The Crown's Dog

by Elise Kova

  “Where’s this cargo hold?”

  The captain assigned a member of the crew to be Jax’s escort belowdecks. Jax had to hunch over to descend the narrow stair off the quarterdeck into a long, dark hold. He blinked at his paper, already struggling to read the scribbled script.

  With a motion, he summoned a tiny mote of fire over his shoulder as a magical lantern.

  Jax looked instinctively to the sailor, waiting. He raised his eyebrows.

  “What?” the man asked, unable to decipher Jax’s look. Jax was reminded of how well Baldair and Erion had learned his looks.

  The man’s nonchalance was the one thing he still missed about the West: acceptance for sorcerers. No one batted an eyelash at magic. Sorcery was something to be lusted after, honored, and fought for in Western culture. It didn’t come with the fear and dark history found in the South.

  “Nothing,” Jax mumbled, looking around the packed hold. “This is going to take a while.”

  “Yeah, a bit.” The man leaned against one of the posts by the stairs. “I have time.”

  Jax rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to be bored out of a task.

  Still, checking all the boxes was monotonous. After just the first three, he was beginning to skim through the trunks and crates. Precious gems—raw cut, polished, set, and loose—a barely comprehensible amount of gold’s worth of wares were all accounted for. Nothing less, nothing more.

  There were no secret bottoms or unmarked crates that would imply any sort of smuggling or foul play. If the ship’s documents had no other port marks, it was likely this whole matter was one big misunderstanding that they could move on from and never think of again. How Jax wished that would

  be the case. The sooner he could be away from the vessel, the better.

  A grunt drew his attention, followed by a heavy thunk that vibrated the deck beneath his feet. Jax rounded the boxes he had been working behind, looking to the stair. The sailor who had been waiting on him was lying face-first, just out of

  the square of light from the stairway opening in a pool of his own blood.

  Magic cracked through the air, and Jax had to dodge wildly to narrowly miss a spear of ice.

  15. ERION

  THE CAPTAIN PRODUCED the requisite paperwork—sheets of papers lined with careful inventory lists and valuations, portmasters’ seals upon their manifest at every scheduled location. “As you can see, everything is in order.”

  Erion looked it over carefully. He’d grown up inspecting such documents alongside his father and was familiar with the standard format that structured its contents.

  Baldair glanced up at him from where he, too, had been inspecting the papers. He had no such training and was obviously deferring to Erion’s judgment. There was a time when this might have made Erion uneasy. But now he was familiar with the prince’s manner—he was proud of the things he could do but made no claim on the things he could not.

  Erion hummed, running his finger over the page, making a show of inspecting it. He could already tell everything added up, but he wanted to see what happened when he made the captain sweat just a little.

  “I could explain it to you, if that’s easier.” The captain sat at the chair behind his desk, a bit of smugness in the air about him.

  Erion chuckled. “No, I’m quite capable.”

  “Oh?” The man arched his dark eyebrows in question. “I’d caught rumor of the horrid affairs leading to one Westerner who should be dead instead trotting in tow of the prince… but not two.”

  Baldair gave the captain a cautionary look at the mention of Jax but said nothing further. That was the man’s second chance; if he was wise he wouldn’t push it to a third. Even the perpetually easygoing Baldair would have to draw a line at some point. Erion would draw it for him if he had to.

  “How did you come to know our prince?”

  “We met in Norin, when we both happened to be traveling there with our families,” Erion answered vaguely, pretending to be far more fascinated by the documents in front of him than anything the man had to say.

  “Oh? And where are you from originally? The South?”

  The man was appraising Erion’s southern blue eyes, inherited from his mother along with the slightly lighter shade of his skin. “I was born in the Crossroads.”

  “What brought you and your family to Norin?”

  Erion had grown tired of the small-talk game of cat and mouse. “I was traveling with my father, Richard Le’Dan, to inspect our shops and vessels.”

  Captain Dower stilled. “Le’Dan?”

