by Liz Delton
He had tasked the old Book Keeper with scouring Skycity’s massive library for the most informative books he could find, all on one particular topic: war strategy.
Most citizens of Arcera believed war only happened in fairy stories—until recently, anyway, when some of them had experienced it firsthand.
Sorin cringed. He often regretted acting so quickly in declaring outright war. He had belatedly wished he had done more research on strategies—but it was never too late, he thought, as he pulled a minuscule volume off the top of the nearest stack.
It was an old one. The book itself was new, with crisp pages and a thin leather cover, the words painstakingly copied out by hand, not from the original, but from previous handwritten copies handed down for who knows how long.
This book, he could tell, had been old even before the last of the great wars that ravaged the land before the founding of Arcera. Having studied ancient language styles briefly in his lessons growing up, he recognized some of the symbols of the original language—not the symbols themselves, but their style. They were like nothing anyone in the Four Cities could decipher. The words had been neatly translated on one side of each page.
From the first page he read,
war is a matter of life and death,
a road either to safety or to ruin,
and immediately he knew this book was precisely what he needed.
He had been woefully unprepared for the news of the greatest loss to his campaign: the destruction of Lightcity. Since then, he had tightened up operations in Riftcity, the only other city fit to help bring his ultimate plan to fruition.
The Scouts had regrettably been ordered to surrender almost all the orbs they carried, to be saved for the attack on Seascape, when it finally came to that. The Scouts now had to use force, instead of the threat of the bombs, to maintain order. Sorin didn’t like it much, but they had little choice.
He had lost his largest stock of orbs in Lightcity, along with the many glassworkers that had the skill and knowledge to produce them. He hadn’t even calculated how much the loss had set back the campaign. His gut twisted whenever he thought about it, and somehow, he just knew those interfering fools in Meadowcity had been behind it.
Far from an offensive act of war, he knew it to be an accident on their part—for, why would they let the explosive orbs kill thousands of people? He didn’t think they were ruthless enough to sacrifice all of Lightcity merely to rid Sorin of his stockpile of weapons. Some of the Scouts had suggested the rebels had been trying to remove the orbs—carrying the crates by hand would explain the pattern of destruction. Indeed, they were acting as rashly as he, untaught in the ways of war.
Well, that was about to change. Skycity held the most expansive library in Arcera—or so he had believed until the discovery of Seascape, anyway. He was sure that Seascape had hordes of information, all locked up on that island of theirs, its inhabitants unwilling to part with even a tiny fragment.
His heart began to race, as it sometimes did, at the thought of sharing all of that incredible knowledge with the rest of Arcera. Once he could do that, Meadowcity and Riftcity would finally see the correctness of his decision; they would know he had been right from the beginning. The loss of Lightcity had been out of his control, but once they united with Seascape, they could rebuild. They could all rebuild, and a new era of prosperity would begin, all because of his efforts.
During his brief yet sour visit to the mysterious island city, he had witnessed the most amazing technology—technology he felt sure belonged to the rest of Arcera, too. With it, Arcera could become a great country, one comparable to the civilizations that had come before them, whose legacies now lived on only in books copied and handed down century after century. He was sure he could leave a longer lasting tribute than that.
His musings were interrupted by a polite knock at his door. Startled, he glanced out his wide window to note the time—the sun had already dipped below the horizon.
“Come in,” he called.
The heavy wooden door eased open, and in stumbled Grebe. The Scout almost fell through the doorframe, appearing to trip on absolutely nothing. Sorin sat up in his chair—he had been expecting the Secretary of the City, Glaslyn, or one of the aides with paperwork or some other tedious inquiry.
It had been a long time since he had seen this particular Scout, and Sorin immediately recalled that Grebe was supposed to be stationed in Riftcity. He didn’t particularly like the awkward man, and hadn’t minded sending him out for a long stint in the city on the rift.
The stout man righted himself and glanced up to see if Sorin had noted his fall. He took an embarrassed breath and began, “I know you’re busy, Governor, but I have something to tell you, something we thought you needed to know.”
“Yes?” Sorin drawled, completely nonplussed. But then his stomach plummeted—had something else terrible happened? He didn’t know if he could take any more bad news like that of Lightcity. He gripped the edge of his desk and prodded tersely, “What is it?”
“Well, I—” Grebe started at the abrupt change in Sorin’s voice. He took a timid step closer to the desk. “I got a change of orders from Falx, see, in Riftcity. He had me go south, to the sea. Said it would be important for us to keep an eye on the fifth city, sir, so I went, an’ I watched.”
Sorin had a brief thought that Falx had been trying to get rid of Grebe, too.
“I watched for a while, though I didn’t see much more’n their boats day in and day out doing who knows what— ‘til, ‘til I saw her.”
Sorin let go of his claw-like grip on the desk. “Who?” he hissed.
“The girl. The one you talked about—Thorne. The one who got in the way between us and Meadowcity.”
Stunned for a moment at Grebe’s surprising grip on the situation, he pressed, “What was she doing there?”
