Chapter 1

An Opportunity

At the foot of the palace walls, Femira stumbled to a stop before the body of a dying stormguard. In the glow of the burning city she could see bones protruding from his gilded armour. His face was slick with blood.

You’ve seen people dying before, she thought, trying to look away and quelling the lump in her stomach. He should have a stormstone on him. That alone was more than enough for a single night’s work but she was here for a bigger haul, not some chip of stormstone stolen from a corpse.

The wind raged and violently broke against the walls of the palace. It tore at the few remaining banners on the towers and threatened to shatter the stained glass windows. Above, more stormguards flew about with their wings of wood and sailcloth. They wouldn’t be looking for a thief tonight, not with half the palace burning to the ground.

Opportunities like this don’t come around every day, she reminded herself.

She edged around the body of the dead stormguard and made her way through the jagged outcrops of rock to the base of the palace wall. It was an imposing height, far taller than anything she’d climbed before. The base was stone, to protect against the surf. Beneath that would be wood, reinforced with steel.

Only the poor build with stone, Lichtin had taught her. Those with something valuable are smart enough to use wood and steel to protect it.

She patted the pouch on her waist for reassurance that she had her climbing spikes. It had been a long time since she’d needed them but only a fool would come unprepared. She took a deep, controlled breath and placed a hand against the stone. She forcefully pressed her palm against the black surface, concentrating. Her hand began to vibrate, the familiar humming pulsation running up her arm. The earthstone hanging from a leather cord around her neck began to glow with a slight amber light.

She smirked as she felt the rock beneath her hand weaken and crumble. Her hand sunk inside the solid rock as if it were dry sand. She pulled it away, leaving a perfect handhold in the wall. There was no dust or flecks of stone. The rock had simply vanished at her touch.

She stepped up, placing her foot in the hole she had created. Both hands tingled with the earthstone’s power as she reached up and carved out another set of handholds. She climbed higher and higher. Femira could remember what it was like to climb before Lichtin had given her the earthstone, wedging the climbing spikes between bricks and hoisting herself higher, her feet always questing to find the smallest holds and ridges in the stone. It had been easier to go barefoot back then and the soles of her feet and toes were still thick with calluses as a result.

She was halfway to the top when the crashing began. She looked across to the bridge that connected the island palace to the rest of the city.

Shit, they’ve reached the gate already. If the Reldoni invaders got there first then all the good stuff would be snatched up. She quickened her pace, leaving a trail of perfectly formed footholds in the wall. The flashes of lightning intensified and the winds picked up, pushing her against the wall. Her dark hair—tied back in a tight braid—slapped against her face.

Can’t make mistakes now, keep going. Femira pressed herself out from the wall, pushing against the force of the wind. She reached up, climbing higher. She was sweating, her breaths short and ragged. Heights had never scared her but climbed two hundred feet with the full force of the Altasjura storms threatening to throw her off. She could hear the surf crashing against the rocks at the base of the palace, but looking below she could only see darkness. Neither Ecko or Luna’s moonlight could break through the storm clouds.

Almost there! Femira couldn’t see the top but she knew it couldn’t be much further. She climbed higher, her shoulders and arms straining. Her exposed hands were numb from the rain and wind, dulling the thrum of the earthstone’s power in her hands. She could feel it stronger now in her chest, as if someone were playing brass instruments not too far away. The earthstone shone more brightly now. On a normal night the stormguards would have long since spotted her.

Her brothers would have said it was too reckless, sneaking into the palace when it was under attack but Femira was desperate. She needed something valuable. Something that could pay her way out from under Lichtin’s boot. Her debt to him was far too high for her to pay off by cutting purses. This was her best chance at finally being free of him.

She reached up, placing her hand against the wall, expecting it to disintegrate as she pressed against it but it held firm. Confused with fatigue, she almost slipped. She looked up, there was no more rock and the wall rose only a few feet higher. The parapets at the top of the wall were steel. The earthstone could dissolve metal like it did rock but the process was much slower, it would take her hours to form a single handhold in the metal. Too slow. Beneath her, she could see that the invaders had broken through the gate and were swarming inside. Shit! She could hear guards running across the top of the wall only a few feet above. Time for a gamble.

“Hey!” her voice broke, it was weaker than she expected. “Help!” she called louder. “Please someone help me!” There was no reply. But she could still hear the sound of men through the howling winds. “Someone please help me!” she shouted.

“What are you doing?” A reply! You can do this Femira. “Help! The wind—it pushed me off the wall, please I don’t want to die!”

