Stormbringer

by Shannon Delany

  The captain stood, outraged. “How dare you threaten my livelihood—our safety—by bringing magick aboard?! I’ll string you up myself!” he threatened, knocking over his chair in his haste to wrap his hands around Wallace’s neck.

  But the Wandering Wallace was already dancing backwards with the fox in hand and laughing. “Surely you did not think I was so stupid as to bring real magick aboard! Tsu!” he shouted. “Tsu! Step out and save the love of your life, please!”

  Miyakitsu leaned out from behind the canvas backdrop and smiled shyly before trotting forward to take her bow. The clapping was loud as the thunder that rumbled in the sky all around them. She stepped forward, dressed in the same kimono which lay empty on the deck. She gave a gracious bow and the captain froze.

  It took a moment, but he began to laugh. It started as a faint chuckle, but grew into a deep and riotous guffaw. “You very nearly had me believing that you had brought a magicker aboard!” He let out a deep puff of air. “That was quite the show! Do you not think so?” he asked his guests. “I mean, did you truly see all that?”

  But the thing that caught Bran’s eye and caused him—the Maker—to carefully unlatch Meggie’s arms from around his neck so that he could set her back on Marion’s knee was the glint of a large stormlight crystal resting very near Miyakitsu’s throat and strung with smaller twinkling stones of the same type on either side. A crystal necklace the Maker thought he would have noticed her wearing before. He looked at her sleeves, but they overflowed in waves of colored silk, swallowing up her arms and wrists so that only the very tips of her fingers showed. Even her socks and sandals barely peeked out from beneath the hem of her kimono.

  What he wouldn’t give to know if he was correct …

  Maude reached around behind Marion and slapped the back of Bran’s head. He turned and looked at her, eyes wide. “Put your eyes back in your head,” she scolded. “You look like you want to undress her!”

  He gave her his best look of absolute innocence, but it was not well practiced. And besides, she was correct. He did want to undress her. But not at all for the reasons Maude might suspect.

  His interest was sheerly scientific.

  Because he had heard such things were possible … the rumors flew every time someone of rank had gone missing for a few days or more without telling absolutely everyone in their social circle—as if it was their business. He wondered what would be speculated as a result of his sudden disappearance.

  People always jumped to the strangest, most fanciful of conclusions. Surely, it couldn’t be …

  It was impossible, wasn’t it?

  And yet, aware of the fire burning from Maude’s eyes and scalding the side of his head, Bran stared in wonder.

  Chapter Nine

  The difficulty in life is the choice.

  —GEORGE MOORE

  Aboard the Tempest

  Deep in the gut of the Tempest Rowen rambled on about Jordan, Ginger Jack did his best to ignore him, flat on his back and focused on his work, until oil spurted free in a fine plume of black and Jack unleashed every obscene word he knew. Twice. Then once in reverse order and only for good measure.

  He slipped down the tube (easier to do now it was well lubricated) to reach a prone sputtering and oil-covered Rowen.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jack hauled out his wrench and began tightening the bit of pipe Rowen had wrongly loosened.

  Rowen rubbed his sleeve across his face to clear it, but made an oil slick of himself instead. “I—”

  “Enough of this!” Jack snapped. “Enough of the screw-ups, the poor concentration, the simpering about Jordan and I this and Jordan and I that…” The wrench clattered onto the space beside them and through filthy goggle lenses, Jack’s eyes fixed on Rowen. “You love this girl Jordan.”

  “I do not—”

  Jack reached around to cuff him on the back of his head. “You love this girl Jordan. So go find her.”

  “I do not and I cannot. What do you expect me to do? Steal the ship?”

  Jack blew air through rubbery lips. “You? Impossible. But even you might manage a pod…”

  “A pod?”

  “We have three of them. Hooked onto the ass end of the ship. You pull a lever and they drop free. Another lever and the wings pop out. Mainly gliders unless you can magick them or get the engine to fire at the right time. But with some ingenuity … who knows how far you could get?”

