Born of Water: Elemental Magic & Epic Fantasy Adventure

Chapter 6

  RUNNING

  “I’ll need your help docking,” Lavinia said by way of a warning to Ria.

  Ria nodded absently, her eyes opening wide with awe as Kyrron came into view. They were rounding the head of the harbor formed by Mount Eyrt. The size of the city only further intensified Lavinia’s fear. It extended for leagues.

  The city spread out along the wide harbor from Mount Eyrt to the rolling terraced hills on the far eastern side of the bay. Buildings towered over the harbor, rising four to six stories high. They thrust from the hills like a sun-bleached coral reef, jagged and dangerous. Lavinia's doubts grew. She didn't know if she could find the merchant wharves, much less actually manage to dock.

  After Ty’s unexplained outburst the day before, Lavinia had sailed alone for the day, trying to show a reluctant Ria how to steer. Seeing Lavinia managing the boat, Niri took the opportunity to rest until night as well.

  When Lavinia woke Ty to take over at dusk, he looked embarrassed, mumbling about being tired. But he didn't apologize. Lavinia watched him climb the stairs to the deck as if he was a stranger. She was beginning to think he was.

  Lavinia didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed anything unusual when he had come home unexpectedly before the solstice ceremony. He seemed tired, but apprenticeships were meant to be hard. She attributed the dark lines under his eyes to too many nights sailing.

  Now she noticed he was thin, lankier beyond anything she remembered. And angry; she couldn’t remember ever having seen him so disagreeable. That night, Lavinia tossed and turned trying to imagine what had happened to her brother. Ria slept on the large bed in the aft cabin next to her, unaffected by Ty’s tantrum or too exhausted to care. Finally, Ria’s rhythmic breathing lulled Lavinia to sleep as well.

  Niri’s soft knock the next morning brought Lavinia to the door filled with a nameless fear for her brother. But it was only dawn. Niri swayed on her feet she was so tired. On deck, Ty slumped over the rudder post, the sail loose and barely catching any wind. Without a word, Ty gave over the rudder and sail to his sister and followed Niri below.

  Alone, Lavinia listened to seabirds calling as they left their nests high on the cliffs to catch the fish rising with the morning light. Even this far from shore, the smell of oranges and soil was carried on the wind. Ria joined her an hour later, easing Lavinia's loneliness if not her worry.

  The only instruction Lavinia had was that their goal was Kyrron. Ty slept like the dead in the rear cabin she and Ria had vacated. Niri was in the same state in the front. Somehow, arriving and docking had fallen to Lavinia.

  Her apprenticeship had been only four months away. Lavinia wished for one day, just one, on a real merchant ship. Then, she'd be able to do this. But that was a futile wish cast on desperate wings. Lavinia tightened her fingers on the rudder pole, palms sweaty and mouth dry.

  Lavinia navigated the outer edges of the harbor. Ships six times the size of their sailboat bobbed at anchor in the deeper water near the sea. With the sun risen, traffic in the shipping lanes of the busy harbor kept Lavinia’s full attention.

  By contrast, Ria watched the city. Above the congested harbor, the buildings caught the morning sunlight, blazing them luminescent shades of pink, coral, and gold. Long violet and blue shadows slanted away toward Mount Eyrt.

  “I think I’ve been here before,” Ria said.

  “Really?” Lavinia said, voice sharp with anxiety. Three shipping channels opened up before her heading toward different sections of the city.

  “Yes, we came to sell wine, I think, at a new market that had opened.”

  “Do you remember where you docked?”

  The time to decide which channel to choose quickly approached. Lavinia felt like she had eaten a stone anchor, her doubt weighed so heavily.

  “Over toward those pink buildings, I think. The merchant square was over on the small hill there.”

  Ria sounded certain to Lavinia, and that was enough. “Keep an eye out and let me know if you see the dock.”

  Lavinia winched the boom in tight over the deck and turned the brace on the rudder pole. The boat shifted to port, squeezing between an anchored boat and one exiting the channel she'd chosen. The shipping lane cutting through the moored boats was wide, giving her hope that it was the correct direction.

  If that sudden turn didn’t roll Ty out of bed, Lavinia thought with a wince. Random thoughts of both wishing for and dreading her brother’s appearance disappeared. The spaces between the anchored and moored boats became tighter as they neared the first of the docks reaching out into the bay.

