Skyborn Read online

  For my brother, Graham. If I go, you go…

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Twenty Years Later

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  About the Author

  Copyright

  A watchful girl stood before the walls of a silent city. She knew those walls as well as she knew her mother’s face, but while her mother was tawny-cheeked and quick to smile, the walls were crumbling in some places and covered with ivy in others. Their ancient red-hued stone was the colour of well-rubbed copper, so different from the grey, sparkling rock the people of the nearby town had used to build their houses and streets. So much thicker and stronger and older. The girl lived in the town and the town lived in the shadow of the city, and as far as the girl was concerned, these things had always been.

  The girl’s mother, like all the mothers of the town, had warned her since the moment she could walk that the city behind the walls was out of bounds. Now those warnings reverberated in her ears like a heartbeat, so clearly that she paused for a moment to listen – but there was nothing on the wind besides her own fears.

  She shut her eyes as her mama’s voice rolled through her one last time. “We don’t go near there! Ester, keep out!” The terror in the words made the girl tremble, but she pushed the fear away. What does Mama know, she told herself. Mama’s afraid of her own shadow.

  Ester glanced at the piece of torn-off paper in her hand – a hastily completed map of the silent walls which she’d made in secret – and began to run. She folded the map and slid it into her pocket as she charged through the long grass. Lifting her gaze to focus on the walls, she tightened her lips in determination.

  Her older brother Bastjan had once told her there was a way in, a way through, a crack worn by time in the massive stone barrier, and that if she could only find it, the mysteries that lay beyond the walls would be hers to understand. He’d spent years looking for it, to no avail, and now he’d never have another chance. When she and Mama had heard the news about the fishing boats lost on their way back to Grand Harbour, Ester had given herself one full month to grieve, another to get angry, and then another to find the way through the wall.

  She’d crept out whenever she got the chance, night or day, to make her map, and finally here she was. Nothing could bring her brother back but she was willing to try anything that might come close. She could feel him with her in every step, his excitement mingled with her own.

  And now she stood beneath the walls, staring up.

  Ester feared many things – the dark; the sea, which had taken both her father and her beloved Bastjan; the loneliness which consumed her, sometimes, in the heart of the night. But one thing she did not fear was heights. She dreamed of flying. Every naming-day she wished, so hard, to be given wings. Wings that would carry her on the wind above Melita so that she could see the whole of her island and its scattering of islets, ones that would take her high enough to watch the continent of Afrik stretch out before her like a never-ending tapestry, ones that would bring her around the world.

  Mama had often told her such things did not exist – “And anyway,” she’d say, resignation veiling her dark eyes, “if they did, who’d waste them on a girl?” – but all that did was make Ester more determined that one day she’d soar. People would know her name. Everyone would remember her – the girl who flew.

  A bird took off a hundred feet overhead and Ester’s heart thundered. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined it – flight! – and then without another thought, she was off. Taking a firm hold of the nearest ivy branch, Ester began to pull herself up.

  Go on! Bastjan whispered, inside her head. Go and find your wings!

  Stories about the city had been told for generations, though nobody had actually been inside it since Ester’s great-grandfather’s time. The Silent City behind its gateless, impenetrable walls. Home of the Slipskins, beings who could change their shape, slip their skin to become something else – things that flew or breathed fire or swam through the ocean, bringing ruin far and wide. Hunters had long ago run every last Slipskin down, leaving the Silent City truly silent – or so they said – but Ester knew that couldn’t be true. She couldn’t allow it to be true.

  Legend had it that the city sank for a thousand miles beneath the earth, that it had roots deeper than the island of Melita itself, and that the Slipskins lived on the fish and flotsam that washed up through its heart. Tales were told at every hearth about how the Slipskins flew from the city on moonless nights, stealing away sleepless children from all across the island. Ester had often sat in her window with a candle burning on those nights, waiting and hoping, but she’d never seen a single thing.

  Yet, she still believed. It would have been unthinkable not to. Bastjan had believed too, with everything he’d had, but belief hadn’t been enough. When the water came to claim him, he’d remained a human boy. If only he’d found a way in, perhaps he could have learned how to do it, how to slip his skin, and maybe… But Ester couldn’t finish the thought.

  She gritted her teeth as she pulled herself up, higher and higher. The ivy was beginning to thin. Ester used her strong fingers, digging them into the stone like tendrils. Her skin tore and bled, her arms and hands ached, her legs trembled with the strain. She wished with all her heart she’d taken off her shoes – the soles were third-hand and well-worn, but they were still too thick for her to feel for footholds.

  Then, to her left, perhaps ten feet overhead, she saw something that made her breath catch. A crack! She clung on, blinking hard and trying to focus her eyes. There it was – a fissure in the wall, which looked just wide enough for her to squeeze through. It was tucked out of sight behind the ivy and Ester knew it wasn’t visible from the ground. She knew, because this was the first time she’d seen it.

