Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (38 page)

I stared through the glass beneath my feet as we leveled out. The wings fluttered, sending a mild vibration through my legs. We turned and the large storm came into view, it’s shadow claiming more land. “How soon do we have before it hits?”

Kaarl looked up, one headphone over his ear, the other behind it. “An hour? Maybe?”

I didn’t want to be on the ground when that thing hit, and I didn’t want to be in the air in it. Above it? Yes. “Let’s make this quick, then.”

Lake Chatan was the larger blue body of water below us. From this elevation, it was hard to make out the river that fed it or the river it spilled into. I could follow the opening in the trees, but that was about it. It looked less like a river and more like a path from up here.

“They could be hiding in the trees,” Jamilah said, her gaze following mine.

They were heading north. What was north?

Pleron City.

A wave of relief worked through me like a slithering snake. The innocent people of Lake Chatan might be safe.

Who was located in Pleron City and did I care enough to engage the Han in conflict, endangering the lives of
my
people?

Yes. The Han was part of the Skyborne’s plan to destroy our world. He was after the pleron, for them. Yes. I cared enough.

“Pleron City.”

Jamilah turned to me. “If they are inside the city, we lose all tactical advantage.”

I turned, imagining what resided in the heart of my ship. My menagerie. “We only lose the advantage we’re most comfortable with.”

Jamilah looked over her shoulder to see what I meant, her expression folded in question.

I raised an eyebrow.

She unfurled her arms and turned all the way around, her mouth open in surprise.

I didn’t know if she was following what I was thinking, but I was trying to form the plan in my own head before vocalizing it.

Pleron City was a series of mining tunnels. They were steep, some were small. There was one large hole that went from the top of the mountain’s mouth to the bottom, which I had never actually been. The tribal Librarium had once been kept there. It was safe in the stormy seasons, and protected in the winter.

Tight space. Even if the Han’s forces were there in great numbers, we could still use the confined space to our tactical advantage. We still had the Umira Nuru, all of the people on board my ship, and everything I had in the menagerie, which included a
lethara
I’d bonded to, more falcons than I knew what to do with, and innumerable creatures that were necessary to sustain my ship, but who were poisonous to humans.

Jamilah tipped her head to the side and nodded slowly. “That might work, sir. That might work.”

Rose handed her mentor and leader the shot glass.

Bennen sat on the other side of a make-shift table. “Better?”

Rose shook her head. “Will it ever get better?”

He shrugged. “Nah. Not really.” He poured her another shot of whiskey and handed the glass back to her.

She let it sit on the table for a long moment. “Do you think it’s wise?”

“Absolutely. Yes. I do.”

The
Najmah
shook and the sound of an explosion reverberated through the bay.

Bennen glared at the sloshed whiskey. “Are you going to drink that?”

Rose had never been much of a drinker. She was already feeling the first shot. She shook her head.

One of Bennen’s pilots threw down his cards. “It looks like it’s time for us to play.”

Rose shook her head. “That storm is too strong. Going out in that will get us killed faster than a bullet.”

The
Najmah
rose, Rose’s gut tugged in the motion.

“Trust Commander Najat,” Bennen said.

Rose tipped her head as another concussion rocked bay. She trusted Synn. She didn’t know Najat, at least not as well as Bennen did.

Bennen rolled his blue eyes. “I don’t understand how you can trust someone as insane as the El’Asim, and not trust someone as calm, smart, calculating—did I mention thinking?—as Najat.”

Rose rolled her eyes and winced. Synn hadn’t gone out of his way to make a good impression with anyone in the past few months, but he’d saved her life. More than once.

An explosion sounded almost directly overhead.

Rose leapt to her feet, along with most of her pilots. Ethel was the only one who remained sitting. She didn’t even look up from the book she was reading. She simply reached up, grabbed Bettie’s hand and tugged the other woman back to the crate beside her.

Bennen grinned. “We’re returning fire. Trust me. Najat is capable of taking care of herself almost without our help.”

Rose regained her seat on the barrel. “Shouldn’t we be getting ready to launch?”

Bennen knocked back the shot of whiskey. “Launch. Like you’re a bloody torpedo.”

Her face folding in a confused frown, she looked up at him as he stood.

“Torpedo. New type of missile Commander Najat has for when we’re underwater.” He waved her off and signaled with his other hand. “You’ll stay. We’ll go.”

As much as Rose was grateful for the offer, it made her feel like a slug. Stay behind in battle? No. She couldn’t stomach the thought. She wasn’t a coward, and neither was her crew.

“We know how to work around the commander’s missiles. Just trust me.” Bennen smiled, taking Rose’s shoulders and pushing her down to the barrel again. “If we need you, we’ll call you.”

Rose sat. He
was
her commanding officer.

Ethel laid her open book on her chest. “I can’t say my heart’s broken over not going into battle right now.”

