Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (8 page)

“I sometimes wonder, my faithful friend.” Ino Nami’s voice carried to me with ease, giving me the impression she faced me once again. Her tone softened, which with Ino Nami was a bad thing, something I’d learned at an early age. “Which side of this war you’re on.”

Yotaka’s footsteps led away from my hiding place. “You know as well as any of us that we have no choice. We are all slaves to the bond.
You
control us through your bond.”

That…that didn’t make sense.

She expelled a tight breath, her steps following his. “Do you think he would come out of hiding if I message him? Tell him his half-blood sister is about to die?”

If she did that, what
would
my response be? Would that give me the invitation I needed?

“I believe,” Yotaka said, “that were you to release that information, you would have a fight on your hands. Do you wish to draw him here peacefully, or at war?”

“I could swat that child. I have more power in my city than he does in his entire league.”

“As that may be,
Sama
Nami
.
” Yotaka bowed his head. “How do you wish to draw him out and what do you intend?”

She released a long sigh. “Call Tokarz. Bring him into the battle. Let him trumpet his triumph of destroying the El’Asim Family from the sky. If Synn thinks he can hide in a storm all night, he is wrong. Why hasn’t he at least made contact with the city? I thought for sure he’d make a sniveling plea to maintain peace while making a dramatic act of protecting me.”

Yotaka flicked a hand inside his sleeve. “Perhaps he is busy.”

“Or perhaps he can’t be made to pay his mother a visit while her city is under attack.”

“You ordered the attack on your city.”

“He does not know that.”

“No.” Yotaka sighed. “He does not.”

Someone touched my arm with hesitant fingers.

I shot my attention in the direction of the newcomer.

A woman a good head shorter than me and immaculately dressed in Ino’s colors stared at me with big, frightened brown eyes. Her gaze darted in the direction of the command room, then toward the door.

I nodded once, looked to the command room to see where everyone’s attention was, and ducked out of the room.

A guard stood at the elevator.

My Mark hissed as I called it.

He lifted a hand, palm down. “Are you all right?” he whispered to the woman.

She walked around me, her soft-soled feet making no sound. “We must hurry. Oki needs your help.”

I narrowed my gaze and kept my voice low. “Who are you?”

“She is your sister’s best friend,” the man answered, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.

“Chie?” I glanced over my shoulder, my breath relaxing in my chest. Someone to trust. “I hadn’t realized so much time had passed. You’ve grown.”

She ducked her head. “I hope you have as well.”

Only time would tell. “You must be Hitoshi, then.”

He nodded, his lips flat.

Finally, luck. Or, perhaps, not luck, but adaptability on their part. “Do you know where my sister is?”

Hitoshi nodded.

“There will also be a blood purge,” I said softly.

Chie turned to her husband, her lips tight as if to say, “I told you so.”

“I have a vessel that can fit two hundred if we keep quarters tight.” But how was I going to get invited?

All I had to do was call her and “make a sniveling plea to maintain peace while making a dramatic act of protecting” her. I didn’t like it, but I could make it work.

“I’ll call Ino Nami when I get back to my ship. I’ll beg entry to the docks. You secret your people onto the ship while I’m with Ino Nami.”

Hitoshi released a shaky breath. “How will you get back to your ship?”

“The same way I came. Please tell me that you can get my sister out of whatever cell Mother put her in and onto my ship while I’m keeping Ino Nami busy.”

“Kenta is working to free her as we speak,” Chie whispered, her voice trembling. “Synn, thank you.”

I saw the girl I remembered in the woman before me in that moment. “I’ll do what I can.”

Hitoshi nodded once. “We’ll relay the rally point.”

I stepped away, my attention on the open ceiling.
Du’a.

Already communicating to Fajr.

Jamilah’s falcon. Excellent. “I will bring my ship—”

“Is it truly as big as they say?” Hitoshi whispered after me.

I looked at him over my shoulder. “Yes.” I didn’t know what anyone had said, but I’d just told him we could take two hundred people. If that wasn’t answer enough for him, I didn’t know what would suffice.

I unfurled my wings, called upon the essence of my Mark, not the heat of it, and leapt into the air. My mechanical wings beat once, twice, and on the third beat, the air was mine. Circling back, Hitoshi and Chie were nowhere to be seen.

I ducked over the exterior wall and shot under the hood of Ino’s
lethara
, Du’a at my wingtip.
I need the Layal to meet the Maizah. Tell the Umira Nuru to relocate.

He is not well suited for that ship.

It will not be our greatest play of strength, no. However, we need the space and I cannot allow Ino Nami to see exactly how strong we are. Tell Ryo to hold back. I need all the other ships to hold back. The less she knows, the better.

And Iszak Tokarz?

I glanced at the falcon as we dove for the ocean.
He’s bait. We cannot allow ourselves to be tempted.

She turned her elegant head away, but a feeling of pride filtered between our tentative bond.

I didn’t understand the game Ino Nami played.

But that didn’t mean I’d be blindly led either.

T
HE
L
AYAL
GAINED ALTITUDE WITHIN
the body of the storm.

Lightning flared to my right, the thunder rumbling around me, vibrating my chest.

Her wide body towered overhead. The thermal I coasted on disappeared as a gust threw me toward the raging center of the storm.

