The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives)

by Courtney Grace Powers

He was so busy trying to look four directions at once, he ran right into Talfryn, not realizing she’d stopped. While he stammered out an apology, she giggled and helpfully picked up his bifocals from where they’d clattered against the tiled floor.

  “It’s no trouble. Here…this is what I wanted to show you.”

  Blinking rapidly as he slid on his spectacles, Hayden peered past her, trying not to show how confused he was. Make no mistake, the new display was beautiful…he just didn’t know what the tall, tubular fountain was supposed to be. Its water trickled more than it fell, running down in a shimmering sheet over a crust of precious stones he didn’t recognize. Red and gold and teal, they pulsed with light, like fireflies, or beating hearts. The water steamed about them. Hayden’s glasses fogged as he leaned close.

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  Talfryn mimicked him, leaning forward and bracing her hands on the lip of the basin. The pulsing gems, each as big as Hayden’s hand with all his fingers splayed, made fairy lights in her eyes.

  “These,” she whispered, “are the city’s power source.”

  Hayden stared. “What?”

  “They were recovered from the trenches between Haldon and Lumiel, just west of here. The other cities all have one of their own, but of course, since Neserus is by far our biggest city, we require the most. Our scientists believe they actually fell from space, perhaps as many as a thousand years ago.”

  “But what are they?”

  She shrugged. “Stones. We call them anai. You are familiar with the concept of naturally-occurring energy?”

  “You mean like solar energy.”

  “Yes, but more specifically, nuclear energy. The fusion of two nuclei, resulting in trace amounts of their atomic masses being converted into pure energy.”

  Hayden nodded, following along. This was more or less straight out of Galfrey’s Deeper Concepts of Deep Space, which he’d studied in his free time between classes just last year.

  Talfryn sat sideways on the edge of the basin. “The anai are like…self-contained stars, fixed on a loop, if you will. They’re creating their own energy as we speak.”

  It took remarkable willpower for Hayden not to lean back as he said a little uncertainly, “That would mean they’re giving off radiation.”

  “Yes, but hardly enough to do you harm just by standing there. They may very well be the only ones of their kind. For all our extensive research, we’ve come no closer to knowing how they were made, or if they were made, and by who.”

  Though the bit about the radiation was hardly comforting, Hayden nonetheless took a seat across from her and looked at the glowing stones with interest. And wariness. The Kreft had supposedly been rooted in the Epimetheus galaxy for a thousand years. They had been trying to subjugate it and fighting The Heron for at least half that long, that or making them suffer for destroying their powerful weapon. But according to Nivy, the weapon hadn’t been destroyed, but hidden. Or perhaps more accurately, lost. Not even The Heron knew where or what it was; that knowledge had belonged to their ancestors, the earliest opponents of The Kreft. Could it be that maybe these stones, these anai, were a part of their history too? A self-sustaining, independent energy source would certainly change the tides of a war.

  According to the duke’s research, Oceanus had yet to be touched by The Kreft except where waves from other politicking planets rolled over them—or else Reece would never have steered Aurelia here. Hayden hoped, now more than ever, it never was.

  Oblivious to his wonderings, Talfryn reached with a hand and grazed the curtain of water turning the anai into shimmering, molten things. “I held one, once. Just for a moment.”

  The wistfulness in her voice dragged Hayden away from his thoughts. “What was it like?” he asked.

  “Like…holding a star,” she answered dreamily, then shook herself and looked embarrassed. “That sounded silly.”

  At great risk of sounding very silly himself, Hayden tried to reassure her, “But not untrue.” She smiled gratefully, and he decided the risk had been worth it.

  They chatted by the fountain for some time before Talfryn noticed his yawns were growing longer and more frequent. With some regret—on both their parts, Hayden thought—they started back for the guest chambers. They made it maybe two corridors before the sound of applause and broken clicking and Hayden’s curiosity pulled them onto yet another detour.

  Not three minutes later, he found himself sitting amid stacked benches in a round room with vaulted ceilings and a polished, hardwood floor. If not for the way the domed glass ceiling was a blatant reminder of their underwater backdrop, he might squint and think he was back at The Owl, rooting for Reece at a fencing tourney. On the floor below, two men dressed in padded uniforms and face-guards thrusted and parried back and forth, evenly matched and strikingly fast.