“That I couldn’t say, sir. But I can tell you,” he took another step closer to Sorin, lowering his voice, “She was there more’n a month. I was set up in the woods just off the shore—stayed off the stone ‘cos I heard what it did to them Scouts a while back.”
“She couldnt’a gone in any other way, so she must’ve been there a while. I had to hurry up an’ move when I saw her coming. A man in a boat brought her to shore, an’ then she set off north.”
A burning anger boiled up from Sorin’s stomach. Was that witch in Seascape sharing secrets with that cursed Rider from Meadowcity, now?
How come she allowed Thorne entrance to the city, when she had so rudely rejected him? And why did this young Rider continue to insist on fouling his plans?
Just as quickly as the anger came, it died, when his focus landed on the small book he had begun to read. War is a matter of life and death, he remembered. An idea came to him.
“Well done, Grebe,” he said quietly. “I want you to remain in Skycity for a time. I’ve got some research to do, but I think I might have a special task for you.”
No more rash decisions. He would think this one through. He would not choose the road to ruin.
Four
Falcon stood facing Neve, his hands raised in the air, his whole body trembling.
She weighed the small firebomb in her palm, judging the distance. She looked into the eyes of the man she once thought she might love, and with just a little pleasure, chucked the firebomb at his feet.
The glass broke easily upon the stone, spreading flames as the chemicals mixed with each other and met the air. To his credit, Falcon didn’t flinch once.
“How does it feel?” Neve called coolly.
Fire wrapped around his feet, and licked at his legs, but Falcon still didn’t move.
“Fine,” he drawled.
“The heat’s not getting through the greaves?”
“Do you think I’d still be standing here if it was?” Falcon countered, with a hint of his old humor.
She rolled her eyes and waved him back to where she stood. He stepped carefully through the flames and returned to her.<
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With a thickly gloved hand, she reached down to inspect his greaves and boots, which had gotten the brunt of the flames. Her eyes traveled up from the tips of his dark boots, to the greaves strapped tightly around his calves, and up the remaining leather armor covering his legs. A skirt of leather protected his middle, where it met up with the chest plate. Out of the pauldrons that protected his shoulders came the three-piece leather sleeves, ending in the same type of gloves Neve wore. A dark swath of fabric pulled over his nose concealed most of his face, and was held in place by the leather helmet.
When she finished her inspection, she allowed herself to smile at him. Behind him, she saw that the fire had gone out.
He pulled down the fabric from his nose. “How many times did you say we were testing this today?” She noticed his eyes were a bit watery from the smoke.
“As many as I need to,” she said distractedly, reaching forward to inspect what looked like damage on a strap holding one of his greaves on. But after she brushed the soot from it, it appeared intact.
“We need to test for length of contact with flame, and durability. You said you wanted to help,” she said, looking up from where she crouched at his feet.
For once he didn’t say anything. The former Scout shifted his feet meekly.
Neve stood and put her hands on her hips, a little thrown off by Falcon’s sudden timidity. She dared to look him in the eyes, and found herself grasping for words when he met her gaze with an intensity that could rival the flames.
“But we’re only doing the one test today,” she admitted, unable to look away. “I need to inspect the pieces closer for damage, so go ahead and take them off.”
Glad for the excuse to look away, she turned to head back into the glasswork shop, and Falcon followed, pulling his gloves off as he went.
Neve liked Carlene’s shop. There was plenty of light, and it was spacious enough even for clumsy Neve to move around and not knock anything over.
Her uncle Harry was busy at the forge, but he called over at the sight of Neve and Falcon, “How’d it go?”
“Good, I think,” Neve replied, watching Falcon out of the corner of her eye as he placed the pieces of armor on the work table.
Harry went back to work with a grunt and a wave—to Neve, a high commendation.
Carlene was busy behind him pouring bits of broken glass into a battered forge to recycle it. The glassworker and Neve’s uncle had been getting on well since Neve had been allowed use of the space to work on her project. Neve was glad for Harry—she had always been a worthless glassworker under his watchful eye, but he worked well with Carlene and admired her work. Perhaps it was partially due to the fact that the woman had been trained in Lightcity.
“Give me a hand?” Falcon asked, and Neve whirled, surprised to find him so close to her. He turned his back to her so she could untie the pauldrons from his shoulders. Her fingers worked at the ties, and she had to fight to keep them from lingering when they brushed against his warm skin.
“All right,” she said, furious at herself for enjoying his closeness. He lied to you for months, she told herself. The mantra was slowly failing to rekindle her anger.
Together they lifted the pauldrons over his head, and placed them on the worktable with the rest of the armor. Falcon had laid it out neatly, each piece in relative position to where it was worn, with the helmet at the top of the table, and boots at the bottom.
She set to work inspecting the armor for damage, and Falcon wandered away to see if Harry needed any help, ever helpful these days in his attempt to redeem himself for his days as a Scout. As she reached for her magnifying glass, she heard Harry grunt and tell Falcon to fill up the water basin.
All four of them worked comfortably the rest of the morning. It was days like today that the ache from the loss of her home seemed to ease, if only slightly. She never forgot where she was though—she had never gotten along so amicably with her uncle in their own glassworks shop.
