The apollo, p.18
The Apollo, page 18
“We were lovers in secret for many years. He dealt with some unsavory customers and always tried to protect me. One day, he flew east to the forests of Carth where he found a grove of magical trees.”
Layla tossed some green spices that smelled strong and tickled Avira’s nose into the bowl. A wind burst through the market scene and a forest took shape, the golden ship tied to a tree as the black pepper form of Layla’s husband chopped at another tree.
“These trees had wood that was said to amplify the powers of the goddesses. If used to make a skyship it would surely be the fastest, most unsinkable ship in the world. He sent some home to me and I used it to make this bowl for grinding my spices.”
Layla waved her hands and the spices separated out making veins of green and gold and dark black in a swirling pattern in the bowl.
“Grigori Bianco wanted the secret to finding the grove of trees, but my husband would not tell him.”
Layla added a mere pinch of something a deep burgundy color, paprika perhaps, and the whole bowl turned red like blood.
“We had married in secret, conceived a child together. We had dreams of a life that would never be, all because of Grigori Bianco and his greed.”
As Layla waved her hands, the spices began to float again, each spice returned to its respective jar. It was as though Layla had the hands of a sorceress. Avira wasn’t convinced that the wooden bowl was the only magical thing in this room.
“Bianco killed your husband.” Avira hung her head. How many other husbands, wives, sons, and daughters had her father taken before their time?
“For months I dreamed of taking a knife and stabbing it through Grigori Bianco’s heart so he could feel what it is like to have your love pulled from your chest like that. But after a while, I made peace. I do not want my daughter to be raised by an angry, bitter, violent mother. I must trust that, in time, the goddesses will bring vengeance down upon Grigori for me.”
Avira stood up suddenly, blood rushed to her head and she felt faint. “I have to go.”
“So soon? It’s still dark out. The streets aren’t safe.”
The morning light was beginning to brighten up the city, Avira knew it would be dawn before she made it back to the palace, even if she hurried. “Thank you for your kindness, Layla. I have nothing to give you to repay you.”
Layla shook her head, clicking her tongue like Adipe always did. “Before you go, take this.” She plunged her hand into a smaller, deep red jar of spices. She sprinkled the contents of her fist onto a small piece of parchment paper and folded it tightly.
“It’s harissa pepper. It will temporarily blind anyone who gets it in their eyes. If anyone bothers you on your way home, throw it in their face.”
Avira placed the package in her pocket and gave a grateful nod. When she reached the door, Layla called out to her one more time.
“Make him pay for it, Miss Bianco.”
Avira stopped in her tracks. Layla had known who she was all along, and she’d still shown her kindness. Avira knew she should turn back and acknowledge the words, but she couldn’t bring herself to. It was too much for her. She felt ashamed, more ashamed of her last name than ever before.
She did not turn back. Instead, she kept walking, back into the streets of Shaheen, back towards the palace, back towards her mission. I will make him pay, Layla, she thought to herself as the sun began to rise over the palace. I promise I will.
Chapter thirty
At some point between returning to his room and the first whisper of dawn, Matteo fell asleep. It was a restless, dreamless sleep and, when he woke up, his head hurt from tension. He didn’t know when he’d next get a restful night of sleep. All he knew was that the last night had not been it.
It had taken a little wandering for him to find the way to the cliffs. He’d assumed incorrectly that, if he found the throne room, the way to the cliffs where airships landed to see the queen would be clear. Instead, he wound up walking in a gigantic circle and finding himself in the throne room again. A guard who was stationed near one of the thrones snickered at him.
He shrugged. What did he have to lose at this point? It’s not like he was ever going to truly gain the respect of the Shaheeni guards or soldiers when one night before he had been their prisoner.
“I need help finding the cliffs.” The woman pursed her lips, clearly stifling another giggle. She pointed vaguely and he, eventually, realized what she meant. There was a gilded gateway at the far end of the garden with a window at its center revealing the sea. Matteo hurried to the cliffs, worried Rihane would reprimand him for his tardiness.
