Break the Chains

Chapter One

Cracked Thorn Steading appeared like a festering sore on the horizon. The township’s red-painted roofs, crammed into a split in the cliffside, made it look as if the town was bleeding out across the desert sands. Pelkaia stood alongside her first mate, Coss, on the foredeck of the airship which had once been named the Larkspur, now rebirthed as the Mirror, and watched the township slide into focus. She squinted against the wind and put her eyeglass up, scanning until she found the sandstone jetty the city used to perform its executions.

Figures moved beneath the glaring sun, little more than smudges of silhouettes.

“This’ll be a close ’un, captain,” Coss said.

Pelkaia nodded and slammed her eyeglass closed against her thigh. Coss didn’t need the glass to see what was afoot, that man could see an ant fart at a hundred paces. Although he couldn’t move selium gas to save his life, he could see minute selium particles trapped in eddies of air, and how they bent around a body. He was useless for manipulating the selium bladders which gave the airship lift, but he was brilliant as a lookout. And as a spy. Not a day went by Pelkaia didn’t bless the stable sands she’d scrounged him up out of Kalisan.

“We’ll make it,” she insisted.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and slouched backward, a scowl carved into the granite square of his jaw. “You sure it’s worth the risk? Could be a bum report, rumors being what they are. Wouldn’t want to kick up a fight with the local watchers over a petty thief.”

The Mirror caught a draft of good tailwind in its sails and lurched forward, eager to claim the speck of a prize standing on that spear of rock. She stroked the fore rail and gave Coss a tight nod.

“Our mere existence is a risk. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. But I won’t let them murder a so-called deviant just for breathing if there’s a chance I can stop it.”

She spun on her heel and pinned her makeshift crew under a critical gaze. Deviants, all of them, each one a selium-sensitive capable of manipulating that precious gas in a way the empire deemed indecent, if not outright illegal. They’d all been destined for a jail cell before Pelkaia came along and scooped them up, though none had been plucked out of a situation quite as dire as this.

Five souls handled the rigging, two hauled at the propeller cranks. Not a one of them was necessary to pilot the ship. If needed, Pelkaia could manipulate the directional force of the vast selium bladders hidden in the ship’s hull. But most airships sported one sel-sensitive pilot, if that. A whole ship full was destined to raise a few eyebrows.

Jeffin, her mirrors-man, sat on the deck with his back against the captain’s podium, eyes half-closed as he gathered his strength. Between the young man’s wind-reddened cheeks and tousled, sandy hair, she could never quite tell when he was truly tired or just suffering the bodily abuses of late adolescence.

Stuck to Jeffin’s shadow, as always, was Laella. The young woman had coaxed little Essi into sitting across from her on the top of a barrel. Though Laella’s fingers were busy braiding the younger girl’s hair, Pelkaia could see clear as a blue sky that the woman’s eyes were locked on Jeffin, waiting for him to need her assistance. They were a study in contrasts; the long-limbed woman born of aristocracy, and her sturdy Scorched counterpart. Try as Pelkaia might to keep an open mind, the simple presence of Laella rankled. Here was the daughter of her oppressor, no matter her deviant sensitivity.

“Laella!” Pelkaia snapped. “Stopped being a damned distraction and let Essi tie the blasted sails up.”

She winced and bowed an apology. Essi leapt from the barrel, half-braided hair flapping in the breeze, and darted toward the mainmast.

“Jeffin! Mirrors up! Make us look like a flat-bellied wallower.”

The young man leapt to his feet and saluted, then sat right back down and closed his eyes. Laella’s shoulders slumped, but Pelkaia ignored her disappointment. The girl came from privilege. She could wait her turn. Pelkaia extended her sel-sense and felt Jeffin draw from the invisible selium ring her crew kept looped around the ship at all times. He sectioned off what he needed and shaped it into mirrors all along the hull. By the time he was done the ship looked like any other dinky imperial cruiser, the distinctive lines of the original Larkspur hidden away. She smiled to herself. This was what the empire missed out on, outlawing any sensitive who could do more than just move selium into airships. They’d never see them coming.

“Lotta watchers up there,” Coss said, squinting toward the growing township.

“If they’ve got an illusionist, it’ll be worth it.” She folded her arms over her coat, a uniform piece stolen from an imperial commodore. The burgundy cloth stank of fresh dye, and the buttons had yet to lose their shine. The woman Pelkaia had snatched it from probably lost her post over the theft, but that wasn’t any of Pelkaia’s business.

She smiled at the approaching township. This was her business.

Coss grinned at her. “Rumor was a firebug.”

“Now look who’s bending to rumor.”

“Oh fah. Can you imagine if it’s true?”

She pursed her lips and adjusted her overlarge lapels. “Yes. Yes I can.”

Coss’s eyes widened and he looked away, pressing his mouth shut so hard his lips went bloodless. She knew the unspoken rule amongst her crew, though no one had ever dared tell it to her outright: Don’t speak of the Honding. It’d been a year since she’d seen that firebug-scoundrel, and still the shadow of their meeting dogged her. She clenched her fists, and called out to those up on deck.

“To arms, all of you lazy scabs! Those bastards mean to send one of ours to the endless night today. And what do we have to say to that?”

“Get fucked!” the chorus went up.

She laughed, and strode toward her cabin. “Prepare yourselves. I need to put my face on.”

Within her cabin, warm wax and raw oak permeated the air. She settled herself onto the padded seat of her new vanity, and unlatched the cap on her private sel bladder. While she worked, she ignored the gentle sway of the ship, the clatter of her crew, and the lack of her old bed behind her. The one her son had made.

