“Good,” he said, and then he grabbed me by my uninjured hand and the darkness came in.
Marjani’s ship was a big Qilari warship called Goldlife, and it didn’t belong to Marjani but to a skinny, mean-looking captain named Chijal who had a jagged white scar dividing his face clean in half. Nobody so much as glanced at Naji’s face when they hauled the rowboat up on deck – and though she didn’t say nothing I had a feeling Chijal was the reason Marjani had bartered her way onto this particular ship.
The crew was rowdy and loud, drunker as a group than the crew on the Revenge, and even more lewd. The first day I had to hold my knife to some guy’s throat to keep him from grabbing at me.
When night fell, and we’d cleared out of sight of the Isles of the Sky, Marjani took me and Naji down to the brig. Nobody was down there on account of the manticore, though she seemed more preoccupied with trying to lick every spot of brig-sludge off her coat.
“Girl-human!” she bellowed when I dropped off the ladder. “I demand my release at once!”
I pressed my hands against the bars. I felt sorry for her, I really did, but even I wasn’t about to let her free on a ship full of men.
“If I let you out, you’ll eat half the crew,” I said. “And a ship this size, we need ’em to get you back to the Island of the Sun.”
She pouted.
“Yes,” said Marjani. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I turned to look at her. Somebody’d strung up a trio of magic-cast lanterns that swayed with the rhythm of the boat, casting liquid shadows across Marjani and Naji.
“We’re not going to the Island of the Sun,” I said.
The manticore hissed. So did Naji.
“You realize that manticore wishes to eat me, correct?” he said, sounding like snakes.
“No, we definitely are dropping off the manticore,” said Marjani.
The manticore hissed again, and I turned and shushed her.
“We’re just not doing it with this boat.”
Me and Naji both stared at Marjani, and she gave us this wry little smile.
“This is about that favor you want from us, isn’t it?” Naji asked.
“It won’t be difficult,” she said. “Certainly not for you…” she looked at me when she said that bit. “The Goldlife crew are gonna help us steal a merchant ship, and then we’re gonna sail her into Bone Island and get her a crew.”
“And then you’ll take me home?” the manticore asked. “Will you cure the Jadorr’a’s curse first?”
Nobody answered her.
“Who’s gonna captain?” I asked. “One of Chijal’s men?” The thought of it turned my stomach. The officers were just as loutish as the crewmen.
“Oh, absolutely not,” said Marjani. “We’ll captain her. Me and you together.”
Naji looked relieved, but I just stared at her.
“That’ll never work,” I said. “Ain’t no man’ll sail under a woman–”
Marjani held up one hand. “That’s why I needed both of you.”
“No,” said Naji. “Absolutely not.”
I looked from him to Marjani and back again, and in those sliding soft shadows I saw her plan taking shape: put Naji in some rotted old Empire nobility cloaks and he’d look the part of captain sure enough. A mean one, too, what with the scar.
“You won’t actually captain anything,” I said. “Right? We’ll use him to book a crew.”
“Exactly,” said Marjani. “Captain Namir yi Nadir. I started spinning tales about him while I was looking for a ship to bring me out here.”
“What!” Naji asked. “Why?”
“So men’ll want to sail with you,” I told him. “What kinda captain is he?” I grinned. “Brutal and unforgiving, always quick to settle a dispute with the sharp end of a blade? Knows how to whisper the sea into a fury anytime a man disobeys him? A real monster of a captain, right?”
Naji was glaring at me, his eyes full of fire. Seeing him angry like that soothed the hurt inside me. Not a whole lot, mind, but enough that some of the sting disappeared.
“Of course not,” Marjani said. “I want men to sail with us, not fear us.” She turned to Naji. “I put out stories about you sacking the Emperor’s City with a single cannon and a pair of pistols and another one about you seducing a siren before she could sing you to your death.”
The anger washed out of Naji’s face. “And people believed that?”
