The water took on a faint murkiness, still clear but now a dim, transparent gray. The thought unsettled me—what, precisely, had I done? Could I draw the curse from the water as I knew I could from fabric? Or would it linger here forever?
I lay down, closing my eyes. I felt the familiar exhaustion of casting, intensified without the crutch of sewing. I didn’t mean to, but I fell asleep, rocked by the boat. When I woke, I heard the bustle of feet and clank of chains that told me the decks were busy with the sailors’ work.
I glanced at the bowl of lilies, and my stomach clenched.
The lilies had withered. Their green leaves and stems were brown and brittle, and the petals aged to crackling parchment. Even the scent, a luminous, heady perfume before, had decomposed and become curdled, thick.
I scooped the flowers out with shaking hands and threw them away in a rusted waste bin, then turned back to the water. The distortions I had caused caught the light and glittered faintly, darkly. My questions were suddenly urgent instead of hypothetical, and I suppressed my panic and began to pull the curse from the water. Painfully, the disintegrated sparkle coalesced, first into a blot of dark in the bowl, and then pulled like stormy taffy into a thick thread. I drew it into the air, then dispersed it, pushing it back into the ether.
I sat shaking. This was far beyond the influence of curse or charm. This was life and death in a thin thread of dark sparkle, and no one could know that I could control it.
Theodor found me staring at the water in the otherwise empty vase. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked. “It’s nearly supper and you skipped the midday meal.”
I shook my head—hunger was the furthest thing from my mind, even though casting usually left me more than ready for a meal. I explained what I’d done, and Theodor’s pride over my achievement shifted as swiftly as mine had when I described the effect of pure curse magic on the flowers. We agreed that experimenting further was not only unwise but impractical. After all, I wasn’t going to try to soak a living person, or even creature, in curse magic.
“Don’t tell the others about it,” I almost begged. “The charm casting, of course, I’ll tell them first thing tomorrow, but the curse…” I swallowed. “They might want it used, and I can’t even begin to think how I’d control it. If I even wanted to.”
“No, of course not. When we began to try out more methods and uses for casting, I confess even I hadn’t thought of that.” He sighed, creases between his eyebrows deepening.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “At least… at least we know the Serafans can’t do this, right? Or they probably would have tried on me.” I tried for a joke and mostly failed.
“Are you sure you aren’t hungry? I could bring a tray, or—”
“I’m really not. I’d rather go to bed,” I said, holding out an arm to him, beckoning. He understood. With the weight of wielding death on my shoulders, I craved closeness, warmth, life. He slipped into the narrow bed beside me and pulled me close, his lips tracing the curve of my ear, the hollow of my cheek. My hands explored all the familiar lines of his body, his narrow shoulders, arms still lined with dexterous muscle from pulling weeds and digging in the dirt. Fingers tipped with callouses from his violin. All of him, expressed in the subtleties of his skin.
It was still light when we curled against one another and slipped into sleep.
56
AS SOON AS WE’D EATEN A BLAND BREAKFAST OF PORRIDGE WITH dried fruit and weak tea, I cleared my throat. “I think I’ve figured out a… method to charm cast over larger quantities,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to explain it to anyone who couldn’t cast, but no one seemed particularly keen on asking as they congratulated me.
“You could put it in cloth being woven?” Alba asked eagerly.
Before I could reply, Kristos added, “And cannon? Shot? What about cursed bayonets?”
“Wait,” I said. “I’m not sure what effects curses would have.” Not to mention, I didn’t need to admit that I knew how to cast curses to a wider audience than already knew.
“Cannons with curses might be more accurate, might fire truer—”
“Or curses might cause the artillery pieces to blow up more frequently,” Sianh replied. “Would the curse be directed at the enemy or no?”
“I couldn’t say,” I said. “So I think it’s best if we work within the parameters of charm magic, for the time being.”
