Wood splintered; rigging snapped. The ship tilted beneath the weight of a hundred beating wings and began to fall.

As expected, everything was going to shit. Even Najm had said the skyship might be a bad idea. Zahir brought up a shield as the walls buckled under the strain of faerie magic, and his colleagues followed suit. He sensed a surge of physiological bolstering, joints flexed and bones strengthened, compounds synthesized, ready and waiting. That was the worst part: the waiting.

He braced himself against a beam as the floor tilted. Behind him, someone screamed.

It was an unusually high-pitched scream. He whipped his head around as his colleagues turned to the source of the noise.

“What the fuck?” That was Harith, voice gone sharp with stress. “Salai, isn’t that one of yours?”

A frightened face stared up at them from the back of the hold, half-hidden behind a stack of old medical kits. Zahir groaned internally.

“Jamal,” he said. He spoke as calmly as he could, which was not very. “What the hells are you doing here?”

The ship lurched before he got his answer, tipping fully sideways. Furnishings went flying. He fell along the floor and slammed into a wall, his shoulder fracturing in the process. Shouts erupted among his colleagues. From what he could see out the window beneath him, the ground was fast-approaching.

He had just enough time to bolster his shield before everything exploded.

The world crumpled inwards; shards of wood and glass flew through the air. Sand poured into the hold, and heat gusted across his back. His shield broke, deflecting the weight of a falling beam. From outside came the chittering of faerie-creatures, barely audible over the ringing in his ears.

He shook his head, cleared the ringing, and staggered to his feet. Around him, red-robed forms did the same. His eyes streamed from the smoke as he fixed his shoulder. To his right, Harith pulled a splint of wood from his belly with a grunt.

Where was Jamal? The little idiot probably thought he could come and help. Gods damn, he hated so-called prodigies. Trust one of them to fuck up like this.

His colleagues sprang into motion, blasting holes through the wreckage and pouring outside. Chitinous buzzing arose to meet them. From above him came a crackling—fire.

“Jamal?” he called, because no one else would. His apprentice, his responsibility. Hells damn it, they were all supposed to be out of the way.

The boy gave a weak cry from behind a pile of debris, where the back of the hold used to be. For fuck’s sake. Zahir clambered over the mess, praying the whole place wouldn’t fall on top of them.

“Jamal,” he said again, picking out a shape in the dark. “Are you injured?” His steps crunched over sand and glass both. The boy was stirring, at least; breathing roughly, but still breathing. He had not been crushed beneath a dozen different pieces of ceiling, either—thank the stars for small mercies.

“My arm hurts,” Jamal whimpered. “And my leg, and part of my back, and when I move, it—”

“Stop moving,” Zahir said.

He touched the boy’s shoulder and knit the bones back together. The boy had a few superficial scratches and the beginnings of some bruising, too, but Zahir ignored those and hauled him to his feet. The air thickened with smoke; dragging an apprentice into the fray was unwise, but leaving him to suffocate was hardly an alternative. He shielded his lungs, purging what particles snuck through, and gave the boy a sharp nudge with his magic when he could not feel him doing the same.

I taught you better than this, he almost said, before he realised: no, he had not. His formal apprentices followed the usual curriculum, and none had yet passed the usual trial—he’d been thinking of what Aliyah knew.

The boy hacked and coughed, each noise thick with mucous.

How’s that artificial scarcity working for you now, Algorab, he thought, as he fixed the boy’s lungs for him. It was probably working very well, actually—it wasn’t like any of the first-ranks were down here with them.

They scrambled outside; his boots sank into a drift of sand. He raised a shield, which was just as well, because the air crackled with stray spellfire. He made for cover behind a broken wedge of ship, hoping Jamal was smart enough to follow. He was not fast enough—a blur of green faerie dived at him, flinging a spell. His shield took it without shattering. He used magic to bridge the six feet of air between them and broke the faerie’s neck. Its body crumpled down. He caught hold of the boy and scrambled behind cover.

The boy panicked and tried to yank away; Zahir didn’t bother sparing magic to try immobilising him—twisting his arm did the trick. Not hard enough to inflict damage, but just enough to make him cry out. Zahir tightened his grip as resignation warred with impatience; truly, he was becoming more and more like his masters by the day.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped. “I told you all to keep to the southern outskirts. Snuck aboard to play the hero?”

“No, I—”

A stray faery interrupted them. Jamal screamed. Zahir killed it.

His magic still applied to bone formed of materials other than hydroxyapatites, and to flesh that was more spell than truth. Every day, you learned something new. He shook translucent blood off his hand and wiped it dry on his robes. “Where’s Hafiz? And Isra?”

