Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  I ignore her bait. “What about Thomas’s children?” I ask, turning Mother’s notions back at her. “Who will provide for his two boys?” I’m shouting now. “Or did you not know he had them?”

  “Three boys,” she says with infuriating calm. “His wife was pregnant and has delivered since. And they will be cared for better than Thomas could have afforded himself. He made his choice with eyes wide open, Nile. He was a parent. He understood. So will you.”

  I snap my mouth shut, cutting off the conversation. There is no point in rehashing old truths. Father doesn’t need me breeding, he needs me to earn a place in the Ashing Admiralty, which commands Ashing’s naval fleet. A position that my aunt, Father’s sister, almost achieved when she died in action. And I too need to earn my place in the navy’s command. I won’t become the king’s second great disappointment.

  As if summoned by thought, the first great disappointment walks into the sickroom.

  Tall and slender, with red hair and long, beautiful lashes, my twin brother, Clay, is the perfect doll our mother wishes I was. His skin is paler than my sun-kissed hue, his long fingers soft where mine are calloused from hauling rope and training with weapons. And where uncomfortable breasts and curves started morphing my frame in the past year, the lines of Clay’s trim body are clean and familiar. “Hello, Clay,” I say to my twin.

  “Hello, Clay,” he mimics, rocking and staring at the ceiling. On the table beside me, the metal pitcher and cup tremble once before toppling. I try to catch them, but I’m too slow. They slide off the table and toward Clay, hovering beside his waist. “Hello, Clay,” Clay says again. “Hello, Clay. Hello, Clay.”

  Chapter 4

  My head hurts. The physicians promise the sudden pains will ease, but the fortnight since my fever broke has thus far proved them wrong. As I walk through the palace’s open-air breezeways, I trace my fingers along the white plaster columns, a precaution in case that horrid pressure behind my eyes catches me unaware. It’s windy here, as it always is in Ashing, which sits atop a small peninsula at the tip of the teardrop-shaped Lyron continent. The air carries the smell of salt and seaweed that coats the inside of my nose and tongue. Taking a final lungful of air, I open the tall door to the anteroom of my father’s study and step inside.

  My father’s elderly clerk smiles sadly at me and scrapes his chair back to rise. Large leather armchairs and a small table with refreshments stand on the side of the room farthest from the clerk. I little bother heading there to wait for an audience. The clerk’s smile had told me all I need to know.

  There is no envelope with a new commission waiting for me, no ship to board, no sails to set. I wonder how much longer the king will make me wait. How much longer can I wait? Even Thad, my older brother and Father’s heir, avoids me. “You must rebuild your strength, Nile,” he says each time I force myself into his chambers. “Focus on nothing but that.”

  An impossible mandate for a girl who draws her strength from the sea.

  “Shall my father have need of me this day?” I ask for formality’s sake, glancing at the tall wooden door behind the clerk.

  “Not today, Princess Nile,” he says with a rasp, as he does daily.

  And, as I do daily, I leave the antechamber to seek out my Gifted twin.

  Today, I must see ships and sea. I lead Clay down a back-roads path to the shoreline, sandy ground and low-growing thorny shrubs lining our way. The back roads are safer for Clay and shield him from curious stares and pity-filled looks, the kind people give a one-eyed horse or a deformed child. Or maybe I’m shielding myself. I’m not sure Clay can tell the difference.

  “The Tirik are hypocrites, you know,” I say, gathering my dress’s hem into an undignified heap. I wore the bloody thing to appease my mother and I’m sorry for it already. “Their slogans may proclaim We Fight for the People! But they don’t. They fight because if they stop, they must face their mistakes. Killing off the monarchy and nobility didn’t make things better; it reduced their once-vibrant nation to ruins and fear.”

  Clay nods, his hand buried in the fur of the huge and very pregnant bitch who invited herself along for the walk and now trots by Clay’s thigh. “Ruins and fear,” he says, in a voice that’s a perfect imitation of mine. “Ruins and fear. Ruins and fear.”

  “We have to protect ourselves.” I sigh. “Father cannot continue to maroon me in Ashing like this.”

