The Roar of the Lost Horizon Read online

  The Roar of the Lost Horizon

  K.N. Salustro

  Nova Dragon Studios, LLC

  Copyright © 2022 by Kristen Salustro

  Cover design by James T. Egan, www.bookflydesign.com

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Mom and Dad

  who, when presented with my own wild dream, said, “Do it.”

  Contents

  1. A Life for the Empire

  2. The Duel

  3. The Captain’s Confidants

  4. Truth and Treason

  5. The Test

  6. New Blood

  7. Doubts

  8. Friends and Enemies

  9. Bargains and Betting Men

  10. A Day on Spider's Nest

  11. Sharpen the Skill

  12. Set Sail

  13. The Talon

  14. A Proposition to the Crew

  15. Responding in Kind

  16. Dead Wind

  17. The Court of Sirens

  18. A New Heading

  19. Dragon Wings

  20. The Black Mimic

  21. All Kinds of Chains

  22. Battle Tides

  23. The Vote

  24. Chosen Fate

  25. The Next Horizon

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Books by K.N. Salustro

  Chapter one

  A Life for the Empire

  Try as he might, Nate could not blow out the candle. The tiny flame swayed in the gentle air currents that itched at the edge of his awareness, mocking him with its flickering. He could feel the potential in the element, the chance to stir the air into powerful gusts or a small yet precise breeze, but that was all the element had ever been for Nate: unreachable potential.

  Sweat ran down his face as he strained for the wind in the dark room. His arms ached from stretching into the uncooperative air. The muscles from his fingers all the way to his shoulders were locked and straining. The wind was there. Nate knew it was there, feathery at the tips of his fingers, and if he could just grab it, he could snuff that horrible little fire out of existence and save himself. He was almost there. If he could reach just a little further…

  “Enough,” a shadow said from the corner of the room.

  “I can do it,” Nate said, shifting his stance for what must have been the hundredth time. He reached for the wind with every fiber of his being, stretching his hands and his mind as far as they could go. It was there. It was waiting for him. He sensed it so clearly. He could do this.

  “No,” the gruff voice of the shadow said. “You’re done.”

  The shadow moved to the windows and threw back the heavy curtains. Weak autumn sunlight spilled into the room, blinding Nate for a moment before revealing the cluttered office of the imperial academy’s head wind working instructor. The lean, dark-haired form of Tobias came into focus soon after. The head instructor wore the flowing black robes and four-sided cap of the academy’s teaching staff, with a sky blue tassel hanging off the cap and a matching sash around his waist to mark him as a wind worker. Unnecessary adornments, really, given the tattoo across his brow. The design was similar to Nate’s, but Tobias’s tattoo was more ornate, and had an extra flourish in the middle to signal his position as a teacher at the academy. And Nate, still trying in vain to catch the wind even as he blinked away the sting of the light, found himself focusing on that blue ink. If he looked at the tattoo, he did not have to meet the pitying gaze of the man who bore it.

  Tobias sighed and sank into the padded chair behind his desk. “Gods below, Nate, enough.”

  For a moment, Nate considered arguing. Only a moment. Then he let his arms fall and winced at the needling pain that raced up from his fingertips. His sense of the wind faded to a dull thought at the back of his mind, a familiar but useless presence. Nate collapsed into the plain wooden chair across from the head instructor and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “I know,” Tobias said, “but there’s nothing you can do. It’s time to accept that.”

  That brought Nate’s head up again. He was breathing hard as he met Tobias’s unblinking eyes. The pity was there, highlighted by the cheery candlelight, but Nate refused to accept it.

  “I know I can’t harness the wind yet,” Nate said, the words a rush as they left him, “but I can sense it better than anyone else. You know I can. That has to mean something.”

  Tobias sighed again and shook his head. “A wind worker telling you a breeze is coming but who can’t do anything to catch or turn it is about as useful as a weather vane.” He reached for a pen and a sheet of clean paper. “Perhaps even less so, as you don’t need to feed and clothe the weather vane.”

  The words stung. Nate had heard worse throughout his life, and he’d known coming into his final Skill evaluation that he was unlikely to succeed, but this was his last chance, and now, just like the wind, it was slipping through his fingers.

  He swallowed as Tobias began to write. “I could teach,” Nate said. “I could explain proper techniques and evaluate student performances and—”

  The pen paused as Tobias peered at Nate from under his thick brows. “The academy isn’t taking new instructors. You know that.” The pen resumed bleeding ink across the paper. “You also know that you need to demonstrate a special aptitude for your element before you can be considered. A Lowwind is not going to be able to do that.”

  “But you’re a Lowwind,” Nate said, “and the head wind working instructor.”

  This time, Tobias’s gaze was sharp enough to pin Nate to the hard chair. Then Tobias raised his hand and, with a flick and twist of his wrist, summoned a small gust that immediately snuffed out the candle. It wasn’t as precise or as graceful as a Highwind could have done, but it reminded Nate that Tobias could do what Nate could not, and so much more. His Skill may have lacked power and depth, but Tobias Lowwind could tap into every kind of wind working technique known in Solkyria, and twist it to his will. Nate had seen him use the dancing motions inspired by the tide workers just as efficiently as the slicing gestures favored by most wind workers. Tobias could even turn a breeze with his mind alone. Not a strong one, but he could do it, and he had proven time and time again that he could connect with every kind of wind worker and hone them into the tools the empire needed.

