The Endless Skies

PROLOGUE

SHIRENE

How many are dead?

The healer kneeling before the king sways. Two, Your Grace. With a dozen more in beds already. It all starts the same. A fever, then a cough that steals the breath.

No one in the Glass Tower dares breathe, let alone move. The Tower’s high archways and polished windows that were usually let open wide are sealed shut. No one could know of this meeting, except for the ambassadors of the other kingdoms who would be briefed on it later this morning. Their fate is tied closer to ours than any of them would want to admit.

King Kharo frowns. And how many know of it?

Just my team here, my king, replies the Chief Healer, indicating toward the group of healers behind her. And one more, keeping watch over the sick right now.

The sky outside is dotted with stars just beginning to yield to the sun’s light. I fix my gaze on the red line of the horizon. Today will be the longest day of the year.

Here and there, a winged lion flits from one end of the city to the next, bundles of flowers clutched in their arms as the last preparations for the High Summer festival are made. I’d often imagined what it would be like to celebrate my first High Summer as a sentinel—greeting the citizens, complimenting merchants on their wares, and awarding prizes at the various competitions scheduled from dawn to dusk.

Instead, I sit with the other sentinels in my sleeping clothes, having barely had time to secure a shawl around my shoulders before making it to the emergency council meeting. A shiver snakes its way down my spine as the cool stone beneath my shoes pulls the warmth from my limbs. As Ninth Sentinel, my chair is closest to the east, giving me a view of Balmora, miles across the sea. I will be the first to see the messenger.

The king lifts his hand, indicating that the healer can rise. I trust you will be able to continue to keep this quiet, says the king. I ask for total silence from you and anyone else tending to the sick. We cannot risk sending the citizens into a panic.

The healer bows low. She knows the grave reason as well as I. Yes, Your Grace.

The king dismisses the healers back to their duties, thanking them again for their discretion. Before she leaves, the Chief Healer’s gaze goes to a figure huddling in the corner, clinging to the shadows as if they provide some protection. Ah, I think. She’s seen him.

I wonder if she remembers him. The deserter’s name was on everybody’s lips when he abandoned his duties a little over a year ago. But no one knows his name more surely than I. He had been the Ninth Sentinel before me.

Now I am sitting in his former seat, having taken his place as part of the King’s Council.

No one gathered here would address him with a title anymore. He is only Noam, a deserter at best and a traitor at worst.

I desperately want to ask him what caused him to leave the proud city of the Heliana for Balmora—the continent that our people sometimes call the lost land—but I set my selfish curiosity aside for now. Such conversations can wait until after we receive the humans’ reply.

With the king’s permission, Sentinels Hammond and Renna flew to Balmora’s mountains last week in desperation, seeking Noam’s advice about the horrible illness spreading like a fire among the Leonodai children, some just a few years old. The healers were unable to treat it, and the scholars were baffled. Noam listened to the symptoms with a growing dread in his eyes, and Renna told me later that he asked right away if we’d found dead birds in our city. We had.

The birds carry the disease wherever they go, he had warned us. If what you say is true, you have days to act. You must ask for aid from the human capital city, Ramsgate.

Though he was technically exiled for desertion, ironically, we couldn’t have made an offer of peace without Noam. In the year since he’d left, Noam had learned much of the human language. While the king and council of sentinels had discussed our options, he alerted the humans in his village to what was happening. In a blur of days, each of the Four Kingdoms had agreed to offer peace, and the human leaders had agreed to meet our messenger at the Cliffs.

Back in the present, a flash of gold on the horizon stops time. I stifle a gasp, but not well enough. Other eyes follow where mine linger.

My king— starts Sentinel Renna when she sees.

I see her, the king replies. Skies keep us. The humans have given their answer.

Some agonizing minutes later, and the messenger lands. She drops the white flag in her jaws to the ground before taking her human form. In a rush of gold magic, her bronze lioness fur changes to cloud-white robes and gold armor as her body shifts to that of a woman with olive skin. The messenger’s chest rises and falls as she catches her breath, but she wastes no time. Brushing back sweat from her brow, she kneels before the king.

Your Grace, she says. She reaches into the bag at her side and pulls out a charred stack of parchment. I delivered your message to the human leader. An offer of peace and permanent trade with the Four Kingdoms in exchange for the disease’s cure.

The king leans forward. A lock of graying hair comes loose from beneath his crown as he does. And? Where is their reply?

The messenger’s breath hitches. They did not give one. They placed our offer in a fire and left.

Skies keep us, the king says as I think the same. Why would the humans turn down our offer? The king covers his eyes, his fingertips rubbing his temples. Did they give an explanation?

