Blood Heir

by Amélie Wen Zhao

  He would prove it.

  Ramson stepped forward. He felt all the eyes of his classmates shift to him, and the attention was wind in his sails, propelling him forward and lifting his courage. “We walk our talk here in the Blue Fort,” he said coolly, grabbing a rod of his own. He’d never held one before that day; it was heavier than he’d expected, the wood rough against his palms.

  Fisher cast his black eyes on Ramson. He lifted his rod in an unsettlingly familiar way. It shifted loosely in his hands, flowing like an extension of his body.

  Ramson mimicked him, lifting his own rod. It swayed unsteadily, off balance. His heart hammered in his chest, and he could feel his courage evaporating as quickly as a puddle of water on a Bregonian summer day.

  Jonah Fisher struck. He reminded Ramson of a bird—a common raven, dark and unkempt and unimposing, but surprisingly quick.

  The rod thwapped Ramson and he stumbled back, gritting his teeth against the pain that singed across his chest. He aimed a clumsy swing at Fisher, but Fisher pivoted easily out of the way.

  Another blow to Ramson’s thighs, and this time Ramson cried out. A third blow buckled his knees, and before he could even draw breath, the fight was over and he was lying on the stone floor, Jonah Fisher standing over him. Ramson was panting hard, and he could taste the salty tang of tears rising in his throat as he stared at the other boy.

  What happened next was one of the biggest surprises Ramson could remember encountering in his life.

  Fisher held out a hand.

  There was no trace of arrogance on his pale, thin face. His features were arranged in that same bored expression, as though nothing in the world could interest him.

  Ramson did the only acceptable thing he could think of. He slapped Fisher’s hand aside. “I don’t need your help,” he snarled, pushing himself to his feet. “We’re not friends. We’ll never be.”

  As Ramson hobbled away to join his stunned class, leaving Fisher behind him, he caught sight of a figure at the doorway. A flash of suntanned skin and sandy brown hair, navy-blue tunic emblazoned with gold, sword flashing at hip.

  Roran Farrald turned from the entrance and walked away.

  Disappointment and shame burned in Ramson’s cheeks. He threw a final glance at Fisher, who stood alone on the other side of the hall, and vowed that he would defeat this boy if it was the last thing he did.

  Everything had changed with a boat, a storm, and a voice.

  The Bregonians had the best navy in the world, but first and foremost, they were sailors. And every Bregonian child training for the Navy spent half their days on the seas.

  It had been a nighttime drill during the second year of Ramson’s training. The sky was moonless and the waters were black and cold, stirring uneasily with the growing wind.

  The storm set upon them in the early hours of the morning. The winds shrieked and the waves stood higher than walls, tossing the small brig of ten Bregonian trainees like a leaf in the wind. Even years later, Ramson would wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of being flung around in the dark, the taste of blind terror strong on his tongue.

  As captain of his little brig, he’d been screaming orders from the ratlines when a wave reared from the black night and slammed into him. He remembered falling, the world a spinning tangle of masts and sails and wood. He’d crashed through the surface of the ocean, and then there had been only darkness and silence.

  The first few moments were blind, terrifying disorientation. Ramson thrashed and kicked, not knowing whether he was going up or down or sideways, the world around him tossing and turning as wave after wave bore down on him. Almost all the air had left his lungs upon impact, and as the pressure grew in his chest and his limbs began to burn from oxygen deprivation, he’d sent a prayer to the gods.

  An arm had closed around his middle, and he’d felt himself being lifted up and up by the currents and that arm. Ramson had thought he had been dying, until he’d broken through the surface and the world crashed back in a torrent of waves and winds and rain.

  “Swim,” said a calm voice by his ear. Coughing and spluttering, he’d turned to see that the orphan had his arm locked around him and was dragging him through the churning waves. The boy had turned, his black hair plastered to his pale face. In that thin, underfed face, Ramson saw true courage for the first time in his life. “Swim,” the boy repeated, “or we both die.”

  Ramson swam.

