**Chapter 58 – The Sky Court Knocks Early
**September 11, 2029 – Aerie Academy, the first five minutes of war**
They come down like silver hail.
Hundreds of Sky soldiers in mirrored armor, wings made of living gale, spears that scream when they cut air.
I'm already moving.
*Sânge Furtună* hits the rail that runs straight off our broken balcony and I drop with it, wind roaring in my ears, Hellebore Mist drawn and hungry.
The first soldier dives at me, spear leveled for my heart.
I flick my wrist.
Lightning answers before I do, forks out of clear sky and punches straight through his chest plate.
He explodes into wind and feathers.
One.
Remy is a black-and-gold blur on my left, full dire-coyote, leaping from island to island, tearing wings off with his teeth.
Every time he lands, the ground cracks like thunder.
Seras is a sunrise with fists, she punches straight through three soldiers at once, armor blazing so hot their armor melts off them mid-scream.
Lucian is the storm itself, wings wide enough to blot out the citadel's shadow, lightning chaining from soldier to soldier until the sky smells like burnt ozone and terror.
Kayo opens nine portals at once and steps out of all of them, tails lashing, foxfire blades carving soldiers into confetti.
Rowan stands on the roof of our dorm, book open, speaking one calm sentence in a language that makes reality hiccup.
Half the Sky battalion suddenly forgets how wings work and falls screaming into the void.
I ride the lightning rail that loops the main plaza, board sparking violet, katana singing.
A Sky captain (taller, older, crown of frozen stormclouds) drops in front of me, spear spinning.
**Sky Captain:**
"Yield the throne you were never meant to sit, little queen."
I smile with too many teeth.
**Celeste:**
"Come take it."
He lunges.
I parry with Hellebore Mist, the blade drinks his spear's wind and spits it back as a tornado that rips his own wings off.
He stares, shocked, as I flip the board, kick him in the chest, and send him spinning into the void.
Ten.
Twenty.
They keep coming and we keep answering.
I see Kael Stormrider riding a spear of solid hurricane, laughing like this is the best morning ever.
I see students I don't even know yet forming ranks behind us, eyes blazing, boards glowing, ready to die for a school they just met.
I see the citadel above us open wider, something massive and ancient starting to descend.
And still we fight.
Because this isn't just a battle.
This is the line we drew in the sky the night we refused to scatter.
This is the promise we carved into the football field.
This is every time the universe told us we couldn't keep each other and we answered with thunder.
I land on the titanium half-pipe, boots sparking, katana dripping wind and blood that isn't mine.
Remy lands beside me in human form, breathing hard, braids wild, golden eyes locked on the citadel.
**Remy:**
"They brought a throne-ship."
I look up.
A floating palace of stormglass and pain is descending, slow and inevitable.
**Celeste:**
"Good.
I was hoping they'd bring something worth breaking."
I raise Hellebore Mist.
Every oath mark on every wrist in the academy flares at once.
The sky answers with a single, world-shaking crack of lightning that forks into the shape of a blackbird carrying a burning sun.
Message received.
This is our sky now.
And the war has only just started.
September 11, 2029 – directly beneath the Throne-ship**
It descends like judgment made of glass and storm.
A floating cathedral of black stormglass, edges sharp enough to cut the sky itself.
Lightning veins crawl across its surface in slow, deliberate pulses.
At its heart: a throne of frozen thunderclouds, empty, waiting.
They want me in it.
Or dead beneath it.
Either way, they think this ends today.
They're wrong.
I'm standing on the highest floating island now, the titanium half-pipe beneath my boots vibrating like it's terrified and thrilled at once.
Wind screams past me, trying to rip me off the edge.
Hellebore Mist is singing so loud I feel it in my bones.
Remy is on my left, claws dripping silver blood, golden eyes fixed on the descending ship.
Seras on my right, armor blazing white-hot, crimson streak glowing like a comet tail.
Lucian hovers above us, wings spread wide enough to cast the entire plaza in shadow.
Kayo and Rowan stand back-to-back behind us, nine tails and open grimoire forming a perfect circle of gold and violet fire.
The Throne-ship stops a hundred feet above us.
Its underside opens.
A single beam of pure pressure slams down, meant to flatten the island, flatten us, flatten everything.
I raise Hellebore Mist.
And I speak.
Not a spell.
