As heir to a kingdom of floating continents, Kali has spent her life bound by limits: by her duties as a member of the royal family, by a forced betrothal to the son of a nobleman, and by the edge of the only world she’s ever known—a small island hovering above a monster-ridden earth, long since uninhabited by humans. She is the Eternal Flame of Hope for what’s left of mankind, the wick and the wax burning in service for her people, and for their revered Phoenix, whose magic keeps them aloft.

When Kali falls off the edge of her kingdom and miraculously survives, she is shocked to discover there are still humans on the earth. Determined to get home, Kali entrusts a rugged monster-hunter named Griffin to guide her across a world overrun by chimera, storm dragons, basilisks and other terrifying creatures. But the more time she spends on earth, the more dark truths she begins to uncover about her home in the sky, and the more resolute she is to start burning for herself.

I dangle my legs over the edge of the cliff, tapping my heels against the smooth dirt that crumbles down the side of the continent. I don’t fear falling. The world below looks unreal and distant, like it’s only been painted on. Falling is something I can’t even imagine.

How many monsters run freely down there now? Thousands? Millions? Sometimes you can see something soaring below the clouds, larger than a bird but too far to distinguish its shape. From here the forests below look quiet, fake and imagined. The shadow of our continent blots out the sunlight for what must be miles across the infested landscape, but from here I can only see the edge of the darkness.

PRAISE FOR INK

“An enjoyable peek at a world very different from America, yet inhabited by people whose hearts are utterly familiar.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Special.”

—VOYA

“The work of a master storyteller.”

—Julie Kagawa, New York Times bestselling author of The Iron Fey series

“A modern day fairy tale.”

—Amber Benson of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and author of The Witches of Echo Park

PRAISE FOR RAIN

“Takes readers on a brilliant and tense ride. Sun continues to impress with her witty dialogue, smooth plot and lovable characters.... A must read!”

—RT Book Reviews, Top Pick

AMANDA SUN was born in Deep River, a small town where she could escape into the surrounding forest to read. An archaeologist by training, her intense fear of spiders keeps her indoors, where she writes novels instead. She will write your name in Egyptian hieroglyphic if you ask, though. The Paper Gods is inspired by her time living in Osaka and traveling throughout Japan. She currently lives in Toronto, where she keeps busy knitting companion cubes, gaming and sewing costumes for anime conventions. Ink, her first novel, was released to critical acclaim, and was a Kids’ Indie Next Pick and a Chapters Indigo Top Teen Pick, and was followed by Rain a year later. Visit her on the web at www.amandasunbooks.com and on Twitter: @Amanda_Sun.

Heir to the Sky

Amanda Sun

For Alice, who traveled every step of this journey with me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Copyright

ONE

THE ROCK BRIDGE is the most dangerous part of the climb, and so I lower myself to my hands and knees to crawl along it. On either side of the sparse grass, the layers of slippery rock spread out like frail wings of stone. They look like they will support my weight, but I know a single step on them and they’ll crumble, tumbling toward the earth far below Ashra, falling endlessly until they disappear from sight.

I used to throw flower petals over the edge of this floating continent to see how long I could track them, to see how far the fall really was, down to the mossy green and blue blurs of the world below. The blossoms would float on the wind, tumbling round and sometimes blowing back onto the outcrop, clinging to the silvery stone as if they, too, were afraid of falling.

I take another step, cursing these slippery red shoes on my feet. There’s no fence out here like there is around the village of Ulan. There’s no reason for one. No one ever comes out this far, past the borders of Ulan and the farmlands, past the citadel and the landing pitch and the great white statue of the Phoenix, May She Rise Anew. This part of Ashra is too rocky to develop or inhabit, too sheer and dangerous to trespass like much of the continent to the northwest and the east. And so it is its own lonely wall, one that keeps out the masses and invites solitude.

The soft sole of my right shoe scrapes against the bare grass that clings to the edge of the outcrop, and I stumble forward, my fingertips clinging to the jagged rocks. The wind tangles in my hair as I look up. A bird is soaring alongside the edge of rock; some kind of gull, I think. His white wings are outstretched as he easily rides the current, dipping and diving gently as his head tilts, and his beady eye stares at me.

“Don’t worry.” I laugh at him. “I can make it.” I pull myself onto the outcrop one arm after another. My shoe finds traction again, and I heave myself up onto the soft, rich grass, the danger of the rock bridge finally past.

I take a breath and stand, brushing the gray dust from my scarlet robe, the golden tassels of my rope belt swaying in the wind.

A clearing of emerald green spreads out to the edge of the continent, a flowery field bursting with rich and vibrant color clinging so close to the edge. The fireweed blazes purple and red, the poppies burn with searing blue and fiery orange pistils. It’s why I climb up here, why I risk everything to be here. It’s a floating luminous realm for one.

The gull caws into the gust of wind as I step toward the edge. If I reach out, I could touch his outspread wing. Instead I look down past the tips of my shoes, past the sheer edge of Ashra. The view down to the earth is dizzying. It looks like a world of mottled green and blue, what little I can see of it. The clouds blot out most of the view as always, leaving the earth a mystery.

It’s hard to believe we ever lived down there, trolling the dregs of that land like the bottom of a dark ocean. But the annals say we did, those dusty leather-bound tomes in the citadel library that almost no one reads but me. No one wants to remember; it’s too painful to think of what we’ve lost.

Oceans are another piece of earth knowledge left over in the annals. We have a deep, cold lake on Ashra—Lake Agur—that during the season of rains spills over the edge of our floating island in a thin waterfall of azure and foam tumbling toward the earth. The current is dangerous, and the citizens of Ulan are forbidden from swimming in it, but we all do anyway, in the southern swell where the current is weak and the waterfall is far away. Streams flow into the river like veins into a heart from all across the continent.

Ashra is a small island, compared to the earth stretching below that doesn’t seem to have an edge to it. Our home in the sky is maybe three days’ walk from edge to edge, longer than it is wide, but no one bothers to go past the farmlands, and the farthest I’ve been allowed is to camp in the northern outlands with Elisha. My father would notice if I went farther, although one of these days I might just slip away and traverse it anyway.

Lake Agur is a closer option for a quick day of youthful rebellion, but you can always see the borders of the sparkling expanse, and the world around you never grows very dark when you swim to the bottom. You can always see the sun glittering above you, even if it takes several minutes for you to surface.

There’s a rustling in the grass, and I turn. A pika stumbles through the blades. He is half rabbit, half mouse, a sprig of fireweed clenched between his teeth. He blinks, maybe surprised to see someone this far out of Ulan.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I say, and his nose twitches, the fireweed sticking up at an angle as he tries to stuff another piece into his greedy mouth.

I smooth my red dress beneath me as I sit down, the pika scurrying off with his prize. I dangle my legs over the edge of the cliff, tapping my heels against the smooth dirt that crumbles down the side of the continent. The sun shines brightly above, the cool morning air gusting around me. I don’t fear falling. The world below looks unreal and distant, like it’s only been painted on. Falling is something I can’t even imagine.

How many monsters run freely down there now? Thousands? Millions? Sometimes you can see something soaring below the clouds, larger than a bird but too far to distinguish its shape. From here the forests of earth below look quiet, fake and imagined. The shadow of our continent blots out the sunlight for what must be miles across the infested landscape. When Ashra lifted into the sky, it left behind a dark and jagged chasm in the earth the annals call the shadowlands. None of us know much about it, of course, whether it’s completely in darkness or what might lurk in those caverns and crevices. From here I can only see the edge of the darkness.

“Kali!” A voice shouts, and it startles me. I lurch forward, digging the palms of my hands into the grass as my heart catches in my throat. My shoe falls from my foot as I tense, and it tumbles toward the suddenly real forest miles below as I gasp in the cool air, gripping the blades of grass with shaking fingers. Slowly, carefully, I slide back from the edge, pulling my legs underneath me. The slipper looks like the back of a sunbird now, small and crimson as it dives toward the mystery below. I stare at my bare foot. What am I going to tell my father?

“Kali!” the voice calls again. I take another breath and stand, walking back toward the outcrop. The pika is nowhere to be seen, and the blades of grass tickle against my sole.

I see her right away, her hands cupped around her mouth as she leans over the base of the rock bridge up to my realm of one. “Elisha!” I shout down. “You nearly sent me tumbling over the edge!”

“You’re being dramatic,” she says. Her black curly hair is pulled back with a looping purple ribbon, her cream tunic fluttering over her olive slacks. “You do realize the ceremony starts in half an hour, right?”

I sigh, looking down at my bare foot.

“So?” she says, resting her hands on the front of her legs. “Let’s go!”

“One minute,” I say, and I turn around to the burst of wildflowers for one last moment before I start down the steep outcrop. The jagged edges of rock slice against the sole of my foot as I climb, the dust gathering on the front of my dress.