She was standing with her hands on her hips, two gliders resting on either side of her, staring at the sunrise.
“I’m sorry I was late. I got lost.” He was out of breath from the rush and the sprint. He rested his hands on his knees trying to catch up with himself.
Rihane snorted with laughter, turning and casting her dark eyes onto him. “You’re a bit useless, Matteo De Luca.”
“I know.” The words tumbled out between gasps. Perhaps it was not wise to admit to his own uselessness in front of one of the Shaheeni Guard’s most competent soldiers, but he was too tired to try and defend himself. He was, after all, acting rather useless these days.
“I hear you were quite the powerful detective back home in Veronii. The guards spent all night telling stories about you. You’ve rescued infants, destroyed crime rings, some even say you’ve saved royal families from ruin. But here you are, useless in Shaheen. It’s ironic.”
Matteo scrunched his nose, frustrated. “Are you going to teach me how to fly that thing or are you just going to stand here and make fun of me.”
Rihane handed him the glider. It was a simple enough design, a board with some steam technology strapped to the bottom to make it fly and a windsail attached to a thick mast. It was a little taller than him but surprisingly light. Rihane picked up her glider and rubbed her sleeve along a scuff in the polished metal.
“What are these things made out of anyway?” Matteo asked, lifting it up to test just how light it was. It weighed less than a book, less than a jug of water. It was shocking.
“Aluminum.”
Matteo raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a special metal, it looks like silver but bends like paper. The Shaheeni military invented it. Which reminds me -” Rihane snatched the glider out of Matteo’s hands. “If you leak any of this technology to your friends on The Apollo, I will personally cut your throat, Queen Adipe’s orders.”
Somehow Matteo doubted that Adipe had made any such order, but he didn’t want to press his luck. He withheld his laughter at the idea of anyone on board The Apollo being his friend. The only person he cared for there was Avira and she’d practically renounced any contact with him at this point, at least it felt that way. Matteo gazed at the waves crashing on the rocky beach below. Funny, he thought, that the sea looked so peaceful from up in the sky and so brutal upon closer inspection. There was a metaphor there, but he was not smart enough to think of it.
Rihane gave him a punch on the arm. It was not a soft, playful punch like the one Matteo’s friends had given him in the schoolyard. His shoulder throbbed a bit and he impulsively stepped back. “Are we going to stand here thinking about your girlfriend all morning or are you going to learn to fly this thing?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“That wasn’t my point.” Rihane used her heel to kick a little lever on the bottom of her glider and it whirred to life.
“It’s a steam engine,” she explained. “You don’t need it once you catch the wind, it just helps to get you going at first. Watch!”
Rihane took a few steps back and before Matteo knew what was happening, she began running, glider in hand, towards the cliff. She took four giant, graceful strides and then leaped feet first into the open air. At first, she plummeted down towards the water, but within seconds the sail of her glider had caught the wind and she was flying upwards, her back parallel with the waves and one arm dangling off the mast, gesturing at Matteo to follow her lead.
“I can’t do that! I’m not ready!”
“You don’t have to jump,” Rihane shouted over the wind, she looked like an eagle swooping through the sky. “It’s just more fun if you do.”
“It doesn’t look fun!” Matteo shouted, realizing how childlike he looked. Rihane was quite literally flying in circles around him.
“Sorry. I can’t hear you over how much fun I’m having.”
This girl was really starting to get on Matteo’s nerves. He decided that was it. If he fell to his death, he wouldn’t be the one to blame. He kicked the lever starting the tiny steam engine on the bottom of his glider as hard as he could and backed up as far as he had space to. Then, holding on tight to the mast of the glider, he started running. The wind whipped at his face. As he reached the edge of the cliff, his head got the better of him. What was he doing? He couldn’t just hurl himself off a cliff and expect that to work. But it was too late, his body and the glider were moving too fast, and the momentum was too strong.