I flexed my mechanical wings, the rest of my body stiffening as though it could assist. Wind, rain, and dark clouds twisted upward in a deafening tornado. If I didn’t watch it, I’d be sucked into that with nothing more to protect me than whips of lava which were completely useless when battling a cloud.

The side galley doors rose.

I pushed with as much power as I thought my wings could handle and struggled against the pull of the wind.

Within about thirty metres, the terrible pull released me. I shot into the galley with a great deal more speed than I’d anticipated.

Haji’s troops fell to crouched positions, their arms raised to shield their heads.

I held my shriek of surprise to myself and beat madly with my wings to control my flight into the wall.

Du’a offered a guiding presence, her mind showing my body how to aid my wings, my Mark how to properly control them. If I hadn’t bonded to a bird who could give me such intuitive information, I never would have mastered flight.

I snorted to myself, dusting myself off. Mastered. Right.

Wind tore through the wide space, but it was much quieter in there than outside. My ears rang with the quiet.

Haji let out a long sigh, his expression dry as he came to stand beside me. His dark hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, his dark eyes focused. His leather armor fit him snug. He’d come a long way in the past several months. He’d fleshed out and become a man, a warrior. “Tell me you did that on purpose.”

His men and women glared at me, and shook their heads with smiles of mirth at their leader.

“I wish.” I wrestled with the metal buckle. Looking at it, I saw the problem. In my battle with the wind, my Mark had fused the buckle together. “The winds inside the storm are brutal.”

Haji’s expression grew even drier. “That this surprises you should amaze me. That’s a Class Three storm, Synn. No one has flown inside a Class Three storm.”

I called up my Mark and sliced through the leather strap. I would have to find something else, something that I wouldn’t destroy each time I wore it. “Not that we’ve heard of, Haj. But remember, there was a tribe who lived inside the storms.”

“With flying ships with sails.” He shook his head. “No. They did not fly in a storm like this one.”

He was probably right. Shedding the flight suit, I walked along the catwalks toward the command dome.

Haji met me step for step. “Why are you removing us from play?”

“We go to Ino City.”

“Which is under attack.”

“Not really. And besides, you’re land fighters, Haji. You’re ill-suited to battle on the ocean.”

“You forget, Synn, a
lethara
has a lot of flat space, which we are more than suited to fight on.”

I stopped, holding my hand up. “The fight isn’t real.”

“What do you mean?”

I almost couldn’t believe the information about to leave my mouth. “Ino Nami commanded Balbir Shankara to attack her city to draw me out.”

“No.”

“Yes.” I released a long breath through my nose. “And that’s not all. She’s issuing a blood purge on her city, starting with my sister.”

“What?” Haji’s long face folded in stupefied disbelief. “No.”

“Yes. We’re taking as many refugees as we can when we land.”

Haji’s head jerked up. “I feel as though your mother will plant a spy.”

“I am aware.”

“So the plan is to walk into her trap without protections—”

“I’ll have my Mark.”

“That stupid Mark!” Haji pressed the butt of his hand against his head. “Fine. You are going to walk in with your Mark. You will allow her to see your ship, which you’ve been hiding on purpose—”

“It has to be seen sometime, Haj. We can’t hide forever.”

“And you are going to allow her to install her spies on your ship.”

I couldn’t think that Ino Nami wouldn’t get wind of what was going on in her city. The woman was too keen. “I will have Officer Carilyn and Aiyanna interview each of them before they are released past the galley.”

“And you’re telling me that this woman, who is a better tactician than even your Nix—”

I bit the air and flexed my hand at his word choice.

“—will not see this? That woman knows what you will do to protect your only living sister. She knows what Oki’s people will do for her. She has to know she has spies in her city.”

“Fine, Haj!” I slapped my thighs in frustration. “What do you want me to do? Leave my sister? Abandon her? Let her be executed in the morning?”

Haji stared at me unmoving for a long moment. Then, he shook his head and raised his hands. “I just wanted to ensure you knew what you were walking into.”

I closed my eyes and reopened them, drawing in a deep breath of calm. “I do, Haj. I do.”

“Good.” He cleared his nostril with his thumb and gestured to my bare chest. “Please tell me you are going to at least put on clothes.”

I waved him off and hopped up the stairs to the upper catwalks. “Don’t attempt a transfer of manpower while we’re in the storm.”

He grumbled something, but the high winds took his words away as he turned around, heading back to his men in the wide galley.

I spun the wheel on the door and entered the command dome. “Take us above the storm to drop the Umira Nuru off. Those winds are brutal.”

Jamilah nodded, but remained focused on her crew as she issued the orders to the communications technician and Lash.

Aiyanna stepped through another door, sealing it shut behind her, clothing in hand. She tipped her head, her expression softly rebuking me. In the past months, she’d forsaken her traditional priestess robes and scarves. She now wore something more traditionally tribal: a short, full red skirt over dark pants; black knee-high boots; a soft, billowy blouse; and a pink vest. Pleasure seated in my belly as she hurried to me, handing me the clothes. “What did you discover?” she whispered.

I pressed the tip of my nose to her cheek, a grounded assuredness filling me as I inhaled her scent—jasmine and some sort of wood. She was the only person close to me who wasn’t connected to power. Yes. She was a priestess of the powerful Hands of Tarot, but she wasn’t a high-ranking priestess, and no one was controlling her actions. She was genuine, so I was safe being genuine with her. “It’s worse than we’d imagined.”