We sailed on toward the northwestern corner of the sky. I dropped the fishing nets at Kolur’s feet and then sank down in them, quite prepared to get in a nap before we started fishing. But Kolur was feeling unusually chatty. Just my luck.
“Saw a big school of skrei in the bones,” he said, looking straight ahead out at the starry night. “Last of the season.”
I pulled out my cake slice and nibbled at it while he droned on about throwing the old fish bones he kept in a pouch around his neck. “Odd to see them this time of year, you know. Usually we’re just pulling up ling and lampreys. That’s why I wanted to give it a go. Bones told me they’d be gone by next week.”
I made a muffled humph sound, my mouth full of cake.
“You need to be learning this, if you want to take over your father’s boat someday.”
He paused, waiting for my answer. I took my time chewing.
“Henrik can take over Papa’s boat,” I finally said. “I’ve got other plans.”
Kolur laughed. “Taking cues from that friend of yours? You’d be better served learning how to dance than learning how to fish, if you’ve got your eye on a husband.”
He was talking about Bryn, who was quite beautiful and already had a handful of marriage prospects. Good ones, too. Elders’ sons and even a wizard from Cusildra, two villages over. Most of the girls in the village planned on marrying, but Mama had pushed me into fishing with Kolur. She said I needed to make my own way. I didn’t disagree with her, but fishing wasn’t where my future lay, I knew that. I was going to be a witch.
“Nah,” I said. “Not unless I can marry someone from outside the village. The boys here are dull.” I didn’t bother telling him my real plans. Kolur didn’t talk about much, and I didn’t think he’d understand. All he needed to know was that I didn’t want to be a fisherman or a fisherman’s wife. Ideally, my future would involve as few fish as possible.
Kolur laughed again. “Ain’t that the truth? Glad to see you’ve inherited some of your mother’s good sense.” He tilted the wheel, and the Penelope turned in the water, splitting open the reflection of the moon. It was full and the stars were out, but the night still seemed too dark, like it was trying to keep secrets.
“Here, take over for a bit.” Kolur jerked his chin at the wheel, and I hopped to my feet and gripped the smooth, worn wood while he knelt down on the deck a few paces away, rubbing the space with his hands.
“I just keep going straight?”
He nodded. I tightened my grip and steadied the wheel. Kolur took off his pouch, dumped the bones in his palm and muttered one of the old fisherman’s incantations. As far as I knew, this was the only spell he’d ever attempted.
The bones leapt and rattled in his hand, a tinny, hollow sound, as they charged with enchantment.
He tossed them along the deck like dice. And then he gasped.
Now, I’d learned to read fish bones when I was a little girl, hanging around down at the docks while Papa tended to his own boat, the Maia. It’s easy, easy magic. So I knew what I was looking at when the bones scattered into their preordained patterns. A twist of tail curving out from jawbone: times of strife. A tooth inside a chest cavity: stranger coming to town. And two skulls facing away from each other: romantic troubles.
Not a single thing about the state of the ocean. Not a single thing about skrei.
“What the hell?” I dropped the wheel. The Penelope swung out from under me, and Kolur cursed and I shrieked and realized my mistake and jerked us back into position. The bones scattered over the deck. Kolur slid with the boat and gathered them all up in one clean motion.
“Pay attention, girl!” He squeezed his hand into a fist and when he opened it, the bones were jumping again. “I didn’t tell you to play fortuneer; I told you to take the wheel. You know what happens when sailors don’t do their assigned job? Your mama ought to have made that clear.”
“I’m not a sailor,” I said.
Kolur threw the bones again. This time, they fell in more common patterns, twists and squiggles that gave us a direction, northwest, and the promise of a good catch.
“Told you,” he said. “A school of skrei in the northwest.” He pointed at a scatter of teeth that looked like islands in the Bathest Chain. “There’s our destination. Getting all worked up over nothing.”
“That is not what I saw the first time.”
