Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  Someone steps up behind me, and Rodney buries himself in his task. I know it’s Domenic before I turn around. My chest clenches, my heart striking my ribs.

  “Ms. Ash, why is my deck still a mess?” he asks politely, linking his hands behind his back.

  Chapter 24

  My shoulders want to hunch under the truth, but I square them. “My failure, sir.”

  “Mmm.” His face reveals nothing. Domenic snaps his fingers, calling Johina.

  The Eflian trots over grudgingly, a rope’s end in his hand.

  “Clean up my deck, Mr. Johina,” Domenic instructs. “You are relieved from this task, Ash.”

  “Aye, sir.” I step away but make myself watch. Within a few minutes, Johina has recruited a new gang of workers, who scurry to stay ahead of his lash.

  Domenic says nothing to me, but the silence stings as much as hard words. Maybe more. Domenic had never expected me to succeed on the lower decks, and I appear to be living down to those expectations. I claw my memory for my errors and find none. I gave the right orders. I set the right standards. I had the right expectations.

  And I accomplished nothing.

  Johina is brutal. But the ropes are getting coiled. Poorly and without care, but coiled. I don’t want to become Johina. There has to be a better way. There was on the Faithful. Or… Or had I been so removed from the lower decks that I lived in ignorance of the methods the mates employed to deliver the well-tuned crew I commanded? I had dined on a delicious meal and had appreciated the skill of the cook—but perhaps not the butcher.

  I slink away and walk until I find Catsper, who is drilling the Spades on the poop. Rum snarls at me. The boys move in perfect rhythm, though Penn’s eyes stray as I approach. Catsper’s elbow strikes Penn in the ribs, and the boy grunts, his eyes snapping back to center. Satisfied that the Spade discipline is restored, Catsper turns to me and cocks his brow in inquiry.

  “Might we train early today?” I ask.

  “You’ve divined a means of beating me, but it requires specific hours?” says Catsper.

  “No.” But I’m not looking to win.

  Catsper doesn’t blink. “First bell of the afternoon watch,” he tells me and returns to drill.

  When I find Catsper that afternoon, he tosses a practice sword into my hand and leads me to the poop deck. Being a part of the officer’s kit, the sword is the one melee weapon I’ve had instruction in, but thus far, Catsper has been drilling hand-to-hand basics into my skull. I don’t ask questions. I don’t want to talk. I want to drown the wretched morning in burning muscles and survival.

  The few seamen on the poop clear out of our way. Or out of Rum’s way. The bloody dog trots along with us, snapping his jaws at anyone who strays too close.

  I expect instruction, but the marine salutes and attacks, sending his blade at my head.

  I parry. I wonder if he would have pulled the blow if I missed the block. A strike thuds into my unprotected left side, and I have my answer. It hurts, but it’s a good pain. Numbing pain.

  Catsper keeps the pace, his strikes clean and relentless. A low cut. An arc at my head. A lunge, with the sword’s tip thrusting toward my heart. My breath quickens, sweat snaking down the back of my neck. Down. Up. Pivot. My arm burns. Catsper’s sword tries to split my head again.

  My memory stirs in recognition as I parry. It’s a drill. Catsper is following a pattern, one that I’d done before, years ago when I had the time to play with swords. Now that I know where the attacks will come from, I block them smoothly. Quickly. Catsper nods and increases speed. My elegance disappears as quickly as it came. In moments, nothing matters beyond the next parry. The next step. The next breath. Clank. Clank. Clank.

  Blissful oblivion of motion.

  Catsper pushes me, for once forgiving my errors in favor of rhythm. Of speed. Of my need to disappear from reality.

  Clank. Clack. The blades strike and reset as my lungs flame inside. I trip and find my balance with a snarl.

  Catsper gives me no chance to breathe. His blade whirls, demanding my answer.

  But I can’t give it. He is too fast. Too well trained. Too conditioned.

  I brace myself for a strike, willing to exchange a bruise for a chance to breathe.

  He pulls the blow, cutting off that escape. “Move, Ash!”

