Chapter Twenty. In Which the Trio Suffers the Perils of Public Transportation #2
The entire platform groaned as the blimp finally docked to the side with a screeching hiss.
Bodies rushed forward in a wave, unfazed by the sudden clash of blades and shouts.
A whistle rose above the din as the aircab’s metal doors slid open and more bodies spilled out onto the platform.
Risa watched this new surge of people take a few steps before their eyes turned hazy and confused, most stopping inches from the Sanguines’ fight.
El Gib’s machete struck the aircab with a ding, though it made no visible dent on the machine and did not deter the patrons who pushed forward past their dazed counterparts.
Javi seized Risa’s shoulders and steered her around toward the entrance. Then his hand reached for hers, fingers slipping in the spaces between her own. Her heart was on the brink of total failure, and holding his hand was making it worse.
Amina appeared on Javi’s other side, also holding his hand, Brunie clinging to the princess’s cloak for dear life.
“We run on the count of three,” Amina ordered.
She faced the steel doors, biding her time as the last few stragglers struggled to fit in the packed car.
A high-pitched whir began, and the doors rattled. “One…”
“Three,” Javi shouted, running.
They rushed into the car before the steel maws slid shut, leaving the Sanguines on the other side.
The machine moaned as it lifted into the air and tipped a fraction to the left, rocked by an errant gust of wind that rattled the steel wall panels.
Everyone fell clumsily, bodies pressed against others, and Brunie scrambled onto Risa’s shoulders in search of a higher perch.
Risa almost lost her footing when a pair of strong, familiar hands gripped her shoulders and steadied her.
Javi’s breath stirred the hair around her ears.
She didn’t have the chance to investigate the unruly way her heartbeat pounded in her ears, or why she felt her whole body flush in response to the ghostly remnants of his fingertips against her skin.
He let her go and quickly reached for the neck of Amina’s cloak to haul her back to her feet.
“Be careful,” he admonished the princess.
Risa was not a stranger to jealousy. She was well aware she suffered greatly from it, but never had jealousy felt quite like this: white-hot and furious, a roiling sea in her belly, a painful pulsing behind her eyes.
Something was very, very wrong with her. She had no reason to be jealous of Amina or of Javi; she didn’t want to be a supposed-dead princess, nor did she want to be the might-be-dead-soon prince.
When the machine rocked the other way, presumably to balance itself on the precarious line it hung on, Risa figured her jealousy might in fact be motion sickness. It certainly didn’t help to look out one of the small portholes of the aircab and watch the world grow smaller and smaller.
“You look ill,” Amina noticed, eyeing Risa with wariness.
Javi leaned over for a closer look at her face. “Did you break something else?”
For a moment, Risa was conflicted. She wanted to bash her forehead into his nose. She wanted to grab his face in both hands and—
There was another rocking motion. A woman carrying a screaming toddler howled as she careened backward, stopped only by the immovable force that was more patrons, squished against one side of the steel panels.
“Watch it, lady,” someone snapped.
“I’m carrying a baby here!” the woman shouted at no one in particular—perhaps to the universe at large, or the airship gods.
Unfortunately, her fellow patrons were unsympathetic. “And I’m carrying my depression!” shouted someone in response.
Risa gripped her stomach and tried to think of something else, like how hurtling toward the sky in a steel-trap monster was a great way to tempt her curse into taking things into its own hands. A malfunction that sent them to their fiery deaths below wouldn’t be unexpected, if a little dramatic.
Before her curse could work its magic and the three met their violent end, however, the aircab slowed and groaned again, the pulley system screeching as they docked in the carved-up insides of a larger airship.
“To those returning home to San Cirilo, welcome back.” A tinny voice echoed throughout the ship.
Above them, a metal tube fed into the hull and vibrated with sound.
“To those visiting us from afar, why? We ask you to mind the gap and your business. Our airship technology is patented and we will arrest you if we catch you trying to steal our tech. Thank you, and don’t feed the pigeons. ”
The steel doors slid open and the three stumbled onto a steel platform with ticker signs designating different areas and additional platforms, where people milled and bustled about trying to reach their next destination.
