Sphere of the Winds

Rachel Neumeier

Description

Trei, AraenA?, and their friends saved the Floating Islands once, thwarting the Toulonn Empire's attempt at conquest. But the Toulonnese haven't given up, and the same trick certainly won't work a second time aEUR especially when the Islands unexpectedly lose their special connection to dragon magic.Then it turns out that Toulonn is not the only, or the worst, enemy the Floating Islands face. As peril grows, Trei, with his connection to Toulonn, and AraenA?, with her an unusual style of magic, will need all their strength and resolve if they are to find a way to safeguard the Islands once more.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Book View Cafe
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636320205
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Sphere of the Winds
The Floating Islands #2

Rachel Neumeier

www.bookviewcafe.com Book View Café edition February 15, 2022 ISBN: 978-1-63632-020-5 Copyright © 2022 Rachel Neumeier
Table of Contents
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Endnotes
Read a sample of Tuyo
Also by Rachel Neumeier
Copyrights & Credits
About Book View Café
Dedication
For everyone who told me they really wanted a sequel to TheFloating Islands .
I hope you enjoy it!
1
Araenè opened a door at random and glanced through it atthe bare room thus revealed, maybe fifteen paces or so across, unfurnishedexcept for a single chair and gauzy draperies blowing in the warm breeze. Theroom’s windows were narrow and numerous, so there was a lot of gauze. Pink gauze. The chair, carved with ornate swirls and ripples, had been painted paleviolet. Its cushions were a deeper purple. The walls were a sky blue. Thecombination of colors in the small space was a little ... well, it was a little...
Ceirfei, peering with interest over Araenè’s shoulder,murmured, “Sugar cakes.”
Araenè had to laugh. That was exactly right. The room wasexactly like a plate of cakes rolled in pastel sugars, the sort given out tochildren too young to have any subtlety. She shut the door, gently, and lookedup and down the wide white marble stairway upon which they’d found themselves. “Thiswasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she admitted, glancing sideways at hercompanion, “when I said I’d show you the hidden school.”
“Well, we certainly are seeing some new parts of it,”Ceirfei said, in a very serious tone that was like a smile.
He wasn’t nervous. He didn’t mind being lost. Araenèwas relieved. If Ceirfei wasn’t nervous, she didn’t have to be, either. Embarrassedat her inability to find her way to places she knew, maybe. But not nervous.
She opened the door again. The room was still filled withpink gauze and blue-painted walls and that ridiculous violet chair.
“Up?” asked Ceirfei. “Or down?”
They’d already explored a series of chilly, windowlessrooms far underground: one with long shelves stacked with delicate porcelainplates and platters and bowls, far fancier than the ones anybody actually used;one with all sorts of fancy scented candles shaped like animals and birds andfish and flowers; and one with, prosaically, about a hundred sacks of rice andbundles of noodles. Araenè had hoped that last one would lead them back to thefamiliar kitchens, but instead they’d found themselves entering a long, hotgallery with dozens of high windows that let in the rich afternoon light andthe sharp briny scent of the sea. Finally they had come out of that galleryupon this wide spiral stairway. The gallery seemed to have let them out rightin the middle of the stairway, because from this landing, it coiled endlesslyup and down a perfectly smooth shaft of white marble, with nothing visibleabove or below but more loops of wide, shallow stairs and the occasionallanding. Looking down made Araenè dizzy and looking up made her tired, but thepastel-sugar room didn’t seem to hold much promise. And going back along thegallery would be boring.
Araenè had meant to show Ceirfei some of her favoriteplaces within the hidden school: not just the kitchens, but also the aviarywhere the little birds flitted among potted trees and flowers, and the room ofglass, and the hall of spheres and mirrors. But today she couldn’t seem to findany door that would cooperate at all. Not even the “friendly door,” AkhanBhotounn, which was nearly always accommodating. Araenè might have called outto Master Tnegun for help, but if she did that, she would have to admit, notonly to Ceirfei but also to her master, that she couldn’t find her own way backto familiar places. She didn’t want to do that. She was already slow to learnthings the other apprentices all seemed to absorb as naturally as bread absorbsmelted butter.
Besides, she wasn’t really nervous, yet. And Ceirfei didn’tseem impatient. That made sense, actually. He was never very eager to return tohis family’s home, though the Feneirè apartment in the palace was beautiful andfilled with every luxury, with servants to do all the work and bring youthings.
Araenè never commented on the way Ceirfei preferred tovisit her at the hidden school rather than ask her to come to the palace. Sheknew all about needing to get away from your home and family, so youcould be yourself instead of the person everybody else wanted you to be. And noone worried much about chaperones or propriety, so long as they stayed in thehidden school—Master Tnegun and the other mages being presumably capable ofkeeping track of one young apprentice and her visitor. Even if her visitor wasa Feneirè and the son of Calaspara Naterensei herself.
