Heir To The Sky

There’s an illustration on the page, but I can’t make it out from here. I can only see where the block of text ends and the fanciful sketching begins.

The lieutenant leans over, impatient. “Well?”

Aban falls silent, his finger stopping at one paragraph. “It’s just as they’re saying,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “The barrier, the generator...word for word, it’s what’s on the flyer. Show me again.”

The lieutenant reaches into his pocket and flattens the crinkled piece of paper. Aban compares the information on the paper to the lines he’s pressed his trembling finger against in the annal. He nods, his face ghostly white.

The lieutenant snatches the paper back and balls his hand into a fist. He quickly turns back to Aban. “And no one has seen this annal but the Elders?”

“And the Monarch, and you,” Aban says. My father knows of this secret tome, as well?

The lieutenant holds the edge of the paper to the candle that flickers on the desk. The flame licks up the side as the paper curls in on itself and burns. “Are there other copies of the book?” he asks.

Aban closes the massive tome with effort, and I stare over the tops of the shelved books to glance at the volume number. It glints, a single line golden in the dim light. The first of the annals. But that’s impossible. Another copy of the first volume hidden under lock and key? It makes no sense.

“Only this one,” Aban says. “And the one on the shelf, but it was dealt with nearly two hundred years ago. I believe the others were burned.”

Burned? Dealt with? Quietly as I can, I slide the first volume of the annals off the shelf and crouch down, placing the heavy book on top of my red skirts. I flip soundlessly to the image of the Rending, staring at it. What could be different about this volume than Aban’s special copy? What was “dealt with” two hundred years ago?

Then I see it, though I’ve looked at this drawing so many times before. Now that I know something’s wrong, it jumps off the page at me. The Phoenix is a much darker red-brown sketch than the rest of the fading drawing. I look carefully in its filled-in wings. There are rings of red encircling the space below the floating continent. There is some sort of mechanism buried in the Phoenix’s tail, some sort of...of machine.

The Phoenix has been drawn later, to cover something previously drawn. But what exactly, and why?

I slide the heavy book to the floor and peek through the shelves again to watch the men. Aban appears to think for a moment.

“Ashes,” he says. “There was an Initiate many years ago. He had a talent for deciphering the older annals. In the end he wasn’t suitable, and we sent him away. Perhaps he made a copy, or found another, and has deciphered its meaning. But he went to Nartu so long ago. And the retired Elders wouldn’t risk their safety by revealing the truth.”

“Then he’s made his way to Burumu, his message with him,” the lieutenant said. “It must be stopped.”

“I agree, but carefully. If you did your job, Lieutenant, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

“I could say the same,” he grumbles.

“The Sargon better control the rebellion. It must not advance here.”

“The rebels are disorganized and marginalized anyway,” the lieutenant says. “We can easily stop the people. But ideas spread like wildfire. We need to discredit this information as lies.”

Then a lighter voice rings out, friendly and unburdened. “Kali?”

It’s Elisha, looking for me.

My heart seems as loud as the citadel bells. Aban rushes the tome to the cupboard, locking it as the lieutenant looks around nervously. I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled on to, but I know it isn’t wise to let on that I’ve been here the whole time. Even with my rank as the Eternal Flame and heir, I feel the fear flicker inside me. They could erase me, too, if they wanted. It would be easy. I’m just one person, noble or not.

“Kali, are you in here?” Elisha shouts. Her voice echoes in the domed ceiling of the library. I glance down the row of annals, press my hands against the thick concrete wall at the end. There’s no way to leave this corridor without walking past the two men.

Aban slips the string with the key back under the neckline of his robe and clasps his hands. He and the lieutenant step toward the entrance of the library just as Elisha appears in front of them. She knows how much I love books. She knows where to find me.

“Oh,” she gasps, surprised. “Elder Aban. And the lieutenant, isn’t it? From the Elite Guard?”

“Elisha,” Aban says, his voice cool and collected. I can’t see any of them now because I’ve shrunk back against the wall. It’s as if I’m watching a play, like this couldn’t really be happening.

“I’m just looking for Kali,” she says cheerfully.