Across the parallel platform, OLD TOWN flashed across the ticker sign. MAIN STREET flashed across another.
There didn’t seem to be one that pointed toward the Flying Palace.
“Where do we go now?” Amina whispered. Other confused travelers stood at the center of the platform in search of direction.
Javi shrugged, then pointed at the largest airship, labeled BUSINESS DISTRICT.
Reaching it was a different matter altogether.
It seemed every citizen of San Cirilo was on a mission that could not be derailed for anyone, least of all a prince being chased by mercenaries intent on killing him.
Commuters huffed and sighed and outright shouted if anyone got in their way.
Someone muttered “No, please go slower, I have absolutely nowhere to be” as Amina stumbled past. Somehow, through sheer determination or divine intervention, they made it onto another airship just before its doors closed.
This airship did not seem aware of its size as it zigzagged through the air, managing to avoid careening into its steel brethren through luck that Risa was undoubtedly not responsible for.
Risa’s breakfast was about to become everyone else’s concern as she tried to swallow down the rising bile.
Amina fared no better, her skin turning a shade that matched her eyes.
“Have neither of you ever ridden a boat before?”
Risa was surprised by the venom in Amina’s glare at Javi, no less poisonous than her own.
“I grew up in a desert kingdom,” Amina reminded him through gritted teeth.
Javi paled and offered up a half-hearted apologetic smirk.
When Risa thought it was inevitable that she would spew her guts all over her shoes, she felt cool, deft fingers press against her temples.
“Stare at a fixed point,” Javi told her, voice soft and reassuring. “Your shoes, that questionable stain on the wall, my eyes…”
Against her better judgment, she took his advice. Tilted her chin up a fraction. Heard his sharp intake of breath above the whirring of the airship. Met his gold gaze.
It was like having the heat of a thousand suns turn on her.
“Oh gods, I think I’m going to be sick.” Amina’s voice interrupted the moment. Javi dropped his hands and looked away. Brunie agreed with Amina, whiskers tickling the back of Risa’s neck as the cat stuffed his head beneath her shirt.
Risa tore her gaze away and stared at the rust stain on one of the steel panels as the machine chugged on.
Her heart skipped several beats, though she couldn’t attribute it to the swaying airship or the crowd.
In this limited space, she was beginning to suspect it wasn’t Brunhilda’s spell causing her bizarre illness.
Her faintness of breath, her thundering heart, her aching chest. Something else was happening, something she’d never felt before.
The airship docked with a hiss. A rumble reverberated through the steel frame. Steam swirled up from the crack between the platform and airship when the doors slid open.
Risa didn’t realize she hadn’t moved until riders shoved past her and Javi. One man, dressed in a crisp suit of dark blue, muttered, “Tourists.”
Amina bolted out of the airship, Javi ambling after her. That left Risa alone to grapple with the sudden emptiness that cracked open in her chest.
It hit her while she was stumbling out onto the gleaming silver platform—unable to take in the marvel that was San Cirilo—that Javi was, perhaps, avoiding her.
Ever since that kiss behind the crates with all those Sanguines chasing after them.
Javi was trying to let her down. Probably figuring out the right time to tell her that he was sorry, he might not want to marry a despot’s daughter, but he certainly didn’t want to cast his ballot for some country bumpkin, either.
He just couldn’t risk having his supposed good luck charm abandon him for the rest of his misadventure.
Javi was trying to save his own skin, much like she was trying to save her own.
She couldn’t have that. She had to set the record straight, right then. He didn’t have to consider her feelings. There was no need to treat her like a fragile thing that would shatter under disappointment. She had been forged by disappointment.
Besides, she wouldn’t be disappointed. That was the whole point. He didn’t have to spare her. He didn’t have to like her. She certainly didn’t like him. Not in the least.
Except, when she opened her mouth to tell him so, she realized Javi was bent over the princess, rubbing soothing circles against Amina’s back as she was sick into a tall waste bin she could barely reach.
Brunie nuzzled his head into Risa’s cheek, frazzled whiskers twitching. Risa blinked at the sight before her. Sweat trickled down her back. Her stomach performed a belated somersault.
Now it was her turn to throw up.