Above World (12 page)

“The SkyTek dome has been broken, rendered useless. No one will ever use it again,” President Iolanthe said. “We earned our freedom on that day.”

“Could Tempest have gone to HydroTek next?” Aluna said.

“No, Tempest did not live past the Battle of the Dome,” President Iolanthe said. “But during the battle, Tempest sent word to his brother Fathom, asking for reinforcements. Fathom calls himself the Master of the Sea, and it is he who has taken control of the HydroTek dome.”

Electra nodded. “The journey from HydroTek must be a long one. Fathom’s forces arrived too late, after we’d defeated Tempest and his minions. Since then, Fathom has continued to attack us, seeking revenge for his brother’s death and killing everything else in his path.”

“Fathom,” Aluna said, feeling the shape of the word, letting it settle into her mind. Finally, her enemy had a name. Whatever was happening to the Kampii, Fathom must be the key. “How do we get there? To HydroTek?”

President Iolanthe shook her head. “I don’t know. Our scouts fly a few days in all directions from Skyfeather’s Landing, but they have never seen HydroTek. Someday we may follow Fathom’s warriors back to their home, but not until our numbers are greater. Not until we are ready to fight.” She sat back in her throne with a sigh. “I think there has been enough talk of battle for one day.”

“But —” Aluna said.

“Enough,” the president repeated, her eyes tired but holding the promise of wrath should she be disobeyed. Aluna’s father had used the same look almost every time he spoke. “I have honored our part of the bargain, and now I have other matters to attend to.”

Aluna glowered. She saw Hoku clamp his mouth shut, clearly biting back another question, and reluctantly followed his lead.

She looked at Calliope. The girl was barely able to sit up straight on her throne. Did she hold the answers they sought about HydroTek? President Iolanthe wanted Aluna to teach the girl bravery. Well, one of her first lessons was going to be “When to defy your parents.”

“This audience is now over,” the president said. “High Senator Electra, give our guests quarters near my daughter. I’ll expect you and your senators to . . .
ensure their safety
. . . during their stay.”

“We’re prisoners,” Aluna said. “You can just say it.”

President Iolanthe smiled, but her eyes lost none of their dangerous promise. “You say tomato, I say watermelon,” she said.

Aluna had no idea what she meant, but it didn’t sound good.

Two of the senators escorted her and Hoku to their new rooms but made them wait outside while the previous occupants vacated. A pair of very irritated Aviar girls, their arms full of clothes and other personal items, shoved past them not long after.

Don’t shoot your ink,
she thought at them.
You’ll have your rooms back as soon as I can get us out of this place.

Aluna’s room was huge, bigger than her family’s whole nest. Six Kampii could have slept on the bed all at once. She gulped it all in: the desk, the sitting stools, the mirrors, the colorful pictures covering the walls. And everything was designed for feet! She glanced up at the high ceiling and saw perches high above her head. Okay, so everything was designed for feet and wings. Still, it was a nice change from the tail-centric City of Shifting Tides. She couldn’t wait to explore. But first, she longed to throw herself on the bed and sleep for a hundred days.

“Don’t get comfortable,” Senator Niobe said. “Vice President Calliope has warrior training now, which means that you do as well.”

Aluna stood in the doorway of her new room and stared at the bed.

“Warrior training?” she asked.

“Yes,” the senator replied. “The vice president must train for several hours every day. The boy is not invited. He will remain here.” She nodded to Senator Hypatia, who took up a guard position outside Hoku’s door.

“I’ll be okay,” Hoku called. “Fins and flippers, did you see all this food?”

“Food?” So that explained the glorious smell wafting through the hallway.

Senator Niobe said, “You and the vice president will dine with the president tonight, after warrior training, bathing, and a lesson in etiquette.”

Aluna scowled at the mention of etiquette, but didn’t fuss. She’d put up with far more than social humiliation in order to train with the hunters back home. Warrior training! Suddenly, being a prisoner didn’t seem like such a bad fate after all.