  “Ashing.” This time, Clay mimics our mother. “Ashing needs stronger ties to Felielle.”

  The intonation is so perfect that I almost protest. Ashing needs to generate enough income as to make Felielle’s subsidy irrelevant. And for that, we need to win this war. But Clay isn’t speaking his own mind.

  I squeeze his hand. It stays limp in my grasp but I hold it anyway.

  Gifted. What a crock-of-shit name for a disease. “Not a disease,” the physicians take pains to say, “Elemental attraction is a condition.” I think they say that to make themselves feel better for having no cure.

  The Gifted have magic in their blood that turns their bodies into living magnets. Five types of magic are known: air, water, metal, stone, and fire. In each case, the afflicted Gifted’s body attracts one of the elements. The attraction in and of itself is deadly only to fire callers, who burn themselves dead long before they have any hope of learning control. For the four other magics, a measure of control is possible but the side effects of having magic are gravely dangerous. Stone callers’ muscles dissolve; water callers’ blood refuses to clot; air callers succumb to fits and convulsion…and metal callers like Clay pay with their minds.

  My brother is a cripple. The physicians say he will never get better.

  I don’t believe them.

  One day, my Gifted twin will come back to me. I’m sure of it, in a way that only a twin can be.

  We climb a hill toward a secluded cove, well away from the main docks where Clay’s metal calling is likely to cause problems. Like all metal callers, Clay little understands danger. If we walk through a busy market, he will inevitably send knives flying or overturn the fishermen’s pails. No one needs that.

  “Nearly there,” I say, the climb taking my breath. My body is still weak and prone to sudden headaches that drop me to my knees. Despite my best efforts, the bloody dress catches on branches, and I leave a trail of ripped cloth in my wake. But at least I’m walking again. Even climbing the hill to the shoreline. And it’s a good walk. Stray trees aside, Ashing roads are clean and tidy, even the little-traveled trails like this one. We run our kingdom like a ship, with every acre well employed and well maintained.

  Clay raises his palm to his nose, watching two metal balls orbit each other just above his hand. I bought them for him after my last cruise.

  Clay catches the balls and smiles at me.

  My heart jumps with quickened beats. I step toward him. “Clay?”

  His eyes stay where they were, the smile still in place. It hadn’t been for me. It was for something only Clay sees.

  “They are wrong, Clay,” I whisper. “Once this war ends, I will find a cure for you, even if I have to sail all the way to the Diante Empire to do it. I don’t care if they are hermits or hate women or anything else.”

  The hill gives way to a clean cove of sand. Waves foam as they rush around the stone wave break, and, in the distance, masts of warships rock majestically. All are anchored farther out than I’d wish, but the Ardent Ocean has an unfortunately shallow coastline.

  Each of the six kingdoms on the Lyron continent—Ashing, Felielle, Biron, Spardic, Eflia North and Eflia South—has its own army and navy with a corresponding Command and Admiralty to oversee the soldiers and ships. In addition, there is a large combined force known as the Lyron League Joint Force, divided into the Joint Army and Joint Fleet branches, to which all kingdoms contribute resources for mutual protection. The Lyron League Joint Force was formed after the start of the Tirik war, to defend our continent from the Tirik Republic’s aggression. The Joint Force is a good idea, b
ut Joint Army companies and Joint Fleet ships are notoriously poor performers, since every kingdom keeps its best people and vessels for its own forces.

  The anchored ships speak to me through their hulls and riggings, telling me which kingdom’s flag they fly, what their crew is like, and what station they hold. The masts of the Ashing ships swing proudly in the prime mooring slots, and a few Felielle ships anchor nearby. Being inland, Felielle has no ports of its own, so its ships rent mooring in ours. There is one new and trim Biron ship that never allows girls, and a few smaller slick vessels that run dispatches. The League’s Joint Fleet ships, with their mixed-nation crews, anchor farthest out. They are second-rate, and we never grant them prime berths.

