Diya’s eyes shot open with alarm, she gasped as if waking from a bad dream. To her immense surprise, rather than a prison cell, she was laying in what seemed to be some sort of cargo hold.

  When she tried to roll over, every bruise along her ribs announced itself like a choir of complaint.

  Alright, let’s just lay here for a second, I suppose. Diya mused.

  The ceiling above her was a patched sheet of canvas stretched over ribs of bent ion rod. A lantern swayed on its hook, casting light that willed the shadows to dance.

  She sat up too fast and her vision went black at the edges. The pallet she’d been laid on was tucked between rows of wooden crates in a cramped cabin.

  Someone had thought to throw a coat over her—a long, moth-nibbled captain’s coat with a shoulder badge she didn’t recognize. Her fingers found dried blood at her temple and the tender heat beneath it.

  Memory flooded over her like a broken dam. The square. The emerald lanterns and the first gunshot cracking everything apart. Rohan falling. Shikra’s scream. Hands dragging, the drag sending sparks up her arms, Arjun descending like an iron hawk with the future buzzing out of his mouth—

  Diya lurched to her feet, draping the coat over her sore shoulders. The cabin unsteadied around her with the gentle, yet stubborn tilt of something afloat. After examining the hold, she limped forward, pushing through a curtain of sailcloth that served as a door.

  An endless ocean of stars washed the deck of the airship in cold shades of cerulean. Cool and calm. The blackblood smell wafting up from the engines was faint, replaced by a cleaner, almost herbal smoke that seeped from a small brazier lashed to a post. Diya felt the frigid air on her face and was glad to have the heavy coat.

  And there, at the forward wheel, coat whipping with the wind, stood Tamsin.

  Her gaze met Diya’s and she tilted her head, offering a subtle nod.

  “What is this?” Diya asked. She didn’t recognize her own voice. It was stiff, and wavering. “Where—”

  “You’re aboard The Mourner,” Tamsin said, patting the wooden rim of the wheel. “And we just passed over the Gypsy Canyon River, though farther with every minute. I gave the wind a small bribe.” She nodded toward the sails above. The canvas strained against the gusting crosswinds. “It took it.”

  It all felt like too much. Her whole life Diya had refused ever to wear her feelings. It had always been preferable to don a mask of unbreakable granite than to have anyone worry about her, or even worse, feel sorry for her.

  Had the pressure finally grown too great? Has my inability to ask for help or express my true feelings finally led to an inevitable conclusion where I burst into a million sad pieces?

  Diya staggered toward her, every inch of her body tender and aching. Beneath them an opening in the clouds appeared and she saw, far below, a glimpse of the winding river and the shadowy form of the forest flanking it.

  “Rohan,” she whispered. She couldn’t stop her voice from trembling. “Shikra.”

  Tamsin’s hands tightened on the wheel. The wind wrapped a strand of her hair past her cheek, and she shook it away, still watching the horizon as if it might try something. “Time was of the essence. I only barely had enough to smuggle you out of the city before it got locked down.”

  Diya felt her stomach sink. She fell against the cold railing, staring at the horizon behind them. “You left him.”

  “I made a choice,” Tamsin said. “Things are now in motion that are far greater than any one person or township.”

  She didn’t understand, but even still, she didn’t care about any of that. Diya felt embarrassed by her feelings, but nameless faces meant nothing when weighed against those of her closest and oldest friends. “And Shikra?”

  Tamsin’s hard expression softened, revealing a hint of sorrow. A crack in the facade offering a small peek at the weariness that comes from carrying many difficult decisions. “She broke her tether before they could pin it. I saw her winging for the smoke at the edge of the ward. Birds know how to vanish better than men. I can’t swear she is whole. But I can swear she was alive when we made our escape.”

  The breath Diya had been holding went out in a shudder. It wasn’t comfort. But it was a splinter of it.

  She watched the clouds collapse and knit again. Did her best to allow the hum of The Mourner’s engines to drown out her guilty thoughts.

  Still, she felt disloyal for not being there. The people back there were hers. Not that she would have been much good to them rotting in a jail cell. And yet, that did little to lessen the guilt she felt. She wanted to steal the ship and set course for her home at once. Should she try?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Tamsin let the wheel rest. The Mourner adjusted itself, rigging groaning.

  “The woman you brought into your home hails from my Coven. I was searching your township the week you rescued her.”

  Diya’s eyes narrowed. “What were you searching for?”

  “I’ve been searching the world for…someone for a long time,” Tamsin said. “When I heard rumor of Zoralia surfacing in your township I felt an obligation to apprehend her. I knew just how cunning she was. How dangerous.”

  “What were her crimes?”

  “Zoralia has long been one of the most powerful and influential witches in my coven. A master of the scrying arts. But her views historically fell on the radical side of the pendulum. In recent years, she became convinced that the survival of our coven hinged on returning the moon goddess to our world.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a crime punishable by death.” Diya stated.

  “First, she isn’t the chief of our people and thus cannot choose the path of our coven,” Tamsin said, holding up two fingers. “And second, the cost of such a course has been viewed as unacceptable by our leaders for generations.”

