Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  Fine. Good enough. “Tell me you will continue keeping my heritage to yourself, and I will be out of your hair.”

  “Out of my hair?” Domenic throws the journal atop a pile of others and wheels around to face me squarely. “I am the first officer of this naval ship. You were firmly in my hair from the moment you stepped onto my deck and will be until the moment you leave.”

  Fair enough. But my question still stands. I wait.

  Domenic snorts. “You need not worry about me destroying your cover story, Princess. You will cry foul yourself at about the second time a bosun’s mate lays a rope’s end across your shoulders. Do you know how much that hurts? Do you know what it feels like to haul on a rope in the midst of a storm?”

  Oh, for stars’ sake. I little expect someone outside Ashing’s armada or palace to know the details of my training and occupation, but to presume that I’ve spent my life pampered in silk—as his tone plainly implies he does—is downright insulting. Maybe that is the way of female nobility in Felielle, where Domenic is from, but that excuses nothing. Gripping my hands behind my back, I meet his cobalt eyes stare for stare. “I’ve an idea of what it feels like to face a loaded gun,” I say dryly. “I expect the experience might somewhat translate.”

  He has the decency to flinch, but the reprieve is short-lived. “My problem with you, Nile, is that when you’re done playing sailor and decide you want to go home, you are going to cause this whole ship to abandon her mission to ferry you back.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “Of course it will.” Domenic braces his powerful forearms against the edge of his writing desk and leans toward me. “I’ll keep your secrets. But I’ll also ensure you are never tempted to repeat this farce again. On my ship or any other.”

  Anger pulses through me. Your ship is the bloody definition of dysfunctional laziness, and it’s me you peg as your problem? I grip my hands behind my back. I had come to Domenic’s cabin to ensure the secrecy of my identity, not rekindle a friendship that never existed to begin with. I hold his gaze. “May I have your word on that, Domenic? That you will do nothing to compromise my identity? And that in two years’ time, I can leave with a Letter of Service, like any other enlistee?”

  His gaze flashes. “If you last that long. And while you are here, you will address me as Commander Dana or sir.”

  “Aye. Sir.” I touch my forehead. As I do, my vision blurs. The dizziness is worse than it had been on deck, and I turn quickly to hide my face from Dominic’s eyes. As the spell ebbs, I focus on the bulkhead where Domenic’s slate lists the location of friendly fleets.

  Without asking permission, I pick up a chalk and correct his work before walking from his cabin.

  Fortunately, the gunroom is empty. I imagine I feel a bit of an air current again and shake myself. The sensation gets worse. My head pulses in pain, as if in vengeance for being ignored in Domenic’s cabin.

  I stagger, catching myself on the table’s edge.

  A breeze touches my cheek again. Which is impossible down here. I—

  I gasp, the pressure in my head redoubling. The deck tilts and disappears from under me. I hear a thud inside my skull and realize I have fallen. The pressure is so great now that I know something has to give.

  And something does.

  Air rushes at me, filling my mouth and nose until I choke on the flow and my fear turns to terror.

  That something that gave moments ago was magic awakening in my blood. And the reason for the wind in the gunroom is me. I am air-calling.

  Chapter 11

  I open my eyes with a gasp.

  A small trickle of blood creeps from my brow, which I must have cut when I fell. The gunroom is still mercifully empty. I roll onto my knees and rest my forehead on the deck to keep the dizziness at bay. My head is heavy and stuffed with cotton. But my heart races and my lungs burn as if torn from the inside.

  Which they nearly were.

  I’ve just air-called. I’m Gifted. Like the fever that awoke Clay’s magic four years ago, my post-wound fever had awoken mine.

  Nausea seizes my throat, my imagination already supplying the pity-filled looks, the averted gazes, the regretful mumbles of oh, I hadn’t realized said while backing away. No. No. No. Storms. Please no. I can’t be a cripple. I’ve a life. A plan. A mission. I’ve a Letter of Service to earn. A cure to find. I can’t be a cripple, because I must save Clay.

  My hands shake. My whole body shakes. I must save me.

