3. The Man from the Sky
The Man from the Sky
Looking down the barrel of his gleaming gun, it feels very real to me that these could be my last moments alive.
He knows how to kill someone.
Of course he does. He’s a soldier.
And I’m a moron.
“I saved you,” I say, carefully. “I mean you no harm. I’m speaking Rhavnan to you.”
He doesn’t answer me. Just continues watching me, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
I take a risk.
Steadily – very, very steadily – I pull myself up onto my knees, my palms out wide.
He flinches, as if I’ve surprised him, and for an awful second I’m certain he’s going to shoot. Can picture it. My ending. The suddenness of it. The blood.
Old Mother and Eric would never know what happened to me.
But he doesn’t.
So, with my arms still out, I stand all the way up.
It feels like an age goes by before he says, simply, “You’re Rhavnan.” His voice is low. Faintly husky.
Finally.
“I’ve been trying to tell you.”
He lowers the gun. But not by much.
“How are you Rhavnan?”
“My father is Rhavnan. My mother is Hevallan—”
“How are you of Rhavnan blood, and here?” He gestures with his gun to the sweeping beach, the gold and brown debris from the ship, the dark, weathered cliffs. “In this place? Not a hostage? Free?”
It’s a question I’ve often asked myself.
I don’t know how much I should tell him. But I also want him to trust me.
I offer him what I can.
“I was a hostage. But an exchange was made. My mother thought a Hevallan village would be safer for me and my brother than the—” I cut myself off. Don’t tell him everything. “—Than Rhavna.”
His eyebrows furrow. I wonder what he’s thinking.
But then his expression settles into a cool composure. As if there are no thoughts in his head at all.
“That all explains how you are here. But not how you are alive.”
I shrug. “I’m just a nobody. I’m not in their interest to kill.”
Not a single muscle moves in his face as he says, tersely, “Except the Queen wouldn’t make an exchange for just a nobody.”
A moment passes.
“Well, she did.”
“Mm,” is all he says.
The sound needles me.
“You know, I think the words you’re looking for – which you haven’t actually used yet – are ‘thank you for saving my life.’”
He tips his head a fraction. “Not necessarily.”
We hear it at the same time. Voices, above our heads.
He moves impossibly fast. In what must only be a few seconds, his gun is holstered. His blue blazer is buried in the sand. The ball is secured at his belt again. There’s a compass in his hand and a scrap of paper. And he’s heading west, keeping to the shadow of the cliff face.
I stare dumbfounded at his retreating back. Where is he going? That way isn’t safe.
Above me, the voices are growing.
I make another decision.
I pad after him, sprinting over the rough sand to seal the distance between us.
When I’m only a few feet behind him, I hiss, “You shouldn’t go that way. You’ll be seen. You’ll be killed. Stop. Stop!”
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.
And then – because I’ve clearly decided to dedicate my day to bad ideas – I leap onto his back.
I’m not exactly sure what my plan was. I think I just wanted to get him to listen to me. Look at me, properly. Like a friend, rather than a foe.
Instead, we go down hard, tangled.
He curses under his breath, twists around and shoves me off, all in one clean movement. I hit the sand, and he appears over me, gripping my shoulders and straddling me. I struggle, but his weight keeps me pinned down.
I’m suddenly aware of everything about him. The fact his clothes and hair are still wet. The fact he’s clean-shaven. The fact his tanned skin is completely unmarked by scars or pox.
He smells of sweat and musk and seawater. It’s not an unpleasant smell.
The pain in my head, my old friend, is descending on me. I fight off white lights.
“Are you insane?” he spits, his face right over mine.
I can’t answer him, because more voices are travelling down to us from the top of the cliff. We look up. Keep silent.
But no one peers over the edge of the cliff. The voices ease off.
We’re safe.
With an exhale, he gets up off me. I find myself exhaling, too.
“You were dying,” I manage to say, sitting up. “I don’t know how you’re upright, let alone running. You need rest. And you need a plan. The watchers will be back any minute—”
“I know that,” he mutters, brushing sand off his hands. “And I already have a plan.”
“What plan? You’re going west. If you’re planning to walk to Lartos, that will take you weeks.”
He opens the ball again at his side.
I blink. “How many things exactly do you have in there?”
