Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] Read online

  SKIES OF GOLD

  The Ether Chronicles

  ZOË ARCHER

  DEDICATION

  To Zack, for all the battles we fight together

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  Special thanks to Suleikha Snyder for her language assistance, and Glossaria for her help with ship terminology. Any inaccuracies in this book are entirely my own, and shouldn’t reflect on these awesome women.

  And thank you so much to Amanda Bergeron, for believing in the world of the Ether Chronicles.

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Announcement Page

  About the Author

  By Zoë Archer

  An Excerpt from Less Than a Gentleman by Kerrelyn Sparks

  An Excerpt from When I Find You by Dixie Lee Brown

  An Excerpt from Playing the Field by Jennifer Seasons

  An Excerpt from How to Marry a Highlander by Katharine Ashe

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  The Outer Hebrides.

  A dark serrated shape pushed up from the gray horizon. Were she a more fanciful sort of person, Kalindi MacNeil might have imagined the shape to be an ancient beast, the sort that legend told lurked in the cold waters off the western coast of Scotland, eager to drag ships down into the sunless sea. Standing in the prow of the small steam ferry, she shivered, drawing her cloak more tightly around her.

  Don’t be a grease brain. It’s only an isolated island. Exactly where you want to be.

  The boat chugged closer, spewing peat smoke into the air. Tetrol fuel didn’t make its way into isolated places like the Outer Hebrides, and coal was just as rare. She might be able to tinker with the ferry’s engines, design a way for it to process its fuel more efficiently and without churning black smoke into the atmosphere. Before she’d left Liverpool, she’d been in the process of analyzing new engine designs for seafaring vessels so they could compete with airships in terms of speed and productivity. Airships were strictly in service to the military at the present, but some day in the future, they’d certainly be used for commercial purposes, and Kali had been planning for that time ahead.

  But then the world had turned to flame, and all thoughts of tomorrow burned with it.

  She pushed the thoughts from her mind. All that mattered for the foreseeable future was the island ahead of her.

  The ferry passed a few miniscule outcroppings of rock jutting out of the sea. Some were furred with long grasses, and one even had a tree of some sort growing out of it in a display of brave defiance. But aside from half a dozen seabirds perched on the tiny islets, she’d have no neighbors. None within a dozen miles over choppy waters, anyway. And she didn’t have a boat of her own.

  “Certain of this, lass?” The ferry’s captain—and sole crewman—called from the wheel. She didn’t want to stand beside him. Captain Campbell smelled of peat smoke and brine and a woolen jumper seldom cleaned. “Ain’t nobody lived on Eilean Comhachag in near fifty years.”

  “Thirty,” Kali corrected him. “The last member of my family left the island almost three decades ago. Sought their fortune in Skye and never went back.”

  “Can’t say as I blame them. Nothing out here but wind and solitude.”

  Kali smiled. “Perfect.”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Campbell eyeing her warily. Was it because of her odd answer, or was it because he’d likely never seen a woman of half white, half Indian blood before? It didn’t matter. All she cared about was reaching Eilean Comhachag and being blessedly alone.

  The captain fell silent as he steered the boat closer to the island. As they neared, details emerged. A rocky beach faced an eastern bay, one of the only places a vessel could approach safely. The beach sloped up, disappearing into thick gorse. Sharp hills jutted in a line from north to south, forming the island’s spine. Rowan trees gathered in clusters along the base of the hills. As they had approached, she had noticed the high, jagged cliffs plunging into the sea on the island’s western shore. Eilean Comhachag was longer than it was wide, somewhat kidney-shaped. But most of it remained a mystery, including its size.

  Sailing closer, she studied the vague map her father had drawn for her. The map itself was over fifteen years old, and shaped by her father’s hazy memories. Alan MacNeil had only been to Eilean Comhachag once, as a very small boy.

  “Dismal place,” he’d said to her when she’d asked him about it. “Only rocks and bogs and trees that moaned with the wind. Cold as the Devil’s arse.” Then he’d grinned beneath his gingery beard. “Not like our comfortable home here in Nagpur.”

  Her father had been one of the few British soldiers who’d loved the heat of India. Kali missed its warmth, too, but she wouldn’t go back. Not to Nagpur, not to her mother and father. How could she . . . now? If she returned to Nagpur, it would be too easy to become simply her parents’ daughter. But she needed to know who she was now, and she couldn’t do that if held too close in the sheltering embrace of home.

  The faded map she held revealed few clues about her future home, so she stuffed it into the pocket of her cloak. She’d just have to explore it, once she’d gotten set up. Hopefully, the terrain wasn’t too rocky. That’d prove a challenge.

  Campbell guided the boat into the bay, slowing and then stopping the engine before the vessel’s hull hit the beach. As expected, the only occupants of the shore were a small number of wading birds, who took to the sky as soon as the boat stopped.

  “Where are the owls?” Kali asked. “It wouldn’t make sense to name this place Owl Island otherwise.”

