As we stood there, offering each other our support, Neira and a group of eight warriors in ragged, torn leathers entered the meadow behind Ryo. She cleared the Basilah and stopped, taking in the situation. Blood smeared her forehead, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.
Her people surrounded another woman, short enough that I couldn’t see much more than her blonde hair, darker than Skah’s and shorter.
Prisoner?
I shook my head and turned as sticks broke and stomping sounded to my right. Another group of people entered the meadow from the south. One group was obviously Vash. They carried their dead on stretchers.
More of the Vash entered from the south and east, carrying their dead in their arms. Hadn’t they stayed on Enhnapi?
What was going on?
Along with the people of Enhnapi came other people I knew. Chie, Kenta, Hitoshi. They no longer wore the normal attire of the Ino. Instead, they wore the garbs of the El’Asim, though with color pairings I had never seen. It was as if they’d gone through people’s leftovers and randomly chosen items to wear.
Perhaps, that’s exactly what they’d done.
I pulled away from Aiyanna, cupping her cheek in the palm of my hand. “Are you all right?”
She nodded with a shrug. “When am I not?”
I quirked my lips, tucked her hand into mine, and headed for Chie.
We met at Ryo.
“Chie,” I said, “Where is Oki?”
She raised her chin and turned, her eyes resting on a stretcher being carried by four men behind her.
My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped. No. “How?”
Chie shook her head and took in a deep breath. “On the way back from Peacock Rock, we were attacked.”
“From below.” A man from Enhnapi stood tall, his thick, full hair standing up even in the light rain. Wapasha. I’d met him on several occasions. He was equal in status to Skah.
My gaze roved over Chie’s face. “LeBlancs?”
She nodded, her expression devoid of emotion, her eyes bleeding sorrow.
“Shankara was attacked from below as well.” I watched Neira approach. It didn’t make sense that the LeBlancs would attack Shankara and Enhnapi.
Chie shook her head. “We heard.”
I didn’t know what to do for her. My heart churned with disbelief, shock, hurt, anger, but all that paled in comparison to what she had to be feeling. Oki had been her best friend. They’d grown up together. Taking her hand, I squeezed her fingers.
“She gave me the city.”
Oki had been my sister, but we’d never really been close. She’d been my favorite, but I’d barely known her. I gave Chie the warmest smile I could offer. “I’m sure she did.”
“Do you think I’m capable?” she asked in a small voice.
How was I supposed to know? I was still struggling to figure out how to be a good leader to my own people. “I think she believed you capable.”
She tipped her head to the side, her eyes closed.
“But the only person who can decide that, really, is you.”
Her drowning brown eyes met mine as the rain pitter-pattered around us. Finally, her lips raised in a small smile and she nodded.
Hitoshi squeezed her shoulder, offering support.
She raised her head. “Let’s take care of our dead.”
IT TOOK US THE REST of the day to take care of our dead. The Vash burned their dead. Rose and her people simply held a vigil, parting with special items from each of those they’d lost. Haji buried his people. We burned our people and released their ashes to the high altitude winds.
Oki, though, had been a water tribe. We released her body to the sea.
Ryo wasn’t handling her death well.
I’d had to take control of Tokarz. He was near death, which, maybe, wasn’t that bad. I took him to Keeley anyway. I didn’t linger long. She still didn’t appear comfortable in my presence.
I very well might have lost that friendship.
Then again, she knew I’d just lost another sister. In a fit of rage, my Mark had whipped out of my control and nearly caught Keeley in the face. So, she knew how I reacted when I lost people close to me.
But I had to admit, Oki and I had never been close. We’d only seen each other on special occasions.
Zara had dressed me in her old clothes, she’d made fun of me, she’d tormented me every chance she had, which was often.
Oki had hugged me, had supported me against our mother. She’d been a bright light in already bright days.
At least I knew now just how bright they’d been.
The bonfires blazed in the meadow. The two suns had set. Bright, red Kel’mar dominated the sky. A sprinkling of stars and dust clouds filled the darkness around the giant planet.
Drums played into the brilliant night sky. Voices rose, joining the drums in notes of sorrow, their words speaking of those they’d lost. So many languages meshed together in the meadow. Xi’ous, Sakin, Adelic, Nefertarian. Those were the ones closest to me, but as our fires burned, others joined us.
Mangarian of the people of Peacock Rock.
Gearnam from the people of Varga
Keltak, though there were few who had survived Nix’s reign of terror. The only ones I knew for sure were the Dekklar and the Bahrain. Keeley, while there, did not raise her voice to the sky.
Tian of the people of Cruz.
Vrmuusian. I caught the harsh sounding words and sought the voice.
Pavel Novokshorov’s bright blue eyes met mine over the bon fire. We met midway and stared at one another for a long moment. Rain pattered along his pale grey long coat and smashed his blonde hair to his head.
His brother, Eosif, had been on my ship the day it had been blown from the sky. He’d been marrying my sister, Zara. He’d fallen to the ocean, his body forever lost somewhere with hers. In the weeks during the Games, Eosif and I had become friends. Pavel had been there, a watcher, but we hadn’t interacted much.
