“She’s right there, Tibal. I can see her, docked over your shoulder. She’s buoyant, and you wouldn’t stake her out there if she didn’t have navigation abilities, would you? I know you. You’d bring her in, deflate the sacks and lay out all her pieces to be put back together again.”
He glanced over his shoulder to the airdock that was the balcony of his room, and the little flier beyond, drifting lazily in the stale breeze. His bushy eyebrows raised, as if seeing it for the first time, and he nodded to himself.
“That’s the next step. Taking her apart to see what needs mending before I build her up again.”
“Tibal,” she said, “please.”
He blinked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. There was more between them than she could ever address in this moment – her questions about his heritage, her want to soothe his pain. But Tibal’d always been a practical man. She willed him to feel her desperation, to put aside the storm between them and help her now, when time was so crucial. He weighed the wrench in his hand, and nodded to himself.
“What do you need her for?”
She explained the Dame’s plans in brief – the fleet of Valatheans waiting on the northern coast, the messenger flying to them now with the terrible invitation to come, to set up their stakes in this city that had been so long independent of greater powers. Tibal pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Don’t see the point. And anyway, the Larkspur would get you there faster. Go talk to Pelkaia.”
“You know damned well Pelkaia’s moored to the north. She’s faster, but by the time I got to her the damage would already be done.” Ripka gave up on swallowing her anger and stepped closer, pushing Tibal back, letting her voice show her scorn. “Valathea comes in here, it won’t mean protection for the city. Reinforcements, sure, but Valatheans in the streets will just churn the waters for Thratia. I don’t know what happened to her to make her scorn them so, but she hates the empire – and seeing them set up in the city she desires won’t keep it safe. It’ll just encourage her to dig in deeper, to roll us all back into the sand.”
“Thratia’s rule, Valathea’s. Who says the Dame has a healthier grip on this city than either of those two forces? They all look the same from where I’m standing, don’t see much point in throwing in a chit with either faction.”
“You can’t mean that. You saw the terror Thratia infused in the streets. You heard Detan’s horror stories of his time in Valathea. Anyone – any institution – that would treat another human being like that, like tools, like puzzles meant to be broken out and pieced back together again, they’re not worthy of rule. The Hondings aren’t perfect but they’re willing to listen to their people – that’s the right path.”
“If they’re so keen on caring for their citizens, then why’s Detan running around willingly under Thratia’s power?”
“You know damned well he made that trade just to get us off the Remnant.”
“You weren’t there.” He flung the wrench to the side and it clanged against the hard stone floor. “You don’t know how his mind had changed leading up to that moment. If you’d seen him, if you’d heard him–” Tibal cut himself off, shook his head and scowled. “He left this city to rot, so why should we care what happens to it?”
“You mean he left you.”
They stared at one another hard, letting tension build between them until it was twisted up tight enough to snap. Enard cleared his throat delicately.
“The messenger?”
“Right. You got a choice, Tibal. You fly me after that messenger, now, or I take the flier on my own. No other option.”
His lip curled, and without another word he turned and stomped toward the dock. Ripka swallowed her guilt down. This was desperate, important, and she didn’t have time to argue about Detan’s motives.
Not so much as a rug softened Tibal’s room. Tools speckled the floor, and every available flat surface. His bed was smooth, the sheets pulled with military precision. She wondered if he’d made the bed, or if he simply hadn’t bothered sleeping in it.
The flier had been stripped down, every ding, every stain, every hint of the personality it had garnered over the years sanded away into so much dust. The sight of its wood, bare and gleaming as if new, in the harsh desert sun grew a knot in Ripka’s chest. Piece by piece, layer by layer. Tibal was excavating Detan from his life.
“Where is this damned messenger headed, exactly?” Tibal hauled ropes and manipulated the dozens of little wheels and levers attached to the nav podium Ripka still had only the fuzziest of ideas on how to use.
“Left the palace fleet docks and headed straight north, I’d guess. The Valathean delegates are anchored just off the coast.”
“Figures they’d stick to where the air’s cooler,” Tibal muttered to himself. “Yank the anchor rope, and let’s get this over with this. You got a plan?”
“Not yet,” she confessed.
Tibal snorted. “Bad habit.”
She ignored the jibe as she yanked the anchor rope free. The flier slid out into the hot sky, thready cloud cover doing little at all to shield them from the sun’s glare. Ripka wrapped her hair in a scarf, tugging the front of it out and down just enough to shade her eyes. Tibal had his hat, singed and grey, and Enard found a beaten old straw thing that looked ridiculous atop his perfectly coiffed black hair.
As the flier gained speed, wind cooled the sun’s bite. Knowing she risked a burn, Ripka tipped her head back to the sun, let the warmth of it seep through her skin straight to her bones. She liked to imagine the Scorched’s sun could erase the chill that’d taken root in her marrow during her time on the Remnant. Liked to imagine the warmth that had been a part of her life since her birth would welcome her home.
Months she’d been back on the mainland of the Scorched, and still she felt a chill ache in her fingers, a lingering stiffness in her knees.
“There’s our bird,” Enard said.
A sleek, thin-bellied flier painted brilliant russet smeared the blue of the sky like an old scab. From its buoyancy sacks flew brilliant banners boasting the seal of Hond Steading, and by extension its ruling family. A few other small craft dotted the sky, most dark and low and obviously behaving as ferries for goods or people. There was no other official ship in sight, and the narrow flier was straining hard for the north.
“Can we catch her?” she asked Tibal.
He rolled those wiry shoulders and cranked hard on the wheels, letting the fine gear ratios add urgency to the propellers. The flier lurched forward eagerly. “Hope you got a plan,” he said, but there was a gleam in his eye like hunger. Like he’d scented his prey and was warming to the hunt.
Ripka turned away so he wouldn’t see her smile. She positioned herself toward the fore of the flier, the semaphore flags for boarding gripped tight in her fists. She felt a little silly up there, wearing little more than snug-fitting breeches and a plain tunic in shades of ochre. Her arms were bare to the sun and the breeze, only the wrap around her hair giving her any real defense against the Scorched’s weather.
Without the borrowed authority of her watcher coat ensconcing her, she wondered just how she’d bluff her way through this. No weapons. No badge. No right to make any orders at all. She didn’t even have a fruitknife on her.
At the thought of kitchenware, her thoughts turned to Honey and she winced. She should have brought that woman along, instead of leaving her to her own devices in the palace – or worse, the city. Loyal as Honey was, there was no telling what she’d get up to if she grew too bored.