The first engine came alive beneath my feet.
A low vibration traveled through the Silver Leviathan, subtle enough that I almost mistook it for movement somewhere below deck.
Then the second engine answered.
Then the third.
By the time all six were running, there was no mistaking it.
I placed my hand against the silver railing.
It trembled beneath my palm.
"So that's what six engines feel like."
I looked to my right.
Kai stood a few steps away, staring toward the rear of the vessel. The excitement on his face hadn't disappeared since we boarded.
"Disappointed?" I asked.
"A little."
"Why?"
"I expected more."
Theon looked over from beside him.
"More what?"
Kai spread his arms.
"Noise. Shaking. Something."
Seraphyne raised an eyebrow.
"You want the ship we're about to take two hundred kilometers into the sky to shake more?"
"When you say it like that..."
"There's no better way to say it."
Theon laughed.
I turned back toward the railing.
Epoch stretched beneath us.
For the past few days, I'd thought I was beginning to understand the city.
I wasn't.
Standing on its streets had only shown me pieces.
From the boarding station, I could finally see how those pieces connected.
Buildings climbed across multiple levels instead of spreading outward like the cities I'd known in Okrith. Roads crossed above other roads. Platforms extended from towers hundreds of feet above the lower districts. Bridges connected buildings that shouldn't have needed bridges in the first place.
Even the traffic moved vertically.
Flying carriages drifted between designated lanes while smaller vehicles moved between buildings. Every few moments, someone on a broom passed beneath the station before disappearing into the maze of towers.
My eyes eventually found the two structures that dominated everything else.
The Green Mage Tower stood on one side of Epoch.
The Red Mage Tower stood on the other.
Even from here, I could see mana flowing from them.
Faint streams of light stretched across the city, feeding into runes built into roads, buildings, platforms, and whatever else Jishu's engineers had decided needed mana.
Which seemed to be everything.
I still hadn't gotten used to that.
In Okrith, magic and engineering usually existed beside each other.
Epoch had apparently decided that wasn't good enough.
Here, they were the same thing.
A bell rang somewhere along the station.
The crew around us immediately moved.
I watched two of them pull a heavy lever near the side of the ship. Another checked the mechanism connecting one of the thick anchor clamps to the station.
Nobody seemed nervous.
That made one of us.
Not that I was afraid.
I trusted the ship.
Mostly.
I just preferred knowing what was beneath my feet.
At the moment, that happened to be an enormous collection of mana-powered machinery designed to carry us somewhere no road could reach.
"Rain."
I looked over.
Varein had moved closer to the railing.
He pointed toward one of the other platforms.
"Look."
Another Leviathan was preparing to depart.
It wasn't silver.
Its hull was dark blue, with four large engines mounted along its sides. Compared to ours, it looked smaller, although calling something that large "small" felt ridiculous.
Crew members were loading crates into its lower compartment.
"Four engines," Varein said.
"Lighter vessel," Liam replied from behind us.
I glanced at him.
He'd spent enough time staring at the Silver Leviathan's machinery since yesterday that I was beginning to wonder if he'd secretly planned on becoming an engineer.
Liam noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You looked at me strangely."
"I didn't."
"You did."
Kai leaned toward him.
"He thinks you're going to marry the ship."
Liam stared at him.
"I regret speaking."
"You say that a lot around him," Aelira said.
"There's a reason."
Kai placed a hand against his chest.
"I contribute greatly to this class."
"Noise isn't a contribution," Liraeth said.
Arion laughed.
Kai looked betrayed.
I smiled despite myself and returned my attention to Epoch.
Another bell rang.
This one was deeper.
Captain Miles stepped onto the raised section near the front of the deck.
"Final departure check."
The conversations around me faded.
I couldn't hear every response from where I stood, but I caught enough.
Navigation ready.
Hull secured.
Mana flow stable.
Engine synchronization confirmed.
Then Raymond's voice came through one of the communication tubes near Miles.
"All six engines responding."
Captain Miles looked toward the station ahead.
"Release us."
A heavy metallic sound came from beneath the ship.
I felt the vibration through the railing.
One of the clamps holding the Silver Leviathan to the station opened.
Then another.
The massive supports beside the ship slowly withdrew.
Kai stopped joking.
Even Seraphyne leaned slightly toward the railing.
I looked down.
The platform was still there.
For now.
Another clamp released.
Then the final one.
Nothing happened.
The engines continued humming.
The station remained beneath us.
I waited.
One second.
Two.
Then my stomach shifted.
Only slightly.
I tightened my grip on the railing.
The platform moved downward.
No.
I smiled.
We were moving upward.
The Silver Leviathan had begun to rise.