Out comes a small, blocky wooden device with a retractable antenna I immediately recognise as a radio. We often used them in the Palace.
His thin, pale lip curves up an inch.
“I wasn’t planning on walking at all.”
“Good. That’s great. But you’ll need somewhere safe to wait.”
“I was going to take my chances by that outcrop,” he says, pointing with his thumb at the rounded shape of it in the distance. “But, by all means, if you have a better idea.”
I smile. “I always have a better idea.”
It’s about a mile’s walk to the ship. It washed up about a year ago and still hasn’t been removed. Only parts of its rounded hull and nose and exposed jagged, rusting frame are remaining, giving it the look of a broken lobster trap. It’s wedged firmly in the sludgy wet sand.
“You’ll be safe here,” I promise. “No one comes up this far.”
“What would you suggest I say if someone does come?”
“Travelling holymen are allowed to move freely through villages. You could try to pass yourself off as one.”
He indicates his clearly Rhavnan face. “Do I look like a holyman to you?” Then, his torn shirt. “Or even, holy?”
“No,” I admit. “But it’s worth a try. If it’s that or death.”
He stares at me with those dark eyes like he thinks I’m an idiot.
But then his face settles, as if reconsidering, and he climbs in.
It’s a wilderness in there. Clumps of seaweed have gathered anywhere they could.
Anything loose has been scavenged, but rubber tubes leading nowhere shoot up from everywhere, and a few copper pipes jut out from the remaining walls.
The control table has a crack running through the middle of it, and most of the gauges are smashed.
He runs his hand over the rotting wood. “I wasn’t expecting this. Thank you.”
“Now he thanks me.”
“Really,” he says. “I am in your debt.”
I take a long look around the beach, before I say, hesitantly, “Do you want me to wait with you?”
“You… could,” he says, stiffly.
Seeing no one – and deciding that maybe bad decisions come in threes – I step inside and drop down beside him on the damp sand.
He adjusts a dial on the radio before bringing it to his mouth. He says, over the sound of static, “Your gift is ready to collect at eleven past the hour, in the flightless damselfly,” before returning the radio to the ball.
“Did you just call yourself a gift?”
“I couldn’t exactly say come and collect me, I am on a Hevallan beach.”
No humour. Got it.
“I suppose now you just have to wait.”
“Yes.”
He’s staring out at the sea, to the far right. The glassy, domed top of the submerged ship is just about visible where the shoreline curves. It comes back to me, how it sank beneath the waves, so quickly, so easily. If there was anyone inside, they didn’t have a chance.
“I’m sorry about what happened today,” I say, softly. Like I’m treading silt.
“I was on that ship for five years,” he murmurs. “I knew many of the people better than my own family.”
I feel my heart break for him.
“Those poor people.”
His shoulders square out. “They knew what they signed up for.”
I say nothing. It’s not my place.
Abruptly, he turns to me.
“How long have you been in Hevalla?”
“Five years.”
His thick black brows knit together. “You were traded at the start of the war?”
“Y-yes,” I stammer. I wasn’t expecting an interrogation.
“How old were you?”
“It’s impolite to ask a woman her age.”
“I didn’t ask your age.”
“But you would know it from the answer.”
“That was not—”
“Fourteen. I was fourteen. My brother was ten.”
“You were children.”
“Yes.”
He pauses, then throws me another question. “Who do you want to win the war?”
I huff. “Are you serious? Rhavna, of course. Hevalla is the worst country in the world—”
“Even though you live here?” he presses. “Even though Rhavna sent you away?”
“They had their reasons.”
“Mm.” It must be his favourite word.
“Mm, what?”
“Why save an enemy soldier? Risk execution? If you really are living here, safely, and left alone… you have everything to lose.”
I choose my next words carefully, hunching up. “You were dying. I would have saved you if you were a Hevallan soldier, too. I would have saved anyone.”
Quietly, he says, “Then you are a better person than I am.” His face, which has been hard-edged until now, softens. “And I do not believe I caught your name.”
“Ara,” I reply.
“Ara,” he repeats, flat.
“Yes.” I look at him funny, because he’s gone rigid. “What’s wrong with my name?”
“It’s an Old Rhavnan word for water.”
