The airship Wanderlust sailed on a sea of clouds.

Ryn and Nuthea sat in the small viewing bubble built into the underside of the ship, watching the clouds and, further below, the landscape passing underneath as it was veiled and revealed by them. The viewing bubble was made of reinforced glass, on which they rested their feet as they sat on a wooden bench built across it. A speaking-tube came out of the ceiling that a lookout could talk into for their voice to be carried to another speaking-tube on the ship’s raised forecastle.

Really designed just for one person to sit in, the viewing bubble was not quite big enough for two. Ryn was sure that Captain Sagar had only sent them down here to do the job of one person in order to keep them out of the way and prevent the crew from asking them any more awkward questions.

He sat rigid and tried not to brush Nuthea with his elbow. It was difficult.

This time, she was giving him a geography lesson.

“So we are currently flying over the Isle of Efstan,” she said. “You see those rolling green fields? They’re what Efstan’s famous for.”

“Well, I know that much,” said Ryn, not wanting to seem completely ignorant. “My hometown is…was in Efstan, after all.” He blinked away the images of burning buildings that flared up in his mind’s eye, then looked for the next question to distract him. “Where are we heading now, then? Where is your homeland?”

“Well, as I was saying, Manolia is situated on the much larger neighbouring land mass of Zokan. That’s where we’re heading. Soon enough, you’ll see, after we cross the Leviathan’s Channel the landscape will become much more varied and interesting, even mountainous in some places. And after we cross the Pelnian mountains, Manolia is a peninsula the juts into the Sundering Sea.”

“If that’s where you’re from, how did you end up all the way out here?” Ryn actually knew the answer to this question, but he wanted to keep Nuthea talking to distract himself from the intrusive memories that kept popping into his head.

“Don’t you ever listen?” She looked up from the clouds and fields below them for a moment and frowned at Ryn, her noble forehead creasing. “I was on an undercover diplomatic mission in nearby Imfis, in the north of Zokan, when the Imperials discovered and captured me.”

“But what were you doing on the mission?”

Nuthea’s eyes narrowed. She paused for moment. “I suppose I can tell you because you’re jewel-touched.” She adjusted the circlet she wore underneath her golden hair. “I was trying to engineer an alliance with them.”

“Why do you need to make an alliance with them?”

“We don’t, necessarily. But…” Nuthea dropped her voice, even though between the background thrum of the ship’s engines and the whistle of air beneath the hull nobody else would have the faintest hope of hearing her. “As you’ve seen, the Emperor of Morekemia has learned of the Jewels. He has begun to search for them, and his power and dominion are growing even now. He cannot be allowed to gather them all together. So any nations who have knowledge of the locations of our Jewels must band together to stop him.”

“What would happen if the Emperor gathered together all of the Jewels?”

Nuthea’s voice went even lower. “Didn’t I tell you that before? If someone, anyone, gathers all of the Jewels together, the legend says they will be granted unbelievable, unfathomable power. Command over every basic element of which Mid is composed. They would be practically omnipotent--all powerful.”

Nuthea gazed back out of the glass of the viewing bubble, her voice trailing off. Ryn followed her gaze down through the wisps of white and over the passing patchwork.

All powerful... Maybe they could grant the power to bring my parents back. My friends. My town. But no...that’s impossible. Maybe they could grant the power to find out if that General is still alive…

Just then something inside Ryn’s heart shifted. Where it had been numb and cold with grief, a small spark now lit within it. The numbness and the cold were still there, to be sure, but now there was a fragile flickering flame warming them too. A flame of desire. A flame of hope. A flame of purpose. He knew what he had to do.

He had to find and get revenge on the Imperial General who killed his mother.

At that same moment, the landscape shifted too. Without warning, the distant green fields below them gave way to a vast expanse of blue that stretched out below them further than they could see.

“Hey, look!” cried Nuthea. “The Leviathan’s Channel!”

It was mainly a deep blue, the colour of blueberries, but here and there it was lighter where the sunshine fell on it, or darker where the clouds obscured it, patches of shadow gliding over its surface. The surface itself shifted and glittered, fragments of white foam rising and falling over it, which Ryn realised were waves.

“It’s beautiful…” he muttered.

“Well, you use that word very freely,” Nuthea said, glancing sidelong at him. “You act like you’ve never seen it before.”

Ryn looked at her.

“Oh.”

“How long will it take us to get to Manolia?” he asked.