Alba smiled. “Regardless. This will be a secret weapon the Royalists can’t even imagine. You’ll return to Kvyset with me and from there, we will negotiate trade deals with Fenian businesses.”
“There’s one problem,” I said quietly.
Alba met my eyes. “What is that?”
“Casting is illegal in Fen. Anything resembling magic—even illusion like Serafan magicians employ,” I said. “Even card tricks.”
Alba heaved a breath. “Illegal, yes. But this kind of money will convince any smart foundry owner to ignore what you’re doing. If they even have reason to notice to begin with.”
“Why is it illegal?” Ballantine asked. “I confess, for all my knowledge of the currents and winds, to know little enough of Fenian taboos.”
“That’s hardly important information at the moment,” Alba said, sinking her forehead into her hands in a pantomime of weariness.
“It may be important,” Sianh said, “to understanding how we can get around it.”
“It is illegal because it simply… is,” Alba said. “The Fenians have very little sense of humor. Less than the Kvys. They’re the Kvys for whom Kvyset wasn’t humorless enough, remember?”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
Alba conceded. “I’m sorry, I assumed. Fen was colonized by Kvyset centuries ago. Before that, it was an island inhabited by… oh, seals, mostly. And terns. Bandyneck deer, I suppose. At any rate, there was a schism in the Kvys Church, and the outcasts scurried off to Fen. After they got there, some investors pulled their heads from their logbooks long enough to realize that the fishing and the logging out of a fresh country like Fen would make good money.”
“So Fen is a nation of religious zealots and businessmen?” Kristos shrugged. “Could be useful. To know a people, to get their aid, to see how they might be helpful.”
“They’re not helpful people at all,” Alba replied. “The religious zealotry died away long ago, but it did leave quite a mark on their social norms regarding magic, marriage, music, general joy… don’t try to tell them dirty jokes, they don’t even understand them. But money, money they understand.” She took a breath. “Fair enough, it is helpful to know where they come from. Fen is a hard place, difficult to carve a living from. They have to be focused on their profits, or else they won’t eat.”
“I know the feeling,” I said quietly. “Very well. We find a Fenian mill and foundry who will take the alliance and turn a blind eye to anything unusual.”
A sudden increase in the flurry of sailors around us wrenched our attention away from future strategies toward the immediate. Ballantine ran past, spyglass in hand. He posted himself at the stern, searching the waves intently.
“She’s a frigate, no doubt, but is she Galatine?” He scrutinized through the glass further. “I can’t tell yet.”
“Does it matter?” Kristos appeared from the other side of the ship. “If she’s Galatine or Serafan, that is. We don’t want to be apprehended by either.”
“If she’s Serafan, she might not be after us. It might be coincidence.” Ballantine lowered the glass. “If she’s Galatine, there’s no reason for her to be here save belligerence.”
“Lovely,” Alba murmured, joining us. “Just when I had in mind we’d manage a bit of a lull before we all had to chin up and fight.”
“Never so lucky,” Theodor replied. “We should likely assume she’s foe and keep ahead of her, yes?”
“Of course,” his brother replied. He called orders to the mate, who deferred with a grumpy nod. “They didn’t sign on for this,” he added, to hims
elf more than anything. We had reticent sailors and a captain who had only served under other officers, but I quelled the rising panic. We were far ahead of the frigate, and it might be only a Serafan navy vessel on regular maneuvers.
“You all right?” Theodor whispered to me. He slipped his hand in mine. I gripped tightly.
“As much as any of us,” I tried to joke. We waited, stiff and sweating under a mounting sun, to know if we were about to be sunk by one of our own ships.
Ballantine snapped his glass shut. “She’s Galatine.”
57
NOTHING CHANGED AT BALLANTINE’S ANNOUNCEMENT; THE SAILORS still moved as though fixed pieces in the mechanics of the ship, the sails still billowed and strained against the wind, and we still stood rooted to the deck.
