Nomi leaned on the tiller. The movement didn’t feel natural, exactly, but she no longer feared the boat would capsize at any moment.
They were nearly beyond the floating city when a shouted “Ahoy!” startled them both.
Nomi twisted to see a slick sailboat approaching. Several men lined its deck.
Malachi swore under his breath.
“Can we outrun them?” Nomi asked, panic bringing beads of sweat to the back of her neck.
“They’re too fast,” Malachi said. “Bigger sail, better skill. And trying to run would make us even more intriguing. We’re going to have to bluff it out.” With a sigh, he slackened the ropes, letting the sail flap. The boat slowed.
“What if they recognize you?” Nomi asked, her pulse racing. If these men figured out Malachi was the rightful Heir, surely word would get back to the palazzo. And then Malachi would lose the advantage of Asa thinking he was dead.
Malachi rubbed a hand over the short black whiskers on his chin. “Would you recognize me?”
Nomi studied him. The stubble hadn’t quite grown into a beard yet, but it masked the unexpected fullness of his mouth and softened the sharpness of his jaw. Dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of a recent illness and his normally short, orderly hair was spiky and disheveled. His eyes, bright as polished wood, she would recognize, but she’d spent a lot of time staring into them.
“You’re right,” she said slowly, taking in his hand-me-down guard uniform and ill-fitting shoes. “You don’t look like yourself.”
Malachi quirked a little grin. “I’m a ruffian now. The Heir died, remember?”
As he took the tiller from her and directed her to the bow, Nomi wondered at the strange spark in his eyes as he’d said this last.
“What do we say?” she asked as the small sailboat approached. “What if they ask what we’re doing out here? I don’t look—my clothes…” She gestured to the worn blue pants and shirt of her prison clothes.
Malachi glanced at her again; she hadn’t seen this look, the intense, frightening one, in days. “You don’t say anything.”
Nomi’s throat closed.
“Sailboat ahoy!” the sailors shouted. The boat slowed, drawing up alongside. It was larger but not by much. Four men, all with heavy beards and sun-weathered skin, lashed the boats together without asking permission first.
One man, obviously the leader, hopped between decks, his leather boots landing with a thud. He was a big man about Nomi’s father’s age, shirtless and scorched deep brown by the sun.
Nomi lowered her gaze, a new fear bursting to life in her chest. What if these men wanted their boat? What if they stole it? Would they throw her and Malachi overboard? How long would it take to drown?
A shiver sluiced down her back, as chilling as a splash of seawater.
She smoothed her hands down the front of her threadbare pants, painfully aware of her own appearance. Women didn’t usually wear trousers in Viridia, or their hair in a tangled mass down their backs. Would this man recognize her garb as prison clothes? Would he wonder why she was so untidy, so… wild?
Nomi snuck a glance at the man, and sure enough he was staring straight at her, his attention fixed.
“And what are you folks running from?” he asked bluntly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Or running to? Are ye smugglers?”
“I’m taking my wife to Corrado to help care for my ailing parents,” Malachi said without hesitation, his gruff, authoritative delivery masking the lie. “Nothing nearly so thrilling as running or smuggling. Though I’m open to barter. We were thrown off course by a storm a few nights ago and lost some of our gear and food.” Malachi pulled a watch from his pants pocket. Its gold case caught the sunshine, and the man’s attention.
“Whatcha want for that trinket?” he asked Malachi, his gaze returning to Nomi.
“A few fish, some bread if you have it, and a dress for my wife. Can’t have my parents see her like this. Her finer clothes were ruined in the rain.”
The man sniffed and pursed his lips. “Haven’t had storms here in a week or so. Where’d you say you’re coming from?”
Nomi twisted her hands behind her back, trying to look demure, but the constant rocking of the boat threw her off balance. She widened her stance. Now she looked like a soldier at attention. Too confident. She released her hands, letting her arms fall to her sides. Her palms were damp.
