Chapter 4

4

Aiz

Oh, Aiz. You poor, stupid fool.

Aiz couldn't move. Couldn't plunge the knife into Tiral's neck, couldn't shift it even an inch. Tiral grinned, squeezing her wrist until she cried out and dropped the weapon.

He swiped it up and backhanded her so hard that she flew off the bed. One word pounded through her brain. No. No. No.

"Did you really think you could kill me?" Tiral sounded almost delighted. Humiliation coursed through Aiz. He kicked her in the stomach, and she dropped to her knees. Tiral laughed.

"That's better. Beg for my forgiveness and I'll make sure your death is quick, and that none at your cloister suffers for your stupidity."

Aiz didn't care about a quick death. All she wanted was for Tiral to hurt. To know pain and suffering. Yet she knew he was offering a gift, final though it was. The cloister, the clerics, the orphans. She hadn't considered what he'd do to them if she failed.

"Or don't beg." Tiral smiled. "And I'll let the Questioners take you apart limb by limb in the Tohr with all your precious clerics."

Aiz stared down at her pale hands, scarred from a childhood in Dafra slum. A lock of hair fell in her face and she held herself still. The Tohr's vermin-infested cells were peopled with broken Snipes who'd defied the Triarchy. Your anger will be the death of you.

The death of you.

Then she felt the ridges of her scars and the lick of flame. She heard the orphans screaming, and all she could think was how much she hated this snake of a man. The air in the room stirred as Aiz gathered her will, praying to Mother Div that this one time, the wind would do her bidding.

For a glorious moment, the wind shot out like a whip, tight and brutal. Aiz nudged it tighter with her mind. Tiral grabbed at his throat, coughing.

A second later, Aiz flew back, slamming into the stone wall. The air around her transformed into flaming needles, stabbing at her skin. She screamed, clawing at her face so frantically she didn't hear Tiral until he was in front of her. He hauled Aiz up by her hair and leaned close, his breath hot against her ear.

"I never let my guard down, Snipe."

She cringed, let him think for one instant that she was afraid.

Then she spat in his face.

His hand loosened enough for her to tear free and knee him between the legs. He doubled over with a groan. Aiz reached for the wind again, but this time, she didn't try to control it. Instead, she fed her wrath into it, and it exploded out of her.

The wind howled, knocking Tiral flat, tearing his bed to splinters, ripping his desk in half, and shredding the hearth to rubble. The window that faced the mountains shattered. A spark jumped, erupting into flame on a settee. Aiz shrieked in joy. Yes! She knew she could control the power that lived within her. She had always known. Now, finally, it was at her fingertips.

In a moment, it was over. Aiz fell to her knees, so drained she thought her skin would shrivel away.

Get up. Already, she heard distant shouts of alarm. She dragged herself through the debris toward the secret passageway. She could still escape. Warn Sister Noa to empty the cloister so Tiral couldn't hurt anyone.

Her hands shook as she reached for the door's latch. It wouldn't budge. She tried again, screaming in frustration, even as someone banged on Tiral's door.

"Commander Tiral? Commander!"

A surge of heat. The fire had spread to the remnants of Tiral's bed and fed greedily upon the wood.

"Mother Div, help me." Aiz choked on the smoke. "Help me, please." Tears of dismay streamed down her face. There was no way out. She'd die here. And though Aiz had told herself that she was ready to leave this earth as long as she took Tiral with her, now she found herself thinking of Cero. Of everything unsaid between them—everything she didn't let him say. Of Sister Noa, who would mourn her as if her own daughter had died. Of the orphans, and the stories of Mother Div that Aiz would never tell them.

The flames closed in; the smoke thickened. Aiz dropped low and her hands touched something strange and soft in the rubble.

Tiral's book. The pattern on it reflected the spreading flames.

The beams of the room groaned and the stone under the shattered window crumbled away. Snowy air swirled around Aiz, blessedly cool.

