That thought stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t like I was taken. Just because Addie decided to kiss me didn’t mean I had any obligation to her. She was engaged, and besides that, I was still irked she had gotten so furious when I tried to talk to her about it. The thought crossed my mind more than once that she had just been using me to feel better for a moment. I pushed away the small voice that said I didn’t want any of these women.
The Levelians were an attractive race, and these women had labor-hardened bodies. There was really nothing left wanting about them, so that didn’t make any sense. I was just tired and wanted my sleep tonight. That was it.
Locke took their attention with the same grim determination with which he tackled our chores. Xavier, on the other hand, was in higher spirits than I’d seen him in a while, flexing every time the girls looked our way. I rolled my eyes.
And Gunther had the best excuse of all. He couldn’t hear their catcalls, and he conveniently turned around whenever one of the gorgeous women walked toward him. I happened by him just as one of the pirates was bold enough to run her hand over his arm, and his face turned as red as his hair. I chuckled. Give the boy a stiff drink, though, and he’d be complaining that he shared a room with Locke.
Maybe the girls had a system with letting others know when their cabins were occupied, like there had been in the barracks back home. I doubted it, though, if men were never allowed on the ship. Still, they were a feisty bunch, and clearly not used to being refused.
I headed up another flight of stairs and stopped dead in my tracks. There was Addie, facing a much taller woman in the center of a small group of the pirates. A bandanna held her short hair back from her face, and she was sweating with exertion. She spun to deliver a roundhouse kick that was actually not half-bad. The cross guard of her dagger caught the light, but it was still sheathed. The woman caught her leg.
“Good, but next time, move this leg here,” the woman across from her instructed, gesturing to a spot on the ground.
“Got it.” Addie nodded. “Again.”
She hadn’t spotted me, behind and to her left. I dropped the water where I had been instructed and turned to leave on light footfalls, not yet ready to face her. Watching her train brought home how long it had been since I had done more than my daily drills. After dinner, I asked Locke to spar with me, avoiding my older brother’s gaze.
Shirtless swordplay only increased the number of whistles we were subjected to, but it wasn’t long before all of that faded into the background. Our movements now were easy. We were feeling each other out. After a few minutes, they increased in intensity.
Locke’s attacks became sharper and more precise. It wasn’t hard to see how he had been one of the most revered soldiers in Ceithre, along with my father. But I had been trained by the general.
I met each of his blows with rigor, neither of us gaining the advantage. I landed a few hits, and he managed a few himself. About the third time he rapped my head lightly with the side of his blade, a feeling of familiarity tugged at me. When I had fallen for one of my father’s feints or not been fast enough, he had gone for the legs. Somewhere in my memory, though, was another trainer going for the face.
And he had recognized me in the cell. Finally, I came right out and asked him. “Have we met before?”
His white smile was a stark contrast to his ebony face. “I wondered if you’d remember that. I did a stint serving on your father’s ship. Trained you and young Xavier both for a while.”
“An officer as high ranking as you were would never have been assigned that duty,” I protested.
“Of course not. I volunteered. You both had tremendous potential. Few can stand against me this long.”
He wasn’t boasting, only speaking the truth. I wrapped my head around that for a moment, and he got in a few more blows while I was distracted. I forced my head back in the game until another thought occurred to me.
“So, you knew my father?”
“I did. I always thought he was a good man.” He offered that last part up without my asking, and I was grateful but confused. Few men would admit that in light of the general’s actions since then. Before I could question him, a voice that wasn’t a catcall interrupted us.
“Care for a different sort of challenge?” SuEllen asked.
Locke’s eyes lit up with the same excitement I felt. I had been wanting to face off against her unique fighting skills again.
“To make it fair, we can start with the both of you against me,” she said with a haughty shake of her midnight hair.
I laughed but reluctantly agreed. The captain had a high opinion of herself, that was for sure. Mostly just to irritate her, I looked to Locke.
“Come on, Locke. Let’s get this over with, so we can get back to real training.”
The Princess
The governess was standing at the front of a small, airless classroom instructing on Levelian history and doing her utmost to ignore PeNelope’s raised hand, as usual, when the young princess finally lost her patience and spoke out of turn.
“I don’t know how you expect me to learn if I can’t ask questions, Mistress HeLena.”
The large woman sighed in response and waved a hand as if to say, “Get on with it, then.”
“How do we know the people of the world are barbarians if no one has been there in centuries?”
There were gasps around the room.
“You can’t say things like that,” MaRiela chastised her. “You’re questioning centuries of our great queens, and you are all of, what? Nine?”
