Jiro and Alet traveled throughout the night, guided by lamplight. They followed the dirt road from Kimracka and hadn't stopped until dawn. When the sun rose, fiery light broke the darkness, brightening the surroundings and blending the gray sky with deep hints of orange.

Jiro glanced at Alet, glimpsing her blue eye. He walked a few steps away, distancing himself from her.

What happened the night before was unexpected. He hadn't known that Alet could do such a thing to Piriu—an almost murderous act, the way she raised her fist to his face over and over, hitting and stopping at nothing until he begged her to. It surprised him that she had listened to him at all.

"We should rest and eat," Alet suggested as she paced beside Jiro, tugging her salakot off her head and letting it hang on her back, covering her rattan bag. "I'm hungry."

Jiro's eyes drooped, and his shoulders slumped. He felt tired too. "We should," he said.

"I have cured meat," Alet told him, and his mouth watered at the sound of food.

His stomach growled, echoing the hunger. "Where did you get it?"

"From the kitchen." Alet stopped and looked at him then, and she patted the bottom of her bag behind her. "Piriu didn't even notice it was missing." Her smile stretched over her face. Something about it made Jiro grin.

"I could make us a fire." He nodded toward the forest that led away from the road, and they both strode into it.

"I also got some smoked herring," Alet informed him as they diverted from the road. "I don't have money, so I took what I could."

"Is that all you took?" Jiro raised his brows at her.

"No. But that's all you need to know about." A cunning smile curved over her lips.

Jiro didn't care to argue and didn't want to know what else was in her bag. He didn't have to know all her secrets as long as she didn't harm him.

"Do you have money?" Alet asked, watching Jiro as they came to walk over a plain with grass that rose to their knees.

"Yes," he answered.

"How long before we get to Kazima?" she asked.

"About a month at least." Thirty days. That was how long he needed to get her to the Kahani. That was how long he needed to bear her company.

"That long?" Alet's voice pinched, sharing his sentiment.

"Yes."

"And we'd walk all the way?"

Jiro regarded the question.

Walking all the way would be tedious but possible. It would wear them down and slow their journey. It would be so simple if he could just fly them both to Kazima, taking half the days they'd need to get there.

"We'll have to get a nyx somewhere," he said, already counting his money in his mind and checking if they could afford to buy one. He was lucky to receive a hefty amount from the Eskolar. Otherwise, he would not be able to afford to travel at all.

They went quiet for a while, threading through overgrown grass to find a clearing. The only sounds that came were the soft crackings of trees when the wind blew. No birds flew above, and no small creatures were on the ground.

When the quietness broke, Alet had done it. She glanced at Jiro's vest. "I've seen tapestries woven like that." She inclined her chin, gesturing at his neck.

Jiro looked down at himself. The edge of his zarok vest peeked out from under the collar of his tunic. "I've heard that our fabrics are traded as art here in the south."

"People call it Art from the Skies." Alet continued to walk, refocusing her gaze on their path.

"Do people call it that because flyers make them?" Jiro asked.

"That's one reason. But I think most call it that because people like to buy tokens or symbols of things they can't have. They sell better that way."

"Huh." Jiro gave a slight nod. He'd never thought of it that way. He wanted to ask if Alet had ever bought one of those Art from the Skies. Most likely not, for she didn't have money to waste on such things, but he wondered if she ever wanted one—a piece of the sky or a piece of flying. He kept his questions to himself and let the curiosity fade, dying with their conversation.

As they strolled through the forest, a familiar sensation came over Jiro—the scent of the forest, the breezy chill from the trees, and the soft sounds of things unseen. Tracking.

A path among the branches caught his attention. His eyes traced the trail from one end to another.

"What is it?" Alet stopped too.

"It's a path." He observed and discerned what made the way. The grass parted from each other, revealing the track. He saw fur scattered on the ground in two different shades. One in grayish-white and the other in dark ochre. They hung onto the grass and on the bushes. The animals that had passed by grazed their bodies among the shrubbery. The lighter fur spread within the trail while the darker followed the outer line as if they herded the former.

"And?" Alet asked.

"I think I know where we can get a nyx." Jiro turned in one direction and followed the trail. He glanced back to Alet and saw that she followed him though her footsteps were eerily quiet.

