Above World

ALUNA’S THROAT BURNED. Something was on top of her, crushing her cheek against a web of coarse ropes. And, as if that weren’t enough, she was adrift in a choppy current.

No, wait. It wasn’t water buffeting her skin, but air.

She opened her eyes.

The world swam below her, all blue ocean and trees and chiseled gray rocks. She wanted to scream, but her throat hurt too much. She was in a net — mashed under Hoku and his bag — dozens of meters above the ground. She twisted her head to see what was holding the net and caught sight of wing tips.

Hoku’s words came back to her: sharks in the sky. Her brothers had spoken about the Aviars often, usually speculating about who would win in a fight. Even underwater, the bird-people’s warrior skills and tactics were renowned.

The net surged upward and the landscape changed. The trees dotting the mountainside were replaced by row after row of black squares tilted toward the sky. Hundreds of them hugged the ground, obscuring the natural contours of the rock. They sparkled like waves in the sunlight.

“What are they?” came Hoku’s voice in her ear. She tried to whisper back, but her throat refused to function. She tried again, and a third time, until it obeyed.

“Hoku,” she said. “Are . . . ?” She swallowed, closed her eyes, tried again. “Are you okay?”

“Aluna!” came his voice. She wished she could see his face. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “The Aviars captured us —”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes! They came with a net — oh. Ha ha.”

She smiled. Above them, the Aviars’ wings whooshed as they continued to rise. She felt pressure building in the back of her head and the dull throb of an oncoming headache.

“You know what you did,” Hoku said in his serious voice. “You can’t go back to the ocean now.”

“I know.”

“Then . . . why did you do it?” Hoku asked.

She could hear his real question, unspoken but loud as waves crashing in her mind: Why did you leave me?

Staring into that Deepfell’s eyes, those glossy black bubbles, it had felt so right. Deepfell came from the same ancestors as the Kampii. They changed their bodies more drastically, but they still had the same capacity to love and hate, the same right to live. Most Kampii called them demons, forgetting that three generations ago, it was a group of Kampii hunters that initiated the first raid. Daphine knew. As the city’s Voice, she had urged tolerance and tried to negotiate a peace treaty. No one ever listened. Not the Kampii, not the Deepfell, and not even Aluna.

But seeing that Deepfell’s pain and fear, his helplessness . . . she imagined she was seeing Makina’s last minutes. Would her friend’s panic have been any different? Aluna couldn’t bear the thought of letting a Deepfell, a person, die when she had the chance to save him.

“I had to,” she said. That was all the answer she had. “I’ll find another necklace, or some other way to go back. HydroTek will have the answers. This is just one more reason to find it.” She wished she felt as brave and confident as she sounded. “Besides, we have other things to worry about right now, like the Aviars.”

“They’re going to question us,” he said. “And I think eating us is under consideration, too.”

She answered brightly, trying to ignore the growing pain in her skull. “See? That’s definitely a more immediate problem.”

One of the Aviars shifted, and the net spun slightly. Their captors were headed for a small tunnel carved into the mountain. She didn’t think they’d all fit — two winged women carrying a couple of Kampii in a net took up a lot of space. But the opening seemed to get bigger and bigger the closer they came. By the time they arrived at the passage, Aluna was convinced that Big Blue himself could have swum right through.

The tunnel curved up and down and around. They left the warmth of the sun, and Aluna’s eyes instantly adjusted to the dark. Glow stripes had been painted along the tunnel’s stone walls, no doubt to help the Aviars navigate if they came home at night. Maybe they’d been so excited to give themselves wings, that they’d forgotten to give themselves dark sight. The Aviars swooped down and up one last time, and then they plunged back into the sun.

Aluna gasped. It looked as if someone had scooped a huge bowl out of the mountaintop. They emerged halfway up the side. Aluna could see tunnels and caves carved into the walls, making it look as pockmarked and pitted as the coral in the City of Shifting Tides. She imagined a network of passages and family nests and secret meeting rooms, like the ones the Kampii had back home.

In the center of the bowl, a huge tower jutted hundreds of meters into the air. Aviars flew in and out of the spire’s countless windows and perched on the resting sticks integrated into the architecture.

The City of Shifting Tides was probably as big, but you could never see all of it at once through the murkiness of the water. In the clean, crisp air of the mountain, she could make out details for kilometers in every direction. The flurry of brightly colored wings and a constant breeze made the whole place feel perched on the edge of chaos.