  I’d love to. But my body is shaking from effort, and my eyes sting with sweat. “I can’t,” I gasp. “Slow down.” It hurts to speak, and I sound like I’m begging. Storms, I am begging. My knees crash to the deck as I parry the next blow.

  “Get up.”

  I do. At least my body does. My mind can’t. With a cry, I let go of thought and strike wildly as if the fight is real and each move is my last. Clank. Clank. Clank.

  I realize something has changed only when Catsper’s foot hooks behind mine and I crash backward to the deck. My practice sword clatters as the tip of Catsper’s presses into my throat.

  The back of my head hurts, but I just close my eyes and gulp lungfuls of air. I might be smiling.

  “You aren’t supposed to celebrate losing.” Catsper extends his hand.

  “Surviving a match with you isn’t losing,” I say between breaths as he pulls me up.

  “You didn’t survive.”

  “Good point.” I sink back to my knees. I think I might fall back down. If I’m dead, I need not walk with the marine. I wager he’ll climb ladders. If I’m dead, I should certainly not be required to climb ladders.

  Catsper nudges me with his boot. Somehow, I follow him to the Cove and manage to spill only half the mug of water he shoves into my hands.

  “You’re supposed to instruct before throwing a weapon into someone’s hands, you know,” I say once I can talk again. I’m drunk on fatigue, and the world is fuzzy around the edges. “What would you have done if I failed to parry?”

  “Hit you, I presume.”

  I roll my eyes. “Isn’t presuming that I can hold a sword a bit steep a wager?”

  “No.”

  I tilt my head in question.

  Catsper puts his feet up on a sea chest. “Did you know that once the Ashing flagship Faithful sank, the Tirik opened fire on the lifeboats?” He pulls his arm across his chest in a stretch. “The Destiny had a contingent of Spade snipers aboard. We covered the crews pulling up survivors. Took out thirty men with our muskets alone.”

  My blood chills. I stare at him.

  The marine switches to his other arm. “I’d not seen Ashing crews up close before. Their skill puts the Joint Fleet to shame, does it not?”

  Chapter 25

  My mouth is dry. Catsper was on the Destiny. He knows who I am. He has known since I came aboard. I don’t know whether to run or laugh. If the marine had any intention of exposing me, he would have before now.

  “Domenic knows too,” I say after a moment.

  Catsper’s brows rise in surprise. “And respects you despite it. Interesting.”

  My heart pauses a beat. “Are you going to ask me what I’m doing here?”

  “I don’t much care.” The remark is so offhanded that I little doubt it’s true. Catsper is the kind to judge things as they are. He rises and stows away our practice blades. He hadn’t brought them out to send a message, I realize. He brought them to help me regain myself. “Dana will keep his mouth shut,” he says over his shoulder. “You need not worry.”

  “He said I should be afraid of him,” I tell Catsper as neutrally as I can. The marine knows Domenic. I want to hear more. Need to hear it.

  Catsper only shrugs. “He’s right.”

  “Why?”

  He looks at me sideways. “Because you’ve no intention of going meekly about your duties. Dana can grant you no special leeway on the count of liking you.”

  “He doesn’t like me.”

  “Good.” Weapons stowed, Catsper dissolves into his troop of Spades.

  The sun is setting over the distant horizon when I muster the courage to seek Price. I’d heeded Rima’s orders to stay
away from the Tirik Gifted for three days, and it’s as long as I can stand. The danger in being discovered violating the captain’s orders pales beside the greater danger of the questions I harbor. Especially with the growing convulsions, with Domenic paying enough attention to meddle in my affairs. The need to call the wind grows stronger each day, as if the magic is maturing and demanding release. If I don’t find some means of controlling my Gift soon, I may not last the two years until I can make it to the Metchti Monastery.

  Lantern in hand, I approach the small cabin where Rima stashed Price, as if being Gifted was infectious, like fever. My stomach flutters as I lift the heavy latch outside the door. The metal squeaks, resisting me for a moment before giving under the pressure. Inside, the cabin is void of windows and too small to lie down without curling up.

