Blows from a pry bar on the cover of the crate echoed painfully inside it, and soon thereafter the crate jerked as it was being moved out onto the pier to be loaded into The Son of Taris. Sunlight formed tiny threads of brightness along the seams between the planks making up the crate. Kira caught a clear whiff of the sea, grateful that the openings in the seams of the crate were large enough to admit a little air.

The dock workers walked into the warehouse to get more cargo. Kira heard the tiniest whisper from Jason. "Now what?"

"We wait," she breathed in reply.

"And then? What will happen once we're on that ship?"

What would her mother do? Her father had told her the answer to that. "We'll improvise."

"Improvise?"

"Do you have a better plan?"

The workers returned and fitted tackle to the crate. Kira felt it swinging upward and over, her stomach lurching at the motion. After hanging for a short time that felt much longer, the crate began lowering to the shouts of those outside. The light leaking in through the small gaps in the boards vanished as the crate entered the hold of The Son of Taris.

Kira lay in the crate, fighting fear of being in the dark, confined space, wondering if the air inside the crate was growing fouler without a breeze to drive fresh air inside, and wondering what would happen next. Had she just doomed herself and Jason?

Chapter 9

Flying on a Roc should have been terrifying. Mari didn't know why it wasn't. After all, not only was she high in the air, so high that houses looked like small toys, but as a Mechanic she knew that it was physically impossible for something like Rocs to fly. The fact that the Mages insisted the Rocs weren't real birds, that they were imaginary, shouldn't have been any comfort. But then, Mages insisted that the entire world and everything in it was imaginary, illusions created by people. And there was something immensely comforting in the strength of the Roc beneath her. She lay along the upper back, the vast wings stretched out on either side, feeling the Roc's muscles moving beneath a cushion of feathers which were each large enough to overtop Mari's height if stood on end. Mage Saburo sat in front of Mari, just behind the Roc's neck. Hunter, Saburo called his Roc. Among the other changes since the fall of the Great Guilds, Mages who created Rocs were now allowed to name the creatures they created.