“Welcome, welcome, to Arc’s Emporium!” An old man, no taller than the counter, scurried out from amongst swathes of fabric at the end of the shop.
“Arc, it’s me, Runa.” She bent down, eye level with the old man, and hugged him gently. Smokey grey cataracts clouded his eyes so thick Fia couldn’t understand how he’d navigated his way through the dark mess.
“Runa, my dear, what a lovely surprise. And I see you have brought a friend.” He waved his little walking stick in Fia’s direction.
“This is Fia.”
“Fia,” Arc repeated. “Not from around here, are you? Nevertheless, a friend of Runa’s is a friend of mine.” His wrinkled old face cracked into a smile.
How does he know? Fia raised a hand to see if Arc followed it, but his eyes stared ahead.
“Any coven members drop by lately?’ Runa asked.
“No, my dear. Witches have been banned from the city since the incident at the gates.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket as he spoke and dusted a nearby surface. Fia and Runa exchanged a glance.
Runa’s wings pulsed as she stepped forwards. “What incident?”
“Oh, you know these witches and their tricks. Some crafty illusion, no doubt.”
Fia thought of Noor, trapped in the Makya airship. Had she used an illusion to trick them, too?
“I see. Arc, Fia has quite a journey ahead of her and will need some provisions.” Runa took the old man by the arm and steered him towards the counter. “I’m going to need your finest goods and your best prices.” Her clay-red wings pressed close to her back as she followed him to the back of the shop.
“Anything for my little Runa,” Arc replied, disappearing behind curtains before returning minutes later with his arms full. Runa scooped the bundle onto the cracked countertop. There were warm clothes of thick, heavy leather lined with fur, several bottles with coloured liquids inside them, a heavy sleeping bag made from the same materials as the tent, a number of items Fia couldn’t identify, and finally, what was unmistakably, a bar of soap.
Runa and Arc bartered for a while on the price and eventually came to an agreement, involving what Fia deduced to be a small sum of money, and a repair of a cart for Arc’s deliveries.
Arc held Runa’s hands tightly in his. “I’ll have the items brought down to the dockyard for you.” He shook his head. “These are dark times for us all. I do hope you will take care, dear Runa.”
“Of course, Arc. You take care, too.”
“And you too, Fia, I hope you find your way home.” Fia opened her mouth to speak, but Arc disappeared for a moment behind the counter, as if he’d forgotten something, and then returned with a bundle wrapped in cloth. “Perhaps this might help you.” He locked eyes with her, leaning on his stick, and for a moment, Fia thought he could see her. “Sometimes being lost helps you find your way.” He handed her the bundle.
Fia carefully unwrapped the fabric to reveal a knife in a leather sheath. She took it out and held it up to the lamplight. The blade was a dark, silver metal, engraved in lettering like the metal cuff around Runa’s wrist. The hilt had five large green stones, the colour of Runa’s eyes in a line down its centre and caught the light as Fia examined it. She looked down at Arc’s old face, the milky cataracts in his eyes wobbling as he moved.
“It’s a gift,” he said.
“Thank you. I don’t know what to say.” It was truly a beautiful gift, and Fia wondered how long it had been since Arc had last seen it.
“Think nothing of it. Now take care, my dears!” He bobbed away on his stick as he spoke, back through the reams of fabric and incense smoke beyond the counter. Fia tucked the knife into the side of her boot; there was just enough height for it to remain completely out of sight.
“Let’s go,” Runa said, making her way to the door.
“And take care of that husband of yours!” Arc called out, as they made their way down the corridor.
Runa smiled. She led them back through the building, via the twisting lift and back to join the others at the dockyard. Fia played over the information Runa had given her, and found herself wondering just how long Erebus had been whispering to Lorn.
When they arrived, Alexander and Malachai were talking with Altair. Oren was nowhere to be seen. Alexander shot her a smile as their eyes met, and Fia hoped the heat of the city would disguise the flush of her cheeks.