  I coax Clay down toward the wave break. The hem of my useless garb again catches a root, and I nearly tumble down the slope. It’s bad enough the unwieldy thing is impractical, but it also makes me feel naked. Mother insists that feminine attire is a uniform of its own sort. She’s probably right, but it’s a uniform to a service that I neither understand nor welcome. And the feeling is mutual. The dress clings to my hips, and my stride, while practical on a ship’s rolling deck, makes me look like a waddling duck on land. A waddling duck dressed in frills and lace.

  We stop at the wave break and squint against the sun. The main port traffic is always heavy but seems even more so today, as a small fleet flying Felielle colors settles into its berth and starts lowering a boat to bring the crew ashore. “Do you see the frigates there?” I ask Clay.

  Clay cocks his head. “Frigates,” he says. I recognize the raspy voice of my father’s clerk. “Three Felielle frigates will dock today, my lord. We are still awaiting Prince Tamiath’s ship.”

  I try again. “Remember when we used to sing? Come listen how rusty I’ve gotten.”

  “Yes.” He stomps the lapping waves, ignoring me. “Yes. Yes yes yes. Yes yes.” The metal balls lift into the air.

  I bite my lip and pretend he’s heard me. Maybe even promised to join me later. Sitting down, I reach for a sea song we used to love and send the melody into the wind.

  The balls still. Clay sways with the song’s rhythm. It’s a piece for two, and it begs for accompaniment, like a void desperately calling to be filled.

  Sing, Clay. I repeat the verse. Sing. Make it whole.

  His mouth opens. His chest expands with breath in a mirror to my own. I lean toward him, and our gazes lock. In a moment, we’ll connect our voices. My chest flutters. It is happening. Any heartbeat now. Just—

  “Arrrrrruffff!” The dog erupts in a howling bark. “Arrrf! Arrurrrrrr.”

  I curse, slamming my palm against the stone.

  The dog barks again.

  Clenching my jaw, I look up to see what has upset the bitch and feel my anger change to concern. Two horsemen are trotting into the far end of the cove. A third man hangs across one of the saddles. I curse again, this time softly, my heart quickening its beat. We need none of this.

  Sliding off the rocks, I join Clay on the far side of the wave break. The wind seems to follow, ruffling my dress and carrying the voices as they draw closer.

  The men are arguing. Then they stop. “This ’ere is far enough, I tell you,” a deep voice says in the songlike accent of my mother’s Felielle people. “The patrols mill about the main market this time of day. Put him down. Domenic and I shall have ourselves a talk.”

  I wrap my arm around Clay’s shoulders to still him. Water bubbles over the tops of our boots and wraps my dress hem around my ankles. “It’s all right,” I whisper, though Clay gives no indication he’s aware of the activity on the other side of the wave break. “Stay down here for a bit.”

  I find a solid foothold and haul myself onto the perch to appraise the situation over a depression in the rock wall.

  There are three men: two thugs wearing leather gloves, and their prisoner, who has been hauled down from horseback. The prisoner’s hands are bound. All three men face the ocean, their profiles to me. The larger, bald thug hands off his pistol to his red-haired partner, whose own weapon is tucked in the small of his back. Red trains the pistol at the prisoner and steps back to hold the horses.

  The animals dance. Metal-shod horses do poorly around Clay.

  “Kneel,” Bald commands and steps forward, giving me a better view of his victim. The bound man is three or four years older than me, with broad shoulders and a seaman’s sturdy clothes. Dark hair frames a determined jaw, and his back is straight despite the bonds. My heart pauses for an instant, then resumes at a quicker pace.

  “I said, kneel,” Bald repeats.

  I’d place my wager on the prisoner in a fistfight, but muscles stand up poorly to pistols. I watch his jaw tighten as he comes to the same conclusion and lowers to his knees.

  Bald nods and adjusts his gloves, one finger at a time. “Much better. It would seem y’ave reached a credit limit, Domenic. One hundred seventy-four gold. My employer wishes to discuss a payment plan.” His soft accent gives the threat an oddly polite tone.

  That much gold in Felielle covers seven months’ living for common folk; four in Ashing since we import most everything but fish. Little wonder Domenic has collectors on his tail. My mouth tightens. Whatever the sum or reasons, they have no business enforcing things on Ashing soil. With our economy dependent on safe ports, foreigners’ dirty laundry hurts my people in the end.