“What happened to your shoe?” she asks.

“I lost it when you yelled at me,” I say to the rock surface. You’d think Elisha would worry about distracting me on this narrow rock bridge, but she knows I’ve climbed it a hundred times. She thinks I’m as invincible as I do.

“So you’re going to do the ceremony in one shoe?” She giggles. “I’m sure the Elders won’t notice.”

“If they do, you’re the one who’ll be in trouble.”

“Sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. We both know I’m the one who gets in trouble, even when it’s her fault.

My feet finally touch the long grasses at the bottom of the outcrop, and I push myself upright.

“Ashes, your dress,” she says, and then her hands are all over my robe, trying to wipe off the dusty grains of rock embedded in the fabric.

I laugh. “They do look like ashes. Maybe I’ll get bonus points for authenticity.”

Elisha rolls her eyes. “Let’s hope you rise anew when Aban kills you.”

“Blasphemy,” I tease in Aban’s deep voice, and we both snicker as the wind gusts at our clothes and hair.

Then the bell tolls in Ulan, and the smirks drop from our faces.

“Come on,” Elisha says, grabbing my hand. We run toward the village and the citadel, standing proudly in the distance, its tower made entirely of blue crystal.

Elisha is the only one who knows the real me. We’ve been friends since I wandered into Ulan when I was three and deathly bored. Her family lives in the village, and I visit often. The population is smaller now after the Rending, so hierarchy doesn’t mean as much as it did in ancient times. But my father is still heralded as the Monarch, and he insists on some amount of pomp and display. He says it settles people to know someone’s in charge. They feel at ease knowing there’s someone noble and dignified watching over them, whose life is dedicated to serving them and their best interests. So I carry on all removed and dignified in front of the villagers, and it’s only Elisha who sees me for who I really am—another girl, like her, who wants to pull funny faces and drop buckets of water on the Elders and climb the outcrops of Ashra. A girl who wants to squelch handfuls of sand at the bottom of Lake Agur and come up just as her lungs are bursting. Someone who’s free, who flies through the wind like a sunbird or a butterfly. Someone like Elisha.

But that isn’t who I get to be. I’m Princess Kallima, daughter of the Monarch, heiress of the Red Plume and all of Ashra. The Eternal Flame of Hope for what’s left of mankind.

I’m the wick and the wax, my father always tells me. I must burn for others, even if it means I will burn and crumble for those whose path I light. “We cannot return to those dark days,” he says, and I know he’s right, but it doesn’t mean I always like it.

The dusty sand of the roadway feels hard and cool against my bare sole as we run toward the citadel. A hum grows louder in the distance, the vibration echoing through me as we hurry. It seems too far away as I gasp more air into my lungs.

A dark shadow casts over us, an oval of darkness on the ground that moves faster than we can keep up with. I glance around the blue sky and see it, the wooden belly of the airship as it creaks and hums its way past us. The gears on the sides spin and the plum-colored balloon wobbles back and forth in what little breeze there is, but it’s the humming engine that keeps it moving through the air toward the landing pitch.

“What were you thinking?” Elisha huffs beside me as we run. “The Elite Guard’s already arriving. You could’ve gone to the edge of Ashra after the ceremony.”

I open my mouth to answer, but no answer comes. She’s right, but I’d thought I could escape for just a moment, just freeze time and not have to face all of this.

A momentary thought. A dream snapped in two like the pika’s fireweed sprigs.

“At least you’ll get to see him again,” she teases, but the guilt comes over her face as I don’t smile back. “I’m sorry,” she says, regretting it right away.

I shake my head. “Jonash isn’t awful.” And he isn’t. But he’s not my choice, either.

We hurry on, the citadel feeling like it’s never closer. We stop a few times to catch our breath, and I look down at my foot, smudged black from the dusty roadway.

A chime sounds through the clearing, and Elisha and I exchange worried looks. The bells are already ringing. Is it that late? She reaches for my hand and pulls me along the path, toward the bells chiming in the gleaming crystal tower of the citadel.

Maybe Aban will burn me alive, after all.

We finally reach the side of the stone building, and two of the Elder Initiates are there, straightening their robes and tying red rope belts around their waists. They look up in alarm as we stumble toward them.

“Kallima,” one of them says, his brown hair slicked back and his sandals scraping against the dirt. “I thought you’d be inside already.”

I pant. “Did Aban start already?”

He nods. “The Elite Guard arrived ten minutes ago. Elder Aban’s already reading from the annals.” Soot and ashes. I’m doomed.

“Your Highness,” the other says, a dark woman whose golden earrings swing back and forth as she reaches out her hand. I take her hand and she pulls me up the stairs into the citadel.

“Good luck,” Elisha shouts, and then the world around me is dark and silent, closed in by the shadows of the palace hallways.

TWO

I HAVE A momentary wish that the Initiate would pull me toward the northern hallways, toward the arched ceilings of the library and the rows of annals themselves. I’d rather bury myself in there, surrounded by piles of books, than face the crowds of the Rending Ceremony. But my absence wouldn’t go unnoticed, so there’s nothing to do but follow her toward the south of the building instead, into a great room lit by candles and chandeliers of glass, where my father stands with his arms outstretched like a scarecrow. Three attendants are crouched around him, straightening his robe, fastening his ceremonial gilded sword and buttoning the endless gleaming buttons of his official Rending Ceremony costume.

He peeks over his shoulder at me, his gray wiry beard pressed against the fine gold-and-red embroidery of the crisp robe he wears. “Kallima,” he says, his voice filled with relief. “So Elisha found you.” An attendant murmurs an apology as he turns my father’s head forward so he can properly affix the plume of the Phoenix to his coat. “Where have you been?” my father asks the front of the room.

I don’t like to lie to my father, but like any loving parent, he worries too much when I go near the edge of the continent. There hasn’t been an accident on Ashra since I was two years old, and yet he still fears that I’ll lose my footing and fall off the edge of the world. I don’t think I could survive without my realm of one, so I bite my lip and gently betray him.

“At the lake,” I say. “So many flowers are in bloom now.” Two more attendants rush toward me, and I’m forced to raise my arms to the side like my father. They mumble to each other about the gray soot on my dress and the ragged ends of my golden rope belt. I wait in guilty anticipation of them noticing my missing shoe.

My father chuckles under his breath, and though I can’t see his face, I know his eyelids are crinkling at the sides as he smiles. His blue eyes are always filled with warmth, even when he scolds me. “My Kallima,” he says. “Always fluttering away.”

The attendants tug at his sleeves and yank my hair back, brushing the brown matted waves into a more presentable tangle. Two of my father’s attendants move to the side of the room and reach for the heavy golden headdress to bring it toward me. I groan quietly. It’s beautiful, but it weighs a ton, pressing me into the ground. Whenever these ceremonies end and I get to take it off, I’m always surprised I don’t float away.

The headdress is like a crown, but made of thousands and thousands of golden beads and cones and iridescent shells from the creatures that lurk in the mud of the lake. The strings of beads end in tiny plumes of red, usually the feathers of sunbirds but sometimes dyed gull or chicken quills if they need replacing. The headdress tinkles and chimes as they carry it toward me and lower it slowly onto my head. The beads drape across my forehead and dip along the sides of my head, where they fasten together in the back and drape through my hair. Every movement I make, no matter how slight, sends them clinking and jingling together in a melody that is said to evoke the Phoenix herself. May she rise anew, and all that.

The government on Ashra pieces together like a Phoenix, as we learn when we’re little. The Elders are the feathers, surrounding the people—the Phoenix’s beating heart—with truth and light. Some are just tufts, like the Initiates, and others are long wing and tail feathers, guiding us in the right direction with the sun and wind on our backs. When a child is born, the Elders visit the home to bless the child with welcoming rituals and gifts. The Elders study the annals to help us serve the Phoenix and each other, to take care of this floating world she entrusted to us. They’re revered and welcomed as they journey the floating continents of our world—Ashra, Burumu, and Nartu and the Floating Isles. Nartu and the Floating Isles are so remote and small that they’re usually grouped together. Only scholars live out there, retired Elders included.

After the Elders come the Elite Guard, who’ve arrived from their home in Burumu on the airship that passed over Elisha and me. The Elite Guard are the sharp talons of the Phoenix; they keep us safe from danger, although now they are much more ceremonial than in the past when monsters threatened us. In the time of the Rending, they formed to protect what was left of mankind. Now they serve as a reminder, and as a force against future dangers, should they arise. We stand upon them for support.

The Sargon lives in Burumu and is a lord below my father’s ranking. He is the Eye of the Phoenix, ever watchful for unrest or trouble. And there has been some in the past, for Burumu is a small island of limited resources, and things have become tense from time to time. But none of us want to go back to dark days, and so it’s never amounted to much at all.