  “What cost could be deemed too high to summon a literal goddess to our world?” Diya clicked her tongue, the question sounded ridiculous the moment it left her mouth, but she was curious.

  “Legends say that in order to return the moon goddess to our world, an ancient creature must be sacrificed. A creature like your ancient elephant Ghanesha.”

  “You’re saying I brought a zealous witch to my home who seeks to sacrifice the very place?” The puzzle pieces were clicking into place and Diya cursed under her breath. “We need to turn around at once and at least make an attempt to stop her!”

  Tamsin rolled her eyes. “In time, but not now. Look how well your last battle with Arjun went. I doubt he knows it, but he wields a weapon so volatile that it caused the collapse of an entire civilization. Zoralia pulled the strings on this somehow as a cover for her plot. We’re no match for them as we are.”

  Diya felt her blood boiling. “I can’t just fly away like a coward knowing she intends to destroy my home!”

  “We have time, girl.” Tamsin said. “She can’t attempt to summon the moon goddess until the winter eclipse. We have roughly six months until then.”

  She turned on Tamsin. “Why?” It came out too sharp. “Why save me? You didn’t even know me a week ago. You could have slipped away in the night and left my township to its fate.”

  “I’ve been searching for the one spoken of in my coven’s legends. And although it’s going to be like pulling teeth convincing the rest of the coven, I have reason to believe that person is you.”

  Maybe she was just exhausted, but wind and stars had a way of making nonsense sound a bit like prophecy. Diya rolled her eyes. “I’m entirely unremarkable. What’s so special about me?”

  Tamsin reached to a brass cup wedged by the wheel and poured from a kettle that had been sitting over the brazier. The steam rose and vanished immediately into the hungry air. She handed the cup to Diya. It smelled of bergamot and something floral, with a sweetness that might’ve been licorice.

  Diya didn’t trust it. But after the day she’d had, she drank anyway. It was a much-needed comfort, and she felt the warmth flow all the way down into her core.

  Tamsin spoke plainly. It made what she said feel heavier, like she knew it sounded insane, but she didn’t care. “Long ago my people flourished on the surface, there was a chief who communed with mother nature itself. He wrote out what she told him, it described how a stranger would one day come, she would be master of the skies, have eyes as different as the sun and the moon, and be despised by her own roof. She would learn to master all three aspects of our magic and be the chisel which reshapes this broken world.”

  Diya laughed, harder than she intended. “Master of the skies? I’m the youngest captain of an Air Force that as of today no longer exists. Partner to a bird I don’t even know for certain still breathes.”

  Tamsin took a long breath, before sipping her tea, only then did she meet her gaze with a single raised brow. “You’re too hard on yourself. I find it reassuring. I only hope your skin is suitably tough that my people won’t break you down.”

  The tea clung to her tongue as Diya stared at her. The witches words felt like fingers pointing her in a direction she hadn’t considered, a direction she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go. “And where are we going now?” she asked.

  “The ruins of New Avignon,” Tamsin said. “My people’s ancestral home.”

  The name struck a faint chord, Diya pouted, she had heard it in tavern talk, one of many ruined cities on the inhospitable surface. “So it’s true? Your people live on the surface?”

  “Always have.”

  “How do you coexist with the Skarlith?”

  “We have a relic filled with ancient magic that keeps them away.”

  Diya’s jaw dropped, the idea of humans living on the surface was too outrageous for her mind to process.

  Tamsin looked out at the stars. “Don’t worry about the Skarlith, we need to focus on the problem at hand, stopping Zoralia and Arjun. I feel it in my bones, you’re the key.”

  “You make it sound like you’ll… train me, give me the skills to defeat Arjun?” Diya asked, and the words felt absurd as soon as they fell from her mouth.

  “It will take a miracle for me to convince the coven that you just might be the promised one. If we can do that, you will get the opportunity to attempt the trials.” Tamsin smiled, brief and razor-thin. “Though, outsiders aren’t traditionally allowed into our city, let alone trained in our blood magic arts.”

  Diya drank the last of the tea. A piece of leaf came against her lip; she chewed it. It tasted bitter, then sweet. The warmth in her ribs felt less like a trick. “And if I decline your offer?”

  Now it was Tamsin’s turn to laugh, “then you doom not only your home, but likely the rest of the world with it.”

  “Nothing like a cup of tea to go with such a trivial decision.”

  Again, Tamsin laughed, and Diya realized that despite the circumstances, there was something about the woman she found endearing.

  “I figured the tea might make all this a touch easier to swallow,” Tamsin stated. “Now you should probably get some rest, we’ll reach New Avignon by dawn, and I suspect you’ll need your strength for what’s to come.”

  Diya’s eyes narrowed, “it’s always at dawn…”

  Just then, a familiar song cut through the wind and a warm hope washed through Diya, a thousand times more powerful than any tea.

  Mighty wings flapped and Shikra appeared from the clouds, coming to a graceful stop on the deck. Tears streamed down Diya’s cheeks, and she ran to her companion, arms wrapping tightly around her feathered friend.

  In that moment, she felt she could overcome any obstacle.