The Continent (The Continent #1)(9)

“Where?” demands Mrs. Shaw. “I can’t see a thing, unless you count snow. Did you ever imagine there would be quite so much snow?”

“Come over on this side of the plane,” Aaden says. “There are four of them hiking across the valley. Come here, Vaela, you can look out my window.”

I move across the aisle to sit beside him. “Where are they, exactly?”

“Just beyond those rocks—do you see?”

It takes me a moment to spot them—four leather-clad natives trudging through the heavy snow, fur collars dusted with white. “I see them!”

Mrs. Shaw gasps. “How thrilling! Are they Aven’ei, or Topi, I wonder?”

“They’re Aven’ei,” Aaden says. “The Topi don’t live this far south or east. In any case, you can tell from their clothing—see how everything is sort of mute and fitted? The Topi are more ostentatious—they wear brighter colors, fringed sleeves, bone helmets, that sort of thing.”

“Helmets made of bone?” says Mrs. Shaw. “How revolting.”

“Human bones,” Aaden adds.

“Oh, you’re not serious,” she says with a tinkly laugh.

“I certainly am. What better way to antagonize the Aven’ei than by flaunting the bones of their fallen comrades?”

There is a pause, and then she says, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite so ghastly.”

The four Aven’ei have stopped in the snow and are looking up at the plane. Even at this distance, it is clear that they are accustomed to the sight of Spirian aircraft; they seem entirely unimpressed. We bank to the right, and the men disappear from view.

I turn to Aaden. “Your professorship…is that how you know so much about the natives? Are you an enthusiast of history?”

“Yes, actually. I am to teach a course examining the nature of conflict—covering both Spirian and Continental topics—beginning this autumn.”

“He never stops reading, not ever,” says Mr. Shaw. “Boy’s spent the better part of his life with his nose stuck in a book. Athletic build like that, and he’d rather hole up in the library than spend an hour out of doors.”

“Well, it’s lovely to have you along, then, Aaden,” says my mother. “I’m sure your insights will be most enlightening.”

He smiles. “I’m at your service, Mrs. Sun.”

“We don’t know very much about the Topi, do we?” says Mrs. Shaw. “Other than how vulgar and warmongering they are?”

Aaden frowns. “You make them sound like villains.”

“Aren’t they?”

“Uh, no?”

Mrs. Shaw adjusts her hat. “That’s not what I’ve heard. At my Telmadge Green Flowering Bloom and Grow meetings, Mrs. Galfeather—who’s been thrice to the Continent, I might add—says there’s nothing to the Topi but bloodlust. That’s precisely the word she used: bloodlust. She says we know nothing else about them because there’s naught else to know, and that they’ve bullied the Aven’ei for aeons.”

“They’re not bullies,” Aaden says. “Don’t you know—”

Mr. Shaw leans abruptly toward the window. “I say, what’s that bit of decoration hanging from the bridge there? Some kind of flag?”

Mrs. Shaw peers over his shoulder. “I can’t make it out. Just a moment—there are two of them.”

I lean closer to the glass, squinting in an attempt to see what they’re talking about. There’s a narrow bridge a little ways off, and suspended from it are what seem to be two bright red strips of fabric. But they don’t exactly look like flags; they’re moving stiffly in the wind, rather than fluttering about as one might expect.

“But what kind of flags are those?” Mrs. Shaw says. “They look like—”

“They’re not flags,” Aaden says. “They’re bodies.”

One of the strips swivels on its cable, and as it turns, I see the rotted face of a Topi warrior, his bone helmet shattered on one side, his arms bound tightly at the wrists.





CHAPTER 3





IT’S BEEN ODDLY QUIET ABOARD THE HELI-PLANE since the bodies on the bridge were spotted. Mrs. Shaw in particular has made it a point to keep herself busy, having spent the better part of half an hour focused on a book of word puzzles produced from her valise. I hadn’t thought it possible for her to refrain from speaking for so long, but although she has cleared her throat several times, she has not said a word.

My father, perhaps stirred by the shift in mood, awoke to a cabin full of somber and awkward passengers. My mother gave a whispered account of what we saw.

“You all right, then, Vaela?” he said.

“We all knew that we would see unpleasant things, didn’t we?”

“Knowing and seeing are two different things.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and I do feel fine, now that I’ve had some time to consider what I saw. The war between the natives is the stuff of legend—isn’t it only natural to be curious about the morbid truth of things? Perhaps Aaden was right when he said that everyone has some interest in the conflict between the Topi and the Aven’ei—though my mother seems to be a rare exception to this rule.