And my father, the Monarch. He is the beak of the Phoenix, speaking truth and leading us all toward the future. His word is law. He lives here in Ulan, in the citadel, which is a smaller town than Burumu but it allows him the peace and quiet to thoughtfully govern us.

And me, his heir? I’m the Eternal Flame that ignites the Phoenix, the hope for the future of our floating world.

All of this symbolism is etched into my headdress. It’s no wonder it weighs so much.

My father wears a circlet of feather-shaped hammered gold, the plumes of sunbirds hanging along it in a much more subtle pattern. His face crinkles up again as he smiles at me, and despite the hundred pounds pressing on my head, and the weight of who I am in my heart, I smile back.

“Ashes, child,” he says suddenly. “Your foot!”

They’ve noticed. I can’t look down easily with the headdress on, but I can feel the attendants lifting my foot up and wiping it with cloth, maybe the hem of their own tunics.

“I lost it on the way,” I say sheepishly.

The doors at the end of the hallway burst open, and two of the Elder Initiates stride in. “Your Majesty,” they say to my father, the Monarch. “If you please.”

“Yes, well,” he says, looking at me worriedly. After a minute he laughs. “I suppose you’ll have to lose the other shoe, as well,” he says.

The attendants exchange looks.

“Sir, but Elder Aban will...”

“Oh, he can take it up with me later, if he survives the rise in his blood pressure.”

I love my father, and he loves me.

I kick off the spare shoe and bite my lip to hold back the delighted grin at the expressions of the attendants and Initiates. My father quickly squeezes my fingers before they place a red and gilded annal in his hands and a short ceremonial staff in mine, a golden beam that ends in a rich crimson plume that tickles against my sleeve.

I follow my father through the hallway, and then we are upon the steps of the citadel. The sunlight is blinding after the darkness of the corridors. The minstrels are plucking at the goat-string harps and the trumpets are blaring as the crowds cheer for their Monarch. Father looks noble and kind as he descends the steps toward the crowd. I wait at the doorway and watch him. Banners of crimson stream in the wind, and the giant statue of the Phoenix towers over the courtyard. There are garlands of flowers strung around her neck and bouquets of red and orange laid at her feet.

It seems a little ridiculous to me at times, but the annals and my governesses have always been clear—without her, mankind would have perished, consumed by the monsters that overrun the earth below. She saved us all with her sacrifice, and so we celebrate the Rending every year since, commemorating our deliverance from certain death.

My father has reached Elder Aban in the courtyard below, and the trumpets blare loudly as the crowd looks up for me. I take a deep breath and grasp the plume staff tightly, walking slowly down the stone stairs in my bare feet, one clean, one scuffed and dirty. I long to glance at Aban’s reaction, but I know I must look straight ahead into the crowd, smiling gently and looking wiser than I feel. The steps are grainy and rough and scrape the soles of my feet. Despite the bright sunny weather, the stone stairs are cold from the thin air up here in Ashra.

The crowd and minstrels are quiet, staring at me as I descend. I think only of how ridiculous it would look if I tripped headfirst, or if I burst into dance or suddenly turned and ran. I could end this whole ceremony, I think. It’s not that I want to destroy it, but the potential, just knowing I could do so, swirls endlessly in my head.

At last I reach the bottom step, and the crowds bow their heads. It all seems too silly to me. I walk through the village all the time with Elisha and no one bows to me. But today there’s such a separation I can feel it. They bend around me like heat bends around the wavering flame of a candle.

The Elite Guard stand in crisp rows to the side of the Phoenix statue. They’re dressed in uniforms of the customary white, with a single red plume pinned to their lapels. Some have golden pins or medals of iridescent shell depending on rank.

I see him immediately, of course. Jonash. He’s in the front row, at the right side of the lieutenant. It’s hard to miss him. He’s looking at me, too, his blue eyes shining and his dirty blond hair cropped neatly on his head. But there’s no time to think about him now. Aban has come toward me to receive the plume staff, and I place it in his old, shaking hands while my father reads from the pages of the annal.

His voice resonates through the courtyard. “So it was,” he reads, “that in those days, the land was covered with the thick darkness of a plague brewing. They came from every direction—creatures bent on destroying mankind and civility. On four legs, on six, on wings and in scales, above and beneath the surface of the earth. They knew only hunger, blood and malevolence.”

Elder Aban steps toward the Phoenix statue with my plume staff. I clasp my hands together over my dirt-stained dress, standing as still as I can. I can feel Jonash’s eyes on me, but I dare not look. I pretend that he’s not there at all, that he doesn’t even exist.

My father’s voice rises as he reads from the gilded tome. “But there was one creature who lived in light, not in darkness. In flame, not in bitter ice. There was one who was merciful and generous and giving. She saw our plight and took pity us. She gathered us under her wings, to protect us from the foul monsters outside.”

The people stare blankly ahead. We’ve heard this story. We hear it every year. But it’s distant to us. It happened nearly three hundred years ago. Well, two hundred and ninety-nine. We’ve never seen the monsters written about in the annals. We don’t even know if it’s true.

“The people walked from the mountains, from the valleys, from the oceans and the islands. We gathered upon this place, Ashra, when it was then part of the earth.”

Aban has placed the plume staff at the Phoenix’s stone talons and is backing away with his head bowed toward her. There is a small string in his hands, almost invisible unless you know it’s there. This is the big finale, the culmination of the Rending Ceremony.

“And then,” my father’s voice booms, “with a blast of her fiery wings, she tore the roots from the ground and rent the earth in two.” Aban pulls the string, and the plume staff erupts in a burst of flames that travels up the garlands around the statue. “She lifted us high above the darkness and the fangs and the endless hunger that infested the earth. She burned to ashes like the sun, raising us to freedom and deliverance.”

“May she rise anew!” the crowd shouts as the rings of fire blaze around the statue. The people cheer and wave their red banners as my father hands the annal to Aban, who closes the book and lifts it into the sky. I step toward the statue now, the flames dangerously close. My face is hot from the waves emanating from the fire. But this is proof of the Phoenix’s favor, and I must do this task to instill courage in the village. I quickly reach my hand toward the plume staff, now only a gold handle with a burned quill end attached to it. The longer I hesitate, the hotter the gold will get, so before I can rethink it I wrap my fingers around the handle and pull it away from the statue’s talons. I lift it high above my head like a baton, my headdress tinkling in my ears as the crowd cheers.

“From fiery sacrifice to ash, from ash to rebirth,” my father shouts, “we, too, will rise anew! Let us never return to those dark days. Let us never throw away the gift of a new rebirth on Ashra and in the skies!”

The people cheer, and Aban nods, and the official ceremony is over. Now is when my father usually ascends the steps and I follow, but today he’s got more news to share. I see him look at me for a moment, his eyes kind and a little remorseful. And there’s nothing I can do but nod, because our lives are for the people, and I know this. We are the wick and wax, and we still burn for Ashra’s freedom.

“There is one more announcement you’ve been waiting for,” my father says, raising his hands. The elaborate red-and-gold sleeves coil around his elbows and the crowd quiets down. He looks toward the Elite Guard, and the lieutenant salutes. He marches smartly into the courtyard, then turns sharply to face the crowd. When he glances at his troop, Jonash steps forward. He doesn’t march the way the lieutenant did, but walks gracefully and solemnly toward us.

“Next year is the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Rending,” Father says. “And it is time to secure the continuation of Ashra and her lands—Burumu, Nartu and the Floating Isles.” Ashra had been the original continent—the others broke off during the Rending and sailed through the sky, shattered shards of a broken past.

But it’s the future that concerns me now.

Jonash’s eyes burn as intensely as the last of the flames that devour the garlands around the Phoenix. He falls to a knee before my father, who nods at him.

“I am pleased to officially announce,” my father says, each word an iron link in my chain, “the betrothal of my daughter, Princess Kallima of Ashra, to Second Lieutenant Jonash, son of the Sargon of Burumu.”

Jonash’s eyes meet mine, and his hand rises palm up like an offering. I know what is expected of me. I rest my hand in his, and he presses his forehead against the backs of my fingers. His skin is cool from the breeze, but my fingers are warm from the golden staff fetched from the fire.

The people cheer and applaud as Jonash rises to his feet and stands just behind me. The Sargon is lower ranking than my father the Monarch, but Burumu has the densest population and the greatest output of resources that complement Ashra’s agriculture. The union is perfect to continue the peaceful ruling of the floating kingdom on which our lives play out.

Jonash’s hand rests in mine as we ascend the steps behind my father, the cold stone scraping against my bare feet. I feel as though I have changed into someone else just now, as if I have ceased to exist.

The candle of my life burns, tears of wax trickling down its melting sides.

