The Roar of the Lost Horizon Read online

  “I’d be shocked if he wasn’t,” Iris said. The wound at the back of her bicep stung as the boatswain dabbed at it with a damp cloth before moving in with the bandages. “The boy’s nearly a man,” she continued, “and he was terrified to look any of us ‘citizens’ in the eye.”

  Novachak grunted. “If he shows tonight, I’ll eat my own socks.”

  “He’ll come,” Iris said, although her confidence wavered a little as she remembered Nate’s skittishness. “But tread gently around him,” she added. “I think he’d run from his own shadow if it looked vaguely threatening.”

  “We’ll need to put a friendly face in front of him, then,” Dax mused.

  “Wouldn’t hurt to bring a pretty one, either,” Iris remarked as she tugged her shirt back into place over the freshly bandaged wound.

  “All right, all right,” Novachak said as he hopped off from his perch on the table. “I’ll go.”

  There was a light pause as Iris and Dax looked at the boatswain.

  “Oh, northern winds freeze the pair of you,” Novachak growled, “that was funny.”

  Iris offered him a thin smile before turning to Dax. “Humor aside, we’d better take Rori with us tonight. I think we can use Luken to test this boy’s Skill, and Rori will be a lot calmer about all of this if she’s there from the start.”

  “You’d trust her with the secret, then?” Dax said.

  Iris paused for a moment. “I don’t plan to tell Rori everything,” she finally said, “but she’s too smart for her own good. She’ll know something’s up if we bring a Lowwind aboard, and she’ll question every heading I give her. Besides, if anyone can help keep the rest of the crew from pushing after a secret, it’s her.”

  There was a heavy silence.

  “Someday,” Novachak murmured, “they are going to find out what she did to that ship.”

  Iris pressed her lips into a grim line. “Maybe,” she said, “but not today.”

  Dax crossed his arms and frowned at Iris. “Rori is a Goodtide, though. I don’t think putting her in front of this boy is going to have the effect you’re hoping it will.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Iris said. “Even if they end up hating each other, this boy will see a weather worker his own age living free of the empire. He needs to know that he could do that, too.”

  “If he shows,” Novachak muttered, “and doesn’t report us to the enforcers.”

  “He won’t,” Iris said. She was confident in that much, at least.

  The boatswain glanced at her as he gathered up the rags he’d used to staunch the bleeding of her wound, dropping them into a bucket of boiled sea water that swirled pink with Iris’s diluted blood. “You really think he’ll go to the docks tonight?”

  Iris considered this for a moment. The boy really had been jumpy, but Iris knew she had not imagined that spark in him, that hunger for the freedom to make his own choices about his own life. “I saw the look in his eye,” she said, “when I said he wasn’t just any Lowwind. He’ll show.” She caught the glance exchanged between the quartermaster and the boatswain. “And if I’m wrong and he can’t do what I think he can,” she allowed, “we’ll at least get another hand to help with the ship. But I am not wrong.”

  She was projecting more confidence than she really felt, considering how long it had been since she’d seen a wind working Skill like this, but if she was right…

  She’d been waiting for this chance for a long, long time.

  Finally, Dax sighed softly and scrubbed a hand across his face. “You told him to be at the harbor at ten bells?”

  Iris nodded.

  “I’d better get going, then.”

  She frowned. “Why do you sound like you are under the impression that I am not coming with you?”

  “Because you have a hole in your arm,” the quartermaster said.

  “Novachak said it was a lucky graze,” she countered, but Dax shook his head.

  “You wait here and get some rest. I’ll bring the boy back, and we’ll see what he can do.”

  Iris considered arguing, but Dax did have an irrefutable point, and the weak sleeping draught Novachak had given her was fuzzing the edges of her mind. It was hard to resist the idea of taking a brief rest before starting off on a new adventure, excited as she was. In the end, she agreed to wait and even sleep a little, but she made Novachak swear that he would wake her well before Dax was due back with the boy. She promised to run him through with her sword if he did not, injured arm be damned.

  “Aye, Captain,” the boatswain said as he and Dax took their leave. His voice was colored by exasperated affection.

