Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (4 page)

B
ACK IN THE SKY,
I and my fleet continued our test run.

“The
Basilah
is ready, sir,” a young female said behind me.

The
Khayal Basilah
was captained by my brother, Ryo, who had been on the
Yussra Samma
with our sister, Zara, the day I’d lost my tribe. I’d managed to save him from the falling ship, pulling him through the flames, but he’d been badly burned. We hadn’t known if he’d last the night, but somehow, miraculously, he had. He had been on his feet for about a week now. Too soon to overexert himself, but I could only imagine what it had been like for him. He needed to be out of bed. He needed to be doing something.

And we needed him on that ship, the
Basilah.
Our warship.

We would not be taken by surprise again.

I had six ships in my new fleet. Where the
Samma’s
had comfortably housed approximately eighty people, the
Khayals
housed two hundred. The
Samma’s
only form of weapons had been the lightning cannons, but we’d had to be careful how many we put on our hulls as they would weigh and slow the ship down. The
Khayals
had housed planes of various designs. The
Samma’s
had been magnificent, beautiful, and slow. The
Khayals
were fast, large, but handled relatively tightly.

“The
Maizah
is in place, sir,” the female said.

Our communications vessel. My father had fashioned his fleet to have all the same equipment, provide the same services. Each
Samma
was communications. Each
Samma
was a defense vessel. Each
Samma
carried a family—men, women, children, young and old.

We currently had no children.

They’d been killed three months prior.

And those who fled the other tribes had left their families safely behind.

The mission, or at least, the focus of the mission, was to test our newest weapon. The Umira Nuru.

Haji had been my best friend since the time we’d met as small children. He’d lost his tribe the day I’d lost my father and gained my Mark. Had it only been months before?

In that time, however, people had flocked to him in much the same way they were joining me. He, however, was a land leader, intent on regaining the lands he’d lost to the Han. He’d created large land-war machines that were currently housed in the belly of the
Layal.

That was the mission, to test the latest land walker and to work on our ground maneuvers. A vessel as large as the
Layal
was difficult to handle in the air where the currents could toss her about. We would have to take her close enough to the land to kill us.

But Haji needed mobility and I needed his land forces. I wasn’t blind and I wasn’t dumb. I might need that flexibility. Sooner rather than later.

I was watching other things as well. Ryo’s health and emotional state. My crew’s aptitude. The true agility of the fleet. The
Khayals
were huge. I had my concerns.

I tipped my head at Jamilah and clucked my tongue.

She raised an eyebrow and sat forward. “Ghaz, how far to the drop point?”

Ghaz didn’t respond immediately.

I frowned over my shoulder, peering between my chair and Jamilah’s to see what the holdup was.

Ghaz stood at the map table, her dark hair pulled back in a tight braid, giving her angular features a stark appearance, and conferred with someone who couldn’t be much more than a boy.

“The
Basilah
asks why we’re not moving,
sayyd,
” the man at the communications console said in a gruff tone.

“Tell him to be patient,” Jamilah said. “Ghaz, we can’t go anywhere without a heading. You have the entire El’Asim Fleet awaiting your direction.”

I could have told them the heading. I’d been there before, but this wasn’t about me, or my prowess. We had to practice working as a team, which was difficult as most of us had never met each other before the games.

I released a puff of breath and swiveled my chair.

The three people around the navigation table at the end of the peninsula of controls glanced up. Their brows furrowed together, their shoulders tightened. An urgency filled their whispers.

Jamilah raised her eyebrows, her lips flat, and crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair.

Ghaz looked up, her dark eyes narrowed with worry as she fiddled with her thumb. “
Sayyd,
I regret to inform you that based on the information you provided, we’re unable to provide a proper heading.”

I stood and walked to the navigation table.

The other two people on either side of Ghaz flinched and stepped aside.

The past three months hadn’t been kind to them. I had been…well, my Marks were controlled by emotion and I hadn’t been in control of emotions. Several people had burn scars where my Mark had found them.