“We’re up from Bellaqua,” Malachi said smoothly. “Doubt you would have gotten the storm. It blew from the south and went inland.”
“Long way to travel in such a small boat.” The man glanced over at his companions, who were silently following the exchange. Then he pointed at the handle for the storage space under the bow. “Not a good sailor, are you? To lose all your belongings when you have a perfectly good lazarette to store ’em in…”
Malachi glanced at Nomi for a split second with an unreadable expression. Then he turned to the man and straightened his shoulders. When he spoke again, the gruffness of his voice had turned ugly. “Truth is, the girl’s a handful. Bought her off her father, who’d spoiled her something fierce. She tossed our things in a rage when I told her I’d be leaving her to care for my parents alone. Got some work to do to tame her before we get to Corrado.”
Nomi’s jaw clenched, and she stared fixedly at the worn deck, heat climbing her neck to her cheeks. You know it’s a lie. You know he’s doing this to protect us. She told herself this over and over, but his tone of voice, the ease with which he spoke, as if she were a dog he’d purchased and must now bend to his will… it dug inside her chest and hollowed her out.
“Ah,” the sailor said, and in that one small word, Nomi could hear his suspicion dissipate. He shifted, rocking back on his heels. At ease, now that it all made sense to him. Now that he knew her place. “Well, now. I think we can work with ye.”
Nomi had thought the palazzo was stifling. She’d wanted to escape the tight corsets and heavy dresses, the endless lessons and twisted politics of being a Grace. But the luxury had shielded her, just as Serina had once tried to convince her it would. And Asa had too. He’d given her the illusion she had some choice, some agency.
But Viridia was still twisted, its queens still buried deep.
Nomi stared at the scuffed tips of her too-big boots. She drifted, their voices losing meaning as they haggled over price, as they commiserated over the uselessness of women. She didn’t want to hear Malachi speak of his plans to tame her. She didn’t want to hear his voice turn him into a stranger.
The big sun-browned man hopped back to his boat and unlashed the two, retying Malachi and Nomi’s boat behind to tow it back to the flotilla of boats. Once docked, the man in charge disappeared for a spell, but Nomi didn’t move. She didn’t meet Malachi’s eyes, even when he cleared his throat and softly said her name.
When the man returned with their goods, Malachi thanked him and his companions and navigated the small sailboat north, away from the men lining the deck of the massive network of ships. Nomi sat down, moving carefully, precisely. Holding herself together with an iron grip. She kept her gaze fixed to her toes and her mouth shut tight.
“Nomi. Nomi.”
Nomi lifted her chin and stared at Malachi, a challenge in her eyes.
“He was suspicious,” Malachi said.
“I know.” She tried to keep her voice level, tried to ignore the pressure building in her chest.
“I told him what he needed to hear.” He looked at her, all earnest and reasonable. He didn’t understand.
“I know,” she said again. She understood. She understood everything.
It was good Serina was escaping to Azura. Nomi wasn’t sure that she believed anything would, or could, change. The truth was all around her, had always been. It didn’t matter if she fought against it or accepted it. Each small interaction, each small moment reminded her.
Malachi rubbed the back of his neck, burnt now by the sun, his expression cracking. “Then why are you looking at me
like that? Why are you angry?”
Sea air swept across her cheeks, cooling the heated skin. But it didn’t cool the fist of flame in her chest. She tried to contain it, tried to think of a polite response, but she couldn’t do it.
“You called me a handful. You said you would tame me. You said you bought me!” she exploded, and the wind stole the words.
“But you know—”
“What? That it’s a lie?” She shook her head. “Maybe this time. But those are the words that allayed that man’s suspicion. Knowing I was your property made me safe, made me make sense in his world. It was okay that I was a ‘handful’ because you had me under control.” She wanted to get up and pace, but the little sailboat had caught a strong breeze and was bobbing violently up and down as it strained forward through open water, leaving the village of boats far behind. “Malachi, you didn’t blink. You didn’t have to think about it. You knew what would reassure him, and it was treating me like an unbroken horse.”
