Horizon (27 page)

She watched Hoku struggle to find the right words to say. He hadn’t yet learned that
right
and
wrong
were illusions.

“I’m sorry things are going so badly for you,” he said finally. “I wish we could help, but the mountains are no place for Deepfell and Kampii, even if we had extra hunters to spare.”

“And it’s no place for Equians either.” She sighed. “No, I’ve known all along that this is our fight, and ours alone. No one can help us.” She ran a hand through her hair and it snagged on a tangle. “If my mother were well, she would say that she preferred it this way. That the Aviars didn’t need help from anyone.”

“She’d have been wrong.”

Calli spun in her chair and stood as High Senator Electra stalked into the room. The woman had dark patches under her eyes and dry, cracking lips. The feathers on her wings stuck out at odd angles, in desperate need of grooming. But Electra was wearing armor and her bloodshot eyes finally held something more than grief.

Calli could only think of one reason why Electra might leave Iolanthe’s bedside.

“My mother . . . is she dead?”

“No,” Electra said quickly. “She continues to fight.”

“Then why are you here?” Calli felt her anger begin to rise again. “Go, escape back into your pain and leave the work to those of us brave enough to face the world.”

Electra looked sheepish, an expression so out of place that Calli’s growing anger dissipated with surprise.

“I deserved that, and I deserved what you said to me in your mother’s room,” Electra said. “You called me a disgrace.”

“I shouldn’t have —”

“Yes, you should have.” Electra took a long, slow breath. “If Iolanthe had woken and seen what I had become . . . What she would have thought . . . What she would have said! I cannot bear to think of it.”

Calli pictured her mother’s snarled lip and hard eyes. She’d leveled that look of disappointment at Calli her entire childhood. High Senator Electra wanted Iolanthe’s love and respect more than she wanted air or sky or wind. Such a look would have destroyed her.

Still, Calli couldn’t forgive Electra that easily. She wanted to ask, “How could you abandon us? It’s
my
mother on that sickbed. How could you abandon
me
?” But she knew, even as the questions crowded her mind, that they were childish.

Instead she asked, “What did you mean? That my mother would have been wrong for wanting the Aviars to take care of themselves?”

“We fought the Battle of the SkyTek Dome to win our independence, but this is a different war,” Electra said. She seemed relieved to talk about war, suddenly comfortable again, in the same way that Calli was her best self when talking about tech. “The scope of this battle is bigger, the stakes higher. We are fighting for our survival, and the survival of our entire way of life.”

“But we’re losing,” Calli said. “I’m doing everything I can, reading books on strategy, studying old skirmishes, asking everyone for advice . . . and we’re still going to lose.”

Electra stepped closer and put a hand on Calli’s shoulder. “Yes, we are going to lose Skyfeather’s Landing. But we are not going to lose the war.”

Calli narrowed her eyes. “We will not give up our home.”

“We will,” Electra said. She paused, considering her words, then continued. “You are the acting president, and I will honor your decisions as if the president herself had made them. But you should not have had this burden so young, and that is my fault. Let me make it right. Let me lead our people so that the weight of their deaths is mine to bear, not yours.”

It took all of Calli’s willpower not to scream, “Yes, take it, it’s yours!” But she was still the leader of her people, and she would not dismiss that responsibility lightly.

“What do you have planned?” Calli asked.

Electra shifted into full-on commander mode. “We send the sick, wounded, and noncombatants to Talon’s Peak, as you already ordered. Then we leave a small force here to keep the Upgraders occupied while our main force escapes high above the mountain and joins the Equians and Serpenti at the front.”

Abandon Skyfeather’s Landing.

“What of the troops we leave behind?” Calli asked.

“The Upgraders will figure out what happened sooner or later, and then our holding squadron will escape to join either the war front or the refugees.”

Someone coughed.

Calli turned and saw Hoku staring back at her from the comm screen. She had completely forgotten he was there.

“Aerial scouts could really help us find Strand’s tunnel on the mountain,” he said. “The Equians and Serpenti can’t fly and don’t have dragonfliers, like the Upgraders do.”

“Yes,” Electra said. “Our contribution to the war effort would far outweigh our simple numbers. We might be the force that means the difference between winning and losing. Whereas here . . .”

“We’ve already lost,” Calli said. She tapped a finger on her lip and ran through the scenarios in her head. There was still no “right” answer that gave them everything they wanted. But at least Electra’s plan offered hope.

Calli stood taller and threw her wings back. “High Senator Electra, I hereby cede the presidency back to my mother, Iolanthe, and put you in charge of all Aviar forces. I only have one condition.”

“Name it,” Electra said.

Calli glanced at Hoku. Despite his strange orange eyes, his smile washed over her like a spring breeze. “That you help me find the tunnel that leads to Karl Strand’s lair so I can go rescue my friends.”

Electra raised a crisp hand to her forehead and saluted. “It will be my extreme pleasure.”

W
HILE HIGH SENATOR ELECTRA
and Senator Niobe led the first flocks of Aviars up and over the Upgrader army, Calli said good-bye to her room. The colors were all light blues and whites, meant to mimic the sky that every Aviar longed for. Well,
almost
every Aviar.

Calli dragged her fingers over the curve of an equation written in thick black pencil on the painted surface of the wall. Formulas covered every stylized swoop of wind, every puffy cloud — some repeated a dozen times, until her younger self had memorized the symbols, and some half-finished, old puzzles never solved.

Books crowded her shelves and fought for space on every reasonably flat surface, including her wide, sturdy desk. Even now it was burdened with texts on electricity and aerodynamics, with notebooks and spare equipment. All shrouded in dust. She’d grown up in this room. No, that wasn’t right. She’d only lived and learned in this room, but she’d grown up out in the world.

