The Assassin's Curse

  I pushed that thought out of my head so I could concentrate on not freezing to death. I left Naji lying beneath the tree and picked my way down to the beach. The sand was rough and dark, coarse like Orati salt, and littered with bone-gray twists of driftwood. I gathered some of the driftwood, trying not to think about how it got there, and stacked it in the sand. Then I sprinkled some powder from the pistol into the wood and fired off the one shot I'd been allowed, wincing as it rang out through the trees, echoing and echoing. Streaks of white birds erupted from the trees and I slammed down on the sand, fumbling around for my knife – but they were only birds, and they flew off and disappeared into the gray clouds.

  Thank Kaol, the shot took. The powder sparked and smoldered and burned. I watched the fire for a while, sitting close enough that the heat soaked into my skin. The light of it made me feel safe.

  I walked back over to Naji. He was still passed out. I took off his boots and his cloak and lay them out by the fire to dry. Then I gathered up my strength and wrapped my arms around his chest and dragged him over the pine needles and the sand to the fire. He squirmed a little, twisting his head this way and that. I brought him as close to the heat as I could. He moaned and fluttered his eyes and kind of looked up at me and then at the fire.

  He said something, but I couldn't understand it. I sat down beside him and took off my own boots so they'd dry out. I stuck my feet close to the flames. I warmed up pretty quickly, all things considered.

  Just once in all that work, I let myself look out at the horizon, to see if I could spot the Revenge one last time before she left us. And I did. It wasn't nothing but a few specks of sails against the gray sky, but Kaol, did it ever fill me with despair.

  I was dozing on the sand, drowsy from the heat of the fire, when Naji shook me awake hours later. I rolled over and looked at him.

  "You're alive," he said.

  "Course I'm alive," I snapped. "You're the one who keeps passing out."

  "I feel better now."

  He didn't look better. Still death-white and haggard. One bruise blossomed out on the unscarred part of his face and another ringed around his eye. Kaol, I got him good.

  When he reached up to shove his filthy, clumped-up hair out of his face, his hands shook.

  "We need to find fresh water," I said, really meaning I would have to do it, cause in his state he didn't need to be traipsing through the woods. "I hope it won't turn us into monsters." I squinted up at the soft gray sky. "Do you think it's gonna snow?"

  I'd seen snow once when we sailed to the ice-islands, and I knew that it was cold as death and not anything we'd want to mess with in our present state.

  "It shouldn't," he said, and I didn't know if he was talking about the snow or the water's magic, and I didn't ask.

  I sat up best I could – my body was stiffer than it'd been before, like I'd just gone eight rounds with a kraken. "I don't know about you but I ain't too keen on dying." I grabbed my boots and patted the leather. All dry, but also stiff and shrunken. I kneaded at it while I talked. "One of the first things I learned. You get stranded, look for water. Then find a place to protect yourself." I jutted my head at the fire. "I made an exception on account of you getting us stranded in the forsaken north. Figured water wasn't no good if we both froze to death."

  Naji closed his eyes and let his head loll between his knees.

  "Though I'm also a bit concerned with whatever the hell's following us."

  That jerked him back up to full alert.

  "It's the Mists, ain't it?"

  "The Hariri clan would not have followed us this far without attacking."

  I sighed and started kneading at the other boot.

  "Ananna, your detour took us through a part of the world where the barriers are thinnest. They'd picked up on my trail while we were out at sea. I was trying to save the ship." He leaned forward. "You must be careful. This place is part of the Otherworld that found its way to our own…"

  His voice trailed off as though speaking had worn him out. I stared at him with my mouth hanging open.

  "Are you kidding me!" I shouted. "You couldn't have told me that earlier?"

  "We need to find the Wizard Eirnin."

  "Don't ignore me."

  "You have no idea… I'm utterly incapacitated by this curse… If the Otherworld finds me, if they find you–"

  "I'll hand you right over! You don't think this curse is hurting me, too? Kaol! I should have let you die in the desert."

  Naji's face turned dark as a typhoon sky, and I immediately regretted shooting off like that. I didn't really want him to die, curse or no. So I pulled on my other boot and stood up. I hated stepping away from the fire, but it'd gotten big enough that its warmth spread all up and down the beach. I did not want to go into those woods, though, all dark and misty and shivering.

  "Stay here," I said. "I'm going to find a stream or a pond or… or some dew. Something for us to drink." I glared at him. "You probably need it more than me, and I've fallen out of sail rigging once today."

  I stalked away from him before he could say anything, up to the treeline. When I figured I was far enough away I chanced a glance back at the fire, and there he was, yanking on his boots to follow me. Fantastic.

  Still, I waited for him.

  He leaned against a tree to steady himself.

  "You ain't going to make it," I said.

  "I'm fine." He wobbled a little in place. "And I'll be worse if you go off on your own. We shouldn't… We shouldn't stay too long–"

  "Naji, we're stranded here!"

