Maledictus Aether (10 page)

Despite myself, I swallow
thickly.

So this is the famous Watkins anger that
has made others yield in the past –
from both myself and my predecessors.

I must admit, it i
s
not pleasant having it turned onto me for a change.

“
My name is
Cephas Kennedy Watkins II,” I offer, and here her grip loosens, her
steely eyes widening. “My mother is Cristina Bowe and my father is
Cephas Kennedy Watkins – Captain Davis is my mentor.”

She releases her hold, taking a
step back. I hold back the urge to rub the spot.

“
I a
m looking for
Tier,” I conclude, and the very sound of the name makes that anger
in her eyes disappear. “I was told of you, and wanted to come find
you.”

Elyn takes a deep breath,
releasing it noisily before she pulls off her gloves, tossing them
onto a workbench. The apron follows soon after, as do the goggles,
and she gestures at me to follow her – all without a word.

Again I follow the woman, where
she leads me through a different door than the one I came in from,
one that leads to a sitting room. This one is made of polished wood
and stone, three comfortable couches sitting in the middle with a
table stretching between them, and a cupboard holding a variety of
goods.

She tells me to take a seat,
and walks over to the cupboard, pulling out a few items and piling
them onto a silver tray. From there, my host brings them over,
setting it down on the table and pouring us each a glass of
gin.

“
I usually offer tea to guests,”
she states, the first words she has spoken since my
declaration, “but this isn’t my usual business deal, I’m afraid,
and I’m a fair bit rattled. I hope gin doesn’t bother
you.”

“
It i
s perfect,” I
counter, taking the glass she offers me with thanks. She takes her
own and drinks a heady amount, before putting it down and looking
at me.

“
I did not
know Christina and Cephas had a son,” she informs me, pulling her
hair out from the band and tossing the object onto the table. Curly
sandy hair falls around her heart-shaped face, and she pushes her
fringe behind her ear. “Although, to be fair, you look like his
spitting image. I apologize for acting the way I have.”

I wave off the apology, and the
woman seems to relax a little, her shoulders losing a bit of
tension.

She invites me to freely
partake in the platter of biscuits sitting on the tray, and while
she takes one I pull off my glove, pulling off my tailcoat and
rolling up the sleeve – having something over my arm for extended
periods of time is hardly comfortable.

She notices the prosthetic, but
says nothing.

“
I have a reason to be here today,” I inform her, and here
she looks u
p, arching an
eyebrow. “As they are gathering the rest of the resources for my
ship, I have come to seek your expertise on my
prosthetics.”

“
I had you
figured for a pirate,” Elyn muses, brushing crumbs from her collar.
“Then again, it’s been in the family for generations, and I hardly
see it stopping. On the subject of your prosthetics, you’ve three,
if I’m correct – the way you walk is a dead giveaway, by the
way.”

I nod, and the woman smiles
kindly at me.

“
There ha
s been a
complication,” I inform her, and she leans forward while I take a
quick drink of the liquor in my hands. “As of late, they do not
move quite as freely as they once did, and I am afraid my knowledge
of the things is rather small. I can only do maintenance, and this
is out of my field.”

“
An engineer,
I assume,” she says, the words almost a question, and I nod. “Quite
like Cephas. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to have a
look.”

I nod again, taking the words as a silent request to pull
off the last item of clothing on my chest. She takes a seat
beside
me; holding the
prosthetic in her hands and having me lift my arm up and
down.

“
I remember
this model,” she tells me as she inspects it. “The Forces contacted
me with an urgent request for military-grade prosthetics, and
informed me that I was to never replicate the model, ‘lest I be
severely punished. They went to you, I see.”

“
I was caught
in the blast of a faulty clockwork system,” I inform her, and she
winces. “Took my arm, legs and heart.”

“
Well, you’re
a very lucky man to be alive,” she muses, letting me drop my arms.
“Aebrea must hold you in high regards.”

I shrug.

“
On the
topic, however, it’s a simple jam that can be repaired within half
an hour,” she informs me. “Although, I’m afraid the fluid needs to
be changed, as does the pressure control here,” she gestures to the
smallest pipe wrapping around half the prosthetic, “and the brace
here, beneath your wrist. The procedure shouldn’t take longer than
three hours, but I’ll have to remove it from your
person.”

When I agree, she quickly walks
away to her forge, returning a few moments later with a small
toolkit. Pulling out a screwdriver, she holds one hand on the side
of my neck while the other begins removing the screws that she then
places in her lap. Then, she pulls out a wrench and holds it
against the nut and bolt connecting it to my body.

“
This’ll
hurt,” she warns, and I nod, taking a deep breath. After being
whipped nineteen times, how bad could it possibly be? “On the count
of three. One!”

As soon as she says the number,
she quickly jerks her arm and unfastens the bolt. I force myself to
hold in my scream, the jolt of pain searing throughout my body and
relighting the agony in my back. Then, as she pulls the prosthetic
off, I force myself to breathe in as carefully as I can manage,
until it passes and the pain dulls.

“
I thought you said on
three
,” I hiss,
rubbing the skin on the edge of the metal that covers my body up to
my collarbone. She shrugs, putting it against the table and
offering me the bottle of gin. I take it, chugging down a mouthful
and handing it back gratefully. “Never mind. Do you have a
telephone I could use, by any chance?”

“
Ask Gloria
to show you where it is,” she tells me, and I manage to shrug into
the button-up shirt I borrowed from Fulke, at least. When the last
silver clasp is secured, I follow Elyn’s instructions and leave
through a different door, one that takes me right to the front of
the store.