Slowly.
So slowly that if I hadn't been staring at the station, I might not have noticed.
The gap beneath the ship widened.
Workers on the platform stepped away and watched us ascend.
The other Leviathans became visible beneath us.
Then their platforms.
Then the enormous station itself.
"Whoa."
Kai's voice was quieter this time.
I couldn't blame him.
Epoch was changing beneath us.
The city I'd spent the last few days looking up at was suddenly below me.
More of it appeared with every passing second.
The layered streets finally made sense.
What had seemed chaotic from the ground revealed a pattern from above. Vertical roads curved around buildings before splitting into different levels. Elevated pathways connected entire districts. Mana lines glowed between them like veins spreading across a living body.
Flying vehicles that had seemed enormous when they passed overhead now looked like insects moving between towers.
I leaned farther over the railing.
Theon immediately grabbed the back of my coat.
I looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Then let go."
"You were leaning."
"I wasn't going to fall."
"That's exactly what Kai said earlier."
Kai pointed at me.
"See?"
I pulled my coat free.
"I'm fine."
Seraphyne walked past us.
"If either of you falls, I'm pretending I don't know you."
"That's cruel," Kai said.
"That's efficient."
I watched her continue toward the other side of the deck.
Seraphyne stopped at the railing.
Despite everything she'd said, she stared downward just as long as the rest of us.
The Leviathan climbed higher.
The station shrank.
Epoch expanded.
I could see farther now.
District after district stretched toward the horizon, separated not by walls but by differences in height. Some sections were built close to the ground. Others climbed upward on enormous artificial platforms supported by structures I couldn't begin to understand.
There were no defensive walls surrounding the city.
That still felt wrong to me.
Every city I'd known in Okrith treated walls as naturally as roads.
Epoch simply continued until buildings became smaller settlements, then roads, then open land.
Maybe when your city could send enormous ships into the sky, walls stopped feeling impressive.
The Green and Red Mage Towers remained visible long after everything else began shrinking.
Their mana still stretched across Epoch.
From this height, I could finally see how far those currents traveled.
They didn't simply power the districts around the towers.
They covered nearly the entire city.
"That's ridiculous," I muttered.
"What is?"
Kazen had appeared beside me.
I pointed toward the towers.
"The mana."
He followed my finger.
For a few seconds, he said nothing.
Then he nodded.
"Yeah."
That was all.
It was enough.
The wind grew colder.
I could feel it against my face now, stronger with every minute we climbed.
The Silver Leviathan barely reacted.
No swaying.
No sudden drops.
Just the constant hum of the six engines and the gradual disappearance of the world beneath us.
I looked toward the horizon.
Clouds waited above Epoch.
At first, they had seemed distant.
Now they were getting closer.
A massive white layer stretched ahead of us, its surface uneven and constantly shifting.
I had looked at clouds my entire life.
I'd never expected to approach one from below.
Varein stepped closer.
"Wind's changing."
I looked at him.
His hair was being pushed across his forehead.
"You can tell?"
He nodded.
"It's colder too."
That part I could tell.
Captain Miles' voice carried across the deck.
"We're approaching the lower cloud layer. Secure anything loose and stay clear of the outer maintenance walkways."
The crew responded immediately.
Class 2-S stayed near the observation railing.
Nobody wanted to go inside.
Neither did I.
The first cloud reached us.
For half a second, it looked like fog rolling across the bow.
Then everything disappeared.
White surrounded the ship.
Epoch vanished instantly.
So did the sky.
I couldn't even see the end of the deck anymore.
Cold moisture struck my face.
Droplets gathered in my hair and along my sleeves.
"Well."
Theon's voice came from somewhere beside me.
"This is disappointing."
I laughed.
"What were you expecting?"
"I don't know."
Kai answered from somewhere in the mist.
"I expected clouds to feel softer."
Seraphyne's voice followed.
"Please jump into one and test that."
"See? Cruel."
The engine hum became muffled.
The world outside the railing was completely blank.
I looked downward.
Nothing.
For the first time since takeoff, I couldn't see Epoch.
Couldn't see Jishu.
Couldn't see the ground at all.
There was something strange about that.
Not frightening.
Just unfamiliar.
For fourteen years, no matter where I went, the world had always been beneath me.
Even on mountains.
Even on towers.
There was always ground somewhere below.
Now there was only white.
I wiped moisture from the railing with my thumb.
The Leviathan kept climbing.
The light gradually changed.
At first, I barely noticed.
Then the mist around us began growing brighter.
The gray disappeared.
White became almost painfully bright.
I raised one hand over my eyes.
"We're close," Kazen said.