  “A pod.”

  “God, but you’re a slow one, aren’t you?” Jack tugged a rag from his back pocket and swabbed it across his own face and then handed it to Rowen. “Clean up here and then I’ll show you.”

  It was the most efficient thing Jack had seen Rowen do: cleanup. They dragged themselves free of the tunnels and tubes, stripped off their insulated jumpsuits, and paused in the hallway outside the Mech Deck, filthy.

  Jack led him to an area below the Aft Gundeck where three smaller doors, all the same neutral tone, stood side by side. He dug into his collar and withdrew a key that looked similar to the one Evie carried. He popped the lock and swung open the door, stepping onto a metal catwalk enveloped by fabric. The air around them echoed and in three steps, Jack stooped and stepped inside the hatch on a smooth metal hull.

  Rowen, hunched as small as he could get, followed.

  “Wait!” Jack swung his hands, keeping Rowen in the doorway of the hatch. “There’s no easy room for us both, Treetrunk, so just look. And whatever you do, don’t touch!”

  Rowen leaned inside, seeing a selection of levers, buttons, and dials. The front was made of an assortment of windows puzzled together to create one curving glass surface and the middle was filled mainly with a sloping leather seat. Jack crouched in it, quickly pointing and announcing the names and duties of each part of the ship.

  Rowen nodded, struggling to take it all in.

  When Jack concluded his tour of the pod, he slipped past the larger man, asking, “Any questions?”

  “Yes,” Rowen asked, brain swimming. He limited himself to one. “How do I get myself a key?”

  “You’ll have to take it.”

  Rowen grinned and pounded his fist into his palm.

  Aboard the Artemesia

  Rubbing her wrists and ankles to massage the soreness out of them that the strings had left, Jordan expected no one at her door, and certainly no one inside her room—suddenly standing so close to her bedside. She shrank back immediately, seeing Captain Kerdin.

  “You are by far the prettiest Witch I’ve ever had aboard,” the captain said, allowing his eyes to roam the geography of her body.

  Jordan looked at him, her eyes narrowing so only a glare of color peeked out between her lashes.

  He closed the door behind him and turned away from her only long enough to slip in the key and bolt the room from the inside.

  Her heart tried to tear through her chest, a wild animal trapped in the cage of her ribs. She read something in the lines of his long and narrow face that spoke of hunger, of predator and prey. He held out the collar of his shirt and let the chain holding the key slip inside.

  “You were what? Fifth or Sixth of the Nine?”

  Jordan couldn’t find the single word to denote her past social standing. Instead she swallowed and took a long step back and away from him and the strange danger she sensed.

  “It no longer matters, I guess,” he conceded with a tip of his chin. “You’re a Witch now. Unranked, unwanted…” He undid his cravat.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Whatever I want.” He shrugged.

  “I don’t know what you’re intending—”

  He snorted. “Yes you…” But he looked at her again and his smile slid into a grin. “My god. You don’t, do you? That makes this even more wonderful for me…”

  He grabbed her arms faster than she could pull away and he pressed his mouth over hers to swallow her yelp of surprise.

  She fought, kicking, pulling, and trying to get a fist against hi
s face, but he held her tight—his hands like steel bands biting into her flesh—and he dragged her toward her bed.

  She fought harder, muscles burning, joints ready to pull free of bone.

  He stopped short of the bed and kicked her feet out from under her, driving her to the ground. While her breath was knocked out of her, he gagged her with the towel she kept by her basin and weighed her down with the weight of his hips. Wrapping his long fingers tight around her wrists, he undid his belt with the other hand. He dragged his hips up her body until he sat on her chest.

  Then he belted her wrists together.

  He pulled up her skirts, took down his trousers and her petticoats, and forced his way into her.

  She cried against the cloth clogging her mouth, tears seeping out of her eyes, her nose filled with his breath, her eyes filled with his gaping mouth and glazed eyes, her body filled with his petty desire.