She heard Hoku suck in his breath. She imagined him trying to look in every direction at once, his eyes wide. She didn’t blame him.

“Hoku,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Do you think they’ll let us explore before they eat us?”

He chuckled. “They’ll need more than wings and pointy spears to stop us.”

Aluna watched a blue-winged Aviar fly straight up and out of the colony’s open roof.

“Did you see the pulleys?” Hoku said. “Over there, where the water runs down the wall. They can lift things from the ground all the way to the sky! I wonder where they get the power.”

Aluna wasn’t entirely sure what a pulley was, but she loved the way the water fell from the edge, splashed hundreds of meters down the side of the bowl, and pooled in a glistening circle around the center spire. A variety of four-legged animals stood drinking from its edges.

The Aviars carrying them flew toward the central building. The pain in Aluna’s head pulsed with each wing flap. She shut her eyes and swallowed, trying not to be sick. In the ocean you had to be careful how fast you went up to the surface or back down to the city. Was the same true for the sky?

She kept her mouth shut as the Aviar flew into one of the tower’s wider windows and dropped the net to the floor. Hoku’s bag slammed into her shoulder, followed by Hoku himself. She yelped, more from the pounding in her head than from their weight.

Winged women with spears surrounded them and yanked them to their feet. Aluna gasped again. Without her breathing shell, she just couldn’t get enough air.

“Welcome to Skyfeather’s Landing,” a tall Aviar said. “You are in the Palace of Wings, and I am High Senator Electra.” She stood like a leader, relaxed and strong at the same time. The gold bands wrapped around her muscled arms were more elaborate than the bands the other Aviars wore. Her brown-and-tan feathers reminded Aluna of the hawks that flew over the coral reef, but her face was much like a Kampii’s. If she’d had a tail instead of wings, she could have been one of the Elders.

“Quickly, are either of you feeling ill?” High Senator Electra asked.

Aluna ground her teeth together and refused to answer. Never let your opponent see your weaknesses, Anadar always said. Usually right before he knocked the weapon out of her hands.

“Answer me!” the Aviar yelled.

Aluna clutched her head from the pain. Black spots swam in her eyes. Anadar would be so disappointed.

“Fetch a breather,” Electra said to one of the Aviars. Then to Aluna she said, “Listen to me carefully. You have sky sickness. The air here is thin, and your body is not adjusting. You need more oxygen.”

Aluna could hear her words, but only partially understand them. The whole world felt blurry, like the moon when viewed from beneath the waves. She breathed faster, but her lungs never seemed satisfied.

An Aviar with white feathers covered in symbols spoke. “I’m sorry, High Senator. We rose too quickly. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, you weren’t,” Electra said. “We’ll discuss it later.”

“Help her,” Hoku said. Even through her haze, Aluna could hear the panic in his voice. Why was he worried? “You did this to her. You have to save her!”

With a rustle of wings, the Aviar who had been sent for the breather returned. A moment later, High Senator Electra shoved something into Aluna’s mouth. She tried to resist, but her body felt heavy, as if her arms were filled with sand instead of muscle. The artifact was the size of a clam and covered in tubes and blinking lights. It emitted a low hum that she found strangely soothing.

“Breathe through the device,” the high senator said.

Aluna shook her head and tried to spit the machine out of her mouth. Another hand grabbed her arm. A smaller one. She looked over and saw freckles.

“Do it, Aluna,” Hoku said quietly. “If you don’t trust them, at least trust me.”

She inhaled. Air rushed into her body. The invisible hand crushing her chest released its grip slightly. She breathed again, and again.

“Good,” Electra said. “Now I’m going to stick something to your skin. Do not pull it off. It will instruct your body to adapt faster to the altitude.”

“How?” Hoku asked.

“There are messengers in our blood that carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. We will tell the girl’s body to make more messengers.”

High Senator Electra gripped Aluna’s shoulder and clipped something to her earlobe. It stung, but no more so than pricking a finger on a sea urchin. She disliked earrings, but then again, the City of Shifting Tides didn’t have any that could save your life.

Her headache receded. She fisted her hand, relieved to feel its strength returning.

“The worst has passed,” Electra said. “Continue using the breather until you can do twenty push-ups without straining.”

