Neen Cohen

CHAPTER 1
The past…

The shuffling in the seats behind Blue might as well have been a roar in his ears. His eyes narrowed at the woman. A pair of burly guards dragged her by the arms from a small door recessed into the back wall. It was the only wall in the large, cavernous room not obstructed by hundreds of Skyans, come to see the results of the trials, in their macabre curiosity.
He couldn’t blame a single one of them. Hadn’t he come for a similar reason?
The room itself had once been beautiful to him. The clear, domed roof gave an unobstructed view of the cerulean-blue sky above. When the clouds lowered, and the light brushed in just the right way, fingers of a lover’s caress, a rainbow of colors would flood the room and fill Blue with a sense of immortality and the freedom of the skies.
It was the largest room of the building, allowing those from all the clusters to gather. But now, it was too close, the crowded room too loud to his ears. The sky beyond was weeping a thin mist of rain, sliding down the curve of the roof like tears on a cheek.
The woman, the prisoner, stepped into the small cage on its dais. It sat in the center of the suddenly hushed crowd. All eyes were laser-focused on her. Her long, blonde hair, nearing white, hung limply around dirt-smeared cheeks and the deep grey eyes that had once reminded him of a coming storm. Purple colored the skin beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were sunken with the bones protruding.
Those eyes—once so familiar, but now as distant as a stranger’s—avoided looking at him and their children. He tore his own gaze away and looked above her, to one of the four diamond-shaped jewels that rested on shelves halfway up the walls.
The one behind her head was white. He knew it would not stay that way.
Blue’s daughter gripped his left hand so tight the tips of his fingers were beginning to whiten. His son, who sat to his right, pushed his father’s hand away when it was offered. Moments like these, it was hard to believe they were the same age. Just thirteen years and yet here they sat, silent with backs straight. So much older.
He ached for those days, now lifetimes ago, when he could wrap them in his arms, hold them close and promise them it would all be okay. When he believed those words were more than just platitudes.
What could he say or do to comfort them now? He had shown up without much doubt of his wife’s guilt, but a small flame of hope continued to burn in his chest. It was a fool’s hope. And it was a hope for his children, no longer for himself.
He had wanted them to stay home, to spare them the horrors this trial would bring—the looks, the whispers, the rumors—in the hope it would wipe this day from their memories, but it had been no use. At the mere mention of it, his son had become enraged, screaming obscenities and demanding to attend. His sister said nothing, simply stepping beside her brother, face unreadable as ever. Her actions spoke louder than any words could.
He should have stopped them, became the dictator his son accused him of being, but in the end, he was fighting his own battle, and losing the love of his life with it.
So, here they were, the entire family, watching the inevitable execution of wife and mother. Her own mother was nowhere to be seen. If she were there, she had not deigned to come to the pew for the family of the accused.
It was day seventeen of the trials, and the Guardian leaders, known as the Four, sat with slumped shoulders and heavy-lidded eyes. It was an honor to be on the Council of the Four, one that came with both power and longevity.
Blue knew all about that honor. He’d been removed from the Council of the Four the day his wife had been arrested. He itched at the fresh scar near the crook of his elbow. The strength waned more obviously in Blue’s replacement then the other three.
It was the last call of the day, just as Blue knew it would be.
“Fang-Ripper.” The widest of the Four stood, keeping his eyes on the piece of paper in hand. “You are accused criminal twenty-nine of the infanticide trials. You have confessed to thirteen acts of inappropriate use of our people’s crystal shards, and ten cases of torture of juveniles.”
Fang-Ripper’s nostrils flared as her eyes roamed over the crowd. “Those are your words, not mine.”
So many Skyans had come to see justice done for the children of their race. Blue’s eyes closed when his wife finally looked at him.
He could forgive her for the crimes to their people. What he could not forgive were her crimes to her own family, or the secrets she had kept and the consequences he would have to pay for them.
“Do you deny your guilt?”
“I took the children, and I made them better.”
Blue watched Fang-Ripper’s hand rise to her chest, fingers searching to clasp something no longer there. He clasped the pendant she had given to him moments before the door to their home was forced open and his world was turned inside out.
Slowly, as though stuck in a thick syrup, he opened his eyes as the roar behind him became thunderous with the stamping of hundreds of feet. Individual words bled together, until nothing could be discerned except the anger and the outrage.
Parish, the oldest of the Four, and once Blue’s closest friend and confidante, stood and slammed his palms down on the desk. “Enough!”
The Guardian’s palms slammed upon the desk a second time, and that finally did the trick. Perhaps not instantly, but the sounds dulled and soon silenced.
