Chapter One

Water and Ice

They had travelled so far, yet it seemed like only yesterday that Mai was selected to journey to the Valley of a Thousand Thoughts. Her memory of the selection day was still clear because she was a thoughtbanker. A thoughtbanker’s memories never fade over time, and sometimes their dreams are not dreams at all, but real memories. The previous night Mai had dreamed of the forest on fire and Akra uprooting the earth to save them from the wall of flames as they fled, leaving the forest city behind to its fiery fate. Now, after two weeks of sailing towards Algus, the City of Ice, Mai stood on the deck, searching the horizon. There was only water for as far as the eye could see.

Mai looked back to the quarterdeck where the captain stood, his arms crossed and his hands kept warm under the armpits of his soft leather coat, which was lined with fur. Gloves were mandatory for everyone who ventured outside. Even the sailors who were working on the deck wore them. The cold this far north had the power to freeze one’s fingers, the captain had told them. Mai had felt so cold for so long she couldn’t feel her feet. Even with all the layers she wore the cold found a way into her body. She missed the warmth of the desert sun beating down on her.

The captain’s shout to a sailor climbing the foremast broke Mai’s thoughts of the hot desert sun. She watched him step down from the quarterdeck, leaving control of the ship to his second-in-command. He disappeared from her sight with two sailors trailing behind him.

The captain was a big man with a big voice. He could be heard clearly above deck and sometimes below too. His big size matched his big head, which was always covered by a phthalo-green hat complete with a long feather. It was the strangest feather Mai had ever seen. When she had asked the captain about it, he’d said it was from the upper tail of a male peafoth—only the male birds had feathers in shades of brown, blue-green, a dusting of yellow and the most amazing turquoise colour. He’d said, with great appreciation, that they run wild in the forest. Then his face dimmed as a sad thought took him home for a moment. Mai had heard his thoughts and she felt sad for the peafoths too.Those that didn’t flee the forest would have surely died in the fires.

Mai cared about the soulbankers and the creatures that lived in the forest. She had always cared about animals, even when othe