The First Mate’s barked orders sent the crew scurrying.

When the ship shuddered again, the deck fell out from under them. Unyielding bulwark knocked the air from Aralt’s lungs as he slammed onto his hands and knees, and his sight went to pinpricks. Someone hauled him by the arm, and he rolled aside as Tevin Keely crashed into the space he had moments before occupied. Scrambling to get his feet under him, he crab-walked his way to the bridge, pulling himself sideways through the door. He shielded his eyes against the interior light.

“Mariah!”

“Aye, the Dream’s not respondin’,” the pilot shouted over the din, conferring with his engineers as he worked the controls like a master musician. Mariah tapped at one gauge and then another, flipping switches. Hollow voices provided updates via the ship’s speakingtubes. “What do you mean the air-scoop’s malfunctioning? Who calibrated this thing? Thunder and lightning, man, get up into the envelope. I’ve got negative readings on the air valves and I’m losing the horizontal fins! Where the jig is my helmsman?”

Aralt flung back his hood and peeled off his goggles. “What can I do?”

Mariah barely spared him a glance. “Ever worked on a ship before?”

“Shite, Mariah. There’s a reason I own esri!”

“Can you turn a wheel?”

He pulled himself alongside the ship’s pilot. All throughout the cockpit, gleaming brass gears turned with geometric precision. “Tell me what to do.”

Mariah pointed at the tumbling wall of water directly in front of the viewport. “See that? Steer away from it! If we can correct the errors, we’ll just drop her fast and easy into the valley.”

“That does not sound easy.” He gritted his teeth as he hauled on the wheel, willing the flying machine to turn to starboard. Aurora resisted. He leaned all his weight into the task. Aurora shrieked.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” Mariah cried. “All right, then. Forget fast and easy. We crash gently but we walk away. Then I hunt up the glisterning, double-headed dirt nugget that calibrated these controls and I take him for a ride over open water!”

“If not?” Aralt asked, groaning with effort to prevent the ship from dashing herself on the cliffs.

“Hold her there! Hold her there!” Mariah stopped mashing controls, took a mallet from a drawer, and hammered on something that began to hiss. “I may be able to get you close enough to the base at the upper cascade before we lose too much altitude or get sucked into the falls, but you’re going to need to rappel. Or jump.”

Aralt stared at him, incredulous. “Jump? That sounds more like falling.”

“Falling’s what we’ll be doing if we’re pull into the falls. Sorry for the inconvenience—what is it with you and my ships, man?—but ye best get your people harnessed up while there’s still time. You there,” the pilot yelled as one of the crewmen stumbled by the bridge door. “Harnesses for our passengers. Now. And prep the handsails in case we need to abandon ship.”

A feather-brush against Aralt’s senses signaled Lian’s presence before he felt the light touch of the boy’s hand on his elbow. Though Lian said nothing, his dark eyes, magnified by goggles that covered half of his face, were wide with concern.

“Someone said we’re going to rappel?”

“Unless you have a better idea, aye. Do you?”

Lian’s gaze swept the control apparatus, and he laughed. “About this? Maybe if I had a teakettle and some harp string. No, I can’t do anything about this!”

It took self-control not to recoil at the view of the Weeping Wall just beyond the beveled glass window. “It has your soppy signature all over it.”

“I didn’t do this. Why would I do this?” The unspoken question of why anyone would do it hung ominously between them. “Did he tell you that he voided three contracts after he agreed to transport us? I heard the crew talking about it.”

“You voided three…? Why?” Aralt released the wheel into Mariah’s capable hands.

“It isn’t what you think, syr Tremayne. My allegiance has always been to—”

“They…objected,” Lian said. “To me.”

“Get used to it.” He assisted Lian with harness fittings designed for a full-grown man, testing the locking carabiner as he led the boy out of the cockpit. “Before, when the Shirahnyn ship was in Sylvan—”

Lian squirmed, hiking at the harness straps. “All I did, mostly, was amplify the jammer signal. Even if it was that and there was another ship out there—and there isn’t—that isn’t going to work again. They’ll have modulated the— What? I read a book about it.”

“Lian Kynsei, you are a lousy liar.”

“I guess I haven’t had enough practice.”

Aralt tightened the buckles with sharp pulls that made the boy wince. Served him right. “You’re sure there’s nothing you can do?”

A half-smile twisted across Lian’s face. “Do you doubt it?”

Aralt glowered. They had no time for mimicry.