“People’ll believe anything, the story’s good enough. I also put out word that you pay your men fair, you offer cuts of the bounty even to the injured, and you’ll sail with women.”
“I do all that?” Naji frowned. “I’m not even a pirate.”
“No, you’re an assassin,” I said.
The anger came back again, just a flash across his eyes, but it was enough.
Marjani gave me a look that told me to cut it out.
“All of this is moot until we get a ship,” she went on. “So Ananna, I’d like to see you arm yourself with more than a pistol and a knife. Naji…” She gave him a half smile. “Well, your Jadorr’a skills may be required.”
Naji scowled.
“This is the only way we’ll be able to complete the rest of the tasks,” Marjani said, and my face went hot, cause I knew then that he’d told her everything, about the curse’s cure and my kiss. “You’ll never be able to convince Chijal to do it, that’s for certain.”
And then she walked out of the brig before Naji had a chance to answer.
We sailed for four days and didn’t see another soul, just the gray expanse of sea and sky. It was colder on the boat than it had been on land, the wind sharp against the skin of my hands and face, like it could flay it from my bones. One of the crewmen, a boy from the ice-islands named Esjar who had white-yellow hair and looked about my age, gave me a pair of sheepskin gloves.
“For the lady,” he said, with this weird flourish I realized was meant to be an Empire bow.
I took the gloves and stared at them. Papa’d always told me to treat the ropes with my bare hands. Ship gets pissy otherwise, he said. Rope’ll slip clean away from you.
“They stop the cold.” Esjar spoke Empire, but he had the same hissing accent as Eirnin. “We ain’t in Empire seas anymore. Out here, you need them, same as you need that pretty red cloak.”
I glanced down. Marjani’d let me have her cloak once we came on board – she had another one, dark blue, that she said she liked better – and I had to admit it kept me warmer than any clothes I’d ever owned. So I slipped on the gloves.
They helped. Yeah, the ropes slipped out of my hands more often, but at least my fingers could move.
Esjar and I became friends after that, chatting sometimes as we were working the ropes. He’d actually heard of the Mists – most of the ice-islanders had, in fact, which surprised me, seeing as how they ain’t so well known in the south. Esjar explained to me that the boundaries between worlds are thinner up at the top of the world, and most ice-island children learn early on to look out for flat gray eyes and cold mist.
“Which is tricky,” he said, looping the ropes into a sheet knot. “Cause mist is all over the place in the north, and gray eyes ain’t too uncommon either. So you learn to pay attention to the differences.”
“The differences?”
“Yeah.” Esjar nodded, tugging the ropes tight. “Nothing from the Mists is human, and you can tell that, when they’re creeping around. Something’s off about them. Like they don’t got a soul.”
I nodded, remembering my encounters with Echo and the others back in Lisirra. “But you don’t really notice until it’s too late.”
“That’s the trouble with them.” Esjar started knotting the next two ropes together. “The whole thing with them is that they want to get to our world, cause our world’s more stable. Not so much magic.”
I laughed at that. “There’s magic all over the damn place.”
“Sure, but not like in the Mists! Those floating islands w
e just picked you up from – that’s what the Mists are like, only worse, much worse. They’re built out of magic, see? And a little bit seeps through to our world and the magicians can make it work. But in the Mists magic is everywhere. So they want to come here and take over cause it’s safer.”
I shivered. Esjar hunched over his work, face scrunched up in concentration. I remembered the story Naji had told me, about how he’d stopped a lord of the Mists from crossing over permanently. That was why they were after him now, and it’d never made much sense to me, how persistent they were. But the Isles of the Sky, especially before Naji worked his spells to keep us safe, had been awful – not just cause of the cold and the rain, but cause everything was so uncertain.
And living in a world like that, only worse? I’d be trying to cross over too.
“What else do you know about them?” I asked. Esjar tied off the last of his knots and looked at me.
“Not much,” he said. “Why you asking?”
“Just curious, is all.” I grinned as if that would prove it. “It’s creepy, you know, like the stories of the dead my old crew liked to tell.”
