Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  “No, I’m not.” He turns, sees me sitting, and climbs down a few feet of rigging so his face is close to mine. One muscled arm hooks around a line to keep him balanced. His blue eyes hold my gaze. “And what of you? Are you enjoying your recent career move?”

  I chuckle humorlessly. “Do I enjoy scrubbing the quarterdeck instead of walking upon it? No.”

  “Then why are you doing it?” His gaze deepens. “I know what I said when you came aboard, but this is about more than escaping marriage, isn’t it?”

  “No.” I swallow. “Just that.”

  “No.” He shakes his head, his brows furrowed in thought. “You made me promise you a Letter of Service. Why…Goddess. You told me why.” His eyes widen, the words coming in a whisper. “Back on the beach in Ashing, you told me. You are looking for the Metchti Monastery. You are the girl who believes all is possible. And you want to cure Clay.”

  My mouth is dry, my heart pounding quickly. It’d been a private outing to the Ashing beach. An accidental meeting. A conversation with a stranger that drew its fuel from anonymity. And with that, I’d discounted how deeply that stranger had peered into my private world. Now, Domenic’s words strike a wound more raw than he knows, but I will not let him make it bleed. I won’t.

  “Nile,” he says softly.

  “The line is worn, sir.” My voice is all business. I hop to my feet and reach past Domenic’s head to tap a fraying buntline that helps furl the sail. “It should have been replaced before now. I’ll see it done.”

  Domenic sighs. “I did you little service with the promotion, you know. Finding fault in the crew’s work earns few friends.”

  “Yes, making friends is certainly worth the risk of the line snapping in the middle of a storm.” Anger bubbles under my skin again, and I latch on to it. Better anger than fear. “I’m not interested in feigning blindness so I can lounge about and bloody make friends.”

  Domenic rolls back his shoulders, his muscles shifting beneath his coat. His expression straddles a fine line between amusement and rage.

  I don’t think I could bear the former.

  “Very well,” he says finally, his voice mercifully hard. “Allow me to give some advice. A master’s mate is not a lieutenant. I spent ten years on the lower deck. Trust me when I say that the code of conduct you’ve learned as an officer elite does not apply to you now. The seamen will not care how well you know the fleet or plot a course or set a sail. They will care how hard you can haul on a rope or lay it across another’s shoulders. And you do neither of those things well.”

  “Is that your reasoning behind flogging frightened sailors?”

  He ignores me. “You are small, you are weak, and you are friendless. And you’ve injected yourself into a world where those things matter. Either adapt or go on believing that you can convert wolves into vegetarians.”

  “The crew fears you, Domenic. And you know it. You do it on purpose, turning anything you can into apparent torment. Work that needs to be done regardless, salt on Rory’s wounds. The crew fears you, and you want it that way.”

  “Yes.” He doesn’t flinch at the accusations. Any of them. “You should fear as well.”

  “No.” Shaking my head, I step close to him. Our faces hover inches apart, our breaths mixing. The muscles in his jaw tense, rippling beneath freshly shaved skin. The heat from Domenic’s body wraps around me, caressing my neck, snaking through my tightly braided hair to touch my head. My heart quickens, and I lick my wind-dried lips. “No, Dominic. You will have my obedience and perhaps my respect. But I’ve been at sea too long to fear you.”

  “Then you are daft,” he says quietly and climbs down.

  I let him get ahead before swinging into the ropes.

  I am three steps from the deck when a surge of sudden anxiety races through me. The confusion of it freezes me in place. My stomach tingles, my pulse sprinting ahead. Something is about to happen. I’ve no notion what. But something terrible. My head turns to the right of its own accord as green splotches of light flash in my eyes.

  Not real. I know the lights aren’t real, but they are painfully bright nonetheless. I shut my eyes tightly against them, but it little helps. I bite my lip, some primal part of my brain remembering that I’m still in the shrouds and thrusting my arm deeply into the ropes. Just in time. A heartbeat later and my body refuses to obey my will. My right arm jerks in small, rhythmic ticks I can do nothing about.

  My first jerking spell. I wonder whether I will fall, but the thought is distant and muffled.