  The key swung free of his collar, swinging between them and flashing in the light, taunting her with the lure of freedom she couldn’t have.

  She closed her eyes, wishing herself anywhere but here, but something bit into her arm and she gasped, her eyes popping open in the shadow of her attacker. Something dug into the flesh of her arm.

  Rowen’s heart.

  She choked on a sob and forced her eyes shut again. She tried not to think of where she was. Or of the hate building inside her, wrapping around the fear, urging dark revenge. Or of what was happening at that moment.

  She especially tried not to think of Rowen.

  Rowen with his bold laugh and his stunning smile.

  Rowen, now bearded and on another airship, who had only shared a glance with her across the distance.

  Rowen. Who should have been her hero.

  Rowen. Who should have rescued her long before this.

  She turned her face from the captain but his hot breath forced its way into her ear.

  She fixed her gaze on the bed’s foot and tried to think of the forest its wood had come from. Wondered what the tree looked like before some man thought to cut it down while it had leaves, and life, and wild untouched potential.

  The heart bit into her again and again, dragging her back from the forest to the place reality condemned her to be, pinned beneath a predator. Rage and hate built, squeezed at her heart.

  Outside her window the clouds warred, digging into each other’s soft guts and dragging out cottony innards to wind around the airship’s hull. The sky flickered with lightning and the ship bucked beneath her as she tried to toss him off.

  Inside, the second lantern—her lantern—lit, flaring and glowing so bright it rivaled the wandering lightning.

  Rain sprayed the window in a violent shower, making the world outside Jordan’s room run and smear.

  No fight left in her, she was filled with only aching sorrow and roaring rage.

  Outside, the storm wheezed, falling apart, destroyed with all her hope. And her lantern went out.

  Jordan lay broken on her floor as he undid the belt around her wrists and stood.

  The door closed, the lock slid into place, and she curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms tight around them. The shaking that started with his touch wouldn’t stop.

  Her fingers curled around the heart on her sleeve, the token of Rowen’s support even in his absence, and she let it bite into her fingers, forced herself to feel it claw into her flesh, to make even this moment real beyond denial. With a scream she tore it free from her sleeve and hurled it across the room.

  Sometimes rescue didn’t come.

  She slipped back into a fetal position, rocking on the floor and humming some wordless tune she’d heard—somewhere. The place no longer mattered. There was no place but here. No reality but this. No escape from the pain, the fear … the humiliation.

  She shivered and quaked, her stomach a rioting knot in her gut, her legs trembling, thighs wet. She rolled onto her hands and knees just in time to dump the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

  Her hair fell across her face, the ends of it trailing in her own hot vomit. She stayed there, staring at the watery stuff puddling across the floor, arms quivering as her tightly balled fists held her up. She struggled to stay like that as long as she could, staring at the watery bile, because at least she was no longer seeing him. Letting the acrid scent cut into her nose because at least she was no longer smelling him.

  Her gut rioted and her body convulsed, throwing up nothing but stringy spit as she gave in to dry heaves. Her vision shaking, with one fierce push, she shoved herself back, away from the mess she’d made and onto her knees.

  Trembling hands pressed her hair back over her shoulders and she waited, gathering herself to stand, finding the strength to pull her way to her feet. She stumbled to the stand where her water basin and pitcher rested and dragged open a drawer, withdrawing the only other scrap of cloth she had.

  She grasped the pitcher in unsteady hands and raised it just high enough to pour the water. Clanking against the basin, she chipped the bowl. She no longer cared. A chipped basin, a cracked pitcher … She dunked the pink towel into the basin, watching it darken as it soaked up the water—watching as it went to red.

  Bloodred.

  Her knees softened and she clutched the stand to steady herself. Closing her eyes she focused on her breathing and waited, rocking in time to the movement of the airship.

  But the cool water and the bite of Rowen’s heart-shaped pin, replaced and again brushing the wounded part of her upper arm, drew her back.

