It’s barely past sunrise when the balloon jolts with the force of Micah scampering to the edge like an excited child.
I swear he nearly flings himself overboard.
Around us the sky is painted in yellow and pink, the sun almost close enough to touch as it rises from the ocean. I’ve traveled a lot in the Last Army, but I’ve never seen the world this way. It looks milky, the waters behind us streaked in a mirror of clouds.
My father wanted to make this journey, taking Leo’s butterfly to the Southern Isle himself. Being up here makes me feel closer to him, crisp air biting my cheeks and howling promises of his vengeance.
“I can see it!” Micah yells. “Land!”
The color returns to his face at the sight of the mass of buildings and thick grassland below. Three days on Leo’s butterfly is clearly too much for Micah to handle.
“We’re there?” Selestra asks. “Truly?”
She leans over the side and follows Micah’s gaze, marveling at the market stalls and tiny dots of people.
The wind seems to pick up speed with her smile.
I stare at the island below us, watching the light catch across the treetops, shimmering against the leaves so it looks like they’re alight in yellow.
“Armonía,” I say in a breath.
Once the land of harmony and now the land of the forgotten.
It was the second in the Six Isles to fall to the king in the True War, after Thavma, and now it sits quietly on the edge of our circle of islands, like the tip of a teardrop.
It’s a place where nature once sang and people worked together to build homes and plant forests. Where for every day of rain there was a day of sun and nothing was without balance.
Each of the Six Isles used to have something like that in the old days. A trait, a story.
Vasiliádes was home to kings of thought and philosophy, who built a floating mountain to try to reach the gods. Nekrós, the land of bones, with a city built from the dead, so they could forever remain a part of the land and help it grow. Flóga was a place of fire and light, where the next rulers were chosen by the one child not burned in the phoenix’s breath. Thavma, the land of witches and magic, where Selestra’s ancestors must have once been born.
And Polemistés, the land of warriors. Where strength still rules above all else. The land that birthed Seryth, who left it to search for enough magic to conquer the world. It’s the land that stayed while the others crumbled, that kept its traditions and magics while the rest were stripped of theirs.
The land that holds the key to my father’s dying wish.
“How do we get down?” Selestra asks.
I pick up the bag of ice dust that Leo left us, examining it carefully. It’s a small brown thing the color of burnt straw, and when I open it, a whiff of lavender soaks the air.
“Leo said to throw this into the fire. As the flames cool, the propeller should slow and we can begin to land.”
I throw the contents of the bag over the flames. The tiny shards of ice are a bright silver white as they fall, like snowflakes. This bag holds winter.
The flames splutter beneath it and I grip the wheel, trying to keep it steady as the balloon descends.
We get lower and lower, the propeller slowing enough so the wind moves us away from the town and into a large field of wildflowers and long grass.
The flames flicker and subside as the ground approaches, turning from blue to warm orange, then to a breath of yellow that struggles against the wind.
The descent gets faster and I realize too late that there isn’t much to cushion our fall.
Leo taught me how to prepare to land, but not how to actually land.
“Hold on!” I yell.
The balloon knocks into the ground and skids across the grass, skipping over the soil and then crashing back down, like it’s hopping.
I brace myself as it trips over the dirt, but it’s no use. We’re all thrown to the floor, sliding around the basket like we’re pieces of loose fruit until finally we’re flung from the balloon entirely.
I hit the dirt hard and roll across the muddy ground. The earth thumps against my injured shoulder and I feel the sting of mud press into the open wound.
Every piece of me feels bruised, but by some miracle nothing feels broken.
I lift myself from the ground and look across the empty field we landed in.
“I’m starting to get really tired of falling out of the sky,” I say, rolling my shoulder back as I feel a new bruise forming.
Just another one for the collection.
Micah picks himself up from the weed patch he was thrown into. “This is worse than Last Army training,” he says.
He retrieves his shoe, a good ten feet from where he landed.
“Did I mention I hate you?” Selestra asks.