Sigmund and Ethel had been good friends.

Rose ran her rough nails along her knee. “I have a feeling we’ll be out there soon enough.”

Ethel picked up her book again and crossed her ankle over her knee. “Me too.”

The ground shook. The trees bent toward them for one long moment, then shot back up, quivering.

Neira peeked over the protection of the fallen trees. “What was that.”

Taileh grabbed Neira’s wrist. “That is Shankara launching their bombs at us.”

Turning her face to the sky, Neira shook her head. “There are no planes.”

“They don’t need their planes,” Taileh said through gritted teeth as she tugged on Neira’s hand, dragging her deeper into the protection of the woods, further away from the blast. “They can shoot them from the
letharan
city.”

“The coast is miles away.”

“You’re catching on.”

Neira stopped. “My people are back there.”

“The enemy is, too, Nei. We need to get you to safety.”

“No.” Neira drew her sword from her sheath and ran toward the valley her people were in. She leapt over the fallen trees, skirting several others. She dodged a prickly noarbush, her heart racing in her chest.

She saw the trees before her folding backward.

A dagger of wood shot past her.

The blast hit her mid-leap, shoving her backwards as if she was nothing more than a small child. Her back connected with a tree.

When she opened her eyes, she lay on the ground. The world was silent and so still.

A burning leaf fluttered to the ground beside her.

Something blazed not far away.

Fire.

She tried to push herself to her feet.

Hands grabbed her by the armpit and hauled her to her feet. Taileh’s lips moved as she helped Neira out of the blast area, but she couldn’t hear anything. She staggered, her leg folding. With a shiver that wracked her body, she crumpled to the wet, soggy earth.

Aboard the
Basilah,
Ryo stared at the radar, watching for anything to aim at. He itched to fight, to claw at the world, to maim.

To kill.

He didn’t care who. He cared less about what. He just needed to bloody his blade.

He cursed Synn for saving him. Cursed him more for making him want to feel life again. He wanted to curl up in the pain, in the hurt, the anger, the twisting need for revenge.

He wanted to love again.

He’d been so close to escaping Ino City, so close to leaving his mother behind. He’d nearly found freedom. Real freedom. The night Synn’s fleet had been blown out of the air had been the first night of the rest of his life. Synn’s fleet would have become Ryo’s home. A real home.

He would have had the chance to get closer to a sister he’d always admired and never knew.

But that had been shattered that brutal day. And then the pain-searing months that followed had stripped away the remainder of his shredded soul.

But earlier that day, Synn had grasped his head, had bestowed upon him the Family greeting, had claimed him in a way he had never been claimed before.

And the other commanders, people he didn’t know, had claimed him as well.

Life. The soul-fire of the living infused him.

In one night, all his dreams had been extinguished.

And in one moment, they’d been returned. Ten-fold.

The new El’Asim fleet was his home. The
Basilah
had been designed for him. The crew had volunteered, had asked to live upon
his
ship.

He was home.

Home, for whatever strange reason he struggled to fathom, included Neira’s people. Synn called them the Vash, thinking her tribes were like his own. They weren’t. Ryo knew the different tribes. He’d spent time wandering, speaking to the people, learning their customs. He knew what Neira had accomplished. She’d been able to take almost an entire continent of roaming people’s and bring them under one guiding hand.

He respected that woman so much.

Growing up in Ino City, he had a hard time understanding how a “home” could be built out of respect and mutual ground instead of fortified under strict regulations.

But this
was
his home. This ship. This land. His people.
This
people.

And he wasn’t going to allow another tyrant to take away
this
dream. He wasn’t going to allow the Han to shatter his hope the way his mother had snuffed his chances at a real family.

“Commander!” Yawara shouted from the communications panel.

Ryo looked up from the radar. “What is it?”

“Neira’s forces are being bombarded, sir.”

Ryo peered through the glass under his feet as if he could see through the bulk of the storm. “Reports said she had that area secured. The Paha caves were being successfully evacuated.”

“She did, and they were, sir.”

Rage fed Ryo’s soul as he balled his hand into a fist. “Then, how?”

“Shankara, sir.” Yawara looked up, his almond-shaped eyes round with worry.

Another dark ally of his soul-infected mother.

“Shankara City is here, off the west coast of the peninsula, and is launching bombs at them.”

“Bombs?” Not again. The vile woman would not take away anymore from him. First, his sister, Zara. Then, Oki. He wasn’t a fool. He knew she was dying. And now, this? No. No!

“They’re long-range,” Yawara continued. “Unlike anything we’ve ever seen, sir. They have a wide destruction pattern.

Ryo glanced at his pilot, the contaminated fire of his Ino Mark burning in his belly. “Suzu, take us down so I can see.”

“The storm, sir,” Suzu said, her blue eyes wary. “We’re still too close and it’s still too strong. It will shred us before we can do anything.”