“Syr Tremayne,” Mariah shouted over the gale. One of his mates had taken the wheel and he was on the main deck, orchestrating their escape. “Get your people ready! We’re not going to be able to hold this position for long.”

He ignored the burning sensation racing through every large muscle group as he looked down at their target, the wayfarer’s station at the base of the first cascade. “We’re still too high!”

“Any lower and I’ll land on your heads.”

“How do I know that isn’t what you planned all along?”

“By every holy thing,” Mariah told them, holding forth his star pendant before kissing it, “I swear it.”

“You heard the man,” he shouted at the others, hefting additional rope into the arms of the first two in line. “We’re getting off this ship!”

They descended quickly, veterans zipping to the ground with ease while clumsy novices fumbled at the midway point. When he turned to buckle Lian onto the line next to Scanlin, the boy was clear across the deck, his hands on Kress Mariah’s shoulders, and Kress Mariah on his knees, weeping. The ship rocked again, groaning like a wounded dragon.

“Lian!”

“He cannae hear ye o’er all this.” Scanlin drew on his gloves and tightened his goggles.

“Oh, he hears me all right.” That was the problem. He always heard. It was listening the boy was not good at.

Scanlin stepped out of line and ushered Tevin forward. “Down ye go, lad. Telta’s probably watchin’ the whole thing. Don’t flip o’er if ye don’t want her to mock ye to your grave.”

The pelting rain sounded like a herd of esri stampeding over a bridge. Lightning ripped across what had become increasingly angry skies. If only he time to analyze it, determine how it was different from what he now associated with Lian.

“Wolf?”

“Go on down and send up a flare so Kolarin’s squad knows we aren’t all dead. I’ll bring Lian myself.”

Scanlin clipped himself into place and straddled the railing as casually as he might ride a tame poni. He glanced over the edge. “Pity Deyr isn’t with us.”

“Why? He hates flying as much as I do.”

“Aye. I’d have liked seein’ ye push him o’er the edge. Builds character. And no doubt you’d feel better.”

“Next time,” he promised as Scanlin slid expertly away. “Lian, get your skinny arse over here!” He shifted his baldric as he clambered up onto the rail and gripped the ratlines for support. “We have to go.”

“What about Mariah and his crew?” The boy’s hood had blown back, and a long, tasseled cap snapped around him like a windsock. He pushed his goggles up. “I don’t want anyone else to die trying to protect me.”

Aralt sensed another lost opportunity, but there wasn’t time to ask who had died in defense of his kervallys. Men and women scurried in every direction as intent on saving the ship—and Lian—as the pilot. Or go down trying.

“Syr Tremayne!” Mariah hollered. “You need to quit this boat. You too, kavsa. Deep peace to you, Holiness. Remember the Sea. Remember the Dream.”

Aralt spun the boy to face him. “Don’t you see? They’re holding her together for you. So, you get off, you ken? Unless you’ve suddenly got a plan, we are out of time. Now get off, Kynsei boy!”

Lian drew himself to his full height before bowing his head in thanks just before the ship dropped out from under them again. Cargo crashed within the gondola, and gear skittered along the surface of the deck, carabiners clacking along the hardwood like dies cast on a gaming table. The ratlines pulled through Aralt’s hand, leaving him teetering on the slick surface of the railing before he plunged over the side of the deck, his rappelling line tearing through his hands. Pain ripped through his neck and shoulder as he slammed against the hull and dropped another hundred feet before he could slow his descent, swinging beneath the gondola as it swayed dangerously toward then away from his target. He gasped for breath; sight narrowed as he twisted in the breeze. A tug on the line halted his dizzying spiral. Scanlin, joined by two others, then a third, the lot of them playing a game of tug-o-war they could never win. He swung one leg over the rope, looping it around his ankle to steady himself.

“Lian!” he shouted, throat raw. “This would be a good time!”

But the boy wasn’t there. Unaccountably, the empty line nearest him slithered free of the ship above, dropping into the icy spray. Another snapped loose. Then two more, like hapless snakes carried aloft by birds of prey then dropped to their deaths. Unable to see what was happening onboard the ship, he began the arduous task of climbing back up.

More tethers snapped free until his was the only one left. He was still well below the bottom of the gondola when a body toppled over the rail, arms pinwheeling as the airman fell. He climbed faster, hand over hand, his arms burning with the effort.

“Go!” Mariah’s loud, low voice boomed. “Go, now!”