Aluna had no idea what a push-up was, but she understood all the same. Keep it on until you’re ready to fight.

The Aviar whistled and four guards stepped forward, their spears clutched at their sides.

“Escort our guests to their chambers on the prison level,” Electra said. She turned to Aluna and Hoku. “I have saved you, but only for now. I will inform Her Royal Greatness, President Iolanthe, of your presence. It is she who will decide whether you ever leave this place alive.”





ALUNA’S PRISON CELL had walls of stone and a door of metal bars. She wrapped her hands around two of the bars and shook them once, then again, then again with all her strength. Nothing. No sign of weakness. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against the coolness of the metal.

“I can’t see you,” she whispered to Hoku.

“No,” he said quickly, “but we can still talk. And we don’t even have to yell. The artifacts in our ears still work up here.”

“Unless they separate us,” she said. “This place is huge.”

She released her grip on the bars and turned around to survey her new home. The room was small, but still bigger than her nest at the colony. The pile of rags in the corner was probably her bed. She walked to the other corner and lifted a small hatch. It hid a hole and, farther down, some running water. The smell tipped her off as to its use.

“I don’t even have a window,” she whispered to Hoku. “I would have liked to watch them flying.” Hoku didn’t respond, so she kept talking. “And this is supposed to be a palace? If these prison cells are any indication, it isn’t a very nice one.”

Still nothing.

“Hoku?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Combinations,” he said, as if that explained everything. She waited. “The water safe,” he added. “I’m trying more number sequences on the lock.”

“Are you almost done trying them all?”

Hoku snorted. She didn’t ask again.

Her hand went to the small pouch she wore around her neck. She longed to take her mother’s ring out, to roll it in her palm and admire how it shone. She tucked the pouch back into her shirt to keep it safe and hidden, along with the Ocean Seed.

Her hand drifted up to the earring High Senator Electra had clipped to her earlobe, then down to the base of her neck. The holes where her breathing shell had burrowed its tails were closed, as if the necklace had sewn her back up on its way out of her flesh. The skin there was sensitive, like a bruise, and her throat felt raw and angry. Aluna pulled out the breather device that had saved her life. Could she use it to return to the water?

“What kind of food do you think they gave us?” Hoku asked. He must have gotten frustrated with his water safe. Aluna walked over and picked up the pouch of water the Aviars had tossed in her cell. She took a long swig while eyeing the meat at her feet.

“It’s probably not one of the Deepfell,” she said, trying to keep the smile from her voice. “It smells cooked, and they didn’t have time to do that.”

“Barnacles!” Hoku said. “I didn’t even think of that. Maybe I’m not hungry after all.”

“Don’t be silly. You have to eat.” She picked up the meat by its protruding bone and sniffed it. “Mmm,” she said, pretending her mouth was full. “Tastes great!”

“Ha ha,” came Hoku’s dry reply. “I’m not a youngling anymore, you know.”

She laughed. “I’m starting to figure that out.” The meat’s aroma tickled her nose. She took a tentative bite and then another, much bigger, bite. “Hoku, you have to try this. I’ve never tasted anything like it.” She finished her piece and gnawed on the bone to get every last scrap of food from it. “If you don’t want yours, I’ll take it!”

“Keep your fins to yourself,” Hoku said with his mouth full. “I may be small, but I’m scrappy.”

They dozed and talked while they waited, alternating their conversation between praise for the food they’d just eaten and plans for their imminent escape.

“Okay, so we kill a few Aviars and make wings from their feathers,” Hoku said. “I’ll handle the wing making,” he said, “and you’ll take care of the . . . feather procurement.”

“The killing, you mean,” Aluna said. “Killing Deepfell and Aviars isn’t like trapping crabs or collecting mussels. I’d rather find another way.” Her sister, Daphine, would be able to talk them out of captivity. She’d probably get them all a free ride back to the ocean, too.

Hoku sighed. “Well, it’s not like we have a lot of options.”

Something moved in the hallway. Aluna and Hoku became still as starfish. Someone was shuffling down the corridor.

“Don’t be scared,” a voice said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Hoku whispered, “And there’s a pearl in every oyster.”

Aluna stood up and walked over to the bars of her cell. A girl Aviar about Hoku’s age slouched in the hallway, gripping a strange rectangular object in both hands. She had long dull-brown hair and tawny wings painted black at the tips. She wore one of the intricate gold necklaces Aluna had seen on every bird-woman so far.

