Chapter 13

13

Aiz

Aiz and Cero stumbled down the mountain, the cold cutting through them like a knife. Aiz hunched forward, tucking her hands beneath her arms protectively as Cero pulled her under his cloak. A lifetime in Dafra slum taught her that in a storm like this, one could lose their fingers in a matter of minutes.

"Left," Cero called from behind her, barely audible over the screeching gale. "There's a Sail."

"We can't fly in this!"

"We can if we're both smithing," Cero shouted. "You call the wind. I'll direct it."

Aiz had never heard of such a thing, but she trusted Cero. She spotted the lump of canvas beside a hulking overhang of rock and staggered toward it.

Cero brushed past her and hoisted the Sail onto his back. It draped around him like an enormous brown cape.

"Made it myself," he said, and Aiz wanted to ask a dozen questions about when and how, but there was no time. "Come on!" He strapped Aiz in on his right, then plunged his hand into the Loha box. The metal flowed immediately, flashing white as it wound around Cero's arms, triggered the engine, and shot up the empty reed scaffold of the Sail. The canvas went rigid and the engine hummed to life.

"Call the wind," Cero yelled, and Aiz pulled the wind to her, holding it tight in her grip, even as it tried to yank away like a skittish horse. Aiz's heart sank. Her inability to control her accursed smithing would tear the Sail apart.

But then Cero calmly braided their wind together to create a clean updraft. His power and control were breathtaking in their elegance. Within seconds, the earth beneath was indistinguishable from the sky.

The Sail dipped and dove in the blizzard, the snow so thick that Aiz could no longer make out Cero's face. She hoped he could keep them from crashing into a mountain; she peered below, trying to make out any signs of pursuit. But the dark hulk of the Tohr was lost in the storm.

They touched down hours later in a coastal cave south of the capital. Aiz's legs crumpled beneath her as soon as her feet met the wet rocks of the beach. She must have passed out, because when she awoke hours later, she was on her back and the light had shifted. The angry pink snow clouds had rolled north, giving way to a soft gray drizzle. Aiz couldn't bring herself to move, even as she shivered.

"C-Cero?"

He was nowhere to be seen, and Aiz looked around at the seaside cave. It was immense, with a sandy half-moon beach and tunnels that branched out behind it.

Aiz sat up, staring at her hands, her feet. They were filthy—the Tohr had always been so dark that she'd not gotten a good look at her own limbs in weeks. She tried to get her bearings. They weren't far from the docks of the city. She could see the masts in the distance. They must be west of the harbor.

A soft whoosh drew her attention as a Sail passed in front of the cave. A few minutes later, Cero trudged in on foot. His dark hair was still a mess, his pale gaze hooded.

He set a pack before her, and a pair of thin shoes. He didn't look at her. Perhaps because she'd treated him so terribly before being captured. Now she didn't know why she'd been so angry. It was Cero . Unpredictable as mountain weather and about as friendly—to most people, anyway. But Aiz had seen him feed alley cats scraps before eating himself, had felt his cool hand at her brow when she was fevered. In the blooming spring of the new year, he lit candles for his dead father, for Aiz's mother, and for the parents of all the orphans in the cloister.

And she'd turned on him. Her skin burned in shame, thinking of it. Perhaps if she'd asked for his help with the assassination, they would have succeeded.

"You don't have much time." He offered her the shoes, and she laced them on. "Tiral left for the north a few days after you went to the Tohr. He was sick of raiding Struri and Diyane and wanted a bigger prize."

"How many Snipes dead?"

"Too many. He's had the army wreaking havoc for weeks. The enemy has fallen, and he's left most of the army up there. He's on his way back to crow about his victory, and he's ordered a gathering at the Aerie. He's insisting the clerics attend."

"It's to announce that he's the Tel Ilessi." Aiz was certain of it.

"The clerics would have to declare him so," Cero said. "And the Triarchs would never agree. He'd have to prove his power—that he was bloodsmither, windsmither, and mindsmither. He could never—"

"He won't need the Triarchs. And he wouldn't have to prove his power," Aiz said. "Not if High Cleric Dovan vouches for him. Which she will. He jailed a hundred more clerics in the Tohr. A quarter of the clergy. He's left her no choice, and when she declares for him, the people will believe her. Because she's their High Cleric."

Understanding dawned in Cero's eyes. "No one can manipulate those with faith like a person who has none," he said. "We underestimated his cunning."

"I have to stop him," Aiz said. "I failed before, but Mother Div is with me now. This is my calling. Can you get me a Sail big enough to challenge him?"

"You can't face Tiral." Cero paced in agitation. "Especially not on a Sail. You saw his power. You nearly died because of it."

"Holy Div did not let me die in the Tohr. She will not let me die now."

"I know you think Div communicated with you." Cero spoke more carefully than Aiz was used to. It irked her. "But you got yourself out of that prison, Aiz. You're stronger than you think."

"You must believe me, Cero. I have been chosen. Mother Div came to me and to you. How else did you know to meet me on the mountain?"