I hear the swish of his robes as he steps forward. “She isn’t here,” he says, his voice strange and urgent. “She’s in the courtyard, I’m certain.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Elisha says. Her voice is unburdened and innocent. She has no idea what’s transpiring. “She hates crowds. Don’t you know she’s always in the annals?”

“Elisha, if you’ll just check the courtyar—”

“I’ll only be a moment, Elder.”

No, I think. Elisha, listen to Aban for once. The world beats to my heightened pulse. Nothing seems real, as if life has become a theatrical performace. If only the stage would open up and swallow me into the darkness. What will happen if they find out I’m here?

And then she’s there, staring at me as I look back like a pika caught stealing fireweed. “I told you!” She laughs in a peal of bells. “But what are you doing all scrunched up like that?”

Aban steps around the side of the shelf, his face a mask of horror. He quickly recovers, bowing his head. “Your Highness,” he says.

I rise to my feet. I can’t show them how I’m shaking. I clear my throat and nod my head. “Aban,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “Elisha. Ashes and soot, I must have fallen asleep.” I rub my eyes, blotting out the horrible scene around me. When I look again, the lieutenant is staring back, his mouth slightly open. I can’t read Aban’s expression at all.

Elisha laughs in disbelief. “Well, that’s not like you,” she says. “Falling asleep in the library? With the annals? You love reading the annals!”

Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I stare at her. She’s not helping, not at all.

“The Rending Ceremony,” I try. “It must have taken it right out of me.” I stretch my arms out wide and try to force a yawn. None comes. Do they believe me? Or can they see the worry on my face?

A single bead of sweat drips down the side of the lieutenant’s forehead. “Your Highness,” he says.

I nod and put on my official voice, lifting my chin up. “Lieutenant.” My voice wavers, just a little. He doesn’t know me well enough to notice, but Aban will.

I wonder for a moment if I should just confront them, ask what it was all about. I’m the Monarch’s daughter, after all. Their job is to protect me.

But something in me warns it isn’t a wise move to tell them I know. Something whispers inside me to run, and to run as far as I can. Someone changed the first annal two hundred years ago, if I understood Aban correctly. And the Elders and Elite Guard don’t want us to know what, or why.

“Well, now that I’m awake, Elisha, let’s get to the celebrations in Ulan.”

She smiles and takes my hand, pulling me through the stacks of the library and away from the frowning faces of Aban and the lieutenant.

I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled upon, but I know it’s something big. I know my father will explain it to me if he knows, and if he doesn’t, he’ll protect me. Once he knows what I’ve seen, they won’t be able to do anything to me. And anyway, as the next in line to govern Ashra and her lands, there’s no reason I shouldn’t know what Aban and the lieutenant were talking about. I don’t know why the incident made my heart race; it’s either for the good of the kingdom, or it’s treason, and either way I would be in the right to question it.

But a feeling of doubt casts a shadow darker than the hallways of the citadel, and for the first time in many years, I feel truly frightened.

FIVE

“HERE,” ELISHA SAYS, pulling a pair of beige sandals out of her bag. “I grabbed these for you.” She giggles, holding the shoes out to me as she keeps pulling me forward.

“Elisha.” I tug gently against her hand, and we stop in the corridor near the stairway. “Wait. I have to talk to my father.”

She frowns, the shoes resting in her hand against her slacks. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure, but I need to talk to him first. It’s Aban and the lieutenant.”

She nods and helps me slip on the sandals before she follows me to the meeting room. Two guards flank either side of the doorway, tall spears in hand. It’s just a formality, of course. The number of humans left in the world is too small to fear each other.

At least, that’s what I’d thought. The sketch of the Phoenix and the talk of rebellion has shaken everything I thought I knew. I wish the lieutenant hadn’t burned the paper. I need to see what was on it.

I rest my fingers on the cold door handle, and one of the guards turns his head. “Are you looking for the Monarch, Princess?”

“I don’t mind if he’s occupied with the Elders,” I say. “It’s an urgent matter.”

“I’m afraid he’s not in there,” the guard answers as I push in the door to the meeting room, empty and still. “He left fifteen minutes ago, I believe for the village square with the Elders. Some meet-and-greet celebrations.”

