I stalked out of the galley angry and shaking. I didn’t know anything about starstones. I’d never even heard of them before the Wizard Eirnin had rattled them off as part of Naji’s cure, and as far as I knew Marjani and Naji hadn’t talked about them in detail. But I guess I was wrong, if Jeric yi Niru had managed to pick up on it. Ship walls leak secrets.
I went back up on deck. Marjani wasn’t nowhere to be seen – some old Confederation pirate was handling the helm. She was probably in the captain’s quarters. Maybe she could find some excuse to toss Jeric in the brig and I wouldn’t have to worry about it no more.
The manticore was stretched out over on the starboard side, her head lying on top of her paws. I stopped by to drop off her food.
“Hello, girl-human,” she said. “We are close to the Island of the Sun, yes? I can smell their sands on the air.”
“Yeah, we’re close.” I dumped out the fish and the seabird. She sniffed at ’em, didn’t say nothing. No surprise there.
“You’ll get to eat all the humans you want soon,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, sounding glum. “I had hoped the Jadorr’a’s curse would have been broken–”
“You want to stay on the boat?” I said. “You can stay. Munch him all you want once we’ve cured him.”
The manticore looked at me with horror. “No more boat.”
I smiled. “I figured.”
She leaned forward and swallowed a fish head with one gulp. “You wouldn’t bring him back to the island?” She looked at me, fish scales glittering on her lips. “Even after he soul-hurt you?”
“That’s not a good reason to kill a man.”
“You aren’t killing him,” she said. “You’re feeding me. His energy would live on.” Her eyes were clear and golden, like water filled with sunlight. “For us to eat a man, it is a great gift.”
“Dead’s dead,” I told her. “Sorry.”
She blinked like she didn’t understand, and I ran my fingers through her mane and left her to her meal.
I walked over to the captain’s quarters and banged on the door.
“Open up!” I shouted. “It’s me.”
Naji answered, his face still covered. I don’t know why he bothered when he locked himself away in his quarters all the time.
“Hello, Ananna,” he said, and the fact that he hadn’t come down to the galley when Jeric was threatening me lingered on the air.
“Marjani in there?”
Naji held the door open wider and stepped back. Marjani was leaning over the navigation maps.
“Oh good,” she said when she saw me. “My navigator.”
“We need to talk,” I said.
She thrust the sexton at me. “Check our course,” she said. “You needed to do that this morning.”
I looked down at the map. An emerald brooch was stuck in the Island of the Sun, a lady’s hairpin stuck in the southern coast of Jokja. Shouldn’t it be Lisirra? But I didn’t say nothing about it; I had bigger concerns at the moment.
“You know that Empire soldier we signed up?” I said.
“Not Empire anymore,” Marjani said.
“He threatened me.”
That got her attention. She lifted her head, eyes concerned. “What?”
And so I told her what had happened in the galley, about him being onto our ruse with Naji, and knowing we were chasing after the starstones, all of it. Marjani listened to me and the lines in her brow grew deeper and deeper the longer I talked.
“We should be able to hold him off until we arrive at the manticore’s island,” she said when I finished. “We may have to leave him there.” Though I could tell that didn’t sit right with her at all.
Naji had slipped over beside us while I spoke, and he looked at her above his mask, and he said, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Leave him with the manticores.” Naji hesitated. “We may need… he may prove useful.”
There was this long stifling silence.
“Oh?” Marjani asked. “You’ve decided to play captain now?”
I’ll give him credit; Naji didn’t even flinch. “Marjani,” he said. “Have you ever seen a starstone?”
Marjani glared at him.
“Neither have I,” he said. “But when I asked the Order about them…” his voice trailed off. “If the man has knowledge, it may come in useful.”
“Absolutely not. He’ll stir up a mutiny if we leave him on board.”
“She’s right,” I said. “An Empire soldier learns how to be a weasel from boyhood. He wants something from us–”
“Then give it to him.”
