Skykeeper (The Drowning Empire Book 1) Read online

  “Based on your brother’s suggestion?”

  “…You know about that?”

  “I was one of those he tried to convince to go with him,” he explains. “And once your powers awakened, some of us wondered if you might be worth bringing along, too. Some were even suggesting it might be a sign—the sky calling to you now, as if it wanted to make sure you went to save the western kingdom.”

  After such a disastrous first ceremony, it’s difficult to believe in any signs of salvation involving me, but I keep this thought to myself.

  “So you were planning to go?” I ask.

  “Not exactly. We both agreed that something needed to be done to open the emperor’s eyes, yes, but we never quite agreed on what to do. I was in favor of staying and trying to find a more… diplomatic solution.” His voice softens as he adds: “We can’t all be rebels, hm? Your brother was braver than me in that regard, at least.”

  My gaze falls to the pile of beads at my feet. I can feel angry tears threatening, and it’s easier to keep them in check if I don’t meet Varick’s eyes. I don’t want to see his pity, or sorrow, or whatever else he is looking at me with now that the conversation has shifted to my brother.

  “So what now, then?” I ask. “He said he and his fellow rebels planned on leaving after that last ceremony.”

  “No one’s left yet,” Varick says. “I’m not sure all of them still will, without someone like your brother to lead the way. At the very least, most that I’ve talked to now plan on staying for a bit to make sure Garda is safe.”

  “I was afraid of leaving for the same reason—even before that last rift.”

  It sounds like an admission of guilt, the way I say it, which may be why Varick shakes his head and says, “There is no shame in wanting to protect your own home. But then again...”

  Both of us fall silent, averting our eyes from one another’s, and we stay that way until I find the courage to complete his thought: “But then again, if things are far worse in the west, we can’t ignore that. My allegiance is to the sky, not the emperor. My brother used to tell me that all the time.”

  “Only when you were alone, I assume. I can’t imagine the emperor agrees with that sentiment.”

  I nod. A chill pricks over my scalp as I start to think of my brother, truly, as a rebel.

  Varick used the word brave.

  I’m not certain I can rebel as bravely, but I’m also not certain I have a choice—because someone has to do it.

  “He thought there were answers in the western islands. Proof he could bring back that would somehow convince the emperor to listen to his concerns.”

  “Maybe he was right.”

  “And maybe I could find that proof.”

  Varick starts to speak several times, stops, and then finally says, “I told you: I’m not sure how many you’ll convince to go with you. At least not immediately. Maybe once things have settled, you could—”

  “Then I will go alone,” I say, voice dangerously close to shaking. “Things may never settle. In fact, I have a bad feeling things are only going to get worse, so I’d rather plenty of others stay, anyhow. I want Garda and my sisters to be safe.”

  I can’t help but think I’d be more useful this way, too—gone and out of the way. Because just the thought of participating in another sealing ceremony is paralyzing.

  “What about your own safety?” Varick asks gently. “I’ve heard rumors of how Fane treats runners. Of him showing them no mercy. And I think he suspected your brother was going to run, after all the arguments they reportedly had about these matters. So Fane may expect it of you as well.”

  “I am not afraid of the emperor." Rage swells in my heart, filling my chest and pressing into my lungs and making it hard to breathe. "I’m tired of blindly following him, and of standing back while others do the same. There must be a reason he doesn’t want us to run, right? So I am going to see for myself what is happening in the rest of the empire, and then I’ll find a way to deal with the emperor too, if I must. So perhaps he should be afraid of me.”

  My heart pounds, and I am again searching—as calmly as I can manage— for anyone who might have come close enough to overhear us.

  I can feel Varick watching me.

  Even as the silence stretches on, his gaze is unrelenting, and I brace myself for the challenge I’m sure he’s preparing.

  But he surprises me.

  “Perhaps he should be,” he says.

  I’m not convinced he isn’t teasing me, until he follows this up a moment later with: “And so perhaps you and I should make a plan.”

  I slowly pull my gaze back to his. My cheeks feel warm when our eyes meet, for reasons I’m not sure I fully understand. I swallow away the dryness in my throat and ask, “What did you have in mind?”

  “If you insist on not waiting— on going on alone— I won’t argue with you.” His voice is barely a whisper. “I can’t go with you now, but I’m due back in Alturas in three weeks, so I’ll follow you then, when it will no longer look suspicious for me to leave. I’ll do what I can here in the meantime—watch the emperor closely, see who I can gather that might be willing to come with me. You focus on finding the information and proof we need, and once we rejoin our efforts, hopefully we’ll have a force that the emperor has no choice but to pay attention to.”

  “I should go north first,” I say, eager to talk of these concrete plans instead of rumors and possibilities. “There’s a causeway near the Alturian border, isn’t there? One I can cross to the islands.”

  There are almost no ships that sail directly to those western islands, because the southern parts of the Atesian Sea-Below are ruthless, inundated with rogue waves that appear out of nowhere and can capsize any except the hugest vessels within seconds. And stowing away on one of those few huge vessels would be next to impossible with a face as recognizable as mine. So that long, northwestern path to the causeway is the only one I can think to take.