  Plus, two armed thugs against one bound man isn’t exactly fair play.

  Bald plants his boot into his prisoner’s ribs. Domenic doubles over but makes no sound.

  I slide off my perch. “Clay,” I whisper. “There’s a man with a pistol just beyond these rocks. Can you feel the metal? Can you push it back, into the water?”

  “A backwater ship. No need to trouble over her,” Clay intones in the king’s firm voice. “Invite the other captains for a light dinner. Prince Tamiath will expect a banquet when he docks.”

  I sigh.

  “Hurry it up, mate,” calls a voice I presume is Red’s. “Somethin’s spooking the beasties. And I don’t like it much either.”

  I wonder whether Clay is doing something or if Red simply fears discovery. Ashing has no prisons. We can little afford to sustain people for the sake of creating misery. As on a ship, punishment in Ashing is swift, with fines, lashes, and deaths handed down on natives and foreigners alike. The larger kingdoms had extracted many privileges in the name of diplomacy, but we held firm on these laws.

  I hear the soft thud of fists hitting flesh and Domenic’s grunts of pain. The man can neither fight back nor defend himself, and it is past time to put a stop to this. Or try to. I wish for the dignity and sword of my uniform. I have a rag doll dress and a rock instead.

  Crouching, I wait for both the thugs’ attention to fix firmly on their prey. Red’s pistol wavers. He frowns at his hand, and I draw a breath. Clay’s presence alone can trigger a misfire. If—

  I startle as the pistol’s report booms through the beach. Red jumps back, drops the gun, and stares at it in betrayal. Bald and Domenic duck. The horses neigh, their noses raised to the sky.

  The momentary pandemonium offers the chance I need. Recovering ahead of the men, I sprint for Red’s second pistol.

  Chapter 5

  My breaths come quick, my side vision a blur of sand. The horses rear, showing their bellies and hooves. When Red turns to the beasts, I crash into him. The impact ricochets through me. I drop my rock.

  Red staggers but remains standing.

  I wrap my arms around Red and draw the other pistol from his waistline even as he throws me to the ground. I land in a heap and breathless, but my hands still clutch the gun.

  Inconveniently, the bloody weapon is as much a danger to me as to the men. It bucks in my hand, yielding to the natural pulse of Clay’s uncontrolled magic. Rising to one knee, I move the barrel between Bald and Red. “Stop,” I command. “All of you.”

  Three sets of eyes grip me. None give a sign of recognition. I little blame them—having spent most of
my life aboard an Ashing ship, the only people who’d reliably recognize me are those I’ve served with. This Felielle trio is unlikely to recognize even Thad outside the throne room, or think twice if they heard my name absent salutation.

  My palms are moist, but I know better than to let the fear slip into my voice. “I believe the man has understood your message,” I say.

  Clay’s dog chooses that moment to run up beside me and bare its teeth. Its low growl leadens the air between us.

  One heartbeat stretches after another, punctuated by the break of waves and the horses’ snorts. My breaths come quick and shallow. I’m unlikely to miss at this range, but the pistol is good for one shot only.

  Bald squints. “What’s your stake in this?”

  “A broken law and a bound man.” I shake my head. The constant foreign presence in Ashing is a necessary burden for now, but I hope to see it end after the war. “One pistol has fired already, gentlemen. I expect the Ashing patrols are en route to investigate.”

  Red scowls at me, likely calculating whether he might knock me to the ground before I squeeze off the trigger or the horses scamper. He probably can.

  I scowl back, hoping the thugs’ employer paid them too little to risk their hides so greatly. “I would wager you will pay with your horses and backs if the patrols come upon us now.”

  Bald snorts and makes a decision. “Is the lady correct, Domenic? Has the message penetrated?” He lands a vicious knee in the man’s abdomen.

  Domenic’s jaw tightens, and he has to draw a breath before he can speak. “I have a debt.” His voice is steadier than I had expected. “I will pay it.”