THREE

JONASH DOESN’T SPEAK to me until we are inside the great room, where my father and I stretch out our arms, and the attendants begin to unravel the cumbersome costumes that adorn us.

“Kallima,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you,” I answer, always diplomatic and polite as I am supposed to be. Two attendants come to lift the headdress off my head, untangling the strings of beads that have twisted and knotted into my hair. But with Jonash here, I don’t feel any lighter. The world still feels stiff and heavy. “How was the journey from Burumu?”

He smiles, his blue eyes full of warmth and his cheeks flushed with a bashful glow. Elisha is right when she says he’s handsome, but his looks don’t move me at all. “It was well enough. Airships are bumpy, troublesome things.”

I haven’t been on one since I was seven years old, when I toured Burumu and Nartu with my father for the 290th Anniversary of the Rending. The airships are patched together like the hot air balloons I’ve read about in the annals, and they float from side to side in a pudgy, indecisive path. I’d wanted to see the ocean below Burumu on that journey, but the clouds were thick that day, only the peaks of the mountain range poking through. I remember how wonderful it was to look out at the lesser floating isles, though, the small pieces of continent that are too rocky or inhospitable for people to live on or gather resources from. They looked so strange, their roots and crumbling soil holding on to nothingness as they floated in the air.

“How are things in Burumu, Jonash?” my father says as I duck my head down so the attendants can untangle the last strings of the headdress from my hair.

“Well, thank you,” Jonash answers. “My father sends his regards, and his apologies that he could not attend the ceremony.”

My father laughs gently, his warm eyes twinkling as his skin crinkles. “We understand the burden of the Sargon. Burumu is a bustling place.”

“Yes,” Jonash answers. “He does his best to deal with the unrest.”

“Unrest?” I say. My father frowns, his gray beard drooping with the expression. This is the first I’ve heard of this unrest. And my father has never been one to coddle or patronize me. In fact, he’s always kept me well involved in political affairs. I’m the next in line, after all. Ignorance wouldn’t suit either of us.

“Nothing to trouble Your Highness, of course,” Jonash says quickly. “It’s nothing more than a trifling thought. Burumu is a larger city than Ulan, and sometimes the past weighs heavily upon our shoulders.”

Burumu is a larger city, this much is true. On Ashra we have Lake Agur, the rolling hills full of wildflowers and the comfort of the Phoenix statue and citadel. Ours is a farming community protected from the harsh winds by a sheer mountain range on the northeast side. There is too much to do in a day to sit around and talk about unrest. But Burumu is a city of resources, where they mine gold and smelt iron and copper. It’s where the airships are assembled, and the land is scarcer. Many of the families in Burumu try to immigrate to Ashra, but we need to preserve the continent so that future generations won’t run out of food. Is this the source of the unrest? We strive hard not to allow inequality in the kingdom, but there will always be some jobs more desirable than others to sustain the community.

I shake my head in disbelief, putting on my best regal voice. “We know what it is to have a common enemy, the monsters that drove us into the skies. We know that to squabble among ourselves would be to ignore the gift of freedom the Phoenix has given us.”

“My daughter is right, as always.” My father smiles. “The situation in Burumu is nothing more than that—a tiny squabble before the past is remembered. Otherwise the Sargon would be quite bored, with nothing to manage.”

I feel uneasy. My father is lying, I’m sure of it, and whether it’s to me or to Jonash is the question. But the conversation has ended, and to continue it would be to embarrass him in front of company. I’ll ask him later, when it’s just the two of us.

“Indeed Burumu keeps one busy,” Jonash ends politely, but his eyes never leave me. “It’s always a pleasure to get away for a while and to seek other joys.”

He means well, I know. He’s charming, polite and well mannered. He’s handsome and intelligent. But I don’t feel anything for him, no matter how hard I try. He’s like the floating continents—beauty and pageantry above, and no substance below. It makes me sad to think this, and I’m flooded with guilt. I haven’t even given him a chance.

I attempt a smile, feeling like a complete fake.

“Your Highness,” he says, but I shake my head.

“Kali is fine. There’s no need for formalities now the ceremony is done.”

“I suppose not,” he says. “Then, Kali, might I request the pleasure of your company tonight?” His cheeks blaze, and every word from his mouth is slow and thoughtful. “I’d hoped to visit Ulan and see more of Ashra. The Elite Guard will be staying a few days to partake in the celebrations, but I’m afraid I won’t feel festive when I don’t know anyone in the crowds.”

He smiles, but my stomach twists. I’ll have to spend more and more time with him, until we’re married next year. And then we’ll live together in the citadel, and we’ll be looked on to provide a happy example to the people. We’ll share every meal, every moment, every night. We’ll have heirs to keep the bloodline going. My face warms. Perhaps I can learn to love him, I think. I desperately will myself to love him, to make this easier.

I don’t. But maybe I could. Someday.

Or maybe not.

“I’m afraid I’d had plans with my friend Elisha...” I begin, and I can’t believe the words are flowing out of my mouth. My father won’t approve of my discourtesy.

Jonash’s face turns pale; his warm eyes falter. “I... I see,” he says, his fingers fumbling across the golden plume pinned to his lapel. “Of course I understand. I...”

“Oh, ashes and soot,” my father chimes in from the corner. “Elisha can go with you, can’t she? It wouldn’t be proper without a chaperone anyway.”

Jonash hesitates, uncertain how to respond.

But I know what to do. I know what my father has gently asked of me.

“Well, then,” I say with regret. “I’d be delighted to accept.”

“I... Oh. Wonderful,” Jonash says. He’s lost in the silent conversation between my father and me, the words unspoken that duty comes first. He nods his head. “Shall we meet at the fountain, then, after dinner?”

“Won’t you dine with us tonight, Jonash?” my father says. “I couldn’t forgive myself if I treated my son-in-law-to-be with such discourtesy as to leave him to scavenge for his own supper.”

“My gratitude to you, Monarch,” Jonash answered. “But it’s the lieutenant’s birthday, and he’s asked us to join him for the occasion. Er... I’m certain I could explain to him.”

I roll my eyes. It seems eloquence isn’t one of Jonash’s better skills. “That isn’t necessary,” I pipe up pleasantly. “You can always join us tomorrow.”

Both men look at me gratefully, and I wonder what we’re all actually thinking. Does Jonash feel as I do about the arranged engagement? Does he have someone he cares for on Burumu? If he does, or if he longs for freedom like me, then he hides it well. If he, too, burns for the people, I can’t even see the wax tears dripping from the light of the wick.

“At the fountain, then,” he says. “When the skies are darkening. I’ll wait.”

I force another smile, and an attendant escorts him out.

FOUR

ONCE JONASH IS GONE, and my father has been pulled away by the Elders and their pressing Rending Ceremony matters, I’m finally alone and free. I step barefoot through the dim hallways, twisting toward the library in the north. Except for the outcrop on the edge of the continent, the library is my most favorite refuge. Hardly anyone bothers these days with the dusty tomes and endless red annals stacked along the back shelves. There’s no need to look into the past anymore. Life is busy enough to just survive the present.

But I love to read the rich stories of the earth and the world before the Rending. I want to dive into the oceans teeming with rainbow fish and turtles and dolphins. I want to feel the soft manes of horses, which seem to be a type of giant goat, and the striped tails of the raccoons. I want to know about the cities that used to be, ones where thousands of people lived all in one place. I want to know about the strange customs and technologies that have been lost to us for nearly three hundred years. And just once, perhaps, I’d like to see a dragon, or how small the two moons must look, gleaming down onto a world so far below the floating continents.

The oldest annals are difficult to read because the language is archaic and the print faded. I’ve asked the Elders for help, but even Aban doesn’t have the knowledge to read them. It’s surprising, really, because the original Elders were the first to write things down at the beginning of the Rending, to keep track of old memories and wisdom from earth to save our heritage. You’d think the Elders would have taught each other as they went along, keeping the knowledge alive.

I run my fingers along the tops of the tomes, aching to know what’s written in the gold-edged pages. I grab the fiftieth one in the row, the one where the language is almost readable. I open it up about one hundred pages in, where one of my favorite illustrations is splashed on the page. The manuscripts hold so few images, but this is one where the Elder scribe couldn’t help himself. He has imagined what the ocean would look like, a lake without end. He’s drawn what he imagines sea snakes and dolphins and fish to look like, and he’s painted them all with the reddish-brown iron ink they manufacture in Burumu. He’s tried his best to be accurate, but he’s never seen the ocean, either, except for glimpses from the edge of the continent. We have fish in our lakes, but I imagine the ones in the ocean are larger and vividly colored, splashing about with fangs and fins and glittering scales. I wonder if his sketch is even close to what sea creatures really look like, frothing about against the shore.