  “Le’Dan.”

  “That would make you… Erion?” He had to pause to come up with the name, but he managed. It affirmed again for Erion that this captain was either a member of the old Western Court or had spent much time learning about it. Given his employer, either wouldn’t be an entirely surprising thing to learn.

  “Lord Erion, yes.” Westerners lived on the pride of old nobility. Erion might relax his title in most instances, but this would not be such a one. He would demand every measure of respect from the man.

  Captain Dower said nothing further as Erion finished looking through all the papers. But as his cursory first inspection indicated, there was nothing amiss, nothing that would be cause for concern.

  Erion straightened, running his hand along the pommel of his sword thoughtfully. “Why does the portmaster suspect you are lying about your inventory?”

  “That would be something you’d need to ask him.” The captain raised his hands in the air, indicating that he didn’t have even the illusion of an idea. “I’ve been making this run for over a year now without trouble.”

  Over a year. Erion gripped and released the familiar leather of the pommel. “Western rubies,” he thought aloud, a potential connection forming a tether between the events of his mind. “Have you ever transported them?”

  “Western rubies?” there was a note of genuine surprise that nearly bordered on alarm in the captain’s tone. Erion didn’t miss it, just as he didn’t miss the shift in the man’s posture. “Why would I bring those down here of all places?”

  “They’re rare, would fetch a hefty price.”

  “No one here would have the money to pay for them.”

  “Oparium is quite wealthy,” Baldair spoke up in defense of the South. “I’ve seen how the ladies wear their jewels on any given day. There’s a taste for these things here.”

  “It’s also the main shipping port of the Empire’s capital,” Erion added.

  “Even so.” The captain shook his head with a chuckle. “Transporting such precious cargo over sea would be too risky. Wouldn’t want to get mixed up with any pirates… as I’m sure you both well know.”

  “What are we supposed to well know?” The mere mention of pirates after all that had happened set Erion on edge.

  “Sailors talk. Word on the docks is that the prince invoked the ghost of the pirate queen by asking after her, perhaps even pursuing her long-lost treasure.” The captain stood, slowly collecting his papers and folios, putting them back in order. “I’d imagine that’s one ghost you’d be best to stay away from.”

  “Surely, you can’t believe in ghosts.”

  “A man sees many things at sea. It’d be foolish to rule out the pirate queen returning to defend her prize.” He placed the ledgers back into the drawer of his desk. “With all respect, prince, if it were me, I’d not chase it.”

  “Baldair, let us join Jax.” Erion made no effort to use Baldair’s title; he showed his familiarity with the prince openly.

  “Very well.”

  The captain made no motion to stop their departure.

  Erion couldn’t have escaped back out to the quarterdeck faster. There was something about that captain that was truly beginning to grate on him in the worst of ways.

  “Are Western rubies really so rare?” Baldair asked. “Everyone treats them like they’re gifts from the Mother herself.”

  “Not quite the Mother, but they are very ra
re. They can only be mined deep, so they’re very dangerous and difficult to obtain. Not to mention, veins of them are thin and scarce.” Erion shook his head. “A good many years ago, the second to last King of Mhashan imposed a hefty tax on them. Many claimed it was because the royal family wanted to keep the stones for themselves. The king claimed it was to discourage their mining. When the stones went into fashion, too many people died in the mines, hunting for them. After the South began to take a liking to their foreign shine, it only made matters worse.

  “To this day, only a few mines are permitted to recover them, and a handful of jewelers permitted to do business in them.”

  “Of which the Le’Dans are one.” Baldair grinned.

  Erion chuckled. “Yes, of which the Le’Dans are one.” He was quiet a moment, struggling to remember if Lord Twintle would be another…

  His thoughts were interrupted by a crash. The sailors stalled their work, looking toward one of the open hatches that led belowdecks. A woman ran toward the opening with purpose.

  A cloaked and bundled figure shot out from the shadowed darkness. The Western sailor raised her hands, summoning fire off her fingertips. It caught the cloaked assailant’s leg, burning up bright and hot.