  After the two men were gone, Iris sank down into her hammock. She thought that she would be too excited to sleep, but her eyelids grew heavy under the pull of the sleeping draught. Before she fully succumbed, she tugged at the thin chain around her neck and pulled the pendant out from her shirt, where she always wore it close to her heart and hidden from the eyes of the world. Its edges had dulled over the years, but the black surface danced with smoky whorls in the soft light of her cabin, just as it always had. She curled her fist around the black scale and brought it to her lips.

  “Soon,” she promised herself, and drifted off with hope running wild through her mind.

  Chapter four

  Truth and Treason

  The Copperroses lived in a tiny apartment on the fourth floor of a small, dark, stone building crammed into the very edge of the factory district, close enough to the harbor to bathe in its smells but without the luxury of a direct line of sight to the open sea and the winds that would have cycled the air. They had moved in over five years ago, after selling their home in the mercantile district to fund Nate’s extended time at the academy. He owed them the knowledge of what their desperate scrapings for funds had bought: the failures of a Lowwind son so weak the whole world could sneer and call him Nate Nowind.

  What would a pirate captain possibly want with him?

  Ransom, perhaps, but she had to know that no one, not even a family as stubborn as the Copperroses, would have paid to recover a Lowwind marked for the mines. Wind workers were valuable, but as Nate knew firsthand, they were not rare in Solkyria. And if a crew of pirates were going to ransom him, or force him into servitude on their ship—which would have been extremely disappointing for them—why not just kidnap him on the spot instead of letting him walk away? Why take the chance that they’d never see him again?

  Nate ultimately decided that the pirates only wanted a laugh at his expense. He could not imagine any serious job offer for a Lowwind who couldn’t turn aside even the softest of breezes. He was as useless to pirates as he was to the empire. Most of all, he was useless to himself. He could not harness his Skill to save his own life. And now he had to tell that to his parents.

  Nate did not visit them often. He used to, when he was younger and still so certain that he would get a Highwind mark. His mother and father had always been warm and kind and encouraging, and that had made it so much harder to face them once the academy instructors had determined that he was not a Highwind, once he had lost his sponsorship, once he had begun to understand how truly weak his Skill was. The quiet disappointment in his father’s eyes and the devastation in his mother’s had been too much for Nate the last time he’d visited them. That had been nearly five months ago, when he’d come to tell them that his final Skill evaluation would take place in autumn. Now, here he was again, preparing himself to rip their hearts open once more. At least this would be the last time.

  Nate climbed the three steps that separated the building from the street. The main door was unlocked to allow the laborers easier access to their homes after long days at work, and Nate slipped inside without trouble. The narrow hallway was lit by dingy candles, and Nate shot them a begrudging look as he headed for the steep stairs at the far end. Despite all his walking up and down the hilly streets of Sunthrone City, Nate’s thighs were burning by the time he reached the fourth floor. There were four apartments crowded into that top level, only one of which was lived in. Few Solkyrian citizens wanted to live in such cheap lodgings if they could have afforded even a little better. Under the burden of Nate’s debts to the empire, the Copperroses had not had a choice.

  Nate took a moment to even out his breath and let the muscles in his thighs relax before moving to his parents’ door. He heard voices seeping through the cracks as he drew near, a man and a woman. He was surprised that his father was already home, but supposed that his self-indulgent detour to help the pirates escape the enforcers had delayed him enough for that. This was a good thing. He could talk to them both now, and then take his leave from their lives. Nate raised his hand and knocked lightly on the thin door.

  The voices paused. Footsteps creaked over the wooden floor as someone stepped closer. Nate took a deep breath to steady himself, and tried to muster a weak smile for the sake of the parent that came to answer.

  It slipped away when the door opened and Nate found himself face-to-face not with his father or mother, but his brother Sebastian.

  Nate’s mouth went dry, and he took an involuntary step back. His brother quirked an eyebrow and looked at him with open disdain. It was the same expression he’d worn a year ago, when they’d last seen each other during Sebastian’s brief shore leave and visit back to the wind working academy to observe and encourage the young trainees.