The path twisted through the trees and became apparent. The grass where the animals had grazed was cropped. When Alet finally saw it, she said, "Oh," and asked, "How did you see it?"

Jiro smiled. "I'm a tracker. It's what I do."

"And is that how you found me? Did you track my prints and my shit?" Sarcasm painted her words.

He glanced back to her again, and he wanted to say yes to the prints but no to the feces, but he only scrunched his face at her, and she gave out a mocking snort.

The path opened to a rice field where crops gathered in disciplined rows, their panicles bending with weight, ready for harvesting. They were planted row after row as far as the eye could see over the hill. At the center of the farm were a hut and a ranch where a herd of koros ran free together with three nyxes.

Jiro grinned. "Come on," he said, already moving toward the hut.

As he approached, the beating of the koros' hooves came louder. He stared at the animals, and the nyxes prowled near in silence—a quietness that reminded him of Alet's steps. He turned to Alet then. She was watching the surroundings, looking from one side to the other.

Low sounds of laughter came from the hut, and two children, a boy and a girl, sprinted out into the field. The children stopped when they saw Jiro and Alet approaching, and they ran back to the hut. "Papa!" the boy called.

The word made a nasty bite into Jiro's memory. He had been like that, a little boy calling out for his father and mother. Something he would never do again. He swallowed the misery threatening to loom and continued to walk forward.

A man with a thick white-streaked beard came out. "What is it?" He asked the child.

Jiro and Alet stopped as the man bent down to the children, whispering something. When he stood straight, the boy and the girl ran inside the hut.

"Beautiful blue skies," Jiro greeted the man.

"Beautiful blue skies." The man nodded and strode closer. "Can I help you?" he asked. His brows furrowed in a curious and cautious arc.

"We're travelers," Jiro said. "We're heading north and wondering if we could buy one of your nyxes." He gestured at the feline creatures roaming free in the range, herding the koros.

"The nyxes aren't for sale," the man said.

Jiro patted his pocket for a coin and hauled it out, raising it to the man. Its gold face carved with a thorned vines shimmered in the sunlight. "We can pay well."

With wide eyes, the man considered. "Let me go talk to my wife about it." He waved his palm, beckoning for them to stay where they were, and hurriedly walked back into the hut.

"He's probably getting his bolo to chase us off with," Alet blurted out when the man was out of earshot.

"You always think ill of people?" Jiro said, disapproving of her judgment.

She snorted and gave him a cool smirk but didn't say anything else. After that, she turned to the ranch and watched the koros, animals with grayish-white fur. The males had pairs of short horns on top of their heads, while the females had smaller and rounder bodies.

When the man returned to them, he was accompanied by a woman who wore a baro't saya in a white kimona and dark brown skirt. She carried a woven rattan basket covered with fabric. The children had come out, too, following their parents.

"Hello," the woman said with a kind smile. "Beautiful blue skies."

"Beautiful blue skies," Jiro returned the smile.

"My husband tells me you're looking to buy one of our nyxes?" The woman swiped a lock of dark hair from her forehead and tucked it back with the rest in an unruly low bun.

"Yes," Jiro answered. "And maybe some banig too if you have," he added.

"I think we can come to agree on some negotiation." The woman smiled again. "I brought food. Have you had breakfast yet?" She inclined her head.

"That's alright. We have food," Jiro tried to tell the lady.

Alet swatted him on the arm. "It's food. You shouldn't refuse."

And she stepped forward, meeting the woman who grinned.

Jiro sighed. It seemed the manner of never refusing food was not unique to the Aradacko. He couldn't argue.

The woman set the basket on the hut's veranda, and the scent of pandesal and milk wafted in the air as soon as she lifted the blanket off. Alet immediately dove in.

Jiro was grateful for the food and hospitality of the couple. Somehow, the woman reminded him of his mother, but he didn't allow the memories to pour in, afraid of the pain it would bring him.

The farmer had gone to get one of the nyxes while they ate. He prepared its tack; the saddle for two, stirrups, bridle, and reins. He also included two banig and a small clay pot for them to cook rice, all for a golden coin.

"There," the man said, patting the muscled shoulder of the nyx.

When Alet finished eating, she went to where the children played while Jiro sat on the steps of the hut as they waited for the man to prepare everything.

