Heir to the Sky (27 page)

There are villagers from Ulan wading through the wreckage. Some are on their knees, crying. Others have their hands held up, as if the Phoenix will return and reverse our fortune. They can't accept what's happened. Others call out for their children or their parents or their siblings, everyone searching, everyone disoriented. But among them I see helpers, soldiers of the Elite Guard in smudged uniforms, holding the hands of children as they help them search for their parents. I see Sayra in the distance, a bow and quiver looped over her arm as she searches the skies for danger. She holds a water flask in each hand, passing them to those in need who drink and smudge the soot off of their faces.

And there, in the courtyard, I see my father lying down, the Phoenix statue shattered beside him, a piece of the azure tower crystal pierced straight through his chest.

I let out a horrible cry and run toward him, tripping over the stones and fragments of our old life. Elisha is beside him, blood trickling down her forehead where she's been struck by a stone that's fallen. She's covered him with the lavender cloak I shed before I chased Jonash to Lake Agur. The cloak is stained dark, and I don't want to know why.

“Father,” I say, kneeling at his side. His face is pale, his eyes closed, but they flutter open at my voice.

“Kali,” he says, his voice just above a whisper. “You're all right.”

Elisha's face is streaked with dried tears and ash. “I've been doing everything I can,” she says, her voice tired and strained.

“I know,” I say, tears blurring in my eyes. She's bundled his golden cloak like a pillow under his head, and she sits so her back shades him from the gleaming sunlight. She's done everything, but his body is destroyed by shards of crystal and stone. Beside us the Phoenix statue's wings lie in sharp, fragmented pieces, scattered wide across the courtyard. The world of the Monarch is broken. My father is dying.

“I love you,” he tells me, and I squeeze his hands tightly. It's horrible to know that he kept the truth of the Rending from me, that he ordered the Benu mutilated or thrown from the edge in what he thought was the best way to protect Ashra. But he is my loving father, who was always good to me and who always tried to do what was best for the people. I do not love what he did, but I love him, and now he's being taken from me.

“I love you, too, Father,” I say, and the world is blurred by my tears as I shake with sobs.

Aliyah and Griffin kneel on either side, resting their hands on my shoulders. I want to beg them to do something. Aliyah must know some kind of herb or poultice that can soothe my father's pain. But I can see how stained the cloak is, all the puncture wounds from the crystal shards. I know there is no hope for him.

“I have burned to the wick's end,” my father murmurs, closing his eyes. “I'm tired of lighting the way.”

“Rest now, Your Majesty,” Griffin says. “We will protect Kali in your stead.”

My father clears his throat, turning his head to the side. “She is...just like her mother,” he manages, his voice frail. “A free spirit that flies where it will. All she needs, young man, is the sky.”

“Father,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to his as I close my eyes.

And then he lets out a tiny breath, and I know that he is gone, that his own spirit is flying with Mother's in a field of thistles and fireweed and song.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE REST OF
the day is spent searching for survivors of Ashra's plummet from the skies. The village houses and barns in Ulan are mostly in ruin, but there are some that are good enough for a night's refuge while we try to hide everyone from the hungry eyes of the circling sky beasts. The change in altitude is dizzying for some, the air thick and warm down here. There are many broken bones and missing people, but the barrier has saved many of us. Most are in shock, barely able to accept the food and water that Sayra and the Initiates take from shelter to shelter. Chickens and pygmy goats wander the wreckage, pecking and braying at the strange landscape. The Elite Guard have formed a protective circle around Ulan, swords drawn and arms shaking. They've never seen monsters as close as the ones in the sky, never had to use their swords to fight anything but illusions of danger.

All our lives are at risk in the open like this. There is no fence to protect us, no door that can be latched against the fangs of the shadowlands and sky beasts.

As the sunlight fades and the sky streaks with orange and purple, as the stars begin to shine and the moons wax new, Griffin and I sit down on the side of the steep cliff where I once fell alone to a frightening world. The smoke from the campfires in the village spirals into the sky.

“They will look to you to guide them,” Griffin tells me. “You're the heir.”

“As are you,” I tell him.

“Yes, but I'm illegitimate,” he says, amused. “And I have no training, so I can slack off. It all falls to you.” I know he's trying to cheer me up, but his words are dry in the early evening, tainted with more truth than either of us wants to admit.

I rest my chin in my hands as we watch the soldiers guarding. Elder Aban is still stacking books in the ruins of the library. He's got ten swaying towers of them now, as tall as he is, and an Elder Initiate, the one who hurried me into the citadel for the Rending Ceremony, is gently tugging at his arm to pull him to the shelters. He yanks his arm away, still shocked and lost somewhere in his own mind.

There are too many of them. The monsters will come, and they will come hungry. They don't stand a chance.

The only airship on Ashra, the one that fired on the Phoenix, has a massive rip from one edge of the balloon to the other. Nartu is at least a month's trek away, and with this many traveling, maybe more. I'm not sure how to transport this many people safely. And Nartu is too small to hold them all, even if we had the airships from Burumu to use. And there's no guarantee what's happening there, either, in the little village at the ocean's edge.

“I don't know how to save them,” I say. The words are terrifying to hear aloud.