"Thank you, Mother Div," Aiz sobbed. "Thank you." She crawled toward the opening, but as she did, Tiral heaved a breath. The bastard was still alive.

Which meant even if Aiz did get out of here, he'd hunt her down.

Aiz looked back at the book, the flames inches away from it. She didn't know why it was precious to him, but perhaps she could use it as leverage. She snatched it up, wrapping it in its oilcloth cover and stuffing it in her skirt. Then she skittered toward the opening in the wall and squeezed out.

Her belly lurched as she looked to the snow-covered ground far below, to the slick rock. But this was her only choice. She dug her fingers into a timber and began to descend.

The wind tore at her, too wild to control, an enemy determined to bring her down. It seemed to be mocking her. Laughing, screaming her name. Aiiiiz.

The rock beneath her left foot crumbled, and suddenly her leg was dangling in open air. She pawed at the wall, but it was smooth as glass, without so much as a crack in which she could wedge the edge of her shoe. Mother Div, help me. Please. Aiz's arms ached at the weight of holding herself up. Her fingers grew numb.

Then her foot slipped. Better to die like this than to starve or rot in prison , she thought wildly as the wind tore at her. At least it will be fast. Laughter bubbled up from her chest, shrill and brittle, transforming into a scream as she fell.

"Aiz. Aiz , damn you, wake up."

Dragging her eyes open was, possibly, the most difficult thing Aiz had done in her life. Cero's pale, handsome face appeared over hers, his expression angrier than she'd ever seen it.

"You are a Spires-forsaken fool," he hissed. "What were you thinking climbing that wall? Why is the Aerie on fire?"

Aiz's temples pounded, and she felt the back of her head. It was soaked with blood, though she didn't feel a wound.

"Don't touch!" Cero snapped, helping her sit up. She recognized the stark gray walls of the cloister. They were in one of the antechambers that bordered the courtyard. Through a window, Aiz spotted Sister Noa setting up the meager morning meal.

"How—how long since—"

"It's been hours. I was waiting for you to wake before getting Noa. Didn't want her heart to stop at the sight of you. You fell almost forty feet. It's a miracle you're not dead."

"No—no." Aiz tried to stand. "I can't be here. He's going to come for me—"

Cero bade her sit, his anger fading. "Aiz. You're injured. You're not making sense. Take a breath and tell me what happened."

"You became a pilot," Aiz whispered. "I didn't. It's—it's not fair—"

"You were born knowing the world isn't fair. You work around it like always."

"I can't!" Aiz said, wishing to the Spires that she could think more clearly. "I must go, Cero. I tried to kill Tiral. Then I took something from him."

Cero's face blanched. "Tell me he's dead."

Aiz shook her head. "He was alive when I escaped. He knew I'd planned to kill him, to get revenge for the orphans. All this time I've been sleeping with him, trying to gain his trust. And he knew ."

"Spires, Aiz. I could have told you that he uses people." Cero looked away, his words bitter. "Pretends he cares so he can toy with them."

"You too?" Aiz whispered, feeling strangely relieved when Cero nodded.

"Once, after you weren't chosen for the flight squadron," he said. "I thought if I talked to him—got to know him—I could convince him to let you train more." Cero laughed bitterly. "I was naive. He used me, and when I brought you up, he—"

Cero went silent at the sudden thudding on the courtyard gate. A sneering voice rang out.

"Clerics," Tiral called from beyond the cloister's outer wall. "Do let me in. I'd like a word with one of your wards."

"You shouldn't have brought me here," Aiz said. "He'll punish the entire cloister if he finds me."

Cero hauled her to her feet, steadying her when her legs turned to rubber. "He won't find you," he said. "Come on."

As Sister Noa approached the gate, Cero pulled Aiz into the cloister's serpentine hallways. They made their way down a short flight of stairs and into the kitchen storeroom.

"You'll have to leave the city," Cero said.

