67. (Brother and Sisters, Continued)

Part Two: Destruction (Eri)

Some half-an-hour beforehand, half-an-hour before Eri is to become heir to her brother’s newfound throne, the flagship of the Royal Air-Navy lumbers into the sky over the city, its boat-like form bulky and clumsy. It is both the largest ship in the fleet, and the largest ship at the docking tree, with twice as many blue-violet Arcan Drive blisters holding it in the air.

As the huge airship, the Ado’s Wing, slides slowly towards its docking branch, Sky Admiral Eri Ado stands at the stern, looking out over the cramped metropolis. The whole of Cal Aeros is located within the bowl of what was once a volcano so huge its eruptions had a global impact. Now it is simply an oddly-shaped mountain with a city on top of it. The city itself is made almost exclusively out of trees, grown with the magic of Eri’s people, each massive and twisted—but none so massive and twisted as the palace tree that sprouts from the center. The citizen’s of Cal Aeros, referred to as aeryyns, flit from one tree to another, wings carrying them through the air. They spend most of their time off the ground, rarely walking from place to place.

Looking at Eri, it is hard to see the family resemblance between herself and her brother Reid. Where he is lanky and awkward, she is lithe and graceful. Where his hair and wings are black, hers are a golden, lustrous brown. His eyes are blue, but hers are a dark shade of crimson. Reid dresses casually, and usually in black—Eri dresses formally to a fault, usually in her Sky Admiral’s uniform: a maroon jacket, open at the front to reveal a simple white shirt, with tails hanging down to a point at her knees, form-fitting black pants, and folded maroon boots and gloves. She is the picture of a seafarer, minus the sea itself, and the pointed hat.

She is staring, blankly, out over the city when her first mate, Thohr, crosses the deck behind her and gets her attention: “We dock, cap’n. You go see family, Thohr get crew workin’. No worries, yeah?” Of all the crew of the Ado’s Wing, Thohr is the only one who still refers to Eri with her original title, that of captain of the ship; he is also the only one who has been with her since she was a captain. In addition to this, he is the only troll not only in the crew, but in the navy, and in the city itself. Ten feet tall, broad and rippling as one would expect a troll to be, and the dark green of pine needles, Thohr stands out in a crowd.

“Have us ready to leave in three hours,” says Eri. She doesn’t look at her first mate, but at the palace tree, at her home. She has a bad feeling. In fifteen minutes it will be a feeling that is resolved in violence and bloodshed; in fifteen minutes she will move up a rung in the ladder of inheritance; in fifteen minutes the number of her family will be cut in half.

Thohr salutes as Eri turns to walk down the gangway to the landing platform. “As you were, captain.” She gave him the rank herself; he still refuses to acknowledge it, but smiles hugely when she uses it verbally. They are as close friends as two people of such violently different backgrounds can be.

Eri grew up in the palace. At age 20, the age her parents had decreed would be the age the Ado children would be put to work (they refused to let them grow fat and lazy on palace living), she was given the training—and then the post—of Sky Captain of the Aeros Pride, a much smaller ship than her current vessel. Eri chose the Royal Air Navy; years later, when he turned 20, Reid chose to join the Royal Guard (his casual black dress is, in fact, their uniform), and not long after that, Mara chose to join the Royal Arcanist Brigade—nearly a decade earlier than she was required. Mara was, is, ambitious to a fault. Eri simply excelled at the task she chose for herself. She had no ambitions to become Sky Admiral, it was simply how things happened.

Thohr grew up in a forest somewhere. He didn’t know where, exactly, but it was far from here. He didn’t know how old he was. He didn’t know his parents. It wasn’t that Thohr was dumb; it was just that the information had never been presented to him. Not long after he had reached what trolls see as maturity, the village he lived in was raided, most of his people were wiped out, and Thohr was taken as a slave by a human. He served in the city of Derranan (he didn’t know this name, either, but Eri had managed to figure it out from the way it was described) under a lord who beat him. When he beat the lord back, he was jailed for what was probably a decade. Eventually, Thohr was placed on an airship in the Derranan Air Navy (a pale comparison to its aeryyn counterpart); when Derranan went to war with Cal Aeros, Eri and the Aeros Pride crippled Thohr’s ship and freed the slaves and prisoners. The troll has been beyond loyal to the princess-turned-officer ever since.

