Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’re certain he has them?” Aurelia, ranger to the kingdom of Norenth, called over the wind.
Her abundance of curls remained tucked into a wrap around her head, and she fixed the black mask concealing half her face.
Another gust tore through the sky. The volatequis she rode, Seagrove, angled her broad, smoky wings to ride it out.
Even after years of this, she had to remember not to look down. Nothing between her and those thousands of feet to the ground but a muscled equine with bird feathers. Lovely.
“Captain Luddeck is transporting a new cache of flitterbirds from the Western Isles,” Kayce drawled from his mount, Storm. “My contact assured me the captain would be using the mist as cover for the hand-off.”
She scoffed. “Were your contact’s pockets empty this time?”
“That was one time, Aurelia, one!”
And that one-time sell-out had nearly cost them their identities.
They’d been tracking smugglers and their illegal operations for three years, but that one time a couple months back had nearly tossed all their hard work to the trenches.
“We cannot risk the Ranger’s Guild, let alone your parents, finding out we’re the ones sailors like Luddeck complain about—”
“—all the while filling his own coffers,” Kayce grumbled.
Aurelia bit her tongue, the sharp barb right there about what they did on the side. But she wasn’t about to announce their own hypocrisy. Even if it was in the name of justice. With only the teeniest, tiniest bit of profit.
“Which is why we’re here, doing what your parent’s council won’t and the Rangers’ cannot,” she said. “But we risk it all if we aren’t careful.”
“Must you always be the voice of reason?”
She smirked.
The answering smirk he gave sent a traitorous flip through her stomach.
Definitely the heights. It had nothing to do with the similar mask framing his tanned face, amber eyes glinting like polished stones of mischief.
His tousled hair was tied back at the nape of his neck, but several dark strands freed themselves as the wind pulled at the black tunic he wore.
Aurelia swallowed. Heights. Had to be the heights. Even after all these years of flying…despite now finding the thrill in it. Regardless, it was definitely the source of unease.
But when did this outfit make him look so…roguish? Aurelia shook her head. Focus. They had a job to do.
While mist almost perpetually shrouded the kingdom below, the Skyward Seas above were an explosion of color.
Robin’s-egg-blue painted the sky, shifting to deep indigo in the falling dusk.
Pinpricks of light peered through the firmament, stars blinking in the darker distance.
The clouds above the mist were buoyant and housed the seas to Norenth’s land below.
Some were the blue-gray of stormy waters, waves erupting around the edges so its spray added to the mist below. Others offered much more tranquil seas.
Kayce eyed one particular ship that had set anchor on such a sea, a kelp-strewn chain swinging from cloud to starboard bow.
Men and women were hauling in a net full of silver-dollar cod, their scales sparkling in the setting sun to be sold to the Forge Guild for armor plating and their meat to the fisheries of the Market Guild.
Captain Luddeck’s was one of the few remaining ships, others having long since shifted their sails to make port on Fealtek, the largest peak in the skyline.
Kayce shot her a lopsided smirk. “Ready to liberate their bounty?”
Anticipation thrummed in her veins. “Race you there.”
The pair urged their volatequises forward. Their powerful wings were nearly silent as the brine-filled mist cloaked them. Under the ship’s hull they flew, giving the ocean the crew fished from a wide berth.
With a gloved hand, Kayce motioned above the rudder. The gabled windows of the captain’s cabin shone with lamplight. Hopefully dear Luddy wasn’t in residence.
Brass spyglass raised, Aurelia peered through the fogged window.
No shadows moved within—apart from the steel cage filled with iridescent birds no bigger than her fist. Perhaps she would be back in her quarters to enjoy the next chapter of her book before too long…
with a big box of the chocolatier’s pure goodness.
Aurelia pocketed the spyglass. She slipped her leather boots from the stirrups, drawing her knees to balance precariously on the saddle. Years of tightening her core—and learning not to look down—steadied her. “Be ready to take off, all right?”
“I’ll provide cover while you get to the eastern side of the Coral Sea.”
