Writer in Motion Week Two: The Self-Edited Draft

 Shorter, snappier and with a name now:

Flight of Folly

Caius stepped onto the balcony, passing silently into the late morning light. The land dropped sharply away below, rock becoming ice becoming sea.

He hated it here in Tsor. Hated everything about it. The way his feet never got warm. The way everything tasted like salt. The way he’d followed Isidore here, as though he’d had no other choice.

“Tell her,” Miranda had demanded over a breakfast of stale bread and fish. “It’s bad enough that you’re miserable, but you’re becoming distracted.”

She was right. None of them could afford distraction. Not with the armies of Airec preparing to destroy both of its neighboring kingdoms in one fell swoop. And so Caius forced himself onto the balcony where Isidore spent her mornings. Not that he paid any attention to her routines.

She was leaning over the balcony as though about to take flight. Wind pulled strands of hair from the braids of dark curls crowning her forehead, creating an unruly latticework across her face. Caius fought down a horrifying impulse to pull her back from the edge. A smile lit her face, as though she’d just seen something that pleased her deeply. 

He took a hesitating step forward, and her head snapped to the side. The smile dropped away, and something in Caius’ chest tightened. Wind sent his own blonde hair careening across his face, and he let it. How foolish, to think he might be someone who could make her happy, when all he’d ever done was the opposite.

“My apologies. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” He turned to head back into the tunnels, but her voice arrested him.

“Tell me again.” He glanced back. Her brows were drawn together, a small line dividing them as she absently bit her lip. It was the face she made when she was puzzling something out, and he cursed himself that he knew that. “What are the three ways into Airec?”

“It’s nothing you don’t already know,” he replied, surprised by the question. By the fact that she was asking him anything at all. He let himself lean against the railing beside her, telling himself that the swooping sensation in his stomach was a response to the staggering drop-off below. “By air, by sea and by land. I don’t have the dragons to move my own army, let alone both of ours. And it’s too late in the year to travel by sea. The passage at Saxela will be frozen solid.” He eyed the lonely ship on the horizon, dwarfed by the ocean. Just as their combined forces would be more than outmatched by Airec’s.

 “Which leaves the pass through the Irreb mountains.” Isidore’s mouth twisted. “Where they’ll see us coming for miles.”

The council had hashed it over dozens of times, each conversation leading to the same reckless conclusion. They would march their armies through the pass, and many if not most of them would die. Their only hope was that enough would make it through to put up a decent fight, and that luck would be on their side. 

There was little good about the plan.

“What if we could go under the mountains?” Isidore asked. “If our armies made it through the pass whole, we’d have a fighting chance.”

Cauis’ spine went rigid. “Those tunnels haven’t been stable since the earthquake crushed Egeon’s armies one hundred years ago.”

“I could do it.” Confidence lit Isidore’s face, her smile returning. “You saw what I did when the cliff collapsed. I think I’m strong enough hold the tunnels. We could travel below ground by day, and then come up at night to sleep.”

“You think?” An urge to brush a piece of wind-whipped hair behind her ear nearly overtook him. Caius shoved his hands into his pockets.

Dangerous. She was dangerous.

“The instability of the tunnels isn’t the only problem.” Panic crept in as he realized how serious she was. “The echnals that hunt in those tunnels picked off a fifth of Egeon’s forces, even before the mountain made itself their tomb.”

“That’s still fewer fighters than we’ll lose marching straight into Airec’s defenses.” She took a step forward, eyes alight with something none of them had felt in weeks: Hope. Caius felt as though he were being cleaved in two. “And it wouldn’t have to be all of us. With you leading your dragon fighters above, we would have the advantages of surprise and of the air.”

Her words were a bucket of chill water dousing him.

“You can’t possibly think I wouldn’t be going with you.”

“There’s no need—" 

“Stop.” He turned away from her, terrified of what she might see on his face. “I won’t send my people into nearly certain doom while I hide in the clouds.”

“You wouldn’t be hiding,” she protested. “You’d be leading our second offense.”

Only when he was confident that he’d schooled his features into a smooth mask did he turn back toward her. “You may be able to move stone, Isidore, but you cannot move me. Juno will lead the dragons. I will lead my people into the earth.” His lip curled into a smirk. “Perhaps I’ll surprise you and make myself useful.”

He saw the moment she relented. “If that’s the price of you supporting my plan with the councilors, I’ll pay it.”

“I am glad you find my company as odious as I find yours.” He imbued his words with as much scorn as he could muster, pushing himself back toward the tunnel. 

He returned to the tiny cave that was his room to find Miranda waiting, her thick, grey hair hidden beneath a hood. “Did you tell her?”

He shook his head. 

“Coward,” she sighed.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or perhaps I was distracted by her plan to march our armies directly under the Irrebs. Or by the fact that I found myself agreeing to accompany her.”

Miranda’s eyebrows flew up. 

“I take it back.” Her voice was gravel. “You’re not a coward. You’re a fool.”