"Just a feeling. Never mind that now." Cero knelt before her. "Look at me, Aiz," he said, and as she met his gaze, she lost her breath. She had not looked openly into Cero's eyes in so long that she'd nearly forgotten their strange color, a deep green that mirrored the sea on days when it appeared calm but was something else entirely.

"I believe you heard Div's voice," Cero said. "I will help you however I can, but you must leave Kegar. I do not think it is Div's intention that you remain here. The Lady of the Air was many things, and a fool wasn't one of them. The legends say that she, too, left our people for a time."

An old story the clerics rarely told, as it was not in one of the Sacred Tales. Aiz couldn't recall it in full. She was surprised Cero even knew of it.

"I'm meant to save our people from Tiral's machinations, Cero. Not run away. Mother Div said—"

"We don't have time to argue." Cero looked out at the sea. "I should be patrolling the northern border right now. If I'm discovered missing right when you escape, they'll assume I helped you. Tiral knows that I—that we're friends."

"Friends," Aiz said softly. In the months before Cero had been chosen as a pilot, her relationship with him, as solid and reliable as the walls of the cloister, had changed. Touches that had felt casual no longer were; she'd found herself watching him more, and when his stormy eyes locked on hers, she felt heat ripple through her marrow.

And then the night before he became a pilot—that kiss. She still felt it. Aiz thought if they were both selected to fly, they could talk about it. But that never happened.

Cero pulled Aiz to standing and she followed his attention to the coast. Through the gloom, a ship approached.

It was preternaturally silent, as if the creak of rigging and groan of wood had been swallowed up. It appeared nameless, the deck looked empty, and Aiz couldn't tell if the vessel was real or if exhaustion had her hallucinating. But then she saw the ship's sail, a deep forest green with an enormous eye painted on it.

An Ankanese ship.

"There's a seer on that ship," Aiz said. The Ankanese only flew a green sail to warn off pirates. Any approach by any nation would be viewed as an act of war.

And no nation would be thoughtless enough to test the Ankanese. Their navy and siege machines were powerful, their seers even more so. Most attacks on them had been turned away before they began. The Kegari didn't cross them—the Ankanese were the only foreigners they traded with, and their language was the only foreign language spoken in Kegar. Aiz had learned it fluently, like all the other cloister children.

"I know the seer." Cero nodded at the ship. "She's visited Kegar for years. A few days ago, she sent me a message. Told me I'd have need of her. Just now, I went to find her. The ship was waiting, ready to depart. I made sure Tregan was aboard."

Aiz spun toward him, heart leaping in hope.

"You would come with me?"

But Cero shook his head. "I wanted you to have a friendly face. Treg always liked you better."

He handed her the pack. "Some supplies and enough Ankanese silver talas to start you on your journey. I put Tiral's book in here too. Tried to destroy it, but the damned thing won't burn. Maybe you can reason out why he was so obsessed with it."

A splash sounded from the sea. A rowboat with a lone figure draped in green approached. The boat moved slowly—slower than it should in the rough surf. It stopped near an outcropping of rock jutting from the right side of the cave, a natural dock. Aiz caught a glimpse of pale skin within the green hood. The figure watched her, unmoving.

The reality of what Aiz was facing suddenly hit her. Tiral would be searching for her. She'd be adrift in foreign lands. She couldn't speak Kegari because it would be a dead giveaway. She'd have to only speak in Ankanese.

"Tiral might hire a Jaduna to hunt you," Cero said. "Don't windsmith; they can sense magic. You'll know them by—"

"I saw one, once." Aiz remembered the shine of her coins, and the fact that the woman spent so much time with the orphans at Dafra. "I will return, Cero." Her surety was thunder in her blood. "I will defeat Tiral."

"Aiz, there are things I'm supposed to say." Cero took a deep breath, cracks showing on his usually composed face. "But I can't bring myself to say them. You don't owe Kegar anything. No matter what you saw. You have a chance to make another life, a better one far away. One day, I'll get out too, and I'll find you. All of this"—he nodded to the distant hovels of Dafra slum, a dark smudge in the sleet—"will be a bad memory."

He slipped something onto her hand—her aaj. "Keep it," he said. "Don't use it unless you're dying—the Jaduna can track this magic. If you truly need me, I'll be listening."

They'd reached the boat, for Cero had walked her toward it, ever so slowly. Now he pushed her into the arms of the green-robed seer, who held Aiz with a vise grip. The boat lurched away from the rocky dock.

"Wait— Cero—"

Sudden fear gripped her. The farthest she'd gone from Kegar was a pilgrimage to Mother Div's cloister at the base of the Spires. Suddenly, the days ahead felt vast and unknowable. She wanted to dive into the water and swim back to Cero, to her people, to Div and the holy labor she'd entrusted to Aiz.

But the rowboat reached the dhow and hands pulled her onto the deck. The ship moved away from the shore impossibly fast. By the time Aiz ran back to the rail to look for Cero, the cave, her friend, all of Kegar, had faded into the rain.