The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,16

I might have hoped to gradually lose altitude, to come down with the cool of the night air and land on a distant island.

But this way, there’s nothing but the palace, and then the empty sky beyond. Empty sky all the way to eternity.

And I have no way to turn the Skysinger around.

I lean as far as I can against my restraints, craning my neck around and pressing my cheek to the windshield, so I can just make out the curve of the glider’s body that houses the steering controls—and my heart stops.

The Skysinger is on fire.

I’m hurtling toward the main flight of gliders now with no chance to warn any of them that I can’t avoid them, no way to scream out to any of them for help. Any other day, and the flames whipping out the back of the Skysinger would signal distress—but almost every glider here is rigged to impress tonight, with holographic paint jobs or cannons shooting glittering clouds of confetti, and they’ll all assume these flames are just one more show-stopping trick.

There’s a bright green craft coming at me from my right. It has right-of-way, and I’m reduced to flashing my external lights at it, waving both hands madly inside the cramped space, desperately trying to show the pilot I don’t have my hands on the steering controls.

“Look, look at me!” My voice breaks as a shout turns into a scream, and I’m thumping on the inside of the glass. “Over here, over here!”

It’s getting closer and closer now, and I can see the shape of the pilot—who must think I’m some kind of idiot out to play a game of who’s got the stronger bladder?—and I’m screaming and thumping at the glass, grabbing the useless controls with one hand and yanking at them, as though it’ll do anything at all, and we’re going to—

The green glider pulls up at the last possible moment, the undercarriage nearly scraping the top of my cockpit, and I try to duck in my seat, though I’m so perfectly cushioned by it there’s no way to move.

For an instant I’m relieved, and then I glance ahead, and my heart surges up into my throat as reality reasserts itself. Because I’m still heading for the palace and the empty sky beyond it—I’ve just bolted straight into the exclusion zone, and I wonder for a mad moment what would happen if they shot me down, because the council might know who I am, but the guards won’t—and now I’m past it, and approaching the edge of the island.

And already the glider’s losing altitude as the warmth of the land mass fades, and I’m yanking at the controls, someone’s voice—my voice?—begging the Skysinger to respond, to let me turn around before it’s too late. With its engine malfunctioning, I have no way to gain altitude—no way back, if I fall.

But it’s too late already.

I’m out beneath the blue of the open sky, but I’m past the edge of the clouds that have always been below me. The darkened landscape beneath stretches out with nothing between it and me.

And slowly, the nose of the glider is tilting down.

THREE

NIMH

The riverstriders tie the river barges at the marshy shoreline as the sun dips down beyond the forest-sea, working together with the kind of easy synchronicity only brothers could have. Capac wears braids to match Hiret’s, tied back from his face in a thick bundle against his neck. Maita’s hair is unbraided, long and coiled into a pile at the crown of his head. He is the younger of the two, and has the smiling air of someone always at ease.

Dragging a river barge high enough onto shore that a sudden flood could not tug it loose is back-breaking work, and the riverstriders’ brown faces gleam with perspiration. Of the three guards who’ve come with me, only Elkisa has spent any time on the river, though even she fumbles with the ropes as they join in the effort. She and Capac pull at the bow, while Rheesi and Bryn haul from the stern—Maita stands alone between them, muscles straining.

Capac calls for a brief halt, then bends with a groan to scoop water over his head. Maita reaches up to haul off his shirt, sodden with sweat, and uses it to swipe at his dripping shoulders. My gaze slides toward that movement as if dragged there, and it seems to take me far too long to pull my eyes away again. Mine aren’t the only eyes on