  Every kind, except for Nate.

  “Let me rephrase,” Tobias said. “A Lowwind like you is not going to be able to do that.” He held Nate’s gaze for another long moment, the pale smoke from the snuffed candle drifting between them.

  Nate knew that Tobias had tried with him, more than he had tried with any other trainee. Nate’s Skill had manifested early, and given what his older siblings could do with their magic, hope and expectations had shaped Nate’s future. Tobias had been particularly eager to train him, but as time wore on and it became all too clear that Nate was nothing like his brother and sister, Tobias had tried to find a new way for Nate to serve the Solkyrian Empire. Oh, how he had tried. But Nate could never do more than sense the winds, and Tobias finally had to give up. There were rumors that Tobias’s position was in jeopardy because of Nate’s failure to master even the easiest of wind workings, and while Nate had never been able to find out if they were true or not, Tobias’s patience had worn thinner and
thinner as Nate had grown older, and the hope had finally faded from the instructor’s eyes. Nate wasn’t ready to give up, but Tobias was. All that disappointment had taken its toll.

  The head instructor looked much older than his thirty-seven years, with heavy streaks of gray in his thinning hair and in the neat, square beard on his face. His eyes drooped with long lines at their corners, and his skin, once the deep bronze of a healthy Solkyrian citizen, had paled to a sallow hue.

  It was not uncommon for the Skilled to burn through their lives quickly in service to the empire, but an academy instructor should have had more time. Among wind workers, it was a comfortable, coveted job, one that only went to those who had demonstrated particularly broad or impressive abilities that could extend beyond service on a ship. Nate felt worse than foolish for thinking he could ask for a similar privilege, especially after all of the time and resources that had gone into his failed training. Now approaching his nineteenth birthday, Nate had been at the academy longer than any other trainee, including those who had undertaken additional work to hone their Skills into unique specializations before they went into service. Nate knew that he should have been kicked out a long time ago. It was time to accept that he’d finally reached the end.

  “Where am I going?” Nate asked softly, although he already knew the answer.

  Tobias tapped his finger against the pen before resuming his writing. “When a Skilled cannot serve the empire the way they intended, there is only one course open.”

  Nate shut his eyes. His stomach clenched around the cold certainty that his suspicion was correct.

  He was going to the mines.

  It was a fate that had haunted him ever since his ninth birthday, the third year that his Skill had refused to shape itself into anything useful since manifesting. Hopes that he was simply a late bloomer had begun to die, and with it went the support around him. Still, Nate had known that if he could just catch a scrap of a breeze, he would be safe. Weather working Skills were highly desired across Solkyria, especially in the navy where Nate’s older brother and sister had gone to serve, both at remarkably young ages. That should have been the first sign that Nate would never measure up to his siblings; by the time his brother Sebastian and sister Lisandra had reached their respective ninth birthdays, their Skills had firmly manifested, and they were learning techniques typically reserved for trainees in their early teens. Just after his fifteenth birthday, Sebastian was lifted out of the academy and placed in the navy as an important wind worker. Lisandra had followed soon after as a tide worker, aged fourteen. Nate, meanwhile, kept losing his grip on the wind.

  Somehow, even falling short of his siblings, and even after receiving the plainest Lowwind tattoo the academy could bestow on his brow, Nate had held on to the hope that he would, someday, catch the wind and secure a place for himself in the world. He was Skilled, after all, with unclean blood that bound him to the air element. Not so long ago, people like him had been killed for their dangerous, supernatural abilities, but the previous emperor had put a stop to that and found a way to safely integrate the Skilled into society. Now, in exchange for feeding, clothing, and properly training the Skilled to keep their wild magic in check, the Skilled went into service to the empire in order to repay their debts.

  Nate was so willing to pay his. Just not in the mines, where men and women dove for the precious and semi-precious metals that were the lifeblood of Solkyrian society. He was a wind worker. His Skill should have afforded him a better fate than being locked away beneath the surface of the world, away from the wind and the open sky. And what good could Nate possibly do there, if he could not bring fresh air down from above, or turn away the deadly gases released from the depths of the world?

  As though he’d heard Nate’s thoughts, Tobias said, “They might find some use for your Skill, but if I were you, I’d start learning how to properly use a pickaxe.” The instructor finished off his writing with his curling signature, then flattened his palms in the air over the paper. He gently pushed down, and Nate felt the stirring in the wind element as it responded to Tobias’s command, pressing the moisture out of the fresh ink and leaving the letters crisp and dry against the white paper. Tobias folded the paper over twice, then reached for the light blue sealing wax on his desk. He relit the candle that had gotten the better of Nate, held the wax over the flame, and then let it dribble on to the folded paper, sealing the letter. Tobias pressed the silver academy signet ring he wore on his left hand into the wax, making Nate’s doom official. “You are to leave for the mines at first light tomorrow,” Tobias continued. “When you get there, give this to the overseer. We’ll send a bird ahead, so he’ll know to expect you, but I’m giving you the rest of today to get your things in order and say your goodbyes. Your parents will want to know.” Tobias cleared his throat and extended the letter across the desk. “The wagon drivers heading north should not give you any trouble, but if they do, show them the seal and they’ll let you ride with them.” He gave the letter an impatient shake.