Jiro watched Alet as the children ran circles around her. He hadn't expected her to be friendly with the young ones, but she seemed to enjoy their company. A genuine smile was painted over her face. When she laughed, it sounded true. And Jiro found her to be not a soldier but a girl. The harmless and fragile young tavern maid.

✧

Jiro and Alet's belongings were tied to the back of the nyx as they pulled it to the road. They couldn't have gotten on the animal to ride it from the farm, but they both walked together on one side of it. There was a mutual understanding between them that they shouldn't be on the nyx at the same time. Jiro should have bought two but couldn't afford them.

They walked from one hill to another, and it took a long while before Jiro finally stopped and spoke. "Climb on," he offered.

Alet stopped, too, turning around to blink at him. "And you?"

Jiro didn't know what the question implied, but he was sure it wasn't an invitation to ride the nyx with her. "I can walk," he said.

"You don't have to treat me like that." She raised a stubborn eyebrow. "I can walk too. I can last longer than you on the road."

She probably could. Jiro was not meant to walk the roads. He was meant to fly the skies. And after the fight last night, there was no argument that she could last longer than him on anything that required endurance.

Cocking his head to the side, Jiro pouted. "Suit yourself." He then pulled himself up, clumsily straddling the saddle. He wasn't used to being on a creature. It felt too foreign for him.

Alet stared.

"What?" He shifted in his seat. "I spent a hed for him. If you're not going to ride, then I will."

Alet smirked. "Him is a her," she corrected.

Jiro hadn't checked the nyx's gender. He only assumed.

"Come along," Alet grasped the reins with one hand to guide the black beast, and Jiro gripped the pommel.

The feline silently walked, not even dirt crunched beneath its paws. Alet's pace was unnaturally the same, as if she was too light or as if she was floating. She walked ahead with her back to Jiro, and he watched her from there.

Something about her reminded him of his mother. Like Alet, Nana Ricka had been a woman with less regard for her appearance, and yet his father loved and admired her. Back then, Jiro couldn't comprehend why his mother had left the effort to make herself look presentable, but after what Tatri had done to him, he understood that women could not be judged by how they looked. Jiro's father loved his mother beyond her beauty.

The wind blew, and Jiro's eyes fluttered at the breeze. He became aware of Alet looking over her shoulder, returning his stare.

A warm flush spread over his cheeks, and he looked away. How long had their eyes been locked?

"You were up in the clouds there for a long while." Alet snorted a laugh. A large black bird flew over their heads, and she glanced up. "What were you thinking about?"

Following her gaze, Jiro saw the blue sky dotted with small clouds. The tips of the trees that lined the road reached up to it. The serenity around them was calming, and he allowed himself to bask in the moment.

"You've been quiet," Alet spoke again. She looked back to the road, her head turned away from Jiro.

"I just remembered something." His eyes came back down to Alet's back.

She shrugged. "Tell me."

"It's nothing," Jiro answered, and he found himself staring at her again.

"Then tell me something else. Talk. Tell me about the war." It sounded more like a demand than a request.

"I can't tell you much about it. I didn't join the war."

"Tell me stories you've heard about it."

Jiro thought of his father and wanted to say something about him. But what would he tell her exactly? His father did not return from the war, and the stories he had heard were tales of other heroes and other survivors.

He wondered why Alet asked about it. Two years in Kimracka would have had her worn out by stories of the Sulunese attack and the Brilliance. But those stories might have been all she had of her forgotten past.

"I heard that there was no warning when the Sulunese attacked Kimracka. None of the privateers or the sea watchers reported anything to the army camp in Bickra." Jiro watched as Alet continued to walk.

"What about the Navy?" she asked.

"Na-vi?" Jiro repeated the unfamiliar word.

"Yes, the navy. The naval forces." She glanced back at him.

It was a strange word, one he had never heard of before. "I don't know what you mean."

"You—" Alet fully turned and stopped. There was a questioning look in her blue eye. "You don't know about the soldiers who fight on water? Their ships are built for war."

"Soldiers who fight on water?" Jiro tried to imagine them on ships in battle, but he could only see the images of pirates and privateers. He knew that army men and women were transported over the seas from one mainland to another, but he'd never heard of a war on the waters. What was there to fight for on the ocean? There was no land to claim. "Maybe you're confused. All soldiers fight on land."