I looked forward.
The clouds thinned.
Blue appeared through them.
Only a sliver at first.
Then more.
The Silver Leviathan broke through.
Sunlight poured across the deck.
I blinked several times.
Then I looked down.
The clouds stretched beneath us.
Not around us.
Beneath us.
An endless white ocean rolled across the world, its surface rising and falling like frozen waves. Sunlight covered the highest sections in gold while enormous shadows filled the valleys between them.
Epoch was gone.
Jishu was gone.
Everything was gone.
There was only the Silver Leviathan.
The clouds.
And the sky.
Nobody said anything.
For once, even Kai had nothing.
I slowly looked upward.
The blue above us seemed deeper than before.
Almost endless.
And somewhere beyond it, two hundred kilometers above the ground—
Hyperanos waited.
I rested my arms against the railing.
Then something caught my eye.
At first, I thought it was a cloud.
I narrowed my eyes.
No.
It was dark.
Solid.
Far ahead of us, barely visible against the blue, something floated above the cloud sea.
Land.
A small fragment of stone hung in the open sky.
Jagged rock extended beneath it like broken roots. Something dark covered parts of its surface.
Trees, maybe.
I couldn't tell from this distance.
But there was nothing beneath it.
Nothing holding it.
Nothing connecting it to the world below.
Kai finally broke the silence.
"...Is that an island?"
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
I'd heard about places like this.
We all had.
But hearing about something and seeing it with your own eyes were very different things.
The Silver Leviathan continued climbing.
The floating land slowly grew clearer ahead of us.
And I found myself staring at it.
We weren't even close to Hyperanos yet.
Yet somehow—
It already felt like we'd left the world behind.
And the higher we climbed, the harder that feeling became to ignore.
The fragment of land remained ahead of us.
At first, distance had made it seem small enough to walk across in a few minutes. That illusion disappeared as the Silver Leviathan drew closer.
The dark speck slowly widened.
Jagged stone hung beneath the island in uneven formations, narrowing toward a broken point hundreds of feet below its surface. Moss covered parts of the exposed rock, and thin roots had somehow grown through cracks along its underside.
There really were trees on top.
Not many.
Perhaps a dozen.
Their trunks were bent strangely toward one side, shaped by winds that never stopped blowing this high above the ground.
I stared at them.
Trees needed soil.
Water.
Nutrients.
Things that shouldn't have been particularly easy to find on a piece of rock floating above an ocean of clouds.
Yet there they were.
Alive.
Kai stepped up beside me.
"So."
I waited.
"We're all seeing that, right?"
"No," Seraphyne said. "You've finally lost your mind."
Kai glanced over his shoulder.
"I was asking Rain."
"And I answered."
"That's not how conversations work."
"It's how ours work."
I almost smiled.
Almost.
My attention returned to the island.
The Silver Leviathan wasn't heading directly toward it. Our course would take us some distance to its right, but even that was enough to make its scale increasingly obvious.
What I had mistaken for bushes were trees.
What I had thought were dark patches of stone were openings.
Caves, perhaps.
Or something else.
I narrowed my eyes.
For a moment, I thought I saw a shape standing near the edge.
Then the island rotated slightly with the wind, and whatever I'd seen disappeared behind the trees.
I kept looking.
Nothing returned.
Probably a rock.
Probably.
"Do these appear often?"
Varein's question made me turn.
Captain Miles had moved away from the forward controls. He followed Varein's gaze toward the island before answering.
"At this altitude?"
He considered it.
"Often enough."
Theon frowned.
"At this altitude?"
Miles nodded.
"The Sovereign Skies aren't the only floating landmasses in the world."
That caught everyone's attention.
Even Kazen turned from the railing.
Miles noticed.
"Hyperanos is simply the largest known concentration of them."
"Known?" Liam asked.
A faint smile appeared on the captain's face.
"You'll hear that word frequently in Jishu."
He started walking again.
Kai stared after him.
"That's it?"
Miles didn't turn around.
"You asked one question."
"I had more."
"I'm sure you did."
The captain disappeared through the forward door.
Kai looked offended.
I couldn't help it this time.
I laughed.
He turned toward me.
"You're supposed to support me."
"I don't remember agreeing to that."
"Terrible friend."
Theon slapped him on the shoulder.
"You'll survive."
"That's not the point."
Their argument continued behind me as the island slowly passed along the port side.
I watched until the trees became indistinguishable again.
Then the rock.
Then everything.
Within minutes, it was another dark mark against an endless sky.
Strange.
From the ground, finding something like that would have been an event.
Up here, we'd simply passed it.
I wondered how many things existed above the clouds without anyone below ever knowing.