  You were right, Bastjan, she thought, her limbs trembling. You were right! She ducked her head against her upper arm, her eyes squeezed tight; then, sucking the sweat from her top lip, she looked up and began to move crablike across the wall, feeling for and testing every handhold and foothold. The wall crumbled at her touch and every breath she took tasted like dust. One slip and Ester knew it would be a quick trip to the ground.

  Soon, she was able to reach into the base of the crack and use the strength of her arms to pull herself up. She braced her knee against one side of the gap as she pushed her head and upper body through, anchoring herself with her elbows, and then�
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  A flock of bats, disturbed from their rest by the scrambling girl, exploded past her face. Ester shrieked, but somehow she clung to the wall until the bats had gone. She trembled, panic washing over her in waves, and suddenly she was wracked with pain – her grazed and bloodied knuckles, her trembling knees, her strained muscles, her broken heart – and she knew she had only a matter of moments before she’d lose her grip and fall.

  Look, Bastjan whispered in her ear. It’s all before you, Ester. Our dream. Look!

  Ester opened her eyes.

  The Silent City was spread out beneath her, though it looked like no city Ester could have imagined. Trees sprouted between mossy piles of stone, each gigantic block lying tumbled like a half-played game. Here and there Ester could see huge, jagged cracks, half obscured by undergrowth, which led into unfathomable darkness. In the centre was a pool, glinting in the sun. It looked as though the whole place had fallen through a hole in the earth and the wall had been placed around it so that people might forget it was ever there.

  And nowhere could she see, or hear, the faintest hint of movement. The Silent City was well named – it was quieter than a grave in this huge, abandoned place.

  Ester hung on the wall for longer than she could bear, her muscles cramping and growing sore, as she searched the city below. Her eyes filled with tears and she simply let them fall. There’s nothing here, she told herself. There’s nothing here, Bastjan. Nothing that could have saved you. Nothing that will save me. Nothing—

  Without warning the wall beneath her gave way, crumbling into powder. Before she had time to draw breath to scream, she was falling back the way she’d climbed – until a pair of thin dark arms reached through the crack to grab her around the right wrist.

  Instinctively, Ester lunged for the arms with her other hand, flailing for a foothold at the same time. The hands that held her were strong despite their size, and as Ester stared up, she saw a bare shoulder and a small, dark-eyed face, with unkempt hair and a jaw set with effort. The rest of the person – a child, perhaps a girl, Ester thought, much younger than her – was naked but for a few rags, and they were braced against the inside of the wall, their legs bearing most of the burden.

  Ester felt faint. “Help!” she wheezed.

  The child chirped and twittered at Ester, their intelligent black eyes staring into her own, but whatever they were trying to say was lost. If they were speaking a language, it wasn’t one Ester knew.

  Ester felt her grip on the child start to slip. Her sweaty fingers were seconds away from losing their hold completely, and then her hand began to slide. In desperation she clung to the only thing she could feel – some sort of woven bracelet wrapped around the child’s arm, coiling between wrist and elbow like a braid.

  The child’s eyes widened and their mouth opened in a horrified shriek. Ester just had time to see a mouthful of unnaturally sharp teeth before the bracelet came undone beneath her weight. The child let go of her other wrist, making a futile grab for the bracelet clutched in Ester’s hand, but it was too late – Ester was falling, dropping from the wall like a stunned bird, and then she knew no more.

  “Ester? Ester!” The young man’s voice cut through the dusk. Light from his lantern fell on the bruised, scratched face of the unconscious girl, and he stood straight, holding the light high. He cupped his free hand around his mouth. “She’s here! I’ve found her!”

  He placed his lantern on the ground as he checked the child for signs of life. She was breathing and none of her limbs appeared to be lying awkwardly. As he bent to pick her up he saw she was holding a woven strap made from what looked like multi-coloured strands of fine hair. The man frowned as he released it from her fingers and tucked it into her pocket, wondering if she’d been using it to climb, somehow.

  “Best not let your mother know you were disobeying her, child,” he whispered to her. “Let her think you tripped and fell. Let her think anything but that you were up on that wall.” He glanced up at its bulk overhead, feeling a chill run through him.

  “Nikola!” The cry came from behind him and the man turned. Ester’s mother came tearing over the grass, her lantern bobbing in her hand. He stood, taking the lantern from her as she fell to her knees by Ester’s side.

  After a moment she turned to look up at Nikola, her cheeks shining with tears. “She’s alive,” the woman whispered.

  Nikola gave a relieved nod. “Let’s get her home, Mrs Manduca. Doctor Farrugia is already on his way.”

  In the next few moments the rest of the search party arrived and the stretcher they’d thought to bring was put to good use. Ester was carried back to her village, the bracelet hidden in her pocket. The next day, once she’d fully woken, she would find the bracelet and hide it, along with her map, in a special enamelled box her father had given her after a particularly successful fishing trip. There it would stay for the next twenty years, until almost everyone had forgotten about it.