“Fia, my child.” Altair greeted her with an embrace that caught her entirely off guard as he lifted her off the ground. His heavy fur cloak swayed around them as he put her back down. “You look well, but I hear you’ve had some trouble?” he said, inspecting her before examining the fresh scar on her arm and the holes in her clothes. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a square of cloth, folded it in half and wiped at his brow.
“Really, it’s nothing, I’ll be fine,” Fia replied. “What are you doing here? Is your family with you?”
Altair beamed. “I am grateful for your concern, child. Most of my people are here.” He turned, gesturing to the largest ship in the dockyard. “We are waiting for more to arrive throughout the rest of the day, and then at first light tomorrow we set sail. It looks like you will be accompanying us.”
“I will?” Fia frowned. Finding a coven was beginning to feel like an impossible task. These witches were elusive.
“We all will,” Alexander said. “To travel south. Altair has some allies he hopes to recruit, and there is a witch coven nearby, the only one I know of since we haven’t been able to find any here.”
Fia twirled the little bird charm between her fingers. After the incident in the bath, the thought of stepping on a boat had her stomach in knots. “How long will it take?”
“A few days travel.”
If the coven could tell her how she could help Ohinyan, maybe going back to Earth wouldn’t be an option anymore, anyway. But then who would lay flowers at Sophie’s grave? At her parents’?
As they talked, a small boy, no more than twelve, came from nowhere to stand beside them. He dumped a cart three times his size with a broken wheel and “Arc’s Emporium” written in large, swirling letters across its canopy, and scurried away as quickly as he’d come.
“Ah,” Runa said, “we’ll follow you on board later. Malachai and I have a cart to fix.”
Altair led Fia and Alexander up the walkway. The ship was just as full of life as the shoreline below it. There were hundreds of Altair’s people clustered together in great rooms lit by oil lamps, decorated with painted skins and hand-woven tapestries. They were all busy: making or mending clothes and weapons, children were playing, and the crew were bustling around on the upper decks, checking the sails and the ropes and whatever else was needed.
In the dockyard below, the piles of crates and sacks had begun to clear, most of them carried onto their ship, some to others. Fia watched it all quietly.
“Four small ships are travelling with us,” Alexander said beside her, following her gaze.
There were other races aboard, too, alongside the Navarii. Altair must have been recruiting, as he said he would, and some had chosen to accompany them on their travels.
It was several hours before Oren returned, after the last rays of sunlight dipped behind even the smallest of buildings in Ikothea. Fia and Alexander left the ship to join Runa and Malachai in the dockyard, their work on the broken cart complete.
A different kind of life filled the street around them now that dusk had fallen upon the city. Oil lamps were being lit, and bright blue lights shone up from the water beneath the walkways. It was a spectacular sight. Street vendors were replaced by pop up restaurants, flower sellers, fortune tellers, and tents of all colours and sizes with music emanating from within. Fia reached for the bird charm again, wishing she could share it all with Sophie.
Oren arrived by foot and spoke only to Runa. They stood where the piles of crates and sacks had been earlier, and now only a few remained since the tricycles had stopped passing by for the day. Oren gave a report of a Mak
ya sighting not far from the city, but Fia was only half listening, fascinated by the sights and sounds of Ikothea’s night life.
Then a flash of orange caught her eye, falling like the sparks from a firework. And then another fell, and another, and another. Except they weren’t fireworks. They were flames.
“Fia, get to the ship, now,” Alexander instructed. The dockyard was a scurry of activity. The pop-up restaurants, the flower sellers, and the tents all disappeared as quickly as they had come, panic sweeping across the dockyard as balls of flames landed around them.
“I don’t have wings that will burn to cinders,” Fia snapped back at him. She raised her arms, ready to fight.
The four angels stood defensively around Fia, and with another flash, a pile of cargo went up in flames behind them. From miniscule gaps in the ground, jets of water shot up into the sky, covering everything in a thin mist. More water poured from the skyscrapers, creating eerie rainbows in the flickering firelight, like the city had its own defence system. Not all the flames were extinguished, and where many had landed, stood Makya people, throwing handfuls of fire into the city around them.
