“I’d rather try than not.” Father then waved me away.
Jyntre cast me a last glance before I ran a few steps and launched into the sky, once again sent home to be safe, once again expected to always do as I was told, even when I didn’t agree. In xiangqi—Chinese chess—there were many pieces, but I always saw myself as the Advisor, a piece that could never leave the area of the board called the palace. Never able to leave Drüssyevoi of my own volition, never able to be my true self, I was always tied down to being the person Mother and Father wanted me to be—a quiet child who always did as told. Well, no longer. I’d break out of my own palace one way or the other.
To do that, I needed to know what was really going on, and Father seemed to be withholding something important—so important that he would only reveal it to Jyntre. As quietly as possible, I glided up and away before curling back around and landing on a ledge out of their sight, but just within earshot.
“How are you going to find the person who did this?” I heard my uncle say.
“Someone capable of breaking out of the Catacombs must be powerful enough to avoid normal means of detection,” Father said. “Which means the Blood of the Sun may be the only way to track the one responsible.”
Whoever had done the impossible could hide from normal magic, but if the stories were true, no amüli was strong enough to hide from something as powerful as the fabled gemstone containing the blood of the first amüli king. The gem’s properties were legendary. I’d grown up hearing tales of the stone’s wielder crushing whole armies in a single blow and wielding magic as though he were a god.
“Do you have any idea where it might be?” asked Jyntre.
“No, but Melroc believes he is close to uncovering its hiding place.”
I leaned against the cold stone of the cliff side and frowned. My uncle Melroc was their youngest brother, a relative I hadn’t seen in years. He was famous for traveling the world and gathering information on new lands and the people who lived there.
“Then we should send word to him,” Jyntre suggested.
My father said, “He is already on the way. His ship arrives on the morrow to collect supplies for his voyage. I’ll send Mizendrel to speak with him on my behalf.”
The Blood of the Sun, an ancient artifact that hadn’t been seen in so long few doubted it was real, stood between my father and whoever had escaped our prison. I crouched then launched back into the air. No way was I going to Lendre now. Not while so much rode on Uncle Melroc finding something as important and powerful as the Blood of the Sun.
Father had treated me with such respect tonight that I felt it was my duty as a knight-to-be to aid Uncle Melroc in his quest for the stone. A knight needed to be able to put aside his own selfish desires to help others, and while I yearned to train under Lord Veren’s son as a page and prepare for my life as a squire, this was far more important. To prove myself worthy of being a knight—and not just any knight, but one of the best—I’d need to leave with Uncle Melroc in the morning.
I closed my eyes and hoped Father would still respect me when I returned.
The vessel Melroc captained had yet to arrive, though clouds rolled in over the ocean, and the waves grew larger and larger with each minute. Mizen and I strolled toward the lapping tide as groups of amüli gathered on the beach with barrels of fresh water and crates of food.
“You were supposed to go train with Lord Veren’s son,” Mizen said, “not to go on this... this senseless voyage.”
My stomach knotted, both in guilt and uncertainty. Not many amüli my age could attempt leaving home and get away with it. Of course, I had to hope Mizen wouldn’t say anything and Uncle Melroc would believe the letter I carried in my pocket with my passport.
“It’s not senseless,” I replied. “Besides, you’d do the same thing.”
“Not even close.” Mizen crossed his arms over his chest, flexing his drake wings until they fanned wide to catch the earliest rays of sunlight. “I’d do as I was told.”
“More is at stake than just my father’s reputation,” I said. “What if they can’t find who broke into the ‘Combs? What if the intruder comes back and breaks someone else out?”
“You don’t even know if anyone got out.”
“There were footprints in the sand—two sets.”
“No, there were divots in the sand that might have been footprints.”
I shook my head. “Do you think people will accept that? Because I don’t. If our fathers can’t track the person who did this and the people find out, it could lead to chaos.”
Mizen exhaled. “Fine. I still don’t like it, though.”
“Look.” I pointed toward the sky, where the first rays of dawn touched the clouds above. The light shimmered and glowed unlike any I’d ever seen before. Then, upon closer inspection, I noticed a ship emerging from the heavens, its massive decks similar to thick sand dollars piled on top of one another, the flat side facing up. Pillars of smoky clouds held roofs in place, and when I squinted, I spotted individual chambers with wispy openings that looked a lot like carved scrollwork windows.
“Astounding!”
“You said it.” My hands clenched, and my stomach curled in on itself. In that moment, I was glad for the decision to skip breakfast—it might have come up when I realized this massive cloud-city was what I’d be using to traverse the ocean. Would I have to fly the entire time? That seemed foolish. Certainly, something—rocks, wood, or another solid substance of some kind—would give me a place to roost at night or when my wings grew tired.
As Mizen and I gawked, the vessel dropped from the sky toward the soaked sand, where it finally came to rest. The amüli around us hauled their crates and barrels over their shoulders and made their way toward the lowest of the sky-ship’s giant disks.
“Want me to escort you?” Mizen asked, probably due to curiosity more than wanting to act as an escort.
I shrugged. “Sure. Let’s go.”
Mizen took the lead. Since our Uncle Melroc captained this massive vessel, Mizen would be the better one to suggest I join the trip. His drake wings got him places I could never dream of reaching. Only one drake per generation was born to House Krune, and Mizen would eventually take my father’s place as the lord of Drüssyevoi and become one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Every other Krune had the wings of hen mallards, and we were destined for... well, it was hard to say. Some of us became knights. Others, like Uncle Melroc, joined the Order of Kravaldîn and set forth to explore the world.
As we hopped up to the first deck, I managed a closer peek at what the vessel was made out of. Clouds were my first guess, and the swirling structure confirmed my suspicions. Instead of us sinking down into softness as I’d expected, the cloud disk we walked across was as hard as stone. I paused to tap the toe of my shoe against it.
How the sky-ship was made and how it floated on nothing but air was beyond me. How were the decks solid enough to walk on while looking fluid underfoot? What about the weight of it? Did it always fly like it had before touching down? I shook my head and hurried after my cousin.
As we strolled by a large group of amüli, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickled. The down on my wings stood straight. My chest constricted, and for a few seconds, the air felt so heavy I feared I’d never breathe again.
And I knew why.
Even Mizen stopped walking, and we both watched the group of men work. These amüli were casters, quickly pulling the power of the gods from the ground below and working the energy into new forms with artful commands. The majority of the forms became fat arches of swirling color, which glowed and cast fractured light across the deck. Blue and teal made up most of the arches, but every few moments, a swirl of red would intermix with it, though the energy never became purple. One of the casters guided the blue energy up to a higher deck, and others above caught it before forcing it into the clouds, like a waterfall running backward. While some of the casters stocked away the water and food, the majority of them forced fresh magic into the sky-ship.
A crack of light followed by a dampened boom shook the ship beneath my feet. Within the confines of the clouds, a storm brewed. Despite the bright colors, this wasn’t a display of casting finesse. This was magic in its raw form, and it spun with a hundred new shades of blue and red.
