Velar alone led us into a temple-styled throne room with a colonnade of ostentatious Corinthian pillars. One dual row came across the hall, and another flanked the colossal pathway to a single throne that crowned the apex. An open seat with nothing but a cushion beneath the Air Abbess, who sat upon it in a meditative state with a perfect posture.
"With the nonchalance of your saunter," she said, her voice refined, sharp yet elegant like a silk shard. "I take it you do not know."
"My apologies that the acquisition of the arisen Sajatai kept me occupied," Velar retorted, a voice welded with scorn. "What has staled your mood?"
She snapped to full height, releasing an unstoppable wind that connected my back with the ground. Even Velar was destabilized, but lightning-swift reflexes and nimble footing kept him standing. The Air Abbess glided down the steep staircase, the trail of her royal red garment like a river of blood cascading behind her. Her sheer displeasure warmed the surrounding air until it was rippling with scalding heat. Gradually, I gathered myself to stand on my feet.
"You are most fortunate that your skills overshadow your incompetence."
Currents of air kicked at loose hair, sending stray strands dangling in the air. It began as a harmless zephyr that turned lethal when it felt like the violent winds of the frost season slicing at my face like icy whips.
"Three tokens were stolen from three provinces."
A fearsome emotion flashed in Velar's eyes like the half-light in a vicious storm.
"The alignment has sanctioned unparalleled power that has fueled the forces of the union," she informed, her hands encased in her voluminous sleeves. "Its reach is far beyond what we anticipated. It has grown stronger." Her eyes locked onto me, eviscerating my breaths. "As the realm needs a warrior. You hand it a worker."
"The line of the Sajatai is not elective. It's generational." He moved aside to gesture at me expansively. "This is as heroic as it gets. You don't get to choose the chosen, Your Holiness."
"Murvis will not even need the Sagus to crush the chosen," she said, eyeing me down scathingly as if my mere presence was insulting. "Merely a fraction of its power would suffice."
Overlooking her slight, I said, "I thought Murvis needed the Sagus to send us at world's end?"
She released a hybrid sound of humor and hatred, amused by my ignorance but aggravated because of it. "The Sagus is a weapon it intends to use to slay you. With its own power, it could never but combined with the Sagus. It could transgress the indelible laws of nature itself. It can achieve nothing with the Sagetai still drawing breath."
I glanced at Velar, and he broke off eye contact immediately.
"While you waste time to disparage the realm's only hope," Velar advocated in my stead. "You gift Murvis the time to reclaim the others. Yes, she's untrained and has not harnessed her power. The only hope needed is within every beating of her heart. The Sajatai lives. If she became too strong, too young. Murvis would have found her early and slain her as a fledgling. Now she can… somewhat defend herself, and hopefully others. The realm believes in the Sagetai. So you are bound to believe in her, too. So, where is your token?"
A percussion of fast-paced marching yanked our attention to the entrance. A white-enveloped troop entered and sealed the exit behind them. They apprised the Air Abbess that Aetherveil suffered an internal attack from within. A regiment of their own soldiery attacked other soldiers and were all making their way here to the aerodome. The Air Abbess didn't hesitate. She revealed her white-tattooed hands and raised them. Suddenly, the air shifted again. A rumble resembling a burgeoning earthquake, like the sound of tectonic plates adjusting boomed, like the foundations were moving at the will of the Air Abbess.
At the center where the colonnade converged. The floor was segmented strategically into layers of rings with a pulse of her fingers and the sway of her hand. Segments of the floor swiveled, spiraling downward into a hidden pit, and from it, something else arose. A column with something else atop. A metalized shard.
"The Sajatai must be the one to take it," she ordered.
Only when I received an approving nod from Velar did I make my way to it. And it seemed like the yawning aisle was being stretched out even further. With every step towards it, I felt even more afar.
"Akari!"
An explosion of glass and gale force winds sent me flying back until the wall caught me. Other aeromancers were not so fortunate as they were hurled into columns—slammed against them as they flopped bonelessly back onto the ground. Ten rogue soldiers swept inside, and more were pouring in. The Air Abbess flicked up two fingers and a squadron of rogues were hurled up into the air, levitating for a moment's breath before she brought them all down with a clenched fist—her fist shot to the window, and flailing bodies were cast out of the enormous hole like they were sucked into a vacuum of the void.
I scrambled to my feet, pain pulsing in my back as I raced for the shard. It was a strange metal with sterling and ancient accents, runic metalwork soldered together. I grabbed it, and it grabbed me as it transformed and whirled around my hand, thinning into a lattice of metal, lacing around me like a twisting and graceful arm ring. Ribbons of ethereal silver wrought around my arm.