  At least it is air, not metal. A small voice penetrates my thoughts and leaks guilt. Convulsions, the air callers’ symptom, are better than mind loss. I can hide convulsions. Have to hide them if I want to stay at sea. The afternoon after Clay’s diagnosis grips my memory.

  “Don’t believe them, Clay. It might go away or be different for you than others. Maybe… Maybe you will even like it. You need your knife, and ta-da, you call it over to you.”

  “The knife always wants to come to me. If I pay it no mind, it will come and impale itself in my flesh.”

  “You’ll learn to control it, then. We’ll work it out together. Tell me what it’s like. Do you think about it?”

  “It’s like pissing. You have to do it, and you don’t really think on the how. Relax your hold on the pee, and it all comes.”

  “Well, we piss every day and we’re no worse for wear. Clay? Come now, that was at least a little funny.”

  “Funny funny. That was a little funny…” He rocked. “You said something, didn’t you, Nile? You said something, and I don’t know what you said.” Tears welling in his eyes spilled over. “I don’t want to be a freak, Nile. Make it stop.”

  I gasp, pulling myself back. I had lost my twin within a week. How long until I lose myself? The physicians were right to have worried about me once Clay’s symptoms showed. Elemental attraction runs in families. And then my wound, my fever…

  I sink my teeth into my hand to keep from whimpering. No one must learn of this. They will put me off the ship. They will send me home and hide me away from pitying eyes, like they do Clay. There will be no cure, no future, no life.

  Bile creeps into my mouth. I sprint from the gunroom, barely reaching the deck and the ship’s rail in time to vomit overboard. Behind me, the sailors on watch erupt in laughter.

  A seasick fish bait. My body bends with heaves. I grip the rail until my stomach has nothing more to bring up and then sink to the deck in a quivering heap.

  A boot nudges me. “You are in my way.”

  I swipe my sleeve across my mouth and look up at Domenic. It’s hard to believe he’s the same man who’d given me his coat on the beach. Now, his face is stonelike except for something lurking behind his eyes. An expectation. Here I am, my princess self, suddenly and unceremoniously exposed to life at sea. Domenic is waiting for my plea for return to the Ashing palace. He isn’t angry. Not even annoyed. Just expectant.

  I wish what you think you see was true, Domenic.

  I rise to my feet only to scramble back to the rail to vomit anew. That over, I straighten again slowly, holding on to the ship for support. But I do straighten. I will not be fulfilling the first officer’s expectations today. My secrets—all my secrets—will remain mine.

  “Aye, sir,” I gasp. “My apologies.”

  Domenic’s brows twitch in surprise when I touch my forehead, but he says nothing more.

  I spend the rest of the day white-faced. When night settles, I receive a thin hammock from the Aurora’s quartermaster and sling it in Ana’s cabin, which the small girl has transformed into a shrine of homey impracticality. A tangle of pretty lace and cosmetics fills the box where others keep pistols, an embroidered blanket covers her sea chest, and small bright pouches of apple cinnamon incense hang from the overhead.

  All my belongings fit into a single seabag I hang from a peg with shaking hands.

  Lying in that darkness, smelling the dried apples native to Felielle, I burrow in the rhythmic swaying of my hammock. The tentative hold on my
panic snaps like a twig. My heart runs. My breaths come quick and shallow, but I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs no matter how hard I try. My hands tingle, constricting into stiff, painful claws. I can’t do this, I whimper silently. I can’t live as a Gifted.

  Do you want to give up and die, then? asks my mind’s voice. It’s cool and confident and reminds me of Captain Fey.

  No, I tell it.

  Are you certain?

  I think awhile. There is too much I have to do still. Too much I’d promised Clay. Yes, I’m certain.

  Then you better start figuring out how you’ll handle your magic, before it makes the choice for you.

  I agree with the voice and dig my nails into my arm, the pain giving me something to rivet my mind to. My breaths quiet slowly, painfully. My mind’s voice is right. If I don’t get myself under control now, I may die before I have to worry about living.

  But how? My thoughts race beneath the surface of consciousness. Evade. Resist. Refuse. Yes. That’s right. I will let this go no further. No air calling. No experimenting. No raising suspicions. I shall do nothing different tomorrow than I did yesterday. I will not give one inch of indulgence to the magic until I must.