“I know.”
Ara actually, at its core, means a specific kind of water – warm, salty, nourishing seawater. The kind of water old Rhavnan ladies like to bathe in, believing it will cure all their ailments.
His mouth creases, like something has bothered him.
And then I get the ridiculous idea that actually, he might be blushing.
“It is…” he trails off.
“What?”
“My name is Drake.”
“Oh.”
His name means fire.
It’s very rare, and considered very good luck in Rhavnan tradition, to meet someone with a complimentary name to yours.
“Fate or chance?” he asks, with something like humour.
As Rhavnan people are highly superstitious, the answer to that often-asked question is almost always fate.
“Chance, probably. Although you can never meet my grandmother. She’d be planning a wedding.”
He says, half-smiling, “My mother would be, too.”
Just then, the sun seems to change. Becomes harsh. It’s catching his face in a different way, highlighting his deep-set eyes, his strong jaw.
I sit up swiftly. “You didn’t work at the Palace, did you? You look familiar.”
His smile fades fast.
“No. No, I’m from the west.”
I frown. “You don’t have a Banko accent.”
For some reason, that makes him laugh. Just once. It’s a strange sound, coming from him. I’d started to think he wasn’t capable of it.
Funny how the only time he’s laughed at something I’ve said is when it wasn’t a joke.
I wait, but he offers me nothing more, so I let it go. I suppose it wasn’t really my business anyway.
I suddenly find myself thinking about Eric. He must have made it home by now. But what if he’s hurt, or afraid?
“I need to go,” I state, fast. “I need to find my brother.”
“May I offer you some advice before you do? My way of paying my debt.”
“Yes?” I say, half expecting his advice to be something ridiculous.
It is.
“You should become a soldier. Your brother, too.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Unfortunately, I am.” He leans forwards.
“The ship that fell today was a hive. Hives have their own fleet. They are fiercely protected. To go after one...” He pauses.
“Hevalla must have known The Dragoness had something powerful in her possession.” He drops his voice, even though we’re still alone.
“A weapon. And Hevalla used what must have been the majority of their fleets, across hive ships, to try to take it.”
“Did they manage to? Take it?”
“No. But for Hevalla to have had that knowledge…”
I understand. “Spies?”
He inspects the map in his hand.
“There was already talk of the Sky Treaty being broken. After today, I believe, for the first time in this war, the skies will be safer than the ground.”
“But—”
“Just think about it.”
He props his map on the table. I now have a clear view of it.
My village – in fact, most of the east coast of Hevalla – has been blotted out with ink.
Obliterated.
I’ve seen enough. I jump out of the ship, my pulse frenzied.
“Wait,” he calls.
I turn.
“Dierai, Ara.”
I freeze like he’s just wrapped a hand around my heart.
“Dierai,” I choke out, in return.
It’s an Old Rhavnan word for goodbye.
Except it means more than that.
It means, safe passage. It means, stay alive.
It means, I pray to the stars I will see you again.
The light feeling I had from hearing the word ‘Dierai’ from Drake’s mouth fades quickly. All I can think about is Eric. I’m beating myself up for not thinking about him sooner, getting back to him faster.
And as I follow the cliff round back towards my village, the bottom drops right out of my stomach.
Because the beach here is crawling with watchers in their beige uniforms. I’ve never seen so many of them. They’re inspecting every piece of debris. Some are manoeuvring metal detectors over the sand. Some are carrying items up in nets to the cliff steps.
Commanding it all at its centre is Vikemy, his white cape flowing behind him. It looks like something out of a Rhavnan play. I could throw a rose. Or an apple.
I kneel down, partially concealed by the cliff, feeling powerless.
Because I can’t just walk through the beach, when they’re clearly looking for evidence of something. I’ll be detained, interrogated, then executed – publicly. It will be compulsory viewing for my brother and Old Mother.
What if they know a soldier got away? How much time does Drake have?
It’s not far to the wrecked ship. If they scour the whole beach –
I hear shouting. Watchers calling to each other, as though raising an alarm.
I long to look, but can’t risk being seen.
And then I hear something that turns my blood to ice.
My brother’s voice. His panicked shrieks carry over the gentle sound of the waves and the violent shouts of the watchers.
They’ve got him.