“Because the moonlight was paying tricks on you. It’s what I saw the first time, until you tilted the damn boat.”
“Then why’d you gasp like that?”
“I didn’t gasp like nothing.” He gathered up the bones again and dropped them back in his pouch. When he stood up, his face had a hardness to it I’d never seen before. A determination. I’d never seen Kolur look determined about anything except the ale down at Mrs Blom’s inn.
“Let me take that.” He grabbed the wheel away from me, and I knew enough to let go. I was still seething about what I’d seen in the bones. He was lying. Which he did often enough, but it still annoyed me.
“Where are we going?” I glared at him, my hands crossed over my chest.
“Told you, girl, the Bathest Chain. Now go set up the nets before we sail right over the damn things.”
He wouldn’t look at me. Kolur was already pretty old, older than Papa at any rate, but in the darkness he seemed ancient. Like the capital wizards who have cast so many spells that the magic keeps them from dying.
“Do it,” he snapped, and this time I did, because I knew if I didn’t, he’d tell Mama and I’d be washing out the outhouse for months. But I wasn’t happy about it.
Kolur and I worked well into the night, the Penelope slipping through the water with the nets splayed out behind her, the fish glinting silver in the moonlight. The air turned colder, and I was lucky I had one of my old winter coats stashed down below so I wouldn’t freeze. Trawling like that was dull work, but with the waters as smooth and calm as they were, it wasn’t dangerous. Most of the night, I just sat around on the boat, waiting until Kolur decided it was time to heave the nets aboard and check the catch. We worked together to get the fish on the deck, then Kolur had me cast the charm to keep them fresh for the two or three days we’d be out at sea, sailing a wide circle around the Bathest Chain. When the Penelope couldn’t hold any more fish, we’d sail back to Kjora, and I’d be free until the next time Kolur decided to drag me away from home.
I thought about home as we sailed through the cold, shivering night. Kolur didn’t go in much for talking if he could help it, but he was unusually quiet tonight. Withdrawn. I didn’t mind the silence; I’d gotten used to it since becoming his apprentice, but it could get tiresome, being alone with my own thoughts all the time. Bryn would probably have some news about her suitors when I got back – she liked to tell me all the details about their weird habits and conversational topics. Mama’d probably make me help in the garden, and we’d sing old pirate songs as we worked. Papa’d come home with stories about his own fishing trip – all of them dull compared to Mama’s stories, even the ones I’d heard over and over. But still, he’d pick Henrik up from the floor and swing him around and then give Mama a big hello kiss. Maybe the sun would even dry up the mud by the time we made it home, and I could go out in the fields and practice my magic without anyone watching.
“Check the nets,” Kolur told me from his perch up at the wheel. I pulled myself away from my thoughts and did as he asked.
“Everything’s fine.” My voice carried with the wind. It was definitely stronger now, the sails snapping and pulling tight on their ropes. I frowned up at them. There hadn’t been anything in the fish bones about inclement weather in either of the castings, and generally I had an easier time controlling the winds than this.
I glanced up at Kolur. He held the wheel tightly and didn’t look at me.
“You think a storm’s coming?” I shouted. “You said the weather would be smooth.”
Silence. The wind was howling now, cold and sharp as knives, the P
enelope tilting back and forth in the water. I reached out for it, trying to call it back through me so I could work my magic, but it was as slippery as the ocean.
“Kolur!” I shouted.
This time, he glanced over at me, his dark hair flying into his eyes. “Yes,” he said, in an odd, flat voice. “Yes, a storm is coming.”
Storms had never scared me much, not even out here on the open sea – I’ve got my affinity with the wind, and I knew enough protection charms to keep the boat safe. But I didn’t like Kolur’s behavior at all. It wasn’t like him. Normally, when a storm blew in, he’d be fussing and fretting over his precious Penelope.
“Do you want me to bring in the nets?” The wind zipped my question away as soon as I spoke it. Kolur looked at me again.
“Yes. The nets. Of course.”