“We’re all going to die” another voice replied. “Leave her, we don’t have time,” another voice. How many of them are up there?

“You go on ahead, inform the captain they’ve breached the inner gate, they’re going straight for the mines,” said the first voice, though it was hard to tell with the wind. “I’m going to pull you up, hang on.” She waited, she could hear the clanking of the steel as the other armoured guards continued on.

Within moments a rope dropped beside her.

“Thank you,” she shouted, in a perfect imitation of a highborn Altarean accent. She gripped the rope with both hands. They were still numb and she didn’t fully trust them with her weight but she had committed to this. She pushed out from her footholds and let the stormguard pull her to the top of the parapet.

“What were you doing out here?” he asked, stepping back after pulling her over the lip of the parapet, “can’t you see we’re under attack? Get to the mines with all the other—” he cut off. With her dark skin she could never pass for an Altarean highborn and her black tight-fitted climbing gear along the glowing light of the earthstone around her neck was clearly not the garb of a servant.

His curved sword was already out from its scabbard. She reached into her belt pouch, “Sorry about this,” she said and threw her climbing spikes at his face as she spun and ran. She didn’t bother looking back to see if they landed, he was a stormguard, not a chance they hit him. She was no fighter but she was small and nimble. Her legs were weak from the climb but adrenaline was kicking in, she raced along the wall walk. She felt a very sudden strong wind smash against her face, slowing her pace. Oh fuck, right. Stormguard. She glanced over her shoulder, he was chasing her, his blade raised.

Time for something drastic.

She dropped to her knees, the parapets were steel but the walkway itself was stone. Please let me be right about this. Her hands vibrated as she pushed down against the floor, pulling as much power from the earthstone as she could. The stone beneath her began to crumble, the weaker stone between the tiles disintegrating faster. The floor shifted but didn’t fall through.

Come on!

The stormguard leapt at her, his sword arching back. She pushed down with all of her physical force and the power of the earthstone. She could hear the stormguard shouting over the howling wind. Her braid whipped about and then she was falling. She fell through dust for what could only have been half of a second. Instinctively, her arms shot up to protect her face as she hit the ground with a thud, pain flaring in her hip as she landed.

She regained her wits quickly and rolled to the side, a cloud of stone dust surrounding her.

No time to wait. She jumped up and ran, her injured hip protesting at the sudden movement. The room was dark but she had the faint light of the earthstone to guide her so she ran. She glanced up to the ceiling where she fell through but she tripped over something hard as she did, crumbling again to the ground. Her hip screamed out in pain but she didn’t waste any time, rolling and stumbling back to her feet, she continued running.

She hit a wall, squaring her face against the flat stone. There was sharp blinding pain in her nose and she fell back. Disoriented, she rolled to avoid any attack from the stormguard. Nothing. She stopped for a brief second, there were no immediate sounds. There was wind outside, the thrumming of battering rams against gates in the distance but there was no noise inside the room short of her own ragged breaths. She looked about, the dust was settling in the rays of moonlight beneath the hole she had created in the ceiling.

Where’s the guard? Tentatively, she rose to her feet and limped slowly back to the hole, carefully staying in the shadows as she peeked up. There was nothing up there.

A crash sounded in the distance along with faint cries of fighting men. She looked around again but the room was empty. She grinned, smugly.

Handled that well. Best burglar in all of Altarea. She scanned the dark room looking for an exit, breaking into the palace itself and didn’t even get caught… well, barely caught. Using the tawny amber light of the earthstone, she inspected the room. She couldn’t tell what the room had ever been used for in the past, there was furniture piled about haphazardly. Likely just for storage, this wasn’t where she was supposed to be. The stormguard that Lichtin had paid off said that they keep the best stuff stockpiled in the mine. That’s where she needed to be.

***

The Altarean palace was built atop two enormous sea stacks. The crevasse that separated the two stacks split the heart of the Altarean palace. Darza watched the swirling blue and black clouds of the storm from atop the arcing bridge that stretched out over the crevasse, connecting the two stacks. With the light of the blue flashes of lightning above and the red glow from the surrounding fires, Darza could see that the palace was lost.

The Reldoni had breached the gate and now men fought atop the battlements and along the walls. It would only be a matter of time before they reached the bridge. For three decades, Darza and his division had guarded the bridge and never in those thirty years had a force this size breached the palace walls. In truth, his men were more of a ceremonial likeness than they were fighters. Their blue stormguard uniforms were pressed and clean, their gilded armour had never even been dented, their spears with a silk cloth tied beneath the blade had never shed blood. Darza himself hadn’t even used the stormstone that hung from a silver chain about his neck since his promotion to captain.