“Who are you?” Aluna said. She didn’t see much purpose for courtesy when she was being forced to eat meat off the ground and pee into a hole in the floor. Of course, she didn’t see much purpose for courtesy in general.

“I’m Calli,” the girl said.

“Did you come here to torture us?” Hoku asked.

“No, don’t be silly,” Calli said with a nervous laugh. “I was just listening to you, and you sounded nice. I particularly liked the part about not wanting to kill us.” She held up the strange box in her hands. Knobs and buttons protruded from the surface, each surrounded by strange markings.

“What do you mean, you were listening to us?” Aluna asked. “Were you hiding around the corner?” Even then, the girl shouldn’t have been able to hear. They’d been whispering, letting their voices sound in each other’s ears the way they did back in the ocean.

The girl put her box on the ground and fiddled with its buttons. Then she turned it so the front faced their cells. The box crackled.

“Say something,” Calli said. “Anything.”

“Is that an artifact?” Hoku asked. As he was saying it, Aluna heard his voice in her ears and from the box at the same time.

“Magic!” she said. And the box said, “Magic!” too — in her voice!

“It’s a radio,” Calli said, grinning. “I check all the frequencies every day, just in case.” She blushed, but continued, “This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything.”

“That’s amazing,” Hoku said, his surly mood instantly forgotten. “A radio! I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never seen one. Well, except for the ones in our throats and ears.”

“These things are in our ears?” Aluna asked, trying to keep up.

“Yes,” Hoku and Calli answered together, then laughed. Calli’s cheeks reddened, and Aluna imagined Hoku’s cheeks were doing the same.

Oh, ink it all! This was not the time for another one of his hopeless crushes.

“Are you Humans?” Calli asked.

Aluna snorted. “Of course not. Do we look like barbarians to you?”

“No, I didn’t mean —”

“We’re Kampii,” Hoku said quickly. “You know, from the ocean?”

“Oh! That explains your necklace,” Calli said to Hoku. She ran a finger along the elaborate golden links around her throat. “The tech that allows you to breathe underwater helps you get more oxygen up here, too.”

“That’s why Aluna got sky sickness and I didn’t,” Hoku said brightly. “Because she doesn’t have a breathing shell anymore.”

Why would he say that to a stranger? To an enemy? He may as well just stab her in the back and be done with it.

“We were designed for high altitudes,” Calli said, ignoring Hoku’s comment but avoiding Aluna’s gaze all the same. “But we can fly hundreds of meters higher than this, and then we need the oxygen the necklaces give us. Down here, at Skyfeather’s Landing, they’re mostly just pretty.”

“Pretty,” Hoku said. “Yeah, the necklaces are pretty.”

Calli blushed and fiddled with a knob on her radio.

“What about the ocean?” Aluna asked. “Could an Aviar necklace help me breathe underwater?”

Her heart thudded in her chest. Please say yes.

But Calli shook her head. “The water makes things complicated. . . .”

“Our shells don’t just give us air,” Hoku said. “They change our lungs to deal with the pressure. They do a lot more than just —”

“Fine,” Aluna said. “I understand.” She’d done this to herself. Her choice, her sacrifice, her price. There was no easy fix.

Suddenly Calli’s gaze darted down the hallway, her eyes wide. She twisted a knob on the radio and the crackling stopped.

“Someone’s coming,” she said. She hugged the radio to her chest, looking ever so much like Hoku cradling his water safe, except with wings. She backed farther into the hallway and hid in a shadowy alcove.

Four Aviars walked up to their cells, led by High Senator Electra. She thumped the bottom of her spear on the stone floor with all the ceremony and arrogance of Elder Peleke.

“The president will see you now.”





“IS THIS HOW you will present yourselves to President Iolanthe? Have you no pride?” High Senator Electra said.

Hoku ran his hand through his hair and smoothed the pockets on his shirt. Without the ocean, he had no way to wash the sand and grime off his skin. Feeling dirty was a new sensation, and he didn’t enjoy it.

“It’s no use,” the Aviar snapped. “We’d need a platoon of groomers to make you presentable, and the president will not be kept waiting. Senators Hypatia and Niobe will now release you from your cells. Do not attempt an escape. Do not fight. Show proper respect for the president and you will be afforded the prisoner’s right to a quick and merciful death . . . should the president decide your lives are no longer necessary.”