Fear gripped me hard and cold. Kolur wasn’t much of a fisherman, but he never forgot the nets.
I didn’t like this at all.
I pushed my alarm aside and grabbed the nets with both hands and hauled them aboard. If I stood around feeling scared, then that’d be the end of us for sure.
The nets were empty save for the glitter of old fish scales. Ice water splashed over the railing, slapping across the boards and leaving a pale froth in its wake. It was too dark to see anything but the confines of the boat, even with the magic-cast lanterns swaying back and forth. Kolur was still at the wheel. He might as well have been a statue.
I ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm, steadying myself against the podium. “Kolur!” I shouted. “What’s going on? The storm!”
He looked at me, and he looked almost normal. Maybe a little older than usual.
“I’m trying to keep the boat steady, girl. What do you think I’m doing?” He sounded like himself. “Put a charm on her for us.”
I nodded, taking deep, shuddery breaths. Maybe the strangeness earlier had just been my imagination. A little bit of fear creeping out to blind me. That could happen.
I rushed down below to gather up the lichen powder and the mortar and pestle. The Penelope tilted wildly, and everything slid back and forth. Dark seawater dripped down through the ceiling from the deck and stained the cot. I caught a few drops of the water in the mortar and braced myself against the wall as I sprinkled in the lichen powder. As I mixed them together, I muttered an incantation in the language of my ancestors, guttural and sweet at the same time. Magic thrummed through me. All that power of the islands, all that power of the winds, all that power of the north.
The boat tilted again, lifting up on the starboard side. I cried out and covered the mortar with one hand. For one long and terrifying moment, I thought we were going to flip, and then we’d freeze to death in the black and unforgiving sea.
But then the Penelope righted herself, and I cried out in relief and rushed up on deck to finish the rest of the charm.
The winds were worse now and laced through with tiny pellets of ice that struck my bare face. Kolur was still at the wheel, as calm as if the water was flat and the skies were clear. I smeared lichen paste on the masts and the railings, shouting the incantation against a storm. I was so cold, I could hardly think. When I finished, I slumped down next to the small, scattered pile of skrei, trying to steady myself as the boat rocked and the magic flowed out of my veins and into the wood of the Penelope. I could feel it working, distantly, like an overheard conversation. We kept rocking and swaying, but thanks to the charm, the ocean no longer washed over the railings, and the water already on deck was no longer frigid. The storm crashed around us but it didn’t touch us.
I was exhausted.
Kolur looked over at me and gave a short nod of approval. “You did good,” he said. “Kept calm under pressure. Very good.”
He turned back to his sailing.
Yes, calm under pressure. He’d been too calm. But I was too tired to say anything about it. My limbs ached, and my eyelids were heavy. I pushed myself to my feet, leaned up against the mast.
“I need to rest,” I said.
Kolur nodded again, this time without looking me at me. “Figured so. You go on down below, rest off the magic. I’ll see us through the storm.”
Something tickled in the back of my mind, a phantom thought that maybe I shouldn’t trust him. But that was absurd. I’d trusted him for three years, and besides, he was Mama’s best friend.
So I went down below and fell asleep immediately.
CHAPTER 2
I woke up with a headache. Not a bad one, but painful enough to remind me I’d done magic the night before. I’d heard the more spells you cast, the fewer headaches you got, but I didn’t see any of that improvement this morning.
I spent a few moments lying in the cot with my hands folded over my stomach, staring up at the ceiling, trying to sort out my thoughts. Because I was so bleary, it wasn’t until I stood up that I noticed the Penelope wasn’t moving.
Odd.
I shambled into the storage room and pulled out a canteen of water and drank it down. That cleared my head some. We still weren’t moving. Had Kolur turned around and gone back home to the village after the storm? It didn’t seem like him. We hadn’t even brought in a full load of fish yet, and he didn’t like pulling into the docks without one.
