A voice whispered on the wind. Not Naji’s. It belonged to the desertland assassin. Look for him, he said. Stop shouting. It won’t do any good.
“I can’t look for him!” I shouted, struggling against the invisible hands. The Qilari assassins. I knew it and didn’t know it, all at once. “I can’t move.”
With your mind, girl.
I stopped struggling. The wind swirled around me, icing over my bare arms and my bare cheeks. My bones rattled in my skin. The cold was worse than the Isle of the Sky had ever been. But I forced myself to concentrate, to reach out with the fingers of my mind.
I found him.
I found his thoughts, warmed by blood, thin blood, weak blood. He was thinking about food and water. He was thinking about me.
The invisible hands yanked me so hard my head spun round and around and then I was back in the garden house, sagging between the two Qilari assassins. The desertlands assassin was leaned over Naji, tracing blood – my blood, I knew – in patterns over the scar on his chest. My blood was all over the bed. It dripped down my arm, stained my clothes.
“He was thinking about me,” I said, dazed.
“Shut up, girl.” The desertland assassin didn’t even glance up at me from beside Naji’s bed, and the two others dragged me over to the corner. I slumped down on the floor, still dizzy and confused. In my head was an image of myself, standing on a boat, looking out over the ocean. And I was beautiful somehow, like all my insides had turned to light.
He was thinking of me as he lay dying in a world between worlds.
And it was real. I could feel it. I knew it.
I leaned against the wall, taking deep unsteady breaths. The Qilari assassins were singing, the desertland assassin was chanting. Their eyes glowed pale blue in the darkness. My spilled blood steamed and smoked, and it smelled like mint and the ocean.
After a while I couldn’t see much of anything but the blue of the assassins’ eyes and the ghostly trace of magic-smoke.
And then I heard someone say my name.
The singing and the chanting stopped. The smoke lingered in the air. I could feel the walls of the garden house shifting and squirming just outside my vision.
And then a warmth flowed into my thoughts, familiar, barely there–
“Ananna?”
“Naji!” I pushed myself up to my feet, tottering in place. All three of the assassins turned and glared at me.
“Not yet, girl,” hissed the one from the desertlands.
“No,” Naji said, his voice rough and faint. “No, it’s fine, I’m here–”
The assassin turned back to him. The glow faded from the Qilaris’ eyes. I stumbled forward, my arm aching, my head spinning. “Naji,” I said. “You’re alright–”
“Not exactly.”
I knelt beside the desertland assassin, who made no move to send me away. He just stood there glaring. Naji was stretched out on the bed the way he’d been all week, but now his eyes were open and his fingers fluttered against the sheet.
“Naji,” I said, because I couldn’t say what I wanted to. I buried my head into his shoulder. The scent of medicine and magic lingered in the room, and although the smoke was drifting away the air still seemed thick. Naji laid his hand on top of mine.
“You’re here,” he said.
“I had to save you. These buddies of yours ain’t worth a damn.” I blinked, trying not to cry. I was aware of his hand touching mine. “Besides, where else would I go?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might take off with the Nadir, plundering.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out strangled-sounding. “Thought? How could you think anything? You were…” I didn’t know what to call it. Dead?
“I was trapped in between here and the Mists,” he said. His hand was still on mine. “The Order found me, sent Dirar to bring me back.” He glanced over at the desertland assassin and nodded. “Thank you.”
Dirar scowled. “It was lucky the girl was here.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Yes,” Naji said. “I suppose you’ll be alerting the Order of my blood-bond.”
Dirar huffed and crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t answer. Naji chuckled. I didn’t understand what was going on. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“By the way,” Naji said. “It worked.”
I stared at him for a long time.
“One more,” Dirar said. “I suppose you plan on taking another four months with this one? Or maybe you’ll just go for another four years. Why not?”
Naji’s eyes took on that brightness that replaced his smile. “It worked,” he said again. “Can you feel it?”
“No,” I said, except as soon as I spoke I did: a lightness in his presence I hardly noticed. Missing weight. Missing darkness.
“You do,” Naji said, his eyes still bright. “Come here.”
“What?”
“Lean close,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
Dirar stomped over to the garden house door with the other two assassins. All three of ’em stared at us. But I leaned over anyway, tilting my ear to his mouth. He put one hand on my chin and turned my face toward his.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I kept watch over Naji for two weeks, long after the other assassins left. We had to move him to a room in the palace, because the garden house was destroyed by the magic-sickness, its walls turning into thick ropy vines, the bed transforming into an enormous moon-colored flower. I stayed away from the place where the garden house had been.
But tucked away in the palace, Naji did get slowly better. The color returned to his face. His tattoos stopped glowing. He ate every bite of food Queen Saida had brought to him.
Sometimes he kissed me.
Some days I would lay my head on Naji’s chest, the way I had when he was asleep. I listened to his heart beat strong and sure. He let his hand drift over my hair and down the length of my spine. It was nice. I was afraid to say something about it, though, afraid that if I opened my mouth it would all disappear.
