Page 35 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

Before long, the weight of the day and the weight of my head finally caught up to me. I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the rolling horizon, but everything kept blurring as sleep tugged on me. I must have nodded off a few times before Navin reached over and pulled my head onto his shoulder. I glanced up and realized Maez was already slumped against the wagon wall, her mouth agape, and drool trailing down her cheek. I let out a soft chuckle and let Navin’s shoulder take the weight of my suddenly too-heavy head. He wrapped his arm around me and I leaned into him more. I wasn’t sure if I had faded into the land of the dreaming or not, but I swore I imagined Navin kissing me on the hair before I drifted off.

Sadie

My head bounced off Navin’s shoulder, rousing me from my deep sleep. The sight before us made me suck in a breath, my hands shooting out. His arm hugged me tighter to his side. All around me was sky, only the rickety wooden bridge in front of us leading up into the clouds proving that we weren’t flying... or falling.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe.”

Thick braided rope was woven on either side of the bridge, making a spiderwebby barrier. But if one of Galen den’ Mora’s wheels—which were inches from the edge—tipped over one side, I doubted those ropes would do anything to save us.

As the sleep ebbed from my eyes, I leaned over the bench seat, looking straight down to the sand below... which I realized was only a couple feet below us still. I swallowed, suddenly feeling foolish for my panic when I could still practically step onto solid ground.

I shuffled away from Navin’s tight grip. “Where’s Maez?” I asked, noting the empty seat beside Navin as I stretched my stiff neck from side to side.

“Tea?” Maez asked; two hands offering out cups appeared through the curtain.

I looked down to the cup. It looked and smelled hair-raisingly strong. How could Maez even mess up a cup of tea?

Still, I took my mug with a muttered “Thanks,” and Navin did the same.

He grimaced as he sipped from the mug, and I let out a chuckle. He leaned his shoulder into me as if I was giving away a secret.

“I guess that crushtem—”

“Crishenem,” Navin corrected.

“Whatever. That scorpion creature disappeared in the night,” Maez said, pulling the curtain across to sit in the window bench. She took a sip of her tea and tried to subtly spit it back into her mug, but Navin and I both noticed, which made trying not to laugh even harder.

“They’re nocturnal creatures,” Navin said. “Most of the creatures in Lower Valta are. The sun is too strong to wake and hunt during the day.”

That was for damn sure. The sun had only just peeked above the horizon and already sweat was beginning to bead on my skin. I unclasped my cloak that Navin had wrapped around me the night before, and the memory of that kiss flooded back through me again. Curse the Moon, it was so much better than the first chaste kiss we’d shared so long ago. This one had felt so much more real and raw. Navin seemed more confident, powerful even, not the boyish musician but something else entirely. What more layers were secretly hiding there in those depths?

That thought once again brought me up short, because thereweresecrets in there, ones he swore he could never tell me.

It was frustrating how that closed part of him hurt me.

Maez craned her neck up to the sky. “How long until we reach Sankai-ed?”

I was thankful for the reminder of our destination as something to focus on. The first of the floating mountains sat low to the land and was the only mountain that wasn’t covered in lushgreen, probably because it still got too much arid heat from the desert below. It floated so close to the land that I wondered if the castle of Damrienn would’ve fit underneath. I imagined the tops of its needle-like spires scratching the sandstone belly of the midnight rocks beneath the islands.

“An hour, I’d say,” Navin said. “The bridges between the mountains are slow going to keep them flat enough for wagons to pass.”

“But we just descended that harebrained road from Taigos?” Maez grumped.

“Not all wagons are built like Galen den’ Mora,” Navin countered.

“How long until we get to Rikesh?”

“If we were going to Rikesh,” he said pointedly, clearly not forgetting our argument from the night before, “it would be another day, at least.”

“Great,” I said. Plenty more time to get sun sickness.

“I’ve been thinking,” Maez hedged, sliding a look to me. “IfI was going to carry on to Rikesh, I think that maybe you should stay back in one of the lower mountains with Navin.”

I whirled at her, surprised that she’d even considered continuing on to Rikesh but grateful nevertheless. I knew Maez was torn between her loyalty to me and her court. She and I had been best friends our entire lives, had been raised since pups together, went through military training together. But we both knew the right decision for Olmdere was that Maez do whatever she could to get Luo on our side.

Still, I wouldn’t leave her to travel through Upper Valta alone. What if she was attacked? What if relations with the Onyx Wolves soured? What if she needed our help? “I promise I’ll stay in the wagon in Rikesh, but I’m not staying behind.”

“This wagon isn’t the disguise it once was,” Maez pushed again. “Your father knows you’re riding with Galen den’ Mora.”

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