And then I heard singing.
It was distant, coming from the direction of the beach. I couldn’t make out the words, but as I listened, music joined up with the singers’ voices, a jangly, rhythmic instrument that I didn’t recognize. Part of me thought that maybe I should leave, that I was hearing something I wasn’t meant to as a daughter of the Empire and the southerly islands both, but I stayed put. The music grew louder. I realized they were singing in the language of the ancients.
Figures appeared on the bend in the road, moving in a procession through the cold, gray air. And they weren’t human. They were monsters.
All sorts of monsters, some with great shaggy coats and others with sharp, needly beaks and still others like men built of straw. My fear paralyzed me in place. I thought of the warship slicing toward the Penelope, thought of Gillean’s dead body. I thought of the Mists.
The monsters moved closer. One of them, a creature with a bulbous, oversized boar’s head, shook a ring of metal that flashed in the thin sunlight. Another carried a torch that guttered and sparked an unnatural orangey gold.
They come on the veins of magic—
Isolfr’s words appeared unbidden in my head, and without thinking, I reached out to the magic on the wind, testing, trying to find that sense of wrongness—
There was none. The magic was calm, peaceful. Nothing wrong, nothing dangerous.
The figures drew closer. I scrambled off my rock and crouched half behind it, clutching my bag tight, too afraid to take my eyes off these monsters. The singing poured over me.
Not a single one of the creatures’ mouths moved.
I frowned. That didn’t make sense.
As they passed, the straw-man turned his head, pale gold shedding off him. His eyes peered out of the mound of straw. They were dark and benevolent—human.
They were human.
The monsters sang, but their mouths didn’t move.
Masks, I thought, and I straightened up, still trembling. None of the other costumed men looked at me; they just continued their procession into the village. The torch sent sparks and smoke up into the sky, and I felt the shudder of its enchantment, a warmth and protection I hadn’t expected.
At the first shop, a family stepped through the curtain in the doorway, a man and his wife, their little girl. The girl tossed something at the procession—it looked like dried flowers. She didn’t seem scared, only grateful.
I slumped down on the rock, sighing, and watched the procession make its way through Rilil. Magic trailed in its wake, settling over the village like a balm. Magic, it was just magic. Protection.
It just didn’t look like any protection I had ever known.
• • •
The Annika left for another trip two days later. Couldn’t come soon enough. I’d spent the rest of my money on food and wasn’t able to save anything for the trip home. I hoped this payment would be as large as my first, since I wouldn’t have to worry about doling out most of it for a place to stay.
Asbera and Finnur were already aboard when I climbed onto the deck in the pale early morning hours. Asbera smiled like she was glad to see me.
“Hanna!” she said. “I hope you’re settling in all right.” I hadn’t seen either of them for those two days, since I didn’t want to come across as a burden. I was glad to see her, though, since I had questions, mostly about those costumed men and their magic.
“I am.” But I didn’t have time to say more than that, since Baltasar blundered up on deck. Reynir stumbled behind him, reading fortunes from a little scrap of scroll. He glared at me when he saw I was back.
“Gather round!” Baltasar shouted. “We’re going southeast today, looking for lampreys. Reynir here says we can make the catch of the season if we can get there before those damned Kjiljans.”
The crew applauded and stomped their feet against the deck. A little thrill of excitement worked through me too. Maybe the catch of the season would be enough to get me home.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Baltasar cried. “Get on with it!”
The crew erupted into action. So much was happening, I didn’t have time to think—and I was grateful for that after spending the last few days doing nothing but thinking. I called the wind into the sails while a couple of crewmen aligned the spars. The Annika pulled out into the water and swung around, moving parallel to the shore, heading west. The land was dotted with those little round tents, gray smoke twisting into the air.
We sailed.
It took most of the day to get to the southern point where Reynir claimed we’d find fish. Most of the crew spent the time lolling around the fires, throwing dice and playing Hangman’s Gambit, another gambling game Papa had taught me to play last year. No one asked me to join them. Which was fine, seeing as how I didn’t have any money to gamble.
Still, I felt isolated standing there among the masts, watching the men throw dice and count out stones. They got to wait out the trip, but I had to control the winds. I’d never thought of it as especially tiring magic, but the Annika was much bigger than the Penelope and it proved to be more work than I was used to.
The sun finally started to sink into the horizon. The winds shifted to the northeast, and so I didn’t have to control them as much. I was grateful for the break. But then I took one look around the deck, at the fires glowing in the darkness, and suddenly felt very lonely.
“Are you hungry?”
It was Asbera. She’d been scrambling up on the masts all day, where the men were afraid to climb, and so I hadn’t seen much of her.
“Yeah,” I said, grateful to have someone to talk to. “It takes a lot out, controlling the winds.”
She grinned. “I bet.” Then she handed me a fish that had been grilled by the fires. “Finnur caught them earlier. Fishing off the side like a child. No one believed he’d actually get something.” She laughed.
“Thank you.” I stared down at the fish, its scales blackened by the smoke. My stomach grumbled, and I peeled the flesh away from the bones and nibbled at it. Skrei. Nice to eat something familiar. It reminded me of Kjora.