  The wrath of the ocean bore them up and down and back again like the small, insignificant lives they were, sputtering flickers of candlelight in a screaming gale. But Ramson held tight to Jonah Fisher and swam, one heavy kick after another, one tired stroke after the other. The cold made his limbs numb and drained him of his energy.

  The rhythm of the waves lulled both boys into a stupor. At some point, Ramson must have closed his eyes or fallen asleep swimming. The next thing he knew, there were the unmistakable shouts of men above his head, and splashes in the water. Someone looped a rope around him and he was heaved up, limbs dangling and dripping like a wet sponge, onto the ship.

  The sodden wood of the deck felt like heaven, and despite the rocking of the ship and the shouts and footsteps and hands wrapping blankets around him, he could have slept right there and then.

  Ramson lifted his head, his vision blurring. “Fisher,” he croaked.

  In the darkness, a boy’s face appeared, white against the black night, lips blue-tinged and trembling.

  The question had lodged in Ramson’s throat when he first saw Fisher’s face looming like a ghost’s out of the violent black waves. “Why did you save me?”

  Fisher shrugged. “Because I could.”

  It wasn’t a straight answer, but it was answer enough. Half-frozen, his thoughts muddled, Ramson felt shame heat his cheeks and guilt churn in his stomach. He’d treated Jonah Fisher abhorrently…and Fisher had saved his life.

  “Thank you.” The words were so quiet and the storm so loud that he didn’t think Fisher heard him.

  Even on the cusp of death, Jonah Fisher looked bored. But then he did something that surprised Ramson for the second time in their brief acquaintance.

  Jonah Fisher smiled. It was an unsettling, awkward smile: more of a grimace, setting his peaky face at odds with his long, dripping hair and dark eyes. “Call me Jonah,” he wheezed.

  Ramson would soon learn that Jonah was named after the sea god’s disciple, who had been reincarnated as a mystical ghostwhale. From that day on, Jonah was the brother Ramson had never known he wanted. The orphan seemed to know everything, from the politics of Bregon to secret passageways in the Blue Fort to the best ways to cheat on tests. It wasn’t long before he turned his mind to other things—things that regular children learning and training at the Blue Fort did not care for. Jonah seemed especially interested in the politics of the grown-ups, of Bregonian warfare tactics, of what the latest shipments from the Aseatic Isles kingdoms contained, of new Cyrilian laws on Affinite indenturement. He snuck out to town often and would return looking occupied and distant for days.

  “You should try harder at school,” Ramson chided him. “How will you ever end up ranking high if you don’t turn in your assignments? The girls like the cleverest and strongest recruits.” He grinned. “Like me.”

  “The girls’ll like me for how handsome I am,” Jonah replied lazily.

  Ramson burst out laughing. “Handsome? You look like a plucked crow, Jonah Fisher!”

  “And you look like a gutted fish, with that constant dumb expression of yours,” Jonah quipped. He grew solemn again, considering Ramson’s question.

  “I guess I don’t really see the point of studying such obsolete histories when there are very real tragedies happening on our doorstep.”

  “Like what?”

  “People are starving, when we have an abundance of food. People are dying from
illness, when we have an entire warehouse storage of medicine.”

  “Because we’re important,” Ramson had said. “They chose us to become future leaders of Bregon—”

  “Don’t be naïve, Ramson. I used to be one of those starving people. There’s nothing different between us and them.”

  “Well…” The thought unsettled Ramson, that his scheduled life of coursework and training and a future as a Navy commander could be wrong, and could affect someone so close to him. “Once we work our way to the top, once we rank as Admiral, we’ll be able to change things. That’s why you should do your assignments, you know. Otherwise you’ll never make it.”

  He hadn’t thought his words would have an impact on Jonah, but they did. That year, Jonah turned his attention to his studies. And, of course, he excelled annoyingly at everything he did, with an effortless grace and characteristic taciturnity.

  Ramson, however, prided himself on being the better talker—in fact, the best talker among the Bregonian Navy recruits.

  “What’s the point of being good at everything if you can’t tell everyone you’re good at everything?” he’d taunted Jonah once, when they were in their fourth year of training.