A moment later Lian was away, his borrowed coat flapping as he slid down the only remaining line. Unable to arrest his fall, the boy crashed into him, the impact making the line shudder. When the ship dropped yet again, they were in free-fall, the gondola bearing down on them. At the last moment, the Dream lurched, the line tore through the hands of the ground crew, and they whiplashed through the frigid water of the falls. The cold took his breath away a second time.

“Lian, give me your knife.”

“We’ll fall,” Lian sputtered. Somewhere between hurtling down the line and dragged through thousands of gallons of water, the boy had lost his hat, and his hair was all askew.

“The water’s deep here.”

“It isn’t the water I’m worried about.”

Aralt had to concur. Falling to his death on the rocks was not high on his list of life accomplishments. Landing on his sword wasn’t going to improve their day any, either. Sand and Sea! He fumbled with the catch on his baldric, finally yanking off his shredded glove with his teeth. His fingers, numb to the point of pain, refused to cooperate. Whatever Kress Mariah was doing—or trying to undo—the ship was screaming in protest. They were perilously near the falls. Aralt slid his scabbard free and prepared to throw it clear.

Lian gasped. “You can’t!”

“You think I want to? My grandfather gave me this sword. Your father was there for the Tuning. Hold on.” He pried his fingers open and released his grip on the carabiner, allowing them to slide down to the end of the rappelling line. They were still far enough above the roaring spray that the fall was going to hurt.

He drew a sharp breath and kissed the jeweled pommel of his sword before throwing it. With any luck, it would land on the east ledge above the lower cascade, and he would be able to retrieve it later. If not, he hoped Scanlin was watching and could grab it before it was lost forever. For a moment it rested safely on a level outcropping, water streaming in rivulets around the scabbard, pouring through the wolf’s-head quillons. Then it moved. And again, turning like a watch hand. He watched, helpless, as the water buoyed it up, time spun widdershins, and the sword clattered into the torrential river and was swept from view.

“Swords can be replaced.”

They were eye to eye, he and the boy, swinging helplessly in the shadow of the Aurora Dream II.

“That’s what Scanlin said to Deyr,” Lian told him, lip bloody from crashing into Aralt. He looked every bit the waterlogged ragamuffin he had been in Sylvan. “Swords can be replaced.”

Not all of them.

He drew his knife then, severing the line above his head in one screaming stroke. They plunged into the pool on the second tier of the falls, the rushing water sweeping them over the first of four drops, propelling them forward. He tore off his sodden coat as they spun, clawing for a handhold as he narrowly passed between boulders the size of siege engines. For a moment, his feet found purchase under the churning spray, and he threw his weight against the undertow, kicking free of the rappelling harness. Lian’s head bobbed in the spray as he swept past, his short legs kicking furiously against the current. A flash of light ripped through the clouds, transforming the dancing water into blinding shards of silver. The boy sputtered as he slammed into a boulder, and the undertow dragged him from sight.

Another flash of light lit the scene as rapidly moving clouds punctuated the day with waves of shadow. Between the rocks on the opposite side of the river, a lone figure stood in silhouette, a crest of feathers for hair, the glint of starbeads outlining a curved scabbard.

“Aralt!”

The sound of his name riveted his attention. There, clinging to the rocks as the current tugged at his long coat. His face…his face. Where had he gotten that look? A look only the dead should wear. Aralt shook the spray from his eyes, but he could not shake the memory of his brother, Kynlan, struggling in the water, his young face bloody, the bone exposed from temple to chin. The Shirahnyn? He searched the rocks, expecting…

“Aralt!”

“Hold on!” He used his baldric as a lifeline, wading deeper, stepping almost to the point of no return. He would only have one chance. They needed to get out of the water and into the tunnels behind the falls, hiding where their enemy would not follow. The womb of the earth, they called it. Crypt and cradle. “Hold on, Kynlan—”

Lian’s face, full of grief, replaced that of his brother.

I’m sorry…Aralt, I’m sorry…

Aralt’s chest tightened. He drew ragged breaths, eyes closed. Why did it have to be that place? That terrible, terrible place. Kynlan’s face sank in the waves, blood turning the water red with sorrow. Let go, Aralt. Let go, or you’ll lose both of us…

At the last moment, he wedged himself into the space between towering boulders where the water was shallower and the rocks were sharp. Someone called out as he reeled Lian to safety and they looked up in time to see the Aurora Dream II hurtle past them like a falling star. The ship vanished into the mist, crystal infrastructure shattering with an inhuman scream.

* * *