After a brief exchange with the recruiter, in which he wrote her name down as "Ingrid Baker," she swore an oath of service to Taisia. She was quickly led across the field to a little airplane with a blonde woman standing beside it.

She wasn't much older than Ingrid, maybe a few years at most. Like the other pilots she wore a white shirt and a black skirt, sturdy boots, and a leather hat with goggles. She approached Ingrid with a warm smile. "I am Airman First Class Glenice," she said in somewhat accented Taisian.

"I'm... Junior Airman Ingrid!" Ingrid replied.

She thought that's what they said her rank was. She must have been correct because Glenice nodded.

"We are going to do a walk-around," Glenice said, patting the wing of her airplane.

The cute little airplane was a lot bigger than Ingrid had guessed from a distance. It was like a squared tube that grew narrow towards the tail, with high wings supported by diagonal struts. Glenice reached up and started to manipulate the surface near the tip of the wing.

"This is the aileron," Glenice said. "This is how we turn the airplane. The aileron on the opposite wing moves up when I move this one down. Notice that the stick inside also moves around when I move this."

On the back of the airplane, there was a cross-shaped structure with a smaller pair of wings and a vertical fin. Glenice grabbed the surface on the smaller pair of wings and lifted it up.

"This is the elevator. This is how we can aim the nose up or down. And here," she said as she grabbed the fin and twitched it side-to-side, "this is the rudder. It has a variety of uses. Mostly, you use it to stay straight when the wheels are on the ground, during takeoff and landing."

Ingrid nodded. "Aileron and elevator. Turn or point up or down. Rudder on the ground. Got it."

Glenice walked to the wing again and pointed to the surface that did not move, on the inside of the wing. It was clearly a separate piece of metal from the wing itself.

"This is one of the flaps," Glenice said. "It goes up and down in tandem with the flap on the other wing. It changes the shape of the wing to increase lift at the cost of reducing speed. It is used to land, because we will want to be going slow when we land."

Glenice opened the door to the machine and grabbed something from inside. She held it in her open hand towards Ingrid, a smooth, oval crystal only slightly smaller than her palm. It was a swirl of red and blue, as if two liquid resins had been mixed only slightly and then instantly hardened before the colors became indistinguishable.

Ingrid gasped.

"Take it," Glenice said.

"But that," Ingrid said. "That is worth so much! Before today, I've only ever seen two Elementals in my entire life!"

"The Air Navy leases these from the bank. And the bank is owned by House Nadiya. The Air Navy is also owned by House Nadiya. The bank sends us a bill. We add it to our budget. It's just paper changing hands."

She grabbed Ingrid's hand and placed the crystal in her palm.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Ingrid admired it. Such a thing could be leased from the bank with paper krismarks. It took years to save enough money working as a baker to lease such a thing for a single day. Decades even. And the kirsmark as a currency was pegged to lease time.

Hello mortal, a cool, feminine voice echoed in Ingrid's mind.

Ingrid flinched, dropping the stone into the deep grass.

"You grow accustomed to it quickly," Glenice said, bending over to pick it up. "And they grow accustomed to you as well. In the early days they will tend to try and play pranks on you."

"They?" Ingrid asked. "Who is trying to play pranks?"

"The beings on the other side. In the Elemental Planes. This crystal is a contract that allows those beings to be summoned. Each Elemental Queen has a sister-self in a different Plane. The Planes are linked, you see. This crystal is the contract that can be used to summon either a Fire Elemental, or a Water Elemental. However, they are not sisters. Take it again."

Ingrid took it, and once again she heard a voice.

CONSUME. CONSUME.

This time the voice was an angry hiss.

Ingrid regarded the stone with suspicion. Glenice handed Ingrid a piece of paper. "Read this."

"Fire, I invoke the ancient contract," Ingrid said slowly with a weak voice.

The crystal began to glow. The air began to ripple. In front of Ingrid, to the side of Glenice, the ripples began to form into the shape of a tall woman. Her curved and naked form began to solidify. She had just the impression of a face, but other details of her body were indistinct. She began to glow orange and then develop texture. The colors fluctuated, from orange to darker red-orange, like a log left long in the fire.

Who shall I CONSUME? the elemental hissed.

"Go into the engine," Glenice said, pointing at the airplane.

This again, the elemental said, resigned. Then, she began to flow into the airplane, through holes in the front of the engine. Then she was gone, and the propeller began to spin slowly.

"Hop in," Glenice said. "Let's go."

The inside of the airplane was upholstered with leather. The seats were soft as if filled with down. Glenice sat in the right seat, with Ingrid in the left seat. There was a stick between Ingrid's legs, which her long skirts needed to be lifted to accommodate. There were four pedals, two at each foot, one above the other. In front of Ingrid there was a console covered in a variety of circular gauges with needles inside, marked with numbers.

"You have the commander's seat," Glenice said. "I will give you instructions. Grab the stick with your left hand, and grab this knob with your right, but do not pull it out yet."

She pointed to a black knob in between them.

"Also put both feet on the upper pedals. The upper pedals control the brakes. You use your feet to steer on the ground at low speeds, and at high speeds you use the lower pedals. The lower pedals control the rudder."

Glenice flipped a switch on the dashboard and the propeller began to spin very quickly. A lever between the two seats caused the craft to lurch forward along the ground slowly.

"It's moving!" Ingrid said.

"Press both upper pedals," Glenice said.

Ingrid did so. The movement stopped. With some effort, Ingrid began to practice moving the craft around on the ground. Relaxing one leg allowed it to turn, relaxing both legs allowed it to move forward. Compressing both pedals caused it to stop. Under Glenice's direction, Ingrid drove the craft slowly across the field, to the far end, and rotated the nose to face into the wind, lined up with the long white line painted on the grass.

"Press the brakes in all the way and then pull the knob all the way out until it stops," Glenice said.

Ingrid pulled the knob out, and as she did so the propeller began to whirl violently. The nose began to drop, then the craft began to bounce in place.

"When we start to move I will keep us straight using the rudders. Now, release both brakes."

The craft shot forward. It immediately began to drift to one side, but then recovered as the rudder pedals moved on their own. Glenice must have been using her feet to control them. Faster and faster it went, and the ground below began to blur. The engine roared. Waves of heat-rippling air flowed from the two dark exhaust pipes on the sides of the engine cowl. The craft rattled and bounced on imperfections in the grass field. One of the needles rose rapidly until it was pointing to a slice of the gauge that was colored green.

"Pull on the stick," Glenice said.

As Ingrid pulled, the nose went up, and the ground dropped rapidly. It was not so much that she was flying, but that the space outside was going down.

Ingrid was flying.