  Jonah gave him a pointed look as he chewed through a mouthful of whatever kitchen pickings he’d stolen. He was still as thin as the day they’d met, and no matter how much he ate, he seemed to stay that way. “The point is that after you’re done talking, Ramson of the Quick Tongue, I’ll kick your ass.”

  That shut Ramson up.

  Jonah dipped his finger in the water and traced a lazy circle. They were stretched out on a fishing barge, basking in the midsummer sun that lanced off the white-capped waves and made everything glitter hazily. The ocean sighed, the air was balmy, Ramson’s stomach was full, and they smelled of sweat and salt and wet wood.

  “Look,” Jonah said, and Ramson groaned. Jonah had a way of being brutally honest, and Ramson got the brunt of it. “I know you do it to compensate, in some ways.”

  “Compensate? Thought big words were my thing, Fisher.”

  “Your da,” Jonah continued, turning his head so that his dark eyes dug into Ramson like hooks. Ravens’ eyes. Even now, he spoke with that lowborn accent; instead of changing it, he’d taken it and made it acceptable, even admirable. “You’re doing all this for him.”

  Ramson sat up. “That’s not true.”

  “It is,” Jonah continued calmly. “He’s got a daughter now, but you still think you’ve a chance at his title someday.”

  Something in Ramson coiled tighter at Jonah’s mention of his half sister. Rumor had it that she was old enough to start training at the Blue Fort in a year, and he’d yet to meet her.

  Ramson doubted he ever would. “Everyone has a chance at Admiral,” he snapped, and the next words left him before he could think. “Even you.”

  Jonah’s finger paused; the circles stopped, and Ramson froze. He wished he could swallow his words. The waves seemed to fall still, the wood suddenly searing beneath his hands.

  “Truth is, I probably won’t,” Jonah said at last. Ramson glanced at Jonah, startled, but the latter continued calmly. “The world’s divided into two, Ramson: the powerful, and the pawns. Orphans like me? Without a family or fortune or even a name? We’ll never become anything. Power breeds power, and few without it can claw their way to the top.”

  The waves roared in Ramson’s ears, and specks of salt stung his face. “That’s not true,” he managed at last. “The top Navy commander becomes Admiral. We all have a chance.” I have a chance.

  “That’s what they tell you. You’ll see the truth of it in a few years.” Jonah shrugged. “ ’S all right. I’ve made my peace with it. I just wanted to say, you shouldn’t do something for anyone else but yourself. Especially someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.”

  Ramson’s throat felt tight, Jonah’s words rattling around his skull, denying the single goal he’d dedicated himself to with every extra training hour he spent at the Blue Fort, honing his skills to become the best of the best.

  To become Admiral.

  “I don’t think—” he began, but Jonah tossed something at him. By instinct, Ramson snatched the object out of the air. It glinted bronze, larger than his palm.

  A compass.

  “They say this was the only thing they found on me when I got to the orphanage,” Jonah went on. “I’d no idea what it was, but I’ve thought about it over the years. Thing is, Ramson, you can achieve everything in this world, but if it’s for someone else, it’s pointless. Figure out what you want to do in this life. Live for yourself. You might be the world’s strongest battleship, but you can’t navigate without a compass.” Jonah turned away, closing his eyes to the sun’s rays. A faint trace of a smile hung about his lips as he dipped his hand in the ocean and began to make circular motions again. “Keep it, and remember this. Your heart is your compass, Ramson of the Quick Tongue.”

  The compass was a rusty old thing, its bronze edges darkened with age and touch. The glass was yellowing, and the small paper map inside looked as though it had been stained by tea leaves and partially burned. It still worked, though, and Ramson had tucked it into his pocket and kept it on him. He had brushed his fingers against it for luck and for courage, or just for a small reminder that he had Jonah and all would be fine in the world.

  The compass traveled with Ramson until Jonah died, almost exactly one year later. Ramson remembered hurling the thing at the wall, and then picking it up to see the arrow spinning like a broken helm amid the shattered glass, faster and faster until it seemed to careen into a wild blur. And Jonah’s death had left Ramson that way, broken and directionless and spinning out of control ever since.