Esjar grinned back. “In the south you fear the dead. In the north we fear the Mists.” He squinted out at the horizon line. “Not much else to tell, truthfully. Their magic is dangerous, cause they’re so seeped in it. My papa told me a story once about a cousin who faced down a man of the Mists, and his skin turned to tree bark and he rotted into the soil before anyone could save him. Supposedly he was alive for the whole thing – people could hear him screaming and begging for mercy and whatnot.”
My whole body went cold.
Esjar looked at me and frowned. “But my papa was known for bullshitting,” he said quickly. “So it probably wasn’t that bad.”
The sails snapped around us, the wind cold and biting, and I forced myself to believe him.
One evening the crew all gathered up on deck for drinking and singing and storytelling. I went too even though it meant having to listen to stupid jokes all night – I noticed Marjani made herself scarce.
I hadn’t been out there an hour when Naji slunk up, sword hanging at his side, rubbing at his head like something must’ve kicked up his curse. Probably from some of the crew leering at me all night.
“I don’t need your help,” I hissed at him, dragging him over to the railing. The sea was a churn of black and stars.
“I’m not here for you,” he said. “Though you really should be more careful. Those men aren’t… they aren’t honorable.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “You think I’ve never been on a ship full of drunk pirates before?”
“They could still overpower you–”
“I thought you weren’t out here for me.”
He didn’t say nothing, just turned his face toward the sea. I stalked away from him. Fine. Let him slash at any asshole who tried to grab at me. Get us tossed into the ocean, he would.
I huddled up near the fire some crewman had got going for warmth. Esjar was sitting over by the fore mast, playing a tune on this beat-up old Qilari guitar. I glanced over my shoulder at Naji – he was watching me, one hand on his sword hilt. Conspicuous as hell. But at least he’d see what I was about to do.
I walked over to the mast. “Hey, ice boy,” I said.
He stopped playing and looked up at me. “Hey, sun girl.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I ain’t never been any good at flirting, but Esjar looked at me with these heavy-lidded eyes and said, “See you’re still wearing my gloves.”
“Oh.” I held up my hand to show him, even though he’d obviously already noticed. “Yeah. You’re right, I needed ’em.”
He laughed and started plucking out a Confederation tune on his guitar. I didn’t say nothing – I wasn’t too keen on letting him know who I was, since the Hariri clan almost certainly still had a watch out for my head, despite all the time that had passed – but I did sit down beside him. His fingers moved deft and sure over the guitar strings.
Naji was still watching us.
I was sweating underneath my cloak and the cold sea air, nervous. Esjar finished up his song and set the guitar off to the side.
“So what’s your story?” he asked me. I was surprised; for all our conversations, we’d never really talked about ourselves before.
“Ain’t got one.”
Esjar kinda smiled at that, but he didn’t ask no more questions. We sat side by side for a few minutes, not talking. I scooted closer to him. He put his hand on my knee.
“I don’t got much of a story, either,” he said.
We sat in another few moments of awkward silence while I tried to figure out what my next move should be. I was aware of Naji standing at the railing, turned sideways to us, like he was watching us out of the corner of his eye. I was about to ask Esjar if he wanted to go down below, but then a couple of crewman struck up an old Empire song, bright and cheerful.
“Hey, sun girl, you know this one?” Esjar asked.
“Sure do. It’s got a dance that goes with it. I can show you if you want.” When Esjar nodded, I stood up and held out my hands. He laughed and grabbed both of them and I pulled him to his feet.
I looked over at Naji, trying to be casual about it. He was frowning at us.
Least your head ain’t hurting no more, I thought bitterly.
I led Esjar to the center of the deck and showed him the basic steps. In truth, I didn’t know the dance all that well – I’d watched people do it whenever I made port in Lisirra with Mama and Papa, and I’d followed along with the steps once or twice. But I knew enough to show Esjar: mirrored steps, back, right, forward, swinging your hips all the while. He took to it quickly enough, and we swung over the deck, laughing and whirling while the rest of the crew stomped out a beat.