Griffin's hand finds mine, and he squeezes my fingers. I want to run away with him. I want to soar all the way back to the ocean, to stand on that shore how we did once when I promised to see it again with him. I don't want the responsibility and sadness that's been weighted onto my shoulders.

“When you fell from the sky, you were lost,” he tells me. He nods at the ruined valley below us. “Now they're lost, too. They need someone to save them.”

“Like you saved me.”

Griffin laughs. “I only found you,” he says. “You saved yourself first.”

“Can we go to the ocean?” I ask. “Just you and me. And I'll collect shells and breathe in the salty air and let the waves lace my ankles with foamy surf.”

Griffin laughs warmly. “I'll take Tash's fishing boat and spear Dark Leviathans until the waters are safe enough to swim in.”

The mention of the sea serpents drains the ocean from my thoughts. I think of the Phoenix circling Ashra, of how she rose out of the lake that I swam in so often with Elisha. I look out at the campfires, at all the survivors waiting to see what will happen. Their Monarch is gone. The Sargon and his son are dead.

“What will you do?” Griffin says gently.

I want to run away. I want to help them. I want to do what's right and not lose myself.

“The lava lands,” I say finally. “Let's take them there. Your village is still standing, right? Are there enough houses for them all?”

“Maybe,” he says. “But they'll need some work. It's been many years since they were lived in.”

“Are there other havens, like the one underground in the woods?”

“Some, yes. And there's the ocean with Tash and Lilia. They can surely support at least a few families there, depending on Burumu's survivors.”

“And the village near the Frost Sea?”

An amused smile tugs at Griffin's lip. “It's a rumored village,” he says. “But, yes, there are safe places about.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because,” he says, “you sound like a Monarch.”

I find myself smiling, despite everything. “I think I'm growing my wings.”

“One of us should have them,” he teases.

The best way for the people to survive is to split up. In the morning, Griffin and Aliyah will help with basic monster training—the types to look for, the tactics they use. How to use their weaknesses against them in order to survive.

And then we'll tell them the choices—north, to the lava lands and Griffin's village, and farther on to the Frost Sea; south to the mountains and the ocean, through the dangerous marshlands and the hazu-infested plains. East toward the dugout havens in the woods, and farther still to Nartu's shadow and the Floating Isles. West toward a great desert and the unknown. Or to stay in the shadowlands and build a new Ulan, fortified and protected by walls built from the ruins of our old life aloft in the sky. The choice will be theirs to decide. There is no need for an heir anymore. Their lives are theirs, and they must choose how they will walk.

In the morning, Griffin and I will lead the willing to the lava lands, and I will see the fields and lava flows that shaped his early life. I will hunt the behemoths with Aliyah and Griffin, and Elisha will herd the pygmy goats and the chickens to the once-deserted barns.

The world has not ended with Ashra's descent. It has begun, and we will not let the monsters stand in our way. We will rend a new world from the old, one where we look to each other and not to the Phoenix for strength.

And when the world begins to thrive, when the villages are restored and a new generation of hunters have beaten the monsters back, then Griffin and I will return to the ocean, letting our footsteps sink into the sand and the foam of the surf. We will let the grains stick to our soles, and we will float on our backs without monsters lurking in the water, without shadows floating in the sky to blot out the warmth of sunlight enrobing our skin.

This is our world now, no longer a sheltered life aloft. We live on the ground, surrounded by beauty and danger, by risk and by possibility. This is humanity's new dawn, a fire lit from a single smoldering ember of the past.

May we rise anew.

* * * * *

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SINCE I WAS LITTLE
, floating continents have been hovering in the corners of my thoughts. They drift about there with cities and waterfalls, mountains and plains. What would it be like to live on a floating world? What would it be like to survive on the earth below, looking up?

Thank you to my editor, T. S. Ferguson, for helping me answer these questions in the most elegant way possible. Without your help and your amazing edits, I could never have woven the stories of Kali and Griffin together in the way they needed to be. Thank you to the Harlequin TEEN team for all the work you put into this book, from the cover to the interiors, copyedits and promotion. It's all most appreciated.

Melissa Jeglinski, it's such a privilege to have you as my agent. You're always there for me, and you lift me up when I feel like something is beyond what I can write or accomplish. Thank you!

To my sister, Jen Conquergood, for her love, friendship and massive support with my books and my life. You keep me going and you're always there for me. I'm the luckiest in the world to have you as my sister. Love you so much.

To my dear friends, for their support and inspiration—the MSFVers, the Lucky 13s, Tanya Gough and Lance Schonberg for your camaraderie with this writing thing we do.

Julie Czerneda, thank you. You're an inspiration to me, a friend and a mentor. Your encouragement pushes me to improve with each book, and it's thanks to your belief in me that I continue to grow.

And to my own family, Mum and Dad, who stand by me during the entire emotional arc of creating a book, and Kevin, Emily and Alice. Without your constant support, I couldn't raise floating continents into the air at all. From the long plot conversations, park visits and gaming matches while I write, to your support and encouragement for what I do. Emily and Alice, you're the reasons I paint worlds and adventures on the page for you to explore.

To readers, who climb floating islands and tumble off edges with me. Thank you. You keep me aloft.