The angels were in motion at once, breaking formation with their bows drawn and blades swinging. A Makya materialised in front of Fia, but she was ready and swung low into a sweep kick, knocking him off his feet.
“Runa, get Fia to the ship,” Alexander commanded. With her wings tucked tightly behind her, Runa grabbed Fia’s wrist and dragged her towards the walkway. Hesitating would make Runa a target, so Fia reluctantly followed her up the ramp. Fireballs flashed by them, and Fia leapt onto the deck, rolling to dodge the flames. Altair and his crew were already preparing to depart.
“Sails down, before they burn,” Altair called out above the commotion. “We’ll switch to engines.”
They weren’t fast enough. Fire caught the sails as the crew pulled them down, throwing buckets of water over them as they descended. Fia pulled out her bow, shooting frantically at the Makya landing on the ship. They were outnumbered here and quickly dispersed, back to the dockyard into balls of flames.
She scanned the commotion for any sign of Alexander. He was with Malachai, but Oren was nowhere to be seen. Soon, the ships would be too far from the dockyard for their arrows to reach, and they would only be able to watch the inferno stretching out before them.
The Makya were withdrawing. Alexander and Malachai leapt, wings outstretched, to make it to the safety of the ship. Fireballs surged towards them from every direction. The Makya must have been waiting for the angels to take flight.
No. Fia threw her bow aside, already running towards Alexander.
A ball of fire caught Malachai on his wing, and he fell, tumbling and rolling onto the deck of the ship. Runa was by his side at once, throwing a piece of canvas over the licking flames.
Alexander pulled Fia low beside the gunwale, examining her for injuries.
“I’m fine,” she said, checking his wings as the fireballs ceased.
The city smouldered behind them in the spray of the water jets, as the ship sailed from the shore. In the centre of the dockyard, Oren stood, facing out at the ship, beside two Makya men before turning to walk away beside them.
“How could you, nephew?” Runa said, as the city blazed behind them.
Smoke carried to them on the breeze. Only Malachai had been injured, and Runa had already dressed the wound with clean bandages. It had all happened so fast and seeing how vulnerable the angels’ wings were…Fia pushed out a breath, willing herself not to panic. If this was what the Makya were capable of, and Erebus was controlling them somehow, what would he do, if he broke free?
As the harbour stretched out between their ship and the dock, the last of Ikothea’s flames were extinguished, and the flickering light of the oil lamps returned, glittering in the distance.
Chapter Fifteen
Fia
The ocean was dark and vast. It had taken less than a day for the land to disappear beyond the horizon, and all around them, stretching out in every direction, was deep, black water. The atmosphere was different out here, as if the ocean was a world unto itself. The sky had lost all traces of blue. At times it was nothing more than a sheet of dull white, but mostly, it was a thick, dense blanket of grey.
The air was different, too, not filled with the smells of the ocean that Fia was familiar with, but something heavier. A humid fog seemed to hang around the ship, making the air stale and lifeless. There had been no sign of life—no birds circled above them and no fish swam at the bow below them. It left an uneasy feeling in the pit of Fia’s stomach.
Now and again, Alexander would take to the skies for a better view, but each time he came back with the same answer. Nothing. There was no sign of life. But that was what they wanted to hear. Altair had chosen this route because it was so far from land in every direction, as far from the Makya as they could be.
Fia was still getting used to the ship, and the way the crew swung from it to the smaller ones that sailed alongside, backwards and forwards throughout the day. There were several sets of sails, helping the engine to save fuel when winds were high, and with all the sails at full height, there was no need for the engines at all. She had watched in fascination while some of the Navarii repaired the sails, nimble hands fast at work.
The motion of the ship on the waves hadn’t bothered her as much as she thought it would. She found the movement oddly comforting. The likeness between the construction of the vessel and the Makya airship was still a little alarming for Fia, but Alexander had told her they’d originated from the same dockyard. What differed here on the ship was that alongside the vast amounts of metal and nuts and bolts, there was wood and canvas, too.
