Above World

PRESIDENT IOLANTHE leaned back, her real wing rustling. “History is not a fixed truth. It changes with the speaker, just as no two feathers will ever find the same path in the wind. So first, our story.”

Aluna shifted her weight to a more comfortable standing position. History may be different, but Elders were the same everywhere.

“Hundreds of years ago, when we were all Human, the world started to run out of space,” Iolanthe began. She spoke loudly, her voice filling the Oval Chamber and echoing off the Aviars carved into the ceiling. “Humans were spread across the land, crammed into every niche and nook that could support life. They were using up the world, and their time was running out.”

“So they changed,” Calliope said. She blushed when everyone looked at her, but stammered on. “They looked at the places that couldn’t support Humans, and they made themselves fit anyway.”

“Like the Kampii and the Deepfell, and the Aviars,” Hoku said. “We live in the oceans and you live in the skies.”

Calli grinned at him, and that silly fish grinned back at her.

“Yes, boy,” President Iolanthe said. “And like the Equians and the Serpentis in the deserts, and like all the splinters whose names have been lost to us. Some Humans even made skyships and left the world altogether.”

“The legends say they wanted to go to the stars,” Calliope said.

“In order to live in these places, the LegendaryTek companies — HydroTek, SkyTek, SandTek, and the others — gave us wings or tails, or four fast hooves to cross the endless sands. They became our saviors. Do you see? Once we agreed to modify ourselves and rely on the tech they created, they exerted complete power over us from their domes. They kept us weak.”

“Yes, weak,” Aluna said. “And helpless. That’s how I felt in the City of Shifting Tides. That’s why we need to find HydroTek.”

“You don’t need to find HydroTek,” President Iolanthe said. “You need to take it.”

“Take it?” Hoku asked. “How?”

“We were lazy at first,” High Senator Electra said. “We did nothing to protect ourselves until it was almost too late.” She looked at President Iolanthe with admiration, and maybe something more. “It took a young leader to show us the way.”

Iolanthe waved off her praise. “A man came,” she said. “His name was Tempest, and he called himself Master of the Sky. He’d been Human once, but born from some process that twisted his body almost as much as it twisted his mind. He and his warriors — Upgraders more metal than flesh — assaulted the SkyTek dome and claimed it for their own.” She leaned forward on her throne. “They thought we wouldn’t fight. They were wrong.”

“The battle was bloody and we lost many warriors,” High Senator Electra said, glancing at the president’s missing wing, “but now all Aviar strongholds that were once beholden to SkyTek are self-sufficient. We don’t need anybody but ourselves anymore.”

“The SkyTek dome has been broken, rendered useless. No one will ever use it again,” President Iolanthe said. “We earned our freedom on that day.”

“Could Tempest have gone to HydroTek next?” Aluna said.

“No, Tempest did not live past the Battle of the Dome,” President Iolanthe said. “But during the battle, Tempest sent word to his brother Fathom, asking for reinforcements. Fathom calls himself the Master of the Sea, and it is he who has taken control of the HydroTek dome.”

Electra nodded. “The journey from HydroTek must be a long one. Fathom’s forces arrived too late, after we’d defeated Tempest and his minions. Since then, Fathom has continued to attack us, seeking revenge for his brother’s death and killing everything else in his path.”

“Fathom,” Aluna said, feeling the shape of the word, letting it settle into her mind. Finally, her enemy had a name. Whatever was happening to the Kampii, Fathom must be the key. “How do we get there? To HydroTek?”

President Iolanthe shook her head. “I don’t know. Our scouts fly a few days in all directions from Skyfeather’s Landing, but they have never seen HydroTek. Someday we may follow Fathom’s warriors back to their home, but not until our numbers are greater. Not until we are ready to fight.” She sat back in her throne with a sigh. “I think there has been enough talk of battle for one day.”

“But —” Aluna said.

“Enough,” the president repeated, her eyes tired but holding the promise of wrath should she be disobeyed. Aluna’s father had used the same look almost every time he spoke. “I have honored our part of the bargain, and now I have other matters to attend to.”

Aluna glowered. She saw Hoku clamp his mouth shut, clearly biting back another question, and reluctantly followed his lead.

She looked at Calliope. The girl was barely able to sit up straight on her throne. Did she hold the answers they sought about HydroTek? President Iolanthe wanted Aluna to teach the girl bravery. Well, one of her first lessons was going to be “When to defy your parents.”