  I took off deeper into the green shadows. The air was damp and cold and wrapped around me like an old wet shawl. Everywhere I stepped I made noise, branches snapping, pine needles crackling. But so did Naji, and he was usually as graceful as a Saelini dancer and twice as silent.

  We walked for twenty minutes when I heard pattering up in the tops of the trees, distant and soft. I cursed. All rain would get us was wet – we didn't have nothing to collect it in.

  "We gotta head back," I said. "I don't want to lose our fi–"

  I stopped. Naji was leaning up against a pine tree, his skin waxy like he had a fever.

  "Kaol's starfish," I said. "You look like you're dying."

  He moaned a little and rubbed at his forehead. "I'm not sure I can go on. I was hoping the spell would lead me to Eirnin, but…" His voice trailed away.

  I glared at him, not wanting to think about his spell, the whole reason we were gonna die on a magic floating slab of rock in the first place.

  "I used the last of my magic to bring us on land," he said mournfully. "It's run out."

  "Good," I snapped. "If only it'd run out when we were on board the Revenge." Then I turned and stalked away from him, blood pounding in my ears.

  "Ananna! Wait!" I heard the snap of branches that meant he was following. "You don't understand."

  "I understand plenty. You stranded us here without any kind of protection." I whirled around to face him. He looked shrunken and old. "That's what you're going to tell me, isn't it? You can't do your protection spells?"

  He didn't have to say anything to answer.

  "At least you were able to get us on land before the ocean sucked us down." I dug the heels of my palm into my eyes. I was exhausted and in truth all I wanted was to lay out by the fire and sleep. But I knew I couldn't.

  "Give me your sword," I said, "and go back to the fire."

  He tried to stare me down, but he was too weak. So he just handed me his sword, nodded, and turned away.

  I picked my way through the woods. The rain misted across my hair and the tops of my shoulders and set me to shivering, and the forest pressed up against me, impossibly tall trees and thick green cover and ropy vines. I kept the sword out, although I wasn't sure if a sword could stop whatever creatures the island had hidden.

  Every now and then I stopped and listened for the bubbling of a river. But there were just forest sounds, leaves rustling and water dropping off the
tree branches and critters scurrying around in the underbrush, and beyond that, a distant chiming sound like some weird far-off music. I didn't trust it. Didn't trust the normalcy of it. That's when magic's the most dangerous: when it feels like the untouched world.

  The woods grew darker from the rain, and mist started rising up from the forest floor, gray and cold and wet. I tightened my grip on the sword, trying my best to ignore the panic rioting around my chest. I got a flash of pirate's intuition: I wasn't safe in the forest.

  I should go back to the beach.

  My left hand peeled itself away from the sword and found Naji's charm still looped around my neck. I thought about him leaning up against the tree, rubbing his forehead, pale from exertion. He was probably in pain now, all on account of me. I wondered if it was keeping him from healing.

  But if we didn't have water, we'd die of dehydration within a couple of days. And even magic-tainted water was better than that.

  So I kept walking.

  After a while, the forest brightened a little, not from the sun peeking out behind the rain clouds but because the trees were different, tall and skinny and pale, with white crystalline leaves that clinked against one another in the wind. This must have been the chiming I heard earlier – this bright, strange forest. I tensed and hoisted up the sword. Nothing about this forest was natural, and yet after a few moments that sense of danger had passed. The forest chimed and sparkled around me, and I was just too exhausted to stay alert.

  That was when I heard the faintest murmur of water. It was hard to make out over the chiming, but I listened closely and wandered about, trying to find its source. I don't know how long it took me, but I finally stumbled over a spring bubbling up underneath a big normal-looking pine tree, the water clear and cleanlooking. I plunged my hands in and scooped it up to drink without thinking. Water was splashing down my chest when I remembered that I was on the Isles of the Sky, that this water could destroy me.

  I fell back and stared at the spring, waiting for something to happen, for something to change. Nothing did that I could feel. And although I still didn't trust this normalcy, I allowed myself a bit more of that sweettasting water, and I prayed to Kaol and E'mko to keep me safe from the spirits.

  The rain stopped, and I sat beside the spring, listening to the chiming from the trees, half-waiting for the mist to form again, to come creeping along the forest floor. But nothing happened. And after a while I started thinking on Naji, thinking on his curse. He cast a spell so strong it wiped out his magic, and we didn't even know if we could cure his curse. Hell, we didn't know if the Wizard Eirnin was even on this rock.

  Maybe he'd die out there on the beach and I'd be free of the curse just long enough to get swallowed by the Isles of the Sky.

  Maybe I shouldn't have left him alone after all.

  So I ripped some strips of fabric off my trousers – they were soaked through with rainwater anyway – and knotted them in the tree branches as I made my way back to the beach.

  The fire had burned out, just like I said it would, and the driftwood lay blackened and ashy along the horizon line. Naji was crouched beside the remains, his head hanging in his hands, hair stringy from the rain. He stirred as I walked up to him, but he didn't say anything, didn't even look up.

