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    Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1)
    Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1)
    Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1)
    Ebook121 pages

    Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1)

    By Jennifer Silverwood

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Qeya has spent her life aboard a ship adrift on heaven's edge. Being Royal means more than being groomed to rule her home planet. Though young, she can wield a scythe blade and suck the life out of her enemy, literally. That her whole life has been planned out for her, including whom she will marry, has never bothered her...until her ship is attacked.

    Forced to lead before she is ready, Qeya must find a way to put aside ancient prejudices so they can all survive. Old enemies must form new alliances if they are to last the night. For no one knows the secrets of the new world and only a few can survive the living nightmares at heavens edge.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJennifer Silverwood
    Release dateSep 3, 2012
    ISBN9781301566594
    Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1)
    Author

    Jennifer Silverwood

    Jennifer Silverwood has been involved in the publishing world since 2012 and is passionate about supporting the writing community however she can. After studying traditional art at university, she began helping Qamber Designs bring authors’ books to life. In real life, she’s a mom of two, a passionate reader, and an occasional artist. Jennifer is the author of three series—Wylder Tales, Heaven’s Edge Novellas, and the Borderlands Saga—and the stand-alone romance titles Stay and She Walks in Moonlight.Discover more with Jennifer’s blog on writing life and other bookish delights at www.jennifersilverwood.com

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      Book preview

      Qeya (Heaven's Edge #1) - Jennifer Silverwood

      QEYA

      A HEAVEN’S EDGE NOVELLA

      Jennifer Silverwood

      Copyright ©2012 Jennifer Silverwood

      Edited By

      Jessica Augustsson

      Published by JayHenge Publishing KB

      Cover Art By

      Najla Qamber

      Formatting by

      Champagne Formats

      License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      TITLE PAGE

      COPYRIGHT

      QUOTE

      I: FORGOTTEN

      II: DAMAGED

      III: REMEMBERED

      IV: LOST

      V: ABANDONED

      VI: MISSING

      VII: FOUND

      VIII: FORGIVEN

      PREVIEW OF OHRE

      OTHER BOOKS

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      "Some battles choose us.

      The rest we must choose."

      -Qeya Orona ne Datura

      I: FORGOTTEN

      My childhood lullaby was the metallic blend of grinding gears, of hissing hydro fans and the growl of plasma engines burning.

      It had been so long since our feet had trodden the soft soils of Datura that we would have tripped on solid ground. No other mining vessel had spent as long in the heavens as us. Explorers were few and far between, so deep on the rim of the universe, that when we chanced upon each other, our visits turned into one long party.

      Mother and Father, who led because they had been born to lead and couldn’t function any other way, asked the usual questions. Have you been to the Center of late? What changes have come to the core worlds? And their answers were always the same.

      No change, no reassurance that our home world was free from tyranny and the royal family could return at last. We were cursed to float eternally on this hunk of scrap metal, doomed to never set foot off of it.

      Qeya, you must be patient, Mother would insist. Soon you shall ascend. Only then will you be old enough to join the search crews. But for now, continue in your lessons, prepare for our return. Do your duty and watch over those who look up to you.

      Occasionally we felt the need to stretch our heaven legs on the surface of an uncharted world. This far out on the Rim that meant every habitable world we came across, because no one had bothered to map it before. Most of the stars we passed by only harbored dangerous worlds, giant balls of poisonous gasses and violent storms. We never lingered long there, only enough to gather essence from the sulfurous airs to power our engines before we sailed on again. But sometimes the shuttle Pioneer found something. Sometimes they found aliens with strange skins and eyes and tongues used to curse rather than welcome us. This wasn’t surprising though. Few worlds near the Center were capable of sustaining the fragile balance of life. Here on the Rim, few were balanced enough to support thinking peoples. So we didn’t expect to ever find a world we could colonize and name for ourselves. And Father would never dream of landing Datura 3.

      This ship is our home among the heavens, until the day of our return, he’d said once. After the Federation is drawn up and ready for my print, then we will take on the Guild.

      But unlike my parents and all the other adults on our ship, I knew the truth. We were never going back.

      I had just turned fifteen that season and memory of my home world was fading even for me. Yet there were so many things about our palace—the way the twin baby suns reflected off the opalescent walls and silver streams, the way the abandoned ocean cities shone with the light from below, the way the air near the palace always smelt like fresh qeyas, our sweetest flowering fruit—that I could never forget. Impressions like memories stayed with me long after the seventh year of our journey turned.