Tripping over his feet, Matteo hurdled off the cliff. He didn’t have a chance to scream or even breathe before he was flying through the air and falling toward the rock below. The stones looked even sharper from this angle. He wanted to close his eyes and wait for the sting of impact but he heard, from out of his field of vision, a voice calling out.
“Matteo! Straighten the mast!”
He did as the mystery voice told him, pulling the glider close to him and propping the sail upright so it could catch the wind. Within seconds, he was traveling up instead of down. He let out a surprised laugh.
“I’m doing it.” The glider sailed up and up and up until the cliff he’d just been standing on looked small. “I’m doing it!” he shouted, knowing it was unlikely anyone could hear him over the whipping wind. He could see Rihane soaring about fifty yards above him, a massive smile on her face. She swooped in and out between rays of the sun. Matteo had trouble controlling the glider at first, he could only really go wherever the wind was taking him. But after some time in the air, he realized it was relatively easy to lean his body weight in one direction or another and fly that way. Every once in a while he hit a pocket where there was no wind, and his glider plummeted a few feet leaving his insides twisted in a knot. But he soon learned that there was always another stream of wind ready to take him in a new direction. He just had to be trusting enough to find it.
After two hours or so of flying, Rihane waved towards the cliff. “Are you ready to learn how to land?”
He had been so thrilled at the idea of flying that he hadn’t even considered he would have to land this thing at some point. He shook his head vigorously.
“Let me put it this way, you’re either going to land or you’re going to crash, and I assume you prefer the former.” Rihane had a way of arching her eyebrow that drove Matteo crazy. “Besides,” she continued, “It’s late in the morning already and I have to meet the rest of the guard in preparation for tonight.”
Rihane caught a gust of wind and piloted her glider down and around Matteo, eclipsing him. Meanwhile, he was still struggling to stay in a straight line.
“Now the most important part of landing is to land on your feet. Smashing the glider into the ground isn’t going to help you. You’ll just destroy it.”
Only when he whipped his glider around did Matteo fully grasp how high and how far from the cliffs he had flown. The bottoms of his feet began to tingle, and his hands began to sweat.
“I can’t!” A memory hit him of when he was a child and he’d climbed up to the top of a tree in his adoptive family’s orchard. One of his older brothers had tried to coax him down from the branches but he was too stubborn to climb on.
“The ground is a lot farther from your eyes than it is from your feet, Matteo!” His brother had tried to reason with him but eventually, he’d had to climb up and carry him down himself. That was a decade and a half ago now, he had to land the glider. He could feel his cheeks burning, he was embarrassed at how afraid he was.
“Just watch me do it. It will be alright.”
Rihane, as gracefully as a bird, tilted the nose of her glider down and flew at the cliff. When she was close enough to touch the ground, she pulled the glider out from under her feet and landed softly in the dirt, both her body and her glider still upright. She had all the poise of a cat jumping down from a sunny windowsill after a nap. Matteo knew he was about to show just as much grace as an albatross. He sucked in a breath, deciding it would be a miracle if he could pilot a glider half this well with Avira on board, and pointed the nose down. He didn’t pray often, but he prayed to Aurora to soften his landing.
It happened so quickly, before he knew it his feet were back on land. He didn’t quite catch his balance upon landing. He had to let go of the glider and stumble forward a few steps, catching himself with his hands in the dirt and tearing the knees of his pants.
Rihane was jumping up and down. When he turned to check for her approval, she was just about exploding with joy.
“You did it. I can’t believe you did it.”
“Well, I only had one other option.”
Rihane set her glider down and wrapped him in a tight hug. “I thought for sure you were going to kill yourself on accident, really.” Matteo bit his tongue, not wanting to ask Rihane why she would bother trying to teach him how to use a glider if she thought he was going to die trying. Maybe this was all part of some big plot to get him killed and take his job of delivering Avira to Gavriel. It was doubtful though. From the look on her face, he could tell Rihane was genuinely thrilled to have helped.