After Eosif’s death, Pavel and his tribe had disappeared, back to the clouds and their sky cats, seeking the safety he couldn’t find with me.
He offered his arm, his angular face expressionless.
I took a step forward and grasped it. The months hadn’t been kind to him. He had a fresh scar along his cheek that disappeared underneath his collar. “Pavel, it is good to see you.”
He nodded, still gripping my arm. “I had thought that not to see you might make the losing of my brother easier, somehow.”
His Adelic was harsh and bitter to the ear, grammatically hard to decipher, but it was better than me trying to speak Vrmuusian. There weren’t enough vowels to actually speak that language out loud. At least, not well.
“I am sorry for his death. If there is anything I can do.”
“You cannot.” His tone was final. “Tonight, ve grieve for him as ve should have done some time ago.”
I offered him a grin. “With vodka?”
He reached into his coat with his free hand and nodded somberly. He pulled a glass bottle out of his coat. “Vith vodka.”
We danced around the bon fires, sharing the bottle between the two of us. I didn’t drink as deeply as I had the first time I’d been introduced to the heady stuff. It was bitter and burned its way down the throat, tearing through the gut with a vengeance. As Pavel staggered for the last time, sinking to the ground, I joined him.
He leaned on his hands behind him and stared at the sky, one eye closed, his mouth screwed up in the effort. “Eosif introduced sky to me. He taught all the stars to me. Their names. Vhat they did for us.”
I raised my face to the sky as well, naming them as I traced them in my mind. “My father did that.”
“People around you die, Synn.”
I couldn’t deny that truth. “I know.”
“Vhat are you doing about that?”
Looking at him from the corner of my eye, I raised my chin just enough to stretch the tight muscles in my neck. “I’m ready to take t
he fight to them.”
Pavel dropped his head, a maniacal smile plastered on his drunken lips. “Dat is exactly vhat I’d hoped to hear. Now, I go to sleep. And in the morning, ve discuss killing these dirt humpers, as you call them, before they kill any more of us.”
I saluted his retreating back. I marveled at how well he maneuvered the uneven terrain. Perhaps he wasn’t as drunk as I’d thought.
A slight woman broke from the group gathered around the bon fire to my right and approached. Her gait seemed almost familiar, haughty and confident. Her long black hair hung loose, falling to her waist. Her slight robe did little to hide her long legs.
Bare legs. Bare feet. Robe.
I rose to my feet, stumbling a bit once I got there.
She didn’t laugh. She simply stared up at me, her expression somber, violet shining from her eyes.
“Yvette,” I said softly. I didn’t know how to greet her. We hadn’t been the best of friends. Well, really, we hadn’t been friends at all. I was pretty sure she hated me. She hid behind her face. When we’d been together mere months before, I hadn’t known how to look beyond the face to see the person.
Her eyes raked over me before she blinked and met my gaze. “Synn.”
I opened my mouth, hoping something smart would spill forth. “Shankara?”
She paused, then nodded.
I pursed my lips. If she had been the one to bomb Shankara, then the attack on Enhnapi had been in retaliation. “Does your mother know?”
She raised an ebony eyebrow. “I’m sure she does by now.”
“Hmm.” I needed to know more about what had happened with her. Where had she been? Why had she disappeared? “I’m sure she does.”
She glanced at Pavel’s retreating back. “Drinking your sorrows away?” Her thick, Yetyan accent had softened over the many months. How had she survived in Sky City for the brunt of her life, maintaining such a thick accent, and then in the span of a few months surrounded by her family who spoke Yetyan, lose it?
I shook my head. There were too many things I didn’t know about Yvette. “His brother was killed on the Yussra Samma when it fell from the sky.”
She licked her lips. “I heard about that. I’m very sorry, Synn.”
I paused, an awkward silence settling between us. “How have you been? We haven’t heard from you.”
She shrugged. “I found my family and discovered I was better off without them. What more do you want to know?”
Curious, I didn’t know what questions to ask, how to phrase them, or what to say instead. “Have you spoken with Keeley?”
“No.” She folded her hands in front of her. “I needed to see you first.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“You lead these people.”
I gestured to Neira who laughed two bon fires over. The Vash didn’t grieve over their dead. They celebrated. “She leads our people.”
Yvette peered into my eyes, then shook her head in amazement, her expression softening. “I would never have guessed the boy I knew would grow to be this man.”
I chuckled dryly. “Neither would I.”
She turned toward Neira, standing shoulder to shoulder with me as the warmth of the bonfire enveloped us. “I have a great harem, Synn. Can I call you Synn, or must I call you El’Asim as the others do?”
“You may call me Synn if it means you’re back with us.”
“If you will have me.”
The world slipped and I stumbled slightly. Vodka. It was hard stuff. “You said you have a harem.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I would not have thought that of you.”
“It is my mother’s way. She thought to turn me, that by having so many of her people around me, I would be easily purchased.”
I pursed my lips, expelling a breath. I didn’t want to ask. “I take it you didn’t appreciate being bought.”
“How did you react when your mother attempted the same?”