  The air was filled with gulls crying and wheeling amid the boats. Men shouted as ships passed within feet of each other in the channel, some nearly colliding as winds shifted and the boats were tossed on the waves. More than once, Lavinia saw the yellow of an Air Elemental on a ship’s deck, but everyone seemed distracted in the chaos of the harbor. No one noticed their little boat or Ria. It was all Lavinia could do to keep the unfamiliar sailboat moving forward while Ria scanned for the wharf she remembered.

  “There! Just beyond the dock with the blue house. Do you see?”

  Lavinia looked where Ria pointed. An inlet to an inner harbor opened to the left behind a small dock jutting from a blue house. What looked like shops full of supplies and wares for sale lined the street above the small harbor. It felt right to Lavinia. With a relieved sigh, she turned the boat to dart across the shipping lanes into the more organized, if not quieter, traders’ harbor.

  The merchant docks were well organized in their bawdy and busy chaos. A harbor master balanced on a skiff floated just inside the entrance to the inner harbor. He barely glanced up to take in the size of their ship to judge the goods they might carry before pointing them to a set of docks.

  “Fourth dowk t’ the left, thi’d slip on the r’ght.”

  Even though he used the common tongue, his trade was accented heavily so that Lavinia barely caught what he said. She nodded to the instructions out of habit, as if it was her father relaying a test. It was easier for her to think of it that way. The harbormaster looked up, glaring at her as she sailed closer.

  “Aye,” Lavinia said loudly, hoping it sounded confident as they sailed past.

  The slip she was sent to was one of the few open. Lavinia dropped nearly all the sail to creep the boat forward far slower than necessary.

  "After all that, I will not wake my brother by accidentally bumping the boat into the dock," Lavinia swore to herself.

  The boat brushed the wooden boards with a whisper as she tossed a line to a waiting attendant and dropped the last of the sail. Boat firmly fixed to the floating dock, Lavinia looked at Ria with wide-eyed relief and sat hard on a bench. Her knees would no longer support her.

  —

  By the time afternoon shadows from the two-story buildings were crossing the piazza, most of the goods Ty, Niri, Lavinia, and Ria had carried to the market had been sold. Fabric and rugs, silvery jewelry and ivory ornaments, boxes of dragon’s fire, and the ever-present spice whose scent filled the boat’s cabin had been bartered off for a tidy pile of coins.

  Ty took the last sack of goods, a silver horn, and an ornamental kettle across the market to sell to other merchants while Lavinia, Ria, and Niri packed up. The constant assault of a hundred voices mixed with musicians resounding from the colonnaded buildings around the piazza dimmed as the market emptied. Single voices now threaded through the swell, recognizable if not understandable.

  Ty appeared before they were done, tension in his frame and movements. Lavinia remembered the men who had come after her brother in Mirocyne. Her heart flipped in her chest. Those men were connected to the boat they had stolen, something Ty refused to explain.

  “Ria’s family is here,” Ty said without preamble. Lavinia blinked. It was the last possibility she had been considering.

  “How?” Ria asked.

  “When you disappeared along with the two of us,” Ty answered in a low voice, “y
our family came to Mirocyne to look for you, only to find the city inundated with members of the Church.”

  “That would not have been good,” Ria choked in response. Lavinia put an arm around Ria’s stiff form.

  “No,” Ty agreed. “They borrowed all the boats our parents had in harbor and came to look for us.” Ty and Lavinia exchanged a quick look, full of the sober understanding of what their parents would do to find them.

  Niri appeared more thoughtful than worried. “You said all the ships. So they don’t know which way we’ve gone?”

  Ty shook his head. “No, but it won’t matter if they see us before we get out of the city. It won’t matter if they ask someone who saw us today. We’ve been in the open market for hours. They’ll find out we were here!” Ty’s voice rose as the words rushed out of him.

  “How did they get here so quickly?” Ria asked. “We’ve struggled to get this far in two days.”

  “They haven’t stopped as we have. They get to a port, ask questions. If they hear nothing, they sail on. They’ve sailed with a crew night and day.”

  “We have to get back to the ship. If they found us, they'd take us back. They don't know the danger,” Lavinia said to her friend.

  Ria bent forward, bright strands of hair sliding to hide her face. “I know.”

  The trip through the market was rushed. Crowds had thinned. Niri gave Ria a scarf to drape over her head to hide her characteristic golden hair. Ty led the way back to the docks, cutting through back alleys with a familiar assurance. Lavinia watched him, once again seeing him as if he was someone she had just met with a past she didn’t know.

