Children Of The Sky (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 2)

Chapter 1

The rain was thick, the mud slippery as algae on seastone, the Canivera guards faster than him despite it all. He'd intended the storm to slow them down. Things weren't working out quite as he'd planned.

His feet slipped, this time too far for recovery. His legs slid out in front of him on the country road, his brother shouted his name from up ahead, and the guards were on top of him in a second. He swore loudly into the rain as white-hot pain froze his knee, and lightning streaked the sky as he tried to scramble to his feet. The hilt of a sword to his gut stopped him in an instant.

Gasping, he coughed, spit coppery-tasting blood on the ground, and rolled on his back. The last thing he saw was an angry grey sky and a fist in a leather gauntlet. And then Jack Miriad, prince of pirates and commander of sea and storm, was caught and dragged for the very first time to a dungeon.

***

Work, Ely discovered soon after his arrival in Cassar, city of the owl, was rather difficult to find when you were on the small side and thin as paper. He often wondered, too, if he resembled his father sufficiently enough to be recognized as his son and shunned for it. The name Palenin carried a bad omen these days, tainted by tales of blood and magic and torture. Regardless of whether those rogue ideas of his were true, Ely gravitated toward wearing a hooded coat most days, cutting the sleeves away as the weather warmed and winter wrestled with and lost to spring.

The speed with which the city was rebuilding itself was astonishing, though less so when one considered the many, many mages who were capable of using their gifts for architectural purposes. Watching them stack buildings and spires and arches together within mere hours, Ely was almost jealous of his brother's gifting, knowing employment would've been an easy goal if he'd had it, but when he remembered the other cards Corin had been dealt, he pushed the thought away and tugged his hood up against the sun and sweet air. The day was warm, the salty sea air brisk on a breeze, and he was going to find a job before nightfall, whatever it took. Money for a one-way trip across the sea wasn't going to earn itself.

The sun rose high above the pinnacles and pointed rooftops, hitting shining windows and casting warped reflections on the shadowed walls of houses opposite them. And as shopowner after shopowner took one look at Ely and shook their heads, evening crept in between half-built structures of ancient stone and closed its hand around the city as the sun fell behind the jagged mountains. The cobblestones that made up the streets in the poorer parts of the city were still warm, and as the light faded and the nightwatch came out to kindle the streetlamps on the corners, Ely finally gave up and stalked into the cleanest alley he could find to spend the night.

There was a chill to the air that bit at his skin as he put his back to a building made of basalt bricks mined from the sea floor and slid down until his knees were against his chest. Watching his breath fog in the dense humidity, he tugged his hood up over his bare head and wrapped his arms around his bony legs. He was beginning to regret shaving the shaggy white-blond mane from his scalp, mostly because of how many times he'd nicked himself with the dull blade he'd used, but if he got lucky, it'd earn him a job. It'd saved the trouble of washing it, too.

Tipping his head back, Ely caught sight of the stars. It was strange, being able to see them in the city, sparkling points of light against a backdrop of ever-darkening blue between the borders of the buildings. He remembered coming into the city as a kid, asking his mother why there weren't any stars. "It's the lights," she'd told him, her voice wistful. "The people here have tried so badly to light their own way that they've forgotten what nature writes for them in the sky at night."

A door creaked to his right, and light cut the darkness in the warped shape of a doorway, sprawling across the alley. Ely squinted and watched as a dark-skinned boy, no more than fifteen, sauntered outside and dumped vegetable extras into a compost crate while he whistled an old tune Ely recognized bits and pieces of. Wiping his hand on his apron, the boy turned to go inside--and froze when he caught Ely staring. They watched each other for a moment, neither moving, neither speaking. Then the boy spoke.