“N-Not here.” The boy’s voice shook as if on the verge of tears. Ugh—prodigies. What was he, four and ten years at most? Zahir tried to feel sorry for him, and failed. At least the others had better sense to stay where they should be.

“Alright,” Zahir said, peering past the fragment of fallen ship. “Here is what’s going to happen: you keep your shield up and stick behind me until—”

“No! I have to—”

Zahir grabbed his arm again before he could run off somewhere foolish. “Listen here,” he said. “Unless you want to get killed—”

“Let go!” The boy tried to pull loose, voice gone frantic. “My mother—I have to help her!”

Zahir blinked. “What?”

“My mother,” the boy repeated, his eyes wide. His gaze looked straight past Zahir and onto the burning ship behind him. “She’s in the cabin!”

Ah. The pilot.

The boy lashed out with a surge of stinging; Zahir dissipated its effect without much effort.

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“Let me go!”

Should he? His job was to deal with the faeries, but—well. His colleagues would not have thought of the pilot. Neither had he, until now—perhaps the boy wasn’t quite as foolish as he thought.

“Fine,” he said.

The boy darted away as soon as he released him—it was pointless. If he were a sensible Healer, he would count the both of them off as given losses. What could an apprentice as young as this do to keep himself from burning alive, let alone someone else? ‘Prodigy’ was just a title.

He sighed, and followed some paces behind.

The cabin was set high up at the front of the ship. That was fine, because the ship was half-gone and fully sideways. Zahir clambered through the remains of a window and over the flying equipment. Inside, the boy was already keeling over from the smoke. It would really be easier to leave him to the open air—but then, there’d be no one to keep an eye on him, and stars knew whether he could hold his own against even a singular faery.

“Copy this,” Zahir said, and sent the boy a surge of airway-clearing magic to emulate. He doubted that the boy, unawakened as he was, could put it to full use—though it would lower the chance of him needing to be resuscitated later. “Stay by the window,” he added. “If you faint in there, it will make things difficult.”

He strained his eyes through the smoke. A figure lay motionless against the far wall, a woman with her hair flung over her face. Blood blotted the floor about her head. He hurried over and placed a hand onto the outstretched arm, angled wrong, and knew in the space of a heartbeat that it was too late. What cells still lived were useless—the brain was gone.

Dry heat blasted over him a wave; he backed away. The cabin door was open, and flame licked its way up the hall. He made it three steps before a hand touched at his back—he almost attacked reflexively, before realising it was the boy.

“What are you doing,” came the shriek. “Help her, you—”

“Jamal,” he said. “There is nothing more I can do.”

“No!” The boy screamed. He lurched forwards, already coughing, but Zahir had anticipated this.

He used magic to make the boy’s muscles go slack—not fully, and not paired with the indubitable mercy of unconsciousness, but enough that he could be dragged back to where fresher air blew in from the window. The air was good, but also bad in that it was feeding the flames. Zahir gave it about a minute before the cabin was engulfed.

The boy screamed again, enough that his voice tore. “Please! Healer Salai! We have to get her out!”

He stared the boy down, feeling oddly hollow save for perhaps the faintest glimmer of pity and discomfiting recognition, of…understanding.

He left the boy at the lip of the window and ventured back in, crouched low to avoid the worst of the smoke. His fingers snagged on the edges of the pilot’s cloak; he pulled, and the body shifted with it. He grasped the arm and dragged heavy, dead flesh towards him, casting under his breath. The spells helped, but not much.

An apprentice was an apprentice. A corpse was a corpse. Ordinarily, he would not have risked this. But it was hardly much safer outside. At least the smoke was trying to kill him in a predictable way. The fire flared, leaping into the cabin, and he yanked harder in retreat.

He made it back to the boy, and the boy reached for the body. Zahir bit his tongue as the body’s skin-wounds closed at the boy’s touch; tissues still-living, but not where it counted. The boy tried again and pressed his fingers against the body’s wrist, feeling for a pulse that was not there.

“Enough,” Zahir said, and pushed him away.

“No! You could’ve done it wrong—you—you have to let me try—”

The boy scrabbled and fought, but he was a scrawny thing who had not yet grown into his height nor his muscles, and so it was not difficult to ignore his blows. Zahir bore the body out through the window as the fire advanced. The boy rushed to follow, as Zahir knew he would. He stepped onto sand, dragged the body around the prow, and froze.

In the shadow of the skyship, not ten paces away, a faery gutted another faery. It looked up as its victim twitched and gurgled around the end of its blade.

Zahir bolstered his shield. He sensed the boy behind him, doing the same.

The faery met his eyes and dropped its fellow kin to the ground. It took a step back, then two, and then launched itself into the air, upwards and away.

Well. Perhaps the creatures became savage in their bloodlust.