From stairwells and shattered doorways, the invaders flooded into the central courtyard at the base of the bridge. In the dim light, their armour seemed made of darkness. They were like an army of demons, swarming on the remaining defenders and swiftly overwhelming the Palace stormguards. Some of his people were beginning to flee, using their stormstones to lift themselves out of the courtyard and up to the castle walls, most fell to archers and the few gunmen, the rest from the invaders already waiting on the battlements.

“What do we do, Captain?” Enoi aked, his voice strained, frightened.

“There’s nothing we can do. The palace is lost… it’s only a matter of time,” he turned to face his men, men he had known for most of his life. There were only fourteen of them and normally they were spread in pairs at the gaslamps spread across the expanse of the long bridge. Now they were clustered at the centre of the bridge, all wore worried faces.

“I won’t ask any of you to stay,” he began, “though I’m not sure where else you could go.” They all wore glowing purple stormstones around their necks but none of them were particularly skilled flyers, “those archers will get you if you go up, and down there,” he indicated the mammoth stone doors on their side of the bridge, “there’s nothing in there that can help us but there are innocent people in there; the children, the old, the weak. I don’t know what it is these bastards want but I don’t want them cutting down all those innocent people to get to it.” There were murmurs of agreement. They weren’t heroes but they were good, honest men.

“Do you have a plan?” Enoi asked, like Darza, he was a greying man and far past his prime.

He kept his voice neutral, trying to sound calm, “At each of our guardstands there’s enough drakan-oil to power the lights for a year,” he could see some of them nodding, understanding where he was going. “If we gather all of it here, at the weakest point, we can blow this damn bridge up and hopefully burn a few of those bastards while we’re at it.” They didn’t need convincing, this was the only way they could defend the mines and one of the few ways that didn’t involve them actually having to fight.

“It won’t hold them off!” Juren shouted from the back of the pack, “The palace is lost, we should run!”

“To where?!” Enoi shouted back, “You heard the captain, you’ve seen how those gunmen picked off the others. And besides, Juren, I’ve seen you fly and I doubt you’ll even make it over the chasm. I’m with the captain!” Enoi wasted no time as he opened the base of the gaslamp and pulled out the casket of drakan-oil. With the only opposition stilled, the others swiftly returned to their posts to retrieve the caskets. Within minutes all were back and the caskets piled atop of each other at the center of the bridge.

Darza and his men retreated back to the entrance of the mines. He held a bow with a notched arrow with its tip wrapped in cloth. He hovered it near the gaslamp, waiting. It didn’t take long for the Reldoni to make their way through the courtyard, picking off the last of the stormguards. Those brave souls, Darza thought with a confusing blend of jealousy, pity and fear.

The first of the soldiers began to race across the bridge. The chasm was wide enough that their archers and gunmen wouldn’t be able to hit Darza and his men, not with the storms still raging, blowing arrows about every which way. He wasn’t sure how well rifles aimed in the wind but from what he’d heard their precision was poor at the best of times.

They neared the center of the bridge, some of them slowing as they saw the pile of wooden crates. The zenith of the bridge was where it thinned, it was the best place to ensure there was a collapse. Darza tentatively danced the arrow over the gaslamp, the rag caught alight quickly. He took a breath, trying to calm himself. He reached out with his stormstone and felt the rush of the power flood over him, the command of the winds. The winds picked up behind him and he let loose, the torrents of the wind carrying the flaming arrow onward, guiding it—protecting it.

***

The blast was deafening, Femira watched as the only bridge to the mines erupted in a blast of green and purple flame. Chunks of stone disappeared down into the dark chasm below along with her plan to sneak into the mines by climbing along the edge. She had already made her way along the side of the inner wall, leaving behind a trail of earthstone-carved handholds.

She wasn’t far from where the bridge connected to the palace wall. She couldn’t see the invaders from where she clung but she knew they would already be forming a plan to get across the crevasse to the other stack so she would have to act quickly. She changed her course, now climbing up to the top of the wall. Normally, her muscles would have long since given up but adrenaline was keeping her going.

She crested the top of the inner wall where the bodies of stormguards littered the walkway. Some of them looked like hedgehogs; they had so many arrows protruding from them. She raced along the walltop at a crouch and reached where it joined with the main walls at the central courtyard. She could hear incoherent shouting and clanking of armour and swords.