"Sēqtā'ī xī ghakhi'ā xarō," the Air Abbess decreed. "Your next token awaits where the sun never rises. And Velar, harm none of them."
"They are corrupted, and their souls are Murvis's own. I would be doing you a favor, Your Holiness."
Velar and a few other soldiers, aeromancers, that were still within their wit and seemingly incorruptible, hurried to the window. Velar scanned the outside briefly before he looked back and extended his hand to me once more, and like a magnetic pull, I dashed to him. Faith and trust birthed courage. The moment my hand was in his, we leaped off the cusp, and instead of plummeting from a thousand feet; we were launched into the air and captured by the primary deck of an imperial airship. My body smacked against the wooden surface, rolling haphazardly before I could halt myself. Velar landed in a somersault and sprung to his feet with feline grace. The imperial airship was elongated and streamlined. It cut through the clouds with adroitness and purpose. Apart from the other aeromancers navigating the airship, guided by the fluidity of their arm movements. Kaia descended from the command deck.
Fear sluiced through my veins like ice. An eerie hush had settled upon the aether.
In the death-entombed silence, a ferocious maelstrom awakened. And roiled, ruptured by the roar of the heavens, consuming us in a lacerating hurricane that appeared from nowhere. Dark clouds stirred, swirling with ominous energy, thrown into tempest-tossed wrath as the ship pitched and rocked precariously amidst the churning chaos.
Vengeful winds lashed out violently, assaulting the vessel from all directions. Gusts of a god's force battered the airship. Five rogue aeromancers landed on deck as if steered by the storm. Glazed eyes fixated on me.
Velar reached for his back—a luminous blue flash, and he peeled daggers of sheer metal from his back that materialized from the tattoos on his flesh. He wielded a pair of long daggers, both with decorative hilts that matched the color of the tattoos that adorned his body.
The rain fell in sharp, stinging needles, each one like a shard of ice, pelting the aircrew and aeromancers, drenching us all in a torrential deluge. Giant clusters of wing-like masts spanned out from the airship's sides, meant to imitate the glimmering plumage of legendary avian creatures. Its wings now strained against the raging gales, fighting to maintain stability amidst the relentless assault.
"Kaia!" Velar yelled.
Kaia conjured a current that propelled Velar into the air, brandishing his blades. He released an onslaught. Lightning crackled across the skies, illuminating the vessel in fleeting flashes alike to every glint of steel and bursts of blood. Every stroke severed a soul from this world. He killed efficiently. Effortlessly. With his back turned to me, as if he had scabbards strapped to his back. He slid both daggers behind him, metal melting into flesh and molding back into the tattoos. Hair like liquid oil plastered to his head. With the rogues laid dead at his feet, the aeromancers aboard were able to dissipate the storm. Stabs of sunlight pierced the torso of the skies, spells of sunbeams casting out the dismal gray. The rain had ceased, and the storm dissolved into a dome of azure blue.
Kaia came to me and draped the pearly white captain's coat over my shoulders.
"I suppose you have a heading," Kaia insinuated.
Velar rotated around, a rivulet of red seeping from his wounded side. Immune to the pain, he casually drove his hand through his wet hair until his inky strands were slicked back.
"To the place where the sun never rises," he repeated.
"And a place where foreigners are never welcomed," Kaia added.
Velar pointed to me. "She is the key to all kingdoms."
"Your wound needs tending."
Velar dismissed me with a wearisome wave of his hand.
"I was not asking." I slipped my arms inside the coat, the ends whispering to my ankles. "Kaia, you don't perhaps have something to cleanse and bind up his wound?"
He snapped a deferential nod. "Yes, Sajatai."
"Akari," I amended.
~
In a private quarter allocated to us by the captain. I cleaned up the blood, his skin warming as my fingertips skimmed his skin. I applied an antibiotic ointment to the wound, and he bristled with a steely hiss. I retrieved a curved needle and surgical thread provided to me and I began to suture his wound. The intensity of his stare alone could still a storm.
To distract myself, I severed the silence. "I have patched up many in my days. Scoundrel and saint alike. My mother always said that both should be treated equally. Salvation came first from serving."
Wordless, he turned, and I noticed a jagged scar amidst his tattoos. When I finished, as if compelled, my fingertips found his flesh, gently tracing the scar, leaving prickled skin in their wake. Velar's head lolled back slightly before he rifted the space between us, facing me with eyes smoldering like a forge of blue fire.
"You're welcome," I said with my tone saturated with sarcasm.
"For what?" His eyes hardened, any fragment of fondness felled. "My life only exists to ensure your own. It is meaningless. Only in death will I fulfil destiny."
