“Skyfall,” I mutter. For an instant, the sudden truth of the curse—that I just did fall from the sky—hits me, and semi-hysterical laughter tries to well up in my throat.
I frantically hammer at the exit hatch release button, then reach up with my other hand to push at the roof of my cockpit, trying to force it up and open. But the sides of the glider are buckled, and it’s jammed in place, trapping me inside with an instrument panel that’s on fire.
I force my body forward, ignoring the new bolts of pain this awakens, yanking my arms this way and that in the confined space as I wrestle my jacket off, distantly hearing my own shout as I pull the sleeve down over a gash in my right arm. Then I’m pressing the jacket over the dashboard, holding it in place to smother the flames, folding it in on itself as one spot burns through.
The cockpit fills with smoke, and I choke and cough as I slap at the release button again, the glider’s buckled dome screeching a protest that puts the council back in Alciel to shame. I use my good hand to bash once more at the dome itself, this time shoving it up and away, the warm night breeze hitting my face as the smoke dissipates.
I suck in a lungful of air, tilting my head back, the stars blurring into a faint tracery of white lines through the tears in my smoke-filled eyes.
I’m on the ground.
I’m Below.
I’m … dead.
I should have died in the fall, but soon it won’t matter. There’s no way up, no way home. The Skysinger’s engine allowed it to gain altitude, yes, but there’s not nearly enough power to launch from the surface—assuming it was even intact. Assuming it hadn’t burst into flames a few minutes into my flight.
How did this happen?
The thought does laps around my head as I find the seat release and push it back, slowly and carefully easing my legs out from underneath the crushed hood so I can check that they still work. After strapping my chrono back onto my wrist, I brace my left hand against the edge of the cockpit, grit my teeth, and grab at the other side with my injured right hand. I push myself up as I wriggle my hips, and I can’t muffle the noise that escapes me. White-hot pain takes my vision.
When it clears, my breath’s coming quick and jagged, but I’m crouching on my seat, surveying the ruins of my glider.
There’s just no way the Skysinger failed. I check her over constantly. Tinkering around with her is my favorite thing to do, after flying her.
I lower myself down over the side and land with a splash in ankle-deep water. I grab the remnants of my jacket and wrap them around one hand as I wade up to the front of the glider. And yes, I’m aware I’m focusing on solving a tiny problem to avoid the fact that I can’t solve a much, much bigger one.
We rely on thermals and momentum to glide from island to island in the sky—we have no way to fly up. That was the whole point of the engine I promised the council. But I haven’t built the damn thing yet, and without it, there’s no way for me to get home.
There are stories about those lost beneath the islands—about those who fell, never to be heard of again. The kind of stories you tell in the dark, late at night, to scare your friends. It’s only really happened once that I know of, back before I was born—a man from one of the smaller islands, who fell, and—
It takes a few bashes with my wrapped-up hand, but I manage to push the panel away to reveal the engine.
It radiates heat that forces me to look away, but I see the problem the instant I turn back, shielding my face with my hand.
Something—someone—has sliced through my supply lines. It’s a clean cut across the lot of them. A tool did this, not the crash. This was deliberate.
This was sabotage.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t Miri or Saelis, but there are always others down in the engines. I dodge them every time I head to the hangar. Engineers, other trespassers like me. Did one of them follow me to the hangar? If they did, why do this?
Why try to kill me?
Did they know who I was?
It doesn’t matter, of course. Soon, I’m going to wish I’d died in the fall. I’ll slowly starve to death, unless the poisoned air or water does the job first.
I’m going to die. Here. Alone.
I may be doomed, but my body hasn’t figured that out yet, and it keeps moving. I reach for the wrist of my wounded arm so I can take off my chrono and turn on its light, then lean back into the cockpit to dig in the storage compartment for the scarf I use on colder days. I hold the chrono’s strap between my teeth so I can aim the light as I wrap the scarf around my right arm in a pretty terrible bandage, panting by the time I’m done, pain racing all the way up to my shoulder.
I swipe to turn the light off again before my night vision is completely ruined, but then I remember—my chrono. It’s not just a handy flashlight.
My heart pushes up into my throat and swells three sizes as I reach with one trembling finger to swipe the screen. You can use a chrono to send a message all the way from one end of the archipelago to the other. Maybe it can reach Alciel from Below.
The display springs to life, projecting my options above my wrist, and for an instant my heart soars. I can let them know I’m alive! I can—
I can do nothing.
Because my chrono’s offering me a fraction of my usual options.
CALCULATOR TIME/DATE BIO-FEEDS SCAN PICS NOTES MESSAGE ARCHIVE
And that’s it. Anything that requires a signal—my current messages, my news feed, even the weather and wind forecasts—is unavailable. No help is coming from above.
I drop my wrist to my side, turning to take in my surroundings. A sweep of stars lights the sky above me. The lake around me mirrors the stars and clouds, and at its edges, darkness looms.
There are no real stories about Below, only legends. But every one of them speaks of desolation. A few speak of unnatural beasts, savage and brutal, and as if the thought of them is a summons, I hear a steady splashing away to my left.
Something’s out there—and coming this way.
My chest tightens, and suddenly, despite the inevitability of it, the realization hits me: I don’t want to die. Not now, and definitely not like this.
I wade as quietly as I can toward the back of the Skysinger—the front is still smoldering—and press myself in against her, hoping I can crouch in the shadows and avoid the thing’s notice. I’ve seen birds, but never an animal except in pictures. Is that what this is? What can it do? Can it see in the dark? Can it smell me?
As it splish-splashes closer, I realize it’s no taller than my knee, and covered in striped hair all over its body. A long tail trails behind it, held up in the air to keep it dry, and its eyes seem to take up most of its face, though there’s still room for a long, pointed nose. I press back into the glider’s side as the thing marches toward me, and with a soft trill, stops right in front of me.
The noise doesn’t sound like it wants to kill me, but for all I know it’s about to unfurl a long, poisonous tongue and zap me with it.
“Hey, little … uh, thing,” I murmur cautiously, trying to figure out whether to lunge right or left if it suddenly becomes hostile.
It blinks at me when it finds out I can make a noise, the movement slow and deliberate, and then it sniffs at me once and burbles cheerfully, as if it’s replying.
Maybe it is? I have no idea how intelligent animals are. Could it understand me?