No, Your Grace, she replies. I waited for one until they were out of sight before flying back.

They must not have understood, I think. We’d spent so much time convincing the ambassadors from the other kingdoms to agree to a permanent trade route. It took days of bickering, all while sick children continued to fill the healers’ beds in the palace levels below us.

Fear twists like a knife in my gut. The disease would keep killing if left unchecked, but there was nothing we could do.

Noam, step forward, please, says the king.

The deserter does so obediently. I know well enough now that he hasn’t forgotten the sense of duty that he shirked when he left. Seeing Noam before the king now, I don’t doubt his loyalty in this moment.

Noam, the king says. You say the cure for this disease is a wild plant, one that grows on the far side of Balmora.

That is what my human friends have told me, he replies. I have no reason to doubt them.

If the king has any misgivings about taking information from a deserter, he does not show it. Then we will send teams, the king says. To find the cure the humans have chosen to keep from us.

They will know we’re coming, the Second Sentinel, Hammond, says gravely from several chairs to my right. His gray beard reaches halfway down his chest, betraying his age, but his eyes are sharp and clear.

I know, the king responds. But I will not sentence a generation of Leonodai to death because of my own inaction.

What of the High Summer festival? asks another of my colleagues. The citizens will be celebrating soon. Should we call off the festivities?

The king considers this. No. Let the people have their golden hours. We will need the time to consult the other ambassadors. If we are going to throw more fuel on the embers of war, we must get their blessing. Sentinel Renna, you oversee the warriors’ training. I trust you are willing to choose the teams.

Yes, Your Grace, the Fourth Sentinel says.

Good, he replies. There is one more matter we need to discuss before we leave here. When word gets out, the citizens will look to all sentinels for assurance. It would be prudent to speak as one voice, through one person. Sentinel Faera, as you all know, had for years served as the King’s Voice, bringing the kingdoms together. Given her absence, I wonder if you would elect someone to serve in her place.

My peers and I exchange looks of surprise. Faera stepped down two months ago to start her own family as well as to care for her elderly father. Her successor had not yet been named. Per tradition, a search was being conducted for her replacement, and anyone on the Heliana could volunteer himself or herself, as I had a year ago when Noam deserted. The numbers of our ranks were only echoes of a past hierarchy. Every sentinel was chosen the same way, and any Leonodai could ask to be considered.

Hammond should be the King’s Voice, I think. Older than the king himself, Hammond is a veteran soldier and always keeps the city’s best interests at heart.

The sentinel in question clears his throat. Your Grace, Hammond says. I am a welder’s son, not a politician. You know I am not one for diplomatic dances.

Beside me, my friend Sentinel Lyreina exhales a small laugh, and I share it. Wordsmith or not, I bet Lyreina feels as I do.

Then Hammond says, I would elect the Ninth Sentinel, Lady Shirene. What? I am too new and too young. My mouth opens to protest, but he keeps going. A capable warrior, Sentinel Shirene has wisdom beyond her years and a depth of patience that the scholars could study. My heart swells out of my chest. Hammond isn’t one to give compliments unless he truly means it.

And yet here he is, speaking my name before the king.

I second the nomination, says Lyreina. The citizens adore Shirene and trust her as well.

King Kharo turns his attention to me. Sentinel Shirene, he says. Would you serve as the King’s Voice?

My heart races. I am a sentinel, the same as everyone else gathered here. I can’t hide behind the newness of my station forever. At some point, I will have to face the sun and rise into her light. This is that moment. I take a deep breath.

I would be honored, Your Grace.

Then it’s done, he replies. I’ll leave you to gather the ambassadors. I will consult with Noam and the scholars to decide the route the teams will take.

Sunlight breaks over the horizon in the east as the king continues assigning duties. I take the moment to breathe. Beside me, Lyreina grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly.

Congratulations, she says. What an honor.

Serving as the King’s Voice is an honor, and one that I had not thought to dream of, at least for a few more years. Sethran will not believe it, I think, reveling in that small excitement. Rowan will probably scream with joy. My younger sister isn’t one to keep her emotions in check.

When the king stands to go, so do we all. The rising sun sends light directly into my eyes. I have never been in the Glass Tower at first light. Used for ceremonies and council meetings like this, the hallowed room lives up to its name. The twelve sides of the Tower alternate between arched mirrors and open windows. At all times of the day, it catches light and reflects it wildly into the skies. It is the best place in the city to see Vyrinterra and the continent Balmora at the same time.