  The convulsions end as suddenly as they came, leaving fatigue and nausea in their wake. I climb down the few remaining feet of shrouds and barely make it to the rail to vomit. The few crewmen who bother to take notice, laugh.

  I slide to the deck, my body aching as if beaten.

  Domenic takes a step toward me, then thinks better of it and finds employment elsewhere.

  I’m too spent to be humiliated. My heart gallops in my throat, and I wipe moist palms against my trousers. Did anyone see the jerking spell take hold? I study the seamen on deck but find only the deep gray moons that fatigue has painted under the crew’s eyes. Now that they’ve had their laugh over my lost breakfast, no one is paying me any mind, thank the waves. The convulsions must have kept themselves discreet, even if the nausea did not. How considerate of them.

  I draw a shaky breath and find a reason to get off the deck. My limbs are heavy, and my belly aches with dread. The grace period—if being suffocated on a regular basis could be termed that—is over. I knew it would be, sooner or later. Blood from my bitten lip drips onto my tongue, and I swallow copper saliva. I knew this would happen when I first realized myself an air caller. I did. So how can I be so damn surprised nonetheless?

  Climbing into my hammock, I bury my face in my hands and fight back tears.

  By late evening, when the ship’s bell warns me of Ana’s imminent return, I know I want to spend the night alone. My muscles cramp, my stomach heaves, and my thoughts are so heavy, I can hardly see through them.

  Taking a lantern, I descend to the lowest deck, my light little scaring the darkness. Here, in the hold, the Aurora accommodates the stores of sailcloth, ropes, water casks, and provisions that can be trusted to remain out without a guard. The hold also houses millers, ship’s rats who forever make their way into the flour. One of the ragged creatures scurries across my foot, and I jump. My lungs fill with the horrid, stale air that always hangs here, far below the waterline.

  I climb onto the pile of coiled ropes. The nest lifts me from the grit and damp of the deck planks and gives me a fighting chance of kicking millers free from my spot. Arranged just so, the ropes are comfortable. I wonder when the next set of convulsions will strike. Whether one day soon I’ll be uncovered and hidden away in disgrace, like Clay.

  I feel very mortal. And very much afraid.

  I close my eyes. My pulse is loud. Too loud. I focus on it, trying to relax my aching shoulders, my arms, my mind. The coiled ropes are rough beneath me. The air is thick, heavy with the stench of the ship’s bilges and the rats’ small snorts. And…and something else.

  A rush of alertness cuts through my fatigue. I listen harder. There. Scraping. There is scraping and a sharp intake of breath. It comes again. Someone is here.

  I lift my lantern. “Who’s there?”

  No answer. I frown. I’d found sailors in the lower hold before, usually sleeping off extra drink they had managed to procure through one sort of contraband or another. But this feels different. The back of my neck tightens. “I hear you,” I call again. “Make yourself known.”

  Silence. Dead silence. Then a short gasp, quickly stifled.

  Another rat runs across my boot. Likely one of its mates had sunk its teeth into my visitor.

  I consider climbing up to call the marines, but the hider will likely find a new hole while I’m gone. Plus, I doubt he’s a soldier. The little noises sounded frightened, not predatory.

  I stand still and liste
n. There. Under the spare canvas covering the water casks. I hop up on the casks and make my way toward the corner. The intruder’s breathing is evident now, coming from beneath the sailcloth.

  I squat atop a water cask and grip the corner of the canvas. My palms are moist, and my heart is quickening. I tighten my hold on the lantern in my left hand and, with a quick jerk, throw back the cloth.

  It is a boy. He is about my age, but skinnier than me. Starved skinny. He curls into a fetal position, his arms covering his head.

  I nudge him with my foot.

  The boy’s crop of blond hair shifts, and a dirt-streaked face with frightened eyes looks up at me.

  “Who are you?” I demand.

  “Please,” the boy says in Tirik as his palms rise in surrender. “Please do not hurt me.”

  Chapter 22

  “Who are you?” I repeat, this time in Tirik. If the boy is a spy, he is the worst one in the history of the war. If not a spy, then what? A sailor who never made it back to the boats? A defector? A coward? It’s all happened before.