I watch Elyn work for those
three hours, waiting for the completion of the prosthetic so I can
do one of the other things I planned to do upon coming landside.
She informs me on how to do a more in-depth repair, working away as
she does so, and I take every piece of information in.

Elyn’s in the middle of changing the final piece, the
pressure control, when Gloria return
s, escorting another person who is watching her
surroundings warily. I tense, having expected her arrival but still
not fully ready for it.

Of course, my host does no
t seem too bothered at the sight of her widowed
sister-in-law. Instead, my aunt tightens the nut around the pipe to
secure it, standing to her feet and offering her hand.

“
It’s been a
long time, Christina,” she greets, and with a mumble Elyn’s
assistant makes a hasty exit. My mother takes the offered hand
while I stand, her eyes drifting to me.

When you look at her, it i
s obvious to see how my father fell for her, despite
knowing that he would leave her on her own most days. She has the
face of a woman whom any man would drive himself to the ends of the
Earth to please, with fair skin, deep green eyes and a few
chocolate strands escaping from her black bonnet. Her dress is the
one I recall her wearing often, when she would have to leave the
house – stating that she’s in mourning, even after all these
years.

Standing beside Elyn, my aunt looks clearly out of place in
the clothes of
a man – but
even so, she does not seem to care.

“
There’s no
hard feelings,” my mother replies, smiling kindly to her. Her deep
green eyes are still locked on me, and they speak an infinite
sadness. “Kennedy, what have you done?”

Her words pull at my chest,
layered with that very sadness I’ve never wished to force onto
anyone. Then again, I suppose my selfish acts have done so, on
numerous people.

So I take her hand and kneel,
bowing my head.

“
Forgive me,” I plea, and I see her raise her right hand,
pressing it over her breast. “I could not let father’s work
rema
in unfinished – you know
that I have always wanted to do as he once did, and his death is an
injustice I cannot ignore.”

I chance a glance up, locking
eyes with her.

“
His work?” She questions, and I nod. “Your father was the
Captain of the
Aether
, Kennedy, and
I hardly see how leaving the Fleet will get you to do
that.”

“
You mis
understand,
mother,” I state, and the forty-two year old widow frowns, about to
protest. I continue. “Father was the Captain of a
pirate
ship, and he was searching for the home he came from
as a child. A battleship.”

She shakes her head, and I
stand up, trying to make her see sense.

“
The Forces kept this a secret, as they did not want people
to know that the world’s best pirate was once working for them,” I
tell her
. Elyn nods, agreeing
to what I have said, and it makes her seem suddenly unsure of
herself. “Father was tried and hung for piracy, and he was betrayed
by the man he trusted as a Quarter Master. I
have
to
try, mother.”

She shakes her head, pulling
her hand back from my grasp and taking a step back.

“
Your father would not want this for you,” she protests,
looking almost as if I struck her. She takes a shaky breath, shying
away from Elyn’s outstretched hand that seeks to comfort her. “He
was a good man, a
soldier
, not a
pirate! Now... now I hear talk about how you’ve left the Fleet,
when it’s been your dream as a child to serve the Queen and her
people – why it’s madness! You’ve the sickness of the sky – we can
go to a doctor, have him treat you, and bring you home.”

Her hand curls itself around a
little silver cross hanging from her neck, sitting over her
breast.

“
My father was the best damned pirate this world will ever
see,” I spit back, and here her hand tightens around her cross, her
eyes widening. “He
died
believing in his
life’s work, and he died doing what he truly felt was right. The
man
died
trying to offer a better, more prosperous life
to both you and his son.”

I step forward, seething with anger. I’ve never been
outwardly angry with a woman before, never mind my mother, but I
cannot sit idly and watch her spit in my father’s – her
husband’s
– honour.

“
He was a better man than any of the bloody,
cocksucking
pigs
walking around the streets of London
and crying out against the ‘arbitrary’ life happening ten thousand
feet above their heads.” I am about half an arm’s length away now,
hand clenched at my side and tense. “There is no ‘sickness of the
sky,’ nor am I possessed by some
demon
, mother. I am a
man with a life and an ambition, and if I want to spend my life
running around some damned myth, then I believe you cannot and
shall not stop me.”

She strikes me, her hand slapping me as hard as she can on
my cheek and forcing my head to the side. I stumble slightly, the
blow
completely unexpected –
as she has never done so in the past.

Then again, I a
m a
far cry from the boy she once knew.

“
How
dare
you use such language?” she demands,
her eyes narrowed. I press my fingers to my lip, the appendages
coming back wet and slick with a touch of blood. “I’ve in my right
mind to drag you to the Friar himself.”

I spit the blood onto the floor, Elyn watching from
the
side-lines with genuine
concern written on her features. My eyes flicker over to the woman
who gave me life, the one who I have surpassed in height long ago,
and lower my fingers.

“
I thought that, of all people, my own mother would
understand,” I admit, taking a step back. My cheek is burning and
I’m certain that there will be swelling, b
ut I find I care very little. I am keeping my anger in
check, the fury whispering at me to strike her back. “I was wrong.
I am going back to the skies, mother, and you can try to stop me
all you want – I will not be stopped.”

She huffs angrily, and I throw
the one line I have never wanted to use against her,
the one that has seared its way up my throat for years – and for
years I have quelled it, for fear of making an irreversible
mistake.

“
How about you leave me to do as I please, and in return you
can finally stop pretending to still be mourning my father – who,
by the way, I believe you never deserved, you lying,
cheating
bitch
,” I snap, and
both women in the room stare at me, equally flabbergasted. I am not
done, though. “From there, you can finally publicly announce to the
world that you have been having an affair with Lord Russell for the
last twenty-five years, and take up his offer to marry you. How
does that sound?”