  Ty’s face was nearly transparent he was so pale. The dark smudges under his eyes gave him a haunted look. The devilish gaiety he’d always had that attracted trouble but landed him on his feet was gone. To Lavinia, Ty looked more tired than their grandfather. He moved through the city like someone born to its streets, not its docks. Tears stung her eyes as they emerged on the road ringing the inner harbor, almost opposite where she had docked the boat.

  Ty had the Grey Dawn cast off before the dock attendant made it a quarter of the way from a larger vessel he was helping depart. As the attendant opened his mouth to shout, Ty tossed a small purse of money at his feet. He grinned, gave a two-fingered sailor’s salute, and scooped up the coins. Lavinia looked away, wondering how many times Ty had slipped out of a harbor like a smuggler in a rush.

  In the harbor, late afternoon sun shimmered off the waves, reflecting lines up against the hulls of the boats. Every ship appeared to float on liquid light. Out of the merchant harbor and into the main shipping lane, they were close to being free. Looking at the last of the anchored ships, Lavinia drew in a sharp breath.

  A tall and sleek ship, its hull dark from years of use plying the oceans, sat at anchor near the edge of the mooring field. It was large enough that it could not enter the shipping channels or the inner harbor. Vibrant dark-blue pennants flew from the rigging above the tightly folded and secured sails.

  Filled with a sudden longing, Lavinia scanned the decks for any sign of her family. Ty glanced at it once, then turned his face away. He opened their sail fully and swung the boom to catch the wind. The fleet boat pulled quickly away from Kyrron and the familiar ship.

  “Where are we going to go?” Ria asked, sounding forlorn.

  “We never bought supplies today. We still need to stop somewhere before we cross to the southern shore,” Niri answered.

  Ty frowned, gaze fixed on the waves before them. “We don’t have enough money to buy everything we need yet. I was hoping to spend a few days in Kyrron.”

  The wind whistled through the rigging, fluttering the edge of the sail. Behind them, Kyrron and Mount Eyrt were etched in russet light against the darkening sky. Her parents’ ship no longer visible, Lavinia pulled her gaze away to find Ria’s thoughtful eyes were on her.

  “We could go back to Kyrron. Lavinia could go home and tell them we are fine.”

  “What?” Lavinia asked, staring open-mouthed at her best friend.

  “You don’t need to be here, Vin. Niri is running just like me. We need Ty to sail us to Karakastad, but you could go home.”

  “I don’t want to,” Lavinia floundered.

  “Yes, you do. I saw it in your face when you saw your parents’ ship. Your apprenticeship is in a few months. I know how much that means to you. It is all you’ve talked about for years.”

  Lavinia struggled to think of a reply while Ty's thoughtful expression darkened. He cast a sideways glance toward Niri.

  “No,” Ty said into Lavinia’s strained silence. “I need Lavinia’s help sailing. She did fine this morning getting us to Kyrron.”

  Niri didn't seem to have noticed Ty's quick, hostile stare. “I think that would be wise. We could work in shifts, you and I at night, Ria and Lavinia during the day,” she said to Ty.

  “I can’t sail!” Ria exclaimed.

  “I’ll teach you, don’t worry. We’ll get the day so it won’t be so bad.” Lavinia said, trying to encourage Ria. Ria crossed her arms and looked away.

  “If we still need money, where are we going to go then?” Niri asked as the argument to drop off Lavinia died.

  “Sardinia,” Ty answered, catching sharp looks from all three women.

  “You’ve ... you’ve been there before?” Ria stuttered.

  Ty focused on the sail before finally answering, “Yes."

  Lavinia felt queasy again. No honest merchant boat would ever sail to Sardinia. The men in Mirocyne, the stolen goods on the boat, and Ty’s familiarity with markets were adding up to something that couldn't be true.

  “Ty, where have you been? What ...” Lavinia wasn’t really sure what to ask.

  Ty hesitated before he looked at her. The last of the sun’s light brushed the sail marine lavender, almost the same color as his eyes.

  “The merchant vessel I was on wasn’t what I thought it would be. The apprenticeship ... it didn’t go like I expected, not like you’d think, Vin.” Ty flexed his jaw as he looked away again as if holding back other words.

  “But Sardinia? No one decent would set foot there! There has to be somewhere else,” Ria said, worry and fear in her voice.

  Ty’s expression hardened. Eyes narrow, he tossed Ria a fraction of a glance. Ria stiffened next to Lavinia as if Ty had slapped her.

  “Don’t worry Ria, I know my way around,” he said.