PART ONE
Once our vast woodlands were feral and free
The Serpent King ruled, ’tween his cunning teeth
Then from far-off shores, four alchemists came
With hope and tribute, in peace so they claimed
’Neath the King’s fanged reign, they spun webs of gold
Bestowing sweet gifts, they longed for control
With weapons so grand, the King had to cede
His land to the Four, though some call them thieves
VERSES 1–2,“THEGILDEDLULLABY”
ONE
Flames raced past Kel’s stinging eyes. Hotter and brighter than any sun, red collided with gold and amber in wild streaks across the sky. Along the obstacle-laden aerial track, Kel tried to follow the phoenixes’ route. From her booth in the raised stands, they were little more than ribbons of blood.
Painters across Salta’s four islands had tried to capture the phoenixes’ brutal radiance. But to Kel, anything that didn’t cause seared arm hair and painful blistering seemed a crude imitation.
An earsplitting screech echoed down the track. The crowd below and beside Kel’s booth roared, deafening her.
After a few loud seconds, the voices in her ear-comm returned.
“Veer left!Veer left—no,too far!”
“Tuck in nice and low. Yes! Like that!”
Kel bit down on her lip. She glanced at Rube to her right, rising onto his toes and craning his head.
“Ignore that last one, Oska,” Kel shouted into her comm. “It’ll get Savita boxed in.”
Oska—their team’s rider—responded with a strained grunt,though she followed Kel’s instructions. Kel’s phoenix, Savita, was easy to spot, soaring above her competition, nearing the race’s 150-meter height limit.
“Level out,” Dira barked. “Any higher and you’ll be shot down.”
Kel’s gaze lifted to the dark, mechanical clouds barricading the sky. If any phoenix attempted to soar above them, acid rain would likely pour from the clouds’ haze.
Rube removed his ear-comm and spluttered, “Sorry, Kel. I just wanted to—”
Dira clamped a hand on Rube’s shoulder. “What Kelmeans, is that you should let me—thewinger—do the strategizing.”
Dira smirked. Her brown eyes flickered to Kel. “The tamer should, too.”
Though they stood beside each other, the crowd, shouting with applause and last-minute bets, made it near-impossible to hear Dira without their thin headsets.
Kel bit back a retort. Dira was right. As the team’s winger, she was in charge of track strategy. Kel was their tamer—responsible for the care and training of their phoenix.Herphoenix.
Though Rube meant well, his job was to engineer equipment, not offer tactical advice. They couldn’t risk any well-intentioned blunders.
Kel’s sweaty palms clamped around the metal railing separating the stands from the vast, circular track. Her knuckles turned bone-white. This race was too important, one of the biggest in their city’s annual calendar. Kel’s cut of the first-place prize money—50,000 ceres—would help her stave off the council vultures hunting her over bills. They’d already started circling, as if she was a corpse to strip bare.
Today’s track was narrower than usual, set inside an open-roofed stadium. Each team had to complete one hundred laps ofthe two-kilometer loop. Stands surrounded the race. The giant flat screens above them, honing in on the race’s minute details, climbed almost as high as the phoenixes themselves. An electric pillar rose at the very center, creating a lethal ring that shocked any firebirds who flew too close. While keeping the creatures from flying too high, the dark, overhead clouds also dropped sporadic obstacles: man-made meteors falling from tiny, hidden aircrafts.
