Page 1 of Lightningborn

CHAPTER

ONE

It was a risky jump.

Not the type where, if you missed or miscalculated, you might scrape your knee or knock a tooth loose. Not the type where a fumble could result in broken bones, a bloody nose, or even a minor concussion from landing on your stupid, why-did-you-think-you-could-do-this? head. No, this was a fall-into-an-endless-void-filled-with-arcane-lightning-that-will-fry-you-to-a-crisp type of jump. This was a plummet straight into the Maelstrom. Fail to stick the landing, and there was no ground to break your fall, your pride, or even your bones. There was nothing below to save you. Slip off the edge of the island, and you’d keep tumbling through a roiling, angry storm forever. Or until you were inevitably disintegrated by purple lightning. Obviously, most sane people stayed as far away from The Edge as they could.

But then, most sane people didn’t steal from sky pirates, either.

“There he is!”

Remy winced, glancing over his shoulder. The trio of pirates was stalking down the mud-filled plank passage between shanty huts, swords bare and glittering in the dim light. One of them spotted Remy and pointed a rusty curved blade in his direction.

“Little rat thief!” he bellowed. “Swipe my purse, will you? I’ll string you up by your toes and dangle you off The Edge for the storm gulls to pick at!”

“Uh, no thanks; that sounds painful!” Desperately, Remy looked around, searching for another escape route. Rickety houses of wood and corrugated metal lined either side of the muddy road, leaning against or sitting on top of each other. Behind him, the path came to an abrupt and sudden end. At one point, before Remy was even born, there had been a fence between the road and The Edge to keep the brave, intoxicated, or foolish from lurching past it into empty space. But time and apathy had reduced the barrier to a few rotting sticks lying in the weeds. So there was nothing between him, the open sky, and the Maelstrom below.

Beyond the edge of the island, a single floating chunk of dirt and rock drifted slowly past, almost as if it were taunting him. It was one of the thousands of smaller landmasses that circled the whole, like planets orbiting the sun. Although they’d once been part of the land itself, either time or nature had broken them loose, but they seemed to share the magic that kept the islands aloft and did not plummet straight into the Maelstrom. Most of them were tiny, head sized or smaller. A rare few were so large, huge chains had been sunk in them to anchor the masses to the island, with houses or shops built on any available space. But some, like the chunk drifting past, a single dying tree poking out of the top, were just large enough to hold one person. Definitely a skinny, mop-haired street urchin like Remy.

If he could make the jump.

“Nowhere for ya to go now, little rat!” The pirates were sloshing toward him through the mud, lantern and torchlight gleaming off their blades. The one who had spoken first, a lanky man with stringy yellow hair and three gold teeth, flashed a glittering smile. “Here, I’ll make it easy on ya. Chuck the purse to me now, and I’ll only run ya through! It’ll be over fast. Or you can choose the hard way, and I’ll dangle ya upside own over the Maelstrom so storm gulls can peck at yer eyes!”

“You mean this?” Remy held up his fist, a small leather pouch clutched between his fingers. A tiny rabbit had been inked into the leather, a strangely cute choice for a rough-looking pirate. “This is yours?”

The pirate’s eyes bulged, and he scowled. “Yes, it’s mine! Hand it over, and I’ll be sure to gut ya fast!” He raised his cutlass with an evil smile. “It’ll be quick, I promise.”

Remy, tossed the pouch in the air, caught it, and gave the pirates a cheeky grin.

“Thanks, but I’m gonna go with choice number three. You want this?” He raised the coin purse, shaking it enticingly. “Come get it!”

And he whirled, sprang into the weeds at the end of the road, and began running straight toward The Edge.

The end of the island loomed before him, and beyond it, tantalizingly close, the small land wedge spun lazily by. A gust of wind roared up from below, tossing his hair and clothes. Remy hit the end of solid ground just as the chunk was sliding past, and launched himself into open air.

Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down.