  As did the pain between her legs. Gnawing her lower lip, she raised her skirts and ran the wet rag gently along the inside of her legs and the tender space between. She coughed and plunged the rag back into the basin.

  Blood spiraled out from the rag into the water and she turned from the sight of it staining the clear liquid.

  Regaining herself, she leaned against the stand, wrung out the rag, and wiped herself down again, this time more slowly. She winced, more than her arm bruised.

  She dropped the cloth into the basin, pulled up her petticoats, and let her skirts settle back around her legs. She pushed up her sleeve. The spot where Rowen’s heart had dug into her arm was as bloody as her thighs and she sighed, seeing the gouge that still wept red. She pressed on it, smearing the blood away to better see the wound beneath it.

  It would swell and bruise. Perhaps fever. She knew that from her time spent in the Tanks at Holgate beneath Bran Marshall’s cruel ministrations. If she kept it clean perhaps it would not be so bad. She had wondered several times if the filth in the Tanks hadn’t worsened some of her wounds.

  She wrung the rag out again, and walked the basin to the window, feeling every step differently than ever before.

  She cranked open the window and let the water slosh out and down the side of the airship. The passenger windows were offset, staggered and spaced so that what rolled out of one wouldn’t easily roll into another. She pressed the basin to the window’s mouth so hard she thought it’d crack. Surely something ceramic would be as fragile as she felt, and if she was as close to breaking as she thought then surely it must give way soon, too …

  It scraped against the window’s mouth and she leaned her body against it, willing it to give, to fail.

  To snap.

  Growling, she pulled it back.

  It refused to give.

  She hauled it back, setting it down with a clunk. Repeating the motions for refilling the basin she realized she didn’t feel them the same way—didn’t notice doing it as much. Was that the way an automaton was? Doing things—necessary things—but not experiencing them?

  She straightened. Was that how it felt to be a Conductor? To be compelled, to connect physically and still be distanced?

  She swirled the rag through the fresh water, squeezing out the excess before dabbing it on her arm.

  With time and care the wound would heal.

  But the wound she wished to never again think of, though sh
e felt it every time she moved? How could she heal from that?

  Aboard the Artemesia

  Long after the news announced Merrow on the move and another steam catastrophe averted, the Wandering Wallace lulled the Artemesia’s passengers to sleep with “All around, above with beauty teeming; Moonlight hours are meant for love,” and Marion woke to a body silhouetted against their cabin’s open door. Rolling out of the bed he had only just begun to use, he slammed his bare feet against the cabin’s floor and vaulted at the figure, shouting, “What are you doing?”

  Maude screamed in surprise, closing the door to the hallway and shutting them all back inside.

  “What the hell?” Marion snapped, grabbing the things in her arms and making the stormlights flare on so Maude shrank back, covering her eyes.

  The light showed the truth of it: the fresh bedding now in Marion’s arms, the horror on Maude’s face at being discovered, and the child, Meggie, standing soaked behind her father, her nightgown dripping.

  Squinting, his brow furrowed, Marion stooped down and stalked toward Meggie.

  Bran’s arms spread wide to keep her from Marion’s reach.

  “Did you have a wee accident, Meggie?” Marion asked, crouching near the far side of Bran’s legs as the child ducked behind.

  She peeked out, nodding solemnly.

  “That happens sometimes to children,” he assured her. “Did you have a nightmare? My little brother had nightmares something fierce,” he confided. “He’d wet the bed sometimes, too.”

  “You have a little brother?” she asked, eyes wide.

  He sighed and, standing, rubbed a hand over his face. “Had,” he corrected. “I had a little brother.”

  He turned and stretched, rolling his head on his neck. Blinking, he turned back to Meggie. “But, no matter the nightmare, my little brother was never as wet as you are…” He shoved Bran aside. “So, Meggie, tell me what you dreamed about. Was it water, weather, or … storms?”