My chest feels empty, as though I’m out of breath. Everything feels so wrong, and I can’t explain why. What does it mean that there are two first volumes of the annals? What was dealt with two hundred years ago? And what in ashes is the unrest now in Burumu?

“Thank you,” I tell him, my throat dry, and I turn toward the citadel steps.

Elisha wraps her arms around my arm, leading me into the sunlight outside the great doors. We pass the Phoenix statue, a few stragglers from the celebration still wandering the courtyard. They wave at me, no longer enthralled as I’ve become one of them again. I do my best to smile and wave weakly at them.

“Kali? You’re acting so weird,” Elisha says. “What happened back there?”

“I wish I knew,” I say. “Your uncle lives in Burumu, doesn’t he? Have you heard anything about a rebellion?”

Elisha’s eyes widen with surprise and she shouts, “A rebe—” Then she notices my urgent face and drops her voice down to a whisper. “A rebellion?”

I nod. “The lieutenant and Aban were talking about it. They had some kind of paper being passed around with some big secret on it. Aban had a key around his neck, Elisha, and he brought out this duplicate of the first annal that he could read. The first volume!”

“They have been studying it a long time,” she says. “Maybe they’re finally getting somewhere?”

“No, I mean, he could really read it. The ancient language and everything. I heard him.”

She frowns. “Why would the Elders pretend they can’t read it when they can?”

“I don’t know. And earlier, Jonash told my father there was unrest in Burumu.”

“That’s nothing new,” she says. “You know life is harder there. Work is grueling and there’s little space to live. They all want to move to Ashra. Maybe they’re just exaggerating when they say it’s a rebellion.”

But I’m unconvinced. “Aban was really worried,” I say. “He said something was ‘dealt with’ two hundred years ago. The ink in the first volume was different somehow. The Phoenix looked newer than the rest of the drawing. And there were these rings and some kind of a machine buried in the drawing, under the Phoenix.” I know how crazy I must sound. I can see it on Elisha’s face. But she’s my best friend, and I know she’ll take me seriously, even if she thinks it’s nothing.

We reach the end of the courtyard and start along the dirt path to Ulan. It’s not a long way, and we can already see the tops of thatched roofs and wooden shingles. Folk songs played on goat-string harps and carved flutes float up like a cloud from the town.

“Aban is the most loyal person I know,” Elisha says after a moment. “He’d die for the Monarch and for you. He would.”

“You’re right,” I say, and she is. I can’t help but wonder if my imagination is running away with me, if the pull for escape and adventure isn’t making a bigger deal out of this than it really is.

“They probably just don’t want to worry you, and it will all smooth over. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Besides, the Elite Guard is based in Burumu. They can deal with problems there. Isn’t that the Sargon’s job? And so what if the drawing in the annals isn’t as old as you thought, or the Elders can read them? What does that have to do with us now?”

I sigh, trying to let go of everything.

Elisha nods as we approach the fountain. It gurgles with cool water filtered down from the lake, and one of the women from the village gathers it up into a mauve clay urn which she rests on her shoulder. She smiles at us, and we smile at her.

“We’re safe now, Kali,” Elisha says. “Monsters can’t reach us this high. Any rebellion will quickly fizzle out when they remember how fortunate we are. We’ve been safe for hundreds of years, and things will continue this way when you’re Monarch, too.” She sidles closer, her voice dropping. “Or is it Jonash that’s on your mind?”

I nudge her away as she giggles. She thinks I’m lucky, and that the whole thing is romantic. She’s bought into the royal distraction like everyone else. “I don’t love him, Elisha.”

She stops giggling and sits on the edge of the fountain, her fingers wrapping around the cool stone. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you have a whole year to get to know him. Maybe you’ll fall for him.”

I sit beside her, the stone lip of the fountain scratching the pads of my fingers. The trickling water sounds like the gurgle of the waterfall on the edge of Lake Agur, and it fills me with the urge to run there, or to my outcrop on the edge of the continent. “What if I still don’t love him in a year?”

She shrugs. “Then break the engagement.”

I let out a laugh. “My father would kill me.” I dip my fingers into the water and splash her. She winces dramatically as the drops spatter on her cream tunic.