Altair’s people were as welcoming as they’d been on that first night in the cave. Several of the women had given Fia gifts of soaps and a comb for her hair. They never stopped making, mending, and creating. Art was appearing, more and more, throughout each corridor and across all the internal walls of the ship. There were detailed murals in vibrant chalks and inks, depicting their journey across Ohinyan, the attack in Ikothea, or the deep, endless ocean. Fia examined them as she made her way through metal passages that stretched on endlessly. The drawings were beautiful, and they filled the ship with life.
She’d been given a room the night before with a tiny porthole looking out into the grey. She woke once in the night, dreaming of white wings blazing as they sank into deep, inky waters, her eyes flicking open to the unfamiliar shadows of her room. Fia had walked the corridors afterwards, tracing her fingers over the murals and thinking about Oren’s betrayal. If Oren had betrayed the angels, would there be more? Alexander had said, back in Turaunt, that not everything in Ohinyan was as it appears. He was right.
The easiness with Alexander had remained since they left land, and Fia was grateful for it. She didn’t want to think about returning to London without him. It would be different to losing Sophie, a different kind of emptiness. She played with the silver bird charm as she fought against her feelings. If there was anything she’d learned since losing Sophie, it was that life was for living, but that didn’t mean that saying goodbye to him would be easy.
“Fia.” It was Malachai. “Aren’t you cold?” The day had slipped away from them quickly, and the light had begun to shift from the grey of day to the deeper, darker black of night.
Fia shook her head. “How are you?” she asked, gesturing towards his bandaged wing.
Malachai flexed it a little and shrugged. “It’s okay, it will heal, but burns take time. The bone must regenerate, and then the feathers should grow back. It can be a slow process. Well, slower than normal.” He moved his hands around as he spoke.
“Don’t worry, he’s in good hands.” Runa stepped up behind them. She was iridescent, despite the grey hanging around the ship. Fia felt incredibly dull beside her, but Runa’s warm smile vanquished the thought almost as soon as it had begun.
“I’m sorry, about Oren,” Fia said, her eyes
darting to the deck. What else was there to say? Sorry he betrayed you. All of us.
Runa frowned, and Fia thought for a moment that her eyes glistened more than usual. “It is nothing to apologise for. I should have observed him better. Perhaps I could have prevented it.”
Malachai squeezed her arm.
“Come, we want you to meet some friends of ours.” Runa took Fia’s hand with one of hers and Malachai’s arm with the other. Even with his damaged wing, Malachai was magnificent.
Runa led them down into the ship and through a painted corridor. This one showed the Makya burning the Navarii camp in the forest, and what Fia felt quite certain was meant to be herself, falling from a hole in the sky.
They stepped through a small doorway into a crowded room with dim lighting, with a few candles here and there and an oil lamp or two. Fia recognised a few of the faces gathered in the circle: Navarii men and women, Altair, and Alexander. Alexander was making introductions but paused to watch her as she walked over to a seat opposite him.
“We need to learn what is Erebus’s doing, and what is the Makyas’. How the two are intertwined,” Alexander said to Altair.
Fia looked around the circle. Runa and Malachai sat beside her, next to some faces she didn’t recognise. Two men dressed in a similar kind of armour. It looked light but solid, and its silvery hue caught the flickering light of the candles. They were tall, even sitting down, and Fia thought again of the Lady Noor, huddled in the airship cell and hoped she’d escaped.
“This is Maab and Enne,” Alexander continued. The two men didn’t reply but lowered their heads in acknowledgement.
“Hi,” Fia said. What connection did they have to all of this? Candlelight flickered on their armour as they spoke quietly to each other.
Food was brought to them on trays of starched leather, consisting of great platters of meats and fruits everyone shared. Fia bit into an apple as she listened to the conversation.
The Third Sun (Daughter of the Phoenix Book One) Page 13