The shop that had ultimately been destroyed by the work of her own hands. The orbs, anyway, had been her creation. The weight of it sometimes threatened to suffocate her, but creating the armor had brought her some peace. It was only fitting she could create the armor to protect people against the orbs.
The armor had been Falcon’s idea—at first, anyway. Originally tasked with creation of weapons that Meadowcity could use against the Scout army, Neve and Falcon had spent days bandying about ideas. She was glad he never brought up creating more explosive orbs.
He did suggest armor, but Neve shot him down right away, saying it would only catch fire if made of leather, or else overheat and burn them if they even had enough time to forge metal armor.
But a few days later, as they helped Carlene with some normal glassworks operations, the thought of armor jumped back into Neve’s head as they were pouring molten glass into a heavy tray of molds.
Indeed, the thought struck her so soundly that she tilted her side of the basin, and some of the fiery liquid spilled over the side of the mold, hissing as it landed on the floor near her feet.
It was so simple—glassworkers used fireproofing compounds on work gloves and aprons so as not to burn themselves when handling the tools of their trade.
After her realization, she and Falcon worked with one of the city’s leatherworkers to create a set of armor. Now they were in testing mode.
The armor had been treated with the fireproofing and heat-resistant compounds so thoroughly that she could find no damage as she inspected each piece that lay on the table. She knew Falcon would be pleased that their idea had worked—and even more pleased that she wasn’t going to make him put on the armor for each and every test. She wanted to try it now, too, now that she knew it really worked.
They had known the armor itself wouldn’t burn, that they had tested unmanned. But the armor would be useless if did nothing to staunch the heat that accompanied flame.
She couldn’t wait to show Sylvia. She would have to show the Rider today or tomorrow, since Sylvia was leaving on a long training mission soon.
She was less excited about showing Gero and the council, who were split between wanting to focus on defense of the city, and developing weapons and going on the offensive. She had chosen what she thought was the smartest way, and wasn’t looking forward to another discussion on whether they would make weapons next.
There was just one more piece she wanted to add.
“Carlene, Uncle Harry,” she called and gestured them over. Falcon came over too, trying to pretend he wasn’t irritated at not being included.
Neve held up the helmet and cloth that had covered the lower half of Falcon’s face.
“What would you say to a glass mask to protect the eyes?”
The three faces broke into identical grins.
Five
Ember had stopped looking all the way down ages ago, but slowly the sight above had begun to terrify her instead. The east face of Riftcity’s cliff rose up immeasurably high above her. She kept reminding herself that the quicker they descended, the shorter of a fall it would be to the bottom. Not exactly reassuring, she thought, unable to help but glance up at the sky again. The moon was a silver scythe dripping just enough dim light upon their midnight descent.
Never in her life had she dreamed she would ever find herself dangling from Riftcity’s facade. Despite growing up in the only city in Arcera carved entirely into massive cliffs, she had enjoyed keeping her feet on solid stone. She had, in fact, spent most of her life inside the cliffs.
But now even the beautiful stone bridges connecting the two faces had been blown to bits by the Scouts’ bombs, and many of the walkways carved into the cliffs had been damaged. Nothing had been destroyed further than the morale of the citizens, who had been forced into continuous manual labor for Greyling and his army. Which—she gritted her teeth as she reminded herself—was why she and the others were now carefully rappelling down the cliff.
It wasn’t as if they could just walk into the
city; the Grand Staircase was supposed to be the sole entrance, and it was heavily guarded at all times. The tunnel that led into the city by way of Ember and Flint’s family villa still remained a secret—but only just.
On their last raid, the Scouts had been seconds away from discovering where the rebels had fled. Since then, they had decided to use the villa tunnel only as a last resort of escape. It was only a matter of time before they would need it.
After that, they had been presented with the same problem as if the Scouts had discovered the tunnel: How could they get in and out of the city in order to liberate more Riftcitizens?
Some of the rebels had spent hours upon hours combing the lands on either side of the rift for more tunnels, but so far none had been located. Curiosity abounded as to why their family villa had an old escape tunnel leading out of it, but Ember and Flint had no idea—it had been there since they could remember.
Eventually—and unfortunately, most of them thought—the rebels had had to rely on Apex’s idea to enter the city for this mission.
The former Scout had managed to convince them to climb down the cliff—had convinced them it would be safe, and had even sounded rather excited about the whole thing. He had even led a small but quick expedition into Riftcity to pilfer some of their climbing equipment. Growing up on a city perched atop a mountain had given Apex the skills they now needed.
Climbing and rappelling wasn’t completely foreign to the Riftcitizens, but none of the rebels were among those who were adept at the skill. They were a random assortment of farmers and stonecarvers, in addition to the Riders and Hunters from Meadowcity who had recently joined their group. None of them had wanted to rappel down the rift.
Ember couldn’t blame them.
She looked down as she fed more rope through her gloved left hand, while lightly gripping the rope below her bottom with her right, in case she needed to stop suddenly.
