratching a
t his wool shirt. She sweltered in her linens, sweat sticking the white cloth to her shoulder blades. “You’ll probably serve with one or both of them.”
Ary shrugged, not answering.
She sighed, knowing one way brighten his gloom. If only we had privacy . . . “Your ma?”
“Why did she do it?” Ary asked.
“Apologize?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I guess she finally caulked the cracks in her minds.”
“Part of me wants to apologize too. But then the anger rises up.” He almost growled the last part. “I can hear all the hateful things she’s said.”
“Then don’t think about it.”
“How?” He stared at her, the naked pain stabbing her heart. “Her words echo over and over.” He pressed his hand into his side. “That I’m cursed. That I killed them.”
“Ary.” A patient sigh escaped her lips, fingers curling, wishing to crush Goodwife Jayne’s throat. “You know that’s not true. You just wanted to see marines fight.”
“He’d be alive.”
“You couldn’t have known. And Srias . . . You can’t blame yourself for the plague.”
He looked down at his hand, flexing fingers over and over. “What if . . .?”
“What?”
“What if I’m cursed?”
“Why would you think that? Because your ma says so? Her mind has more cracks than pottery heated for too long in the kiln.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
Her heart strained. She wanted to take all his pain away and replace it with joy. She rubbed his lower back, her fingernails scratching on his wool uniform. “Watch the sunset and think about me. Forget her. Then the stars will come out. Watching them always helps me forget.”
“I know,” Ary answered.
Chaylene smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder.
The sun sank to the horizon, painting the Storm Below in fiery hues. The sky darkened and the stars winked into view. She smiled at her old friends. She watched the stars with Ary, forgetting about her shameful desires for Vel. When Ary asked her about the constellations, happiness filled her heart as she told the stories connected to each one.