  Perhaps today’s episode was nature’s odd mistake, like a rogue wave, and will trouble me no more.

  Mind over disease, I tell myself. Life one secret day at a time. Starting now.

  Releasing my forearm, I draw deep, even breaths and listen to the ship’s sounds. The lap of water against our hull, the quiet calls of the watch above, Ana’s subtle snoring. These are the sounds of my new life on the Aurora.

  In the morning, Captain Rima declares an end to my acclimation period and orders a bosun’s mate, the yellow-eyed Eflian Johina, to put me to work. Work is never in shortage on a man-of-war that requires a thousand tasks a day to keep it trim. The main deck is filled with people under the notional supervision of the two oldest midshipmen, Kederic and Ana. Two more middies, twelve-year-old twins, Song and Sand, chase each other in the shrouds. They wear their hair shaved in a diamond, like the captain, and someone tells me the boys are Rima’s nephews. In truth, many of the Eflians have diamond or crescent cuts. Ten-child families are common on the east side of the continent, so it’s possible—even likely—that many of the Eflian crew are at some level related.

  I’ve just registered the light drizzle and a favorable wind blowing toward south southwest, when Johina shoves me between the shoulder blades. I fall neatly onto my hands and knees beside a row of similarly positioned sailors. A stone used in daily deck cleaning is thrust into my hands.

  “Push forward, pull aft.” Johina little bothers to conceal his opinion of my intellect. The wave of tattoos decorating his face falters when it crosses the bridge of his nose, which has obviously been broken at least once. “Forward. Aft. Repeat.”

  I glare at him. I’ve given the man no cause to think me a dimwit or a shirker. A short, respectful instruction would have sufficed. I clench my jaw and break away from his gaze. This isn’t personal. It is the common crudeness of the lower deck that I had thought myself prepared for. Nile Ash has yet to earn the privilege of courtesy.

  Keeping my mouth shut, I bend to the task I’d once supervised each morning. A pair of men dump a bucket of seawater on the deck before me, leaving the front of my shirt and the knees of my britches soaked. Another pair of seamen sprinkle sand. The combination grinds my skin as efficiently as it does the Aurora’s planking. The stone itself proves heavier than I expect, and my back and arms soon burn from the effort. I roll my shoulders to relieve the pressure and glance at the men beside me. They work in the effortless rhythm I am used to seeing. What trick have they for the task? Surely I am missing a small, vital technique that makes the hour-long chore bearable. I lean forward, studying their movements.

  The line of fire across my shoulders catches me unprepared. I cry out, arching my back and searching for the source of the assault.

  Johina stands over me, hefting a knotted rope’s end in his hand. “Slide the stone forward and aft.” The mate’s eyes gleam with righteous satisfaction. “Gawk at the men on your own time. Or better yet, from ashore.”

  My face heats, my fingers curling around the stone to keep my tongue in check. The rotted sadistic goat’s son probably can’t find his own rear without a map and guide flags. And now he’s adding insult to pain, enjoying his bite of power. I’ve seen his kind before.

  Johina shifts his weight, seeking a reason for a second strike.

  My heart beats faster than I wish. I resume scrubbing. Beneath my shirt, the filling welt burns. I don’t want another one. Storms and hail, I really don’t want another one. Is this the trick of the men beside me? Fear? I feel Domenic’s eyes on me and, instead of whimpering, keep my face as still as Captain Fey taught me to. I’ll lick my wounds later. In private.

  Domenic walks away.

  The wind comes then, soothing my back with its cool embrace. It brushes against my magic. Let me in, the air seems to say. I will feel good. Like wine down a parched throat.

  Gritting my teeth, I push my stone forward and aft.

  Once the decks are stoned and rinsed to Domenic’s satisfaction, my watch is permitted to breakfast. I follow the rowdy mob down to the gundeck, where the ship’s men sleep. The hammocks have been piped up already, and tables now hang between the guns.

  I hesitate.