  The boy’s eyes widen. “You speak Tirik.” What little color he had in his face drains, and he presses away from me. “No. Please. Please!”

  “You are aboard the League Ship Aurora.” My voice is cool. “Surely you hear my accent?”

  He lifts his eyes. The point registers, but whether he finds the assurance a comfort remains to be seen.

  “Talk,” I order him. His pathetic frame and palpable fear eat at me, and I wish I was offering him blankets and food instead of interrogation. But I cannot. It is important to get his answers now, before comfort makes lying easier.

  “I am Logan Price,” the boy whispers. “From the Devron. I stole aboard. With the boarding party.”

  “And forgot to leave?”

  He shakes his head. “No. I stayed on purpose. Because I wish to live.” He holds out skinny wrists and speaks quickly. “Take me as a prisoner of war. Please.”

  I believe him. At least, I believe his desperation. My tone softens. “Are you one of the old royalists, Price?” The Republic’s rule started with the extermination of entire royal families as punishment for the oppression of the workers. The kind of people who kick off their reign with child killing are unlikely candidates for building a humanitarian nation, no matter what they proclaim about the rights of man.

  “No.” Price draws a breath. “Not a royalist. A Gifted.”

  My gut clenches, but I manage to keep my voice steady. “What has that to do with it? Are you a danger to my ship?”

  “No! Not at all. I swear it.” Price shifts slowly to a sitting position. Bruises and cuts and burns cross exposed skin. “You’ve heard of the Republic’s People’s movement?”

  I nod briskly. The notion is that man is capable of anything—ruling himself, sailing through any storm, defying nature. The Felielle and the Eflians take a deep offense to People’s Power since it necessarily scorns all divinity. Personally, I hope the Tirik will try to defy gravity and get themselves killed. “What of it?”

  Price licks his lips. “The Republic runs an institute… A research facility, studying elemental attraction. The condition is too unpredictable… Uncontrollable. The science men in the People Over Nature Bureau want to harness it.” With the initial wave of terror subsiding, Price’s voice becomes void of emotion. “I was one of their Gifted subjects. Most do not survive.”

  Breath leaves me. If Price is telling the truth… He can’t be. “And as for Clay… I hear they are experimenting.” Thad’s voice surfaces through my memory. I wonder how much more Thad had known of the Republic’s dirty little secret. I look at Price’s skin. Really look. It is a lot of pain for a farce.

  “What element does your magic call?” I ask.

  “I…I can’t call anything,” he says.

  I lean back, shaking my head.

  “I feel air and water both, their movements and pressure. But I call neither.” Price adds quickly, “I’m unusual. I’m…interesting.”

  A shiver of fear trickles down my spine. The wounds tell the story of just how interesting the People Over Nature Bureau had found Price. It’s all I can do to keep the nausea at bay. An institute experimenting on the ill. On boys like Clay. On girls like me. I see my twin, my beautiful, gentle, animal-loving Clay, cowering in a dirty corner, never understanding what shattered his world, what he did to deserve to suffer. I see him crying and rocking and begging as a science man in a bloody leather apron burns his skin.

  A fire kindles in the pit of my stomach. My face is hot, and my fingers curl into fists until the nails draw blood. “What price do you pay for your Gift, then?” I ask, as much to know as to interrupt the frightening spiral of my thoughts.

  He shakes his head in confusion.

  I search for a different word. “What are the side effects of your magic? What effects does your odd Gift have on your body? Have you convulsions or…” I stumble. It is difficult to say the words with cold distance, as if the disease was not spreading its roots through my body as we speak. “Or thin blood? Or both?”

  “Ah. I understand now,” says Price with unsettling neutrality. “I’ve none of the traditional effects. Instead, I do not feel most emotions. But that is a blessing, not a price. It allowed me to survive.”

  “You feel fear.” It isn’t a question.

  “Yes. I feel that. And pain.”

  I dislike that word. “How did you escape?” I ask.

