Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (23 page)

The woman raised her head, her expression lightening as if something pleased her. “Everything. Your atmosphere kills us. Our hull is disintegrating. If we cannot repair our ship, if we can’t leave, we will die.”

Ship. “What kind of ship?”

“A star ship.”

“A—” I choked on that idea. “A star ship.”

“Yes.”

“And you need different metals than what we have here to build your ship.”

“To fix it, yes. When we enter into the atmosphere, there is a lot of fire. I believe you know what fire does to things that are flammable.”

I did, though—a star ship. Really?

“I don’t have much time left, so, please keep up. The purest pleron is used to create the nanites. The ‘living liquid’, as you call it.”

Finally, the stuff had a name. “What are nanites?”

“They’re like bugs made out of metal and I can program their brains to do what I want.”

As a builder, that made sense, too. When I’d been designing the
Khayal’s
, I’d thought of building bugs to replace the creatures who cohabitated with us. In the end, it had been much more work than I’d anticipated, and it was just easier to dedicate the menagerie to their living space. “What sorts of things?”

“Well, when they enter your blood stream, they can control your nervous system.”

“My what?”

“The things that control your body.”

“Oh.”

“They’re called nerves. And I can talk to you through them, like sending messages through your radio.”

“Directly into my brain.”

“You are quick, aren’t you?”

It almost sounded like she was making fun of me.

“I’ve created a code that you and Nix can hack into.”

“Hack?” Somehow, I didn’t think that she defined the word the same way I did. “With what?”

“Your mind.” The old woman glanced behind her, then leaned in. “Not all of us agree that we have the right to destroy your world in order for us to live.”

“Thank you?”

“Don’t thank me yet. There aren’t enough of us to matter. It’s a little like attacking a mountain with a wasp.”

This woman, man, thing, whatever sounded a lot like me and how I felt going up against the Great Families.

She raised a hand, and lowered it, palm down, to the table. “Learn as fast as you can. The nanites are connected to your Mark.”

“Our Mark? How?”

“We created them. It was a part of the original program, a way to tell those who had them from those who didn’t.”

So, even those who weren’t in the Great Families had these nanites? “We’ve had these Marks for generations.”

The old woman’s eyes widened, her lips quirking. “Um, yup.”

I closed my eyes and pushed away from the table. “Then, if we have to drink this liquid, these nanites, how do some of the other tribes have them?”

“You honestly think the only way to get the nanites is through a drink?” The old woman shook her head. “No. No, no. The nanites are everywhere by now.”

That wasn’t heartening.

“I’ve given you a way to use the same thing we control you by to control yourselves. I’ve tried to give you a fighting chance.”

I opened my eyes and stared at the old woman. “All of this, this control and programing and bugs to get metal?”

“Marked One—Synn.” The old woman shook her head, her expression drooping. “Our ship is dying. We’re dying. Are there any limits you wouldn’t cross to survive?”

I’d like to say no, but I was more mature now. To say that would be to be naïve.

“Talk to Joshua. I’ve been trying to feed him information.” She looked toward the door. “I have to hurry. I’m running out of time. When you and Nix are together, your ability to control the nanites is stronger. Use that.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“You shouldn’t.” She straightened her back that looked as though it hadn’t been fully straightened in several turns. “We’re close to finding a cure for the atmosphere. If we do, we’ll destroy all current life on this planet.”

I blinked, my heart stopping.

The old woman nodded. “Now you’re listening.” She sank into the hard-backed chair. “I’ll try to make contact again soon. I’ll use your priestess to find a suitable conduit.”

“What’s your name? Who are you? What are you?”

The old woman stared hard at the door, her voice low. “I am Boubmadnomon.”

I tried to piece that name in my mind.

She licked her wrinkled lips. “We are the Skyborne, Synn. And so are you.”

“What do you—”

Carilyn stumbled forward as if released.

The old woman’s shoulders sank as if the weight of age had suddenly returned. Her back curved forward as she exhaled a long breath. When she looked up at me, her brown eyes were clouded by cataracts. “The El’Asim,” she said, her voice crackly and strained. “Thank you for saving us. Thank you.”

I looked at the window, staring to Neira and Nix, but seeing only myself and Aiyanna. What had we just discovered?

N
EIRA MET
A
IYANNA,
C
ARILYN AND
I in the hall. “What was that?”

As if I had any idea. “Do you know what nanites are?”

Her face screwed up in confusion.

Carilyn shook her head, one finger raised, her blue eyes focused inward. “I vaguely recall a report. Um, I’m trying to remember. I think Joshua wrote it? Perhaps. I don’t know for sure. But it mentioned something called nanites. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I thought it was just some scribbles since none of it made sense.”

“Does that happen often?” I raised my eyebrows.

“You’d be surprised, but, yes. Quite. The scientists and engineers we’ve collected are dedicated to their research, staying up for days, forgetting to eat or drink, and that’s with us practically pouring it down their throats.”

I rubbed my eye. “We need that report.”

“It’s in Sky City.” She turned, the heels of her shoes clicking with each long-legged step. “I’ll retrieve it.”

Moments like this one made me question the people around me. Carilyn had earned my trust more than once. As had Aiyanna, but I wondered at how closely tied they were to the Hands of Tarot.