  Dropping anchor, the captain said, “Night creatures, they are. I expect you’ll hear ’em after the sun goes down.” He glanced back and forth between the pile of Kali’s belongings lashed to the deck and the beach. Some twenty feet of shallow water separated them. “I don’t have a dinghy, lass, and, begging your pardon, you don’t seem strong enough to help me carry that lot onto the shore.”

  “I’m not,” she answered. Between her trunk and numerous mechanical devices, only the burliest of stevedores could transport her things. A Man O’ War could do it without any problem, but one seldom found the technology-enhanced men on tiny Scottish islands. Either they were in the skies serving their countries, or they’d gone rogue and used their strength and airships in the service of their own desires, turning mercenary. Fortunately, no rogue Man O’ War would ever bother with a dot on the map like Eilean Comhachag. Neither would a Man O’ War in military service. She was safe. But she still had twenty feet of shallow waters to negotiate before she’d be truly secure.

  Back on South Uist, it’d taken four brawny shoremen to load up the ferry with her belongings. “I’ve got a way to get everything safely, and drily, to shore.”

  The captain watched her with bald curiosity as she bustled around her belongings. Everything was fastened together with lengths of steel-enforced cords onto a large wooden pallet, ensuring that none of the ropes would snap from the weight of h
er possessions. Though everything was well secured, she was able to open one of her traveling cases, and the captain cursed softly when she produced four tiny brass-encased ether tanks.

  “How’d you get those?”

  A corner of her mouth curled up. “Connections.”

  She secured each of the tanks to the corners of the pallet using leather straps. A small metal box was mounted to one of the tanks, with a long insulated wire tethered from the box to a handheld device. Mounted in the center of the handheld device was a dial, with a brass pin sticking out of the side. She pulled on the brass pin, and the box she held suddenly hummed to life.

  Campbell swore again when the ether tanks began to glow. They seemed to struggle for a moment, and then the wooden pallet rose up, lifted by the tanks. Setting the box aside, she crossed to the small tetrol engine affixed to the pallet and pulled on its starter cord. The engine growled to life, and the pallet moved over and beyond the rail of the boat. Picking up the control box, she used its dial to guide the pallet over the shallows leading up to the beach. Louvered fans were attached to the back of the pallet, pushing the whole thing toward the shore. She frowned in concentration, hoping none of the ether tanks suddenly lost buoyancy and sent her belongings plunging into the water.

  Slowly, the pallet drifted closer to the beach. The cord attached between the device on the tank and the control box stretched tight. Kali sighed with relief when it finally reached the shore, and she set it down onto the rocks. But the length of the cord wasn’t quite long enough, and it tugged from her hands. At least the cord and the box were both waterproof.

  “The name of God was that?” Campbell asked, awed.

  “Something we’d been working on in Liverpool,” she answered. “To help loading and offloading cargo ships.” But she and her colleagues hadn’t gotten too far before their work had been interrupted. Destroyed. A half dozen tanks and a handful of the control boxes had survived. Given the state of Liverpool now, it’d be a long time before the docks would need anything like the loading devices. Guilt had gnawed at her as she’d taken a few for her own use—but it’d been more important to get out of the city and as far away as possible, so she’d grabbed what she could and fled.

  “Saali kutti,” she cursed now. She’d safely transported her possessions to the shore, but hadn’t thought about how to get herself from the boat to the beach. The water was only a few feet deep, but she couldn’t risk it.

  She turned to Campbell. “Captain, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask a very great service of you.”

  He grinned knowingly. “’Course. Fine ladies don’t much like water.”

  I’m not a fine lady and I don’t give a damn about water, she thought. Her father had taught her to swim in Shukrawari Lake. Now, however, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to make the trip to the beach. Anger rose up, red-tinged. What had once been so easy, even pleasurable, was fraught with possible danger.

  “There’s an extra sovereign in it for you,” she answered.

  At least he looked offended by her offer. “As if I’d take money for doing the honorable thing.”

  Easily, he swung over the rail of the boat and landed in the water with a small splash. Standing in the shallows, he opened his arms to her.

  Kali gingerly lowered herself into his embrace. This was the first time a man other than a doctor had held her in over three months.

  Campbell mistook the stiffness in her body for fear. “Never fash yourself, lass. I’ll have you safe and dry in just a minute.”

  He slogged through the water, and though the hem of her skirts dragged a little in the surf, the captain held to his promise and kept her dry.

  He set her down awkwardly on the rocky beach, and she fought to keep from stumbling. When he reached out to steady her, she held him off with an outstretched hand. “Only getting my land legs,” she said briskly.

  Which must have been a common complaint, because he didn’t press for more details.

  She shook out her skirts and readjusted her cloak. She tugged the tethering cord through the waves, pulling the control box out of the water. “Many thanks, Captain. I can manage from here.”

  He stared at her, appalled. “Just leave you here? In this blighted place? Alone?”

  “I made myself perfectly clear when I hired you. You were to ferry me to Eilean Comhachag and then return in a month’s time to resupply me.”