  “Yes,” Varick confirms. “Near the town of Silverwater. And I’ll meet you there, if not before.”

  I nod, even as it occurs to me how odd it feels to be making such grand plans with someone I didn’t even want to make eye contact with a few days ago.

  So much for disliking him to spite my mother, I suppose.

  “I never said thank you, by the way,” I say after a pause. “For saving me the other day.”

  “What else would I have done?” he says simply, as if risking his life for me was really the only option he had.

  I feel another blush threatening, so I gather my skirts about my ankles, take a deep, resolved breath, and I dismiss myself. I only make it about a dozen steps before he’s softly calling my name again.

  I tilt my head back toward him. He hesitates, and I feel the weight of everything he might say, heavy as the threatening weight of the Sea-Above, but in the end the only thing he tells me is to be careful.

  And then we say goodbye.

  On the way back to my room, I check on each of my sisters one last time.

  Both of them are sleeping soundly. Next to Brynn’s door, I pause, frozen in place by the thought of how upset she will be to find me gone. She will think I’m mad for doing this. Everyone is going to think I’m mad for doing this.

  I think I’m mad for doing this.

  And part of me still wants to stay.

  But then I think of how, here in my city, we build foundations so that they give a little, so that if the waters rise and sands shift, the buildings that they support can shift with them.

  Foundations that can’t move lead to houses that crack and eventually collapse in on themselves.

  I have to move.

  And my sisters will have to understand that, somehow.

  Tell me why things are the way they are.

  I realize now: I do know why. It’s because far too few have bothered to question it.

  So I wait two days. I make plans. I study maps and chart paths.

  The skies outside the palace stay b
lue and safe and calm, while inside, the corridors fill with whispers, with more rumors of monstrous rifts and mounting tragedies in the far-off west. Tragedies that are spreading, slowly but surely, toward the empire’s other kingdoms.

  On the third day, I start to pack.

  By nightfall, everything I have ever known is fading far into the distance behind me.

  Part II

  Chapter 9

  “To water, Finn.”

  My words are breathless, quick. I press closer to the smooth, rubbery skin of the river horse’s neck, and my fingers tangle in his sleek mane, clenching tighter as he picks up his pace. He responds to my voice like he will to no one else’s. His webbed hooves pound in a desperate gallop across the sodden landscape, drowning out the rumbling from above.

  He’s far faster than the normal horses the men chasing us are riding—especially on this soggy, uneven ground that’s second nature to a creature who’s just as much at home in the water as on land.

  I only hope that he proves fast enough.

  The sky flashes bright and awful and unstable above us. It may be close to breaking, or perhaps it only looks worse than it really is; I don’t know anymore. My blood has gone numb, not even the faintest of warnings burning through it since I left my kingdom. I’m back to what I was before: a common keeper—and a pathetic one at that, barely able to summon even the weakest of sealing magic.

  And I am not sure what that means.

  Have the gods taken my stronger magic away, because I ran?

  Because of the questions in my head, and the doubt in my heart?

  Another flash. I think I see the silhouette of two men on horseback, just ahead of us. Finn must hear my gasp, because even before my order to halt, he’s already reared to a stop. I take hold of the reins and lead him in a circle, my eyes wide and searching. I know we’re beyond outnumbered, and I thought I saw some of their group breaking off a few miles back.

  Where have they gone?

  Do they already have us surrounded?

  I look back into the darkness before me, and wait until the sky lights again with that chaotic energy that seems to dominate it in this part of the world.

  Nothing there this time.

  Maybe I simply imagined them to begin with. Maybe I am simply being paranoid; I haven’t slept in almost two days, not since I entered the cold, desolate middle kingdom of Kallmarr, and my tired eyes are stinging and watering even now.

  Could I really have seen anything clearly through them?

  I hold my breath and listen, listen for the sound of hooves sloshing through mud. Of men whooping, pushing their horses on. But all I hear is the low whistle of wind and the involuntary chattering of my own teeth. All I see, no matter how hard I squint, are the blurry shapes of the landscape amongst the drifting, freezing mist. The skin along the back of my neck prickles. Finn paws at the slick ground and tosses his head, a clear sign that he’s anxious, which makes me all the more uneasy.

  Nearly a dozen men this time—the largest group sent thus far, and yet further proof that all those rumors about the emperor were true: He is merciless when it comes to runners.

  The keepers command the sky, but the commander of the keepers controls the empire.

  It’s something I’ve heard whispered throughout my life, but now I think I finally understand the ruthless implications of this truth—because now my defiance has threatened Fane’s command. Threatened it enough that, in addition to hired hunters at every turn, posters with my face on them have already started appearing in taverns and shops across Caspia. Fane must have sent his fastest messenger wolves to deliver the notices ahead of me, to attempt to cut off my escape routes. People in towns I have never been to have begun to stare too hard and too long as I pass by them, probably while whispering a hundred different versions of my story amongst themselves.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I have already made up my mind.

  From now on, I will be commanded by no one except myself.

