And she would.
But that sentiment did not soothe another reality, one more solid than fear. She stared at the satchel. After so long being mere myth and dream, here was her father. The last of his bones. All that was left, all she would ever truly know. And despite the curse, she longed to touch them, to make at least that much contact, between daughter and father.
And deeper below this desire lay a well of grief.
Her father was dead. And if the stories were true, he had sacrificed himself to bring forth word of his enslaved and tortured brethren. This was also her heritage. And it both warmed her and filled her with sorrow.
Who was her father?
Even a name did not fully answer that.
She tried searching out the window to distract her, but there was nothing to see. We’ll make it through. Then what? From there, they would follow the last footsteps of her father.
But where would they lead?
Around her, the flippercraft shuddered, from bow to stern.
“We’re entering the storm,” Rogger said.
Tylar crashed against the railing. He clutched at the grip, earning a protest from his wrapped hand. He stood at the foot of the spar that led out to where the pilot had been belted to his chair. Like the bowsprit of a deepwhaler, the man’s perch protruded from the deck and overhung the wide curved glass Eye of the ship.
Nothing could be seen below. Blinded by bile, the pilot had to trust the calls of fathoms from his crewmate who manned a steaming curve of mekanicals locked in bronze to the left. The mica tubes and vessels bubbled with the churning alchemies. The mate, a short, bandy-legged man, kept a continuing report of the ship’s health and course.
On the far side of the deck, to the right, Captain Horas stood before another curve of mekanicals. He danced across the jarring deck as if it were as steady as stone. Tugging at his forked beard, he monitored his stations, becoming another mate of the three-man crew. At the same time, he did not forsake his role as captain.
“Two turns to port!” he shouted to the pilot. “Catch the wind on the aft flippers!”
This was his ship. He seemed to read its every bump and roll with more intent than the mekanical soundings. Tylar kept out of his way, out of everyone’s way. He was here only in case his blood was needed. Through his veins, raw Grace flowed. It bore the aspect of water, not air. But power was power, and if it proved necessary…
The ship heaved up on one side. Tylar slid down the smooth rail, hanging by his hands. Terror rang through him.
Captain Horas came running down the tilted deck. He skidded next to the smaller mate and clapped him on the shoulder as if greeting him on the street. “Feed a flow here…and here…” He tapped at two mica tubes that steamed and hissed.
“Will it hold?” the other asked, but he was already turning bronze knobs.
“It will have to,” Captain Horas said as the pilot corrected the roll and evened the deck. He crossed to Tylar on his way back to his original post. Their eyes met.
Tylar pulled on the rail to gain his feet. “How are the alchemies holding?”
“We’re losing air.” Horas read the concern in Tylar’s face. “Not air Graces, just air. The storm gods know what we attempt. I can practically sense their Dark Grace swirling around us, seeking some crack to suck the power out of our alchemies. But as long as we keep a full burn, the mekanicals are holding steady.”
The flippercraft suddenly dropped beneath Tylar’s feet. Someone screamed from the back of the ship. Then the deck came crashing back up, knocking Tylar to a knee.
Captain Horas landed lightly. He waved an arm outward, at the sky, at the storm. “The storm gods have grown wise to our artifice. It is not only Dark Grace we must fight. Bile can’t block a wind. The storm turns its winds against us, seeking to drag us out of the skies.”
“What can we do?” Tylar said.
“Fly, your lordship. That’s what my ship was made for!” He said this last with a savage grin. “We’ll keep flying until the ground stops us.”
Tylar gained his feet.
The pilot called from his spar. “Captain!”
Tylar and Horas turned to the man. He motioned below.
Tylar leaned over the rail. Below, the black Eye was now streaked with white. “We’re losing bile,” he said.
“Snow and ice…stripping us…” Horas shoved away from the rail and hurried back to his station.
The ship rolled, first to one side, then the other. Though still blinded, Tylar felt the pressure in his ears.
“We’re losing Grace!” Horas called. “They’re breaking through! Open all taps! Full flow!”
As Tylar watched, a large swath of bile washed off the Eye. Through the rent in their protection, the storm swirled white. He searched below, expecting a dark eye to form, to peer inside. Instead, far below, globes of light floated and rolled near the bottom of the storm, like luminescent fish at the bottom of the Deep.
As he struggled to discern the source, the pressure continued to squeeze his ears. They were plummeting into the depths of the storm. The strange lights below grew larger.
Captain Horas passed him again, drawing his eye. “The more power we burn,” he called as he passed, “the more Grace they steal!”
Tylar followed him across the deck. “Then stop burning Grace!” An idea grew in him. He joined the captain and the mate at the wall of mekanicals.
“Then we’ll fall to our deaths that much sooner,” Horas said.
Tylar kept his voice fierce. “You said this ship is built to fly! Then fly her! Cut the flow of Grace. Use the winds for as long as you can. Convince them we’re lost-flying Graceless.”
He read a growing understanding in the captain’s eyes. “You’re mad…”
“Gain as much distance as you can.”
The captain nodded. He waved for the mate to obey. Together the pair began shutting valves and turning knobs. The bubbling in the mica tubes slowed.
“Captain!” the pilot cried, sensing the sudden loss of Grace.
“Keep her nose up! Into the wind. True south!”
Tylar backed a step as the mate and captain stifled the flows. The tubes still steamed, but all that bubbling died.
“Keep the mekanicals stoked,” the captain said. “Hot and ready. Wait for my word.”
Horas led Tylar back to the rail. The deck tilted nose down. The pilot fought to pull her up, shoving the bow of the ship into contrary winds. The craft jarred up momentarily, gaining a bit more distance, a few breaths where the ship rose instead of falling. But it was a doomed struggle.
Down the nose went again.
Tylar bent over the rail. The floating lights grew as the land rose. The lights, azure and scintillating with power, grew clearer. Globes of lightning, trapped in the heart of the storm.
The plunging flippercraft sailed across a wide field of the glowing orbs, stirring them up with the wake of their passage. Below, the hills of Tashijan sped past, lit by the deadly cold fire.
But the hills weren’t empty.
A vast army spread across the hills.
“Wind wraiths,” Horas said, recognizing the spindly forms as they spiraled into the air, men and women born under alchemies of air, like loam-giants and wyld trackers.
But even from this height, Tylar saw the twist of their bodies. He remembered the tortured figure that had attacked them from the air in Chrismferry. The same here. Wind wraiths corrupted by Dark Grace into beasts.
“They’ve been ilked,” Tylar said.
A shout from the pilot warned them back from their dark observations. The hills climbed toward them. The captain watched, studying.
“Be ready!” he yelled to all.
Another breath…the ground rushed up at them.
“Now!”
To the side, the mate yanked a large bronze lever. Flows, boiling and pent, were finally released again. The