Ghaz raised her narrow chin, her thick, black eyebrows settled firmly over her eyes as her hands shook.

“That’s because you’re thinking in the old ways,” I said as calmly as I could. Every moment of every day, reminders of my past fits of rage echoed across the faces of those around me. Few had the courage to stay with me.

Keeley hadn’t.

I clenched my right hand, biting off the bitter disappointment attached to that thought.

Ghaz cleared her throat, her trembling fingertips resting on the brown screen.

I sent her a tight smile. “Before, our navigation—”

“
Sayyd
,” a female said, her tone laced with concern. “Ino City is under attack.”

I stilled. Ino City would never allow herself to come under attack unless this was a trap.

“Did you hear me, El’Asim?”

“He heard you,
mita
.” Jamilah turned toward me. “What do you want to do?”

Four months ago, I would have gone straight away, no questions asked. Now, I knew better. If the city were under Ino Oki’s rule, why would she have brought Ino City into the rage of the storm instead of hiding within the protection of the ocean? No. There was no reason to be out in this storm. Not for a city like hers.

My mother was in control. It was the only thing that made sense. She had breached her city for a reason. She must have seen we were close by, must have heard or gleaned it somehow. Perhaps I had a mole. Perhaps Officer Carilyn, the leader of our information network, had leaked location to draw my mother out. That was something she would do. What would my mother gain by allowing her city to fall under attack?

Information. On me. I clenched my hand into a fist. “Bring me Nix.”

Someone scurried to retrieve her.

I narrowed my gaze, concentrating on calm, focusing on unfurling my clenched fists.

Part of the treaty agreement was Nix’s incarceration. As Queen of Wands, she’d wreaked damage to the world. She’d destroyed three of the seven Great Families. She’d burned my father in front of me alongside Haji’s tribal members. She’d kept me prisoner until I’d figured out how to escape. She’d bound me to her somehow, maintaining control even when I’d left her Sky City.

I kept her close. She cleaned our latrines. She washed our clothes. She baked our bread. She wiped our floors.

The great queen had fallen.

But the reason I kept her close was because of her knowledge. She understood politics. I did not.

Within moments, Nix sauntered into the control dome, her bound hands in front of her. She wore loose, black pants and a fitted red tunic. Her dark hair was tied into a braid. Even without the normal amounts of kohl, her lashes were long and full, framing her eagle gaze perfectly.

I kept my expression cool. “Nix.”

A slight smile graced her full lips. “Ino has called you, hasn’t she?”

I faced her fully. “Why should I believe you?”

“Believe me?” She straightened, studying me. “Why would you believe in her, Synn?”

“You will not call me that.”

“Oh. My pardon.” She chuckled smoothly. “El’Asim. Why would you trust that your mother—who shunned you for most of your life—wouldn’t do as I say.”

“You said she was behind the attacks on the
Samma’s
.”

“I did.”

“Yet, you have no proof.”

“Which is the reason you stand there and I stand—” She raised her bound wrists. “—here.” She let them drop, her expression losing its sharpness. “What has you worried? Why do you tempt the idea now?”

Why, indeed. I turned away from her. “What is your reasoning for believing my mother capable?”

“She is ruthless, for one.” Nix cleared her throat. “And she is of the blood-rite regime.”

I turned on her, my lips flat. “Stories told to children.”

“No.” Nix shifted her weight to her other foot. “Or do you forget how I ended up with the Hands of Tarot?”

She’d been Shankara, but when her powers came to fruition, she’d carried the Mark of Ino. Fire. Shankara had stripped her of her family, her husband, her children, and had banished her in the dead of winter. She was lucky to be alive.

The Hands of Tarot was a religious organization. I didn’t know what Tarot was; a god, an entity, something else. But they had saved a lot of people from dying when they’d been cast out of their tribes. Or so my father had told me. Before Nix’s reign of terror.

“Ino mated with El’Asim.”

Nix nodded slowly. “She did. But were all her children tainted?”