Her pack bulged with a few of the books she couldn’t bear to part with — the oldest, the rarest, and the most sentimental. One was a crudely illustrated adventure story her mother had made for her when she was six. By any standard, it was ugly and poorly told, but Calli didn’t care. Now her mother was on her way to Talon’s Peak, carried by four warriors not at all happy to be flying away from the war instead of toward it, and Calli had only the slenderest feather of hope that she’d ever see her again.

If only she’d been able to talk to her mother one last time. Iolanthe would be proud of her for trying to rescue her friends. But, oh, how Calli yearned to hear the words.

She’d thought about leaving an explosive for the Upgraders to find. Maybe something in the microscope on her desk, or in the telescope fixed to the window near the room’s highest perch. But what would that accomplish? Another senseless death, maybe to someone like Pocket or Squirrel. Her things, no matter how precious, were not worth a life. Not even the life of an enemy.

Calli checked in one last time with Senator Hypatia, the brave warrior who’d volunteered to lead the holding force and keep the Upgraders occupied while the rest of the colony escaped. She had no words of comfort or inspiration, only thanks.

And then Calli was flying up, up, up with the last squad of warriors. Up into the cold air and over the enemy army slowly strangling their home.

On their way to the front, they stopped at strategic mountaintop roosts where they could store their treasures from Skyfeather’s Landing out of the reach of anyone without wings. The roosts were marked from above, easy to spot if you knew which symbols to look for. Calli packed her books into a crevice safe from water in the last one.

The women were silent as they flew, both to conserve energy and because they were preparing themselves for battle. They soared over a large force of Upgraders — reinforcements for the battle at Skyfeather’s Landing — and Calli had to resist the urge to drop rocks on them. Instead, she offered another silent thanks to the brave women who had stayed behind.

Later, more of Strand’s army started to appear below them, a slow line of ants crossing over mountain paths and swarming into larger and larger units of death. Calli and her sisters flew higher, looking for scouts from the earlier Aviar squad, and soon found Senator Niobe.

“We’re glad you made it,” Niobe said. “High Senator Electra has set up camp on the far side of the mountain peak and has already been in contact with the Equians and Serpenti, who are coming from the southeast.” She twisted her face. “The Upgrader named Pocket has spoken to her, too.”

Calli beat her wings harder in order to keep pace with Niobe. It had already been a long day, and she’d been fighting the wind since the last resting stop.

“Are the other armies already here?” Calli asked.

“No,” Niobe said. “The Equians and Serpenti are fighting their way in, but making good headway. Strand’s armies are falling back to the mountain on that side. And we think Strand sent another army toward Skyfeather’s Landing, which has weakened his forces here.”

“He did. We saw them,” Calli said. She surveyed the distant ground and could make out wispy armies through the clouds. “Karl Strand’s army is weak here. It’s a good time for us to strike.”

Niobe grinned. “Electra thinks so, too. I’ll tell her you approve.”

“I’ll tell her myself,” Calli said.

Niobe shook her head, opened her wings wide, and hovered upright in the air. “The rest of the squadron will meet Electra, but I’m taking you straight to the infiltration team. You need to be ready when we attack tomorrow morning.”

Calli beat her wings slowly, keeping her place in the current. “So soon?”

Niobe raised one slender eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Calli said immediately. “The sooner we go after Dash and Vachir, the better our chance of rescuing them. I only thought we’d have more time to plan.” And more time to steel herself, too. Already she could feel fear coating the tips of her wings like ice. Too much, and she’d be frozen with it.

“Maybe this will help,” Niobe said. She unhooked a retractable spear from her belt and handed it to Calli.

Calli took it, rolling the scarred metal tube over in her hands. She recognized the weapon, of course — every Aviar in Skyfeather’s Landing knew President Iolanthe’s bright-gold and green markings. The spear’s name was Seeker.

“Electra wanted you to have it,” Niobe said. “She said your mother would, too.”

Calli pressed the release switch and the spear shot out to its full two-meter length. “It’s so light,” Calli said, giving it a test spin.

“Don’t let that fool you,” Niobe said. “I’ve been whacked with that spear in more training drills than I’ll ever admit. Strong as your mother, I’d say.”

Strong as my mother used to be
, Calli thought, but outwardly she smiled. Many months ago, her mother had given her beloved talon weapons, Spirit and Spite, to Aluna. Calli hadn’t wanted them; at the time, she had rejected everything that the weapons stood for. But Calli was her mother’s only daughter and the gesture still stung. Electra must have known all along.

Niobe whistled and another scout took over leading the squad. Calli watched them fly by in a flurry of wings and armor. Old and young, battle worn and green . . . they’d all be warriors by sunset tomorrow.

“Come,” Niobe said. “I’ll take you to your team.”

Calli followed Niobe, trying to catch the same updrafts, and beat her wings in the same rhythm.
Her team. A team that would walk into the very home of Karl Strand himself.
Niobe got too far ahead and Calli focused on her flying.

Below them, Strand’s army grew like weeds among the rocky skirt of the mountain, their tiny fires blooming like lonely flowers. As Niobe led her past kilometers of camped armies, Calli felt her chest tighten. Hope made her feel light on the wind; right now, she was surprised her wings could keep her in the air.

Niobe pointed to an Aviar symbol painted on the rocks beneath them. It was more subtle than the others, no doubt to keep it secret from the Upgraders’ dragonfliers. Calli and Niobe flew past it, to an area more protected by the mountain, and dove.

Calli had never plummeted from so high. The wind screamed past, buffeting her face and trying to toss her like a toy. She kept her eyes slitted and her chin tucked to her chest. Her hair whipped around, lashing her cheek and forehead. She wanted to yell her fear and defiance into the raucous whoosh of air surrounding her.

She opened her wings against crushing pressure and trembled with relief when they caught the wind and she started to slow.