“You say you made them better,” Parish continues, “but you have provided us no explanation when questioned. You have given us no reason to believe your words. In truth, what you did was torture until death the next generation of our people. You, madam, are sick. Perverse. The very worst example of what a Skyan can be, what our people are capable of, and you deserve nothing short of death. And so it shall be. Your sentence is death, to be carried out immediately.”
Blue’s daughter squeezed his hand and he reacted, squeezing back for just long enough to reign in his anger. She continued to cling to him. Surprisingly, his son had leaned closer to his side, not quite touching but brushing his father’s coat.
Today, he would fail them again.
The cut was clean, a black, crystalline shard dragged across Fang-Ripper’s slender neck.
Fang-Ripper kept her head held high until the blood dripped, slow and agonizing, out of the cut, stark against her pale skin.
When she began to choke, a hacking cough and gasp that echoed around the silent crowd, neither of her children looked away.

CHAPTER 2

Twenty years later…

Green light streamed through the wall of windows. Kiera leaned back on the third-floor staffroom bench and sipped her coffee as the storm drew closer. Her office was a large rectangle overlooking the serpentine river that cut through the suburb. The kitchen was her favorite place, not just because of the coffee machine, though that was a big draw, but also for the amount of light that flowed in, even now.
That hypnotic, green light danced across the long table, the uncomfortable benches, and the few armchairs squashed together at each floor-to-ceiling window. Each crack of thunder, each flash of lightning, made her flinch, shoulders coming together as though to make herself a smaller target. The sound of rain against the building grew louder, a roaring musical tattoo—drums, trumpets, cymbals.
They’d needed rain. The news had gone on about the drought for weeks now, but it was such a heavy, sudden downpour. There had been nothing on the weather app this morning. She wouldn’t have come in early, or at all, if there had been.
She shivered, despite the warmth of the coffee. So why was she smiling this time?
The hair rose on her arms and at the back of her neck. Green meant hail, right? Could a storm be too much for the earth to take? The river was already rising against the bank, threatening calamity.
And still, she smiled between each sip of coffee. Must have been something in the air.
Still, glad I didn’t race back for the train now.
She sipped on her bitter black fuel, feeling vindicated as she watched frozen chunks of ice join the fat drops of rain smashing against the reinforced, double-glazed windows.
She looked at her phone, tapping her index finger against the back. She smiled at the scar that ran across the skin between her knuckles. One of her souvenirs from fencing class.
The green light deepened to a dark grey. The pummeling on the building grew louder, drowning out all other noise. The lights flickered.
Kiera pushed off from the bench and left the kitchen. Back at her desk, in her seat, her cubicle, she pushed herself back and rested sapphire blue Doc Martens up on the desk. Her little bit of ‘fuck you’ was normally hidden beneath her uniform of long, black pants and ‘professional’ white blouse.
The others wore different shirts, a useless way of individualizing themselves. Kiera stuck with the shirt with the embroidered sigil of the company over her left breast for pure convenience. These were not the kinds of clothes she would have ever bothered to purchase for herself.
She brushed cold fingers over her arm, prickling the hair on her skin as she looked beyond the office’s wall of glass. At least the claustrophobia was less than her library assistant job two years before. It had been in a dark room in the middle of the library, no windows and dust for days.
Of course, three floors up, these windows didn’t open, but at least she had a view.
The lights blinked out. Darkness settled over her.
Fuck!
With the power out, no more coffee. At least she’d already made her first cup.
The whir of computers and ducted air-conditioning died as a thunderclap made Kiera jump in her seat. She slapped her feet to the floor and gripped the edge of her desk.
“That was close…”
Her laughter echoed in the empty office as her heart thudded in her chest. The adrenaline pumping through her veins was her favorite fix, made her feel lighter.
She chugged on her coffee, gasping as the still-too-hot liquid burned a trail down her esophagus.
The battery-operated clock on her desk illuminated green dashes that told her it was a little after 7am.
Was anyone else stupid enough to come in today? Usually, Kiera resented the others who came in and got the bulk of their work done in the stupid o’clock quiet, but the dark and stillness pressed in on her. One other person would have been nice, maybe.
She could wait out the storm. She had to wait out the storm. Fear threatened her enjoyment of the darkness, so she stuffed it back into the pit of her stomach where it belonged.
Outside, it looked as though the sun had yet to rise. She knew the fallacy, because she had drunk her first cup of coffee watching it come over the horizon while she sat on the shitty balcony of her one-bedroom apartment, the place that cost enough to make her aunt almost cry when she told her.