"No." Alet glared with her exposed eye. "I'm not confused. I've seen—" She stopped herself. Then she blinked and looked elsewhere as if she realized she was wrong. Her shoulders rose and fell with an immense sigh. "Maybe it was a dream, not a memory. But I know that word. It's important."

Jiro stared at her and saw the way her face fell in disappointment. He opened his mouth to speak, wanting to console her. Perhaps there were such things as soldiers fighting on water. Perhaps she had been one of them. But he only shut his mouth and didn't say a word.

"Why didn't you go to war?" Alet returned to the road and tugged at the reins to pull the nyx forward. Her face was hidden from Jiro, but her voice had changed to calm, soft, and curious.

"I was too young." His own words surprised him. Alet was a year younger, and yet she became a soldier. During the war, she would have only been four years over her first decade.

"I was two years over my first decade when I joined the army. I was not forced into it, but I don't know why I joined. I have images in my head. Sometimes I wonder if they're real. I may have gone to Suluna."

"Suluna?" Jiro echoed. He couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. Twelve years over her first decade—she was only a child.

"I think I fought there." Alet's voice was searching as if the answers to the questions of her heart were in her voice.

Somehow, Jiro could not accept her story. A child couldn't fight in the war and survive. But he'd heard of rumors two years ago that the army was recruiting children to be trained in the south. The Rakitt Maharlika who came back home to Aradack had not confirmed those tales, and that was all they were—fictitious stories passed down from tongue to tongue with the truth in them washed and faded.

"Were you in Aradack when the Brilliance happened?" Alet asked.

Jiro remembered that night. He was asleep in his banig when the warm air stirred cold. Frozen water fell from the sky, which never happened in the history of Daracka before. He had heard of stories that some parts of the world received such white harshness—the divinities' acts to unfavorable nations—but never to Daracka until the Brilliance. They called it snow. And Jiro remembered the brilliant dot of twinkling light on the southern horizon. "Yes, I was," he said. "The Brilliance ended the war."

"What was it?" Alet asked. "It destroyed a whole island. What created it?" Something shivered in her voice, and the image of Bickra floating in dark waters flashed in Jiro's mind.

"People say it was from Master Taoro's machine," Jiro explained and saw Alet flinch at the name. "He was a Maestro studying lakar. It's a rock that only formed in Bickra. In the legends of the old kings, lakar was used as a powerful weapon. The rumors say that Master Taoro discovered how the old kings used lakar. He created the machine for it. No one knows what happened when the Sulunese attacked Bickra. I think there must have been an accident, and the machine destroyed the island."

"Then it wasn't that powerful," Alet said.

"What?"

"The lakar. If the island was filled with that rock. It could have destroyed more than just the island if it's that powerful," Alet explained.

"I have a theory about that." Jiro smiled. "It's something all kids in Aradack argued about. I think the power of the lakar was directed to the sky. That's why it destroyed the sky above the island. But the sky has no end. So all that power just continued to go up there."

Alet stopped and looked up. "The sky has no end?" she asked with astonishment.

The nyx also stopped when the reins strained in her hold. Her hair fell away from her green eye as she gazed at the vastness above, and her lips parted with awe.

Jiro became embarrassed with his conclusion. "I think...it has no end." He tried to be firm, but he sounded like he was only trying to convince himself. "I tried flying as high as possible but couldn't reach the top. And it's too cold up there. It's also hard to breathe there." He kept his eyes on her, and they met when she looked back down.

"Tell me more stories," she said without breaking the lock between their gazes.

Jiro smiled and hopped off the nyx. He inclined his head. "Climb on. It's my turn to walk."

Alet hesitated, but she didn't argue this time. With a single sweep of her leg, she sat on the saddle with ease and looked down at him expectantly.

"Have you heard of any stories of the old kings and the old kingdom?" He asked before he pulled on the reins of the nyx.

"Only a few." Alet smiled—a small but genuine one. It was a smile similar to what she gave the children when they were playing on the field together. A smile she probably hadn't shared with most people but had now offered to him. And she was most likely unaware of how she looked, but to Jiro, she appeared honest, real, and innocent as he told her one story after another.

.