Tears were streaking down her cheeks now, and she felt so stupid. She knew she was overreacting, that he’d done what he had to do to protect them. She knew this was the way her world worked. She even knew he didn’t mean those words. He’d proved it the night of his birthday, when he’d tried to give her her freedom.
But she couldn’t forget that man’s expression; it built in her head, multiplied by the thousands of times she’d been dismissed so easily, erased from every decision that concerned her. She’d only spent a few days with Serina, in a place where women made choices for themselves, where women had a voice and a vote. But that was enough to make anything less untenable.
Malachi said nothing for a long, awkward moment. He concentrated on steering the boat and stared past her to the faint hump of coastline in the distance. Behind him, the sun sank toward the horizon.
“What should I have done instead?” he asked at last.
“I don’t know,” Nomi said, dipping her damp cheeks into her hands. What had she expected? Frustration boiled up inside her, scorching her to the core. “You can’t change the world in the space of a single conversation, can you?”
A new Viridia. That’s what Nomi wanted, and she knew now that even if he wanted to, Malachi couldn’t give it to her.
She watched the sun slowly drown itself along the watery horizon and pined for a new world.
THIRTEEN
SERINA
“ARE YOU SURE?” Ember asked. She held up a knife made from an old curved piece of metal, its edge newly sharpened.
Serina took a deep breath and nodded.
With her other hand, Ember held Serina’s long braid taut. Then she began sawing.
Serina closed her eyes. Her hair had been a nuisance since she’d arrived, but now it played a part in her nightmares. In her dreams, Diego used it to grab her, he used it to bind her, he used it to choke her.
She refused to give this power to him.
The cutting took longer than she expected. She had time to remember the hours her mother and sister had spent brushing her hair, all the time they’d spent together, laughing and gossiping, while they twisted it into one elaborate style after another. Homesickness punched her in the gut.
“Are you all right?” Ember asked when it was done. Her own hair was shaved close to her skull, with a longer strip of red down the center.
Serina glanced at her and then quickly away—the braid hung over Ember’s hand like a dead snake.
What would her mother think of her if she could see her now?
Serina ran her callused hands through her ragged, shoulder-length hair.
She would be ashamed.
“I’m fine,” Serina said. It was just hair, a silly thing to become attached to. She was still Grace, still the person Mount Ruin had made her—helped her—become.
Ember slipped her knife into her boot and headed into the woods to dump the hair, her purposeful stride scattering a group of younger women who loitered by the broken fountain.
Hotel Misery had once seemed hollow and frightening to Serina. Now it was a hub of semicontrolled chaos. Previously empty rooms teemed with women from the Beach, Southern Cliffs, the Cave, and Jungle Camp. The ballroom remained an infirmary, the half-destroyed lobby had become a gathering place, and the walkway that lined the stinking canal rang with voices.
At the moment, the shouting was louder than usual.
Serina jogged out to meet the returning search party, her heart sinking when she saw the body they carried.
It was not one of the missing guards.
“What happened?” she asked. The night of the first search, Maris had shot and killed Hector. But the other gunshot they’d heard had come to nothing. Diego had evaded the group that had come upon him at the stream near Jungle Camp. And no one had seen Nero, that night or since. Three days, and the two guards were still terrorizing and killing the women of Mount Ruin.
“One of the girls guarding the southern entrance to the prison building was killed,” Fox reported. Her pale swoop of hair hid one eye, but her glare came through just fine. “She walked a couple yards into the woods to relieve herself. Never came back. We found her on our search along the southern cliffs. No sign of the guards, though. The girls on watch with her didn’t see anything either. Didn’t even hear her scream.”
Serina’s skin crawled. They’d lost two women the day before in the same area.