  Almost everyone, except the Slipskin child, whose keening cry of loss and grief would become, in time, the part of local lore that every mother would whisper to their children on stormy nights, when the wind howled.

  “Whoop-ah,” murmured the hidden boy, holding a candied walnut high. It glistened in the slice of lamplight coming through the boards above him as he spun it in his grubby fingers. “An’ here she goes! Sailin’ through the sky, ladies and gents, sure as you like. Ain’t nothin’ our gal Wilma the Walnut can’t do. Flyin’ trapeze? You got it! Dancin’ on the high wire? A breeze, to Wilma.”

  The boy pushed himself up on one elbow, his voice dropping to a threatening whisper. “But what’s this? A beast from the deep, with wide-open jaws? It is, my friends, an’ it looks hungry! Run! Save yerselves! It’s too late for Wilma…” With this, he flicked the unfortunate walnut into his mouth, happily crunching it for a moment or two before swallowing. He licked his lips and continued. “Not to worry, folks, she went the way she would’ve wanted. An’ luckily enough, here’s ’er brother Wally, ready to take ’er place.”

  He flopped back down into the dust, rummaging casually through the striped bag containing the nuts. He’d pilfered it moments before from Franco the clown’s wagon, and he knew he’d have plenty of time to hide the evidence before tonight’s show was over. The last act was about to begin, and he had at least half an hour before he was expected back in the ring to take his final bow. His fingers closed around another sticky nut and he pulled it free.

  The boy had many hiding places around this circus ring, each of them with their own particular charms. This one, right beneath the ringside seating, gave him an ant’s-eye view of things, but allowed him to smell the sweat and sawdust, and to hear the lifting lilt of the music. There was also the added benefit of the occasional treat landing nearby – a coin or a sweet slipping from the pocket of an unwary punter overhead – but they were becoming rarer and rarer these days, both punters and pockets. Tonight’s audience was thin.

  He pressed his eye to a hole in one of the planks and looked around as he crunched his final walnut. There were a lot of empty seats, particularly in the more expensive tiers. No takers fer the boxes tonight at all, he thought, looking at the plush velvet cushions and roped-off sides. Everything was damp and lacklustre, a bit like the night outside the tent. The rain hammering on the canvas was almost loud enough to drown out the ringmaster’s voice – almost, but not quite.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” came that very voice, one that seemed to pull an invisible thread in the chest of every performer under this roof. The boy drew up his knees and angled himself to better see Cyrus Quinn, the man on whom this entire show depended. The ringmaster wore his golden jacket tonight, its fabric gleaming in the spotlights, and his polished top hat shone almost as brightly as his shoes.

  “Our time together is almost done. But let there be no mourning – no, ladies and gents! For what you have experienced this evening, here in this ring, is magic beyond compare. You have seen lions!” The
ringmaster cracked his whip and there was a burst of fire from behind him, causing a lady or two in the audience to shriek, followed by a sputtering of embarrassed laughter. The ringmaster smiled indulgently before continuing. “Tigers!” Another whip crack, another explosion of fire. “Elephants from the Land of Kings!” The third and final crack, and the last of the explosions.

  “You have seen knife throwers and contortionists, wire walkers and prancing dogs, a man so strong he could move the earth itself, given a long enough lever and a place to stand!” The boy smiled at this, imagining the eye-rolling that the strongman, his friend Crake, was probably doing somewhere backstage at these words.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends, it is time to close our show with an act none of you will forget.” The ringmaster’s voice dropped slightly as he continued and every ear beneath the tent strained to hear. “The woman you are about to meet has performed before khans and emperors, sultans and doges, kings and queens. Her glittering career has taken her from the streets of Moskva in the Empire of the Rus to the palaces of Constantinople – and tonight she is here, my friends, to display to you the skill for which she has become renowned.”

  The ringmaster paused to take in his audience, his smile wide, and in a louder voice, he carried on. “In the aerial hoop, she is unparalleled; her talent makes gravity weep. She dances through the air as though wings sprouted from her back.” Somewhere close by the circus drums began to roll as the ringmaster’s patter reached its crescendo. The boy had heard this a hundred times or more, but he still found himself holding his breath, his heart pounding with excitement. He spared a glance at the audience. They looked rapt, their eyes following the ringmaster as he strode around the ring. Whatever else you might want to say about Cyrus Quinn, he was a ringmaster to the core, and he knew how to hold a crowd.

  Quinn stopped and held out his arms, looking from side to side. The boy was close enough to see the glitter in his black eyes, the shine on his pomaded moustache and hair, which spilled from beneath his hat in a dark cascade, and the glint of his strong white teeth. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present … Annabella Sicorina, the Flying Girl!”