Yvette and I had met in Sky City, far away from the politics of the Great Families. So, it was hard for me to remember she was a fellow Great Family heir. “I raised the League of Cities.”
She chuckled. “You did, didn’t you? Well, I collected as many like-minded men and women to me as I could.”
“That is good.”
“You could use my assistance.”
We didn’t have a water unit, not really. So, yes. We could.
She turned to face me. “I know where Ino and Shankara have gone.”
I shifted to better see her, my gaze going fuzzy. Was it possible the vodka was hitting me harder now than before? I hadn’t thought that possible.
“I wondered if you were ready to take the fight to them.”
“I am.” The thought of more war, of another night like this, sending off our dead, sobered me. A little. The power of vodka was stronger than my resolve.
“They regroup in a string of islands that dot the edge of our known world. West of here by a hundred kilometres.
I didn’t know the space west of the Koko Nadi Islands. We had always stayed well within the boundaries of the known realms.
“The air is poison there. The water is tainted. To pursue them will be very dangerous.”
“Yet, the Ino and Shankara are there with their lethara. And Shankara’s lethara is injured.”
“There are safe passages. You have to know where they are.”
I bit my lips. “You are willing to show us the safe passage.”
She bowed her head. “If you will allow it.”
I didn’t say anything for a long moment. I felt as though, even through my drunken haze, that she had more she wanted to say.
“I know you don’t like me,” she said bluntly.
“I don’t know you, Yvette. You hide behind your face.”
She licked her lips. “I—” She stopped herself, looking toward the bonfire. “I am angered by the bullies and the tyrants, Synn. And when you first arrived, you were nothing more than another bully in a world of bullies.”
I tried to run through the things I’d done while she’d been around and couldn’t recall anything I’d done specifically to make her feel that way.
“You were heir to the great air tribe we knew.” The firelight danced in the gleam of her black hair. “I had no tribe. I was forced into the Hands of Tarot as a prisoner.”
“In fancy dresses, silly top hats, and high-heeled shoes, if I remember correctly.”
“Not all prisons have bars, Synn.” She turned her violet eyes toward me. “I didn’t think I could trust you.”
“What changed your mind?” Though, I didn’t think she really had. Her emotions were still closed off from her face. Her words were her only indication of her feelings, and I needed to know what those were. I needed something genuine from her.
“Keeley tried telling me.” She bit the inside of her lip, then turned to face me full-on. “But you did, Synn. At the Games. I was there when you fought Neira and Oki and Eosif and Tokarz. I was there when you gave up leadership and gave it to Neira.”
I hadn’t heard she’d been there and I hadn’t seen her.
But there had been so many people, so many tribes, so many I hadn’t known.
“I knew you weren’t a tyrant in that moment. I knew you weren’t the bully like everyone else.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Well, I did try telling you.”
“I had to see it.”
I clicked my tongue and dropped my hand.
“I did not sign your treaty of the League of Cities.”
I wasn’t sure how long that treaty would really last. “Do you want to join us, then?”
She nodded. “If you will have us.”
A smile flooded my face, the vodka erasing any control of my expression. “And what would you call yourselves?”
She frowned in confusion at me.
“When Oki—” My heart twisted in my chest, but I swallowed and pushed through it. “When Oki broke away from the Ino, she renamed her people the Yasu Noriko.”
>
“Ah. Refusing her family name.”
“I believe our mother did that when she attempted to kill her.” A job Yvette’s mother had finished.
“Well, then I think we shall call ourselves L’eau-esprit.”
I smiled. Water spirit. “I will speak to Neira on your behalf.”
Yvette bowed slightly and took a step back. “Thank you. I see now why they call you the El’Asim.”
“Really?” I called to her retreating back. “Because I still don’t.”
A commotion rose on the other side of the bonfire. I staggered to the other side and saw what had drawn the attention of so many.
The drums stopped.
The voices ceased. The people gathered in celebration and sorrow gathered around a surprising duo.
Aiyanna and Tokarz.
Tokarz didn’t look much better than the first time I’d seen him. I could see Keeley’s white bandages protruding through the tears and rips in his black clothes.
He fell to the soggy ground, laying on his shoulder, his head falling to the side. He’d lost his eye patch. I’d never seen him without it before, and realized why. The one eyelid was puckered over, as though it had been sewn shut. It should have been concave, if the eyeball were missing, but something resided behind the eyelid, keeping it from sinking in.
“Aiyanna,” I called, the situation sobering me up more than my talk with Yvette. It amazed me what the body could do with a little motivation. “What are you doing?”
She ignored me and waited for Neira.
She and Skah walked at a slow and leisurely pace, assessing the situation as they approached.
Aiyanna was the sweetest person I’d met outside Keeley, but where Keeley hid from violence and reality, Aiyanna embraced it—with kindness and understanding.
So, seeing the determined expression on her usually soft face shook me.
Neira stopped a couple metres in front of Aiyanna. “What are you doing, priestess?”
Aiyanna raised her head, the drizzle barely dampening her thick hair. She raised a vial of the silver liquid. “The programmer needs a vessel.”
Skah glanced at Neira, her lips flat and firm.
Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) Page 32