Zahir scanned the skies and saw no others inbound; he glanced at the faerie corpse, then to the human one at his feet. The boy, Jamal, fell to his knees by its side. He was weeping, and trying to hide the fact. Zahir looked away, out of courtesy and discomfort both.

Across the sands, the army seemed to be flagging. Small groups of wounded appeared as dots in the distance, carted out to outlying stations for shoddy apprentice healing. His colleagues seemed to be holding their own. Hafiz and Isra would be fine, so long as they stayed where he had told them to. As for Aliyah and the traitor Sadrava, they should be well away by now—at least, he hoped so. Stars grant that they had not blundered as badly as Jamal had.

Apprentices. He couldn’t stand them. Always watching and talking and thinking they were untouchable by birthright, until they didn’t. He almost understood, now, why his masters had been the way they were. Almost—which was why he had to do better.

He turned and knelt by Jamal. The boy’s eyes had by now run dry, instead gone flat with shock. He held his mother’s hand in his own. Blood dripped from his nose from the effort of forcing magic into flesh that could no longer receive it.

“Hey,” Zahir said. He put his hand onto the boy’s shoulder. “Jamal, you have done all that you can. I need to get you to safety now.”

“No,” the boy said, shrugging his hand away. “Leave me alone. You didn’t even try to help.”

“She died on impact,” Zahir said. “I am sorry. It was likely—painless.”

“Shut up,” the boy hissed, his eyes welling afresh. “No. Don’t talk to me. Just…f-fuck off. If you didn’t hold me back, I could’ve—I could’ve…”

Zahir hesitated, and forced his tone to remain gentle. “I am sorry. But you must get to safety. Can you shield yourself, and follow me? We will walk to those soldiers over there and find someone to accompany you to the nearest station.”

“Go away,” the boy screamed. “I don’t care! I’m not leaving her here for the crows!”

Zahir exhaled, very carefully, and looked away before the urge to slap his apprentice grew too great. He would not become what he sought to avoid. He would not.

A fresh wave of faeries were gathering in the distance. The Magicians were taking too long. It was not as though he wanted them to arrive with their blood-soaked ritual, but that swarm was a concerning size, and approaching fast. The closest clump of soldiers was a small one, perhaps twenty five men at most, but even so—joining up would be necessary. If a dozen or so faeries came for them here, exposed against the side of a burning skyship, they would be done for.

“Jamal,” he said, hardening his voice this time. “We must leave. You can come back for her later.”

“No,” the boy snarled.

Fine. Zahir would drag him, then.

It was more difficult than dragging the body had been; the boy screamed curses, clawing at his arms and kicking at the ground as they went. The wind flowed bitter with strange magic, and carried the sounds of chittering over the sands. By the time they made it to the soldiers, the first of the faeries were upon them.

Zahir grabbed the nearest soldier, hauling him out of the fray. A faery tried to interrupt; he reached into its throat and swelled it shut.

“Apprentice,” he told the soldier, shoving the boy forwards. “Not meant to be here. Take him to an outpost. Make sure he stays.”

The soldier shot him what might have been a grateful look and grabbed the boy by his collar. He made haste across the sands, away from his struggling comrades; the boy’s efforts to escape gave him no trouble.

Soldiers turned to glance at him between swings of their swords, their eyes heavy with expectation. He groaned inwardly. All they saw was a Healer, and to them, a Healer equaled safety. He was one man. One.

Another faery flew at him, arm nocked back with spellfire. He killed that one, too. The soldiers rallied and fought. Shields were shattered and recast. For a while, there was nothing but the rhythm of reaching and culling, his magic grasping faery bone and forcing it to break. By the time they finished butchering the last of them, the joints of his fingers ached. His nose was starting to bleed.

He looked to the horizon, where the swarm still hovered in a dark, glinting cloud; another group broke from the cluster and headed for them. Ah. So it was only a lull. He should have expected it, really. There was no real rest under kingdom skies; not now, and perhaps not ever. He readied his magic and glanced across the sands.

The battlefield had shifted, and the stations with it; the Magicians were focusing their efforts to the east. Distant sigils boomed blood-red, not close enough to be helpful. Most of his colleagues had moved to the main fighting ground, probably while he’d been busy dragging the body out of the wreckage. These soldiers were stragglers, he realised. He glanced to the skies once more; the faeries were coming too fast.

The soldiers raised themselves into ready stances. Their leader sent up a beacon of distress even as he hefted his shield. Zahir doubted it would do them any good; the other portions of the army were focused on the Magicians, and anyhow, what platoon would risk themselves for the sake of twenty-odd men? They were as good as cornered. Easy pickings. Given losses. What other option was there, but to stand and fight?

The faeries bore down like a stormfront. Arrows dived; he raised his hands to meet them.

Around him, soldiers fell like rain.