Heir to the Sky (7 page)

A monster. Not an animal, not harmless or friendly. It's a monster, out for blood.

I dart into the trees, clutching the flint in my bleeding fingers. I hope the maze of trunks will slow him down, but I don't dare to look. I run as fast as I can, my legs tangling in my long red skirts. I can hear his panting and the fall of his huge paws as they tear up the carpet of moss beneath us. I know I can't outrun him, but instinct takes over. My chest burns as I try to take deeper breaths.

Then a force like a stone wall shoves me to the ground. The monster's foul breath floods my nose and his sharp claws dig into my shoulder. I wrench myself to the left, reaching with my flint as his weight holds down my right side. I slice wildly at the air above me, hoping to hit him. The jagged rock scrapes across his moist nostrils and he cries out, shaking his head as dark plum-colored blood trickles down his nose and on to his curved fangs.

I twist onto my back as the hold of his paw loosens and I strike again, going for his eyes. He rears back and I scramble to my feet, taking off across the field. He's behind me, and we're running again.

A shadow falls over me like a dark cloud. The entire clearing becomes night in an instant. A screeching sound vibrates through my head and I cry out, falling to my knees in pain from the high-pitched noise. The giant cat screeches a horrific version of the wails I've heard from barn cats in Ulan, and then a blast of wind nearly knocks me over.

The shadow lifts from the clearing, the sunlight streaming back in, the tall grasses flattened to the ground from the gale.

I look up and swear under my breath. A dragon has snatched up the massive cat in its talons. A dragon. A real one. Its black-and-red wings stretch out across the clearing as it lifts into the air. Its snout is long and sharp like a beak, and tufts of spiky fur sprout from its head and its breast like a shield of bone needles. Another gust of its wings flings me against the ground. The giant cat squirms in the dragon's sharp talons as it lifts him away. It shrieks once more, and I clasp my hands over my ears from the pain.

Then the dragon and the cat are gone. My ears ring as I sit there in shock, panting, my hands bleeding over the flint at my side. After what seems like an eternity, the birds in the forest start chirping again.

And then the tears come, fast and hot in my eyes. I sit there as the sun begins to set, as the sky tints purple and orange and red, all blurred through my blubbering.

I'm going to die here on this forsaken wasteland.

No one is coming for me.

SEVEN

LIGHT HAS NEARLY
left the sky by the time I get a hold of myself. There's only a pale purple glow that lights the clearing as I wipe away the last of my tears with the sleeve of my dress.

Reason starts to flood back into me.
For shame
, I think. Would I sit and sob about rebellion with Burumu? Would I merely weep if a dragon attacked Ashra? What kind of leader would abandon hope and logic in a time like this?

I still don't have a weapon or a safe place for the night, and now I've wasted what was left of the daylight. I'm an idiot, a complete and utter dull cinder. I don't have a chance to survive, but I refuse to die. And so there's nothing to do but keep burning, like always.

I clasp the flint in my hand and search the underbrush of the trees for a fallen branch. It's hard to see in the plum-colored light, but eventually my hand falls on a stick that's about as long as my arm. I sit down with my back to the trunk and pull the tiny sprigs off along the length of the branch, then take my flint. I squint in the fading light to see what I'm doing. Should I use the flint to make a fire? But I'm frightened it will attract more monsters.

My whole body aches for water. I put the branch aside and grab a wide leaf from the yellow-and-blue fern. I snap its wide center vein apart and suck on the sticky sap inside. It doesn't help much, but I'm clueless and desperate. At least I can pretend it feels better.

I scrape the flint against the wood again, and this time the rock splits in two. I feel around the ground for the second piece. Its sharp edge nearly cuts into my fingers. It's a better weapon than sharpened wood, I realize, if I could tie it to the spear somehow.

I reach for the rope belt around my dress and grasp a length of it in my hand. I hold the tasseled end across the flint, sawing back and forth with the sharp edge. The fibers slide apart and I tie the smaller flint piece to the top of the branch, wrapping the string round and round and tying knots. There's a small but natural groove in the branch that seems to hold the flint in place. I can only hope it doesn't completely fall apart when I thrust the spear at something. I take the original piece of flint and slip it into my pocket as a second weapon. It's completely dark now, and I can't see my handiwork, but there's a small comfort in holding the homemade spear in my hands.

The two moons shine high above in the pitch-black sky. The breeze isn't as warm as it was in the daytime, and I find myself shivering as the night goes on. Sprays of stars glisten through the dark clouds that float above, but a large and vacant blot in the starry map lets me know Ashra is hovering there, silent and safe in the sky.

