Bound by the Sky

Prologue

Fire rained down from the sky in a meteor shower of destruction. Will clutched his mother’s soft skirts, burying his head in the fabric. Her hands covered his ears to muffle the explosions and screams from outside.

“It’s going to be all right, William,” she whispered. “I promise.”

“I’m scared,” Will confessed. 

“I know. It’s okay to be scared.” His mother held him tight as the fires outside encroached upon Will’s bedroom window. “But we need to leave. Now.” 

“Where’s—”

“Alice! Will!” Coram Lexington burst into the bedroom. His silk suit was singed, his stern face ruddy from the heat. “He’s coming. There’s a car outside—you both need to be in it.”

“What about you?” Alice asked. 

“It’s me he wants. I can buy you some time to get out of the city.”

“Coram, no—”

“MOVE!” Coram’s demand left no room for argument. Will’s mother gripped his wrist tighter than she ever had before, ushering him to the door.

“Who’s coming?” Will’s panicked question went unanswered as his parents dragged him down the spiral staircase of their once-beautiful home. Will hardly recognized it now; tables lay overturned, and shards of glass from exploded windows littered the mosaic floor. Everything was stained shades of red and orange, tongues of fire licking at the columns and clouding the air with black smoke.

Will’s father flung open the double doors, revealing the hellscape that was now Percival. Pirate ships flew overhead, their sails blocking out the stars as they demolished the city without mercy. 

Will had heard about relic raids in other cities, but he’d never thought the Sky Lords would target them. His father was too good a smuggler, too secretive, too well-respected to be snitched on. 

But tell that to the burning buildings. Or the screaming children running through the streets, some of them even younger than Will. Or the High Mandrel, who was ushering broken families into the Maker’s Cathedral two blocks away while dodging a downpour of shattered stained glass. 

Rage ignited in Will’s chest, burning as bright as the fires surrounding them. 

What kind of monster could do this?

In the near distance, a bolt of violet lightning sliced the hazy sky in two. Will jumped at the ear-splitting sound, resisting the urge to close his eyes.

“He’s found it,” Coram said. “Stormfist.” 

Will nearly tripped over his own feet at the Class Four relic’s name. He didn’t know much about Stormfist, but he knew enough. He scrambled down the front steps, his mother’s hand still clamped around his wrist. 

The car his father had called was in front of the house, ready to speed away to safety. Then this nightmare would be over—

BOOM. 

A bomb fell in front of the house and burst, sending the car, debris, and even some unfortunate civilians flying high. The force of the explosion threw them back on the steps, where Will cried out as his head collided with stone. 

The world started spinning, a distant ringing in Will’s ear preventing him from hearing his mother’s voice even as she hovered over him. He winced as the dull throb in the back of his head turned to a sharp pain stabbing through to his forehead, intensified by a flare of blue light. 

“Coram Lexington,” said a gravelly voice. It tore through the ringing in Will’s ears. “Alastor Graven. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Graven. 

Will knew that name. His body flooded with dread as his mother pulled him to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around him so he couldn’t see the Sky Lord.

“You have what you came for,” Coram said, his voice shaking. 

Will couldn’t recall ever hearing his father sound scared. Not like this.

“What I came for?” Graven clucked his tongue. “You smugglers are always so shortsighted. You know I can’t let you live.”

“My boy is ten years old—he’s innocent. Take me. Take me and spare them,” Coram pleaded.

“Hm. Smugglers rarely demonstrate nobility,” Graven said with a mocking undertone. A pause. “They’ll get what they deserve. Just like you.”

“Wait, please—” Alice cried out as another flash of violet lightning tinted Will’s peripheral vision. He heard a scream—his father’s—and then a dull thud beside him. 

Vision still blurry, Will pulled away from his mother and turned to find his father prone on the steps, face ashen, sparks of purple electricity cracking through his skin and dark blond hair.  

“Dad?” Will whispered. No response. Will’s pulse hammered in his skull, his mind refusing to acknowledge what his heart already knew. 

“No!” Alice’s scream was pure agony as she left Will’s side to throw her body over Coram’s. “No! No, Coram, wake up, please . . . ”

Another crack of lightning. 

Another flash of violet.

Another thud. 

Will was the one to scream this time as his mother’s body crumpled on top of his father’s, the tension in her limbs releasing as grief permanently etched itself on her unmoving face. Her eyes grew dark and vacant, the glassy green reflecting the fire. 

“No!” 

Fighting against the pain splintering his skull and the terror threatening to paralyze the rest of him, Will pushed himself up and reached for his parents. Tears pricked at his eyes, then gushed like rivers down his cheeks. He reached for his mother’s hand—still warm, but growing colder by the second. 

It was unfathomable that Alastor Graven had just destroyed the two pillars of Will’s life in less than a heartbeat. There was no life without his parents. It felt impossible. Unnatural. Like a sky without stars, or a ship with no sails.

His city, his home, his family . . . what did Will have without them? What was he supposed to do?

Will gasped for air, burning smoke stinging his lungs and drawing out his tears that much faster. They dripped onto his mother’s face, melting the light layer of ash already accumulating. 

Graven crouched down beside him, and finally, Will laid eyes on his parents’ murderer.

The Sky Lord was as sturdy as a mountain, tall and broad. But he wasn’t fully human; he wore a metal fist grafted to his left arm, sparking with purple electricity. 

Stormfist, the relic he’d come here for.

His right eye was missing as well, replaced with a mechanical fixture that swerved in its socket, the movement jerky and nauseating. Will recognized it as Nightmare—the mind control Class Four. 

Now Graven had two Fours. People weren’t supposed to have two, ever. 

Will didn’t have words strong enough for the hatred that bloomed within him. He clung to his parents, quaking with more rage than his small body could contain. Graven nudged Coram Lexington’s body as if to make sure he was really dead, and Will snarled, his arms tightening around his parents’ bodies. 

“Don’t touch them,” he said, seething. “I’ll kill you.”

Will didn’t know where the threat came from. He had no weapons, no strength to speak of, no combat training, and no relics to put action behind his words. But he meant it down to his core.

Graven didn’t respond at first. Didn’t move to stand. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, didn’t strike Will down alongside his parents. 

“You have spirit,” Graven said finally. There was no remorse in his voice as he studied the broken, grief-stricken boy at his feet. “Come. One day, you’ll understand why they had to die.”

“I will never understand,” Will spat. “And I’m not coming with you. You killed them!”

Graven let out a heavy sigh, annoyed but unhurried, like he was the one being inconvenienced. 

“Yes,” he agreed. As if it were up for debate. “But sometimes, violence is the only way to build a better world.”

*not final proof