Page 2 of Heir

The calm that had entered Aiz’s heart at Noa’s touch evaporated, replaced by a memory: A night six months ago, before a new crop of pilots was announced. Waiting with Cero in his quarters to find out if they’d been chosen for the elite Sail squadron. Aiz had paced from cot to window, unable to sit still until Cero took her hand. His touch elicited a spark, a kiss, confusion followed by delight and laughter and hope.

And then the morning after, Cero became a pilot and Aiz became nothing.

“I don’t see why he lives here,” Aiz said. “Taking up a bed. Eating our food. He can quarter with the other pilots.”

“The cloister is his home,” Sister Noa said. “Youare his home. Don’t punish him because Mother Div saw fit to make him a pilot. Now, get moving, love.”

Aiz tucked the scarf back around Noa’s short white curls. She needed it more than Aiz did. “Go inside, Sister. Warm your bones for a bit longer.”

When Sister Noa had shuffled away, Aiz regarded Cero, waiting beyond the cloister gate. He hadn’t spotted her yet.

She turned away and snuck out the back.

By the time Aiz arrived, the airfield and its runways bustled with pilots, flightmasters, engineers, and signalers. Aiz’s fellow drudges scurried amid the chaos, lowborn Snipes like her hauling buckets and poles and ice-encrusted flight leathers.

Beyond the airfield, the Sail-building yard was equally busy, crowded with scaffolds and skeins of twine, reams of canvas, and stacks of cured reeds. The Aerie stood beside it, casting a long, blue shadow. Like many of Kegar’s buildings, it was slope-roofed, made of wood and stone and shaped like the slash of a quill. It housed hundreds of pilots and drudges.

“Snipe!” A flightmaster grabbed Aiz’s elbow and dragged her to the stables. He was a Hawk, a highborn, like most of the Aerie’s bosses. “Muck out the stalls. Then report to hangar one. A dozen Sails need waterproofing.”

Aiz sighed and grabbed a pitchfork. Stable work was stenchsome, but at least the building was well constructed, with stone walls that kept awaythe wind and wide doorways that offered a clear view of the airfield.

Out on the launching pads, dozens of Sails awaited pilots. From here, the craft looked like piles of sticks and canvas, rustling in the wind. But Aiz knew better.

Every Kegari child, regardless of birth, was tested for windsmithing skill at age fourteen. When Aiz had shown a talent for it, the flightmasters put her in a Sail, and she was sent to the Aerie for training.

She’d never forget how it felt in the single-seater cockpit: The cool bowl of Loha, the metal that flowed into liquid at her touch, fusing with her hands before shooting out through the Sail’s hollow frame; the sight of the curved, triangular wings lifting like the pinions of a coastal gull. The way her blood fizzed at the caress of the wind—before she inevitably spiraled to the earth, unable to control her magic.

She’d spent years trying to control it. She’d failed.

Now, face hot with envy, Aiz watched Sail after Sail spring to life, canvas stretching tight as the reed scaffolding filled with living metal. The Sail pilots would wing north across the mountains to drop bombs on distant foreign villages. The waiting Kegari army would pillage grain and goods to send home. And thus, Kegar would survive another season.

Aiz’s people had long ago stopped producing enough food to feed their own. For the last century, the raids were ever present, ever essential. So were the pilots who led them.

Which meant that whether you were born a low Snipe, a middle-class Sparrow, or a highborn Hawk, becoming a pilot guaranteed food, shelter, clothing, training. It meant a life. A future.

Reins jangled and Aiz whirled to see Cero leading his mount, Tregan, into the stable. His dark hair was scraped back into a high bun. Purple smudges beneath his eyes made his green irises look black. In blue-scaled flight leathers, he managed beauty and gravity, even as he leveled a stare at Aiz.

“I waited for you.”

Aiz shrugged and pitched a particularly large scoop of filthy hay over her shoulder—barely missing Cero. “Your problem, not mine.”

“Spires, Aiz, but you’re difficult.” Cero, usually as emotionless as the mountains, sounded almost annoyed.

“And you’re cranky.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Don’t see why.”

“Right, because I’m a pilot.” Cero walked Tregan to her stall and she snapped at him. Aiz smirked. The mare had always liked Aiz better than Cero.

“Having my basic needs met only costs subservience to the Triarchy,” Cero went on, “and offering my life to a Spires-forsaken megalomaniac who shouldn’t oversee a dog kennel, let alone an army.”

“Shut your gob!” Aiz looked around frantically. The stables were empty, but that didn’t mean no one had heard. Lord Tiral bet-Hiwa led the flight squadrons. He was also heir to one of the three Triarchs who ruled Kegar. His family had spies everywhere.

“What’s he going to do if he hears me?” Cero said, leaning against the thick wall of the stables. “Throw me in the Tohr? The Sail squadron leaves tomorrow. Tiral needs me dropping bombs on innocent villagers, not moldering in prison.”

Cero sounded bitter, not proud. His ability to windsmith—to bend the air currents to his will—was prodigious. That’s why he’d been chosen to pilot a Sail.

He hadn’t expected that Aiz would be left behind. But while Cero could tame the wind, Aiz enraged it. While Cero lifted a Sail into a precise spiral, Aiz tore the canvas wings to shreds. She could shift a scent and call a breeze, but any more than that and the wind defied her.

No point in grieving what could have been. Aiz had found another purpose.

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