  As a midshipman and officer, I took my meals with others of my kind. The common seamen all eat together, dividing themselves into messes of eight or ten. Will any of these ready-formed groups welcome—or at least tolerate—my presence? My gaze sweeps the room. The ship’s divided sects are plain here, where the crew has their choice of companions. The Eflians occupy the prime tables. They make up about half the ship’s company and speak loudly. The women have their own mess. Seeing me, they turn their backs. The Biron and Felielle natives fill a couple of tables each. Only the foremast jacks—the highest-skilled seamen who work at the top of the rigging—form a mess that transcends nation lines.

  In short, I have no place to go.

  But then, I’m not looking for friends. In fact, in light of my new Gift, the farther the crew stays away, the safer I am.

  The black-clad marine boys go silent as I approach their table. I would be a supplicant to any sailor mess I approach, but here I am simply an intruder.

  I sit.

  The Spades’ glares threaten to push me off the bench.

  I reach for the bread box and retrieve a piece of ship’s biscuit, tapping it against the table to evict the weevils. Don’t mind me, lads.

  An older boy clears his throat.

  Heads all over the gun deck swivel toward us. I fill my cup with water and wash down the hard tack. I have as little to say to the marines as they do to me, and the sooner this is clear, the better. I may know little about life on the lower deck, but I’ve an abundance of experience living alone in a crowd. Another bite of biscuit. Another gulp. And soon the marine boys resume their conversation, giving me little more notice than they had to the empty seat.

  Chapter 12

  Everyone is wet, cold, and on deck. We’ve been sailing south from Ashing toward the Siaman Sea for a week, half of it under rain. Open seas, with no sight of land, span to the horizon in all directions. Lightning cracks across the waves, heralding thunder. Glorious white flashes break the drab afternoon sky. The weather teased us with a bit of sun this morning, but has worsened by the hour since. The southeast part of Lyron, where we head, sees very volatile weather, cold and stormy one day and warm the next. Without access to instruments, I’ve trouble tracking the Aurora’s movements. The middies’ noonday calculations put us in the Felielle capital.

  The wind calls to the magic inside me, demanding I let it inside. I turn my back to the wind and breathe on my hands to warm them. Three bells of the afternoon watch toll across the deck, announcing half past one in the afternoon. We last trimmed the sail a quarter hour ago, and my fingers are chilled stiff and
raw from hauling rope.

  But it’s a comforting misery. It reminds me that I am at sea, alive, and, as far as anyone knows, healthy.

  The Aurora rises and drops over the waves, the volatile gales flogging her sails. Both the captain and Domenic are on deck, which, despite the morning’s efforts, is a mess of ill-coiled ropes, poorly furled sails, and hammocks shoved haphazardly into the netting. I keep out of Rima’s way. Domenic flips up the collar of his oilskins and accepts a cup of steaming coffee from a ship’s boy. I doubt Domenic has eaten today at all. He hasn’t left the deck. And from what I’ve seen, it’s he who has kept the Aurora afloat, even if he’s employed a rope’s end liberally to make it so. I’m careful to give him no cause to touch me with it. It was horrid when Johina struck me, but I don’t think I could bear it if Domenic did. He is the one truly good seaman on this bloody ship. I don’t need his friendship, but professional respect? I do want that. I have my pride, if not the quarterdeck.

  “Goddess save us,” Rory, a young Felielle seaman beside me, whispers to himself as he stares up into the shrouds. He’s slipped descending during the last sail change, but fortunately, his hands held firm to the ropes and no harm came from the misadventure. “I can’t go up there again.”

  Well, maybe some harm.

  “You will be all right,” I tell him.

  Rory’s gray shirt is soggy with rain. My own clothes likely look no better, and the wind chills me through wet cloth. He shakes his head, and I stifle a frown. Rory needs to get a hold of himself before his own thoughts spiral him into disaster.

  We’ll be changing sail again shortly, I’m certain, and I force my body to keep moving until then. Four of the middies are working up in the swaying rigging. Of the four, only Ana appears aware of the deathly danger, her movements slow and choppy in contrast to Song and Sand, who scamper like monkeys. A fresh wave strikes our hull, jerking the ship. I clamp on to the rail for balance. Ana shrieks.