Our city, the Heliana, is a paladin in the skies between them. We Leonodai are one part of the Four Kingdoms: two on Vyrinterra itself, one in the depths of the sea, and one in the skies. As far as we know, we are the last of the magical races. We never forgot what happened to the fifth kingdom, the fox-kin, long lost to the humans’ greed …

For decades, we Leonodai had kept the encroaching humans at bay to the gratitude of the other kingdoms. No matter how bad the battles get at the coast and sea, Leonodai can always retreat and recoup. Humans can’t fly and follow us.

But as it turns out, they don’t need to fly, for birds already did, and they brought the humans’ disease with them. For as long as anyone could remember, the Heliana had been the safest place in the known world.

And now that safety is gone.

1

ROWAN

Blood and feathers litter the arena. I flare my wings, digging my claws into the ground and taking a defensive position while I decide my next move. Across the pit, my opponent lets out a snarl of annoyance. Blood drips from the jagged cut above her eye. My strike caught her as her helm had slipped sideways just enough for my claw to slice into the skin of her brow. She shakes her head, and droplets fly.

Still, she’s a warrior-elect like me, and she doesn’t let up. We may not be fighting to kill as we will when the king calls us to arms, but that doesn’t mean either of us are going to show much mercy.

We rush each other, teeth and claws bared and searching for any inch of exposed skin. My shoulder stings from a bite I should have dodged, but the heat of the wound drives me forward like a new flame. Leaping up, I use the wall of the arena to launch with my hind legs and try to hit her with my helm, but the other lioness reads my thoughts and dodges. As I twist to meet her again, she bats her wings hard, sending dust and debris into my nose and eyes. A moment later, she slams into my back legs, and I’m knocked off-balance, tumbling into the sandy ground.

Around us, the audience cheers, flowers gripped tightly in their hands. The blossoms, blue as the uniform of warriors, will be thrown to the victor.

My opponent’s angry snarl rings loudly in my ear, spurring me to action. I jump to the side, flaring my wing, hitting her in the eyes as I do. Feathers snap and splinter in a shower of gold, and I brace myself against the ground. I shove my body weight into hers, the interlocking plates of our armor scraping shrilly against each other. She catches a bit of my wing in her jaws, and I yowl in pain—but she’s done exactly what I hoped she’d do.

Shifting my weight back onto my left side, I hook my right paw between her belly and her leg, knocking her off-balance.

The other combatant digs her teeth farther into my wing as she falls, batting her own wings so hard that we’re both lurched sideways with the force. I tighten my frame and twist quickly until my paw meets a vulnerable place at her throat.

I hold there, lifting my head to the sun, and let out a victorious roar.

A high trumpet sounds, followed by applause like rain. I back off my opponent. She shakes her head, blinking rapidly as blood continues dripping into her eye.

Damn, I thought I had you, the other warrior-elect says.

You fought well, I return, brushing my wing against hers. I got lucky. It’s not entirely true, but her expression brightens at my words. I’ve had more arena practice than she has, whereas she could best me in an archery tournament any day.

Across the arena, the royal pavilion is draped lavishly in gold cloth and weighty bundles of white blossoms, but neither the king nor queen are there. It had been empty all morning, so the previous fighters had told me. My heart sinks. I was hoping the king would make it in time. Instead, a warrior named Ezra—a swordsman in his early thirties who helped train the both of us—leads the formalities.

Well done, warriors-elect, says Ezra. And congratulations to you, Rowan.

Thank you, warrior Ezra, I reply.

My forelegs tremble with excitement and strain as the wound in my shoulder throbs. The citizens toss their flowers, and the blooms start to pile up at my paws. Their excitement melts any momentary disappointment away. I keep my face proud and relaxed, but inside, I’m beaming.

This time tomorrow, the king will actually address me, but as a fully fledged warrior. After four years of brutal training, my very bones ache to take the oath and fulfill the dream I’ve been working toward since I was thirteen. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so eager. Even though the human soldiers have not attempted an attack in months, once I am a warrior, I can be called at any moment to fight.

It is an honor, but am I ready?

As we exit the arena, I bat my wings idly, sending the flowers and loose petals into a flurry. The crowd responds with claps and cheers. A curtain sweeps closed behind us as the names of the next combatants are announced.

Show-off, my opponent mutters good-naturedly.

Ahead of me, she takes her human form. The magic forged into her armor and clothes transforms with her, melting as easily as winter frost against the sun. The armor re-forms to her human head and arms as if it had never been anything but. As she lifts her helm, a healer comes over to her with a cloth soaked in something to halt the bleeding above her eye.

I summon my own magic. It only takes a thought, bright and brilliant as the sun. The rush of warmth flares at my chest, flowing outward like a cascade of warm winds, until I’m standing on two feet in my human form, my dark wavy hair flowing to my mid-back. Immediately, the throbbing of my shoulder intensifies. Even though I don’t have wings in this form, the soreness will persist. A healer comes over and directs me to a chair.