It is ten minutes later when Eri lands lightly on one of the upper platforms of the palace tree; she folds her wings against her back easily in one smooth motion. Without missing a step, she strides across the flat, level surface towards the door—and the two door guards. Her bad feeling persists. A cool breeze wafts across the platform, playing with her hair. The two guards salute, clicking their heels—then, unexpectedly, lower their spears and bar her path. “Make way, privates,” Eri commands, blinking but not losing her regal, commanding stance.

“I’m sorry, Sky Admiral, but I have to ask you to turn away,” says the taller of the two guards. Eri looks at him quizzically and asks, confused and tired,

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“The palace is on lockdown. Please return to your ship and wait there for further orders.”

“Orders?!” Eri inquires, growing more and more confused. “There are only two people who are of rank to give me orders, private. Now make way or I’ll have you arrested.” Her hands, idly, stray to the handles of the twin sabers that hang from her belt at either hip. “That is an order.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the private replies, nervously. Beads of sweat dot his brow. “I’m very sorry,” he says in a low voice. “If you leave now, you might make it out of the city.”

Eri perks an eyebrow at this.

And at that exact moment, the roar and rumble of an explosion rocks the city. Eri spins and faces the docking tree, which has blossomed into red fire—which is quickly and immediately replaced in a larger blast with blue-violet flames as Arcan Drives meet flame and explode. The explosion is far larger than should be possible—were it not for the presence of the massive Ado’s Wing with its Arcan Drive blisters much, much larger than any other ship present. The airship, Eri can barely make out amongst the flames, burns and sinks, broken in two, and crashes into the base of the docking tree, where a third, but smaller, explosion blooms. “By the Angelis!” she mumbles.

“I’m sorry,” the more vocal of the two privates whispers. “I have a family to think about. Most of us didn’t have any choice.”

To Sky Admiral Eri Ado’s credit, she does not kill them. Her blades flash in the light of the sun, and she leaves them bleeding and scarred, but she does not kill them. She has realized, too late, what is happening. She rushes inside, and the doors slam closed behind her in the same heartbeat that Reid becomes the king, and Eri becomes his heir.

In her trek from the entrance to the throne room, which takes twenty minutes, Eri is accosted no less than four times. Each time, multiple attackers come at her, and each time she tears through them like a golden-winged hurricane, barely missing a step. It is painfully clear to each adversary she comes across why she was meant to die in a fiery ball of arcane energy and wooden debris—in terms of blade work, there is not a single person in all Cal Aeros who can match her. While her promotion to Sky Admiral was something that simply happened, something she did not actively seek, her mastery of bladed weapons was her passion, her love, her life. A childhood and lifetime spent in practice, honing her skills for hours upon hours each and every day until her technique reached perfection, her speed became unmatchable, and her physical strength was that of someone in a much larger body than her own slender form.

Neither she nor Reid realize it, but more than once on their respective journeys through the palace in search of each other they are within a mere ten feet, separated by little more than walls and doors. It isn’t until two young servants with wings like seagulls sprint past her that she finds him, just around the corner, running away from her down the corridor. The hall is a bloody mess.

Eri calls out to him and Reid skids to a stop, spinning, drawing his blade—which goes limp in his wrist when he sees her; he drops to his knees, exhausted, relieved to have finally found one of his sisters.

The Sky Admiral addresses him formally: “Commander Ado, what’s the situation?” she asks, though she already has a good idea.

Reid, however, is too tired to hold his rank, too tired to stand and salute his older sister as he should. “Mom and Dad are dead, Sarah too. Someone in the guard has taken over, turned them against us. A friend warned me, but couldn’t help any more than that. They’re being coerced forcefully. The guards.” He does not try to hide his grief. He is barely more than a boy.

“And the Archmage?” The Archmage Ado, that is, the 13-year-old Mara. Once the second-youngest of the Ado children, now the youngest.

“I thought she’d be with you,” Reid mumbles.

Eri frowns and slips her sabers back into their scabbards. “They blew up my ship,” she says quietly. “They’re not fooling around here, Reid.”

“I know.”

“We need to find Mara. Now.”

Their sister is, however, in far more dire straights than either of them realize.