  "I found a spring," I said.

  No answer. I sat down beside him and balanced the sword on my knees and stared at the remains of the fire, trying my best to ignore the dampness in the air.

  "A spring," Naji said after a while, muttering down at his feet.

  "Yeah. You know. For drinking. I had some and it didn't do nothing to me, so hopefully…" I couldn't finish that thought. We sat in silence for a few moments more.

  "I'm sorry I said I was glad your magic ran out."

  Naji lifted his head but he still didn't look at me. I could hear the waves crashing beneath us.

  "It happens," he said, "when I exert myself."

  "I know."

  Another moment of silence.

  "I hope to be recovered enough within the next few days to cast a tracking spell on the Wizard Eirnin, but I don't…" He dipped his head again. "I've never run out like this. And with the curse – I just don't know."

  I toyed with the hem of my shirt and looked down at the sand. My head felt thick with what he had just told me. Maybe he didn't have to die for us to get sucked into the island's magic.

  "Maybe we can find the wizard the untouched way." Not that I liked the idea of wandering the island.

  "I doubt we'll be able to find him just by searching."

  "Ain't that big of an island."

  Naji glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, and even with just that tiny look I caught a glimpse of the weariness and the hurt I'd caused him as I had traipsed alone through the woods. "The size of the island isn't the issue," he said. "I doubt very seriously the Wizard Eirnin will be easily found. Most wizards aren't. Not unless you know where to look."

  I didn't have no answer to that.

  "I might be able to conjure up a fire tomorrow," he said. "A small one."

  "Maybe you should focus on getting better first."

  "Perhaps you should show me the spring. You are correct that we'll need water to survive." He sighed. "We can look for food and shelter tomorrow."

  "I can look for it to–"

  "No." The word sliced through the air, left me colder than any rain ever could. "No. Once was enough."

  I didn't need to ask him what he meant.

  "I'm sorry," I said softly.

  Naji pushed himself to his feet, and I noticed that he was shaking. If it was because of the cold or because of the way he wore himself out or because he was as scared as me, I couldn't say. But I didn't say nothing about him not being able to make it. I didn't say nothing about the spell he cast onboard the Ayel's Revenge.

  We walked side by side as I led him through the woods.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  That night I made a little tent out of fern fronds and fallen sticks not far from the spring, and I fell asleep to the gurgle of water and the glow of Naji's tattoos as he started healing himself. It was weird sleeping so close to him, and at first I lay on my back and looked up at the pattern of shadows created by the ferns, my hands folded over my stomach so I wouldn't accidentally touch him.

  I woke up the next morning covered in ferns and rainwater. The tent had collapsed in the night, probably cause of some storm, and Naji was curled up on his side, his tattoos dull and flat against his skin. I pushed the ferns away and peeled off my soaked-through coat and shivered in the cool, damp air. The spring bubbled and churned a few feet away. Naji didn't move.

  I shook his shoulder. He moaned and fluttered his eyes.

  "Naji?" I asked. "Are you alright?"

  He rolled onto his back, shedding a cascade of fern fronds and rain drops.

  "Ananna?" he asked. "Where are we?"

  "Kaol! You really don't know?" Anger rose up in me and turned to panic. I pressed my hand to his forehead. His skin was hot. "I think you have a fever."

  He closed his eyes. I lay my ear against his chest to listen for the rattle of the northern sickness, but his breathing was steady and even.

  "Need to rest," he murmured.

  "Naji!" I shook him again. He stirred but didn't respond. At least his chest was rising and falling, and his tattoos had taken to glowing again. I stood up and paced back and forth in front of the spring. If he was sick, he needed warmth and shelter. And I didn't much like the idea of us staying in the woods, neither.

  So I stole his sword and took off for the beach. The chiming forest was rioting in the pale morning, the trees throwing off glints of light, everything sounding like temple bells after a wedding. I picked my way through those narrow trunks, leaves drifting through the air. They stuck to my skin, and when I tried to wipe them away they shattered and smeared like the spun-sugar figures in a fancy Lisirran bakery.

  Still, I made it to the shoreline easy enough. The sand dropped off towa
rd the sea, which churned below the island, frothy and roiling with the wind. I rubbed at my arms to try and take out some of the chill; it didn't work, and so I put my coat back on even though it was still wet. I didn't know which direction to go, which direction would lead me to shelter. All the damn trees looked the same, and the clouds covered up the sun.

  I shouldn't have left him at the spring.

  But if I'd stayed behind, what could I have done then? Watch him burn up with a fever? Watch him sink into the soil and become part of the Isles?

  No. I had to do something.

  I trekked along the sand, gathering up the largest pieces of driftwood I could find and stacking them together close to the treeline. The beach felt safer; it was out in the open, which meant it was easier to spot any creatures that might come our way. But I wasn't sure if the tides came in here, and I didn't much want to risk it.