Free Heir to the Sky by Amanda Sun Page A

princess is dead, and the festivities will stop. Maybe they’ll trade the bright red-and-orange garlands for black veils, the goat-string harps for the mournful carved flutes.
    I have to get back to Ashra. I have to let my father know I’m alive, that I need him to come and get me. I doubt they’d see a fire from up there, even if they were looking. They’d never know it was me who’d created that pinprick dot of flame on this vast earth below.
    In the distance something shrieks, and another thing howls. The sounds are inhuman, monstrous and strange. Throughout the night I find myself starting to doze off, my head slipping against the tree trunk, and then one of those shrieks will pierce the sky, and I’ll jolt awake, my blood running cold. What’s even out there? It looks as though, now that humans are gone, the monsters eat and fight each other. Or perhaps they’ve always done that from what I’ve read. Except for the Phoenix, they’ve never shown sentient thought about anything.
    I close my eyes, and the nighttime blurs into strange thoughts that dance around my head. I wake to thunder that rolls above me in the clouds and air that tastes sour on my tongue. The sky flashes lavender, and then everything is black again while the thunder rumbles. Why hasn’t the daylight come yet? My back aches from the thick bark digging into it, but it’s the only reassurance I have that nothing is creeping up behind me.
    The air buzzes with electricity as another bolt of lightning streaks through the sky. I try to lick my parched lips. Please, I think. By the ashes of the Phoenix, please, let it rain.
    And then the drops fall thick and hard, drenching the tall grasses as they sway from the weight.
    I try to catch the water in my hands, but the sticky blood on them taints it. I rub my fingers together, washing as best I can and trying again. Then I gather up my skirt to catch water, but it soaks into the fabric, weighing down the cloth. I take the corner and squeeze it into my mouth, but only a few drops come out.
    I feel around beside me in the dark and rip off one of the wide fern leaves, shaping it between my cupped hands. It’s almost impossible to wait until it fills, and I tip the raindrops I’ve caught over and over into my mouth. They taste sweet and warm, and though most nights with dinner I have honeyed berry juice in a golden goblet, right now I’ve never had anything more delicious than tepid rainwater in a fern leaf.
    But once the edge of my thirst has faded away, all I can feel is the cold of being pelted by the rainstorm, my dress waterlogged and pulling me firmly to the ground. If a monster came now, I probably couldn’t run fast enough.
    I shiver in the rain, reaching for the flint in my pocket. But I can’t make a fire now. Everything is soaked, the tall grasses bent over from the heavy deluge.
    I close my eyes and think of the warm fireplace in my bedroom of the citadel. I think of the crackle of the logs at night as they sputter and pop with bright flames. I shudder in the cold even as the rain slows and the clouds move on, as the shrieks and piercing wails of monsters echo in the dark around me. I think of my father smiling, of him dancing me around the room when I was only seven on our trip to Nartu.
    The rebellion. I have to warn him, have to find out what’s going on. I think about the strange light I passed through as I fell from Ashra. The pale rainbow glow was as slow as honey around me. Is that why I survived? Was that part of the drawing that had been scratched out?
    Thoughts drift to strange images. I jolt awake, and the sky is flooding with light. The sun is starting to warm the breeze that drifts over the muddy field the clearing has become. The battered tall grasses are hunched over but starting to reach again for the sunlight. Birds are chirping in the trees, and squirrels and pikas are chattering.
    I reach for the spear beside me and