  “Hannick is posting again,” Talfryn murmured, frowning at the taller of the two swordsmen. Hayden hadn’t recognized him before. A tuft of red-orange hair showed out the bottom of his netted mask, but Hayden was one of the few in the room who didn’t have some shade of red hair.

  “Posting?”

  “Shifting his hand further down the grip, to lengthen his reach.” Talfryn demonstrated, miming with her hands. “He’s hardly ever penalized, but he ought to be. He—” She broke off with a sigh as her brother lunged, straight-backed, and caught his challenger with a hard poke in the chest. The scattered crowd about the room clapped without much enthusiasm.

  As Hannick straightened, he tugged off his mask with a happy laugh and tossed it over his shoulder so a waiting servant had to scramble to catch it.

  “Not bad,” he said loudly. “It’s too bad you won’t be around for the tourney in three days’ time, Reece. You make some of the fencers from Haldon especially look like clumsy half-bears.”

  Reece peeled off his mask and shoved his sweat-soaked bangs back from his forehead, saying something that made Hannick snicker and shrug in half-agreement. Surprised but not entirely pleased and not sure why, Hayden started to stand to get Reece’s attention, but Talfryn’s hand on his sleeve kept him down. Her eyes darted back and forth between her brother and Reece as they walked from the room, joking like old friends and conversing in the complicated language of fencing.

  “Wait,” Talfryn urged in a low voice. The crowds were dispersing, filing from the room and chatting mostly about Reece, but she still waited until she and he were alone in the stands before going on. “I’m sorry. Hannick would have been…curt, had he seen me here.”

  Glancing the way her brother and Reece had gone, Hayden frowned. “Why?”

  With a satisfied smirk, Talfryn stood and dusted off her strange, billowing trousers. “I think he hopes if he forbids me from practicing, people will forget who won the last tourney. It certainly wasn’t Prince Hannick Pryor.”

  It took Hayden a moment to work through that. When he did, he blinked at her, half-awed, half- dismayed. “You fence?”

  Talfryn nodded, skipping down the benches. Her descent slowed as she reached the floor, and she turned on the spot to look back at him with a little crease between her eyebrows. “Hayden, you ought to be wary of my brother spending too much time with your captain. He doesn’t usually take an interest in visitors. It puzzles me, that now of all times…”

  With more care and clumsier slowness, Hayden padded down to join her. He hadn’t formed an opinion of Hannick either way, but if anyone was safe with someone dangerous, it was Reece. Gideon had the guns, but Reece’s skill with people wasn’t limited to mere intimidation.

  “We’re only here till dawn,” he finally said.

  The reminder seemed to make Talfryn sad as she nodded, but she perked up a beat later, when she gazed across the hall and spotted the tall wooden rack of needle-nosed swords and practice sabres.

  “Shall we have a match?” she suggested.

  Hayden’s protest died as a choked whine in his throat as she loped to the impressive array of weapons. He would hav
e pointed to any two and called them both a sword, but he knew they all had specific names based on their weight or length or shape. He was more concerned with their blades, honestly. Weren’t they supposed to be sharp?

  Clearing his throat, he admitted, “I can’t fence, actually.”

  Even without the anai to make lights in Talfryn’s eyes, they seemed to sparkle at him, bright and young and a little like Sophie’s in that regard. She selected a sleek sword with a spiraling hand guard and tested it out with a whip and a spin, turning the blade into a smear of silver.

  “Then I shall have to teach you.”

  XVIII

  Theft!

  Night in the underwater city was spectacular. It was a shame Reece was only semi-conscious as he dragged himself back to the guest chambers.

  As the sun on the topside set, trails of domed white lights flickered to life in the darkest crevices and deepest niches of the city. The night felt twice as heavy and dark under water, but the lights made the ocean misty and green, eerie but beautiful and dappled with motes, like nebulae. Nocturnal creatures began lurking about in the shadows, and Reece was sort of glad he could only see their shapes, because some of those were monstrous enough. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure that last silhouette had had as many as eight legs.

