Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (2 page)

If I followed my heart, the answer would be yes. Irrefutably, yes.

But I wasn’t a boy anymore. This wasn’t as simple as a young man trying to discover if his sister was all right.

My mother, if she truly was in control of Ino City, would want to see my new fleet. Part of the reason I’d remained in hiding for so long was because I’d known my mother would have spies on me. The only reason she’d allowed me the power to change the world the way I had was because she’d thought she could control me.

I wasn’t going to allow that.

I’d changed the world because she’d given me the power to do so. I’d ousted the old leadership with her support because she thought she’d be able to continue her rule through me. I’d engaged newer, younger, less experienced people like me to take their place, and she’d allowed that because she thought she’d have more influence.

But I’d stripped away her power, her control, and her influence.

If that really was Ino City and my mother had regained control as I feared, I had to think of the safety of my people first. I didn’t know if I could think of them as a tribe. We were a group of ragtag rubbish, drifters from all other tribes, the cast-offs they didn’t want. However, these people were still under my protection.
My
protection. And
they
had to be thought of first.

The storm raged around us, bashing us with rain and wind, lightning and thunder. The
Khayal Layal
shuddered beneath my feet.

“My El’Asim,” Jamilah said, “do we continue on our test run, then?”

“Have we heard anything from our scouts about Ino Oki?”

“No. No one has heard from or seen your sister.”

Then to go to Ino City would be foolhardy and immature. I’d lost my tribe due to my ignorance once before. I had to concentrate on what I could control, what I could protect. “Feel the
Layal
, Jamilah.”

I’d redesigned the fleet. They had to evolve into something lighter, more agile, faster, sleeker, more able to navigate. The feel of the
Samma’s
—

My hand flexed around the yoke as my throat tightened in strangling grief. After so many months, would the pain not cease? Would it not let up? Would it give me no leave?

I had earned none. My tribe lay at the bottom of the ocean because of me, because I had failed to lead them, because I had failed to see that what was right in front of my face.

I shook my head violently. My Mark hissed as it rose around my neck, singeing my scarf with its lava-lightning whip. In our world, tattoos would appear on our skin when we came of age, when we grew into our magic. Those tattoos would rise when we willed it, allowing us to master the elements. This Mark, my Mark, was the reason the world was in its current state of chaos. The most powerful Mark the world had ever seen.

I had to remain calm. My Mark rose less from the power of my will, and more from the fury of my emotions. Lava-lightening. That was the magic that flowed from the center of my soul. Destructive. Helpful only in war.

If I were to lead this ragtag group, I had to learn to master my own fury. I listened to my new ship breathe. I concentrated on her shudders, her rhythms. Calm whispered and wormed through me.

Jamilah stepped into my vision and glanced down at me, her dark eyebrows raised. “I’ve
been
listening, my El’Asim.”

That name, “my El’Asim,” annoyed me, but at the same time, the way
she
said it, reminded me of the love of our tribe, and it spoke. It was like a soft slap in the face and a hug she could not offer me all at the same time.

“If we are not pursuing Ino City, can we leave? Your crew awaits.”

Taking in a deep breath, I nodded. I’d spent too long inside the brutal confines of my mind. And, to be honest, this crew of strangers were just as trapped as I was. Time to be free.

Jamilah let her folded arms fall to her sides as she filled her chest with air. “Are we going directly to the test site?”

The squall beckoned to me. Ever since I’d fought the sky cats on a foreign ship in the dangerous clouds I’d been taught to avoid, I’d been eager to return. “Let’s take her through the storm. I want to test the net and the new wings.”

Jamilah’s grip on the co-pilot’s black chair tightened minutely. “Flying in a storm is plain bad luck. I’m only stating the obvious. Out loud.”

“Only because we lacked the ability to do so before. Are you planning to co-pilot, or are we testing Lash today?” I flipped the dial to my right and pushed the lever to the louvers on my left higher.

Jamilah stepped to the side and then sank into the seat, working the dials and levers in front of her. “Let’s test one thing at a time.”

The frame of my new beast rumbled to a purr as the bank of rear propellers kicked on. The dual sets of wings on either side flapped long and hard like a large sky cat, flowing with the increasing wind. With the yoke in hand, I pushed us upward.

I banked the ship hard to starboard. The mist of the clouds parted and rolled as we passed. Rain pooled and coalesced on the large dome, trickling down in long trails all around us. I brought the ship about, turning her in as sharp a circle as she could manage. Surprisingly, she was pretty easy to maneuver even in these winds. Agile. Good.

Her wings quivered, but remained intact. I watched them through the glass dome.

“Captain Rose is ready, sir,” my acting communications officer said behind me.

“Very good. Thank you.” I wasn’t simply testing my new design. I was testing this crew. Who could I trust? There were few who understood what it took to survive in an air tribe.

“The wings are working.” Jamilah stared out the dome over her shoulder, her hands on her controls.

They were, luckily. The last time, they hadn’t. “Lash, how’s the pressure in the menagerie?”

“Constant, sir.”

The tribes had always worked with our world, not against it. I’d designed the ship with a living jungle beating at her heart. Within my menagerie was every kind of creature we would need to survive, along with plants and fungi. The
Khayal Layal
was an ecosystem, not just a ship.

“It’s a good design, Synn,” Jamilah muttered.

“Don’t speak too soon.”