“Now you have to remember, you’ll be taking off from a sea ship, not a cliff, tonight. It will be harder to pilot with Avira on board but I think you’ll figure it out. You’re a regular prodigy.”
“I have a great teacher.” Rihane gave him a punch on the arm, he had a feeling this was her preferred method of taking a compliment. He wiped his hands on his shirt, trying to get the sweat to start pouring out of them. His heart was still pounding from the adrenaline, the excitement of it all was almost too much for him.
Rihane looked up from Matteo and her smile fell. “I should go,” she said softly. Matteo whipped his head around to see Avira. She was rocking back and forth on her heels as though she’d been standing there for a little too long.
Rihane grabbed her glider and took long strides toward the palace walls. She looked almost sad, nose turned towards the ground. Matteo felt a pull in his stomach. Was Rihane upset that Avira had shown up? That didn’t make any sense.
“Rihane!” Matteo yelled after her. She stopped and gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” was all Matteo could muster.
She nodded and disappeared behind the palace wall.
“Were you flying that thing?” Avira asked gently.
“Barely.” Matteo twisted his foot in the dirt. He didn’t feel quite as excited about any of his newfound flying skills, not with Avira giving him such a strange look.
“Will you show me?”
Avira looked so curious that Matteo couldn’t help but say yes, after all, he was still holding the glider.
“Do you want to go for a ride?” He said the words before he could really think through what they meant. He’d never flown with a second person on board the glider before, it probably wasn’t a good idea. He couldn’t even tell where this newfound confidence was coming from. Once again, he blamed adrenaline and lack of sleep. Both were powerful enough to drive a man mad, after all.
Avira gave her little half grin, the same one that always drove Matteo crazy. Perhaps, somehow, she’d forgiven him a little bit since last night in the garden. Avria reached out her hand and Matteo took it, holding tight for he didn’t know when he’d next get the chance to.
“We’ll need to get a running start,” Matteo said, flicking the switch on the side of his glider with his foot as though he was an expert. He was decidedly not an expert yet but he didn’t want Avira to know that. “We’re going to jump, hold on to the sail, after a moment the wind will take us with it, okay?”
Avira gave a curt nod.
“On three okay?” Matteo and Avira backed up farther than he knew they needed to. He worried for just a moment about how they were going to land but tried to push that worry down. This might be his last moment with Avira ever. He wanted it to be special, magical even.
“One-- two--- three!”
They took off running, leaping off the cliff with twice as much speed behind them as Matteo had possessed when he was making the jump alone. At first, they plummeted twice as fast, but the wind caught them quickly and with a whoosh, they flew straight up.
Matteo was suddenly aware of Avira’s scream. It was not a scream of terror, however, a scream of joy. She was laughing, cackling like a witch from a storybook.
“We’re flying,” she said with a laugh so loud and strong Matteo barely recognized her. He’d never seen Avira so filled to the brim with joy.
“I can’t believe we’re actually flying. How do these things work?” Avira asked. Matteo shrugged. He didn’t honestly understand the physics of it, and he assumed it was stupid to pretend to.
Matteo shifted his weight, pressing his body into Avira to get the best angle, and the glider tipped sideways resulting in a giddy squeal from the girl. He pointed down at the white caps of the waves and Avira let out a gasp. “It’s so beautiful up here.”
Matteo looked at her, the way her cheeks stretched out as she smiled, her freckles practically glowing along with the rest of her with joy, the way her short hair flipped in the wind and her dark ebony eyes glittered. He felt that feeling within him again, the uncontrollable love he’d felt that night in the crow's nest.
He pressed his body closer to hers and she curved her body to make space for them. It was as though they were puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together. Avira turned her head and smiled at him, trying to say thank you. The wind was too strong for him to say anything back, so he let go of the glider with one hand and touched it to her heart.