      Arvex made fun of me because I was named after a fruit, but at least I wasn’t named for him, the reason we could never go home again. Father’s sister had joined with a core worlder who brought his poison to the inner courts just before Arvex was born. Mother says in the beginning we listened to his ideas of peace with the Galacian warrior king because we were tired of fearing what might happen otherwise. All roads seemed to be leading to a civil war between the inner worlds. He said an alliance was our only hope of keeping peace with the Guild. But now my father’s sister is dead because of him and we are exiled while he rules from our palace.

      Older than me by two years, my handsome brother was meant to be king, and I his Orona, the healer. We were next in a line that reached beyond written history. No one knows why the king needed his sister to be a healer. Even the word orona outdates any language on Datura. My father’s sister told me she believed it was from the time before our ascension. Two ages have passed since we dwelled beneath the seas that coated most of our planet. Long enough for us to forget that our way had been any different from what it was now. For seven thousand years, this is the way it has always been on our watery home world, as even as the moon tides. Only in our lifetimes had the cycle changed and our parents did not know how to cope.

      This is why we were not like the thousands of other refugees who found the nearest good worlds beyond Galacian influence and settled down. We just kept sailing until the black holes grew thicker around us, until we’d reached the areas where our star charts no longer had any names. Arvex was the first one to dub the Rim, the Edge, among us. This added to his popularity but the sad truth was he wasn’t the first to introduce new slang. Pirates said they called it the Edge because if you sailed beyond this part of the heavens you would fall down an endless abyss of nothingness.

      Here there be monsters, dragons, they say. Here was the edge of the universe.

      Qeya! A blur of platinum braids blocked my view out the window to beyond. I grimaced. Only three of us had the rare silvery hair of the northern clans and her two elder siblings had already ascended to the deck above ours. Hanea was a year younger than I but a much taller and willowy creature. Recently the other boys had begun to notice how well she filled out her leggings and tunic, boys like my brother Arvex.

      Did I mention the one downside to living on a massive ship with the same people for seven years? No escape.

      Here I find you of course! She laughed brightly with a glance at the glowing lights of the beyond, of other worlds and their stars. She heaved a sigh. Doesn’t it ever bore you to just stare out that window all the time?

      I shrugged. What else should I be doing?

      She bristled, just as I knew she would. Hanea and people like her were products of breeding. She was perfection in her heeled boots, her flawless grace created to be an ornament for some influential politician. There was nothing of use about the poor thing, and out here, it was clear she did not belong, just like the rest of Father’s crew. This is why the pirates we occasionally ran into, or explorers and traders too poor to stay near the Center, found us so fascinating. We were a miserable collection of the brightest, best and beautiful of our world. Unfortunately, we had no purpose on the Edge. We didn’t even run the leaking ship! That job belonged to the miners we’d hitched a ride with during the evacuation, miners people like Hanea had nothing to do with.

      She jutted out her lower lip in a childish pout. Why must you always be so difficult, Qeya? You’re never any fun.

      Fine… I fought the inclination to hit her and dampened my temper. Turning to face her vexed green eyes, I gave in to what we both knew she was really asking. What else do you want me to tell you? You were joined with Arvex the day you were born. So I don’t see why it matters what he thinks of you.

      Hanea gasped, grabbed my covered wrists in a panic. How can you say that? Of course it matters. Arvex is so good and worthy. I want to be best for him.

      Rolling my eyes I glanced behind me at our deck, where those too young to be counted were locked away. When the elite adult members of our crew took over the miner ship they attempted to recreate our castle arrangements. So to keep the miners and us out of their way, our parents took the top deck and placed us on lockdown in second. Here we continued the lessons without the aid of palace tutors, trained our bodies for the battle we were one day meant to fight. For those young enough to remember no other life than this, second deck seemed ideal. We ruled ourselves, acted as though we called all the shots. We were our own mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. What they did not understand was our studies were a way to confine us, keep us pure from miner influence. It was a smart way to keep us under the watchful care of our parents but out of the way of those navigating the controls, or the miners working below.

      Every deck was lined with rooms or quarters ringing the center. Our hovel-sized homes might be the length of our bodies only. Male and female quarters were placed on opposite ends of the long divided

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