She flipped a switch. “This isn’t the first test run
.
”

“It’s the first of this kind.” I wasn’t interested in simply being able to dominate the skies. I wanted to be able to fight in the water and on the ground, too.

Haji, my best friend, had given me that idea. He knew the ground, understood how to survive there, how to fight there. He simply needed somewhere secure to keep his growing tribe. After his tribe’s destruction, the Han had forcefully occupied his lands.

He wanted revenge as much as I did and for the same reasons.

Well, nearly the same.

I took the
Layal
to the star-filled sky, hovering above the storm. Kel’mar’s pockmarked red orb filled the sky, the light filtering over the shining knobs of the dashboard. Thousands of stars winked at us through the hazy star-dust that filled the sky around the enormous planet. Red, green, and yellow dust clouds surrounded entire regions of stars.

“Pressure remains steady in the menagerie.” Jamilah snorted with a smirk. “We fixed it.”

I smiled, wiggling my eyebrows, shoving the yoke down and starboard sharply. My gut twisted the moment before we plummeted.

The airship veterans barely shifted.

The greenhorns stumbled and cried out.

A wild grin lit my face as we hurtled back into the storm. I didn’t have time or the leisure to allow fragile people to help me run my ship. I needed to harden them. Quickly.

I doubted the world or my mother would allow me much more time.

The bank of rotors along the back roared as I pushed the yoke harder, gaining more speed. The wings stopped beating, slicing the air. Lightning ripped through the clouds, branching toward us with dozens of fingers. Electric fire touched us, only to ripple along the series of copper wires braided across the skin, charging the secondary power system. The rotors changed pitch for one small moment, then settled back to a dull roar.

“Updraft, sir,” someone said behind me.

I couldn’t recall who it was. “If you don’t have any more information than that, don’t say anything at all.”

Jamilah leaned back, staring at a screen next to her shoulder. “Surging spiral updraft in twenty metres. Nineteen.”

“If it were twenty metres, we’d feel it.” I grunted as the wheel bucked and shook in my hand.

“We are
.
” Her yoke jerked, smacking her hand. She glared at me, then assisted with the control of the ship, tapping her foot on the floorboard.

“The copper net is holding as designed.” A touch of surprise laced Lash’s words. “The secondary power system is fully charged and…stable.”

The last time we’d tried this, it hadn’t gone as well. We’d very nearly died by explosion.

“Excellent,” I grunted, fighting my ship to get her even. The storm grabbed hold and slammed us into the vortex, the beating heart of the super cell.

“Synn!” Jamilah growled, holding the yoke in the crook of her arm as she flipped four switches between us.

The motors stopped.

The storm lost a little control of the
Layal.
But not a lot.

“The wings,
sayyd
,” Lash exclaimed.

I tipped my head. “Bring them in.”

I heard buttons slammed and levers switched.

Super cells had a lot of power. We would never have dreamed of taking the
Samma’s
into one of them. They’d never have survived. But the
Khayals
? I needed them to be better, stronger.

“The secondary power system is overcharged, sir,” Ghaz said behind us. She was our co-pilot and wasn’t quite ready for her test flight yet.

“No, it’s not.”

Lightning flashed, connecting one cloud to the next, illuminating the dark, swirling bank of wind and rain that twisted slowly upward, the storm’s support column.

After I’d nearly killed us the last time, I’d modified the system. “Jam, I need power in four, three, two—”

She flipped the switches and the motors roared to life.

“See? Just trust me.”

She pushed the button above the second switch, studying the speed gauges. “Like the time you built the catapult that nearly got me killed as a kid?”

I tucked in the corners of my mouth, unable to keep my smile to myself. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”

“I’m certainly glad, but you were just as confident then as you are now.”

My smile damped. “Not really that confident.” I gritted my teeth as the motors fought the wind. I gripped the yoke and pulled, trying to find the twisting currents that would shoot us above the storm.

“I gathered that.” Her voice rose with the exertion of trying to pull the
Layal
up. “Can’t see anything,
sayyd.
”

“Then don’t…” A gust of wind threw us starboard. Where were the thermals? “…use your eyes.”

She closed them with a resigned sigh.

I did the same.

The skin of the
Layal
shuddered beneath my feet.

Her body trembled in my hand through the control stick.

She groaned and wailed.

The menagerie creatures went eerily silent.

A brief stillness through the soles of my boots.

A calm at the yoke.

“There,” I breathed.

“Found it,” she whispered back.

Together we guided the
Layal
up the twisting streams of wind as rain attacked the glass dome. I felt for shudders, listened for groans.

The
Layal
shivered as if in excitement.

“Wings!” Jamilah commanded.

They released with a snapping pop that rippled through the body of the
Layal
as we shot up and out of the raging storm.

Stars stared down on us in a dusty, milky spectacle, the scarred red surface of Kel’mar mocking our brilliance.

I leveled our course and swiveled toward Jamilah.

She locked and released the yoke and fell back in her chair with a chuckle as she stared through the starlit dome. She paused, then chuckled again.

The rest of the crew followed suit, shaking hands and clapping each other on the back.

Two people threw up along the back wall.

“We did it, Synn,” Jamilah whispered. Her dark gaze grabbed hold of mine as a fierce anger filled her features. “Revenge will be ours.”

I took in a deep breath. Yes. It would.