“Shouldn’t they ready the guns, or have some sort of battle stations, or—”
Ballantine answered his brother’s questions with a single look. “That frigate is fitted out with enough twenty-four-pound guns to make matchsticks of this vessel if it came to a proper broadside. Not to mention she’s manned by His Majesty’s sailors and officers, and likely a complement of His Majesty’s marines, and you’ve got Serafan sea rats who have no skin in this game past their pay, and, might I add, a rather green commanding officer.”
“Can we outrun them?” Theodor asked. “We don’t have to fight, that isn’t why we’re out here. We just need to make port.”
Ballantine pressed his lips together, running quick calculations he didn’t verbalize. “It’s possible. Not plausible, mind you.”
“What choice do we have?” Kristos asked.
“We don’t know what they want,” Theodor cautioned. “That is—we know they want us out of the fight. But that doesn’t mean…”
“Even if it doesn’t mean execution. Yes, I’ll say it even if you won’t.” Kristos turned his face back toward the frigate’s bright sails. “It means the war is over before it’s under way, if you’re correct in your assessments that what’s needed is centralized leadership. If you’re right that we can give the Reformists that leadership.”
“I’m not going to sacrifice this crew fighting for me,” Theodor answered.
“Very gallant of you,” Kristos answered. “I’m willing to sacrifice anything for Galitha.”
I swallowed. I knew Kristos believed he would—he’d been willing to sacrifice me once. “Whose decision is it?” I said. Both of them looked at me, confused. “It’s the captain’s decision, isn’t it? And our captain is currently Lieutenant Westland.”
“I’m hardly qualified—”
“You’re the only one even close to qualified to decide what this ship does. You say she might be able to outrun them. You say she can’t win in a fight. We all know that we could surrender.”
He sighed. “It’s a long way to Hazelwhite.”
“Do we have to get all the way to this Hazelwhite?” Alba interjected with calm confidence.
“We could go overland,” Kristos said. “If we can outrun them far enough to get us safely ashore somewhere.” The imposing gray cliffs of southern Galitha seemed to mock us.
Ballantine considered this, glancing from Alba to Kristos, assessing both the idea and the speakers. “There’s a cove perhaps twelve miles ahead. If we can outrun them that far, we could lower the longboat and you could make your way from there. If we’re particularly good about it, we could have you out of sight before they can see, and continue on as a decoy.”
“That could actually work,” Kristos said with a wry grin.
“Just a moment. What if this ship were caught, what would they do with Sophie? And you?” Theodor asked.
“I’d be court martialed, most likely,” Ballantine said. He held up a hand at my protest. “No, I knew it was a possibility. It’s conceivable my father would intervene, but it’s also likely that, out of principle, he won’t. The foreigners—they wouldn’t, if they were wise, harm them. They’d give parole and send them on their way.”
“And Sophie?” Theodor asked again.
“I don’t know,” he said softly, glancing at me. “Truly. I don’t know if she would be considered worth taking prisoner, or if she’d be let go, or…”
“Then we can’t worry about that now,” I said, as boldly as I could. My voice still wavered, but the salt wind blew hard enough that I didn’t think anyone heard.
“Do you think,” Theodor said, glancing at the billowing sails, “that there’s anything you can do to assist?”
I felt the pitch and roll of the ship around me, the salt spray peppering us, the steady wind. I didn’t understand how any of it worked. I would have to trust Ballantine to capture that wind and use it to our advantage even as the frigate on our trail would be doing their damnedest to utilize it, as well. “If I knew what would help, I—”
The report of a cannon interrupted me, its hollow echo amplified over the water and resounding in my chest. Behind us, the shot plunged into the ocean with a plume of white spray. Ballantine snapped to attention, watching our pursuer through his glass.
“We’re still out of range,” he said, “but I’m needed to direct the sailors.”
“What can I do?” I asked, catching his sleeve before he could leave.
“You mean, with your…?”
“Yes. With charms.”
“You can’t curse them to a watery hell?”