As it was, Aunt Em had clung to her fingers, and all but begged her to stay, to live on the farm and be safe. She hadn’t mentioned Kiera’s history—the voice in her head, the nightmares, the sleepwalking—but it had radiated in her eyes and the concerned crinkles on her face.
Kiera had been ready. The voice, the nightmares, even the sleepwalking were long gone. Years gone.
So why were they in her mind now?
Turning her back on the torrential downpour, Kiera stood and looked over the partitions, like a cityscape in miniature, streets and blocks, a walkway like the river running through the middle. The desks were pods of six, the cream and brown color a mix that reminded her of movies set in the Seventies. Three desks at the end were hotspots, with nothing personal to indicate sole occupants like the rest of the pods.
But even the static desks held minimal whimsy or personality, except for Josie’s desk and its multitude of crystal pyramids. They scattered the surface and threw rainbow lights over the dreary walls of their day job.
Kiera’s own desk had three stress balls, things she had never needed at any previous job. The purple dragon was her favorite. She spoke to it more than the fairy or the bridge. The bridge was her free memento from the sunset climb of the Story Bridge over the Brisbane River. The climb itself was immortalized in the photo frame beside it. Her five-year-younger self wore a big grin, despite the hideous blue and grey jumpsuit she wore.
Kiera laughed and flicked the photo of her face.
“Ah, so young. The climb wouldn’t do anything for me now.”
Sky diving, daredevil rock climbing, fencing, axe throwing—everything and anything she could find. Except for spelunking. That shit was terrifying. She couldn’t imagine anything giving her a fraction of the thrill that bridge-climbing version of herself had experienced.
“Except maybe climbing it in a storm.”
Kiera shuddered at the mere idea, though she felt a smile tug at her lips. She’d never have the chance to climb the bridge again. Her contract was nearly up and her plans to head north were sorted. Josie was the only one she’d miss. The last two years had felt longer than most. She couldn’t remember the last thrill she had, unless she included Hannah. Hannah had been fun at least.
Kiera shook her head of memories.
She just needed more adventure. Brisbane had lost its charm long ago. She needed more.
For now, she would settle for coffee.
She looked at the screen on her phone as she plonked it on the bench beside the sink. She chewed her lip, convincing herself she wasn’t worried her phone hadn’t rung yet. Aunt Em hadn’t called yet, hadn’t called when the storm began.
She always called.
The pounding of rain continued to envelope her as she put her cup under the machine and hit the worn, grease-stained button. Nothing happened, and for a moment Kiera just stared at the machine, head tilted to one side. Another thunderclap made her jump. She facepalmed.
“No power, idiot.”
“What?” Kiera looked around, hope and fear warring at the idea of finding someone behind her. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The voice was back? The voice was back! No. It wasn’t possible. Therapy and pills, all those appointments and treatments. The voice was nothing more than the result of trauma. Losing both parents. It couldn’t be back; she’d taken her pills that morning.
But even Kiera knew she was lying.
Before the thought could germinate into further panic, her phone pinged with the slow buildup of the Star Trek: Voyager theme, her favorite TV show, one her Aunty Em would watch sitting beside her, holding her hand too tightly or wrapping her arm around her shoulder and pulling her close so all Kiera could smell was kerosene and paint. She forced in a deep breath, let it out slowly, plastered a shaking smile on her lips and snatched the phone off the bench.
“Hey, Aunty Em. About time, I thought you weren’t even going to check on me this storm. Like you just don’t even care.” Her tone was wooden, forced frivolity in the words. She was rewarded with a soft chuckle down the line and her shoulders dropped a little from her ears. “How you doing?”
“Oh, you know. Crazy as always.” Aunty Em’s Aussie accent faded into the background, the British one that hinted at her undiscussed past taking over.
Something was bothering her. Kiera tapped her fingertips on the edge of the bench as the silence stretched.
“Are you safe out of the storm?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Kiera let out a breath. She could deal with her storm worries; she’d been doing so since she could remember. “I got to work early this morning, to finish a project.” Em didn’t need to know her normal routine. “I’m all safe and tucked away in the building.”
“Why would you go in when you knew the storm was coming? It isn’t safe to drive in these conditions. You know it’s not. You know…”
“I know. Of course I know. But it wasn’t on the weather app, Aunt Em. Besides, I took the train in this morning. I’m safe. I made it before the storm hit. I promise, you don’t need to worry about us. Me. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Kiera didn’t remember the crash that had killed her parents and left her with a disfiguring scar, when she took her shirt off at least. Her fingers trembled over her chest, feeling the rope of scar tissue beneath the material. Her Aunt remembered the crash all too well.