When he felt good enough to stand up, I walked with him around the perimeter of the palace garden, the way he had with me on the Island of the Sun. He pointed out flowers to me, identifying them by name, telling me what sorts of magic properties they had, but all the while his hand was on the small of my back, and I didn’t remember one word of what he said.
Jeric came to visit. He knocked on Naji’s door while I was there, and when I answered, he scowled at me and said, “I’d hoped you’d be gone.”
“Go away,” I said.
“No.” Naji’s voice was bright behind me. “No, Ananna, it’s fine. He can stay.”
Jeric gave me a smug smile and pushed into the room. Naji was sitting on the bed, the sunlight making his hair shine. Jeric gave a scholarly little bow and said, “That one–” He pointed at me, “–gets over overenthusiastic. I only wanted to ask you about the starstones.”
Naji nodded. I was all prepared to chase Jeric away, but when he started asking questions Naji didn’t seem to mind answering them. I guess it was Naji’s university background, and all the studying he had to do for the Order. He told Jeric what it felt like when his skin touched the stones, and his theories about how they had affected the magic in his body. Jeric nodded all the while, scratching notes down in a little leather-bound book, and after they got to talking both seemed pleased with themselves. I sat in the corner and listened, because it was interesting, even if I didn’t always understand the technicalities of what Naji said, even if the thought of the starstones scared me a little, still.
Jeric only visited once, but he became a lot easier to deal with after that. Like Naji’d given him a gift.
One afternoon me and Naji went to see Queen Saida in her sunroom. Marjani was there, dressed in a long golden dress that suited her, her hair woven with ribbons and shells. Saida looked a proper queen in Empire silks, Jokja metals in the bangles on her wrist. She stood up when me and Naji walked in.
�
��You’ve recovered!” she cried out. “Marjani told me the news, but I’m so glad to see you walking about.” And she actually crossed the room to greet us. She kissed both of Naji’s cheeks and beamed at him.
“Thank you, my Light,” Naji murmured, bowing his head.
Queen Saida turned to me. “And I heard you were most instrumental,” she said. “The Jadorr’a told me about it when they thanked me for my hospitality. I told them: no Jokja has ever feared a Jadorr’a.” She laughed. Naji’s eyes crinkled into a smile.
“And what about the third task?” Marjani asked from her seat by the windows. It was raining, gray-green light pouring in around her. “Have you figured out what that means yet?”
“Ah yes!” Queen Saida said. “The third task. I can ask the palace magicians to look into it for you, if you’d like.”
I thought about how worthless her palace helpers had been when it came to finding the starstones, but Naji only nodded and said, “Yes, I would appreciate that. Thank you.”
Afterward, me and Naji walked together in the garden, the way we usually did. I linked my arm in Naji’s and he didn’t say nothing about it, so I figured it was alright. I’d been refraining from dipping in his head ever since he woke up. It had been startling to see myself in there, beloved – though I was still afraid of what might happen if I didn’t find myself at all.
The rain had slowed down to a slow shimmering drizzle. The sun came out and refracted through the drops, filling the air with diamonds. Me and Naji sat down at one of the pavilions near the fence. The jungle was quiet from the rain.
“Why’d you tell her to help you?” I asked.
“So I can cure my curse.”
“You want to get rid of me that easy?” I tried to keep my voice light, but it trembled anyway.
Naji looked at me with eyes as dark as new moons. “No.”
I looked down at my lap.
“Surely you’d like to run off and have your adventures,” he said, “without having me tag along complaining about the vagaries of the ocean.”
“What’s a vagary?” I said. “And I wouldn’t mind none anyway. Having you with me.” With that last part, I blushed and slurred my words on purpose.
Naji leaned over and kissed me, one hand cupping the side of my face. “I wouldn’t mind either,” he said softly, “but I prefer not to feel as though I’m dying every time you loosen the sails.”
I laughed at that, and his eyes lit up. I’d been seeing that more and more. It got to the point that I could fill in the blanks, and every time he did it was like his whole face was smiling. Funny that I hadn’t seen the crinkle back on the Island of the Sun. When I thought about it, I knew it had been there.
Naji kissed me again.
Something squawked over in the garden.
“What the–” I pulled away from Naji and sure enough there was that big white seabird that’d flown into his room before we found the starstones. Another note was attached to its foot.
The bird cawed and flapped its great white wings.
“It’s that bird again,” I said.
Naji took my hand in his. “I saw it,” he said. “When I was under.”
“What? Really?”
The bird hopped forward and stuck out its leg. Naji slipped off the canister and dropped out the note and the map, the same as before.
Naji of the Jadorr’a:
I never received a reply to our last missive, although Samuel assures me that you did read the note. I plead you not to dismiss this one as well – we are not seeking your harm. Nor do we have interest in your skills as a murderer-for-hire. The King of Salt and Foam merely wishes to thank you. That is all. If you are concerned, you may bring guards and weapons, magic or otherwise, as you see fit. I guarantee you will not have use of them. Regards, Jolin I.
Naji lay the note down in his lap.