I stare up at my home. The fireflies will be out in the outlands. The pikas will gather fireweed and thistles on my outcrop realm of one. The Rending celebrations will continue, the candles flickering along the stone wall in Ulan. Burumu will bustle with its own festivities, and the scribes on Nartu will have tea and cakes and discuss politics with each other until dawn.

Or maybe they'll think their princess is dead, and the festivities will stop. Maybe they'll trade the bright red-and-orange garlands for black veils, the goat-string harps for the mournful carved flutes.

I have to get back to Ashra. I have to let my father know I'm alive, that I need him to come and get me. I doubt they'd see a fire from up there, even if they were looking. They'd never know it was me who'd created that pinprick dot of flame on this vast earth below.

In the distance something shrieks, and another thing howls. The sounds are inhuman, monstrous and strange. Throughout the night I find myself starting to doze off, my head slipping against the tree trunk, and then one of those shrieks will pierce the sky, and I'll jolt awake, my blood running cold. What's even out there? It looks as though, now that humans are gone, the monsters eat and fight each other. Or perhaps they've always done that from what I've read. Except for the Phoenix, they've never shown sentient thought about anything.

I close my eyes, and the nighttime blurs into strange thoughts that dance around my head. I wake to thunder that rolls above me in the clouds and air that tastes sour on my tongue. The sky flashes lavender, and then everything is black again while the thunder rumbles. Why hasn't the daylight come yet? My back aches from the thick bark digging into it, but it's the only reassurance I have that nothing is creeping up behind me.

The air buzzes with electricity as another bolt of lightning streaks through the sky. I try to lick my parched lips. Please, I think. By the ashes of the Phoenix, please, let it rain.

And then the drops fall thick and hard, drenching the tall grasses as they sway from the weight.

I try to catch the water in my hands, but the sticky blood on them taints it. I rub my fingers together, washing as best I can and trying again. Then I gather up my skirt to catch water, but it soaks into the fabric, weighing down the cloth. I take the corner and squeeze it into my mouth, but only a few drops come out.

I feel around beside me in the dark and rip off one of the wide fern leaves, shaping it between my cupped hands. It's almost impossible to wait until it fills, and I tip the raindrops I've caught over and over into my mouth. They taste sweet and warm, and though most nights with dinner I have honeyed berry juice in a golden goblet, right now I've never had anything more delicious than tepid rainwater in a fern leaf.

But once the edge of my thirst has faded away, all I can feel is the cold of being pelted by the rainstorm, my dress waterlogged and pulling me firmly to the ground. If a monster came now, I probably couldn't run fast enough.

I shiver in the rain, reaching for the flint in my pocket. But I can't make a fire now. Everything is soaked, the tall grasses bent over from the heavy deluge.

I close my eyes and think of the warm fireplace in my bedroom of the citadel. I think of the crackle of the logs at night as they sputter and pop with bright flames. I shudder in the cold even as the rain slows and the clouds move on, as the shrieks and piercing wails of monsters echo in the dark around me. I think of my father smiling, of him dancing me around the room when I was only seven on our trip to Nartu.

The rebellion. I have to warn him, have to find out what's going on. I think about the strange light I passed through as I fell from Ashra. The pale rainbow glow was as slow as honey around me. Is that why I survived? Was that part of the drawing that had been scratched out?

Thoughts drift to strange images. I jolt awake, and the sky is flooding with light. The sun is starting to warm the breeze that drifts over the muddy field the clearing has become. The battered tall grasses are hunched over but starting to reach again for the sunlight. Birds are chirping in the trees, and squirrels and pikas are chattering.

I reach for the spear beside me and stand. Every muscle aches. My muddy skirts pull with weight, so I lean the spear against the tree and wring them out. I consider cutting them shorter with the flint, but I worry I'll freeze if the nights get any colder. My feet and sandals are covered in cold muck, and they squelch as I shift my weight to stretch. I take a careful breath, but the horrible pain in my ribs is still there, like a rope tied too tightly around my chest. At least my left wrist feels a little better, so it must be only twisted and not broken.

I've survived a whole day in a land overrun by monsters. I will survive another.

I take my spear and start walking along the edge of the clearing. My stomach throbs with hunger. I search the skies but keep going. I don't want to go too far from the edge of Ashra's shadow, in case the airships are looking for me, but I also need to find food, more than just those sharp grains from the tall grasses.

Ashra floats in the sky like a beacon. I lift my hand upward, as if I could touch it.