  For a fleeting moment, Nate saw himself grabbing the letter and tearing it to shreds, or throwing it out the window, or holding it over that cursed candle flame and watching it burn. But then he had the letter in his hand, and he marveled at how such a light thing could feel so heavy, and he knew that destroying the written orders to report to the mines would change nothing.

  He was Nate Lowwind, and this was his fate.

  With a heavy sigh, Nate pocketed the letter and rose from his seat. He had his hand on the doorknob when Tobias said, “Nathaniel, wait.”

  Nate froze, his breath caught in his chest. He turned back to the head instructor, and saw the man standing with two fingers over his heart in the traditional Solkyrian loyalty pledge. “The empire is my life,” Tobias said.

  Nate’s hand shook as he raised his fingers to his own heart. “My life for the empire.”

  Tobias nodded his approval. With that, Nate was dismissed.

  The door opened out on to the small courtyard that all the instructors’ offices shared. It was a luxury afforded only to them; the rest of the wind working academy was a smattering of tight buildings squeezed into the mercantile sector of Sunthrone City, crammed into the spaces that the merchants and higher class shop owners had not already claimed. Trainees took their basic academic lessons in the small classrooms, where they learned the ways of the empire and how they could use their magic to serve. As they grew older, they spent less and less of their time in the classrooms and more of it practicing and perfecting their Skills higher up on the mountain or down on the coastal beaches where they were unlikely to accidentally destroy a citizen’s property or otherwise make a nuisance of themselves. They lived in the dormitories provided by the empire and ate the food provided by the empire, until they were old enough to catch the attention of a sponsor to take on the debts they’d wracked up over the years. It was ideal; this way, the wealthy took on the financial responsibilities of the Skills they purchased rather than the original—and often poorer—families that had borne the tainted children.

  Sebastian and Lisandra had both received full sponsorships from the navy, all debts forgiven when they’d gone into direct service for the Solkyrian Empire. Nate had also received a naval sponsorship when he was younger, but it had been revoked. Then the merchants had recognized that he was a bad investment, and then no ships had wanted him at all, and his debts had passed back to his parents. They could have asked that Nate’s training be terminated the moment his sponsorship was gone, sending him to the mines and sparing themselves the burden. That was usually what the families of the weakest Skilled did, no matter if the tainted child was from a poor family or a wealthy one. Nate’s parents had chosen differently. He suspected that his parents were dangerously dedicated to proving that all three of their children would be vital to the empire, and that their shameful bearing of three Skilled babes from their otherwise untainted bloodlines could be atoned given enough time.

  Nate had failed them horribl
y.

  He wished he could tell his parents that all of the years and money had bought him a better life than one set to end in the mines, but at least now there would be no more pretending. This was the end, and it was worth nothing.

  The admission tasted bitter in his mouth.

  Nate shivered in the light breeze that pushed through the courtyard from the street as he made his way back to the dormitory. The sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains that crowned the island, leaving a chill in its wake. Sunthrone City would fall into the shadow of the mountain soon, and the night would not be long behind. Nate’s steps quickened as he thought about being caught out in the cold without his coat, and he went faster still when he remembered that he needed to pack his things. It would be infinitely better if he could prepare for his doomed journey north while the other trainees were still out.

  He did not have far to go, but at this time of day in the mercantile sector, threading his way through the streets was difficult. People swarmed the shops, trying to get the last of their purchases in before the sun set and the shops closed down. The Dancing Skies Festival was not far off, and many were seeking gifts for friends and family, tokens that promised unity and love even in the darkness of winter. Nate sidestepped a man coming out of a coppersmith shop, wrapped parcels of jewelry and knickknacks bundled in his arms. Nate caught a glimpse into the shop before the door swung shut, and saw the neat shelves of copper workings glowing warm and pretty in the store’s lamplight.

  He briefly thought of the copper shop his parents had once owned, but that was long gone now.

  Nate ducked his head and hurried along.

  He respectfully stepped around the clean-faced Solkyrian citizens, and avoided eye contact with the Skilled attendants who served the wealthiest of them. None sported the blue tattoos of the weather workers, and were happy to give Nate a wide berth when they saw his own mark. Plain as it was, Nate’s blue tattoo afforded him a few last shreds of dignity; all Skilled were tainted by magic, but wind and tide workers could serve the empire far more directly with their practical Skills. The light benders and animal speakers who attended to the wealthier citizens recognized that, and they’d always bowed their heads to Nate and any other weather workers who’d crossed their paths. Had they known what now sat inside Nate’s pocket, even the lowest Grayvoice would have scoffed at him instead of stepping aside. The thought quickened his feet.