N
IOBE ESCORTED ALUNA
through passageway after passageway until they emerged in the bright afternoon sun at the base of Skyfeather’s Landing. Aluna blinked up into the sky and gaped at the flocks of winged women swooping and darting through the air. Even higher still, Aviars no bigger than dots drifted in wide circles on invisible currents.
Watchers
,
Aluna thought. From way up there, they could probably see for forever.

Senator Niobe pointed to a series of platforms jutting out from the basin wall almost a hundred meters above the ground. “That is the training area.” She pointed below it. Aluna had to squint to see a steep staircase cut into the wall. “Use the breather as you climb, and stop if your vision blurs or the headache returns. But hurry. It’s not respectful to keep your instructors waiting, even for sky sickness. I’ll be watching, so attempt no escape.”

Aluna grunted. “Why would I try to escape
before
warrior training?”

The senator crouched and sprang into the air. Her wings unfolded and caught the wind. She rose fast as air bubbles in the deep. Wings, Aluna had to admit, were almost as wonderful as tails.

She jogged over to the base of the great basin wall and started up the stairs. She took them two at a time at first, eager not to miss a single moment of practice. Halfway up, her head started to spin and her lungs demanded more air. She puffed on the breather and kept going. By the time she’d made it to the top, she had to drag herself up the final stairs, one at a time, with a rest between steps. Sweat clung to her skin, a sensation she despised. The ocean kept you clean and cool.

The first platform seemed to be a preparation and resting area. Long benches lined the rim around neat stacks of equipment, jugs of water, and piles of towels for wiping away sweat. Water flowed inside three alcoves nestled into the cliff face for Aviars who wanted a more thorough cleaning.

The warriors on the platform pretended to ignore her, but she caught more than one stealing a look. Those beginning their training donned padded armor, then leaped off the platform and flew to another. Aviars finished with their exercise jumped off the edge and drifted out of sight.

Aluna was wiping sweat off her face when Calliope landed next to her in a flutter of wings and a gush of air.

“I’m so sorry!” Calli blurted. “I didn’t want you and Hoku to get stuck here because of me. You don’t really have to be my friend.”

Aluna opened her mouth to speak, but her lungs needed more air. She popped the breather in her mouth and inhaled. Even with the steep climb, she was beginning to need the artifact less and less. After she’d gotten a few good puffs, she secured the breather in her waist pouch.

“We all have to obey my mother,” Calli continued. “But you don’t have to pretend to like me or anything.” Her face was red, and her arms crossed and uncrossed and crossed again in front of her. “I’ll understand.”

“Calli —”

“I don’t even want to be a fighter,” the girl said nervously. “If I hadn’t been born the daughter of the president, I’d be a tailor, just like everyone else born that month. Can you imagine? Me, making clothes! If I got to pick, I’d be a technician or a doctor. I like figuring out how things work. But those jobs weren’t scheduled to come up for ages.”

“Wait. You don’t pick your job based on what you’re good at?” Aluna asked. “What if you don’t have the skills you need?”

“Oh, we’re designed to be good at everything,” Calli said. “We’ve analyzed all our eggs and only the best ones are grown into Aviars.”

“Aviars lay eggs?” Aluna asked, astonished.

“Not that kind of egg, silly,” Calli said. She sounded just like Hoku. “Let’s go — we’ll get in trouble if we’re late.” She swooped up toward one of the training platforms, leaving Aluna to scramble for the next set of stairs.

When she got to the top, High Senator Electra was waiting, a sharp gleam in her eyes. “Where’s your gear? You should always arrive at practice on time and properly attired for the workout.”

Aluna hauled herself up the last stair and stood at attention as best she could. Now it made sense why their lesson had to take place on the highest of all the platforms.
To inflict maximum pain and suffering.

“I’ll practice without it,” Aluna said. She’d rather be covered in bruises than have to climb back down and up those stairs again.