Probably more than I wanted to think about.
The cold eventually answered the question of how long I intended to remain outside.
I flexed my fingers.
They were beginning to stiffen.
Apparently, being impressed by the view didn't make me immune to freezing.
"Inside?" Theon asked.
I nodded.
The others seemed to reach the same conclusion.
We followed the nearest crewman through one of the reinforced doors.
Warm air hit my face immediately.
I hadn't noticed how numb my cheeks had become.
Kai rubbed both hands together.
"Much better."
"You were the one refusing to come inside," Aelira said.
"I didn't know outside was going to get colder."
"We're climbing."
"I know."
"Then what did you expect?"
Kai thought about it.
"I don't know."
Aelira stared at him.
"At least you're honest."
The door sealed behind us.
The wind disappeared.
The engines didn't.
Their vibration was stronger inside the ship, traveling through the walls and floor in a constant rhythm.
I'd noticed it during yesterday's tour.
Now that the engines were actually carrying us upward, the sound was different.
Deeper.
Every few seconds, another vibration passed beneath my boots.
Not irregular.
Not concerning.
More like breathing.
I placed my palm against the wall as we walked.
Warm.
Thin lines of mana ran beneath sections of transparent crystal built into the metal. Light pulsed through them before disappearing farther down the corridor.
I still understood almost none of it.
Yesterday, Raymond had explained how the six engines distributed their output across the Leviathan.
I'd understood perhaps half.
Maybe less.
Jishu engineering had an irritating habit of making me feel stupid.
Varein stopped at an intersection.
"Where are we going?"
Nobody answered.
I looked at Theon.
He looked at Kai.
Kai looked offended again.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"You're usually the one who decides where we're going."
"When?"
"Every time food is involved," Seraphyne said.
Kai paused.
Then his expression changed.
"Actually..."
He sniffed.
Liraeth groaned.
"No."
Kai sniffed again.
"Definitely."
"You cannot smell food through a ship this large."
"Left."
He turned left.
We stared after him.
Arion was the first to follow.
"I trust him."
"Why?" Liam asked.
"Because if there's one thing Kai takes seriously, it's eating."
That was difficult to argue with.
We followed.
The smell reached me after the second turn.
Bread.
Something roasted.
And spices I didn't recognize.
Kai looked over his shoulder with an unbearably smug expression.
"Say it."
Nobody did.
"Come on."
"No," Seraphyne said.
"I was right."
"Unfortunately."
"I'll accept that."
The corridor opened into the galley.
It was smaller than I'd expected for a vessel this large.
Long tables occupied most of the room, each fixed directly into the floor. The benches were secured the same way. Cabinets had locks across their doors, and even the bowls stacked near the kitchen were held inside recessed shelves.
I understood why after imagining the entire ship tilting.
A pot would become a weapon surprisingly quickly.
Steam drifted from behind the counter.
A man stood there with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, cutting something with a knife.
He looked up.
His eyes passed over all ten of us.
Then stopped on Kai.
"No."
Kai stopped walking.
"What?"
"No."
"I haven't said anything."
"Didn't need to."
Kai looked at us.
I shrugged.
The man pointed his knife—not threateningly, but accurately.
"You've got the face."
"What face?"
"The one that asks how many portions he's allowed before I've served the first."
Silence.
Theon's shoulders started shaking.
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Kai stared at the cook.
"...How many?"
That did it.
I laughed.
So did almost everyone else.
Even Kazen turned his face away, although I caught the smile before he managed to hide it.
The cook nodded slowly.
"Thought so."
Kai placed both hands on the counter.
"You judged me before knowing me."
"Twenty-three years on expedition ships."
The cook returned to cutting.
"I know you."
That only made it worse.
For the next few minutes, the upper sky disappeared from my thoughts.
We ate.
Nothing fancy.
Stew thick enough that the spoon nearly stood upright, dark bread, roasted meat, and some kind of vegetable from Jishu that Kai spent far too long interrogating before finally eating.
It was good.
Better than most of what we'd eaten during the week and four days on the road here.
Theon finished first.
Kai somehow finished before him despite starting later.
The cook saw the empty bowl approaching the counter.
"No."
Kai stopped.
"You're abusing your authority."
"I haven't even told you no yet."
"You were going to."
"I was."
I shook my head.
Some things apparently didn't change no matter how far above the ground we went.
The engines hummed beneath us.
Spoons struck bowls.
Conversation moved from one side of the table to the other.
For a little while, it felt almost ordinary.
Then my cup moved.
Only slightly.
I looked down.
The water inside rippled.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
I frowned.
Theon noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
I waited.