"No. I stole this book from him," Aiz said. "I'll hide it, and then I'll beg for mercy for the cloister. The book is leverage. Tiral will kill me, but I'm dead anyway, Cero. Of starvation or in one of his wars."

Cero stiffened as he pulled her through a door and into a hallway of the cloister she hadn't seen. "Don't be pathetic," he snapped. "You're worse than the Hawks. The second things get a bit tough, you fall apart."

"A bit tough?" She glared at him. "What do you call our entire existence?"

"A gift," he said. "Walk faster."

The words snapped her out of her self-pity, so quintessentially Cero that she wanted to hug him. But he was already moving. Aiz ran to keep up with his long strides, following him through a narrow gap in the rubble and through a hallway carved with runes. This was part of the ancient structure erected after the migration—or so Sister Noa had told Aiz when she was a girl.

"Cero," she said. "Listen." They were deep in the bowels of the cloister, where torches were few.

"Do you hear them?" she whispered. "Voices. Tiral's soldiers are in the tunnels. We should split up. You can't be seen with me."

"Patience, Aiz," Cero said. "Almost there." He led them deeper below the cloister, where the ground grew slick with moisture. Water rushed distantly.

"How do you remember all of this?" Aiz asked. "I couldn't find my way back to the cloister if you put a blade to my throat."

"Didn't you ever wonder what I was doing while you were begging fairy tales off the clerics?"

"They're not fairy tales," Aiz snapped. "Your mockery is—"

"Not our biggest problem right now." Cero turned yet again, this time past a grate crusted with ice and rime and into a narrow passage. With every moment that passed, Aiz's mind grew clearer. These tunnels didn't go on forever. Eventually Tiral would find them. Corner them. When he did, he couldn't find Cero with her. Tiral might need pilots, but he'd never forgive Cero for helping the assassin who tried to kill him.

The sounds of pursuit grew louder and Aiz's palms, slick with sweat, slipped against the rock as she crawled through a space slightly wider than Cero's shoulders. Water thundered close by. Finally, they emerged onto a ledge. A river surged below, its rapids a milky white. Aiz stopped short.

"I can't swim."

"I'm going with you," Cero said. "Take off your shoes and cloak so they don't pull you under. The river will spit us out near the docks—"

"Come out, come out, little Snipe!" Tiral's voice echoed down the tunnel and Aiz jumped in surprise, nearly tumbling into the river.

"If he finds you with me," Aiz said, "he'll kill you. If I jump in and he finds you alone, he'll know you helped me and kill you."

"Get your shoes off, Aiz!"

But Aiz shook her head. She didn't know life without Cero. They'd been born within weeks of each other. They'd both had only one parent. When Cero's father and Aiz's mother were conscripted, their children turned to each other for comfort. He'd listened to Aiz telling the Sacred Tales, even if he'd never believed. And she'd always found his inventions brilliant, even when she hardly understood them.

Angry as Aiz had been these past few months, it hadn't been at Cero. It had been at herself and at the knowledge that her dreams—of being a pilot, of saving the cloister—they were dead.

Aiz pulled the oilcloth-wrapped book from her clothes and shoved it into Cero's shirt. "Keep the book. Hide it well. It's the only leverage I have."

"Stop talking nonsense. The current will be strong, but—"

Aiz twisted away and drop-kicked him right in the chest, hard enough to send him tumbling into the water. His arms arced, elegant even in the face of a surprise shove from his best friend, and he disappeared beneath the rapids. A few seconds and twenty feet later, his head broke the surface. He tried to find purchase along the sides of the tunnel, but there was nothing, and Aiz watched until he disappeared into the gloom.

Then she turned, rose to her knees, and bowed her head, arms at her sides. Which was exactly how Tiral found her when he stepped out of the tunnel a minute later.

He put his sword point to her heart.

"Where is my book?"

Aiz meant to treat with him. If she bargained, she could save the cloister from his punishment. But some stubborn part of her refused, a voice within telling her not to speak of the book. She'd never kill Tiral now. But at least she'd taken something he valued.