“Never mind,” Electra said. She motioned to a pile of armor. “I brought an extra set. Put it on.”

For once, Aluna did as she was told. She pulled padded leg guards over her shins and wrapped thick foam around her forearms. The chest guard was tight — Aviars were thin as eels compared to Kampii — but she managed to squirm into it. Electra tossed her a padded hat. It fit snugly around her head, even without the straps tied beneath her chin.

Calli watched but said nothing.

“Spears first,” Electra said.

She and Calliope plucked long spears from the rack affixed to the basin wall. Aluna hefted the weapon in her right hand. The spear was thin and light, even a little wobbly. Kampii spears were short and sturdy. Underwater, the Aviar spears would snap in half.

“Ready positions!”

Calli stood opposite Aluna, both hands on the wooden shaft of her spear. Aluna took a traditional hunter pose, with some frustration. A hunter never stood on the ocean floor if he could help it. You wanted the ability to swim in any direction during a fight, so you swam or hovered in the water, ready to move any way you wanted. Fighting on land made her feel cornered before she even started.

High Senator Electra stood between them, her own spear gripped firmly in one hand.

“Let me see what you know, but slowly!” she said. “I don’t want to see any blood.”

Aluna darted forward and drove her spear toward Calliope’s gut, a very basic but useful maneuver. She hadn’t intended to go so fast, but without the ocean’s thick embrace, her moves blurred with speed.

Calli let out a squeak and dropped her spear. Aluna’s weapon was batted off target at the last possible moment. Electra followed up her first hit with a shove that sent Aluna careening across the platform.

“It seems our waterlogged cousins can’t understand simple instructions,” Electra said. “Let me try a different approach.” She beckoned to Aluna. “Get up and stand ready.”

Calli tried to protest, but Electra cut her off.

“Quiet,” the high senator said. “Stand over there and make sure the wingless girl doesn’t fall to her death prematurely.”

Aluna stood up and wiped the dirt off her cheek. She was fast as a shark up here! She took up a ready stance across from Electra and grinned.

The high senator attacked.

Aluna dodged. She jumped left and right, nimbly avoiding lightning-fast pokes from Electra’s staff. Electra held the staff in the middle, but when she lunged, the shaft slid forward between her hands, gaining a full meter of length. The first two times, the spearhead almost nicked Aluna in the arms.

Aluna countered with a forward roll into a strike. Rolling on solid ground hurt a whole lot more than flipping in the ocean, but the effect was similar. Electra seemed surprised to find Aluna at her feet and backed up hastily to get out of range.

Aluna pressed her attack. She spun and struck, spun and struck. Electra regained her composure and parried the blows with increasing speed. Then she did something Aluna had never seen before. She spun her spear in a wide arc, faster and faster. So fast that it whirred in the air.

Aluna stumbled backward. She couldn’t see where the spear was. It looked as if it were everywhere at once! No weapon moved like that in the ocean. Water was thick and clung to everything. But air — air seemed to exult in velocity. Electra loosened her grip and the arc of the spear increased, creating a great whirling blade of air that she moved from side to side.

Electra advanced, one corner of her mouth twisted into a smile.

“Stop!” Calli yelled. Aluna could barely hear her over the whir of Electra’s weapon and the thundering of her own heart.

She looked left and right. No hidey-holes. She looked up and down, but without wings, there was nowhere she could go. She was running out of options.

Electra’s stance changed. Her spear thwacked into the padding on Aluna’s ribs and sent her tumbling to the right. A second knock to the head, and she went rolling back to the left. And still, she couldn’t even see the spear for all its deadly spinning.

But Electra had developed a rhythm, and Aluna dodged before the next blow struck. This time instead of getting out of range, she slid between Electra’s feet and rolled onto her back. She brought her own spear through Electra’s legs, then thrust it lengthwise against the back of her opponent’s knees, forcing them to bend.