When the song ended, the crew burst into applause, and Esjar pulled me into him and kissed me.
It surprised me, but I liked it, too, and I kissed back, tasting the sea salt on his lips. Part of me wanted to see how Naji was reacting, but part of me just wanted to kiss Esjar until the sun came up.
We pulled apart. I couldn’t help myself this time, and I glanced over at Naji, who was watching us with his face shrouded in shadows.
Then the crew started another Empire song, and Esjar whooped and pulled me into the dance again, and for the first time in months, it was almost like Naji didn’t exist.
The next morning, I got a couple of water rations from the galley and then headed down to the brig, where I found the manticore, curled up in the corner and mewling like a kitten.
“I brought you some water,” I said.
“I want meat, girl-human!”
“You’ll have meat tonight.” I picked the lock with my knife and let myself in, skirting around the neat pile of crushed pig bones. The crew kept some livestock on board, and they gave her the bits nobody wanted to eat, plus fish, which she apparently ate despite claiming it wasn’t food. “Once me and Marjani have our own boat I’ll make sure you get real food.”
“Manflesh?” Her head perked up. Her face was dirty, her mane matted even though I’d worked through the tangles a few days earlier. The sight of her twisted my stomach.
“I’ll see what I can do. Here.” I dumped the water in her bowl and she knelt down and lapped at it. I sat beside her, stroking her side, listening to the drip drip of seawater coming through the boards.
Footsteps on the stairs. I prayed to Kaol that it wasn’t Naji.
Marjani’s head appeared in the doorway. “Brought you something,” she said. “Oh, Ananna, you’re down here.”
“Where else would I be?”
She shrugged, then grinned at me. She had a burlap sack with her, the bottom stained red. The manticore lifted up her head and sniffed.
“Animal meat,” she grunted.
“Yeah, well, I keep hoping some of those barbarians’ll hack each other to bits, but they just… don’t.” Marjani pushed open the cel
l and dumped out the contents of the burlap sack: fish heads and a pair of shriveled up old pig’s feet, more than a little moldy.
“Best I could do,” Marjani said.
The manticore returned to her water.
Marjani gestured for me to get out of the cell. I sighed, patted the manticore’s shoulder, and stood up. I knew the manticore would eat the food Marjani brought her, but she’d only do it alone. Pride. And I couldn’t much blame her.
“Heard you had a good time last night,” Marjani said.
“Yeah? Who’d you hear that from?”
“Half the crew. And Naji,” she added, giving me this disapproving look I didn’t like one bit.
I wasn’t gonna ask her what he said. I wasn’t going to ask her if he seemed angry about it or annoyed or sad. Mostly cause if she told me he didn’t care, I was pretty sure I might die.
“We just danced,” I said.
Marjani laughed. “And kissed. A couple times.” She paused. “Do you know how to make the moon tonic? The cook should have all the ingredients.”
I blushed and nodded. Mama had shown me how to mix it up when I turned fifteen.
“I doubt he’ll know what you’re making,” she added gently. “The cook isn’t exactly well informed on the matters of women.”
“I told you, I don’t need it! We didn’t do anything!”
“For the future, then.” She smiled. “Anyway, that’s not actually what I need to talk to you about.” She peered out the brig doorway, and then turned back to me. “Those… people… who are after Naji. They’re here.”
My stomach turned to ice, but then I realized we were still sailing along, no magic erupting out behind us, no soldiers of the Mists crawling over the deck. But Marjani looked skittish, almost scared. I grabbed her by the hand and led her over to the bench built into the wall.
“What happened?” I said. “Tell me everything.”
She took a deep breath. “I was in the navigation room last night, checking our progress. Alone. And then all of sudden this woman was in there with me. I didn’t hear the door. She was just… there.” Marjani shivered.
“Echo,” I said.
“What?”