Before the Sky Fell

[ 31 ] The End is the Beginning

A volley of arrows hissed beneath them. Whik turned to Pelk, who had nestled himself in the corner, his hands covering his face. He was murmuring something that Whik couldn't understand.

"Just get us to the city," Whik told Malachi.

Malachi turned and peered over the basket. "The city, yes. To the safety of the city. Or we could go somewhere else."

He's mad. He's lost his head. Whik backed away to the edge of the basket. He grabbed onto Seras' hand and peered over. The city walls passed below them.

Malachi said, "Do you know that my wife took her own life? One day, she poached four eggs for Anaeyl and I. They were the best eggs I've ever had. She put her heart into them. Then she walked to the quarry and jumped off a cliff." Malachi threw his hands into the air. "Do you know why? Whik, is it? Do you know why she did that?"

Whik shook his head. He curled his fingers around the wooden basket. He thought of Gordon. The memory was flawed and broken, but something about the way Whik wrapped his hands around the wooden basket brought it back to him. Or maybe it was the sight of a broken man, talking to anyone who would listen.

Malachi laughed. "Because she just had to know. She just had to know what was up in that crack in the sky. She had to know if the gods really didn't exist. Let's go up there, why don't we?" Malachi hung his head from the basket, looking upward. The balloon was massive, but the crack in the sky was bigger. "Let's go up there, Whik. Let's leave all this and just see. What if everyone is up there? My suicidal wife and my genius daughter. We can fly now. It's so close."

Whik felt lost in the vessel that was floating above a stampede of Larks. He felt like a child again, clumsy and embarrassed. The wind picked up.

At first Whik thought the volley of arrows was a mind-trick, the pinnacle of all of his hallucinations and all of his visions. When the first arrow pierced the canvas of the balloon, the passengers dropped to the floor, and a stark reality fell in. They were falling.

Arrows pierced the balloon and the hot air that at one time held them up above the fields of Eckrondale was now escaping at a rapid rate. The last thing Whik saw, through the cracks of the woven basket, was the cobblestone path of Eckrondale's outer ring, and the frightened face of some soldier soon to be crushed by the weight of Frankford's invention.

When Whik's vision cleared, his sight was sideways. He lifted his head from the stone walkway and saw billows of smoke rising from the crashed balloon. He remembered the flammable nature of its contents, but it was already too late. A waft of green flames burst into the air and consumed everything around the balloon. Whik shielded his face with his hand. The blast singed the hairs on his fingers.

Men were on fire, stumbling things in balls of green flame. He thought he saw Malachi among them, smiling while he burned, staring at the sky. Seras lay beside him. A gash lined her eyebrow. Whik struggled to stand, but was knocked down by a man fighting the flames that crept up his leg. When Whik finally regained balance, Pelk and Malachi were nowhere to be seen. They've burned alive and it's my fault. He helped Seras up and carried her in his arms. "We're going to live," he told her. "We're going to live."

A loud boom sounded throughout the courtyard. The wooden beams of the gate vibrated with tension. He had heard of huge contraptions that could knock down towering gates in a heartbeat, but he never saw one in person, nor did he want to.

He had to act. Charlotte. Marg. Sonora. The names raced through his mind as he ran to the keep that towered over the city. When Whik reached the top of the staircase, with the girl in his arms, he stormed through Marg's door. His vision blurred. The slim silhouette of the figure standing in front of the window made him stop.