Marjani and me both looked at Naji in surprise, but he didn’t seem to notice. He pulled the mask away from his face, and even though I didn’t want it to, my breath caught in my throat.
“I want rid of this curse, and I’m not taking any chances,” he said. “Keep him alive, this Empire soldier. Keep an eye on him, and keep Ongraygeeomryn near you, but don’t kill him.”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “What’s his name? This soldier? Do you know it?”
“Jeric.” I hesitated. “Uh, yi Niru.”
“Oh,” said Naji, frowning. “He’s a noble.”
“Yeah, which means he’s doubly untrustworthy.”
“Just keep him alive,” Naji said.
Marjani shot him another dark look, but he pulled the mask back over his face and turned away. I leaned back over the navigation map and set up the divider.
Then the warning bells rang.
CHAPTER SEVEN
We ran out on deck, swords and pistols drawn. The crew were lined up against the starboard side, their voices a low murmur.
“The hell are you doing!” Marjani screamed at them. “Get your asses to work!”
They turned around, and when they saw Naji with his sword and his mask, they took off scrambling across the deck. Something glinted out on the horizon. Smoke trickled into the air. Fear clenched in my belly.
Marjani grabbed the spyglass off the helmsman and peered through it.
“Holy hell,” she said. “They’re Confederation.” She laughed.
Naji slunk up behind me and put a hand on my arm. I didn’t try to shake him off.
“What clan?” I whispered.
“Dunno.” She peered through the spyglass again. “Red background, black skull–”
“With a crown?” I could hardly breathe. “A skull wearing a crown?”
“Looks like it, yeah.”
“The Hariris,” I said.
Naji pulled me close to him. My heart jolted in my chest like lightning was running through my body. “Go down below,” he said. “And stay there. Take the manticore with you.”
“What?” Marjani looked from him back to me. “Why? They’ll see us flying pirate colors and let us–”
“They’re after me.”
Marjani’s face went dark.
“I’m sorry, I shoulda told you–”
“Why in hell is the Hariri clan after you?”
“Ananna,” Naji said. “Please. Go.”
“No,” Marjani said. “Don’t you dare move from that spot. What do the Hariris want with you?”
My voice shook when I spoke. “I was supposed to marry Tarrin – Captain Hariri’s son – and I didn’t want to… and then I killed him…”
This time, Marjani’s face turned ashen.
“You killed a captain’s son?”
I nodded.
“For Kaol’s sake, Ananna, why?”
“He was gonna kill me–”
She shook her head. “No. Explain this to me later.” She clanged the attack bells, deep and ominous and so loud they hurt my ears.
“Arm the cannons!” Marjani shouted. “Prepare for battle!”
“Please, Ananna,” said Naji. “Please hide.”
“No!” I jerked around to face him. “This is my fault. I ain’t gonna go cower in the brig while you and Marjani and everybody fights for
me.”
Naji’s eyes looked sad, and for a half-second I thought maybe he was worried about me and not about the pain of the curse.
I pulled away from him and raced across the deck toward the manticore, who had stood up, her tail curling and uncurling.
“This noise, girl-human,” she said. “Are we close to land?”
“Fraid not.” I stood face to face with her. “You see that speck of light out there…” I pointed to the horizon. “It’s a ship full of men you can eat.”
Her eyes lit up.
“In exchange for a meal,” I said, “may I ride you? Into battle?”
“With the other ship?”
I nodded. “They’re after me, and I bet they try to board.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to protect me.”
She scowled. “Do I look like the Jadorr’a?”
“Please, Ongraygeeomryn.” I know I mangled her name cause it came out sounding like a blood-cough and not like bells at all, but she still smiled without showing her teeth. “It would do me great honor to ride you into battle.”
She dipped her shoulder, and I climbed on. Her wings rose up around me like a shield.
“Where should I go?” she asked.
“The helm, the helm!” I pointed with my sword. Men were stopping their work to stare at us, but I ignored them as the manticore bounded across the deck, leaping up beside Marjani.