I expected Asbera to leave me and go back with the others, but she stayed by my side.
“The wind’s shifted,” she said. “You don’t have to keep controlling it, do you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind.” I took a bite of fish to keep from saying anything more.
“You shouldn’t let the crew get to you,” she said.
“I’m not.”
She smiled and the skin crinkled around her eyes. “They’ll exclude you until they don’t anymore. It’s our way here in Tulja. We can’t help it.”
Part of me wanted to believe her and part of me didn’t care because I just wanted to go home.
I finished the fish and tossed the bones overboard. I checked the water, the way I did whenever I was at the railing, looking for a shadow beneath the waves, a glimmer like moonlight. But there was nothing there. Isolfr had dragged us into danger and then he’d abandoned us.
“How do you like Tulja so far?” Asbera asked. “Aside from”—she waved at the crew—“all that. I really do promise it’ll get better. They just have to get accustomed to you.”
I hesitated, trying to think of a diplomatic response. “It’s different,” I finally said. “Different from what I’m used to.”
“I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I ever visited Kjora.”
She laughed, and after a moment, I joined in with her. I’d let my magic die away a little as we spoke as a way of alleviating my exhaustion, and only just now realized it. The boat rocked along with the wind, moving us to the southwest. I sighed, my limbs loose with freedom.
“It’s strange,” I said. “Certain things are the same, and certain things are different. I can’t read your alphabet, but most of the food is the same, assuming it’s not a dish from—from the north.” I hesitated. “And the other day, I saw a parade, all these people in costumes—we don’t have anything like that in Kjora.”
br /> “Oh, the Nalendan.” Asbera smiled. “Did they give you a fright?”
“A little. I felt the magic and realized they weren’t dangerous.” I shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.
“Oh, you poor thing. I didn’t realize they were going to be parading while you were out, otherwise I would have made sure to mention them to you.”
“It’s fine, really.”
“I’ve heard they’re another tradition we borrowed from Jandanvar, but us Tuljans like to claim we invented their magic whenever we can.” She laughed. “They’re a means of protecting us from the Mists. Do you know of the Mists as far south as Kjora?”
I nodded. I couldn’t bear to say anything more.
Fortunately, Asbera didn’t seem so keen on talking about them, either. “There is a group of priests who live out on the plains whose entire job is to watch out for the Mists. Whenever they feel them encroaching, they call for the Nalendan to protect our village.”
I shivered. I wondered if this was our fault, if Kolur had brought the Mists here.
“How often do the Nalendan cast their charm?” I asked. “I mean, how often do the priests feel—”
“Oh, pretty often. Twice a month or so.” Asbera interrupted me before I could say the word Mists, her expression uncomfortable. But she must have seen something in my own expression, fear or something worse, because she smiled and laughed. “My father used to say the priests can’t actually see anything at all, and they just call down the Nalendan to amuse themselves.”
But her words did nothing to console me.
• • •
I wound up with wages of thirty-five stones after we returned from that trip—it turned out lamprey was a favorite among the Tuljans. I ate dinner with Asbera and Finnur that evening, just as we had after the first trip. No lisila, but Asbera did bake the lamprey with wild roots and strips of dried yak meat. It was delicious.
After dinner, Asbera walked me up to the deck of the Crocus. Night was just starting to fall, streaks of gold sinking into the water. The north wind blew strong and sweet-scented, and it knocked the vines and charms around, stirring up their magic.
“I have a gift for you,” Asbera said.
“Oh, that’s—you don’t have to do that.” I shook my head. “You’ve given me enough already—”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a little thing.” And she pulled a stonework jar out of her dress pocket. “I used to keep meal in it, but the side cracked.” She handed it to me. “It’d be perfect for saving stones.”
I took the jar and turned it over in my hands. I almost wanted to cry.
“Just make sure you keep it locked up in the captain’s quarters.” She laughed. “I’d hate to see your savings get whisked away.”
“Thank you,” I said. “This was very thoughtful.”
We looked at each other in the long violet shadows. It felt good to have a friend.
And so the days went by. They turned into one week, into two weeks. Our wages at the end of each fishing trip were good and steady, and with each payment, I made sure to drop a few stones into my jar. Sometimes at night, I’d lift the jar and shake it next to my ear, listening to the stones banging around. It was reassuring, a reminder that I was doing something to get home. Better than waiting for Kolur or anyone else to take care of my problems for me.
One afternoon, I shook out a handful of my saved stones and went into the village to find a wizard. It took a long time, in between my trouble understanding the Tuljan accent and something about the way I was asking, but eventually an old man pointed me to a tent on the outskirts of the village. I couldn’t read the sign jutting out of the frozen earth, but I pulled on the bell and the man who answered wore faded, tattered blue robes beneath his coat.
“Yes?” he said, peering at me suspiciously.
“Are you a wizard?”
“Of a sort.” He stepped out of the tent and studied my face closely. “How’d you get so far north, Empire girl?”
I sighed. “I’m from Kjora. Can you send messages across the islands?”
His eyes narrowed at that. “Across the islands? Why would you want to do such a thing? Surely if you’re here, you can travel south on your own.”
