By Sea & Sky: An Esowon Story (The Sky Pirate Chronicles Book 1) by Antoine Bandele

Author:Antoine Bandele [Bandele, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bandele Books
Published: 2020-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

That didn’t go well, Zala thought as she sat before a tirade from Fon.

“Why would you do that?” the aziza shouted, her gaze a blazing anger.

Zala had never heard that tone aimed at her before, not from Fon, and not with such hurt in her friend’s eyes. Though still tipsy from her drink, she held her pointed finger firm, striking it right at the edge of Zala’s nose. The image almost reminded her of her instructors back at the Jultian Academy—small women with equally severe expressions.

Fon was more frightening than those women could have ever hoped to be. Zala actually cared what her diminutive friend thought, for one. Where she had tuned out her instructors, she hung on Fon’s every word, every proclamation of “irrational” or “foolish” or, worst of all, “irresponsible” cutting painfully deep.

“And you went off with the cat instead of me,” Fon went on. “Oh, Yem, let your waves be merciful!”

Not even Mantu and Sniffs could find the laughter that usually came so easily at Zala’s expense. Secondhand embarrassment colored their ears as they headed back to try and douse the smoking ruin of the palm tree, Shomari in tow. Half of Zala would have preferred the beating if it meant avoiding the heated unease rushing from her head to the tips of her fingers.

She thought she’d done what was best for the group. But in her rush to be right, she hadn’t considered the potential threat she might’ve called down upon them. The likelihood of the Vaaji finding them again was slim, yet in the face of Fon’s anger, Zala was beginning to doubt that.

“And furthermore, how dare you do it while we were sleeping!”

Despite the trickling feelings of remorse down her spine, Zala couldn’t see how her plan was any worse—how could it be?

If the Vaaji had really wanted to do the job right, they would have cleared the isles before leaving. And considering the morning blue was free of any sky ships, it would seem their small band of pirates was the least of the Vaaji Empire’s worries.

It was more likely they’d get picked up by someone from Kidogo, a merchant ship or one of Golden Lord Zuberi’s own.

“Even if the merchant ship hailed from Vaaj,” Zala countered back to Fon. “We could claim we were attacked—which isn’t entirely untrue. We’d just leave out the detail about being attacked by a Vaaji sky ship.”

“Excuse you,” Fon spat back, “I wasn’t done!”

And Fon went on, but only for a minute more. After winding down her rant, out of breath and red in the face, Fon put her hands to her hips and looked into the clouds, as though taking stock on whether she had everything out of her system. Zala was confident she had received the aziza’s message loud and clear. The shouting had seemed to take a toll on Fon—or perhaps the hangover was finally kicking in—and she stumbled to one side, catching on Siya’s leg in the sands.

“Oh, sorry,” Fon mumbled, but Siya didn’t move.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.