Hesitantly, she peeked over the parapet. The courtyard was full to the brim with the invaders. She watched as more began to enter from the gates, carrying broken doors, furniture and other scrap, they were stockpiling it in the centre of the courtyard. They’re building a bridge. She realised. Good, that gives me more time. She looked over the horde, she would never be able to count how many there were but there was enough that they would have the bridge ready soon.

So maybe not that much time.

She crept away from the edge and back along the walltop, giving herself a safe distance from the courtyard to think.

Is it really that far? She thought, looking out across the chasm to the mines. It looked to be about three hundred feet to the outcrop of the mine entrance, not really that far and it looked even closer further to right, at the other side from where the bridge had been. The dark chasm below was a foreboding sight, there would be no coming back from a fall down there.

If she had a bow she could shoot a rope over and slide across, but where would she find a bow? She would never have thought to bring one, or even buy one for that matter. Where do you even buy a bow? Or in her case steal one. The barracks I guess, but that’s in the palace. She paused and looked around at the bodies, there were bows littered everywhere. She grinned and picked one up.

This would be easy, she’ll do one test shot to see if it can reach the distance and then look around for some rope. She held the bow and tried to knock an arrow. How is this even supposed to work? There’s not even a notch for the arrow to fit on the string. Am I supposed to hold it in place? She fumbled for a few moments before managing to draw back the bowstring. She pulled the string back as far as she could and helf the arrow mostly straight with the same hand.

Ok, let’s do this. She closed one eye and aimed toward the mines, it’s just like a slingshot. She released the bowstring; it snapped back and whacked against the hand holding the bow. “Shit, that hurts,” she grumbled, dropping the bow and rubbing her hand. The arrow didn’t even clear the parapet wall, it lay within arms reach in front of her. Maybe archery's not my best skill. Or it could have been a dud bow, maybe one of these other ones is better.

She picked through bodies, looking for a better bow. They were all the same. However, one body seemed a little different, his armour was made of lacquered wood and he wore strange goggles. There was also an arrow sticking out of his head, but that wasn’t that unusual considering she was the only person on the wall without an arrow stuck in her somewhere. His body lay atop a large contraption of wood and thick cloth.

A stormsail! She realised with excitement and began unclipping the straps of the man’s armour and poking around underneath. People liked to keep their runestones hidden, but nearly everyone always kept them in the same place, hung around the neck on a cord or in an inner pocket. Best place to keep your stones is in your boot, Lichtin always said.

That’s why this one always smells like feet. She glanced down at the stone around her neck. She had it out tonight as it had a dim light which was useful on dark nights, not as bright as a gaslamp or a torch but better than relying on moonlight. Her hand clasped around a small lump in a secret pocket in the stormguard’s shirt. She pulled out the chip of stormstone, it glowed with a faint purple light and was about the size of her fingernail. A stormstone this size was worth a fortune to a girl who lived in a cellar. She jumped up with a grin and lifted out the stormsail from beneath the dead guard. Hefting it over her shoulder, she walked to the edge of the walltop.

The stormsail was a large wooden kite with a light sailcloth, the stormguards used them to ride the winds. She looked over the edge, down the chasm and felt her chest tighten. You can do this. She looked at the stormstone in her hand, she had never used one before. Maybe it wasn't much different to her earthstone? With her earthstone, she would feel a vibration in her hand when touched against rock. If she pressed against the rock it would dissolve away. Maybe with the stormstone it was the same? Except instead of dissolving rock, it’s making the wind lift her into the sky. Simple! Maybe she could dissolve the air above her, and that would cause wind to push her into the empty space the air had been?

That makes sense, right?

She clasped the stormstone tight in her hand and reached her other hand out into the air. She waited… Nothing. No vibrations, no tingling, just the feeling of the wind blowing about as it had been. How do they do this? She closed her eyes and squeezed the stone tightly, its jagged edges biting into her palm. She waited for a few moments but she still felt nothing and then there was a crash.

Her eyes snapped open, the noise was to her left. Oh no, they’ve finished the bridge. It was the sound of the makeshift bridge dropping against the other side of the chasm. Out of time. She made a rash decision, she always worked best with quick decisions. She tucked the stormstone into her waist pouch, the one that normally held her climbing spikes and climbed over the parapet wall, clutching the storm-sail. The wind still raged, it was coming from behind her.

Now or never.

She might not even need the stormstone’s power for this. She gripped the two handles of the storm-sail and lept out.