The vibration beneath my boots remained steady.
Probably an engine adjustment.
I took another drink.
A few minutes later, we left the galley.
Kai had successfully obtained a second piece of bread through methods I suspected involved waiting until the cook wasn't looking.
I didn't ask.
Instead of returning directly to our rooms, I followed the others farther down the corridor.
There was still plenty of the Leviathan we hadn't properly seen.
Yesterday's tour had shown us where things were.
That wasn't the same as seeing them while the ship was alive.
Crew members moved constantly now.
Two passed carrying long metal cylinders between them.
Another knelt beside an open section of wall, adjusting glowing crystals with a thin tool.
I slowed.
Inside the opening, dozens of mana lines intersected.
Blue.
Green.
White.
Some pulsed quickly.
Others barely moved.
The crewman noticed me looking.
"Stabilization network."
I blinked.
"I didn't ask."
"You were going to."
Was I that obvious?
He smiled and returned to his work.
"Keeps the deck level while the engines compensate for wind."
I looked down.
I hadn't felt the ship tilt once since takeoff.
"All of this just for that?"
"That's one section."
He pointed deeper into the wall.
I leaned slightly closer.
There were more layers behind it.
Far more.
I stopped counting.
"Jishu," I muttered.
The crewman laughed.
"That's usually the reaction."
I continued walking.
We passed the medical room next.
The door stood open.
Beds were secured against the walls. Cabinets lined the opposite side, every drawer locked in place. Bandages, bottles, instruments.
Everything prepared.
Nobody inside.
I looked for only a second before moving on.
There was something uncomfortable about an empty medical room stocked for people who hadn't been injured yet.
Maybe that was the point.
Be prepared before you needed it.
A knight should understand that better than anyone.
The corridor curved upward.
I could feel the angle beneath my feet.
We were approaching the observation level again.
The vibration returned.
This time stronger.
I stopped.
The others took another few steps before Theon noticed.
"Rain?"
I raised a hand.
The floor trembled beneath my boots.
Once.
A pause.
Then again.
That wasn't the same as before.
The engines still maintained their rhythm underneath it, but something else had passed through the ship.
A heavier vibration.
Varein's expression changed.
"You felt that?"
I nodded.
So I hadn't imagined it.
A crewman hurried past us.
Then another.
Neither spoke.
The casual atmosphere we'd seen since leaving the galley had disappeared.
Not panic.
Something worse.
Focus.
I looked toward the nearest window.
Clouds.
Sky.
Nothing else.
Then the ship moved.
My shoulder struck the wall.
Theon caught himself against the opposite railing.
Somewhere behind us, metal clattered.
Kai's stolen bread hit the floor.
He stared at it.
For perhaps the first time in his life, food was no longer his priority.
"What was that?"
No one answered.
A bell rang.
Not the departure bell.
This one was sharper.
Three short notes.
Silence.
Then three more.
Crew members began moving faster.
I looked at Varein.
He was already staring toward the observation deck.
We didn't need to say anything.
We ran.
The corridor blurred past.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Another vibration traveled through the ship.
Stronger.
The railing shook beneath my hand.
We reached the upper level.
I pushed through the door.
Cold wind struck me immediately.
Captain Miles stood near the bow.
Remi had left the navigation chamber and was beside him, holding some kind of instrument toward the horizon.
Raymond emerged from another doorway moments later.
Nobody looked at us.
They were all staring ahead.
I followed their gaze.
At first—
Nothing.
Clouds beneath us.
Blue sky above.
Then I saw it.
A line.
Thin.
Dark.
Stretching across the horizon.
I narrowed my eyes.
It wasn't an island.
It was too wide.
The line continued in both directions farther than I could see.
Something moved inside it.
Slowly.
Like ink spreading through water.
The wind changed.
Varein stumbled half a step.
His eyes widened.
"That's not normal."
I barely heard him.
The dark line was growing.
No.
Coming closer.
Remi lowered the instrument.
For the first time since I'd met her, the calm expression on her face was gone.
Captain Miles turned toward Raymond.
"Altitude?"
Raymond checked the gauge beside him.
Then checked it again.
His face tightened.
I looked back toward the horizon.
The darkness had already swallowed part of the blue.
Miles' next words were quiet.
But everyone heard them.
"Turn us around."
The deck went silent.
Raymond stared at him.
"What?"
"Now."
A deep sound rolled across the sky.
Not thunder.
Too long.
Too low.
I felt it through the railing before I truly heard it.
And somewhere inside that approaching darkness—
Something enormous moved.
I stopped breathing.
We weren't even close to Hyperanos.
Whatever was coming toward us...
Had found us first.