“This audience is now over,” the president said. “High Senator Electra, give our guests quarters near my daughter. I’ll expect you and your senators to . . . ensure their safety . . . during their stay.”

“We’re prisoners,” Aluna said. “You can just say it.”

President Iolanthe smiled, but her eyes lost none of their dangerous promise. “You say tomato, I say watermelon,” she said.

Aluna had no idea what she meant, but it didn’t sound good.


Two of the senators escorted her and Hoku to their new rooms but made them wait outside while the previous occupants vacated. A pair of very irritated Aviar girls, their arms full of clothes and other personal items, shoved past them not long after.

Don’t shoot your ink, she thought at them. You’ll have your rooms back as soon as I can get us out of this place.

Aluna’s room was huge, bigger than her family’s whole nest. Six Kampii could have slept on the bed all at once. She gulped it all in: the desk, the sitting stools, the mirrors, the colorful pictures covering the walls. And everything was designed for feet! She glanced up at the high ceiling and saw perches high above her head. Okay, so everything was designed for feet and wings. Still, it was a nice change from the tail-centric City of Shifting Tides. She couldn’t wait to explore. But first, she longed to throw herself on the bed and sleep for a hundred days.

“Don’t get comfortable,” Senator Niobe said. “Vice President Calliope has warrior training now, which means that you do as well.”

Aluna stood in the doorway of her new room and stared at the bed.

“Warrior training?” she asked.

“Yes,” the senator replied. “The vice president must train for several hours every day. The boy is not invited. He will remain here.” She nodded to Senator Hypatia, who took up a guard position outside Hoku’s door.

“I’ll be okay,” Hoku called. “Fins and flippers, did you see all this food?”

“Food?” So that explained the glorious smell wafting through the hallway.

Senator Niobe said, “You and the vice president will dine with the president tonight, after warrior training, bathing, and a lesson in etiquette.”

Aluna scowled at the mention of etiquette, but didn’t fuss. She’d put up with far more than social humiliation in order to train with the hunters back home. Warrior training! Suddenly, being a prisoner didn’t seem like such a bad fate after all.





NIOBE ESCORTED ALUNA through passageway after passageway until they emerged in the bright afternoon sun at the base of Skyfeather’s Landing. Aluna blinked up into the sky and gaped at the flocks of winged women swooping and darting through the air. Even higher still, Aviars no bigger than dots drifted in wide circles on invisible currents. Watchers, Aluna thought. From way up there, they could probably see for forever.

Senator Niobe pointed to a series of platforms jutting out from the basin wall almost a hundred meters above the ground. “That is the training area.” She pointed below it. Aluna had to squint to see a steep staircase cut into the wall. “Use the breather as you climb, and stop if your vision blurs or the headache returns. But hurry. It’s not respectful to keep your instructors waiting, even for sky sickness. I’ll be watching, so attempt no escape.”

Aluna grunted. “Why would I try to escape before warrior training?”

The senator crouched and sprang into the air. Her wings unfolded and caught the wind. She rose fast as air bubbles in the deep. Wings, Aluna had to admit, were almost as wonderful as tails.

She jogged over to the base of the great basin wall and started up the stairs. She took them two at a time at first, eager not to miss a single moment of practice. Halfway up, her head started to spin and her lungs demanded more air. She puffed on the breather and kept going. By the time she’d made it to the top, she had to drag herself up the final stairs, one at a time, with a rest between steps. Sweat clung to her skin, a sensation she despised. The ocean kept you clean and cool.

The first platform seemed to be a preparation and resting area. Long benches lined the rim around neat stacks of equipment, jugs of water, and piles of towels for wiping away sweat. Water flowed inside three alcoves nestled into the cliff face for Aviars who wanted a more thorough cleaning.

The warriors on the platform pretended to ignore her, but she caught more than one stealing a look. Those beginning their training donned padded armor, then leaped off the platform and flew to another. Aviars finished with their exercise jumped off the edge and drifted out of sight.

Aluna was wiping sweat off her face when Calliope landed next to her in a flutter of wings and a gush of air.

“I’m so sorry!” Calli blurted. “I didn’t want you and Hoku to get stuck here because of me. You don’t really have to be my friend.”