Hoku glanced back at the alcove where Calli was hiding, but couldn’t see her in the shadows. Good. She’d been the first even remotely nice Aviar they’d met so far. Also, he wanted another look at her radio.

Senator Hypatia — Whitefeather from the beach — opened Aluna’s cell first, and Hoku heard, “Get your feathers off me. I can walk all by myself.”

Hoku sucked in a breath. As much as he admired her bravery, sometimes he wished she’d choose the coward’s path of flinching and silence. His path. It made certain predicaments much easier to survive.

Senator Electra chuckled. “I see you have recovered from the sky sickness, child. I think I liked you better when you were closer to death.”

Redfeather, Senator Niobe, opened his door and motioned for him to exit. He went without a struggle. As she shoved him down the corridor, Hoku glanced back at Calli’s alcove. The winged girl was gone.

During their first trip through the Palace of Wings, he’d been too worried about Aluna to concentrate on their surroundings. Now, as they walked to their probable death, he couldn’t take his eyes off the murals covering the walls. Back home, pictures were created by pressing different colored shells and stones into a soft surface to make patterns and images. Mosaics, his teachers had called them. But here, the images were painted in vivid colors directly on the walls. Aviars fought Humans. Aviars flew in a great flock through the sky. Aviars sat together eating, playing instruments, and making things with their hands. The Kampii treasured secrecy, but the Aviars seemed just the opposite: they shouted everything they did and everything they were in vivid color and detail.

After being pushed and prodded down a series of passages, they all stepped through an opening into a small, square room. Four huge ropes ran through holes in the ceiling, passed vertically through the room, and exited through worn holes in the floor.

Niobe and Hypatia propped their spears against the wall and started pulling on the ropes. The floor lurched.

“A shifting room?” Aluna asked, reaching for the wall.

But the floor wasn’t shifting; it was dropping. Hoku’s heart beat faster. What wonderful new tech was this? The holes in the ceiling were larger, so he could see the mechanism. “Pulleys?” he asked.

“Yes! It’s called an elevator,” Senator Hypatia said in between pulls of the rope, her face suddenly open and animated. “It runs up through the center of the Palace of Wings. This used to be a standard descent and ascent column, until the president —”

“Enough!” Electra said. Hypatia clamped her mouth shut and actually seemed to blush.

“Before the president did what?” Aluna asked.

“Nothing, prisoner,” High Senator Electra said, visibly tightening the grip on her spear. “Remain silent.” Even Aluna got the hint that time.

Down, down, down they went. Through the one open wall, they could see the other levels in the palace whoosh by in a blur. Hoku enjoyed the falling sensation much more than the lifting one he’d experienced when they were first captured. His stomach felt like it was scrambling to catch up, but he didn’t care. Part of him wanted to yell and laugh. A bigger part of him wanted to figure out how it all worked. It must go up as well as down, since it was called an “elevator.”

A few moments later, a thump shook the tiny room. Then a thump-thump-thump. The senators on the ropes stopped pulling, and the thumping slowed.

“Those bumps — they let you know that you’re getting close to the bottom so you can slow down,” Hoku said. “Brilliant!”

High Senator Electra scowled at him, but Hypatia snuck him a quick nod behind her back. The Aviars braced themselves against the walls, so Hoku did the same. Aluna followed his example, just in time. The room shuddered to a stop. His teeth knocked together, but he didn’t lose his balance.

They filed out into yet another corridor. This one was wider and higher than the others. Bits of the colorful murals along the walls glinted in gold and silver.

“Wait here,” High Senator Electra said. She strode forward, to the end of the corridor. Hoku heard her yell, “The High Senator wishes to present the prisoners to Her Royalness, President Iolanthe. May she enter the Oval Chamber?”

After a moment, Electra turned around and motioned to the other guards. “Bring them.”

Hoku stopped at the threshold of the Oval Chamber and stared. The room was big. Bigger than the ritual dome, bigger than the old broken stadium dome. It was more of a mangled circle than an oval. They’d clearly been going for oval but hadn’t quite hit their mark. He looked up, and a thousand glittering, golden Aviars stared back at him. The winged women had been carved right into the ceiling and lit from all sides by a ring of high windows lining the room. They shimmered, forever in flight.

Next to him, he heard Aluna suck in her breath.