I fit the book neatly in its space on the shelf and take out the very first of the annals. I’ve looked at it many times before, but its faded ancient letters just stare back at me, their looping script holding secrets I can’t unlock. I run my fingers along the red text, flipping the crinkled pages slowly. There’s a single illustration in this tome, on the ninetieth page. It shows the bottom of the continent Ashra, the roots of the trees bound in a tangle around the dirt that lifts into the sky. There is a fissure sketched in, where Burumu and Nartu are breaking off from Ashra under the pressure of the Rending. Below the continent the Phoenix rises into the air. Her dark red-brown wings gleam with a cloud of sketched glory, and she clasps monsters of every type in her talons. They are miniscule in the drawing, but I can make out twisting horns, slithering limbs and feathers. A great hole has been ripped in the earth below her, and along the rim of the hole tiny sketches of people wail upon their knees, reaching out for Ashra as it rises up. These were the unbelievers, who didn’t heed her call and were devoured by the monsters. I press my thumbnail against them, thinking how small they are. I pity them, but I envy them, too. They knew about the oceans and the mountains. They knew all the things I wish to know. Even if their lives ended in despair, they were free until that last bitter moment.

No, I think. There’s no freedom in being hunted down. Their lives were forfeit before they were even born.

A shuffling in the library startles me. It’s always quiet here, especially when everyone must be out celebrating the Rending. I quietly slide the first of the annals back into its place on the shelves so I can peek at who’s approaching.

I call out softly. “Elisha?” Maybe she’s searching for me to talk about Jonash and the engagement. But then I hear two men’s voices arguing just beyond hearing. Something doesn’t feel right, and I shrink behind the shelf as they approach.

“One of the Initiates must have said something,” the first voice says.

The second one snaps, “We don’t share it with the Initiates. It’s reserved only for the senior Elders.”

That’s Aban’s voice. I’d know it anywhere. A moment later, Aban steps into view, his cream robe swishing against the floor and the tassels of his red belt pounding against him with every step.

“Then how did it reach them?” the first man says. He stands in a crisp white uniform, two dark red plumes laid on either shoulder and a gold chain draped over his chest. The lieutenant of the Elite Guard. Why would he be here? Jonash had said they would be out to celebrate his birthday, but the lieutenant’s brow is creased and his face anxious. The Elders use the library all the time, but I’ve never seen anyone from the Elite Guard set foot in these dusty stacks of tomes.

“It can only be the work of an Elder,” the lieutenant insists. “The others cannot read the early texts.”

“The Elders are loyal to the Monarch,” Aban spits back. “They would never join the rebels.”

Rebels? Rebelling against what? I wonder. Life on Ashra and her lands is peaceful, with no need to rebel.

“An exile, then,” the first voice says.

Aban shakes his head. “And how do you suppose they got off Nartu?”

It’s the first I’ve heard of exiled Elders. It’s true that the life isn’t for everyone, but Elders who retire or Initiates who give up their instruction often choose a life of solitude on Nartu. Don’t they?

“It is your fault for not keeping Burumu under control,” Aban says. “The rebellions should have been quashed by now, not spreading. And if they’ve learned of this!”

Learned of what? And who has read the early texts? Too many questions flood into my mind at once. I think of the unrest Jonash mentioned, the one my father hesitated to mention in front of me. Is it so serious as to pit the tempers of Aban and the lieutenant against each other? The Elite Guard and the Elders have always worked together to serve the lands of Ashra. All our roles build the Phoenix together to protect its beating heart, our people. And what the lieutenant suggests is ridiculous. Even the Elders can’t read the earliest texts.

None of it makes sense. But if the unrest is bad enough to worry either group and make them accuse each other, then there is more happening than my father has let on.

My thoughts muddle with confusion as I peek over the tops of the annals. Aban and the lieutenant have stopped at a small desk on the other side, where the Elders occasionally place the annals to study them. Aban reaches around his neck and produces a small key on a string. I’ve never noticed a key around Aban’s neck before. He turns toward a cupboard near the desk and fits in the key, turning it with a creak. He rustles through the darkness and produces a bloodred tome with gilded pages. It looks just like the rows of annals on the shelf, and every volume is accounted for. Why would there be one locked in the cupboard?

Aban lifts it onto the desk with an echoing thud and begins to flip the pages.

“I’m telling you,” the lieutenant tries again. Aban whispers to himself in what sounds like a foreign tongue, his eyes scanning the words as his finger runs down the page.

My hand goes to my open mouth. He’s reading the ancient script. He’s reading the early annals.

There’s an illustration on the page, but I can’t make it out from here. I can only see where the block of text ends and the fanciful sketching begins.

The lieutenant leans over, impatient. “Well?”

Aban falls silent, his finger stopping at one paragraph. “It’s just as they’re saying,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “The barrier, the generator...word for word, it’s what’s on the flyer. Show me again.”

The lieutenant reaches into his pocket and flattens the crinkled piece of paper. Aban compares the information on the paper to the lines he’s pressed his trembling finger against in the annal. He nods, his face ghostly white.

The lieutenant snatches the paper back and balls his hand into a fist. He quickly turns back to Aban. “And no one has seen this annal but the Elders?”

“And the Monarch, and you,” Aban says. My father knows of this secret tome, as well?

The lieutenant holds the edge of the paper to the candle that flickers on the desk. The flame licks up the side as the paper curls in on itself and burns. “Are there other copies of the book?” he asks.

Aban closes the massive tome with effort, and I stare over the tops of the shelved books to glance at the volume number. It glints, a single line golden in the dim light. The first of the annals. But that’s impossible. Another copy of the first volume hidden under lock and key? It makes no sense.

“Only this one,” Aban says. “And the one on the shelf, but it was dealt with nearly two hundred years ago. I believe the others were burned.”

Burned? Dealt with? Quietly as I can, I slide the first volume of the annals off the shelf and crouch down, placing the heavy book on top of my red skirts. I flip soundlessly to the image of the Rending, staring at it. What could be different about this volume than Aban’s special copy? What was “dealt with” two hundred years ago?

Then I see it, though I’ve looked at this drawing so many times before. Now that I know something’s wrong, it jumps off the page at me. The Phoenix is a much darker red-brown sketch than the rest of the fading drawing. I look carefully in its filled-in wings. There are rings of red encircling the space below the floating continent. There is some sort of mechanism buried in the Phoenix’s tail, some sort of...of machine.

The Phoenix has been drawn later, to cover something previously drawn. But what exactly, and why?

I slide the heavy book to the floor and peek through the shelves again to watch the men. Aban appears to think for a moment.

“Ashes,” he says. “There was an Initiate many years ago. He had a talent for deciphering the older annals. In the end he wasn’t suitable, and we sent him away. Perhaps he made a copy, or found another, and has deciphered its meaning. But he went to Nartu so long ago. And the retired Elders wouldn’t risk their safety by revealing the truth.”

“Then he’s made his way to Burumu, his message with him,” the lieutenant said. “It must be stopped.”

“I agree, but carefully. If you did your job, Lieutenant, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

“I could say the same,” he grumbles.

“The Sargon better control the rebellion. It must not advance here.”

“The rebels are disorganized and marginalized anyway,” the lieutenant says. “We can easily stop the people. But ideas spread like wildfire. We need to discredit this information as lies.”

Then a lighter voice rings out, friendly and unburdened. “Kali?”

It’s Elisha, looking for me.

My heart seems as loud as the citadel bells. Aban rushes the tome to the cupboard, locking it as the lieutenant looks around nervously. I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled on to, but I know it isn’t wise to let on that I’ve been here the whole time. Even with my rank as the Eternal Flame and heir, I feel the fear flicker inside me. They could erase me, too, if they wanted. It would be easy. I’m just one person, noble or not.

“Kali, are you in here?” Elisha shouts. Her voice echoes in the domed ceiling of the library. I glance down the row of annals, press my hands against the thick concrete wall at the end. There’s no way to leave this corridor without walking past the two men.

Aban slips the string with the key back under the neckline of his robe and clasps his hands. He and the lieutenant step toward the entrance of the library just as Elisha appears in front of them. She knows how much I love books. She knows where to find me.

“Oh,” she gasps, surprised. “Elder Aban. And the lieutenant, isn’t it? From the Elite Guard?”

“Elisha,” Aban says, his voice cool and collected. I can’t see any of them now because I’ve shrunk back against the wall. It’s as if I’m watching a play, like this couldn’t really be happening.

“I’m just looking for Kali,” she says cheerfully.

I hear the swish of his robes as he steps forward. “She isn’t here,” he says, his voice strange and urgent. “She’s in the courtyard, I’m certain.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Elisha says. Her voice is unburdened and innocent. She has no idea what’s transpiring. “She hates crowds. Don’t you know she’s always in the annals?”