Not a command.
Just truth.
**Celeste:**
"This sky is not yours anymore."
The beam hits my blade and breaks.
The pressure reverses, shoots back up into the ship like a geyser of white fire.
The stormglass hull cracks in a perfect circle around the impact point.
The entire academy roars behind us (thousands of voices, one heartbeat).
I kick *Sânge Furtună* into motion and ride straight up the beam of reversed pressure like it's a vert ramp made of pure defiance.
Remy is right behind me, running on all fours, claws carving glowing scars into the air itself.
Seras rockets past both of us, a blazing meteor with fists.
We hit the cracked hull together.
I drive Hellebore Mist into the stormglass up to the hilt.
The blade drinks the ship's lightning and screams it back out in every direction.
Cracks spiderweb across the entire underside.
Remy tears a hole big enough for all of us with his bare claws.
We breach.
Inside is a cathedral of wind and silence.
Rows of Sky lords in silver armor line the walls, faces hidden behind masks of frozen cloud.
At the far end: the empty throne.
And standing before it, a single figure.
Tall.
Ancient.
Armor made of the first storm that ever was.
The Sky King himself.
He looks at me (really looks) and for one heartbeat I feel the weight of every sky that ever hung over a battlefield.
Then he speaks, voice like glaciers breaking.
**Sky King:**
"You were summoned as a courtesy.
You answered with war.
Kneel, child, and I will make it quick."
I step forward.
Lightning crawls over my skin like it's coming home.
**Celeste:**
"I don't kneel.
I ride."
I flip *Sânge Furtună* under my feet.
The throne room has rails of frozen lightning running its length.
I drop in.
The war inside the Throne-ship begins.
And every grind, every slash, every heartbeat is a message carved into the sky itself:
This is our year.
This is our sky.
And we are just getting started.
inside the Throne-ship, 3:47 a.m.**
The throne room is too quiet.
No wind.
No sound except my board wheels on frozen lightning rails and the low, steady drum of five heartbeats behind me.
The Sky King stands between me and the empty throne.
Ten feet tall, maybe more.
Armor of living stormclouds that shift and coil like serpents.
Crown of black ice and starlight.
Eyes the exact color of the moment before the world ends.
He doesn't move when I grind to a stop ten feet away.
**Sky King:**
"You are a child playing with power older than continents."
I rest Hellebore Mist across my shoulders like it weighs nothing.
**Celeste:**
"And you're an old man who forgot children grow teeth."
His mouth twitches (almost a smile).
**Sky King:**
"You bound six souls beneath my sky without permission.
You wear the storm like a crown you never earned.
Give me one reason I should not unmake you and everything you love."
I step off my board.
Let it clatter to the stormglass floor.
The sound echoes like a gunshot.
**Celeste:**
"Because I'm not asking permission anymore."
I walk forward.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Every step leaves a footprint of violet lightning that refuses to fade.
**Celeste:**
"You watched us burn our names into the earth.
You watched us refuse to scatter.
You watched us choose each other over every throne you ever offered."
Ten feet becomes five.
**Celeste:**
"That wasn't rebellion.
That was coronation."
Five feet becomes two.
I stop just outside his reach.
**Celeste (quiet, deadly):**
"The sky didn't choose me.
I chose it back.
And it said yes."
The King raises one hand.
The entire ship groans.
Every drop of lightning in the walls, the floor, the air itself rushes toward his palm, forming a sphere of pure annihilation.
He could erase me with a thought.
Instead, he waits.
**Sky King:**
"Prove it."
I smile.
And I speak the forty-fourth line of the Deep Script (the one the Gulf taught me the night it knelt).
Not in words.
In thunder.
The sphere in his hand cracks.
Then shatters.
Lightning pours out of it and crawls across the floor to me, wrapping around my wrists, my throat, my oath mark like it's coming home.
The King's eyes widen (just a fraction).
I step into the space he left open.
Close enough to see the stormclouds in his armor flicker with something that might be fear.
**Celeste (barely a whisper):**
"You want your sky back?
Earn it."
I raise Hellebore Mist.
The blade drinks the throne room's lightning and glows white-hot.
For one heartbeat, the King and I are the only two things in existence.
Then he does the last thing I expect.
He lowers his hand.
The crown of black ice on his head cracks down the middle.
