Storm. Sarah Driver

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       We must never forget the darkness wielded by this movement. We must make sure it never befalls our world again.

       This dawn, at a ceremony on the highest peak, the Kings of Sea, Sky and Land have set three Storm-Opals in a golden crown, weaving the Tribes together in peace. Each sacred stone has been instilled with a sliver of the elements: a foam of sea, a fragment of sky and a fracture of earth. The jewels are to be guarded by a king of the giants. It is foretold that if the Opals are ever separated, evil will rise once more, and the land will be torn apart.

       Hackles. Ancient stronghold of the Sky-Tribe of the draggle-riders. One full moon’s turn after a Fangtooth hunted me through the snow.

      Stark eyes glint all around me, peering from the depths of fur hoods. I sniff the air. Fear-stink. Everywhere. The long-hall is packed with scarred and bandaged folk. Outsiders seeking refuge in this Sky realm of thick grey walls. Their murmurs clot together and rise into the air, crowding it with questions. Some are Sea-Tribe, and looking at them makes me wonder about my ship, and the rest of my own crew.

      I’m huddled on a bench, ice-bitten and swamped in a heavy cloak of goatskin, listening to storms pummel the mountain fortress with daggers of ice.

      I try to stop the fright in the air from seeping through my skin. But the walls are smeared with silver streaks that tighten my belly into knots. Moonsprites are dying, cos no moonlight can pierce the frozen clouds.

      ‘You alright, Little-Bones?’ Da whispers. He’s sitting next to me, grey-skinned and pretending he’s got no pain. He still ent recovered proper from being kept a prisoner of the mystiks. With food grown scarce, the flesh is slow to gather on his bones, and his jaws grip his teeth too tight. ‘You don’t have to be here for this, you know.’

      ‘I ent no little ’un,’ I hiss, rolling my eyes at my crewmate Crow, who’s sat on the other side of me. The former ship-wrecker boy gifts me a grin.

      A door bangs and we turn to stare as Leopard – seven hundred and seventy-seventh in a great line of Protectors of the Mountain – leads five Sky Elders through the crowd. Leo looks worn to rags by exhaustion, but she’s wearing her goat headdress and a cloak of gold-dipped feathers, and she’s standing arrow-straight.

      I straighten my own spine at the sight of her, and in the corner of my eye catch Lunda scowling at me. The pale-haired Spearsister – one of the Protector’s best trained warriors – still don’t like outsiders. She throws the spear of her fright even surer than her spear of iron.

      The Elders are a mix of draggle-riders and Wilderwitches – enemies until one full moon’s turn ago, when I freed Leo from the possession that Stag and the mystiks were wielding to control her and her territory. The Wilder-King remains our enemy, swearing fealty to Stag even though storms have been trying to throw his iceberg forest flat and Hackles would be safer for his people. But some Wilderwitches fled to Hackles and Leo welcomed them heartily.

      I watch as the Elders tread behind Leo. They’re draped in flowing sky-blue robes spun from ice worm silk and sewn with berg owl feathers. Orca teeth hang from their hems.

      They carry offerings to the Sky gods – in their cupped palms sit crystal jars filled with tiny forests, dragonflies and spark-spluttering miniature storm clouds. They reach the dais and turn to face the benches.

      Silence drops. The might of Hackles presses down on us – seems like even the ancient stronghold is straining to listen. Everyone says the Elders only utter a squeak when their pipes have seriousness to spill. And folks are proper desperate for them to gift words of certainty while chaos is sweeping through the world.