“Elisha, if you’ll just check the courtyar—”

“I’ll only be a moment, Elder.”

No, I think. Elisha, listen to Aban for once. The world beats to my heightened pulse. Nothing seems real, as if life has become a theatrical performace. If only the stage would open up and swallow me into the darkness. What will happen if they find out I’m here?

And then she’s there, staring at me as I look back like a pika caught stealing fireweed. “I told you!” She laughs in a peal of bells. “But what are you doing all scrunched up like that?”

Aban steps around the side of the shelf, his face a mask of horror. He quickly recovers, bowing his head. “Your Highness,” he says.

I rise to my feet. I can’t show them how I’m shaking. I clear my throat and nod my head. “Aban,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “Elisha. Ashes and soot, I must have fallen asleep.” I rub my eyes, blotting out the horrible scene around me. When I look again, the lieutenant is staring back, his mouth slightly open. I can’t read Aban’s expression at all.

Elisha laughs in disbelief. “Well, that’s not like you,” she says. “Falling asleep in the library? With the annals? You love reading the annals!”

Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I stare at her. She’s not helping, not at all.

“The Rending Ceremony,” I try. “It must have taken it right out of me.” I stretch my arms out wide and try to force a yawn. None comes. Do they believe me? Or can they see the worry on my face?

A single bead of sweat drips down the side of the lieutenant’s forehead. “Your Highness,” he says.

I nod and put on my official voice, lifting my chin up. “Lieutenant.” My voice wavers, just a little. He doesn’t know me well enough to notice, but Aban will.

I wonder for a moment if I should just confront them, ask what it was all about. I’m the Monarch’s daughter, after all. Their job is to protect me.

But something in me warns it isn’t a wise move to tell them I know. Something whispers inside me to run, and to run as far as I can. Someone changed the first annal two hundred years ago, if I understood Aban correctly. And the Elders and Elite Guard don’t want us to know what, or why.

“Well, now that I’m awake, Elisha, let’s get to the celebrations in Ulan.”

She smiles and takes my hand, pulling me through the stacks of the library and away from the frowning faces of Aban and the lieutenant.

I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled upon, but I know it’s something big. I know my father will explain it to me if he knows, and if he doesn’t, he’ll protect me. Once he knows what I’ve seen, they won’t be able to do anything to me. And anyway, as the next in line to govern Ashra and her lands, there’s no reason I shouldn’t know what Aban and the lieutenant were talking about. I don’t know why the incident made my heart race; it’s either for the good of the kingdom, or it’s treason, and either way I would be in the right to question it.

But a feeling of doubt casts a shadow darker than the hallways of the citadel, and for the first time in many years, I feel truly frightened.

FIVE

“HERE,” ELISHA SAYS, pulling a pair of beige sandals out of her bag. “I grabbed these for you.” She giggles, holding the shoes out to me as she keeps pulling me forward.

“Elisha.” I tug gently against her hand, and we stop in the corridor near the stairway. “Wait. I have to talk to my father.”

She frowns, the shoes resting in her hand against her slacks. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. “I’m not sure, but I need to talk to him first. It’s Aban and the lieutenant.”

She nods and helps me slip on the sandals before she follows me to the meeting room. Two guards flank either side of the doorway, tall spears in hand. It’s just a formality, of course. The number of humans left in the world is too small to fear each other.

At least, that’s what I’d thought. The sketch of the Phoenix and the talk of rebellion has shaken everything I thought I knew. I wish the lieutenant hadn’t burned the paper. I need to see what was on it.

I rest my fingers on the cold door handle, and one of the guards turns his head. “Are you looking for the Monarch, Princess?”

“I don’t mind if he’s occupied with the Elders,” I say. “It’s an urgent matter.”

“I’m afraid he’s not in there,” the guard answers as I push in the door to the meeting room, empty and still. “He left fifteen minutes ago, I believe for the village square with the Elders. Some meet-and-greet celebrations.”

My chest feels empty, as though I’m out of breath. Everything feels so wrong, and I can’t explain why. What does it mean that there are two first volumes of the annals? What was dealt with two hundred years ago? And what in ashes is the unrest now in Burumu?

“Thank you,” I tell him, my throat dry, and I turn toward the citadel steps.

Elisha wraps her arms around my arm, leading me into the sunlight outside the great doors. We pass the Phoenix statue, a few stragglers from the celebration still wandering the courtyard. They wave at me, no longer enthralled as I’ve become one of them again. I do my best to smile and wave weakly at them.

“Kali? You’re acting so weird,” Elisha says. “What happened back there?”

“I wish I knew,” I say. “Your uncle lives in Burumu, doesn’t he? Have you heard anything about a rebellion?”

Elisha’s eyes widen with surprise and she shouts, “A rebe—” Then she notices my urgent face and drops her voice down to a whisper. “A rebellion?”

I nod. “The lieutenant and Aban were talking about it. They had some kind of paper being passed around with some big secret on it. Aban had a key around his neck, Elisha, and he brought out this duplicate of the first annal that he could read. The first volume!”

“They have been studying it a long time,” she says. “Maybe they’re finally getting somewhere?”

“No, I mean, he could really read it. The ancient language and everything. I heard him.”

She frowns. “Why would the Elders pretend they can’t read it when they can?”

“I don’t know. And earlier, Jonash told my father there was unrest in Burumu.”

“That’s nothing new,” she says. “You know life is harder there. Work is grueling and there’s little space to live. They all want to move to Ashra. Maybe they’re just exaggerating when they say it’s a rebellion.”

But I’m unconvinced. “Aban was really worried,” I say. “He said something was ‘dealt with’ two hundred years ago. The ink in the first volume was different somehow. The Phoenix looked newer than the rest of the drawing. And there were these rings and some kind of a machine buried in the drawing, under the Phoenix.” I know how crazy I must sound. I can see it on Elisha’s face. But she’s my best friend, and I know she’ll take me seriously, even if she thinks it’s nothing.

We reach the end of the courtyard and start along the dirt path to Ulan. It’s not a long way, and we can already see the tops of thatched roofs and wooden shingles. Folk songs played on goat-string harps and carved flutes float up like a cloud from the town.

“Aban is the most loyal person I know,” Elisha says after a moment. “He’d die for the Monarch and for you. He would.”

“You’re right,” I say, and she is. I can’t help but wonder if my imagination is running away with me, if the pull for escape and adventure isn’t making a bigger deal out of this than it really is.

“They probably just don’t want to worry you, and it will all smooth over. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. Besides, the Elite Guard is based in Burumu. They can deal with problems there. Isn’t that the Sargon’s job? And so what if the drawing in the annals isn’t as old as you thought, or the Elders can read them? What does that have to do with us now?”

I sigh, trying to let go of everything.

Elisha nods as we approach the fountain. It gurgles with cool water filtered down from the lake, and one of the women from the village gathers it up into a mauve clay urn which she rests on her shoulder. She smiles at us, and we smile at her.

“We’re safe now, Kali,” Elisha says. “Monsters can’t reach us this high. Any rebellion will quickly fizzle out when they remember how fortunate we are. We’ve been safe for hundreds of years, and things will continue this way when you’re Monarch, too.” She sidles closer, her voice dropping. “Or is it Jonash that’s on your mind?”

I nudge her away as she giggles. She thinks I’m lucky, and that the whole thing is romantic. She’s bought into the royal distraction like everyone else. “I don’t love him, Elisha.”

She stops giggling and sits on the edge of the fountain, her fingers wrapping around the cool stone. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But you have a whole year to get to know him. Maybe you’ll fall for him.”

I sit beside her, the stone lip of the fountain scratching the pads of my fingers. The trickling water sounds like the gurgle of the waterfall on the edge of Lake Agur, and it fills me with the urge to run there, or to my outcrop on the edge of the continent. “What if I still don’t love him in a year?”

She shrugs. “Then break the engagement.”

I let out a laugh. “My father would kill me.” I dip my fingers into the water and splash her. She winces dramatically as the drops spatter on her cream tunic.

She splashes me back, the water spraying my dress a dark crimson. “He’d come around,” she says. “You’re everything to him.”

She’s right, I know. He would understand if I broke off the engagement. But it would disappoint him so much. I don’t know if I have it in my heart to do that to him. He wants Ashra’s future to be secure. Jonash is a good match, politically, and in almost every other way. And then I remember that the night isn’t our own. “By the way, he’s joining us tonight.”

Elisha’s eyes just about pop out of her skull. “Jonash is?”

I roll my eyes, leaning back against the edge of the fountain and swinging my sandaled feet in the air. “After dinner he wants to meet us here. There’s some sort of party for the lieutenant’s birthday first. Unless, you know, rebellion calls them both away.” One can hope.

“Unlikely. Well, we better get in all the fun we can before our night turns political.” Elisha jumps to her feet. “Come on.”