“With a full tank of fuel and a good wind...it should be about two days’ flying. We should make Zokan by nightfall of today, and Manolia by the end of tomorrow...”

They spent most of the rest of the day like that, sat together in the viewing bubble, watching the sea pass by, with Ryn asking Nuthea questions about the world below to keep his mind away from his memories and Nuthea being only too happy to enlighten him. They didn’t even go abovedeck to eat; instead a grumpy looking sailor came down and shoved a couple of plates of salt beef into their hands, then came back half an hour later to collect them. As they watched the sea gradually it, and the sky around them, grew darker, and the blue got deeper.

The shadow of a coastline appeared. And, right at its edge, a cluster of fireflies arrayed in a circle.

“At last,” said Nuthea, rubbing her back. “We’ve reached Zokan. Those are the lights of a port.”

A low buzzing noise joined the thrum of the engine, and Ryn’s stomach lurched as he felt the ship begin to descend.

“What?” said Nuthea. “We shouldn’t be landing already! We’ve got at least a day until we reach Manolia!”

She stood and dashed up the wooden steps that led out of the viewing-bubble chamber.

Ryn watched her go. Before they had sighted the coastline, she had been in the middle of educating him about the Twelve Peoples of Mid. For once, she had forgotten her lesson completely.

He stood too, then rubbed his thighs when they ached. Sitting in one place for the whole day had not been kind to his legs and backside.

He followed Nuthea up the steps to the underdeck and then up another set of steps to the maindeck, passing the little cupboard where they had first been thrown by the pirates during their battle with the Imperials.

Abovedeck, Ryn immediately noticed that the crew were a lot less busy than before. Many of them were standing at the rail, looking out at the firefly-lights and pointing.

Sagar was up on the reardeck, behind the big ship’s wheel.

“Why are we going down?” Nuthea demanded of him from the maindeck over the sound of the air rushing past. “We haven’t reached Manolia yet. We won’t for at least another day.”

Sagar didn’t even look at her. “Simple! We salvaged a lot of bounty from that Imperial ship we took down”--his eyes flicked to Nuthea just for a moment--“a lot of bounty, but sadly fuel was not part of it. In fact, we blew up her fuel tank, which is what brought her down in the end. Now we need to refuel.”

“Can’t you keep going any longer on your current level? We need to reach Manolia as soon as possible.”

“No.”

“I will give you more money.”

“Not going to work, miss. Or ‘princess’. Or whatever you are. We need fuel. And that’s that.”

Nuthea marched up the steps to join Sagar on the reardeck. Ryn went after her.

“I can’t believe that you already need to refuel,” she said as the Captain continued to take the ship down. “I need to get back to Manolia as quickly as possible. You should have had enough for a return voyage. Where did you set out from anyway?”

She was quite stubborn really.

“Rrrr,” Sagar said quietly, still looking straight ahead. “Will you shut up? I’m not just refueling--Wanderlust needs some repairs too.”

Ryn’s heart missed a beat.

“You mean there’s something wrong with the ship?” Nuthea voiced his concern for him.

A couple of the skysailors looked round at them from where they stood by the rail on the maindeck.

Sagar’s jaw stiffened. “Not so loud, princess,” he said through gritted teeth. “No, the ship’s absolutely fine!” he said more loudly. “We just need fuel, that’s all!”

The sailors turned back round.

“What’s wrong with the ship?” Ryn asked, keeping his voice low.

“Look; pup, princess,” said Sagar, “When you’re in a major battle with an Imperial vessel, you don’t come out of it unscathed. We had the jump on them and we made quick work of them in the end, but the hull sustained some heavy cannonfire in the process. It wouldn’t be so bad, except one of our fuel lines to the turbines got hit. We’re not just low on fuel, we’re leaking it.”

“Oh,” said Nuthea.

A pause.

“Why don’t you tell your men?” asked Ryn.

Sagar squinted at him with his one exposed eye. “You wouldn’t understand, pup. When you’re a fearsome skypirate captain like me, you have a certain reputation to preserve….”

“What you mean is,” said Nuthea, “that your crew barely follow your orders at the best of times, so you don’t want them to know that you’re only just holding your ship aloft.”

Sagar didn’t say anything back. But even in the darkness he seemed to turn a shade redder.

“Can’t your engineer fix the fuel line?” Nuthea pressed.

“Well, normally he would, princess, but there’s just one small problem getting in his way at the moment.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s dead.”