I turn to see she’s somehow managed to stay inside the balloon and is working to untangle herself from the basket, foot caught in the rope. She curses as she rips her ankle free.
“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” I say.
Selestra glares at me, wiping the dirt from her dark blue gloves and onto her trousers.
“Good.”
She blows out a huff of air, swiping her leafy hair from her face, and helps Irenya to her feet. I’m not sure what the big fuss is.
Aside from a few scrapes, we’re all okay.
It would have really put a dampener on the quest if we’d died before we could complete it.
“Luckily I didn’t break my ankle for a second time,” Irenya says. She’s covered in as much mud as the rest of us. “You’d have to carry me to Polemistés.”
I survey the damage to the balloon. Twigs and wood protrude from the basket in our wake and the great balloon itself has sputtered and collapsed into a heap on the grass, torn from the fall.
“Be thankful it’s not your neck,” Selestra says, stepping beside me to eye the broken balloon. “Do you have another plan?”
“A plan,” I repeat. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”
I’ve spent my life reacting, without needing to overthink it, so I hadn’t really planned much past taking this balloon to Polemistés and killing the king.
“We’ll head into town and find a way to repair the balloon,” I announce, turning away from the new holes in Leo’s butterfly. “It’s the only safe way to Polemistés. We can’t just abandon it.”
I dig through the collapsed fabric to find our supplies and throw a backpack to Micah.
“You too,” I say, throwing one in Selestra’s direction.
She catches it with a grunt and glares in a way that I’m starting to think is reserved only for me. At least the glares I can get used to.
They’re far less unsettling than when I see sparks of something else inside her. A lost and hopeless look, like the one she gave me back on the balloon, when she spoke of destroying her mother. It’s the kind of look that makes me have to constantly remind myself what she truly is.
Witch. Witch. Witch.
“Help me fold this up.” I gesture to what’s left of our balloon.
When we reach Armonía’s main town, our first step will be to find a fabric weaver who can help stitch our safe passage back together, before death—or the king—comes for me again.
The four of us gather at the edge of the fabric and begin to tightly roll it, squashing all the air out. We keep going until it starts to look like a comically long sausage that fits snugly into the large bag Leo provided. It’ll take at least two of us to carry it.
“Is it this way into town?” Selestra asks, pointing excitedly into the distance. She hitches the backpack on her shoulder.
She’s more desperate to get to town than I am.
I suppose that since she doesn’t care about the sword, the disappointment of losing our travel to Polemistés isn’t nearly as important as the novelty of being able to explore somewhere new.
“Once we get to town, nobody will know who you are,” I remind her. “They won’t be bowing at your feet. It might not be to your liking.”
“You’re not to my liking,” Selestra says simply, and begins walking across the field. “I’ll lead the way.”
I smirk. “Town is in the other direction, princess.”
Selestra stops and swivels back around, not missing a beat. She strides back past the balloon basket and knocks her shoulder into mine as she passes.
“I’ve told you I’m not a princess,” she says, for what feels like the hundredth time.
She seems to hate the word, which only makes me want to say it more.
“So you’ve mentioned.” I eye the bracelet on her wrist. “But you should remove those royal jewels if you want to convince everyone else.”
Selestra pauses to touch a hand to the gem on her wrist and a look of grief passes across her delicate features, quick enough that I almost miss it.
Everything about her is rushed and fleeting, like she can’t bring herself to linger on any kind of emotion for long. It could be that it’s too painful, but part of me thinks she’s just not used to emotions at all.
Everything I’ve heard about witches points to them being creatures of death and curses. Their kind helped the king conquer islands and Selestra’s family has kept him in power for lifetimes.
I can’t let myself think she’s different.
Selestra’s right: She isn’t a princess, or some innocent girl who needed to be rescued.
She’s made from dark magic and I can’t ever forget it. There’s a fire inside of her—if she lets it, it’ll burn through the world.
I pick up my sword from the rubble, steady my breath, and lead the way into town.