  Price raises an arm to protect his eyes from the dim glow of my light, but the fear that had clung to him in the hold is gone now, replaced by an eerie calm.

  “Hello,” he says evenly. Tirik has a guttural sound that I dislike, but Price’s soft voice smooths the harshness.

  I swallow. I don’t want to be here. But I need answers to a thousand questions. Or maybe just to one. Is there a cure, Price? Did the Republic find a cure? “How are you faring?”

  “I am alive.”

  Presumably an improvement on his previous expectations. I clear my throat, suddenly stretching for words. I must be careful.

  “There is rain coming,” says Price.

  “The skies are clear.”

  “I cannot see the skies from here. But I am certain of the rain.” His voice is flat again. No irritation, no anger. Silence stretches between us. “I recall nothing more about the deployment of Republic forces.”

  I clear my throat. “I hadn’t asked you.”

  “It seems logical that you would.”

  True. I let the door close. Price is sitting on his heels. I contemplate whether to sit beside him or remain standing. After a moment, I lower to his level. “Would it bother you if I returned to that subject?”

  Price shakes his head. “No. I’ve nothing competing for my time.”

  “You would not feel annoyed?”

  “I feel only sensation tied to my physical state—fear of pain, relief when pain ends. But such feelings as annoyance or sadness or despair little affect me.”

  “But neither does joy or hope,” I can’t help saying.

  “I believe I am fortunate,” Price continues. “Despair can drive a person mad.”

  Right. The conversation stalls. I rub my arms. I need to get to the point before someone finds me here and starts trouble. “Someone dear to me is a metal caller.”

  “I know of no cure,” Price says. “That was going to be your next question, was it not?”

  My chest tightens. “Do you always cover both sides of a conversation?” I snap.

  “It is efficient.”

  “I don’t care. Stop it.” I draw a breath and check myself. “My tone was uncalled for. Do you know whether anything might at least dampen the effects of elemental attraction? Anything that might make the magic sleep or at least fill its host more slowly?”

  Price leans his elbows on his knees and looks at me. “The Institute researchers required I name the weather each day. Accuracy was rewarded. Mistakes punished. Once I learned to make no mistakes, they introduced barriers.” Price rubs a round scar on his arm. “Objects and actions designed to hinder my ability.”

  I swallow. “And…did anything work?”

  “No.” His words are painfully certain. “Even when I was too starved or beaten to think clearly, I still felt the pressure of the elements. The Institute’s barriers only stopped my ability to form thoughts and words.”

  I shake my head. Price is wrong. He has to be wrong. There has to be something of help he can tell me.

  “I’ve had a strange sensation for a while now,” Price says quietly. It takes me a moment to realize he is no longer speaking of the Institute. “I feel a shift in the pressures that grows by the day. I cannot interpret the feeling for you, but it is the reason the Devron had me aboard this cruise. The captain had hoped I would provide warning before the…something is imminent.”

  “The something?” I open my palms, imagining having this conversation with Captain Rima. “Something such as what? A storm? A tornado? A bloody volcano erupting?”

  He shrugs. “I do not know, but I believe nature will be violent. Something is stretching. And, eventually, it will rip.”

  “Violent. Violent enough to harm a man-of-war?”

  “Violent enough to shatter a mile of mountains.”

  I rub my face. I had sought out Price to learn more about elemental attraction. Instead, I received a doomsday prophecy. “Would it be too much to hope you can predict when this horror is to happen?”

  “On the contrary. I believe such emotion would be most appropriate.”

  Oh waves and hail. “You do not know when,” I say for him, and the Gifted nods.

  Chapter 26

  “You called on the Tirik prisoner? At night? After the captain forbade contact with the boy?” Ana’s hazel eyes are livid as we cram with the other middies into the boys’ berth for an early morning navigational lesson. Our time on deck proved to everyone that we need books and charts more than sextons just now, and studying in privacy makes everyone more comfortable. Or did, until I showed up with news of Price’s words. “Are you daft, Nile? Dana will disembowel you.”