“What do they got to thank you for?” I asked. “You sure nobody knows anything about them?”
Naji sighed. “I told you, they’re completely unknown to the Order and to Saida’s scholars – I asked about the court and about this Jolin I both. Nothing.” He hesitated. “However, I did see that bird when I was trapped in the liminal space, circling the sky, over and over, dropping down sheets of parchment…” He turned to me. “Ask one of the palace clerks for some ink. I’m going to send them a response.”
“You don’t even know who they are!” I snatched the note off his lap and flapped in the air. “This could be the Mists. A trap–”
“It isn’t.” He pulled the note away from me. “I’ll fetch the ink myself.”
I scowled at the bird, who just cawed at me.
Naji disappeared into the palace. Part of me wanted to follow behind him and find some way to stop him, but I just sat there glaring at the seabird to see who would blink first – me, as it turned out. Whatever Naji knew, whatever Naji thought – some of it was seeping into my brain. Not all of it, but enough that I let him be.
Naji emerged twenty minutes later with a pot of ink. When he saw me staring at the seabird he laughed.
“Write your damn note,” I told him.
“Ananna.” He sat beside me and pulled his black quill out of his shirt. It occurred to me that despite everything that had happened to us he’d never once lost that quill, and then I thought about how thin Jokja cotton was and I wondered just where he kept the quill at all, cause I’d never seen it.
“Naji,” I said.
“I want to visit this…” he glanced down at the note. “This King of Foam and Salt. Things don’t appear in the liminal space unless they’re important.”
I sighed. “You want me to sail you to… to wherever. The middle of nowhere. The place where Mistress Hariri shot me.”
He touched my cheek with the back of his hand. “This has nothing to do with the Hariris.”
“Fine,” I said. “But I don’t know if I can convince Marjani to come with.” I gave him a sly smile. “Maybe you can be Captain Namir yi Nadir again.”
“I doubt it.” He stared at me, his eyes all dark and intense. He was gonna get himself killed.
The way he almost did picking up the starstones.
But that was different. That was the curse. This was just some nonsense he saw while he hovered between worlds.
I listened to the scritch scritch scritch of his pen against the back of the seabird’s note. When he finished he slid the parchment back into the tube and then slid the tube back onto the seabird’s leg. He kept the map, at least.
Then the seabird spread out its wings and dipped its head down low, almost like it was bowing, before taking off into the gray-blue sky.
I knocked on the door to Marjani’s bedroom. A guard stood nearby, gazing at the wall in front of him in such a bored way that I knew really he was keeping tabs on me. Don’t know why: Queen Saida was off in some diplomatic meeting, according to the whispers around the palace, and it’s not like I was up to any mischief.
The door swung open. Marjani blinked when she saw me.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
She pushed the door open wider so I could come in. Her room was bigger than mine, with lots of open windows and expensive-looking furniture and a bed that looked like it had never been slept in.
“Is the ship alright?” she asked, soon as the door was shut. “The crew?”
“What? Oh, yeah, they’re both fine. Crew all came back from the Aja Shore and picked up their work shifts right where we left off.”
Marjani smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Actually, I kinda wanted to talk about the ship.”
“You want to leave.”
That gave me pause, the way she knew right away, and for a moment I just stared at her. She didn’t look like Marjani much anymore, with her pretty dresses and the makeup around her eyes, but I realized it was just that she didn’t look like the Marjani I knew, and that she had been this Marjani long before she met me. I wondered if she thought the same thing about me. I hadn�
�t been in men’s clothes much since we came to Jokja, either.
“Yeah,” I said, “I want to leave.”
She gave me a quick smile.
“Do you?”
The smile disappeared, and there was this long pause as she looked out the windows. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I miss it, you know, but when I was sailing I missed all this.”
I knew she really meant that she had missed Queen Saida, but I didn’t say nothing.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “We got coordinates to someplace out in the ocean. Naji – he’s got some feeling about them, though–”
“You don’t agree,” Marjani said. “You don’t want to go.”
“Yeah, but… the thing is, I looked at the coordinates and they’re… well, they’re about the same place where we had that battle with the Hariris.”
She stared at me. “Violence,” she said. “It’s a cure for his curse.”
“It’s the middle of the ocean!” I said. “More likely it’s some Hariri trick.”
Marjani tilted her head at me. “Do you want me to go so you can stay here?”
“No! I ain’t no coward. I just… it’s your ship, you’re the captain–”
Marjani’s face changed. Just for a second, when I called her captain. I got the feeling she missed it all more than she let on.
“Besides,” I said, “if we do gotta fight the Hariris, I need to have you around. Don’t think I could lead the ship into battle the way you could.”
She laughed. I could tell it was cause she was flattered. “Well,” she said, “how can I say no to that? Not that I think you’re going to have to fight the Hariris.”
“We won’t be out long,” I said.
“You say that.” She shook her head. “I’ll go. I do miss it terribly. Saida may not be too pleased to hear it, but…” Her voice trailed off and she toyed with the end of one of her locks.
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