Warning: Disaster Ahead
The sun sank lower on the mountainous horizon, brilliant oranges and reds spanning away from it and saturating puffy clouds in rich hues. Lapis adjusted her chair on the flat rooftop and snuggled into Patch as cold wind skidded across the black flooring; he said the sunsets had an intensity in Trave not found in Jiy, and she happily partook of the site.
Lucky them, the Minq safehouse building sat atop a hill; taller buildings further down the slope did not block the spectacle.
He slipped his arm around her, and she snagged the fingers dangling over her shoulder. Even in Trave, a Dentherion blight on Theyndora, he provided a joy to consume her. She looked up; his soft smile warmed her as much as his body, and she kissed him, wallowing in his promise.
She much preferred this, to pacing while couriers trickled in with information about city checkpoints.
“Everythin’s so bright ‘n colorful,” Rin breathed. “Not like Jiy.” He motioned to the valley floor, where shimmery lights brightened the deepening twilight shadows into a greyish-yellow haze. “I’d think it’d be hard to skit around them streets.”
“The streetlights don’t illuminate everything,” Patch said. “Alleys are dark as always, and the poor sections of the city are as dim as the helplessness residents feel.”
“You been here lots?”
“Often enough. The city’s lost its awe, but the sunsets still inspire.”
The rat nodded. He had not lost his awe; in fact, it grew after his expedition with Patch. They had only been gone the rest of the morning, but upon return with the item Faelan wanted them to retrieve, Rin looked as excited as a puppy expecting a treat. The cloudbreakers, the street signs, the lighting, the automatic doors, the zippy transportation, enchanted him.
Trave was opposite of Jiy in so many ways. He could not get enough.
Lapis’s gaze drifted to the right and the black blots of twelve stacked skyshrouds hovering over the tallest cloudbreakers along the northeastern edge of the valley below. Green lights raced across the pitiless hulls, the glows ominous in their throbbing intensity. Chains with flashing green streaks tethered the gigantic ships to one of four docks circling the rooftops they attached to, all lit as if the sun had parked its butt on top of them.
Some tech was not so nice.
Patch pointed to the nearest dock. The cloudbreaker it circled, despite towering over the adjacent buildings, looked like a dimly lit child’s toy compared to the breadth and glow of the skyshrouds hovering above them. “That’s the military headquarters complex,” he murmured. “The Leads. It’s an eyesore monument dedicated to Dentheria’s hubris and cruelty. There’s at least one ‘shroud docked there at all times because they think it proves their strength, rather than their coldness and brutality.”
The darkness lacing his words cracked on laughter rising from below. Rin glanced at them, half-smiling in confusion, then crawled to the edge and looked down at the street. Lapis drew away from her partner to take a peek as well.
People filled the crumbling pavement, bundled in winter wear of average quality, each holding a small candle in makeshift containers. The strings of tiny tech lights that crisscrossed the road hizzed and sizzled then flashed on. The whitish-yellow glow bounced off the shiny garlands strung just below them and the snow lying in clumps to the sides of buildings, giving the air a soft, wispy feel.
The crackle of a speaker caught their attention.
“DUE TO THE CURRENT UNREST, THE CITY COUNCIL DECLARED THE FIRST NIGHT OF STARLIT CANCELED.”
Furious shouts and yells drowned the words as they repeated. Patch trotted to the side that faced the valley and leaned against the parapet; Lapis and Rin followed. A black vehicle with a bulbous front, tiny windows, and a flatbed with a cage on the back, slowly rolled down the center of the larger street, men in grey uniforms with tall, transparent shields walking behind it and ordering people to go home. When they reached an open door to a business, the uniforms rushed in, and annoyed, angry, upset people rushed out.
“Scared, much?” Patch asked. “Let’s get inside.”
Lapis lifted her lip at the vehicle and retreated. Not that she cared about a Starlit celebration, but she despised anyone working in the best interest of the empire. Sending a scathing glare at the skyshrouds docked at the Leads, she turned to leave.
Then snapped her head back. The northernmost skyshroud, lights flickering, lost altitude to the left, and tapped its neighbor, which shuddered and sluggishly swung away from the dock.
“Rin, get Cowl,” Patch commanded as he stared at the black blots in the distance.
The rat raced away to the lift as panic raged through her. Dentherion skyshrouds had crashed in the past. Asef, in Andef, was the most notable disaster because the wreckage took out the eastern half of the city. She had seen images of the place, felt the unease when she imagined the ‘shrouds docking in Jiy having an accident, but now . . .
She snagged Patch’s hand; he pulled her into his arms and squeezed. Her heart thudded fast, and she gasped for breath as the troubled ‘shroud’s lights dimmed, then strengthened, bright enough that the green bled into white, and the vessel stabilized. It floated slowly towards the dock, as bumped ship blazed to green life.
A body rammed into her arm—Rin—and the rest of the safehouse crowded next to them, staring.
The anchor chain fell away from the distressed ship and flares of blue fire burst from the bottom. They swiveled to point at the dock; the ‘shroud moved away with agonizing slowness. The bumped ship’s tether slid from it and swung under the dock, smashing into windows at the top of the building.
The fire burned white. Sputtered. Vanished. The lights, as one, blinked off.
Lapis slapped a hand over her mouth. Patch’s grip tightened, and someone whined a denial.
The skyshroud, a lightless inky black against yellow haze, tipped forward and dropped. It slammed into one of the monumental buildings, shearing the roof off with its hull. The orange and blue structure lights died and debris burst everywhere before a chunk of the top toppled and plummeted. The vessel continued into the next building as the faint sound of squealing and grinding reached them. Small dark dots erupted from the top and into the air; blue fire ignited beneath them, and they sped away.
Ice wind tore across the rooftop, and Lapis blinked tears from her eyes as the other two skyshrouds released their anchor chains, red lights zipping across them, a blare of alarms a distant screech over the gusty whistles.
Fire rose from the front of the crashing skyshroud as it exited the other side of the second building, then careened to the earth, taking the edge of a third with it. Flames erupted skyward, hearty plumes of ashen smoke billowing at the edges. Sparks wafted into the sky, pretty orange against the deep grey.
Distant, ethereal, as insubstantial as the screams brushing her ears. Not real. No. No. That did not happen. She had not just seen a skyshroud crash. A dream, nothing more.
An explosion reached for the heavens as the third building collapsed into the clouds of smoke. The first structure shuddered, leaned to the north, and fell, the second moments behind. Flames glowed through the thick plumes of ash before the density overwhelmed them.
The remaining skyshrouds raged to life, green glows turning red, tethers released, anchors pulled up, emergency lights flashing in ominous time with each other. The bottom of the bumped skyshroud flared to blue-flame life, and it moved from the destruction at a speed she had never witnessed in the gigantic ships.
Alarms wailed from every direction. Light blazed beyond the smoke haze, shooting through the air and whipping around like a lighthouse lamp. Tiny black dots with wide parachutes drifted through them, rocking gently back and forth.
“Mother of the Seven, have mercy.” Sils agonized whisper blended with the strengthening wind. The gusts froze tears to Lapis’s cheeks, but she, as stiff as ice, could not move her hands to brush the streaks away.
The last brilliant edge of the sun sank below the horizon.