  “I know.” From the point of self-preservation, telling anyone of my visit is daft. But I need to talk through Price’s bizarre prediction with someone, and the middies are a more thoughtful bunch than I expected. Sand, the only one who’d bristle at the mention of Price’s name, isn’t here.

  “I agree with Ana on all fronts,” Kederic says as the boys unsling their cots and move their sea chests together to create a passable table and benches. Kederic’s wavelike black hair is tied back to show sharp cheekbones and trim, slender shoulders. Despite being seventeen and as tall as me, Kederic’s body has some growing to do yet. “But what’s done is done, so let’s hear what the Tirik said. Did he predict today’s rain?”

  “Yes.”

  Kederic nods gravely. “But there is more?”

  “Seriously?” Ana groans, swatting Kederic’s shoulder. “You are encouraging her?”

  I try not to roll my eyes at Ana’s latest excuse to touch the older middie, and turn back to Kederic. “Price claims to feel some kind of major weather anomaly approaching. No specifics.”

  Kederic frowns into the shadows for several heartbeats. “Perhaps he will know more as the anomaly gets closer. Would it not be prudent to interview him daily?” The middie taps his finger on the table. “At worst, we will know the weather. Such foreknowledge has hurt no ship yet.”

  Ana links her arms around her knees. “Captain Rima will never permit it. He named the prisoner a liar and a fraud. Changing a ship’s course in concession to a fraud’s prediction would be foolish.”

  Kederic’s gaze says that his own opinion may differ from our lord and master’s, but I decide not to press the issue lest I steer the middies into trouble alongside myself. The problem with Price’s prophecy is that without more detail, it isn’t actionable. Not yet.

  Clearing my throat, I pull out the props I brought for the lesson. The thick stench of bodies and lanterns locked together with little ventilation hangs thick as fog, and my magic urges me to call a breeze. I focus on a spot on the deck until I can trust myself to stay in control, then look at the middies.

  Kederic and Thatch Lawrence watch me with hungry gazes. They are so desperate for knowledge, it is painful to watch them fail at tasks no one had the time to teach them. Song is studying the deck. Ana… Ana is studying the boys.

  “Tell me about the Bottleneck Juncture, at the mouth of the Siaman Sea,” I ask the middies.

  “It’s a place where land and rock formations result in a narrow three-way juncture between the Siaman Sea, the Ardent
Ocean, and the Diante West Corridor,” says Thatch Lawrence, unfolding his fingers one at a time. “The connection between the Siaman Sea and Diante West Corridor is all right, but the only way to get in and out of the Ardent Ocean is to pass through the Bottleneck.”

  “And only one ship can pass at a time,” adds Kederic. “Which has a strategic advantage: if the Tirik Republic wanted to take the Siaman, we’d need but a few ships aimed at the Bottleneck. We could shoot the Tirik down one by one as they come through.”

  Ana rolls her eyes. “It isn’t strategic if no one cares about it. There is nothing here we can’t more easily get elsewhere, not even fresh water. No one even lives on most of the islands.”

  “There are two freshwater sources,” I correct her. “The Crystal Oasis on Lyron soil and a stream at the Diante port. You might also note that the sea floor is much deeper in the archipelago than at the mainland’s coastline, allowing larger ships to maneuver closer to land. For the present, however, the crucial point is that to sail out of the Siaman and get home, you’ll have to navigate the Bottleneck. And there is precious little room for error.”

  The four nod, even Ana.

  “Did you see our noon sights and positions?” Kederic asks. It’s been pouring rain, and I know Domenic has not the time to check the youngsters’ calculations while Lieutenant Kazzik could barely be trusted with his own work.

  I cringe. “Yes. Mr. Lawrence had the Aurora approaching the mainland of the Tirik Republic.”

  Song chuckles.

  “Mr. Song, you had us off the South Eflian coast, if memory serves.” I wait for the chuckling to subside. “The only one to locate the Aurora in the Siaman Sea was Mr. Kederic. Who, I would wager, had memorized the previous day’s position from the log and estimated.”