Elegy of the Leaves

IV | Hands of Fate

That single air battle had been the spark that engulfed the Everblue in a war more horrifying than any could imagine.

Claire and Evan hadn't a clue what threads of fate their actions that day had caused to weave, but weave those threads did into a tangled web. A web that put Evan and Claire at the very heart of a dark secret, one their father had tried to unravel before his disappearance. And as they sat behind bars in the depths of Estailia's jails, they had little realized that the gods themselves had already devised and sprung a plan to assure their freedom.

A cold drop of water echoed throughout Evan's cell. That drop turned to a trickle, which then spilled its way off the edge of the Isle and down toward the Abyss. Evan hung his head in the palms of his hands. The rotted wood frame of his bed ached and groaned under his weight.

"Court-martialed and sentenced to a decade in jail pending death," he whispered to himself. "Why'd it have to happen during my test..."

"Brother..." Claire's dulled voice called through the door. "Can you see the sky?"

"What does it matter, Claire?"

"I haven't seen it in at least a week, if I counted my meals right... They won't open the slat in my door so I can peer through yours to the sky... Please brother, tell me of it?"

Claire had been laying on her threadbare blanket in her bed. She covered her eyes with an arm out of habit despite the true darkness that surrounded her.

Evan felt obliged simply to give his sister some relief. To have the sky taken away was a far worse punishment to any in this world. The Everblue was the lifeblood of a Leaf. It was true for all that lived in this world, but to Leaves it was a much deeper-seated truth.

Evan remised about the lectures in his academy days. Skysickness it was called, when a Leaf went mad from not being able to see the sky for a prolonged period of time. Depending on the mental fortitude of the Leaf, it could set in in mere weeks, or months. Describing the sky to Claire may have prolonged the inevitable, but the quiver in her weak voice assured him she would succumb to it soon if she wasn't permitted to see it for herself.

Evan felt it should've been him who got her cell. She only supported him. It was he, after all, who disobeyed the Proctor outright. He picked himself up and walked to the iron bars that confined him. He let his back slide down as their cold damp seeped through his shirt and bit into his back.

He'd gotten the edge cell. An opened ended hold that had a door on one side, and a cliff edge on the other. Prisoners controlled their own fate in these cells. They would burn by day and freeze by night. Most, after some time, would submit themselves to the edge and join the Abyss.

Evan stared into the horizon instead. "It's a lavender horizon. The sun burns orange far below us, and a twinkling blanket of stars covers us."

"What about the moon?"

"No moon yet, sister, it must still be on your side of the isle."

Soft whimpers came from beneath Claire's door. Evan bit his lip, trying to stay strong for his sister. It was a rare thing to hear Claire cry. Evan could only remember one other time he'd heard it. It was the day they'd been told their dad had gone missing.

Claire was only fourteen, two years from being able to take her pilot's test when a Leaf knocked on their door. Claire had been the one to answer. Their mother was out purchasing ingredients for the supper she was going to make that night, and Claire had been asked to keep an eye on Evan.

He remembered only two things so vividly from that day. The first being what the Leaf had said about how their father disappeared. Abandonment. He had taken his ship and left without any warning. Evan felt his blood race through his veins at the thought. How could a father abandon his family so carelessly?