“No,” I answered, not interested in explaining that I wouldn’t curse them even if I could, and that of course I had no idea how to cast anything on a far-distant ship in any case.
“Can you protect things?”
No time for complicated explanations of the limits of casting or the difficulties with my abilities. “Yes.”
“The rigging. The sails. Unless I miss my guess, they will not want to sink us. So they’ll fire chain shot at the rigging to disable us.”
“The sails,” I confirmed, letting the silver-braided sleeve of his coat go. He disappeared. I swallowed, forming a plan quickly. Charm magic, embedded into the weave of the sails and the twist of the ropes. As swiftly as I could, I began to tease grudging light from the ether, summoning more and more of it under my control.
“Do you need my violin?”
I almost lost control of the threads but held them steady as I answered Theodor. “I don’t.” It sounded almost like an apology. This was faster, if I could manage it, but I realized as well that I missed our tandem casting. I didn’t need him in this tangible, immediate way.
But I didn’t have time to explain that to him. Instead, I turned my attention back to the protection charm, pulling it from the ether and twining the light into the fibers of the ropes that made a web of the masts. Sailors moved past them, through them, moved the ropes themselves, but if the length of hemp twist I was working on moved away, I simply cut off the charm and moved on to another. Soon the ropes were awash with light, visible to me and Theodor alone, glittering unevenly due to my hasty work.
I continued on to the sails, this time attempting to craft a webbing from the light, imagining it becoming loosely woven swaths like nets. I wove and threw, wove and threw, settling the nets over the sails, and then pressing the charm into the fibers of the sails, messy crosshatches sinking into the fabric itself. Where it crossed the seasoned wood of the masts, I didn’t bother trying to embed the charm—it took too much effort, too much time to work with the solid, hard grain of wood.
I began to weave another net from the charm magic, but an echoing cannon report broke my concentration.
“They’re still out of range,” Ballantine said. I glanced at him. He was pale, but no hint of panic breached his voice. “For now. I think they know we’re not up for the fight and are trying to outpace them.”
I worked another layer of protection charm into the sails. They fairly glowed with a web of charm. If we survived this, if the ship wasn’t sunk or smashed to bits, I wondered how long the tangled charms would last in the ropes and canvas, if the salt spray and sea wind would corrode the magic
from them as it wore away the fibers themselves.
A confident pessimism settled deep in the pit of my stomach, assuring me that my theory would likely remain untested. Out of my sight but in Ballantine’s glass, the frigate’s guns were readying charges for us.
“So that’s what you can do, now.” Theodor stood beside me, scanning the sails with wonder and, I thought, a bit of fear. Fear of me, or of the swiftly approaching frigate?
“The inlet is just ahead. Ballantine says there’s space to land a small vessel easily enough, a longboat or the like.”
“The longboat.” I could try a charm on it—even though embedding charms in wood was more difficult, any bit of luck was better than none. And we needed luck. “Where is it?”
Theodor led me to the wooden vessel, intended for small landing parties, outfitted with several rows of oars. I hastily wove a charm, a weak, messy one, and pressed it into the wood with all my will. I repeated the process, beginning to sweat, my stomach knotting. The work of casting from the ether, without my needle and thread, was more taxing, and solid wood less pliable to the inclusion of the charm. I pushed through it, layering light on the small boat, willing luck on it as though my hope alone could ferry it to safety.
“There,” I said shakily. “I wish… I wish I could do more.”
“It’s more luck than the Galatines behind us have,” Theodor replied with a small smile. “I have the best kind of luck on my side.”
“And then this is farewell.” It didn’t feel like a proper goodbye, hastily said on the deck of a ship now keening a bit to starboard as Ballantine pushed us toward the cove. But what romantic fantasy had I concocted without meaning to? A winsome private moment on the deck of a bustling ship? Being swept into arms that were holding too much already, gazed upon by a man who was focused on far bigger things than me?
Fray Page 35