Aluna opened her mouth to speak, but her lungs needed more air. She popped the breather in her mouth and inhaled. Even with the steep climb, she was beginning to need the artifact less and less. After she’d gotten a few good puffs, she secured the breather in her waist pouch.

“We all have to obey my mother,” Calli continued. “But you don’t have to pretend to like me or anything.” Her face was red, and her arms crossed and uncrossed and crossed again in front of her. “I’ll understand.”

“Calli —”

“I don’t even want to be a fighter,” the girl said nervously. “If I hadn’t been born the daughter of the president, I’d be a tailor, just like everyone else born that month. Can you imagine? Me, making clothes! If I got to pick, I’d be a technician or a doctor. I like figuring out how things work. But those jobs weren’t scheduled to come up for ages.”

“Wait. You don’t pick your job based on what you’re good at?” Aluna asked. “What if you don’t have the skills you need?”

“Oh, we’re designed to be good at everything,” Calli said. “We’ve analyzed all our eggs and only the best ones are grown into Aviars.”

“Aviars lay eggs?” Aluna asked, astonished.

“Not that kind of egg, silly,” Calli said. She sounded just like Hoku. “Let’s go — we’ll get in trouble if we’re late.” She swooped up toward one of the training platforms, leaving Aluna to scramble for the next set of stairs.

When she got to the top, High Senator Electra was waiting, a sharp gleam in her eyes. “Where’s your gear? You should always arrive at practice on time and properly attired for the workout.”

Aluna hauled herself up the last stair and stood at attention as best she could. Now it made sense why their lesson had to take place on the highest of all the platforms. To inflict maximum pain and suffering.

“I’ll practice without it,” Aluna said. She’d rather be covered in bruises than have to climb back down and up those stairs again.

“Never mind,” Electra said. She motioned to a pile of armor. “I brought an extra set. Put it on.”

For once, Aluna did as she was told. She pulled padded leg guards over her shins and wrapped thick foam around her forearms. The chest guard was tight — Aviars were thin as eels compared to Kampii — but she managed to squirm into it. Electra tossed her a padded hat. It fit snugly around her head, even without the straps tied beneath her chin.

Calli watched but said nothing.

“Spears first,” Electra said.

She and Calliope plucked long spears from the rack affixed to the basin wall. Aluna hefted the weapon in her right hand. The spear was thin and light, even a little wobbly. Kampii spears were short and sturdy. Underwater, the Aviar spears would snap in half.

“Ready positions!”

Calli stood opposite Aluna, both hands on the wooden shaft of her spear. Aluna took a traditional hunter pose, with some frustration. A hunter never stood on the ocean floor if he could help it. You wanted the ability to swim in any direction during a fight, so you swam or hovered in the water, ready to move any way you wanted. Fighting on land made her feel cornered before she even started.

High Senator Electra stood between them, her own spear gripped firmly in one hand.

“Let me see what you know, but slowly!” she said. “I don’t want to see any blood.”

Aluna darted forward and drove her spear toward Calliope’s gut, a very basic but useful maneuver. She hadn’t intended to go so fast, but without the ocean’s thick embrace, her moves blurred with speed.

Calli let out a squeak and dropped her spear. Aluna’s weapon was batted off target at the last possible moment. Electra followed up her first hit with a shove that sent Aluna careening across the platform.

“It seems our waterlogged cousins can’t understand simple instructions,” Electra said. “Let me try a different approach.” She beckoned to Aluna. “Get up and stand ready.”

Calli tried to protest, but Electra cut her off.

“Quiet,” the high senator said. “Stand over there and make sure the wingless girl doesn’t fall to her death prematurely.”

Aluna stood up and wiped the dirt off her cheek. She was fast as a shark up here! She took up a ready stance across from Electra and grinned.

The high senator attacked.

Aluna dodged. She jumped left and right, nimbly avoiding lightning-fast pokes from Electra’s staff. Electra held the staff in the middle, but when she lunged, the shaft slid forward between her hands, gaining a full meter of length. The first two times, the spearhead almost nicked Aluna in the arms.

Aluna countered with a forward roll into a strike. Rolling on solid ground hurt a whole lot more than flipping in the ocean, but the effect was similar. Electra seemed surprised to find Aluna at her feet and backed up hastily to get out of range.

Aluna pressed her attack. She spun and struck, spun and struck. Electra regained her composure and parried the blows with increasing speed. Then she did something Aluna had never seen before. She spun her spear in a wide arc, faster and faster. So fast that it whirred in the air.