  Torches burning sea foam green lined the corridors. They weren’t doing anything for the heat—somehow, the city had become even steamier by night—but he nonetheless felt great. Exhausted and worn, but in a good way, for once. After the extra hours he’d put in on the helm today, the rigorous fencing match he’d gotten coaxed into, and the rich Oceanun food Hannick had shoved on him (as it turned out, those edible rocks he’d always loved actually had a name…vill), he knew he had a good night’s sleep ahead of him. Not even Mordecai’s dying bimotor snore would keep him from that.

  A giant yawn stretched his jaw as he slipped into the dark guest chambers and closed the door quietly behind him. He counted the lumpy shapes on the canopy beds, peeking into the adjacent room. Gideon’s distinctly large shape was missing from the collection, but he’d probably just gone to stretch his legs, like Reece had before Hannick had found him and insisted upon treating him to a night of Oceanun culture.

  After rinsing down in the water closet, he heaved himself onto the last unmade bed, stuffed his face into the feather pillow, and abruptly fell asleep.

  It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before he was cruelly, heartlessly awoken by some sort of commotion. Hurried footfall in the corridor, raised voices, lights flickering under the foot of the door. He doubted that much would have been enough to rouse him from his coma, but in the beds next to him, Po and Hayden were talking in hushed voices about what was going on, and across the room, Gideon was growling death threats into his pillow. If Gid was back, it must have been more than five minutes after all. Reece was too disoriented to gather more than that.

  “What’s going on?” he slurred, trying to sit up. His head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton. Or maybe something heavier. Like granite.

  “There’s been some sort of power outage in the city,” Hayden whispered.

  Someone pounded on the suite door with what sounded to Reece’s muddled head like a battering ram. Po squeaked and pulled her blankets over her head like the ceiling was falling down while across the room, Gideon muttered murderously and from the sound of sharp, agitated clicking, started loading his revolver. Before someone could really overreact, Reece stumbled out of bed, tripped towards the door, and opened it before realizing he was missing one of his socks.

  King Pryor, bedecked in all his ribbons, honors, and forbidding sternness, gave him an unimpressed once over while the half a dozen guards arranged behind him glared and hefted their clubs.

  “Captain Sheppard,” he rumbled. “Might I have a word?”

  Blinking blearily, Reece opened the door and waved him in. “Be my guest, Your Highness.”

  The king didn’t budge, leveling Reece with a flat look, chin tucked, hands folded. “I prefer you accompany me, actually.” His eyes stayed on Reece, but something about him seemed to gesture to the guards leaning forward on either side of him like dogs straining at their leashes. This time when Reece blinked, he was coming to himself, realizing what this looked like. An arrest.

  All at once, Gideon and Nivy were there, framing him between their shoulders as they stared down the guards in challenge. The king’s gaze darted to Gideon without flinching before moving on to study Nivy instead, settling on the band of black around her throat. Nivy seemed coolly unbothered by the attention, but Reece was less keen about it. There might not be much harm in Pryor learning what it was. But might had become an altogether tricky word of late.

  “I’d be glad to,” he said firmly, not for Pryor, but for Gideon and Nivy. Gideon sucked in an unhappy breath between his teeth and mutteringly marched back into the room. It wasn’t meek and mild obedience, but Reece would take it. Nivy gave him a frown and a good luck nod but didn’t go until Reece had been escorted by Pryor and his guards almost to the end of the torch-lit hall. Then she slammed the door behind her.

  A long, silent, and by all means awkward walk through the dark city later, Pryor paused before a grandiose pair of oak doors carved with golden pictographs, swirls and bells and zigzags. The doors looked ancient; Reece would never have expected them to zip apart and retract into the walls as they did when the king placed his hand on the panel beside them.

  “Have a seat, Captain Sheppard,” Pryor ordered as he led Reece into what must have been his personal study. The shelved walls of the room were stacked with trophies, draped with medals, and checkered with framed kinetic stills of achievements, memories, and black and white articles. A monstrous desk on feet shaped like clams had its back to a broad window overlooking an ocean garden of serpentine seaweed and red spiked flowers. Their lazily-waving shadows made dancing stripes on the carpeted floor.