She splashes me back, the water spraying my dress a dark crimson. “He’d come around,” she says. “You’re everything to him.”

She’s right, I know. He would understand if I broke off the engagement. But it would disappoint him so much. I don’t know if I have it in my heart to do that to him. He wants Ashra’s future to be secure. Jonash is a good match, politically, and in almost every other way. And then I remember that the night isn’t our own. “By the way, he’s joining us tonight.”

Elisha’s eyes just about pop out of her skull. “Jonash is?”

I roll my eyes, leaning back against the edge of the fountain and swinging my sandaled feet in the air. “After dinner he wants to meet us here. There’s some sort of party for the lieutenant’s birthday first. Unless, you know, rebellion calls them both away.” One can hope.

“Unlikely. Well, we better get in all the fun we can before our night turns political.” Elisha jumps to her feet. “Come on.”

Elisha is like the sun to me. She’s always shining, always optimistic. She has moments of sadness and hardship when she dims, like everyone else, but it doesn’t bother her that she’s fixed in one spot. She has no desire to leave Ashra, no curiosity about the monster-ridden earth below or the strange past before the Rending. I try to shed my worries now, to enjoy the fun of the Rending celebration.

Ulan is vibrant and bustling with out-of-town guests. Groups of Initiates walk through the crowd in their white robes, carrying sticks of chicken glazed with honey and tiny cakes of puffed flour and dusted sugar. Villagers dance in the square, wearing dresses of red and orange and yellow, the colors of the Phoenix and of our redemption. Elisha runs to the open window of one hut, where a man passes her the sticky-sweet skewers of honeyed chicken. We lick the hot, sweet meat as the honey dribbles onto our fingers. After, we buy two glasses of foamed pygmy goat milk blended with crushed red field berries, and then stuff our mouths with miniature puffed cakes and gluey spirals of bright orange melon paste. We eat and drink until the sugar overwhelms us and our foreheads pulse with headaches, and then Elisha grabs my sticky hands in hers and we dance in the square, spinning around and around as the sun begins to set, as the candles are lit in every window and along the edges of the wall.

Ulan is the only part of the floating continent to have a wall. It begins at the citadel and curves past the fountain and around the edge of the farmlands. It ends abruptly in the tangled forests, where the trees make their own wall of roots and thorns and brambles. At first, our ancestors never bothered to build a wall, since the edge of a floating continent isn’t something to be defended, nor is the village built directly on the brink. The schoolhouse is between the town and the farmlands, and children learn from an early age not to go wandering in the grassy fields that stretch toward the southern edge.

But when I was two, a terrible accident happened. One of the teachers in town was running late that morning. She’d raced to the henhouse to gather the eggs, and one of the chickens had gotten out into the farmlands. She’d just chased it down when she smelled her morning loaf burning in the oven. And so she rushed in to deal with that as well, and the whole time she’d left the door to her cottage open and her toddler son had wandered out into the long grasses to look for her. The villagers are still haunted by his screams, the helpless cries that pierced the morning quiet as he toppled suddenly off the edge of the continent.

His mother never got over the horrible tragedy. No one blamed her, of course, but she drowned in the guilt that my father said only a parent can suffer. Her heart heavy with grief, she jumped off the edge six months later, and so we built the wall to protect others from the same tragic fate.

The wall is mainly stones mortared together with a thick clay paste. I don’t know how well it would stand up to someone who wanted to topple it over, but it’s strong enough to hold against the strength of any child. I was only two at the time myself, so I can’t imagine the symbol of grief the wall is for the older citizens of Ulan. It is hauntingly beautiful with the Rending candles placed along the length of the edge, villagers bending to light them as the sky grows darker. The flames flicker against the stones, casting dancing shadows and light echoed by the fireflies gleaming in the forests to the north. They look like tufts of Phoenix down floating on the wind, carried any way they please, lighting the continent with their orange-and-yellow glow.

I feel claustrophobic suddenly, longing to go back to my outcrop and think about the hidden tome Aban concealed in the cupboard. I can’t face Jonash, or my father, or any of the politics ahead of me. It’s risky to climb the outcrop at night, although I’ve done it before to watch the rainbow of fireflies alighting on the wildflowers. Maybe I can go to the edge of Lake Agur and listen to the waters, close my eyes and pretend I’m sitting on the shore of the ocean.

