The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,15

advisors aren’t for target practice. They creak as we secure the last one, and then we haul on the lever that starts the machinery to stretch them tight.

Once I’m ready, I slither into my seat, which is perfectly fitted to my shape. I sink down until only my head’s visible above the sides.

Miri slides the duraglass windshield into place, and I’m safe behind my bubble, the sound blocked out. In front of us, Saelis is sliding up the launch bay door, giving me a clear view of the sky.

I give them the thumbs-up, and they each return it, Miri taking Saelis’s place by the edge of the door, one arm wound carefully around the safety strap we tied there as she checks for obstructions, the wind making grabs for her hair and clothes.

Saelis disappears behind me, to the strap release. Miri’s holding her hand out, palm flat, angled toward the ground. It’s the signal for hold, and he does. Then a gaudy red-and-gold glider sails past the opening of the garage, yellow streamers whipping in the wind behind it. They’ll be shredded soon enough, but they’ll last for at least a little of tonight’s aeronautics show.

That must have been what she was waiting for, because the next moment she switches to give Saelis a thumbs-up. I feel a warning thump vibrate through the tail, and then another, as the countdown begins.

Three, two, one …

The glider shoots out into the gray sky, trying to push my stomach backward through my spine in a quick rush.

I tip my head back to get a look at my surroundings, but Miri was right, and I’m clear. I tilt the controls gently to the left and catch the thermal that’s always there in good weather, wheeling around and offering the pair of them a wave as they check that the garage door’s secure, leaving it open for my return. And then I’m climbing, climbing, until the whole of the island’s spread out below me.

The streets make neat grids, lit by sparkling streetlamps that blur together as I sail overhead. The brightest lights of all are the palace, and I wheel around the edge of the exclusion zone, just another glider out for tonight’s show, part of the celebration marking the beginning of council deliberations at the palace. The eastern park’s below me now, a long strip of dark green, the edges nibbled in by new construction, a constant source of debate in the council.

At least a hundred other gliders are wheeling around like newly fledged hawks playing in the wind, almost all of them brightly painted and decorated, much more interesting to look at than mine.

But I’m the one everybody’s going to be watching tonight.

My heartmother used to tell me bedtime tales about the lost sky-cities, other ancient archipelagos that we once knew, but forgot in the centuries since the Ascension. Whenever I’m in the Skysinger, I find myself imagining that they’re real, just beyond the horizon. That somewhere out there in the vast, blue ocean of the sky is another prince, in another glider, looking back across the expanse at me and wondering if Alciel was ever real.

Below isn’t a myth, though. It’s real, and it’s within reach, if only we’ll try. If only I can make them see that we have to be more than we are—we have to search, and discover, and keep making ourselves better, not just because our engines might need it, but because our souls do.

I skirt the eastern edge of the island, close but not too close to the edge of the main thermal, letting the updraft increase my altitude as I head for the main flight. This is what I come for—these moments when I’m one with the Skysinger, and in perfect control. Citizens will be watching from the boardwalk below, and I’m about to give them the show of a lifetime. Conditions are perfect. The sky is an unbroken blue dome all around me, and the lower layer of clouds between us and Below is thick and stable.

I could almost—

There’s a pop behind me, and a quick shudder runs through the glider. It’s nothing dramatic, but I know instantly that something’s wrong. My gut’s churning as I tilt the controls experimentally to the left … and nothing happens.

I yank them to the right, quicker, and again, nothing.

No steering.

Skyfall.

There are few things that can go more wrong than this, and my gaze flicks forward, my chest already tight with fear. If I’d been facing the other way,