  As he had been then, Sebastian was dressed in his imperial navy uniform of a crisp, white shirt and breeches and shining black boots, all decorated with silver buttons stamped with the Solkyrian crest. He wore his heavier coat, long and deep blue with more silver buttons running down its length and the embroidered patch of his rank and Skill on the shoulders, a special affordance for a Highwind as strong as him. He held his three-cornere
d hat in his hand, and with his head bare and his long, dark hair gathered back from his face and tied neatly at the nape of his neck, Nate got a good, clear look at the intricate, elegant Highwind tattoo on his brother’s brow.

  When he was younger, Nate had idolized that tattoo, and sworn that he would get one just like it once his own Skill had fully manifested. Now, it was a grim reminder that while Nate shared Sebastian’s proud, straight nose, angular jaw, black hair, and dark eyes, he would not and could not be like his brother.

  Sebastian held himself straight, his broad shoulders filling the doorway with ease. He was a little taller than Nate, just enough to look down at him, and that combined with the imperial uniform gave Sebastian enough of a regal air that Nate tipped his gaze to the floor.

  Sebastian snorted, and Nate caught a whiff of stale alcohol on his brother’s breath. Nate grimaced. He knew better than to ever hope for a good encounter with his brother, but they were always worse when Sebastian had been drinking.

  “Who is it?” the thin voice of their mother asked.

  “It’s Nathaniel,” Sebastian answered in his rich, deep voice as he stepped out of the doorway and swept his arm in a gesture of mock greeting. “Nowind,” he added, softly enough that only Nate could hear it as he moved past Sebastian into the apartment.

  Sometimes, it was possible to forget that Sebastian had been the first to call Nate by that hated name. But only sometimes.

  “Nate!” their mother called, the affection in her tone hitting Nate like a hammer. She was there a moment later, pushing herself up on to her toes to wrap her arms around Nate’s neck. He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Both my boys, home. What a wonderful day this is.”

  Sebastian reached up to give their mother a gentle touch on the shoulder, a smile on his lips, but his eyes were cruel as he looked at Nate.

  All at once, the room felt too close, and the letter in Nate’s pocket threatened to rip a hole through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged his mother back, realizing that this was one of the last embraces they would ever share. When she released him, there was a coldness deep inside his chest.

  “Oh, forgive me, Mother,” Sebastian said. “I almost forgot. Lisandra sends her regards. She would have come herself, but she has a special new assignment, and her ship was at sea again before I had the chance to do more than blink.”

  “Of course,” their mother said. There was a tinge of sadness in her voice, but it had been a long, long time since Lisandra had come home.

  Sebastian’s imperial expression softened as he looked at their mother. There was genuine affection in his gaze, and for a moment, Nate felt reunited with the brother of his early childhood, the brother who had pulled Nate along on adventures and played at being navy sailors with Lisandra, all three of them certain that they shared the same bright future in the empire. Then Sebastian reached into his coat and withdrew a small pouch that tinkled softly with the sound of copper marks. “From Lisandra and I,” he said as he passed the money to their mother.

  She drew in a small, sharp breath and hesitated, but only for a moment. There had been a time when she had tried to refuse the meager salaries of her two elder children, but she accepted it now, a flush racing up her neck and over her cheeks as she murmured her thanks and regrets that her children had to provide for her.

  “The navy sees us fed and clothed,” Sebastian informed her, stoically and unnecessarily. The silver buttons on his coat gleamed in the dim light. “This is the least we can do for you and Father. We know that you’ve had difficulties.” He cut his gaze to Nate on the last word, and Nate squirmed under that unpleasant stare.

  Their mother did not see. She had her head bowed as she pocketed the marks, and Nate could see the relief in her shoulders as she thought of all the things they would be able to afford that month.

  “This is more than you ever should have felt the need to give us, Seb,” their mother said. She reached up and placed her hand against her older son’s cheek, humbled gratitude winning out over her pride.