  With a snarl and a hiss of steam, ice sheered away the encroaching flames. The cloaked figure held out a hand, and Erion watched in horror as a trident carved of ice formed in the sorcerer’s waiting palm. It took only a second, but it resembled with nearly exact precision what he had come to know as the trident of Adela.

  The trident fractured against a shield of fire, but it didn’t break. Magic fought against magic, each sorcerer holding their own. The sailor woman broke the shield, twisting, sending out a whip of flame with one hand at the Waterrunner’s side.

  “We have to help her!” Baldair drew his sword.

  Erion stalled for half a breath. He had trained in swordplay all his life. But it had been just that—sword play. Practice drills and countless nights of imagining himself as some war hero riding into a city of fanfare hadn’t prepared him to draw his sword against another person.

  His right hand closed on the pommel, drawing his blade with a ringing shinnng. He launched in behind Baldair.

  At the same time, a ball of fire caught the hooded figure by surprise. It shot out from the darkness of the hatch, a winded Jax following close behind.

  The figure pushed a hand downward, ice crackling at his feet in long spears, keeping the four of them at bay. Shielding his face from where the fireball had begun to singe off his hood, the mysterious Waterrunner launched himself toward the railing of the deck.

  “Stop her!” Jax shouted, already in motion to do so himself.

  He pushed through the ice with hands aflame, reducing it to steaming puddles. Jax was the first to launch himself off the railing onto tall crates piled on the docks. Using it as an unconventional sort of stairs, he jumped down behind the Waterrunner in close pursuit.

  The sailor was next, cursing under her breath in the old language of Mhashan.

  “Who was that?” Baldair asked aloud as he jumped from the quarterdeck, landing ungracefully on the boxes.

  “How would I know?” Erion landed with a grunt and scrambled to find his feet. He twisted, using his sword as a pivot point, before dashing down the crates and onto the salt-slicked docks.

  Whoever the cloaked Waterrunner was, he—she?—was fast. Already a good hundred steps ahead, the only one close behind was Jax, followed by the sailor another dozen steps after. They pushed through the crowds of the dock, deckhands and merchants shocked to immobile silence.

  The Waterrunner spun, slashing the throat of a gawking man in her way with the point of a dagger made of ice. She threw the magic weapon at the ground behind her, in Jax’s path. A wall of jagged ice formed. From one tall spear, a trident rose over the crowds.

  All was sent into chaos.

  Erion pushed through the running men and women, trying to keep headway.

  “Move aside,” he bellowed. “Move aside!”

  “Clear a path!” Baldair’s voice had a quality that enabled it to echo above all else and, blissfully, people began to oblige.

  They were headed for Market Street. The Waterrunner turned sharply into an even more densely occupied section of town. Erion’s foot slipped on a smear of blood, and he stumbled before regaining his footing. He’d taken his eyes off their quarry for only a moment, and she had already disappeared.

  Jax rounded the corner of an alley.

  “Jax, wait for us!” Baldair called hopelessly.

  “He can handle himself,” Erion tried to assure. “We just need to get there faster.”

  His lungs burned, and his legs were tired. Ice crackled and fire sizzled so brightly that Erion’s sword seemed almost useless in comparison. He heard a hiss, promptly followed by a billow of steam.

  Erion and Baldair ran head-first into the side street, swords at the ready, stances defensive. But there were no further sounds aside from their own footsteps. As the afternoon sun burnt

  away the steam, they found themselves entirely alone in the alleyway.

  16. JAX

  JAX SPRINTED BEHIND his assailant down a cave-like passage.

  “You witch,” he growled. Blood flowed from his thigh with sickening speed. The woman had landed a solid blow on him in the hold, using the element of surprise to her advantage. With every step, his head grew lighter, his vision harder to focus.

  But Jax hadn’t hesitated in his pursuit.