  My fingers find my set of throwing knives, safe and secure in their sheath. I don’t draw any out just yet, only comfort myself by feeling my way along the smooth handle of each knife, and imagining the deadly tip of each blade.

  Hopefully I won’t have to make use of them tonight.

  I urge Finn forward with a light squeeze of my leg, guiding him toward a line of trees in the distance. We can’t stay out in the open like this any longer. I’m hoping the foliage may be shielding a river that we can escape into. One that is hopefully not frozen—the way so many of the waterways in this kingdom seem to be—and that is deep enough to allow Finn to dive, and wide enough for him to make full use of his speed underwater.

  We’re within mere feet of the tree line when Finn halts abruptly. His tiny, rounded stubs of ears begin to twitch, and his whole body shudders beneath me.

  “What is it?” I ask, running a soothing hand along his muscular neck, trying to coax him back into moving forward. He refuses. A moment later, my human hearing manages to pick up the reason for it: shouting in the distance, accompanied by the frenzied baying of the barg hounds.

  I suppress a shiver.

  The hounds terrify me more than the men, perhaps: giant black beasts with glowing yellow eyes and long, spindly legs. They’re almost skeletal in appearance, the way their shadowy skin clings visibly to every bone. Thin, but still powerful—powerful enough to take down even a river horse as large as Finnegan.

  I’m not gentle about it anymore. My heel comes down hard against his side, and Finn rockets forward into the clutches of the dark trees. As he tears a path through them, branches and brambles claw raw streaks across my face. I keep my eyes closed and my head as low as possible, trusting the river horse’s instincts to get us to water if there’s any to be found.

  But this forest is much thicker than I anticipated. My cloak and the few satchels full of my only belongings keep getting tangled and slowing us down, and the hounds sound closer and more frantic with every passing minute.

  It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to outrun them.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a thick, low-lying branch ahead. A plan flashes through my mind, and I don’t hesitate. I slow Finn to a walk and unbuckle the bags from his saddle, grab one of them and toss it into the crook of the branch, and then I shoulder the other bag and jump onto the branch myself. The weight of his rider suddenly gone, Finn stops and turns a few fretful circles before I order him to keep running. He obeys, reluctantly.

  As he disappears in a flash of silver-blue through the trees, I turn my attention to the branches above.

  I’m not worried about Finn; he’ll be faster without me. And the hounds are following my scent more closely than his. Knowing this, I move quickly to do everything possible to throw them off the trail, taking things from the bags and tossing them across the ground, strewing them through the branches; an article of clothing here, the old blanket I took from my sister’s room over there.

  For the most part, the trees are close enough together that I can jump and climb from one to the next with ease. It’s easier still because I’ve always had balance and agility—my training as a keeper has made sure of that—and because this is not the first time I’ve hidden in the safety of high branches these past days. I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping in them, actually. It is far from palace-level comfort, but easier than trying to avoid people’s stares and questions. Cheaper, too. I have money, as I took some of my mother’s precious jewels and sold them off as soon as I could, but there is no telling how long what is in my purse will have to last me. This trip is already taking longer than I expected, largely thanks to unexpected detours I’ve had to take to avoid being caught.

  The men and their hounds sound dangerously close now. I stop laying my decoy trails and move back toward the center of them, searching for the highest branch that will support my weight. After pulling myself onto it, I wrap more tightly into my grey cloak that blends perfectly against the gnarled tr
ee trunk. One of my hands finds the comforting strip of worn cloth that Eamon gave me before his last sealing ceremony, still tied in its place around my upper arm. The other finds his funeral stone, heavy and warm where it rests in the inside pocket of my cloak.

  I clench the stone tightly, hardly breathing as the sounds of snapping twigs and rustling leaves reach my ears.

  For all their ferocity, the barg hounds are not especially smart. One of them comes upon something I threw into a patch of brambles, and it lets out a shrill, triumphant howl that brings the others running. Their howls quickly fall to confused whimpers, however, and their sharp noses lift into the air, catching my same scent coming from too many different directions at once. I watch their dark shapes stalk silently over the forest floor, circling round and round until the men eventually catch up with them.

  Then I get lucky.

  Lucky enough that the apparent leader of these men quickly spots the path that Finn has torn through the trees. He declares the hounds uselessly confused, and he curses my name and tells the others that it’s obvious which way my horse has carried me off to. I press closer to the tree and disappear further underneath my cloak with every swear he utters. It isn’t that the words bother me. He can curse my name all he likes, so long as he doesn’t see me.

  Which he doesn’t.

  No reward for you this time.

  I wait a full thirty minutes, until the last of the men’s voices fade away. They must be miles from here by now, probably searching along the edge of whatever body of water Finn found to disappear into. I picture them wandering up and down the shore on the other side, confused and trying to find signs of the path we took. Smiling at the thought, I climb down from my hiding place and drop to the muddy, partially frozen ground. Bits of ice crunch beneath my feet as I set about quickly recollecting as many of my things as I dare. I don’t want to linger in this place long—in case they eventually figure me out and come back—but I also refuse to leave behind the few things I still have left of my home.