Aluna stumbled backward. She couldn’t see where the spear was. It looked as if it were everywhere at once! No weapon moved like that in the ocean. Water was thick and clung to everything. But air — air seemed to exult in velocity. Electra loosened her grip and the arc of the spear increased, creating a great whirling blade of air that she moved from side to side.

Electra advanced, one corner of her mouth twisted into a smile.

“Stop!” Calli yelled. Aluna could barely hear her over the whir of Electra’s weapon and the thundering of her own heart.

She looked left and right. No hidey-holes. She looked up and down, but without wings, there was nowhere she could go. She was running out of options.

Electra’s stance changed. Her spear thwacked into the padding on Aluna’s ribs and sent her tumbling to the right. A second knock to the head, and she went rolling back to the left. And still, she couldn’t even see the spear for all its deadly spinning.

But Electra had developed a rhythm, and Aluna dodged before the next blow struck. This time instead of getting out of range, she slid between Electra’s feet and rolled onto her back. She brought her own spear through Electra’s legs, then thrust it lengthwise against the back of her opponent’s knees, forcing them to bend.

Electra toppled backward and they tangled in an awkward pile. Both of them scrambled to their feet, but the high senator was faster. The sharp, cold point of Electra’s spear dug painfully into the soft skin of Aluna’s throat, exactly where her breathing shell used to be.

The senator took three deep breaths in through her nose, and three quick breaths out through her mouth.

“Not bad, girl,” she said. “You’ve obviously had some training, and you think well under pressure. You’ll never be a decent warrior without wings, but you have the potential to be better than horrible.”

Aluna pushed Electra’s spear point away from her throat, took a step back, and returned to her ready stance. Her head throbbed, her ribs ached, and she was ready to push as much as she needed to to learn everything the senator could teach her.

She looked Electra full in the eyes. “Again.”





HOKU HUNCHED over his desk, his legs wrapped around the bottom rung of his stool, and slowly unscrewed another piece of the artifact. Somewhere in the distance, he heard knocking. No time for that, he thought. It wouldn’t be long before Aluna found some way for them to escape, and he intended to learn as much as possible about Aviar tech before they left.

Louder knocking. Definitely his door. One more screw . . .

“Hoku?”

He pulled himself away from his project and saw Calli standing in the doorway. She wore the same kind of loose leggings and billowy shirt as she had when they’d been in their prison cells, only this time her clothes were bright green instead of blue. The soft fabrics suited her far more than the silvery armor she’d been trapped in during their audience with the president.

“Calli — er, I mean, Vice President,” he said. Reluctantly, he unwound his legs from the stool and stood up.

“Just Calli,” she said. “May I . . . can I come in?”

“You can probably do whatever you want, you know?” He hoped he didn’t sound bitter. He actually didn’t mind being a prisoner. Captivity was a lot more fun than cowering in a Human village or hiking along the beach.

Calli stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. She nodded toward the tray of fruit and bread and meat sitting by the bed. “You didn’t eat? I thought you were hungry.”

He looked at the food. His stomach whined. He’d forgotten all about it.

“I guess I got a little distracted,” he said. He felt heat on his cheeks and turned quickly back to his desk.

“You took apart the lamp!” Calli said.

“It started to get dark, and this torch started to glow all by itself,” Hoku said. “I want to see how it works. Don’t worry, I can put it back together.”

Calli joined him at the desk. “Electricity,” she said, and touched one of the pieces. “This is the power receptor. It takes energy from the air and uses it to run the lamp.”

He touched the receptor, an inch away from where she was touching it. “But where does the energy come from? I couldn’t find a power source.”

“From our generators,” she said. “They’re like really big batteries that store and transmit energy.”

“But where —?”

“From the sun,” she said, talking fast. “Did you see all the sun traps on the cliffs when you flew in? All those black panels? Those are like nets we use to gather energy from the sun.”

“You store the sun’s light so you can use it to make other light later?” Hoku said. He touched the round glass bubble jar that had been emitting the glow.

Calli nodded. “To make light, and to do other things, too. Like run our necklaces. Filtering oxygen from the air takes power, and they’re far too small and light to contain generators themselves. I’m sure your breathing shells work the same way.”