“Nero and Diego are testing our defenses along the southern gate to the prison. Probably trying to get to the other guards. No one goes off alone, even for a moment,” she ordered. “I want more women down there tonight. I’ll find Val, see if we can spare one of our markswomen.”
The firearm training was going well, but their supplies of ammunition were dwindling.
Fox slammed the end of her spear into the dirt. “The women are spread thin,” she growled. “Too many search parties, too many places to guard. And our food is almost gone.”
Behind her, the three women carrying the body set it gently on the ground. They’d started taking their dead to the volcano first thing in the morning; it was too dangerous at night with Nero and Diego out there, ready to pick them off.
Twig, leader of Beach crew and by far the tallest person on the island, even taller than Val, approached them. “Have you cut off the guards in the prison yet? Why should they be fed when we’ve barely enough for ourselves?”
“We’ve reduced their rations, but we’re still feeding them. For now,” Serina replied. “The boat will be here in three more days at most. We have enough.”
Serina held herself tall and smiled at the woman, yanking up her Grace training from the depths. She’d never felt the weight of anything but her parents’ expectations on her shoulders before. She’d never been responsible for anyone’s life. The fact that most of the people who looked to her for answers also seemed to hate her didn’t help. She was exhausted.
You’re determined. She gave herself a little mental push. You can handle this.
Twig shook her head in disgust and walked off.
“Take a break,” Serina said to Fox and the rest of the search party. “Your share of the midday meal is in the infirmary.”
The women headed into the shadowy ballroom. Serina crouched by the murdered woman. Black hair, cut to her shoulders, just like Serina’s. She wasn’t someone Serina recognized, but the purple ligature marks around her neck were familiar. Just like Doll and Scorpion. Just like all the victims.
Anger boiled in Serina’s chest, as violent as it was useless.
Val and Anika came looking for her while she was still holding vigil over the body.
Serina told them what had happened. “She was killed down by the southern gate, near where the women were found yesterday. I think they’re trying to get the rest of the guards out.”
“Did you order more search parties?” Anika asked. “We can’t let them keep killing us. We’ve got to find them.” There was little animation in her face; she’d been subdued since the vote. Serina ached for her.
She understood, better than most, the agony Anika felt knowing she had to leave her family behind.
Serina shook her head. “No new search parties… but I want more women on the southern gate tonight. Val, can we spare the ammunition for a markswoman to help patrol?”
Serina glanced at Val. He stood near the fountain, splitting his attention between the conversation and the shadows beyond the clearing. He’d been like that ever since Nero and Diego had evaded them—watchful.
They were all on edge.
“I’ll check our ammunition after our markswomen finish today’s training,” he said, without commenting on whether he thought it was a good idea. Aside from logistical questions and suggestions on where to search for Nero and Diego, he kept his opinions to himself. She appreciated that, even as she found herself occasionally wishing he would tell her what he thought she should do.
She’d never made so many decisions as she had over the past week. She’d been raised to believe men were the decision makers of her world. Her job was to look pretty and keep her mouth shut. Oracle had fought a lot of that training out of her, but Serina couldn’t erase it all. She couldn’t erase her history, any more than she could reveal Viridia’s.
The fact that this country had once been ruled by women didn’t make it easier for her to lead now. Her instincts were to defer. To submit.
She took a deep breath. With enough practice, her instincts would change.
“Anika, I need you to join the southern patrol,” she said with one of her placating Grace smiles. “I trust you to keep everyone safe.”
“Fine.” Anika turned to Val. “I’m taking a firearm. If I see either of those monsters, I’m shooting them.” She stalked off without giving him a chance to answer.
Serina and Val moved the dead girl into the corner of the ruined lobby with the body of a woman who’d died of an infection that morning. They would take them both to the volcano at dawn.
By implicit agreement, they headed into the hotel, to the room where the rations were kept, where they could have a few moments alone.
Queen of Ruin (Grace and Fury) Page 10
