Read The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) for Free Online Page B

became a symbol of unity between the people, the capstone of the new civilization. A hundred years later, no one knew who had Heron blood and who didn't, and when The Kreft sent spies to take root on Honora, they believed as the people did…that this was the way it had always been.
    Thanks to Nivy, Reece had been able to mostly fill the gaps in his father's research. He knew The Heron's weapon had been on a planet named Icarus, and that Icarus was now the largest Kreft outpost in the Epimetheus. Three-fourths of The Heron people lived in slavery in The Ice Ring, while the other twenty-five percent remained hidden on scattered moons and in tiny, unsuspicious towns. Nivy was one of the Underground's most beloved children. She had been sent to retrieve The Aurelia .
                  Aurelia wasn't like her brother Aurelius; she hadn't been just a passenger ship. Nivy wasn't sure how, and Reece didn't have a clue, but somehow, Aurelia was the key to finding the weapon The Heron had never truly destroyed, and maybe even tipping the scales in the Epimetheus's favor.
                  Struggling to put gestures to her thoughts, Nivy pointed to herself. The Heron . She mimicked shooting guns, fighting, explosions. War . The Heron's war.
                  “Do you believe that?”
                  Nivy was one of the strongest people he'd ever met—she'd even let herself be collared with that band that kept her from speaking in case she was ever taken captive—but she wasn't hard, at least not like he'd first thought. She did what she had to, but he didn't believe for a second she would refuse her people help out of pride.
                  Nivy studied him for a moment, her face unreadable. Then she shook her head and pointed directly down at the ground, a gestured he'd weeded the meaning out of before. Now . Not now. Not anymore.
                  An alarmed shout echoed up from below; something banged, and glass crunched. His hand jolting to the hob tucked inside his jacket, Reece leaned out from the lantern and glared into the dark. The lights below had gone out.
                  “Nivy,” he hissed.
                  She nodded and blew out their lantern.
                  After a few moments of scuffling and grunting, someone struck a flint and relit one of the lanterns on the crates.
                  “It's alright,” Mordecai called, picking up the lantern and holding it at a level with his mustached face. “You can come on down. Just a little scuffle, is all.”
                  “What happened?” Reece asked as he and Nivy rattled down the winding stairs, following the light as Mordecai sparked more lanterns back to life. Two had tipped and lay in puddles of dark oil on their sides. Agnes had her arm around Po's shoulders—they were sitting together on the crate behind Mordecai—and Tilden, Gus, and Gideon were clustered around a kneeling Hayden and a spread-eagle, unconscious Owon.
                  “Just what I said would,” Gideon growled over his shoulder, hands on his double-barreled revolver. “He made a move. Almost got out the hatch.”
                  Reece kept his hand on his hob as he approached and knelt beside Hayden, who looked frustrated.
                  “I don't blame him,” Hayden said quietly. “He's never left alone. He hasn't seen daylight in a month. And you have a tendency to treat him like a rabid nightcat.”
                  “I don't recall you feelin' quite so sentimental when he tried to kill you.” Gideon paused. “ Either time he tried to kill you.” He crouched, joining Reece and Hayden, his nostril curling as he glowered at the Vee. “Honestly, Cap'n, I don't get why we don't just kill him.”
                  Hayden made a noise that sounded surprisingly close to a hiss, and Reece held up a hand to