He ran his finger over the seahorse imprint on his necklace. He’d always assumed the power for their shells came from somewhere inside the City of Shifting Tides. But President Iolanthe had said that LegendaryTek wanted to control them. They must have kept the power source at HydroTek, far away from the Kampii, who actually needed it. He swallowed.

“Our shells are failing,” he said quietly. “The generator must have been damaged or destroyed. That means all our shells are going to stop functioning when they run out of power.” He fell back onto his stool. “There’s so much we don’t know. I’ll never be able to learn it all in time.”

“Then we’d better get started,” Calli said, pressing her lips into a thin, determined line. She handed him a stack of items from her other hand. “Here. I brought you some books.”

He held out his hands and she put three books in them. Actual, real books. Grandma Nani had taught him to read, but the City of Shifting Tides didn’t have a big collection. Before he turned twelve, he’d read all the books that weren’t hidden by the Elders.

“Before the Battle of the Dome, we got all of our energy from SkyTek,” Calli said. “But now we use the sun traps and wind traps, and sometimes waterfalls, for our energy.”

“And when something breaks, you fix it yourselves,” Hoku said.

“Exactly! We make our own babies now, and grow our own wings. Of course, my mother made a lot of enemies when she defeated Tempest and his Upgrader army. Word travels. A lot of people want our tech. We have to keep it hidden, and we’re not allowed to talk about it.”

He smiled. “Except you told me.”

“I guess I did,” Calli said, smiling back.

Hoku walked over and placed the books in a neat row on the bed. He ran his fingertips over the cover of the first one.

“That one explains the basics of electricity,” she said. “We aren’t supposed to read it until next season, but I couldn’t wait.” She picked up the book and flipped through the pages until she found the one she wanted. “Look,” she said. “This whole chapter is on using energy from the sun.”

She held it open for him. On the first page was a picture of the sun, with lines indicating its light hitting an artifact like the Aviars’ sun traps. He had to know how it worked! The Kampii lived underwater but had ample access to sunlight. Maybe he could float a web of sun traps on the surface of the ocean. They’d have plenty of their own power then!

He opened the book, admiring the clear print and silky pages. Skimming the list of contents at the beginning made his heart trip over itself.

“Are you going to read that right now?” Calli said with an odd tone in her voice.

“Huh?” He looked up, suddenly remembering where he was. And who he was with.

Calli laughed. “It’s okay, I’ve seen that look before. I’d be the same way if I got to read books about Kampii tech.”

“Not that you could find any,” Hoku said bitterly. “The Elders don’t really encourage this sort of education. They think we’re better off forgetting the past. Every generation, we lose a little more knowledge. We’re getting dumber instead of smarter.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, leaving plenty of room for Calli to sit next to him, or to sit far away. She chose somewhere in the middle.

“Wait,” he said. “Where’s Aluna? I thought she was with you.”

Calli rolled her eyes. “She’s probably still up there practicing. I left after the first hour, and they didn’t even notice.”

Hoku tried to keep his smile small, but failed. “I know exactly how you feel,” he said. “One day she was four hours late for our exploring trip because her brother decided to show her how to throw a harpoon. And then all she did was talk about it for the rest of the day.”

“Is she a great warrior in your culture?”

Hoku shook his head. “Girls can’t be hunters. The Elders say we don’t have as many people as we should, so the girls are supposed to do safer things. So they can have babies.”

“Your females actually carry the babies inside them? Like in ancient times?”

“Of course,” he said. “How do you do it?”

“Little food beds,” Calli said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “After we choose which eggs to use, a special machine combines them. We take the final seed and plant it in a tank filled with all the nutrients the baby needs to grow.”

Hoku shook his head. “So you really don’t need men in the colony.”

“There are other Aviar colonies that grow boys,” she said. “Far to the north is Talon’s Peak, and I’ve heard that the president there even has a male consort. Niobe and Hypatia gossip about it all the time.”

Hoku laughed, and he told her about his parents.

Calli sat there, stunned. “I can’t even imagine what your world is like.”

“You should visit sometime,” Hoku blurted. “If you want, I mean. I’m sure I could modify your breathing device, assuming I haven’t made us a bunch of new breathing shells by then. But how could we protect your wings? I wonder if your bones are too thin and light because of the flying. Maybe if we . . .”

She looked at him and smiled, and his insides turned to jellyfish. He would build her anything she wanted. Anything at all.