Acquisition was Aurelia’s domain. Her nimble form and light feet made her nearly undetectable.
Kayce, on the other hand, used his natural talents of troublemaking to clear the way for escape when plans didn’t go their way.
Which was often. She had to nag him about that more. It was far too coincidental.
Aurelia wrapped her fist in a band of cloth before punching a hole through the bottom windowpane.
Glass shattered, cascading in sparkles of captured sunset to the churning waters below.
She leapt through and rolled down the ledge to the floorboards.
Soundless, she sprang up and wasted no time moving to the cage. An early night and chocolate beckoned.
The birds twittered in greeting, small wings struggling to open.
“Shh, it’s okay,” she whispered, giving the cage a quick once-over before grabbing the handle. “You’re not going to be boiled down into lantern fuel tonight.”
Aurelia lifted the cage, but a thin line of tension snapped.
Metal ricocheted through the table, dropping something that shattered.
Clutching the cage to her chest, Aurelia gasped as the object ignited.
Flames leapt up the table legs, several catching her pants.
Heat burned her thighs. Yelping, she juggled the cage, batting the flames, wincing at her scalding palms. The fire spread.
Not good. Definitely not good. She shouldn’t have missed that.
I can’t miss anything—
“Aurel—Harpy!” Kayce yelled, catching himself before using her smuggling name.
Her heart stuttered at the hitch in his voice, shaking the fears from her mind. But another bellow shook the cabin as footsteps thundered from the galley.
“Wolfe! Get down there before the vermin escape!”
Skies and seas. This was bad.
Scrambling, Aurelia made for the busted window and tossed the cage through the hole. Kayce caught it before flames leapt between them, cutting off her escape. The door crashed open, revealing a heavy-set man with a familiar sneer.
Even in the panic, she had to bite back a groan.
“You’re losing your touch,” Wolfe shouted over the crackling heat, drawing a long, sinister blade.
So much for her night of peace. Maybe she deserved it for missing the trip wire. But Kayce’s contact should have known about the trap. They were dead men walking. Aurelia drew her sword with a hiss of metal.
“Get to the deck!” Kayce hollered, taking her volatequis’s reins and surging out of sight.
“Let’s keep this quick, Wolfe,” she ground out. “I’ve got places to be. Chocolate to eat.”
Wolfe was already poised to strike. “But our last visit was so rudely interrupted.”
“Am I supposed to apologize for setting your vats of illegal rukwhale oil on fire?”
“It would be the mannerly thing to do.”
Aurelia shrugged, fighting to appear unfazed despite the searing sting on her hands and thighs. She hid pain well. “Manners? Seem to have left those at home.”
The older man lunged. Metal clashed as she raised her sword to meet him, blow for blow. Their feet wove patterns across the floor until flames licked at Wolfe’s legs. Adrenaline warmed her muscles, welcoming the action. Emptying her mind.
“I think you need these little sparring sessions more than you care to admit,” she mocked, spinning on her heel to land her foot squarely against his chest.
He cursed, tumbling. Served him right. Aurelia darted for the door, more curses of outrage following her to the main deck.
Chaos greeted her. Sailors clamored to reattach a sail dangling by a rope, to douse another fire on the port-side.
Others rushed to the railing, trying to salvage one of the horizontal sails to keep the vessel from sailing too high into the darkening sky.
Kayce’s doing. She’d bet her latest book that he’d been elated when their plan went wayside.
Crew members lunged as Aurelia darted around casks of salted meat and fish, coils of rope, various sacks.
She glanced up through the rigging for any sign of Kayce, and her breath stilled.
An owl watched from its perch beside the mast. Mottled gray and ringed eyes, too far to see details. But familiar. What in the skies and seas—
A sailor leapt for her legs. Heart in her throat, Aurelia sprinted across the deck, sheathing her sword before vaulting over the railing. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look—
Arms flailing, she landed stomach-first on Seagrove’s saddle. Kayce snatched her collar. She gasped for air once hoisted upright.
“‘Run for the deck?’” she repeated in a croak.