Naji didn’t say nothing at all.
“Bring the ship around starboard!” Marjani shouted. The men scrambled up in the rigging, moving the sails. She grabbed the wheel and yanked it hand over hand. The manticore trumpeted and dug her claws into the wood as the ship tilted and turned.
Naji’s eyes began to glow.
“I wouldn’t–” Marjani said.
“You are not me.” Naji crouched beside the manticore, his eyes fixed on the Hariri as she loomed larger and larger.
“Do they have another assas… another Jadorr’a on board?” I asked him.
“No.” He pushed his coat sleeves up to his elbow and drew the knife over the swirl of one of his tattoos. Blood welled up in thick shining drops. He dropped it over the deck, and when it struck the wood it began to glow pale, pale blue.
The manticore licked her lips. I yanked on her mane. “You’ll be eating soon enough.”
Naji ignored both of us.
At the helm, Marjani screamed, “Keep working! Get those cannons lined up! Ral, I don’t want to see you looking over here. The Hariri’s your concern now! Move! Go!”
My heart pounded up near my throat. Naji knelt down at the splatter of his blood and began to chant.
The Hariri got closer and closer.
I threaded my fingers through the manticore’s fur.
The wind was warm and the air was clean and Naji’s voice hummed with my heartbeat.
And then the Hariri fired her cannons.
The Nadir jolted, sending me and the manticore skittering backward. Naji slammed forward on the deck but didn’t stop chanting. Marjani brought the ship around, side by side with the Hariri.
“Fire!” she screamed.
A chunk of the Hariri’s side blew out across the water. Smoke curled up in the air.
And then I saw it.
The machines the Hariris had out in the desert, the ones that glinted metal and glass: they had them on the boat, too. That glint of light flashing off the surface of the sea – it’d been their machines.
“What in hell?” asked Marjani.
“Oh no,” I said, my body shaking.
Naji glanced up, his eyes bright and empty-looking.
One of the machines unfolded itself from the deck of the Hariri, looking like some golden insect. With a long, whining shriek, it leapt up into the air, metal wings beating into a blur, heading straight for the deck of the Nadir. The men screamed and scattered.
Naji said something in his language.
The machine froze in mid-flight, its wings stilled. For a second, it hung there, shining like a piece of jewelry.
Then it crashed down into the sea, water sloshing in a great wave over the side of the boat.
Silence and smoke.
“Keep firing!” Marjani shouted.
The men listened to her. Cannon fire erupted across the side of the Hariri.
More machines lifted up off her deck. They were like wasps, like spiders, like stinging scorpions. Only all of them could fly, and all of them were big enough to hold a pair of grown men.
“What are those things?” Marjani yelled.
“Metallurgy.” Naji’s voice shook.
The machines buzzed through the air. Ten of them. Fifteen.
“We can’t turn the cannons up,” I said.
“Fire!” Marjani shouted out to the crew. “Use your pistols!”
Shot blasts erupted all over the deck. The machines moved forward.
Naji chanted. One of the machines sputtered and crashed into the water. Another. Another. But his voice was fading, turning scratchy and old-sounding. They were closer, closer – one of them began to spiral out, and it spun and spun and then slammed into the side of the Nadir. The whole boat tilted.
Naji collapsed across the deck.
I leapt off the manticore and knelt beside him. His breath came out raspy and weak. I yanked the mask away from his face and he sucked in air. His skin was pale, his brow lined with sweat. But he sat up.
“I couldn’t breathe,” he said softly.
“Don’t wear your mask.” And I flung it aside, just as the machines landed across our deck.
“Get on the manticore.” He shoved me away and stood up, his movements shaking but strong. I clambered onto the manticore’s back.
“I can’t eat these creatures,” she said to me, and for a minute I thought she sounded scared.
“You’ll eat what’s inside of ’em,” I said.