Elisha is like the sun to me. She’s always shining, always optimistic. She has moments of sadness and hardship when she dims, like everyone else, but it doesn’t bother her that she’s fixed in one spot. She has no desire to leave Ashra, no curiosity about the monster-ridden earth below or the strange past before the Rending. I try to shed my worries now, to enjoy the fun of the Rending celebration.

Ulan is vibrant and bustling with out-of-town guests. Groups of Initiates walk through the crowd in their white robes, carrying sticks of chicken glazed with honey and tiny cakes of puffed flour and dusted sugar. Villagers dance in the square, wearing dresses of red and orange and yellow, the colors of the Phoenix and of our redemption. Elisha runs to the open window of one hut, where a man passes her the sticky-sweet skewers of honeyed chicken. We lick the hot, sweet meat as the honey dribbles onto our fingers. After, we buy two glasses of foamed pygmy goat milk blended with crushed red field berries, and then stuff our mouths with miniature puffed cakes and gluey spirals of bright orange melon paste. We eat and drink until the sugar overwhelms us and our foreheads pulse with headaches, and then Elisha grabs my sticky hands in hers and we dance in the square, spinning around and around as the sun begins to set, as the candles are lit in every window and along the edges of the wall.

Ulan is the only part of the floating continent to have a wall. It begins at the citadel and curves past the fountain and around the edge of the farmlands. It ends abruptly in the tangled forests, where the trees make their own wall of roots and thorns and brambles. At first, our ancestors never bothered to build a wall, since the edge of a floating continent isn’t something to be defended, nor is the village built directly on the brink. The schoolhouse is between the town and the farmlands, and children learn from an early age not to go wandering in the grassy fields that stretch toward the southern edge.

But when I was two, a terrible accident happened. One of the teachers in town was running late that morning. She’d raced to the henhouse to gather the eggs, and one of the chickens had gotten out into the farmlands. She’d just chased it down when she smelled her morning loaf burning in the oven. And so she rushed in to deal with that as well, and the whole time she’d left the door to her cottage open and her toddler son had wandered out into the long grasses to look for her. The villagers are still haunted by his screams, the helpless cries that pierced the morning quiet as he toppled suddenly off the edge of the continent.

His mother never got over the horrible tragedy. No one blamed her, of course, but she drowned in the guilt that my father said only a parent can suffer. Her heart heavy with grief, she jumped off the edge six months later, and so we built the wall to protect others from the same tragic fate.

The wall is mainly stones mortared together with a thick clay paste. I don’t know how well it would stand up to someone who wanted to topple it over, but it’s strong enough to hold against the strength of any child. I was only two at the time myself, so I can’t imagine the symbol of grief the wall is for the older citizens of Ulan. It is hauntingly beautiful with the Rending candles placed along the length of the edge, villagers bending to light them as the sky grows darker. The flames flicker against the stones, casting dancing shadows and light echoed by the fireflies gleaming in the forests to the north. They look like tufts of Phoenix down floating on the wind, carried any way they please, lighting the continent with their orange-and-yellow glow.

I feel claustrophobic suddenly, longing to go back to my outcrop and think about the hidden tome Aban concealed in the cupboard. I can’t face Jonash, or my father, or any of the politics ahead of me. It’s risky to climb the outcrop at night, although I’ve done it before to watch the rainbow of fireflies alighting on the wildflowers. Maybe I can go to the edge of Lake Agur and listen to the waters, close my eyes and pretend I’m sitting on the shore of the ocean.

I close my eyes now, imagining away the crowds of celebration. “Elisha,” I say, “let’s ditch the festival. Let’s go where that Burumu boor can’t find us.”

A deep voice answers, and it isn’t Elisha’s. “And where’s that?”

I open my eyes, and Jonash’s blue eyes study mine, the pale purple dusk shadowing the crinkle of his forced smile.

I’m horrified. The guilt sinks deep in the pit of my stomach, resting uneasily. Elisha stands to the side, her eyes wide and full of shared embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean anything against you.”

Jonash laughs a little. “I’m certain you didn’t,” he says, but I know he’s only being polite. I can see the confusion in his eyes, the expectation of an explanation. “Do I really come off as boorish?”

My cheeks blaze. “Of course not. I’m only feeling a little claustrophobic,” I try, waving my hand around at the crowds. By now the barley and malt have made their ways through the crowds, and the dancing has become much louder and far less coordinated. “It’s...it’s just been a long day.”

One of the dancers approaches, singing the verse of a ballad too loudly as he merrily shakes his glass at us. Jonash gently rests his hands on the man’s shoulders and turns him so he dances away, back toward the crowd. “I think I understand,” he says. “Shall we all three escape, then?”

Elisha’s eyes twinkle, and I know she thinks it’s Jonash being perfect again. And she’s right, of course. He’s being a gentleman about the whole mortifying situation. He offers his arm, and in front of the crowds, with my embarrassing words in mind, there’s nothing I can do but take it graciously. I link my arm around his and we walk toward the fountain, the blue light of the citadel’s crystal shining like a beacon in the growing dark. “I thought we could go to Lake Agur.”

“Too many mosquitos and flies at dusk,” Elisha says. “Why not the outcrop?”

Jonash raises an eyebrow. “The outcrop? Sounds intriguing.”

I want to shake Elisha. I will, later. The outcrop is my place, one I refuse to share with Jonash. “It’s nowhere important. But the outlands near the lake would be lovely.”

“Anywhere,” he says. “I’ve had enough politics for one night, as well.”

“The lieutenant’s birthday,” I answer, and the scene in the library floods back along with all my doubts.

The lights and songs of Ulan fade behind us as we start down the dirt path toward the citadel. Halfway along we turn down the northeastern path, past the landing pitch where the airship bobs like a puffy cloud in the dim light.

I slip my arm away from Jonash, pretending to smooth my hair back in the cold nighttime wind.

“The lieutenant seemed a bit off today,” I hazard. “Has anything happened?”

“Off?”

“The unrest in Burumu is perhaps on his mind?”

Jonash slows, his head tilted to the side as he thinks. “Not that I’m aware.”

“What is the unrest, exactly?”

He pauses for a moment as we walk in silence. “Just a little grumbling over ration allotment,” he says finally. “Nothing to trouble Your Highness.”

“Kali is fine,” I remind him. “And I’m glad to hear it. Because the strangest thing happened today, and I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“Oh?”

I’m hesitant to share with Jonash what’s happened, but maybe he’ll know more about it than me. “The lieutenant and Elder Aban were in the library. They were discussing a rebellion, and the annals.”

“The annals are rather dusty and educational for the lieutenant’s tastes.” Jonash laughs, and Elisha politely laughs with him.

But I don’t like that he’s avoided the word rebellion. My instinct says it isn’t the first he’s heard of it. “The lieutenant had a paper from the rebels,” I tell him, and the laughing stops.

I tell them the rest of the story, about the drawing of the Phoenix covering up part of the original illustration, about the red rings and the machine scribbled out by her tail. I tell them about the secret first volume Aban had under lock and key, and the discussion of an Initiate who may be causing trouble from Nartu. I tell them how the lieutenant wants to discredit the information as lies, which means there’s a dangerous truth embedded in it. Jonash’s face darkens, and then I know I was right to worry, that it hasn’t all been in my head.

“Have you spoken to the Monarch?” he says. His voice sounds off.

I shake my head. “He’s been so busy with the celebrations. I’m going to tell him as soon as I return tonight.”

“I would advise against it,” he tells me. “The Monarch has so much on his plate. I can assure you whatever the issue is, my father and the Elite Guard in Burumu can handle it.”

His advice annoys me. It’s like a patronizing pat on the head. “That’s the thing,” I say, before I can stop myself. “If this was a serious matter, you’d think the Sargon would’ve spoken up by now. Surely he doesn’t allow rebellion to take over Burumu?”

Jonash presses his lips together, likely to stop whatever words are dying to flow out. “Are you saying you have no confidence in my father, nor in me?” he says.

The question snaps me back into diplomacy. This is my fiancé, and I’m speaking without any tact at all. I don’t really care what he thinks of me, as I quietly seethe at him not taking me seriously. But I love my father, and I’m risking too much fanning flames between our families.

“Not at all,” I say, and I’m sure my face is flashing my irritation. “But something isn’t right about all this, and I won’t stop until I understand what it is. And that begins with informing my own father, who should know all rumors floating about the length of the sky.”

Jonash nods, but his eyes seem dim and distracted. “I see,” he says, but his tone disagrees. I assume he’s embarrassed, that whatever this rebellion is, it’s gone beyond the reach of his father, the Sargon, to deal with it. It’s a losing situation for him—if he doesn’t know of the rebellion, then he’s incompetent, and if he knows but can’t handle it, then he’s equally ill-equipped. Neither bodes well for an heir like him.