  “But . . . but . . .” He turned in a circle, taking in the beach, the slope leading away from the shore. The utter isolation. “You’ll need shelter.”

  “And I have it.” At the captain’s skeptical look, she sighed inwardly. Normally, she’d have been charmed by Campbell’s consideration. Yet things hadn’t been normal for her in months. “Here—I’ll show you.” It’d be the only way of getting rid of him. Damn these islanders and their thoughtfulness.

  Leaving her belongings on the beach, she climbed the slope leading away from the shore. Tall grasses shivered in the breeze. Campbell’s heavier footsteps sounded behind her, and he snorted with effort. He was like a turtle—far more fleet in the water than on land.

  Away from the beach, they headed inland, crossing a small, rock-strewn field. More windblown trees stood like lost souls hovering around the gates of Paradise, denied entrance but unable to move forward or back.

  “There.” She pointed to the far edge of the field. “My shelter.”

  “It’s naught but a pile of rocks,” Campbell protested.

  “But it’s my pile of rocks.”

  The cottage had been built some hundred years ago by an enterprising MacNeil, presumably thinking that because the island wasn’t inhabited, it would make for perfect fishing. Alas, the catch hadn’t been enough to warrant the relentless loneliness, and the cottage had been abandoned. But every few decades, another MacNeil thought to try their luck again. And every few decades, the cottage was deserted again.

  Now it had a new MacNeil taking up residence. Though she had no intention of fishing. And the very thing that had driven her ancestors away was precisely what drew her.

  She approached the cottage, with Campbell slowly following. For all the wonders of this modern age, none of those advancements had touched this place. The cottage was nothing more than four stone walls with a slate shingled roof. Two narrow windows—the glass cracked—flanked a single door, barely holding onto its hinges. A heavily rusted pump stood close by. Likely the only source of water.

  Pushing open the protesting door, Kali peered inside. The movement startled some creatures living within. Birds darted past her, chittering as they wheeled up into the sky, and furred little beasts scuttled into the walls. She smiled to herself as Campbell yelped in alarm.

  The interior of the cottage held a table, a single chair, and something that at one time had been a rope-strung cot and horsehair mattress, but was now likely the furry little beasts’ nest. A cupboard had been mounted to one of the walls, its sole occupant a chipped clay mug and plate. Smoke from the hearth had stained the ceiling. The hearth itself contained just a spit and a grate for burning peat. It had been so long since anyone had lived here, there weren’t even ashes in the grate. A rusty basin on a narrow stand must have served as the sink. There were no taps. No running water. No water closet.

  For the first time in her life, she actually hoped for an outhouse.

  Dust and cobwebs filmed every surface, giving the inside of the cottage a hazy look, as if it was a half-remembered dream that the dreamer would gladly forget upon waking.

  “I have ample shelter,” she said.

  “Here?” Campbell’s eyes were round. “You can’t mean—”

  “But I do.”

  “It’s not fit for the veriest bedlamite.”

  She walked farther into the cottage. Cleaning wasn’t one of her favorite activities, but she’d have a full agenda for the next few days. Or weeks. At least she came prepared. “Perhaps I am a bedlamite, Captain. And this is my asylum.”

  He chuckled at that, th
en his laugh turned uncertain when she simply looked at him.

  “Lass—Miss MacNeil, it’s not safe here.”

  “On the contrary. No place could be safer.”

  “What if the Hapsburgs or Russians find you?”

  Burning ice spread along her back, and ached in her leg. “The Russians and Hapsburgs were chased from Liverpool three months ago. They won’t be returning to Britain for a long while. And they wouldn’t bother with this place. No one cares about Eilean Comhachag.” Exactly why she’d come here.

  The captain exhaled loudly. “I don’t like it.”

  “Fortunately,” she answered, “you don’t have to.” Her conscience pricked at her rudeness, but now that she’d finally set foot on the island, all she wanted was its promise of solitude.

  “What if I came back in two weeks instead of a month?” he offered. “Just to be certain you’re well.”

  “A month will suit me perfectly. And I want you to let your fellow watermen know that I don’t desire any visitors. Only you, once a month.”

  “For how long?”

  She hadn’t considered that. How long did she need this self-imposed exile? How long before she’d want to join the world again? “As long as it takes,” she finally answered.

  Campbell tugged on his beard, his gaze fixed upon the floor. “Lass,” he said haltingly, “is there . . . are you in hiding?”

  More cold fire fanned through her. She could barely move her lips to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “There’s no shame in it.” The captain spoke quickly. “My own grandda was a smuggler—whisky, silk, clockworks—and he’d have to go underground sometimes when the tariff men came sniffing around. If maybe you took something, and needed to keep low for a while, well, I’d not think less of you.”

  Kali almost laughed. “I assure you, Captain, that I’m no thief.” Aside from the ether tanks and control box, everything in her possession truly belonged to her. If anyone had been stolen from, it was her.