A roar much louder than thunder boomed from below, and a rogue strand of purple lightning sizzled up from the clouds, almost as if it were reaching for him. Remy felt all his hair stand on end, and for a moment, he was floating, weightless, in the open sky.

Then he was falling, hitting the edge of the land chunk and lurching forward to grab the tree. His arms circled the rough bark, the air driven from his lungs as he slammed into the trunk, scraping his cheek and his arms. The ground beneath him bobbed a bit, spinning in place, but even with his added weight, it didn’t sink or fall into the Maelstrom. It simply continued to float lazily in the air.

Panting, Remy looked up, seeing the trio of pirates at The Edge where he had leaped off. None of them looked keen on following his leap of faith, and one pirate hung several paces back from the drop-off, reluctant to step any closer. The pirate with the gold teeth glared at Remy as he drifted past, shaking his cutlass in helpless rage.

“I won’t forget this, rat! You wait! When I find ya, you’re gonna wish I had just run ya through!”

His voice grew fainter, threats and promises fading into the distance. Remy gave the pirates one last wave as he floated away, watching as they grew smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared altogether.

According to Crusty Bart, the white-haired, shriveled old man who was always found at the Salty Barrel tavern, two thousand years ago the land had been whole. There were no floating islands, no sky ships soaring through the clouds, no Maelstrom raging below everything. There were towns and villages, cities and hamlets, but people traveled the land by roads, from one kingdom to the next.

Then came the Shattering, the Undoing of the World. No one knew how or why it happened; some said it was a natural occurrence, some theorized that a cabal of mages discovered something deep below the earth that they should have left alone. However it happened, the result was the same. One day, the world exploded in a torrent of magical energy that ripped it apart. Kingdoms crumbled. Cities were toppled in an instant. Everyone thought the end of the world had come.

“But the world survived,” Crusty Bart would finish with a grin and a wink. “The world survived, because we humans are too darn stubborn to lie down and die, even if everything else is blown to smithereens. We found other ways to thrive. We built new cities on the world remains, the islands that float above the Maelstrom. The great storm crystals at the heart of every island keep us afloat, though don’t ask me how they got there; that’s a mystery that was lost to the Shattering. The sky ships were the end to our isolation, as we could now travel from island to island. And of course…” And here, Bart would lower his voice so you really had to lean in to listen. “Of course, there were…the dragons. The mighty winged lizards that soar the winds and breathe fire hot enough to melt steel. But, if you want to hear more aboutthem, I’m afraid my mug is empty, and only a copper will refill it.”

Dragons.Remy rolled his eyes. Sitting against the tree, he gazed at the evening sky through the gnarled, withered branches. Far overhead, the last rays of sun caught the sails of a distant sky ship pulling away from Cutthroat Wedge, the floating island he called home. Everyone wanted to hear about dragons. Remy had seen a lot of sky ships in his life, but never a dragon. Oh, he knew they existed. The king’s sky knights, his elite royal guard, all rode on the backs of mighty dragons. And he would hear tales sometimes when he was at the tavern, of sailors who saw dragons in their travels across the kingdom.

But there were no dragons this far out in the Fringe, the ring of islands farthest from the capital. And no way to ever see one. Dragons were rare and extremely expensive; only the wealthiest and most important people in the kingdom could afford them. If you paid for enough of his drinks, Bart would tell grand tales of wild dragons in the days before the Shattering. But nowadays, every dragon was marked from the egg with a special, magical tattoo. This tattoo conveyed ownership, bloodline, and hatch date, so no dragon was ever unaccounted for.

Looking down at the pouch in his hands, Remy gave the drawstrings a tug and pulled it open. A handful of copper coins and a few pieces of silver glinted inside, making him smile sadly. He could steal a thousand of these, a million, and still not have enough to buy a dragon. And even if he did, dragons were only sold to those with the highest status. Those who lived close to the capital and owned stables bigger than his entire neighborhood. A poor street rat with mud-colored hair, mud-colored eyes, and no future couldn’t even dream of seeing much less buying one.

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