I pulled out another canteen, along with a jar of salted fish and a hunk of dark bread. It was the usual food we kept aboard and not really that appealing, but recovering from magic always makes everything taste better. I savored each bite, licking the salt from my fingers. I was feeling much brighter about the whole idea of being awake, and so I ran my fingers through my hair a few times and climbed up on deck.
The Penelope was moored at the docks, nestled in between a pair of unfamiliar red-tinted fishing boats. Kolur wasn’t anywhere to be found: not at the helm and not up in the masts, either. Our small catch from last night was intact, encased in the soft blue glow of the preservation charm.
Well. Looked like I’d be getting to celebrate spring after all, although I knew Kolur would have it out for me if I left without helping him haul the fish down to the market. He must have walked over to the Eel’s Eye Inn for breakfast. I dropped the gangplank and made my way down to the docks.
And froze.
These were not the village docks.
They looked near enough to them from up on the boat, but now that I was on land, I found that they were much busier, crowded and bustling like the docks in the capital. But these weren’t capital folk – they didn’t even look like Kjoran folk. Not that they had antlers growing out of their foreheads, but the men wore beards and long embroidered coats, and the women had their hair up in elaborate braids woven through with pale ribbons. As often as Bryn dressed up for her suitors, and as fond as she was of capital styles, I’d never seen her wear braids like these.
Panic gripped me again, cold and icy like the storm. I realized how foreign the voices chattering around me sounded. We all speak the same northern tongue, but from island to island, the accents change, and here the vowels were long and distorted, as if they were being shouted down a tunnel.
We weren’t in Kjora.
When she was angry with him, Mama called Papa an ice-islander, a phrase from the language of the Empire, of which I could speak a little. Papa always retorted that he was a Kjoran, and I’d gathered over the course of my childhood that in the south, they saw the north as one place, the ice-islands, and not a collection of places, as we did. I had grown up in Kjora and so was familiar with Kjoran customs and practices. As far out to sea as I went with Kolur sometimes, I’d never stepped foot on another island.
Until now.
My head spun. I wasn’t sure I could breathe anymore. Why had Kolur brought me here, to this foreign place? Had we been blown that far off course? I thought of the carved map Papa kept aboard the Maia. Akel was the closest to Kjora, a half day’s sail. We must be there.
My initial panic receded then, and excitement rippled through me instead. My first time off Kjora. My first time having a prope
r adventure, just like Ananna of the Nadir.
I took a deep breath and wove myself into the crowd. I received a few strange looks, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was Kjoran or because I bore the imprint of Empire features. As I walked, I thought about how strange Kolur had been in the moments before the storm, like a man possessed. I’d say it was by magic if I didn’t know better. Kolur couldn’t call down the winds like that – my magic was the reason he brought me on board the Penelope in the first place.
And yet here we were, arrived safely on land by no action of my own.
I made my way along the narrow wooden walkways until I came to a trapper selling furs out of a cart. Vendors dotted up and down the docks, but he was the closest to the Penelope. I strode up to him and remembered the stories I’d heard about the bravery of Ananna of the Nadir. I reminded myself that Ananna was my true name.
“Excuse me,” I said. “How long have you been set up here?”
He gazed at me over the stacks of pelts. “Why you asking?”
“I work aboard that fishing boat there.” I pointed at the Penelope. “My apprentice master’s awfully forgetful, and he didn’t tell me where he was going when he left. I was hoping you might have seen him.”
“He Empire like you?”
I shook my head, even though my cheeks burned. I wasn’t used to people pointing out my ancestry. Everyone in the village had gotten over that urge a long time ago.
“Hard to say, then. A lot of folks came this way.”
“He’d be dressed like a Kjoran. Brown hair. Only a little taller than me.”
The trapper frowned. “A Kjoran, huh? I seem to recall spotting a fellow like that. Early this morning. Going into the city. But then, they all are.” He grinned. He was missing a couple of teeth. “A bit far from home, aren’t you, for your master to be leaving you on the boat?”