In Aransa, she had used one of her bed’s four high posts as a guide. Now, she had only the seams in the wall’s planks to line up with. Guiding the selium to lay across her face in a fine, thin mask, she extended her senses and shifted the gas’s color and texture.

She shaped a simple face, an approximation of the drink-sodden commodore she had liberated the coat from. It needn’t be a perfect match, it was doubtful anyone would recognize a commodore of an inconsequential mercantile barge, but still Pelkaia found it advantageous to do her work beneath a mask. It left her true countenance unknowable; wanted posters difficult to print.

And it was always easier to put on an act while wearing someone else’s face.

It’d be a lovely thing, if the deviant they were looking to save now was also an illusionist. Having a twin in ability would make Pelkaia’s work that much easier.

Coss’s patterned knock rattled her door and she polished off her new visage. It was quick work, and wouldn’t hold up under tight scrutiny, but she didn’t expect the ruse to last. Despite Coss’s reservations about a fight, the lads and ladies of the Mirror needed to start testing their teeth if they were ever going to strike back against Valathea’s oppressive rule.

“Lookin’ lovely,” Coss said with a little smirk. “Do something with your hair, did you?”

“Nothing ever gets by you.”

“We’re almost in visual range for you blindies. Time for our esteemed commodore to make an appearance, eh?”

“Lead the way.”

The Mirror slewed to a halt alongside the jetty, looking for all the world like an imperial patroller. While the ship settled she scanned the scene, taking in the half dozen watchers and the bound-and-bagged man in their charge. He stood barefooted on the hard stone, his breeches scarcely reaching past his knees and his shirt smeared with filth. Some over-puffed watcher in a faded blue uniform had been encouraging him toward the edge with the point of a cutlass, but now that Pelkaia’s ship had arrived, his attention wavered. Pelkaia prayed to the sweet skies that the condemned man wouldn’t take the distraction as an opportunity to end his own life.

“Ho, watchers,” she called as she slung herself over the Mirror’s rail and onto solid land. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Coss scrambled over after her and circled those gathered, edging toward the captive man. Pelkaia forced herself to keep her gaze on the watchers. Coss knew his business.

A watcher sheathed his cutlass and stomped toward her. The crust of a grey beard ensconced his sagging chin, and he had a few more bars stitched to his shoulder than the rest. As he moved, the other watchers turned their gazes after him, intent.

“Got ourselves a damned deviant, commodore.” He cut a tight bow and gestured toward the waiting prisoner. “Care to do the honors yourself?”

She glanced at Coss, who held the captured man’s bound wrists. Good, the condemned wouldn’t do anything too stupid with Coss there to anchor him. Her crew dropped over the rail and fanned out around her, hands held easy at their sides. The watch-captain flicked narrowed eyes from one to the next, and rested his hand on the grip of his cutlass. Pelkaia sighed.

“What was his crime?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“You heard me, what did this man do?”

He hawked and spat. “Crime of being a viper-kissed deviant, is what he did.”

“Really,” she drawled. “And did anyone happen to see him perform these deviant abilities?”

“Uh.” One of the younger watchers stepped forward. “I did, commodore, begging your pardon. Saw him myself. Mercer Trag has… er, had… this pin, you see. Pretty thing you stick on your coat, real fancy. Was bragging about it, showed how there was a little ball of sel inside it, and it was nice, I’ll grant you, and then this man–” he pointed to the convict, “–says how he’ll, ah, give the Mercer something pretty to choke on, and poof, the thing burst into flames.”

“I see, a smart-lipped firebug. Of course. And did he do anything else? Is anyone dead or grievously injured due to this man’s behavior?”

“No, commodore, but–”

“And is the penalty for petty destruction of property in Cracked Thorn death?”

The watch-captain’s lip curled in disgust. “Being deviant is crime enough.”

“I will hear what this man has to say for himself. Coss, bring him.”

The watch-captain’s cheeks grew red with the effort of containing his anger. “Now wait a moment, commodore–”

She held up a hand and snapped it into a fist, cutting him off. “Do you mean to contradict the order of a commodore?”

“No, but–”

“Then be silent.”

Her crew moved around her, shifting their positions to make it clear weapons were easy to hand. The watchers, to their credit, stood stiff-backed and allowed their hands to creep toward their own weapons. Pelkaia resisted an urge to sigh again. If only they knew her appropriation had nothing to do with petty jurisdiction politics.

Coss dragged the prisoner over and ripped the bag off his head.

Pelkaia stared.

“Detan. Honding.”

Deep sun lines creased the corners of his eyes, and his hair stuck up in all directions. The sharpness of his chin and cheeks gave away a certain lack of consideration for proper nourishment. He grinned at her. That same, stupid grin he’d given her the first time she’d seen him.

“Pelly, old girl, I do love the way you say my name.”

“Coss, throw him off,” she said.

“Don’t throw me. But do throw that bag off. It stank.”

Coss stood where he was, baffled, looking like he was about to pinch the Honding to see if he were real. For his part, Detan appeared nonplussed. Irritation raked over her spine, raising gooseprickles. She opened her fists with the sudden desire to choke the mad bastard.

“You two know each other?” The watch-captain freed his cutlass, triggering his men to do likewise. Each blade was a fine piece of work, unblemished steel with the gleam of regular oil. They were probably the best kept things in the whole of this tumble-down town. Pelkaia snapped her fingers low and to the side. Coss nodded, and began to cut Detan free.