Did that even matter? My entire life, the Hands of Tarot had been the enemy. My entire life, I’d been wrong. The Great Families weren’t the enemy. The Hands of Tarot weren’t the enemy.

This invisible entity. Boubmando—something.

A star ship? The Skyborne? Could it be more bizarre? More preposterous?

“What did the nanites mean,” Neira said, grabbing Aiyanna’s wrist, “the thing possessing that woman. What did it mean when it said you would find it a suitable host?”

The priestess opened her mouth and shook her head, her shoulders rising.

“You don’t know or you can’t say?” I asked.

Aiyanna flattened her lips for a moment. “I don’t know, but I will ask the High Priestess and see what she knows.”

Neira yanked her hand away from the priestess. “Who can we trust? Our theory was that if people hadn’t been introduced to the liquid—the nanites—they were safe.”

“Something is wrong with our theory.” I pounded my folded thumb against my forehead. “The programmer said the Marks are tied to these nanites. Everyone with a Mark has them. The only people without these nanites are the people with no Mark.”

“They could be in the water, in the ground,” Aiyanna whispered. “None of us are safe.”

“How many people have Marks?” I looked pointedly at Neira.

She thought, then shrugged, her mouth widening. “I don’t know. Less than half of us, I guess.”

Us. “You’re Marked.”

The color drained from her face.

I paced away, then back. “What do we do with the Ino refugees, then?”

Neira didn’t immediately answer.

“I’ll speak to Hehewuti.” Aiyanna broke away and headed down the hall. “She is here. She might offer guidance.”

Hehewuti. Vash name. High priestess of the Hands of Tarot.

Too many connections I didn’t fully understand. How had a member of the Vash tribe become high priestess of the Hands of Tarot?

Neira glanced at the interview door.

“You’re thinking of leaving them all, aren’t you?”

Her eye twitched before she turned to me. “I have to, Synn. I have a people to lead. They could be spies for Ino or this programmer or both.”

“Or they could be good people. This programmer seemed—” I didn’t know what words to say. “She programmed these nanites—whatever that means—to give us a fighting chance. Don’t you think she might be trustworthy?”

Neira tipped her head, her eyes closed. “She said they were going to destroy our world.”

“No.” I swallowed hard. “She said they were going to alter our world so we couldn’t live in it.”

Her brown eyes opened. “How? How would someone do that?”

I raised my shoulders.

“What kind of people could sail the stars?”

“She didn’t seem horrible.”

“But unable to breathe our air.”

I raised my face to the ceiling. “What would it be like to sail the stars?”

The corners of her eyes pinched and her lip curled.

“I sail the skies and I love it, but what it be like to sail the stars? How many planets are out there like ours? How many planets like theirs are there? How many different kinds of creatures?”

She slashed her hand. “We have our own problems down here.”

“We do, but imagine what it would be like to land on a world that was trying to kill you. With its air.”

“I don’t have time for imagining, Synn.” She turned and stalked toward the exit. “I have people to protect. But you, by all means, imagine.”

I felt like a child by her rebuke, but I knew. If I could just understand them, I’d have a better understanding on how to end this war before more people were murdered without a good cause. Let her keep her feet on the ground. As long as she led our people, then I would investigate these nanites and this new foe further. That’s where the real battle lay.

I grabbed one of the Vash as she walked out of an interrogation room. “Can you please have Nix escorted back to her chambers?”

The woman glanced at Neira’s retreating form, then back to me. “I’m not an errand girl, El’Asim. Get one of your own people to run your errands for you.”

I pulled back and bit my lips to keep from saying anything stupid. I was used to people doing as I ordered. I was the El’Asim.

The Vash didn’t seem to think I’d earned that title or that it meant anything.

And after my past performance, who could blame them?

Du’a?
I called with my mind.

I am here.

Warmth and peacefulness settled over me at the sound of her voice inside my mind.
Can you send someone to retrieve Nix?

Do you want her blindfolded?
With the question, came an image of Nix brought to the interrogation arena blindfolded, her hands bound.

Part of me said yes, but another part, the one who had listened and learned something that day, said no.
If the Vash are really that interested in keeping their secret areas secret, then they’ll have to escort her back themselves.

An annoyed agreement followed the path of our bond before Du’a’s presence slipped from my mind.

I exited the maze of corridors and rooms and peered ahead. It was dark outside the opaque walls of the
lethara.
The storm had either blanked out all light, or time had progressed faster than I thought.

I glimpsed Neira’s retreating back to my left and jogged to catch up. She had slipped through an unseen opening in the straight wall that cordoned off this area. I found the small space she’d disappeared through and followed her into what they called a market.

Few stalls filled the area, but people milled around. They prepared their weapons, refilled quivers and tightened bow strings, checked pistol cartridges.

I frowned. Were we heading to battle? Wouldn’t Neira have mentioned it if we were?

Wait. She had mentioned that a series of islands were under attack. Maybe she was just preparing.

Ryo ran toward me. “There you are!”

I grabbed his arm. “How did you find me?”

“Du’a.” He walked beside me, his strides wide. “We have problems, brother.”