“I'm right here,” I say quietly. “I'm alive. Come find me.” I think of Father and Elisha, of trying to hold on to Jonash as I slipped off the edge. How could this happen? I've walked that edge a hundred times. I bitterly wish for a minute that I'd left him to fall off the edge himself, instead of me. But then hot guilt curls in my stomach. I wouldn't wish this monster-ridden landscape on anyone.

I feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, so I blink them back and try to think rationally. Food first, water and shelter, and then self-pity. The forest stretches around the perimeter of the shadowy land as far as I can see. In the distance is a line of mountains looming far away, some of the peaks dusted in snow. Winged beasts in the sky far away, some like giant birds and others more like the dragon I saw yesterday. Ashes. This world really is flooded with the beasts. The rest of my view is blocked by a thick jumble of trees on a wide hill. I look to my right, along the tree line. There's a cluster of greener bushes and ferns in the distance, where the terrain turns rocky. Could it be a river?

I walk back along the right tract of forest. It's not lost on me that I'm almost retracing my steps from yesterday, returning to the patch where I originally fell. If I'm right, that there's water there, I was probably no more than an hour's walk from it yesterday.

My ankles sting in the sandals Elisha lent me. They're slightly too small, and they rub red blisters into the backs of my heels. I think about taking them off and walking barefoot, but I'm afraid of this landscape and what I might step on.

“Elisha,” I say, and the loudness of my own voice startles me. “I made it to the earth I couldn't stop talking about. If only you could see me now.” I laugh a little, because there's nothing else to do.

A shadow swirls over me and I look up to see the long spiked tail of a feathered monster that swoops up and over the forest. I quietly thank the Phoenix that it didn't choose me for lunch.

The sun is at the top of the sky by the time I reach the rocky ground. I listen to the faint whisper I can hear over the chorus of birds in the forest beside me. I think it's the sound of trickling water, and I hurry forward, stumbling over the clusters of sharp rocks that scrape against my ankles.

It appears like a dream, a long creek babbling over a stony bank, the water clear and sparkling in the afternoon sun. I stagger forward, bending my tired knees and dipping my hand into the water. It's ice-cold, and I put my spear beside me so I can fill my cupped hands and drink. I splash my face and shake the beads of water from my hair. I scrub the dried blood from my fingers and unlace my sandals. The water stings against my blistered skin and I can only stand to put my feet in the water for a few moments at a time. I peer into the darkness of the bottom and look for signs of fish, but I can't see anything darting around. It doesn't look deep enough to warrant fears of underwater monsters or the sharks the annals warn of that live in the oceans.

After a moment I lie on my back, my legs still dangling in the water up to my calves. Burumu, Nartu and the Floating Isles are so far that I can't even see their borders from here. Only Ashra hovers in the sky, the tangle of roots and dirt hanging down from its shape, the mist of the tiny waterfall foaming off the crystal edge.

There's a speck in the sky near the rim of the floating continent. Could it be an airship? I flood with a panic to signal it, but the thought just as quickly flies from my head. It's impossible. If I couldn't see the monsters flying around the lands from Ashra's heights, there's no way the airship will see me on the ground.

The water laps under the breeze and the world feels peaceful and calm. But the lapping gets louder, even when the breeze stops. Something isn't right. I sit up on my elbows slowly, and look.

A monster is across the bank from me. It's as big as a caravan, its shoulders at a height nearly halfway up the tree trunks. Its body is covered in soft cream fur, but its long tail is slippery and striped, the end of it dipped into the water. And it has three heads,
three
, each drinking and gulping from the stream. One is dark purple with horns and a long bearded snout like a goat. Another is like the giant cat from before, but with a mane of shimmering gold. And the third is scaled and sharp with lizard-slit eyes. I stare as my heart pounds in my chest. The water trickles down the goat head's beard and beads in the cat's mane. It shimmers off the lizard scales like oil. And then the tail of the monster flicks out of the water, and it's a snake, with a black tongue that slithers in and out of its mouth.

By some miracle the monster hasn't seen me yet. So I soundlessly slip my legs out of the water and grab my sandals. I place the leather on my raw, blistered skin, but the pain makes me wince. I can't run in these. I slip my foot back out, resting a hand on my spear and the other on my flint shard.

I'm terrified to stand up. It will see me, I know. So I sit, thoughts rushing, trying to think of my next move.

That's when the goat head sees me and bleats. The cat head blinks, its lip curling back in a hungry snarl. The lizard licks its eyelid with its sticky pink tongue.