章 14: SKYBORN - Chapter 14
The rapturous mood of the Keshiri lasted straight through Moving Day. The Skyborn had been quartered in the fine homes of the Neshtovar while the riders spread the word. As the Neshtovar returned one by one, their guests uniformly declared their preference to remain in the relatively sumptuous accommodations.
After the sixth rider appealed to Izri, the elder declared that all riders should move their families to humbler homes, that the Skyborn might know their devotion. Korsin and Seelah had been living in Izri's own house since the first day.
Everyone moved but Adari. For her service to the Skyborn, she'd been allowed to remain in Zhari's house. It also kept her near Korsin, whom she saw daily in her informal role as ambassador and aide. She saw all the prominent Skyborn often: gruff but amiable Gloyd, who was something called a Houk; Hestus, busily indexing the Keshiri vocabulary; and rust-colored Ravilan, who often seemed lost, a minority within a minority. She also saw Seelah, who had installed herself in Korsin's lavish lodgings. Seelah's child was Korsin's nephew, Adari learned.
Seelah always glowered at Adari when she was around Korsin. Including today, as Adari stood with him at a dig on the edge of the Cetajan Range, in sight of the ocean she fled to a month before. The Skyborn needed structures to stabilize and protect Omen, but first they needed a clear land passage onto the peninsula. A route was taking shape with the Skyborn, whose number included many miners, hewing huge chunks of strata with their lightsabers.
"Sabers'll do better when we recover some of the Lignan crystals to power them," Gloyd said. Korsin presented a rock sample to Adari. Granite. The efforts were not for her, of course, but she'd always wondered what the mountains were made of. Now she knew.
"You were right after all," Korsin said, watching her study the stone. She hadn't mentioned her conflict with the Neshtovar, but she'd been anxious to confirm her theories with someone who knew. Volcanos did form new land. And the mountains of the Cetajan Range weren't volcanoes—while granite did come from magma, they told her, it was formed far underground over the course of eons. That was why its rocks looked different from the flamestones. "I don't understand half what my miners tell me," Korsin said, "but they say you could easily help them—if you weren't helping me."
Korsin began speaking with Gloyd about their next project, a dig to find metals necessary to repair Omen. Adari started to interject when she saw Seelah orbiting. Adari shuddered as the woman passed from sight. What had Adari done to earn such hatred?
She's not staring at me, Adari realized. She's staring at Korsin.
"I saw you," Adari blurted to Korsin.
"What?"
"I saw you a second time on the mountain, that day. You threw something over the side."
Korsin turned from his work. He gestured—and Gloyd stepped away.
"I saw you throw something," Adari said, swallowing. She looked down at the ocean, crashing against the cliffs. "I didn't know what—until you sent me to return to the village." Korsin stepped warily toward her. Adari couldn't stop talking. "I flew down there, Korsin. I saw him below, on the rocks. He was a man," she said, "like you."
"Like me?" Korsin snorted. "Is … he still there?"
She shook her head. "I turned him over to look at him," she said. "The tide swept him away."
Korsin was her height, but as she shrank, he loomed. "You saw this—and yet you still brought the Neshtovar to find us."
Adari froze, unable to answer. She looked at the rocks, far below, so like the ones farther up the range. Korsin reached for her as he had before …
… and drew back. His voice softened. "Your people turned on you to protect their society. You were a danger?"
How did he know? Adari looked up at Korsin. He looked less like Zhari all the time. "I believed something they didn't."
Korsin smiled and took her hand gently.
"That's a fight my people are familiar with. That man you saw—he was a danger to our society."
"But he was your brother."
Korsin's grip tightened for a moment before he let go altogether. "You are a good listener," he said, straightening. The fact wouldn't have been hard to learn. "Yes, he was my brother. But he was a danger—and we had dangers enough when you found us," he said. He looked deeply into her eyes. "And I think this is something you know something about, Adari. That same sea took someone from you, too. Didn't it?"
Adari's mouth opened. How? Zhari had died there, but the Neshtovar would never have told Korsin. Speaking of a rider's fall broke their greatest taboo: falling was being claimed by the Otherside. No one had seen it happen, save for Nink—and the all-seeing Skyborn.
Korsin was either a mind reader, or he was who he said he was. Her words barely came out.
"It—it's not the same. You pushed that man. I didn't have anything to do with what happened to my—"
"Of course you didn't. Accidents happen. But you didn't mind that he died," he said. "I can see it in you, Adari. He was a danger to you—to the person you're becoming." Korsin's bushy eyebrows turned up.
"You're glad he's gone."
Adari closed her eyes. Putting his arm around her shoulder, Korsin turned her toward the sun. "It's all right, Adari. Among the Sith, there is no shame in it. You would never be what you are today with him keeping you down. Just as you'd never be what you're going to become with Izri Dazh keeping you down."
At the name, Adari's eyes opened. The sunlight dazzled her, but Korsin wouldn't let her turn away. "You were afraid of us," he said, "and afraid when you saw the body.
You knew we'd die on the mountain if you didn't bring help. Yet you brought the Neshtovar anyway—because you thought we could help you against them."
He released her. Adari looked blankly at the sun for another moment before looking away. Behind her, Korsin spoke in the soothing tones he'd used when his voice had first reached her on the wind.
"Helping us interact with the Keshiri is not just about helping us, Adari. You will learn things about your world that you never imagined." He turned over the rock in her hand. "I don't know how long we're going to be here, but I promise you will learn more in the next few months than you have in your entire lifetime. Than any Keshiri has."
Adari shook. "What—what do you—"
"A simple thing. Forget what you saw that day."
Korsin made good on his word. In her first months with the Skyborn, Adari had learned much about her home. But she had also learned some things about where they had come from, and who they were. She was a good listener. By simple things, we know the world.
Korsin's Sith were the beings from above that she denied—but they weren't the gods of Keshiri legend. Not exactly. They had amazing powers, and perhaps they lived in the stars. But they didn't bleed sand, and they weren't perfect. They argued. They envied. They killed.
The Sith did read minds, to a degree. Korsin had used that to call out to her for help after seeing her in the air. But they weren't omniscient. She'd found that out with a simple, surreptitious experiment involving Ravilan. She'd suggested he visit a restaurant deep in Tahv's busiest quarter. Off he went, getting lost in the same neighborhood she always got lost in.
The Sith's perceptive powers were amazing, but they still required accurate knowledge from others.
She sought to provide that, accompanying Korsin to many work sites, mostly employing jovial Keshiri laborers. The Skyborn were perfect enough for the Keshiri—and perfect enough for her. Yaru Korsin was as far beyond Zhari Vaal in intellect as she was above the rocks, and as long as she learned to avoid the eye of Seelah, another widow of a fallen man, she could expect to learn a great deal more.
At the same time her knowledge advanced, Izri's faith was further glorified. Adari took little joy in that, apart from the occasional chuckle she got from having a more storied role in it than Izri had. She was the Discoverer, always to be remembered by Keshiri society. No one would remember Izri.
Watching another quarry being constructed, she wondered what that society would look like. She knew something the Sith didn't: They'd be here for a long time. She'd mentioned it once to a miner, who promptly discounted it as advice from the local know-nothings.
But she knew. The metals the Sith sought weren't in the soil of Kesh. Scholars had scoured every part of the continent. They had recorded what they'd found. If the substances Korsin's people required hid farther beneath the surface, it would take time to find them—a lot more time.
Time, the Sith had.
What, she wondered, would the Keshiri have?
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