“Tides’ teeth,” she whispered.

“Exactly,” he agreed. Why hadn’t he known more about this city? Why hadn’t the Kampii been sharing tech with the Aviars all along? Together, their peoples would be so much stronger than they were alone.

President Iolanthe sat on a throne at the far end of the Oval Chamber. Most of the Aviars kept their wings folded against their backs when they weren’t flying, but the president kept hers spread out to the sides, as wide as the wings of a giant manta ray. He felt insignificant in her presence, which was probably the point.

As they got closer, Hoku noticed that the president’s right wing wasn’t a wing at all, but a mechanical device attached to the throne itself and painted to look like a wing.

Aluna nudged him. “Do you see —?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I bet she can’t —”

“No,” he agreed.

He wanted to study the fake wing, but he forced himself to look at the president’s face instead. Aluna managed to do the same. President Iolanthe wasn’t as old as the Kampii Elders, but she was still old — at least thirty or forty. Hoku liked the way her short black hair stood up in all directions, like ruffled feathers. She wasn’t a big Aviar, not compared to High Senator Electra and the other warriors, but she looked wiry and strong, and not an ounce of her body wasn’t muscle or skin. Unlike the other Aviars, she wore only two pieces of jewelry: her breathing necklace and a thin golden cord encircling her brow.

The senators escorted them down a long dusty-red carpet and deposited them within a few meters of the throne. When Senator Niobe bowed, she gave Hoku a shove. He took the hint and bobbed a quick bow of his own.

“First things first,” President Iolanthe said. “My loyal senators tell me you are Humans, but you don’t carry yourselves like those barbarians.” She leaned forward slightly in her throne, her icy-blue eyes piercing in their intensity. “So tell me . . . exactly who and what are you?”





HOKU HAD NEVER SEEN a woman with eyes like that. They were bright but hard, like glittering scales on a poisonous fish.

“I’m Aluna, and this is Hoku,” Aluna said. “We’re Coral Kampii from the City of Shifting Tides.”

“Mermaids!” the president said. Feathers rustled as the senators shifted in their stances at her side.

Hoku frowned. No one used the M-word anymore.

“No,” Aluna said through gritted teeth. “We’re Kampii.”

The president seemed to recover herself. She leaned back into her chair and smiled. Her real wing gave a little flutter, but the mechanical one remained still.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “My apologies, young ones. You are indeed children of the Kampii splinter. And from the hidden city, no less! Though”— she lifted an eyebrow artfully —“not yet old enough to have earned your tails?”

Hoku saw Aluna grind her teeth. He was positive that she was sifting through insults in her head, trying to find the best one. He closed his eyes and begged their ancestors to grant her patience. A rash decision could turn them into bird food.

Luckily, a guard interrupted them. “Her Future Royalness, Vice President Calliope!”

Everyone turned at the sound of shuffling wings and feet. Hoku’s mouth dropped open. The Aviar shuffling toward them was none other than the radio girl they had met by their cells.

Calliope was dressed in more traditional warriors’ clothes now, a shimmering silver breastplate hanging awkwardly from her hunched shoulders. She kept her gaze on the floor as she hurried down the carpet. Her hands, now bereft of her beloved radio, twisted around and around each other like coiling eels. He’d never seen anyone look so out of place in his life.

“Daughter,” the president said, “I’m glad you could finally join us.”

Calliope blushed and dropped her head even lower. She rushed to the small throne at Iolanthe’s side and tried to disappear into it.

If the president was embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior, she hid the disappointment well under a heavy veneer of disgust. Hoku balled his hand into a clumsy fist. He’d never hit anyone before, but for the first time, he wanted to.

President Iolanthe glared at her daughter for another long moment before turning back to Aluna and Hoku, a dangerous new spark in her eyes.

“And so tell me, children,” the president said. “What brings our ocean cousins so far from their watery sanctuary?” She leaned closer. “We found you amid the slaughtered bodies of your foes. Have the mermaids joined forces with Fathom and his army of Upgraders?”

“No!” Hoku blurted out. “Those other people killed the Humans. They flew across the water on a dragonflier. They tried to kill Daphine, too, but she got away. We didn’t have anything to do with the Deepfell. Except that Aluna saved one of them. That’s what happened to her necklace.”

“Hoku, stop!” Aluna’s dark face was tense and pinched. “Don’t say another word.”