Be sure to stretch after bathing tonight, the healer says. She pushes the loose strands of sweaty hair off my forehead, then wipes my face with a damp cloth. Your shoulder will be fine, but I’ll put a salve on it to keep it from scarring.

Thanks, Prena, I reply. After years of spars and mock battles, one gets to know the healers well. Prena is around my mother’s age and just as sharp, making her one of my favorites.

Your new uniform won’t cover the cut, she says, her tone kind. I guess you won’t mind that, will you?

Not as long as that uniform is blue.

You warriors-elect, she replies. I swear on the skies it was just yesterday you were coming to me for something to ease your cycle pains. And now here you are, about to become a warrior at last.

Prena!

They must be speeding up the bells so time goes faster, is all I’m saying.

The older woman gives me a smart nod as she discards one cloth and starts pressing ground herbs into a fresh one. Even though she was born without a right hand, Prena’s skills as a healer are unmatched. The skies had to keep something back, she told me once. Otherwise, I would have been too good at my job and Leonodai would live forever, like the sea-folk.

Prena rubs a minty-smelling salve onto my shoulder. When she’s done, I lean forward and swap out my armored boots for leather sandals that’ll be better suited for the day’s heat. The sounds of the next fight echo from the arena, while music plays from farther outside the palace grounds. I listen for the high-pitched bells that mark the hour, but I don’t hear them. I might not be too late.

You’re all set, says Prena, wiping her hand on her olive-green uniform. The gold thread of the Leonodai crest sewn into the front catches the light as she does.

I leap up. Thanks, Prena.

Thank me by stretching that shoulder. Don’t let my good work go to waste.

I smile and duck out of the room. In my chest, my heart flutters as if it’s trying to fly from within me. An echo of cheers from the eastern side of the palace confirms that I’m not too late to watch the Race of the Four Gates. If I hurry, I can still catch the finish.

I take my lioness form, gliding above the palace and the massive crescent-shaped ridge beneath it. Toward the middle of the ridge, windows reveal the endless tunnels built into the stone. They’re already illuminated with candlelight and lanterns made of colored glass. The same will be done to the other palace windows, from the lowest level to the Glass Tower at the very top, as per tradition. Only the hollow Keep deep inside the base of the ridge will remain dark, but no one ever goes in the Keep, anyway.

From this height, I can see all four rivers that mark the cardinal points of our diamond-shaped city. The waters pour from a magical spring far beneath the palace, rushing straight outward and off the edge of the island and into the sea below. Not many know of the grotto where the spring is hidden, but Callen, my oldest friend, and I had found it years ago in a game of hide-and-seek. My mother chastised the two of us when she found out, making us promise not to go back.

That is sacred ground, she said. Only the royal family should ever visit that place, to remember the magic of their ancestors.

Of course, immediately following our scolding, Callen and I made a pact to keep going there, but to keep it secret. As the years turned, we visited less and less. Now I can’t remember that last time we were there.

I turn toward the city’s center. Bundles of blue and white flowers, some from the hillsides beneath the palace and more from Vyrinterra across the sea, hang from windows let open wide to greet the summer air. More are strung through the soaring archways between homes and down the alleys toward the marketplace.

A dark blot of black in one of the garlands catches my eye. I swoop low to get a better look, but the sinking feeling in my stomach already tells me what it is.

The bird’s glossy eye stares out blankly. Judging by the lack of smell, it can’t have been dead for more than a few hours. Even though they don’t possess the Knowledge that gives Leonodai our speech and magic, our people feel a kinship with birds. After all, we share the skies.

Ox told me that the warriors were reporting the dead birds’ numbers to the sentinels. A day or two later, the sentinels asked warriors-elect to be on the lookout, too. I make a mental note to remember where I found this one so I can report it later.

Finding an open courtyard, I land and take my human form. I’m adjusting the sash at my waist when someone calls my name.

Rowan! a familiar voice calls.

I turn. Vera waves at me, shouldering her way through the crowd. Her pale blue skirt matches her shirt, which she’s twisted up to keep her cool—and to show off her toned stomach, which some lucky artist has painted with a swirling sun. With her long, pale blond hair and shapely figure, my friend and former roommate of four years has had no short supply of people chasing after her since the day we met. And since her archery tournament isn’t until later this afternoon, she can dress up all she wants for now. I hurry up to her, opening my arms for a hug.

You look smug, so I take it you won, she says.

I do not look smug, I reply. "But yes, I