  “I’m a living weather glass. The frigates use me when the Institute lets them. I was on the Devron when I heard the boarding ordered. And I came along.”

  “All right.” I rub my forehead. It is time to pass Price to the marines and make my report. I snatch a small piece of rope. “Show me your hands. Slowly. Now face away from me and stand up.” Price flinches as I bind his wrists. The rope is cutting into already raw flesh. He needs salve and bandages. Instead, I search him for weapons and find none. Only the skin and bones of a shaking boy.

  The fire in my stomach is blazing hot now. I want to swing the Aurora around, find the Institute, and destroy it. Each minute we do nothing, another lash or hot iron touches an innocent’s skin. I think of Clay again and feel sick. “Price.” My voice is quiet. “How do the Tirik permit this to happen to their own people?”

  He looks down at the deck. “They do not. Mostly, the Institute uses…others.”

  “Others?” Ice slides through me.

  “Prisoners of war,” Price says after a moment’s hesitation. “The Institute goes through a lot of non-Gifted subjects for comparison.”

  I freeze. Prisoners. Such as the crews of the Siren and Maiden we had just failed to protect.

  I stare at Lady Madeline’s portrait again, although this time it’s illuminated by lantern light. Even painted on canvas, her jewels sparkle. I don’t understand why Rima is at sea at all if his family enjoys such wealth. It’s clearly not for the love of service.

  “How many Republic vessels cruise these waters?” Rima demands for the fifth time.

  I stifle a growl and translate. The questioning had exhausted its usefulness three hours past. Price knows nothing of naval value. He was on land three weeks ago but can mark neither the Tirik harbor nor the Institute’s location on a chart. The questions Price might speak to—questions about the Institute itself—Rima avoids. We are wasting time. Time that might save the lives of the merchant crews.

  “I do not know,” Price says in Tirik. “I only sailed aboard the Devron.” Price may experience neither annoyance nor irritation, but I feel both adequately, and my sentiment leaks into my voice as I translate.

  Domenic cuts me with his eyes. He is sitting in a chair while Captain Rima paces the room. Price and I both stand beside Rima’s desk, and Catsper lounges by the door.

  Rima scowls and drops himself into his chair. “All right, boy.” He sighs. “Go eat and rest. We’ll have the doctor take a look at your wounds.”

  I translate. Catsper steps forward and takes Price’s elbow. If
the lack of the doctor Catsper is intended to find bothers the marine, he keeps the thought private. Price’s eyes remain on me as Catsper motions him from the room.

  “You will have no wind by morning,” Price tells me quickly in Tirik.

  “Ash…” Domenic warns. Rima hadn’t given Price and me leave for private conversation.

  Catsper shoves Price toward the door.

  The Tirik boy twists back to me. “What is to happen to me?” he asks. Price feels fear just fine. “What will he do?”

  “Nile!” snaps Domenic.

  I’m not about to let Rima’s lack of the Tirik language add to Price’s suffering ‘“You will be all right,” I assure Price in his language as the door closes. “The marine will not abuse you. I trust him.”

  Rima’s palm slams his table. “What did you just tell him in the traitor tongue?”

  I turn to the captain. “I told him to be at ease, sir.”

  “Did you now?” His nostrils flare. “And who told you to do that, girl? Who gave you leave to speak here at all?”

  I clench my jaw and keep silent. There are more important matters before us.

  Rima turns to Domenic. “I don’t believe the little whelp for an instant,” Rima declares, taking a sip of wine. “I’ve never heard such rubbish in my career.”

  I’m certain there are quite a few things Rima has never heard of in his career.

  “Logan Price is nothing but a lazy rat wishing for a better life amongst us,” Rima continues. “Trusting any Gifted is a mistake. The Lyron League would do well to contain the poor bastards for their own safety instead of turning a blind eye while they run rampant. Also, I can only control my ship but that I will control. I will have none of his imaginative ramblings straying beyond this room and upsetting the crew, Mr. Dana. And inform Mr. Catsper that I wish his damn toddlers thoroughly disciplined for allowing a stowaway to hide aboard my ship. You’d think someone claiming a Spade title would know the basics of patrol.”