Tainted. The word sounded dirty. “We are all mixed.”

“Are you?”

“What do you hint at, Nix?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you really not know? It’s on the tip of all the gossips tongues.”

“Maybe in the House of Tarot, but out in the rest of the world, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Makoto’s father is not yours.”

I stopped and frowned at her. “Of course he is.”

“Does he share any of your El’Asim markings?”

It was difficult to say. The El’Asim were rugged, dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned. The bone structures were more rugged. Oki, Zara, Ryo, and I looked more Ino than El’Asim, though. The slanted eyes. The paler skin. The finer bone structure.

“Wasn’t he always treated just a little different?” Nix asked. “Didn’t it ever bother you that he had different tutors?”

It might have bothered Ryo or Oki as they’d been raised with Makoto, but I barely knew the man. We’d met. We didn’t like each other. No more had to be said. I was an airman. He lived in the belly of a fish.

“Why would my mother destroy my fleet?”

“You stole her power.” Nix’s words were blunt. “She was prepared to rule the world through you, probably only for a time. Then you gave the league to someone else. You stripped her of power. You put a tainted bloodline in her place. Yes. You had to be put in your place.”

I turned away from the ex-Queen of Wands and stared redly glowing storm tops. “We have had no word from Oki. Ino City has breached the storm and appears to be under attack.”

“I would say that’s a trap.”

But Ino City had reared her head. She was under attack. We had our invitation. Now was my chance to see if Oki was all right. I’d already lost one sister. I didn’t have another to lose.

“She is the better player, Synn,” Nix said. “You are getting wiser, stronger, but she will out-play you, whatever you try.”

I pressed my lips together and turned my attention to the communications console. “Any word from the
Maizah
?”

The
Khayal Maizah
housed our intelligence network, where Caitlyn was stationed, doing what she did best.

The man at the communications console glanced up, pulling one headphone off his ear. “Yes, sir, but the storm’s providing too much interference.”

“We need to act now.” Jamilah clenched her hands, glancing at her controls. “Sitting here solves nothing.”

I’d run headlong into too many situations, hoping against hope that I’d mysteriously find the right solutions. I’d learned my lessons. No. We were going in there with as much information as I could gather. I strode to the communications console, requesting the headphones with my open hand.

He pulled them off his head and handed them to me, scrambling out of my way.

“El’Asim,” Jamilah said, her tone filled with chiding, “I thought today’s mission was to allow others to do their jobs.”

I ignored her and fiddled with the dials and levers until the static and chatter had cleared. “
Maizah,
this is the
Layal.
Come in.”

After a brief moment, a deep voice came over the line. “Commander Mudar speaking, El’Asim. What can I do for you?”

Three of my father’s commanders had survived. Mudar was one of them. He was not a war commander, but, as my father had told me often, sometimes, you didn’t need everyone to be a war commander. Sometimes, you needed someone who understood war and knew better than to join it. Mudar was that man.

“Any word from Oki?”

“Negative,
sayyd
.”

“And the situation in Ino City?”

Static clung to the line for a moment, then cleared. “Our scouts report that it does appear as though Ino City
is
under attack from strange, unmarked air vessels.”

“Vessels?”

“They are not all airships, El’Asim.” His deep voice rumbled through my ears. “You are not the only one making modifications to his ships.”

“Where is Carilyn?”

“I am here, El’Asim,” her soft voice said.

My gaze drifted around the dome, catching the faces pointed in my direction as they waited. “What about your spies?”

“It’s not good, Synn. According to my contact, Oki has just been arrested. Ino City breached to get word to you. Your sister will be executed tomorrow morning.”

Four months ago, any hint of this level of betrayal would have been disbelieved. However, I’d done a great deal more than simply rebuild my fleet. I’d gone on information gathering missions.

Just words. These were just words until she confirmed. Ploys to draw me out.

“Get word to your contact, if her information is real—”

“It is, Synn.”

“—then tell them to gather their troops. I’m coming to Ino City.”