"Your life is not meaningless." Surprised to feel such outrage tautening in my chest. "Without you, I would be dead twice over—"
"I already failed," he seethed. "Three tokens are already lost to us."
"But four remain." I displayed the shard interlaced along my arm. "There is still hope," I said meaningfully to remind him of his own noble sentiment.
He lifted a brow. "Look who has overcome their denial."
A smile stole across my face. "For I have seen the stakes for myself. I do not know if I can triumph. I do know that I must try."
Velar gifted me with a smile that flooded my soul with sunlight. "Then you have already triumphed." His eyes steered my line of sight to a lone wardrobe. "And such triumph should be girded in grace. Would you like to see the Sajatai's regalia?"
I pulled a smile. "I don't think I'm ready for that."
The imperial ship had impeccable abilities of not only being airborne and seaborne, but able to venture much deeper, seamlessly transitioning between the two realms with astonishing ease. Its streamlined hull was crafted from reinforced metals and lightweight enchanted alloys. At the stern of the airship, concealed beneath an intricate network of glyphs, was the transformative mechanism—a series of intricate valves, pumps, and sealants that enabled it to descend into the watery depths.
When the time was right, the aircrew activated the mechanism, initiating a chain of events. And an enchantment that repelled the intrusion of water and protected the vessel against the immense pressures below. Side sails retracted, their mechanisms withdrawing, as the airship descended into the aquatic abyss. The watery world embraced its sleek frame. Embedded enchantments generated a force field that ensured its structural integrity, safeguarding us from the crushing depths.
The vessel transformed, its underbelly splitting apart to reveal streamlined hydrofoils that aided in propulsion, while rudders and maneuvering fins extended, granting precision control beneath the waves.
Thick glass windows, protected by potent wards, provided panoramic views of the bioluminescent wonders. Schools of colorful fish darted about, their scales glistening like jewels, while otherworldly creatures, both terrifying and awe-inspiring, glided through the liquid expanse. At some unknown interval, Kaia joined us at Velar's request. His vibrant energy had bedimmed. Sullen because he knew the soldiers who were corrupted.
"The place where the sun never rises," I intoned. "We are heading to Lumina."
"The Kingdom of the Night that refused the Sovereign Accords. They wished not to be bound by the treaties of other provinces."
"We face the same foe." I argued as if it were his decision. "Why would they not agree to broker an alliance?"
"To prevent them from consorting with inter-realm politics." He observed the oceanic view in nothing but a black coat over his bare chest. "We do only have one enemy, which is why they consented to harbor a token. And why they will only open their gates to the Sajatai."
I freed a whooshing breath. "No pressure at all."
Velar barely glanced over his shoulder to address Kaia at our rear. "Are you done sulking?"
Anger shot through him. "Afford those men a measure of respect," Kaia snapped. "They were good men."
Velar faced him with cold-eyed interest. "They were corruptible. Which meant they were never good, to begin with."
Hurt flashed in Kaia's eyes and that cracked Velar's stony mask.
"I did what I had to," he muttered.
"I do hope we have better fortunes in Lumina," Kaia said, his face suffused with sorrow. "So you need not kill more of my own or innocents that are tainted, like us all."
When the time came to resurface, the airship transitioned, its hydrofoils withdrawing, wings of sails unfolding, and buoyancy chambers releasing air to regain altitude. Rising from the depths, it emerged on the surface of the water, ushering us to Lumina. It was a city founded upon still waters reflecting the heavens. The imperial ship docked at the seaport to be greeted by a heavy infantry. Their sapphire armor was a striking contrast against their dark skin.
"I demand to speak with your Prime Commander. The very same that banished me from these lands."
"On what grounds?" one of them questioned.
"Regulus Qhar is expecting me," Velar informed with boundless confidence. "Your Primus said to only return with the Sajatai at my side. And I have done so, and you will grant us entry or explain to your benevolent ruler why you disgraced the Sajatai and her companions."
Suddenly, their formation split seamlessly as the rows rotated to face each other in disciplined unison. A man strode down the center, reinforced in royal blue armor with gold edgings and a cape to lend grandeur.
Velar gave a respectful nod. "Primus Eris."
He disregarded him, and his eyes were transfixed on me. "This is our savior?"
I smiled tightly at the condescension welling in his tone.
I flaunted my forearm. "If the shard fits."
Only Velar, Kaia, and I were permitted, the rest were ordered to remain aboard the imperial ship. And with a military escort, we were transported to the night palace. By the disapproving crinkle of his expression, it was evident that the Primus was exponentially unimpressed. I was too. We shared the same grief.