  “I expect,” King Pryor began as he settled down into his high-backed desk chair, “you know why you’re here?”

  Reece eyed the single stool that had been left for him before the desk. He’d rather stand, but the guards on his sides put hands on his shoulders and pressed till his knees buckled and down he sat. He scowled at the king, cranky now. He didn’t appreciate the suggestion he’d done something wrong, or the way this whole set up made him feel like a rotten kid caught stealing sweets.

  “Not really, no. I didn’t park the ship too near the carriage lane, did I? I do that, sometimes,” he said.

  Pryor’s eyes glinted in the watery blue light slanting through the window. “Do not dance around the question. What do you know of the missing anai?”

  Reece arched a brow. “Someone’s missing an eye?”

  Drawing a deep breath, Pryor leaned forward, steepling his hands on his desk so his fingers formed a gun. “In all my time as king, in all my father’s time, no one has dared meddle with those stones, neither in Neserus nor any of the other cities.” When Reece smothered a yawn in his hand, he slapped a palm down on the desk, rattling a cup of quills. “Explain to me, Captain, why the very night your questionable-at-best crew arrives on Oceanus, one of our most precious resources goes missing!”

  “Easy. Bad timing.”

  “You would—”

  “Look,” Reece sighed impatiently, “you said it yourself, we only just arrived. What would we even know about your bleeding resources? I suspect you’ve had my ship looked over by now, so you know we’re pretty well cleaned out. We need to restock here, that’s it.”

  With a growl, the king shot back, “One of your shipmates was given an…expanded tour of the city, unbeknownst to me. Earlier this evening, my under delegate was foolishly forthcoming with your medic on the matter of the anai. He knows enough to know their value, at the very least.”

  “Hayden?” Reece choked, then laughed, half in astonishment at Hayden’s pluck, half at the ludicrous idea of him stealing anything, let alone something that was appare
ntly an important resource to the planet. “Sure, alright. Search him, if you want. Search us all. Then let us go back to bed.”

  The king’s face purpled as he twisted a quill in his hands like he wished it was someone’s neck. “We both know you could have stashed the anai anywhere in the city. That aside, it is not your medic I am interested in interrogating. The Pantedan was seen skulking around some three hours ago, shortly before the power outage alerted us to the theft.”

  That brought Reece up short for a beat; he frowned at the king, disconcerted, before gathering his wits enough to retort, “And he’s the only one in the whole of Neserus who doesn’t have a plausible alibi? That was fast work.”

  “It is not every one else whose motives are in question here, Captain! The Pantedan—”

  “—has a name,” Reece snapped, the last of his patience used up with that last stroke. “It’s Gideon.”

  Pryor leaned back in his chair with a heavy thump, tanned fingers tapping out a tattoo on the carved armrest. For a long moment, he studied Reece through a glare as if trying to decide what to do with him, and Reece wondered if maybe he hadn’t been premature after all when he’d wondered if he was being arrested. Finally, Pryor sighed, and it had the sound of surrender to it, weary, vexed, but resigned. He’d taken a similar tone with Hannick earlier.

  “You realize,” he said at length, “that Oceanus was for Glaucus in the Eudoran War?”

  Well, that explained a few things. If Oceanus had allied with Panteda’s enemies in the war that had wiped out their home world…no wonder her king was a little jumpy around two Pans as generally terrifying as Gid and his grandfather.

  “So was Honora,” Reece pointed out a little stiffly. “That war is thirteen years gone. Your Majesty.”

  “And Panteda’s grudges? Your friend, this Gideon…he harbors no ill will towards those in part responsible for the tragedy that befell his home?”

  Reece supposed it was good of Pryor not to deny that Oceanus’s inaction had contributed to Panteda’s destruction, but he was too troubled by the fact he couldn’t easily dismiss the king’s concerns to pay it much mind. The truth was, Gid was bitter, and even though no one could blame him for that, his bitterness made for an awfully good case against him. Reece grunted thoughtfully and stood to approach the king’s desk, ignoring the guards that started to loom up on either side of him until Pryor dismissed them with a curt nod.