**Sky King (voice suddenly ancient and tired):**
"You are not what we feared."
He steps aside.
The empty throne waits behind him.
**Sky King:**
"You are what we waited for."
He kneels.
Not to me.
To the storm wearing my skin.
The entire Sky Court drops to their knees behind him (thousands of soldiers, lords, ancient things that have never bowed to anything).
Silence.
Then the throne room lights up with violet fire as every oath mark in Aerie (ours and every student who fought with us) blazes at once.
I don't sit.
I turn my back on the throne.
Walk back to my pack.
Remy's eyes are liquid gold and pride.
Seras is grinning like sunrise.
Lucian's wings fold like he's bowing.
Kayo whoops once, loud enough to shake the hull.
Rowan just nods, like he always knew.
I pick up *Sânge Furtună*.
Kick it into my hand.
**Celeste:**
"Let's go home."
We leave the throne empty.
We leave the Sky King kneeling.
We leave the citadel cracked and bleeding light.
Because the sky doesn't need a king anymore.
It has us.
And we just won the war before breakfast.
**The Sky Learns a New Name**
September 11, 2029 – dawn, over the ruins of the Throne-ship**
The citadel doesn't fall.
It just… stops being theirs.
The stormglass turns violet-black, the exact shade of my lightning.
The frozen lightning veins melt into living current that dances across the hull like it's happy to be free.
The empty throne dissolves into wind and swirls away, laughing.
Every Sky soldier still alive (most of them) lowers their weapons and bows their heads, wings folded tight.
The King remains on one knee in the center of the ruined throne room, crown broken on the floor, eyes fixed on the space where I stood.
He doesn't speak again.
He doesn't need to.
We walk out the way we came in (six kids with scraped knuckles, cracked armor, and boards under our arms).
The breach we tore in the hull has become a perfect half-pipe of violet glass that leads straight down to Aerie's main plaza.
We ride it home.
The entire academy is waiting below (thousands of students on floating islands, dragons perched on towers, phoenixes circling overhead).
When we land, the silence is so complete I can hear my own heartbeat.
Then someone starts clapping.
One person becomes ten becomes a thousand becomes a roar that shakes the sky itself.
Kael Stormrider is front and center, barefoot, covered in blood that isn't his, grinning like a maniac.
**Kael (shouting over the noise):**
"ALL HAIL THE STORM QUEEN AND THE PACK THAT JUST MADE THE SKY COURT KNEEL!"
The cheer that follows cracks the horizon.
I look for my people.
Remy finds my hand first, laces our fingers, oath marks flaring together.
Seras barrels into both of us, armor dimming to soft gold, laughing and crying at once.
Lucian lands behind her, wings folding, and pulls her against his chest like he'll never let go again.
Kayo tackles Rowan so hard they both go down in a pile of tails and books and pure joy.
We stand in the center of it all, six shadows stretching long across the plaza, while the sky above us rearranges the stars into one new constellation:
A blackbird carrying a burning sun, wrapped in coyote tracks, circled by nine fox tails, framed by dragon wings and an open book.
Permanent.
Real.
Ours.
Later, when the sun finally rises (real sun this time, golden and gentle), the Sky King approaches alone.
No crown.
No armor.
Just an old man in simple gray robes, eyes the color of distant thunder.
He stops ten feet away and bows (not deep, but real).
**Sky King (quiet, for only us):**
"The throne is dissolved.
The Court is yours to command or dismiss.
The sky… is yours to keep."
He places something on the ground between us:
A single feather made of living stormglass, violet at the edges, warm to the touch.
**Sky King:**
"A key.
To every gate, every wind, every secret the old Court ever guarded.
Spend it wisely."
Then he steps back, turns, and walks into the dawn.
He doesn't look back.
He doesn't need to.
Because the sky just changed rulers, and it did it without a single drop of our blood spilled after the fight was over.
Remy pulls me close, mouth against my temple.
**Remy (soft, proud):**
"Coyote Club rule number eleven:
When the old kings kneel, you don't take their throne.
You make them regret they ever needed one."
I laugh until I can't breathe.
Above us, the new constellation pulses once (like a heartbeat).
Below us, Aerie Academy sings our names in a thousand voices.
The war lasted less than an hour.
The victory will last forever.
First week of college?
We just rewrote the sky.
And classes haven't even started yet.