He ignored her and continued to babble. She’d be mad later, but right now, he wanted the Aviars as allies, not enemies. “The Upgraders — is that your name for those people? For the people who change their bodies with tech? We’re not on their side. And we’ve never even heard of Fathom.”

“We’ll trade with you,” Aluna said, cutting him off. “We have information you want, and we need help. We’re looking for HydroTek — our people’s safety depends on us finding it. If you help, we’ll tell you everything we know about what happened on the beach and the Upgraders we saw.”

No one said anything. Aluna stared at the president, and the president stared back at her. For a brief, wonderful moment, Hoku thought the Aviars might actually be willing to help them.

President Iolanthe laughed. Not a nervous giggle, like he was prone to, but a full-throated belly laugh so loud that it filled the entire Oval Chamber and echoed off the carved Aviars watching from the ceiling.

“Our people are dying, and you think it’s funny?” Aluna said quietly. Hoku recognized the look in her eyes. He grabbed for her arm, but she shook him off as if he were a stray strand of kelp. “Stop laughing!” she yelled, and launched herself at President Iolanthe.

High Senator Electra intercepted her halfway to the throne. The Aviar held her spear sideways, creating a barrier. She was trying to stop Aluna, not kill her.

Aluna didn’t even break her stride. She just jumped, used Electra’s arm and spear as a launching pad, vaulted over the Aviar’s shoulder, and kept running for the president.

The other Aviars started to move, but they were so much slower than Aluna, who had grown strong in the ocean’s dense waters. Hoku watched her heading for the president, who had, thankfully, finally stopped laughing.

Aluna sprang for Iolanthe, arms outstretched, fingers curved like claws.

The president moved in a blur. She raised an arm and swatted Aluna in midair. Aluna crashed to the stone floor, rolled, and came up in a crouch. Her cheek blossomed red from the hit, and blood dotted the corner of her mouth.

Four guards surrounded her, their spears set to kill. High Senator Electra positioned herself between Aluna and the president, a murderous look in her eye. Aluna studied them all like a trapped animal waiting for its chance to strike.

Hoku couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t blink. If anyone moved, people would get hurt. People would die. He couldn’t bear the thought.

“Enough!” President Iolanthe yelled. “Stand down, Senators. Release the warrior.”

Reluctantly, the senators raised their spear tips and stepped back. Electra was the last. She moved ever so slightly to the side, still trying to keep herself in between Aluna and the president.

Aluna stayed crouched and wary.

“Well done, Aluna of the Kampii,” President Iolanthe said, smiling. “I am greatly impressed.” High Senator Electra looked as if she’d swallowed a stinkfish.

The president continued, “If only our own children exhibited such bravery and resourcefulness.” All eyes turned to Calliope, who squirmed in her throne and kept her eyes down. “Yes, we are quite impressed with the gift our waterlogged brethren have sent us. We are impressed, and we accept.”

“Gift?” Hoku ventured. “Gift” didn’t sound good. Not good at all.

“Gift,” the president said. “The Kampii girl Aluna will be appointed aide to the vice president. She will instruct my daughter in the ways of the warrior spirit and help prepare her for her future rulership.”

“But —” Hoku and Aluna said together.

“Men are not permitted to stay at Skyfeather’s Landing,” the president continued, “but we will make an exception for the boy Kampii —”

“Well, that’s something,” Hoku muttered.

“The boy will be kept as our honored guest, to ensure the continued loyalty of his friend,” the president finished.

“Mother, no!” Calliope said. “You can’t do this!”

Everyone in the room stared at Calliope. Her defiant pose wilted immediately.

“I see my plan is working already,” President Iolanthe said, clearly pleased with her daughter’s brief outburst. “Yes, yes. This will work nicely. Guards! Take the boy back to his cell.”

“Wait!” Aluna said. “I’ll agree to stay and help your daughter, but only if you promise to keep Hoku safe, and if you give us what we want in return.”

President Iolanthe waved her hand. “Now, this is a bargain I can understand, Aluna of the Kampii. Very well. No harm will come to the boy while you remain at my daughter’s side,” she said.

Aluna finally stood up from her fighting stance. “And you’ll tell us how to find HydroTek.”

The president looked at Aluna for a moment, then nodded. “I will tell you what we know, although I don’t think you’ll enjoy hearing it.”