Araenè glanced at Ceirfei again. He still had thatparticularly sober expression that meant he was actually thoroughly amused. Ifhe wasn’t worried about his parents’ fretting, she didn’t see why she should be. Really, Ceirfei was lucky in his parents. Mostly. In some ways.Anyway, he was lucky just to have a home and a family to go back to. Not thatshe would ever say so.
Besides, if it got too late, so that Ceirfei’s mother mightmiss him or Master Tnegun might miss her, or if they stumbled across anythingfrightening, she could call out then .
“Up,” she decided, because she knew Ceirfei would preferit. He was a kajurai, and kajuraihi always preferred heights to any kind ofsecret subterranean chambers. “Up would be better?”
Ceirfei looked at her, knowing exactly what she wasthinking. The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Definitely up,” he said gravely.
Araenè couldn’t suppress a laugh. Embarrassing to be lost?Maybe; but if she had to be lost and wandering through unknown parts of themages’ hidden school, well, there was surely no one better to be lost with thanCeirfei. “Definitely up!” she agreed, and ran ahead of him, taking the shallowsteps two at a time.
Steps and steps, white marble underfoot and white marblewalls, with a cool breeze blowing down from above. At first, the spiral stairdidn’t seem to lead anywhere at all. There were no landings for the first fouror five turns of the stairway. Araenè dropped back to a more sedate pace,breathless and starting to feel the strain in her calves. She might havesuggested they go down, but no, she’d selflessly offered to go up ... Ceirfeicaught up to her, gave her an amused sidelong look, and took her hand in his.
He wouldn’t have done that if there had been anybody elsenearby. Araenè, suddenly breathless for a reason that had nothing to do withrunning up stairs, decided that getting lost had actually been a clever idea.Then she wondered whether Ceirfei thought she’d gotten them lost on purpose.Then she wondered whether maybe she had gotten them lost on purpose,without even realizing it.
Surely not. Anyway, too much thinking was definitely notgood. She pointed ahead, to the upward curve before them. “There’s anotherdoor!” She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved to see it, or not. She wantedto get them back to the familiar parts of the school ... or she mostly wantedthat.
“That’s fancy,” Ceirfei said, looking the door up and down.“Shall I open it? Or do you want to?” He didn’t sound confused or uncertain orbreathless. He just sounded interested in finding out what lay on the otherside of that door. But he didn’t let go of her hand, either.
“I’d better ...” You never knew what you might find,opening doors in the hidden school. Araenè touched the latch carefully. It wasmade of crystal, to match the door, which was all ebony and crystal and veryfancy indeed. The kind of door that looked as though it really should open tosomething more interesting than sacks of rice. But the latch didn’t feel hot orcold, or shower her fingers with sparks, or do anything but click down.
Araenè opened the door carefully, ready to slam it again ifshe found a basilisk or a coiled serpent or a roaring fire surging toward heror anything else alarming.
But the room on the other side didn’t match the fancy doorat all. It was a tiny square room, which contained nothing but layers of dustand a single unstrung harp resting on a stool in the middle of the floor. Dusthad poofed up as the door skimmed across the floor, and now settled againslowly. The air smelled of age and solitude, and somehow of darkness andsilence.
“Hmm,” murmured Ceirfei, peering over Araenè’s shoulder.
The harp, framed in the bar of light that fell in throughthe open door, was extremely elegant, carved of some dark red wood with ebonyinlay. There was no dust on the harp at all. Araenè suspected that it mightactually be strung with the winds, or with musical notes that played withoutstrings, or maybe with the voices of the forgotten dead. It looked like thatsort of harp, somehow.
She closed the door again and said out loud, in her firmesttone, but without a great deal of hope, “You know, the kitchens would be better .” But when she opened the door a second time, she found exactlythe same dusty room and exactly the same stool. Only, disconcertingly, thistime the stool was occupied not by a mysterious stringless harp, but by alittle dragon, perched perfectly still, its silvery-dark wings half open andits fine-boned head turned toward the door, its yellow eyes glittering.
Ceirfei, hearing Araenè’s indrawn breath of surprise andalarm, drew her swiftly back and stepped in front of her. Araenè was toostartled to protest, but then she blinked and saw that the dragon wasn’t realafter all. It was made of polished hematite, its glittering eyes of a striatedbrass-yellow mineral that, after senneri in the hidden school, Araenèidentified automatically, even from a distance, as chalcopyrite.
The dragon’s long serpentine tail was twined all throughthe legs of the stool, its body curled upright on the seat. Its wings fell ingraceful curves to either side. Its claws and quills and the margins of each