The largest of the machines groaned and split open. Captain and Mistress Hariri sat beneath the shield, both of them dressed for battle and armed with a trio of pistols each.
“We’re here for Ananna of the Tanarau,” said Mistress Hariri, her voice like death. “She murdered our son. By the rules of the Confederation, you must hand her over.”
The men lined up along the edge of the boat, pistols pointed at the Hariris. Half of them were Confederation, and they knew better than to fire.
“We aren’t flying Confederation colors,” Marjani said. “We don’t have to adhere to Confederation rules.”
“Where’s the captain?” asked Captain Hariri. “Captain Namir yi Nadir? Where is he?”
Marjani didn’t answer. She just pulled out her pistol and cocked it back.
“Here.” Naji stepped forward.
Captain Hariri looked at him for a long time.
“You’re not a pirate,” he said. “You’re a–”
Then Naji spoke in his language, and light erupted out from the lines of his tattoos and the splatters of his blood on the ship’s wood, and it arced across the ship and slammed into Captain Hariri’s machine. The machine shot across the deck.
Both of the Hariris jumped out of the way, nimble as cats, and everything started again.
The rest of the machines roared open. Hariri crewmen poured out. That knocked our own crew out of their stun, and they launched forward in melee, pistols blasting and swords ringing.
“Ongraygeeomryn!” I shouted, pulling out my sword. “Now!”
“Ananna, no!”
But I wasn’t listening to Naji. We flew off the stern deck, the manticore trumpeting loud and perfect. She landed square on the chest of some poor Hariri clansman and his blood spilled across the deck. I caught sight of Captain Hariri in the blur of pistol-smoke and fighting and got off one shot and missed. He disappeared behind one of the machines.
“Manticore, this way!”
She lifted her head and hissed. Nobody was coming anywhere close to us, which probably made Naji happy – if it weren’t for the occasional bullet whizzing past my head, anyway. But I needed to
get to Captain Hariri. It was the only way to end this.
“Come on!” I shouted. “Time to eat later!”
She leapt to her feet and then galloped across the deck. I swung my sword out against a Hariri crewman and tried to find Captain Hariri in all the confusion.
“The machines!” I shouted, pointing with my sword. The manticore hissed again, but she slunk up to them, her ears pressed flat against her head. I felt like I was in the chiming forest again, all that sunlight bouncing off the spindly metal legs.
We crept slowly, cautiously.
A shot fired off and zipped past my head. I crouched down and buried my face in the manticore’s mane while she reared around and sent a pair of spines zinging through the air. I heard a man scream.
The manticore skulked forward, the muscles in her back and shoulders tensed and hard. She sniffed at the ground.
For a moment, the smoke cleared, and there was Captain Hariri, reloading his pistol.
I yanked out my second pistol, took aim–
A blast of Naji’s magic echoed across the boat, bright blue and smelling of spider mint. Everything tilted. My head spun. The manticore snarled and leapt out of the way of the falling machines; Captain Hariri disappeared, knocked out by the force of Naji’s blow.
Magic showered over the side of the boat, staining the water that icy Naji-blue. The Hariri smoked and glowed – she had moved closer to us, her cannons firing.
Another blast of magic.
This one knocked me off the manticore, and I slid across the deck, my body smearing with salt water and blood. All over the ship, men were fighting best they could in the daze of magic, swords swinging sloppy and wide. I caught sight of Jeric yi Niru drawing his blade across the stomach of a Hariri crewman. When the crewman fell, Jeric dragged me to my feet.
“First mate,” he said. “Your captain is dying.”
“What?” I took him to mean Marjani, but when I turned to the stern deck she was still spinning the wheel one-handed, her pistol cocked and ready in the other. Not dying at all.
“No,” he said. “The fake captain.”
“Naji!” I pulled away from him and raced across the deck. I could hear the manticore behind me, the soft snapping squelch of her jaws on some crewman’s neck. Men’s screams. I didn’t look back.