  The illusion hiding the path’s entrance was so narrow, and so carefully crafted with magic, that had he not seen the exact way her body contorted to enter, he would’ve lost her. It was no doubt the same way she’d escaped the last time he pursued her. This time, he’d been able to follow.

  “Stop, and I may make this painless for you,” Jax called out.

  She glanced over her shoulder, flicking her wrist. Jax didn’t even bother burning the ice dagger that shot toward him, opting to dodge instead. He raised a hand, summoning a wall of fire before her.

  Just like last time, it didn’t work, and she barreled through in a protective barrier of magic water and ice. He’d have to burn hotter if he wanted to stop her. He’d have to knowingly will a lethal amount of magic into his fire.

  Jax shouted in frustration, sending another wall of flame.

  Again, she jumped through, continuing onward into the darkness with the confidence of someone who had run this particular path countless times. He couldn’t make it hot enough. Even if his magic let him, the fear creeping in the back of his mind stinted his willingness to watch another woman burn.

  Smother it, he told himself. He was the crown’s monster. He’d done horrible things and could do them again with a smile.

  Just as the path opened up into a cavern that revealed a sheer drop to the sea below on their left, another wall of fire sparked to life. The flames reached for the woman with a white-hot rage. This time, she spun in place, sending a rain of ice spears with a wave of her hand instead of attempting to jump through.

  Jax raised his arms defensively, a thin veil of fire forming to protect him. He looked over his shoulder for the other source of the flames. A second woman—the sailor he had first seen on the Lady Black—followed behind him. She also shielded herself from the hail of ice.

  “What’re you doing here?” He blinked. His senses really were leaving him with the blood flowing down his leg if he’d missed her trailing behind them as well.

  “Helping you!” she cried over the waves that crashed into the cavern below the ledge upon which they stood. “I’ll keep her pinned, you kill her!”

  Kill. The word echoed in his mind. He couldn’t kill her—he could, and would—he couldn’t. The voices went round and round until he lunged with a scream at the Waterrunner.

  His fist, aflame, missed its mark. The Waterrunner dodged, side-stepping around him and away from the wall of flames. Jax kicked, twisting his body backward. She caught his leg, ice coating his f
oot and eliciting a cry of both pain and

  surprise.

  “You should’ve never chased me,” the woman snarled. “You shouldn’t have gone asking about Adela Lagmir.” She twisted and swung, Jax pinwheeling his arms in an attempt to catch his balance.

  The sailor helped right him as fire steamed away the ice coating his foot. The Westerner cursed and lunged for the Waterrunner instead, dropping the wall of fire. The cavern was alight with flames and ice.

  Waterrunners and Firebearers were frustratingly matched. Jax pressed his hand into his bleeding thigh. He had to help her. He had to fight with his kin from the West.

  You have no kin, the voice in the back of his mind reminded him.

  “I’m not letting you go,” the sailor growled.

  “Petulant child.” The Waterrunner matched her blow for blow.

  Jax rejoined the fray in a rush of flaming hands and feet. For a brief moment, he and the sailor seemed to have the advantage. But the Waterrunner was crafty.

  He turned to melt a shard of ice that nearly speared through the sailor’s heart. His body contorted oddly, his side exposed. By the time Jax saw the Waterrunner moving, it was too late. The icy weapon impaled him to the hilt, sucking the screams from his throat and leaving him to wheeze wide-mouthed in shock.

  “What a noble soldier,” she sneered, pushing forward.

  The dagger seemed to grow in his chest, seeking out his lungs. He coughed blood, and his vision blurred; the pull of unconsciousness was too strong for Jax to fight any longer.

  “You shouldn’t have gone looking for the pirate queen if you didn’t want to find her.” The Waterrunner’s eyes, the color of the ice trapped within the deepest crevasse of a high mountain glacier, were alight with triumph as she watched him dying on her icicle.

  Jax watched in snapshots as every blink of his eyes took longer, each image delayed in focusing. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath any longer. Suddenly, the woman was off him, she and the sailor locked in combat anew.