“I’m okay. It’s just a little freak storm. I won’t go anywhere, I promise. Besides, it’ll probably just blow itself out soon enough.”
Deep slow breathes came down the phone line.
“It’s okay, I promise.”
“What’s happened, K?”
“W-w-what—?”
“What’s happened?” Aunt Em—stern, serious parental figure, Aunt Em—was now on the other end of the line.
Kiera felt like she was twelve years old again. “I heard the voice.”
“You know the voice is just your conscience. Have you seen your doctor recently? Do you need a refill on your medication? Perhaps the dosage needs to go up.”
“I know.” Kiera laughed, nodding to herself and pretending the prickle in her eyes was anything but tears. Hell, she would have been happy to have a sudden case of conjunctivitis. “And yes, I’ve seen the doc and got my refills. It’s okay. It was just the once.”
“And you are safe inside? You’ll definitely stay inside, no matter what?”
“Of course, I’ll stay inside.”
The heart attacks her aunt would have had if she’d known how many light showers Kiera had danced in during her life, just to prove she wasn’t scared of a little rain. Who wanted to feel like the Wicked Witch of the West?
The silence stretched.
“More nightmares, K?” Aunt Em asked.
Kiera closed her eyes as another crack of thunder rattled the glass in the frames.
Memories of storms wrapped up in Aunty Ems arms while she told fantastical stories about her paintings flooded her mind while the silence stretched like taffy. It had been a long time before Kiera learned that Aunty Em’s paintings were based on Kiera’s own nightmares.
“No,” Kiera answered, pain starting behind her eyes. A common enough occurrence when the interrogations came. “I haven’t had any.”
“Not too long now and you’ll be off on another adventure, huh?” The tension was a plucked violin string, but at least Aunt Em was trying.
“Yeah.”
Kiera pushed herself up on to the staff room table, shuffling her feet on to one of the uncomfortable, plastic chairs. She leaned forward, forearms resting on her thighs. One hand hung loose in the air while the other kept her phone pressed to her ear.
“How far away are you going this time?” Em’s tone caused an instant lump in Kiera’s throat.
“Aw, Aunt Em, don’t get like that. I always let you know when I get somewhere. And I visit as often as I can.”
Liar!
Kiera choked back the gasp, desperate for Aunt Em not to hear it.
“Not heading this way yet then. I didn’t think so.”
The light dulled further. Kiera spun to see a brief flash of something falling from the sky. A wooden something.
“No, no, no, no, no, no!”
It had looked like the hull of a ship, but that was crazy. She hadn’t fallen asleep, or… Maybe she had? But she didn’t have the nightmares anymore.
“One ‘no’ would have sufficed.” The tinny voice rang distant as the phone slipped away from Kiera’s ear.
“Sorry, gotta go. Love you.” Kiera pressed the red button on Aunt Em’s growing panic and tossed the phone on the table. “There isn’t a ship flying in the storm. There isn’t a ship flying in the storm.”
She muttered it like a mantra, like it would change anything.
And I’m just your conscience.
“Shut up, Jiminy.”
You were talking to Aunty. How did she know I was back, hmm?
“I’m not asleep.”
Kiera couldn’t tell if she was certain or surprised. With her nose pressed to the reinforced glass, she tried to see the ground where the ‘ship’ had landed. Streaming rain and mist blocked the view of the street below. She forced her shoulders to unclench and laughed as she stepped back.
Another echo of thunder clapped.
Not thunder. A scream.
“No, it was thunder. Why the hell am I talking to you?”
Had it been a scream? A scream that was far too close for comfort?
A blur of green slipped through the raging clouds, moving closer by the second. Kiera backed away from the window, liquid fire rushing though her veins. Tendrils of iridescent green and blue, like the branches of a weeping willow, followed behind a jade green dragon. A dragon with horns like twisted, dead branches and a textured chest of what could be mistake for vines and leaves. It’s beak glinted silver in every flash of lightning.
“No…”
A ship, followed by a dragon. This couldn’t be real. Dragons didn’t exist. This was Brisbane for god’s sake, not some fantasy realm in a Peter Jackson movie. Brisbane. It was beautiful, yes, but it was a town pretending to be a city, in a country that was little more than a puffed-up island. Dragons and flying ships did not belong here.
Kiera’s feet moved while her mind struggled to catch up. She raced to the foyer and groaned. She rolled her eyes as the light for the elevator remained dark.
No power, moron.
“Yeah, thanks.”
She headed for the fire escape doors. In the back of her mind, she felt Aunt Em’s panic, but there was a dragon and a flying ship. There was no way she was staying inside.
She could deal with the lecture later. Better to beg forgiveness then be denied the adventure.