I close my eyes now, imagining away the crowds of celebration. “Elisha,” I say, “let’s ditch the festival. Let’s go where that Burumu boor can’t find us.”

A deep voice answers, and it isn’t Elisha’s. “And where’s that?”

I open my eyes, and Jonash’s blue eyes study mine, the pale purple dusk shadowing the crinkle of his forced smile.

I’m horrified. The guilt sinks deep in the pit of my stomach, resting uneasily. Elisha stands to the side, her eyes wide and full of shared embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean anything against you.”

Jonash laughs a little. “I’m certain you didn’t,” he says, but I know he’s only being polite. I can see the confusion in his eyes, the expectation of an explanation. “Do I really come off as boorish?”

My cheeks blaze. “Of course not. I’m only feeling a little claustrophobic,” I try, waving my hand around at the crowds. By now the barley and malt have made their ways through the crowds, and the dancing has become much louder and far less coordinated. “It’s...it’s just been a long day.”

One of the dancers approaches, singing the verse of a ballad too loudly as he merrily shakes his glass at us. Jonash gently rests his hands on the man’s shoulders and turns him so he dances away, back toward the crowd. “I think I understand,” he says. “Shall we all three escape, then?”

Elisha’s eyes twinkle, and I know she thinks it’s Jonash being perfect again. And she’s right, of course. He’s being a gentleman about the whole mortifying situation. He offers his arm, and in front of the crowds, with my embarrassing words in mind, there’s nothing I can do but take it graciously. I link my arm around his and we walk toward the fountain, the blue light of the citadel’s crystal shining like a beacon in the growing dark. “I thought we could go to Lake Agur.”

“Too many mosquitos and flies at dusk,” Elisha says. “Why not the outcrop?”

Jonash raises an eyebrow. “The outcrop? Sounds intriguing.”

I want to shake Elisha. I will, later. The outcrop is my place, one I refuse to share with Jonash. “It’s nowhere important. But the outlands near the lake would be lovely.”

“Anywhere,” he says. “I’ve had enough politics for one night, as well.”

“The lieutenant’s birthday,” I answer, and the scene in the library floods back along with all my doubts.

The lights and songs of Ulan fade behind us as we start down the dirt path toward the citadel. Halfway along we turn down the northeastern path, past the landing pitch where the airship bobs like a puffy cloud in the dim light.

I slip my arm away from Jonash, pretending to smooth my hair back in the cold nighttime wind.

“The lieutenant seemed a bit off today,” I hazard. “Has anything happened?”

“Off?”

“The unrest in Burumu is perhaps on his mind?”

Jonash slows, his head tilted to the side as he thinks. “Not that I’m aware.”

“What is the unrest, exactly?”

He pauses for a moment as we walk in silence. “Just a little grumbling over ration allotment,” he says finally. “Nothing to trouble Your Highness.”

“Kali is fine,” I remind him. “And I’m glad to hear it. Because the strangest thing happened today, and I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“Oh?”

I’m hesitant to share with Jonash what’s happened, but maybe he’ll know more about it than me. “The lieutenant and Elder Aban were in the library. They were discussing a rebellion, and the annals.”

“The annals are rather dusty and educational for the lieutenant’s tastes.” Jonash laughs, and Elisha politely laughs with him.

But I don’t like that he’s avoided the word rebellion. My instinct says it isn’t the first he’s heard of it. “The lieutenant had a paper from the rebels,” I tell him, and the laughing stops.

I tell them the rest of the story, about the drawing of the Phoenix covering up part of the original illustration, about the red rings and the machine scribbled out by her tail. I tell them about the secret first volume Aban had under lock and key, and the discussion of an Initiate who may be causing trouble from Nartu. I tell them how the lieutenant wants to discredit the information as lies, which means there’s a dangerous truth embedded in it. Jonash’s face darkens, and then I know I was right to worry, that it hasn’t all been in my head.

“Have you spoken to the Monarch?” he says. His voice sounds off.

I shake my head. “He’s been so busy with the celebrations. I’m going to tell him as soon as I return tonight.”