"What book?" She let dull confusion fill her expression. He thought so little of her that he believed it.

His soldiers beat, blindfolded, gagged, and dragged her out of the cloister and through the city. Her clothes were in tatters, her shoes gone. When her blindfold was removed, she found herself in the Aerie's long gathering hall. The building was simple and stark, with high, foggy windows and a vast wood-beamed ceiling.

The stone was cold beneath her feet, and she shivered. Three thrones sat before her, one for each of the Triarchs, embedded in the base of a staircase.

Aiz had just enough time to realize that two of the thrones were occupied when Tiral shoved her face to the floor.

"Bow to your betters, Snipe," he hissed.

As the stone dug into Aiz's nose, it occurred to her that she shouldn't be in front of the Triarchs of the Realm. She was naught but gutter trash. Punishment should have been death if Tiral wanted to make it quick, torture in a dungeon if he didn't.

"Commander Tiral, you're meant to be hauling back enough food stores to get us through the month," a woman's cold voice spoke. The raven-haired Triarch of Clan Oona—the bloodsmithers. They used to work as healers, but they'd lost the skill generations ago. "What is this?"

Tiral offered Triarch Oona a short bow. "This Snipe tried to assassinate me. She is a threat to us all."

"Your clan should deal with this directly," Triarch Ghaz said with a frown. He was a young man in practical flight leathers, his curly hair a brown halo around his head. "You pulled us from a meeting with the Ankanese ambassador."

"And the fine Ankanese wine he brought," Triarch Oona murmured.

Triarch Ghaz looked Aiz up and down. "You expect us to consider this girl a danger to the Triarchy?"

Clan Ghaz were once custodians of mindsmithing, but, like the bloodsmithers, they'd lost the ability. Still, Triarch Ghaz had taken his throne by outmaneuvering every member of his clan. Aiz looked down, worried that he would peer into her mind and read how much she hated the Triarchs—including him.

"She's a threat." Tiral paced behind Aiz like a hunting dog. "Because I don't believe she acted alone."

Tiral nodded to his guards, and a moment later, they dragged cleric after cleric into the gathering hall. All thirty were from Dafra cloister—the entire clergy. All were bound and gagged, Sister Noa among them, her eye bloodied. Aiz winced. The old woman had put up a fight.

Behind her limped Sister Olnas, her gray hair falling from its usually neat bun. Clerics did not marry, but Olnas and Noa were as good as. Olnas would be frantic at Noa's injury.

"No!" Aiz cried. "They had nothing to—"

Tiral slapped her, and blood from her already cut lip spattered the floor. "Silence, rat."

The Triarchs didn't so much as look at Aiz, their gazes fixed on a woman following the clerics in, escorted but not bound.

Her skin and hair gleamed as white as the Loha used to power the Sails. She wore a simple cream robe, embroidered with the half-sun symbol of Mother Div. Despite the soldiers on either side of her, she appeared serene. She bowed her head to the Triarchs.

"Light of the Spires, Triarchs."

"Long may it guide us," the Triarchs intoned. Aiz stared, mouth agape. The High Cleric was the holiest living person in Kegar. Aiz had only ever seen her from afar, leading the Summer Rites to bless the raids.

"Holy Triarchs," Tiral said. "I submit that the clerics of Dafra cloister planned the assassination to seize power. The girl was merely a tool. Tell me, High Cleric: Why did your clergy plot so cunningly against a son of Kegar?"

"My people did no such thing," High Cleric Dovan said. "Triarchs, I beg you to hear reason. Commander Tiral sees shadows and threats where there are none."

"My son commands the flight squadrons of Kegar," a voice growled from the door. It was Triarch Hiwa—Tiral's father—who'd entered the hall silently. "Seeing shadows and threats is his job—one that has kept our people fed."

Triarch Hiwa, blond like his son, offered Tiral a bare nod before striding to his throne, guards trailing. He had a heavy brow and a curled lip, as if forever displeased.