Kayce shrugged with a laugh. “You needed the practice.”
Now he was a dead man walking. “Next time you make me ‘practice’, sleep with one eye open.”
They veered away, but Captain Luddeck was ready. “Fire!”
Kayce dove left as a volley of cannon fire rained upon them.
Silver gelatinous spheres flung through the air.
Wind ripped Aurelia’s hair wrap free as Seagrove flew hard and fast, taking her away from him.
Aurelia cursed, trying to wrangle her curls into her shirt one-handed.
Her copper tresses, streaked with auburn and blonde, weren’t exactly inconspicuous.
A flutter of wings, too small to be Storm’s, drew her attention.
There was a whisper on the wind, between the bursts of Luddeck’s cannon-fire.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She strained to listen, to hear the rustle of a smaller wingspan. She scanned the sky. A dark shadow flitted in the corner of her eye.
Lia—
Aurelia jerked, stomach bottoming out. That wasn’t her name. She didn’t go by that.
Another flutter. Closer. The whisper came louder.
Lia, wake up—
Twisting in her saddle, Aurelia caught sight of the shadow, those ringed eyes tracking her, before water hit her from behind. Seagrove whinnied sharply. Wings drenched, she plummeted.
Taking Aurelia with her.
“Lia? You—are you all right?”
Groaning, Lia rubbed her eyes open to see Adrian standing over her. What was he doing up here? She stretched her legs, muscles protesting from curling into her papa’s armchair. “I think it’s better to ask what you’re doing here. No offense.”
Adrian flushed with embarrassment, fixing his glasses. “I-I thought this was the bathroom.”
Right—the funeral. Guests. Her family. This nap was supposed to be a short reprieve. Not a whole fantasy adventure. But strangely, sea water coated her tongue. Even her hands tingled like she’d been sitting on them for too long. At least they weren’t burned.
Vision blurred, she smudged her glasses while rubbing her eyesight back to normal.
A perk of imagining herself as Norenthian Aurelia—no glasses.
But not even her hair seemed to cooperate.
Nor her fruitless feelings for a guy who didn’t exist. She had enough to worry about besides stupid, hormonal crushes. Especially on fictional characters.
But she couldn’t worry about that right now. She’d had her moment alone.
“Okay, maybe I lied about the bathroom.” Adrian fidgeted. “I was looking for you. I’m sorry. For pushing earlier. About Kayce and all.”
Just hearing his name aloud summoned his laughter, an echo in her ears. Lia bit the inside of her lip, looking out the window. No shadows in the trees, though she half-expected another six-eyed owl to make an appearance.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Funerals make people weird.”
“Oh, I’m just terrible with people.”
A startled laugh burst from her at his candor. “Aren’t all writers?”
“It would seem so.” He smiled, crooked but sincere. His gaze wandered over the trunks, catching on the drawings of Norenth before her. “If only they were real, hm?”
That inner sea surged, her loneliness echoing. Kayce’s smile flicked across her mind. He was her best friend, a nap away. A world away. For all her pining, today was the most real he’d ever seemed.
Pathetic.
Lia bit back a wince at the intrusive thought. But it was true—Kayce was her best friend. And, well, that likely was pathetic. Not that her papa ever admonished her for it. He was the only one she trusted not to.
But he was gone.
Lia feigned a smile. “Bathroom’s next door.”
“Quite right.” Adrian chewed his lip like he was internally debating, turning before deciding to face her again. He smoothed the argyle sweater that no mid-thirties man had business wearing. “Julian, he—he loved you. Very much. His death…I’m sorry for it.”
It was too easy to force her smile a little wider, even as the sincerity choked her when he left. Here was the thing—everyone was sorry. But there was nothing they could do.
Her head throbbed sharply. Lia winced.
She wanted—needed—to get lost in Norenth again. She’d take another water cannonball to the back. Dozens of them. Maybe tonight she could trick her mind into continuing where she’d left off. It’d felt so real. She needed it to be real.
Digging through the attic, Lia found a cardboard box to fill with those records of stories and dreams, hoping it would build a raft.