But the thought is mean-spirited. I didn’t know about the rebellion, either. Perhaps it’s new information that the lieutenant will share on their return. “I... I’m sure you will be able to address it when you return,” I offer.

“Indeed,” he says, and his eyes still look sunken in his face, but at least the anger has faded from his voice.

The path is dark now, the shining crystal of the citadel far behind us. Elisha reaches into her bag and pulls out a cast-iron lantern, carved all over with the shapes of stars and feathers for the light of the candle to dance through. We stop so she can strike the flint and light it, and she passes the lantern to me as well as the flint, which I slip into my pocket.

“Are we really going to go all the way to the outlands?” she says, and the candlelight flickers across her worried face. “I was only joking about the outcrop, you know. The sun’s set too quickly.” She looks around, and I know she fears the animals in the forests around us. We don’t have many predators on the continent, and they’re no bigger than deer—dwarf bears and wild boars mostly—but they’re protected by law in case we’re ever in desperate need to hunt for meat in years of drought or famine. There have been sightings of small dragons before, lighting up Lake Agur with fiery breaths, but they turned out to be a combination of lizards, fireflies and children’s wild imaginations. Monsters have never flown this high, but Elisha still fears the darkness. I’m sure our discussion of rebellion isn’t helping.

“We can turn back if you want,” I say. “And go tomorrow, in the light.”

“I was hoping to see the fireflies,” Jonash says, crestfallen. “I’ve heard they flash in every color in Ashra.”

“You two go ahead, then,” Elisha says, and I shoot her a warning look in the lantern light. You’re going to send me alone with him?

She arches her eyebrows in protest. He’s the son of the Sargon, she’s thinking. He’s a gentleman. But neither of us knows him, not really. I doubt he’d hurt me or force anything on me, for that would certainly break off the engagement and cause a terrible feud between our families and our continents. No, I’m much more afraid he’ll try to win me over, or that he’ll lean in for a kiss and I’ll lean away and everything will become terribly awkward.

“Let’s all go on, then,” Elisha says after a moment. “But only for a quick look, and we’ll head straight back.”

“Agreed,” I say. “It’s only about ten minutes to the clearing anyway.”

We walk the rest of the forest path in silence, listening to the wind rustling the leaves. I wish I’d brought my cloak. The nighttime air is always freezing in the sky.

The trees pull away then, and the outlands are before us. The tall grasses bend in the wind, rustling with the sound of the cold breeze. Fireflies thread through them like garlands of candlelight, flashing green and yellow and orange. I hold the lantern behind us to let our eyes adjust, and then the pink and purple and blue fireflies lift up, hovering above the grasses in wreaths of color.

Jonash steps forward, watching their colors flash. They go dim in front of him, blacking out along his entire path in their fear. But a moment later they light behind him, surrounding him in distant light.

“Go on,” Elisha whispers, nudging me forward. I wish she’d stop pushing me. But seeing Jonash in the field surrounded by those lights, seeing him appreciate the beauty of Ashra, makes me realize there’s so much about him I don’t know yet. Maybe this is an opportunity. He listened to my concerns about the strange extra tome that Aban and the lieutenant whispered over, even if he was a little patronizing. He didn’t take offense to what I said in the village. Elisha’s right that I do owe him more of a chance.

The grass scrapes against the sides of my ankles and the gaps between my sandal straps. The edges of the blades are sticky with sap and dry from too much sun. Dimmed fireflies accidentally bump into my arms and legs as I walk, and the lantern swings patterns of stars and feathers around the grasses. The fireflies darken in swarms around me, like snuffed-out candles.

“It’s wonderful,” Jonash says as I reach his side. “We only have yellow and orange fireflies in Burumu.”

“Most villagers in Ulan don’t come out as far as the outlands,” I say. “The edge of the continent is uneven here and difficult to see in the fields.” He looks alarmed, so I raise my hands to reassure him, the lantern swinging back and forth. “It’s out that way,” I say. “You can see it easily if you look for the moons hitting the rock.”

He peers over, so I take him closer to the edge to look. To me it’s like a lighting strip, silver and shiny as it loops along the side of the clearing. The two moons in the sky, one a crescent and one waxing full, beam down on the sparkling crystal fragments embedded in the stone of the continent’s edge. It’s like a glittering warning sign curving along the outlands. “See? Easy to spot once you know what to look for,” I tell him.

He crouches down to look at the sparkling stone. “I see it. It’s like a thread of glistening silver.”

I turn away, swinging the lantern at my side. The fireflies scatter from its light. “We should go back soon. Elisha will get spooked if we wait too long.”

“Of course,” he says, straightening up. “Only a little longer, and then I’ll escort you both, I promise.”

I roll my eyes, glad he can’t see my face. I don’t need his escort. I know every stone of Ashra, every curve of rock and packed earth. Nothing can harm me here. Only the wild animals need be avoided.

He follows a flashing blue firefly then, dangerously close to the edge. I wonder why he continues to veer so close now that he knows how to look for the silvery lip of the continent. Perhaps he’s fearless like me. Or perhaps he’s just foolish.

Now it’s as if he’s walking along a thin rope. My heart is fluttering. It wouldn’t do for my fiancé to drop off the side of the world. The Sargon wouldn’t be pleased, and neither would my father. “You’re too close, Jonash.”

He doesn’t answer, but stretches his arms out to the side to help balance. The fireflies shy away in clouds of twinkling light.

I take a step forward. “Jonash,” I try again. “Come away from the edge. The sheer crystal is slippery.” I take another step. “I’m sure it’s different on Burumu, but here...”

I don’t have a chance to finish my sentence. He begins toppling from side to side, and the horror claws at my insides. Before I realize it I’m leaping forward, throwing my arms around his waist to pull him into the tall grasses. He whirls around from the impact, the weight of him unbalancing my own footing.

I feel the scrape of the sharp crystals as they dig into my ankle, as my foot slips over the edge of the continent.

There’s no time to scream or think. My balance is off, and I’m falling backward, away from Jonash’s grim face. The lantern jangles against the cliff as it drops from my hand and tumbles sideways over the edge. Jonash’s hands on are my wrists, pulling them from his sides before we both go over. He falls stomach-down onto the grasses as my other foot slips over the side, shards of rock and dirt scraping the insides of my arms as I cling to the continent.

The cold wind gusts against me as I hang on. My feet swing and flail, but there’s nothing but air around them. The world is dark except for the glowing fireflies and the silver strip of crystal rock.

My wrists are slipping from Jonash’s fingers. I can barely breathe. “I can’t...”

“Kali, hang on,” he says. “Elisha! Help!” His shouts send the fireflies whirling in clouds.

I can hear Elisha yelling something, but my pulse is racing in my ears and I can’t make out a thing.

Jonash’s hands slide up my wrists, and he curls my fingers into the grasses and the thin layer of earth that clings to the bedrock. I grasp at them, but the grasses come up in handfuls. Is he that much of an idiot to think they’ll help keep me from falling? “Pull me up!” I scream at him.

The coolness of his fingers is gone, and the grass slips away. The edge of crystal rock scrapes the skin from the palms of my hands as I fall off the edge of the world.

I can hear screams, but I can’t tell if they’re mine. My body tumbles through the air, spinning over and over until I don’t know anything but cold gusts of black wind. The moons blink their stark white faces in a blur of light that tumbles over itself until I’m completely dizzy. The rainbow lights of the fireflies stretch away like stars until I see nothing but blackness.

I’m going to die. I’m going to hit the earth and the impact will kill me.

I can’t see in the darkness as I tumble round and round. I don’t know when I’ll hit, but it’s coming. I can’t tell if I’ve been falling for minutes or hours. The skirts of my dress are tangled around my legs. The wind whistles in my ears until I can’t hear or feel anything else.

I start to slow then, and the world stops tumbling. Have I died? They say when you die, the Phoenix burns a hole in the world and clasps you gently in her talons to take you away. But there’s no fire here, only cold air and a strange humming noise. And then a pale light spreads around me.

I look at my hand, drenched in a faint kaleidoscope of colors. It’s almost invisible, like when I catch a glimpse of rainbow light dancing on my hand from the ripples of Lake Agur. I’ve slowed so much it’s like floating in honey, the air thick and sluggish around me. I’m still falling, but drifting like a feather, buoyed gently down like I’m sinking into the lake.

And then there’s a strange sucking sound, and the rainbow lights waft from my fingers. I’m falling at full speed again, my back to the earth and my eyes cast upward. I look up at the two moons as they beam, unyieldingly bright in the sea of darkness.

I hear a great crash as if I’m in another world, and I feel a sharp pain everywhere at once. Then there is nothing but blackness and void.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.