His words made my cheeks burn. “No,” I said. “I can’t. Can you send the message or not?”
“Can you pay?”
I held up my stones.
That was all it took. The wizard was worse even than Larus, but at least he could send a messaging spell. I wrote a note to my family. I’d been wanting to do it since I left Kolur, but I didn’t know what to say, if I should tell Mama the whole truth about him or not. I spent a good amount of time with the quill in one hand, staring down at the parchment while the wizard tapped his fingers and sighed impatiently.
Dear Mama and Papa, I eventually wrote, I want you to know I’m safe. I’m just out having an adventure, like Ananna of the Nadir. You don’t need to worry.
I wasn’t sure how true that last part was, but I knew I didn’t want them to worry, even if they did need to.
I stood with my arms wrapped around my chest as he enchanted the parchment and turned it to sparkles of magic that floated on the air.
“How will I know they get it?” I said.
He shrugged. “You won’t. Takes a long time for messages to travel across the islands.”
And that was that. I hoped by the time the wizard received a reply from them, I’d be on my way home.
After that, my time aboard the Annika smoothed out, but I never truly felt like I belonged. I took my meals with Asbera and Finnur and hung my hammock up alongside theirs, and that was enough to quiet the whispers and stop the curious looks. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t terrible, and that was good enough for me.
When the ocean wasn’t safe or when Reynir couldn’t find any worthwhile catches, we’d have a day or two off. Asbera showed me around Rilil, pointing out the different shops, the grocer and the magic-dealer, the moneylender and the ship repair. Other days I spent alone, when I needed to be with my thoughts. I walked down to the beach, following the road that had brought me here, and fed scraps to the sea birds. I said a prayer at the circle on the edge of town, listening for the voices of my ancestors.
I never heard anything.
I also never heard anything about Frida and Kolur. Asbera didn’t go in much for rumors, and the rest of the crew wasn’t friendly enough to share what they’d heard. Still, I wondered. If they were still in Tulja, if it had been the right thing, leaving them and coming to work for Baltasar.
One day, we had a short run out to the Brightly Sea. We took only half the crew and were back by lunchtime with a big catch of skrei, and I was grateful that Baltasar had asked me along, since it was easy work for quite a bit of pay.
I walked along the docks, a pouch of nearly fifty stones weighing down my pockets. I was in a good mood and didn’t feel like eating salted fish back on the Cornflower. So, even though I knew it was wasteful, I walked down to the Yak’s Horn, an alehouse Finnur had talked about. He said the ale was good and the food was better, and that sounded like a fine idea to me.
The Yak’s Horn was located at the far end of the docks. I made my way along the damp stone path. Things were busier than usual—more boats in the water and more fishermen crowded around them. I paid careful attention to the voices, hoping to hear a southerly accent, someone who could take me back to Kjora.
And I heard one. A familiar one, shouting curses into the air.
I stopped. I was standing in front of a junk that was all carved up in the Jolali style with icons of the sea spirits. It didn’t have sails yet, but the wood was freshly painted, and it was in better shape than most of the boats here. The name across the side read Penelope II.
“I told you, boy, I don’t want the twisted, I want braided! Holds together better.” Kolur stomped across the deck.
I almost walked away. I had nothing to say to him, and if he’d had the money to buy that gaudy new boat, he’d ha
d the money to send me home back in Skalir. But before my anger could overtake me, a second figure joined him, not Frida but a young man. The spiky, elaborate icons shielded the young man at first, but as he darted back and forth, I saw his pale skin and pale hair, his graceful way of moving. He looked entirely human now, his ethereal beauty replaced by a bland, forgettable handsomeness. But I still recognized him immediately.
Isolfr.
I stared at him. He stammered out something to Kolur—“Yes, sir, I’ll run to the supply shop now.”—and then scurried over to the ladder. I was too bewildered to move. Kolur shouted something toward the bow of the ship, probably at Frida, and then walked out of my line of sight.
And then Isolfr dropped down to the dock, a loop of rope draped over his shoulder. He had his head down.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said.
He jumped, stopped, looked up at me. For a moment, his eyes glimmered like starlight, but then they returned to a normal, flat blue. It was my imagination, I told myself, a trick of the sunlight.
“Well?” I said.
“Please, miss,” he said, “I’m going to the repair shop.”
I scowled at him, not having the patience to deal with his tricks. But then he winked.
“The repair shop,” he said again, and scrambled off.
I sighed. I did not want to get involved with him again. I wanted to eat my lunch and go back to the Cornflower and shake my jar of stones and think about home.
But I was also angry, angry that he had foisted upon me the warning about Lord Foxfollow and then disappeared, that he had transformed himself into a blind spot for Kolur and Frida and then wheedled his way aboard this new version of the Penelope.
So I followed after him. I figured it was the only way I’d get answers.
I waited for him outside the repair shop, leaning up against the post of a sign I still couldn’t read. The repair shop was all aboveground, and every now and then, the wind would blow the curtain door aside and I’d see him studying the different loops of rope. When he came back outside, he lifted one hand in a wave.