  * * *

  —

  Ramson blinked, and the traces of his memories vanished. He was back in the small dacha, the fire dying low, the Affinite girl—Ana—curled against the wall opposite him, watching him over the flickering embers. Phantoms danced around them in the shapes of light and shadows, and he suspected he wasn’t the only one haunted by ghosts of the past tonight. “I’d tell the Blood Witch that I understand,” Ramson said quietly. “I never meant to hurt anyone, either.”

  It was a half-truth. After Jonah’s death, Ramson had set out ensuring that that truth never held again. He’d hurt anyone and everyone who got in his way. And even those who didn’t.

  Yet as Ana gave him a wide-eyed look, the curiosity on her face open like a book toward him, a part of him faltered.

  What do you want?

  To right my wrongs. What do you want?

  I told you. Revenge.

  It had been his motto for the past seven years, even when the molten fire of his anger had cooled to cold steel. Revenge, for what his father had done, for all the broken flaws of this crooked world.

  For Ramson’s own flaws, which had cost Jonah Fisher’s life.

  Yet as he turned a palm up against the dying light of the fire, he could almost see the ghostly outline of a compass. Jonah’s words whispered in his ears. You can achieve everything in this world, but if it’s for someone else, it’s pointless. Live for yourself.

  Ramson almost turned, as though expecting to see Jonah slouched against the wall next to him, watching him through those dark, half-lidded eyes.

  Ramson snapped his fist shut. The ghosts vanished, and there was only the witch, sitting before him, her head tilted against the wall as she drifted to sleep.

  Such easy prey. He would gain her sympathy, manipulate her into trusting him for his own gain.

  That would make it easier for him to hand her—the infamous Blood Witch of Salskoff—over to Alaric Kerlan. A better Trade, the best Ramson had ever made, in exchange for a clean slate.

  Yet as he settled on the hard floor, using his own arm as a pillow, he wondered why something that should have been made easy had, inst
ead, seemingly become harder.

  It took them five days to reach Novo Mynsk: a sprawling mass of a city in the north of the Empire. It was a city of extremes, where white marble houses and gilded roofs oozed opulence, towering over dark alleyways in which the wet smell of gutters lingered like death. The cobblestone streets were lined with glass-paned storefronts boasting lush silk kechyans, gold jewelry inlaid with precious stones of all colors and sizes, and trinkets that winked and glittered as they passed. Fur-cloaked nobles swarmed the streets, bellies and coin pouches bulging, just steps from the dark alleyways in which half-clothed beggars crouched.

  Ana kept close to Ramson as they wound their way through the streets. It was late afternoon and the sun slanted over the marble mansions. Five days of travel had worn her out; she gratefully collapsed on the cold bed of the room they rented in one of the hundreds of pubs scattered throughout the city.

  Ramson had purchased fresh clothes for them with a portion of the coins she had taken from the bounty hunters. After a quick meal of beef and onion pirozhky pies, Ana cleaned up and quickly slipped into the new outfit. The destination for the night: the Playpen.

  The silks and chiffons slid smoothly over her skin, and Ana shivered as she turned to look at herself in the cracked glass mirror of her rented room. The clothes were extravagant—finer than anything she had worn in the past year. Ramson had mentioned that only the affluent could afford such lavish entertainment; to get in, they had to look and act the part.

  Her dress, in her opinion, bordered on suggestive. The midnight-black evening gown draped over the curves of her body like the cool caress of water, pooling at her feet. The back plunged to her waist, and she was thankful for the fur drape that Ramson had bought her. Still, she felt almost naked without her hood.

  Ana braided her hair and twisted it into a bun, in an attempt to reproduce some semblance of what her maids at the Palace used to style for her. She dabbed some rouge on her lips, brushed powders on her cheeks, and traced kohl over her eyes. It had been so long since she’d looked in a mirror, and dressing up felt like a strange game she was trying to play, an imitation of a past she could never again have. Her skin had grown rough over the past year, crisscrossed with tiny scars where she’d fallen or where branches or the elements had chipped at her, her lips dry and cracked.