  Nate did not know just how far into debt his academy training had thrust his parents, but even without Sebastian’s pointed reminder, he was acutely aware that the Copperroses would be working it off for years to come. The empire would never let its own citizens starve, but training the Skilled was expensive. Even if Nate survived working in the mines for a while, it would not be anywhere near enough to cover his debt. Watching his mother now, with Sebastian sneering at him over the top of her head and the orders to report to the mines burning in his pocket, Nate felt a deep and aching rage take root in his gut.

  “Are you here long, Sebastian?” he asked tightly.

  His brother gave him a languid smile. “Sadly, no. My ship only returned to Solkyria to restock, but we’re out on the next tide. I came to visit with Mother, but I’m afraid I must be leaving.” He waved his hand loftily through the air. “Lots to do before I summon the wind to take us back out to sea, you know.”

  “A shame you can’t stay longer,” their mother said wistfully as she hugged Sebastian again.

  Nate did not share the sentiment. The last thing he wanted was to break the news about his fate in the mines in front of his older brother. The sooner he was out of the apartment—and the remainder of Nate’s life—the better. A soft sweat broke out on Nate’s forehead and his stomach tightened unpleasantly at the sudden thought that Sebastian would find some reason to stay longer, and Nate would be forced to unveil the letter in his Highwind brother’s presence after all. He swallowed and tried to sweep the anxiety from his face, but he need not have worried. Sebastian was not paying him any attention at the moment.

  “Now, Mother,” Sebastian chided gently, “when the empire calls, we must go. Lisandra and I are proud to serve, and we are so honored that the empire not only forgave our debts, but also pays us our own salaries. Not many Skilled are so valued, you know.” Sebastian did not look away from their mother, but Nate felt the jab of the comment through his gut. He watched his brother adopt a faux look of remorse as he said, “I only wish we could give you more.”

  “Perhaps you could,” Nate said before he could think better of it, “if you weren’t so eager to drown yourself in ale.”

  There was a stunned silence as both Sebastian and their mother looked at Nate with wide eyes and slack mouths. His older brother’s vice had been known for years now, as much as their parents tried to pretend otherwise, but even Nate was surprised that he’d spoken so boldly about it.

  Their mother recovered first. “Nate,” she began, her voice stern, but Sebastian stopped her with a hand on her arm and a smirk at Nate.

  “Ah, Nathaniel,” Sebastian said, his voice smooth and cold, “I see you still don’t know how to speak to your superiors. I’d warn you about where that can land you, but I think that’s a lesson you’ll need to learn for yourself.” He donned his hat and brushed a nonexistent wrinkle out of his coat sleeve. “I suspect that will happen soon enough.” He stepped forward, letting his slight height advantage crowd Nate out of his way. “If it hasn’t already,” he added, flexing his fingers in a seemingly careless gesture that sent a small ripple through the air, which bounced playfully against Nate’s coat.

  Right over the letter in his pocket.

  Nate drew in a quiet but sharp breath. The rage inside him withered as he realized that Sebastian already knew about the mines, and had probably known that would be Nate’s fate for a long time. Nate looked away.

  Sebastian had the door open and one foot outside before he paused and turned back. “Oh, and Mother,” he said, almost as an afterthought, “I’m afraid I cannot do what you asked of me.” He gave Nate one final, scathing flick of his attention. “I can’t think of a single ship that would ever want the Nowind.” His smile was sharp enough to draw blood as the door clicked closed behind him.

  “Well,” Nate’s mother said after several long moments, “are you staying for dinner?”

  “No,” Nate answered. He was still looking at the door, and his blood ran cold as it became clear that his mother was not going to acknowledge that Sebastian had just called Nate “Nowind” in front of her. “I already ate at the academy.” It wasn’t untrue, as he had choked down a meager breakfast that morning. He hadn’t eaten since then, but the thought of eating now made his stomach clench and threaten to rebel. And he heard the soft sigh of relief that escaped from his mother. Tears blurred his vision, but he blinked them away as he reminded himself that he wouldn’t be a burden to his family for much longer. “I only came by to speak to you and Father about something,” Nate said, straining to keep his voice steady.