Aiz's heart thumped rapidly. Strange how in a moment, the nightmare images from years ago came rushing back. Triarch Hiwa's visit to the cloister. Let us see what these children can do. The clerics trotting out the orphans. One sang. Another showed off her weaving. Ros displayed his skill with a bow.

You'd make a fine soldier , Triarch Hiwa had said to Ros. Then he sneered at his own son. Tiral was a few years older than Ros at the time. The Snipe is a better shot than you, boy , Triarch Hiwa had said, cuffing Tiral across the cheek.

That night, Tiral crept into the cloister and burned the orphans' wing down. Only Aiz and Cero survived.

Within a year, Tiral's father had named him heir.

Triarch Hiwa sat upon his throne now. His name meant wind , and his clan was known for the one skill remaining to the Kegari: windsmithing. His gaze settled on Aiz with the weight of a fist. She kept her face down, her anger leashed. She'd done enough to harm the clerics.

"So, this is your assassin," Triarch Hiwa said. "She doesn't look like much. That said, an assassination attempt makes the Triarchy look weak. Do you not agree, High Cleric?"

As Aiz glanced between the highborns, she realized that she was witnessing some power struggle far above her station. One that had been going on for longer than she knew. It did not matter what she'd done. There was a greater storm here, and she and the clerics were caught in its currents.

Aiz followed Tiral's gaze to the ornately carved throne atop the staircase behind the Triarchs. It was the largest throne, for it belonged to Mother Div, who commanded three elements: blood, mind, and air.

In our hour of greatest need , the clerics told the children, Mother Div will return in the body of the Tel Ilessi, the Holy Vessel. And the Tel Ilessi shall deliver us back to the homeland from whence we fled, so long ago.

The throne had sat empty for a thousand years, since Mother Div left Kegar to her three children—the progenitors of Clan Oona, Clan Ghaz, and Clan Hiwa.

Now Tiral stared at that throne like a Snipe gazed at fresh bread.

"Aiz bet-Dafra was under the clerics' care when she undertook this assassination," Triarch Oona noted, red robes rustling as she steepled her fingers. "They must have known something."

High Cleric Dovan now looked alarmed. She turned her full attention to Triarch Ghaz, who had not yet spoken against her.

"Triarch Ghaz, you and I have prayed to Mother Div together. You have seen the benefits of the cloisters and how we educate the orphans. You know us."

Hiwa spoke before Ghaz could. "Commander Tiral. As the attempt was made against you, what punishment would you have the assassin and her accomplices bear?"

"They should be sent to the Tohr for questioning," Tiral said without hesitation. "We will learn how deep the plot runs. If the clerics have nothing to hide, then they need not fear. As for the girl—" Tiral circled Aiz. "Death would be an easy path for her. If she survives her questioning, she can live out her days in the Tohr to think on her crimes."

Aiz began to tremble. Not for herself—she couldn't give two figs if she was alive or dead—but for what she knew the clerics would endure at the hands of the Tohr's Questioners.

"There is no need for this." The High Cleric's voice shook. "Lord Tiral, we can discuss—"

"Perhaps," Tiral said. "But not right now."

"What—what will happen to the children?" Sister Noa spoke up. "If we are to be imprisoned?"

"Better for the orphans to serve in the army than learn sedition at the knees of the clerics," Tiral said. "Don't look so shocked. I was younger than most of them the first time I fought at my father's side. Many nations train their children even earlier. The Jaduna begin battle magic lessons at age four. The Empress of the Martials went to a military academy at age six."

"The girl and the clerics will be questioned," Hiwa said. "The orphans will be conscripted. Witnessed and agreed?" He turned to his fellow Triarchs.

Triarch Oona nodded. "Witnessed and agreed."

Triarch Ghaz regarded the clerics, a wealth of protest behind his eyes. None of it reached his lips. "Witnessed and agreed," he said.

Triarch Hiwa nodded to the guards. "Take them to the Tohr."