“To answer your question,” JeSina cut in gently. “Mother has means of garnering information from the rest of the world. There are constant wars, and they destroy their ecosystem.”
“But we could help with that.”
“Our obligation is to our own people, PeNelope. Staying here keeps us safe. As it stands, we are forced to maintain the military size we do in order to prepare for a potential discovery.”
PeNelope rolled her eyes. Even at her age, she knew it was impossible for anyone to happen upon Levelia. Her oldest sister caught her look.
“Yes, it is unlikely, but nothing is impossible. Our duty is to protect our citizens above all else. Never forget that.”
“Dare I suggest continuing with the lesson, if this nonsense is cleared up?”
The governess is only interested in getting the standing part of her lecture over with before she exhausted her bulky form, Nell thought.
She said nothing else, not because she was in agreement, but because there was no point in further argument.
Chapter Twenty
ADELAIDE
My muscles were screaming in protest by the time my training session was over, but I felt better than I had in weeks. I wasn’t nearly as abysmal a fighter as I had begun to suspect. It was as SuEllen said. The men, skilled though they were, had no concept of how my body moved.
My face reddened at that thought. One of them might have a small idea.
After a few hours learning the basics, I was ready for a different kind of knowledge. Besides, I didn’t think my body could handle any more physical training. I knocked on the captain’s door where I knew Nell would be. She opened in seconds. The captain was behind her, body gleaming with sweat. She must have been training as well.
“I want you to teach me about this necklace,” I told Nell. “How you used it, what it can do, and if I can use it.”
“Come in,” the captain said. “That will be a longer discussion than can take place in the doorway, and I’d like to stay to offer my own knowledge, if that suits you.”
“I would appreciate it.”
I entered the surprisingly-simple quarters. Aside from the silk drapes and maps strewn on the wall, her cabin was not terribly different than mine. It was larger, to be sure, but similarly furnished. We sat at a small table bolted to the center of the floor.
“To begin with, I didn’t really wield the necklace,” Nell said. “Even in Levelia, cryst
als are fairly rare, but I have some familiarity with them.” She gestured to her bracelet. “There’s nearly always a failsafe of sorts, an emergency protocol one can activate by pressing the outer two buttons. Truthfully, I didn’t know what it would do that day in the crypt. I was desperate, up against an enemy I had no clue how to fight.”
“What she did was foolish. She was lucky it awakened the guardians rather than opening a chasm in the ground beneath you.” SuEllen leveled a look at Nell, whose face paled. “Though from what she tells me, she’s done a great many foolish things these past months. However,” her face softened, “being on her own in another world, one can hardly expect a child to make the correct decisions every time.”
Nell bristled, shooting her aunt an annoyed look.
“As for how crystals work,” SuEllen took over, “the technical explanation has to do with electromagnetic waves, but in short, it is connected both to its casing and to your will. PeNelope has developed an unfortunate habit of touching her bracelet when she activates it, but that is not necessary. The crystals of her bracelet are encased in a teleportation device. She only needs to will them to fulfill that purpose.
“I use my own device seamlessly while fighting, never needing it to so much as touch my skin. Mine has a few other uses as well, as I was Captain of the Guard on our home island.
“Of course, a teleportation crystal is the most basic in terms of use and the will to activate it. A multi-use crystal, such as the one in your amulet, requires a different level of focus and skill to activate.”
“What does my encasing do?”
The captain sighed and leaned back in her chair. “That, I could not tell you. I doubt anyone alive knows the spectrum of its uses, but there may be scholars left who have an idea.”
“Would they also have the code for removing it? And why have buttons if it comes down to will?”
“Hmm. I suspect what happened is that the necklace soldered itself together and has erected an exceptionally strong barrier. There may be a combination of sorts to deactivate it, a sort of fail-safe. Surely that isn’t the only way, though. If there were a weapon made from the same vein of crystal, it could likely cut through the barrier…” SuEllen trailed off for a moment.
“Is that likely?” I prodded her.
“It’s not unlikely. Crystals are similar to any other stone or ore and are often found in clusters. The weapon would have to be ancient, but Levelians preserve their history carefully. It would not be impossible to find, if we could get there.”
I set that thought aside as being too overwhelming to think about.
“And the buttons?” I asked instead.
“The buttons are more like an override for specific circumstances or when the crystal is in the hands of an unskilled user.
“Rare as the crystals themselves are, it’s not a given that one can master use of them. It’s often dangerous to try, given the amount of energy at play. So, the buttons have their purpose, but they are extremely limiting.”
“It flickers sometimes and warms,” I told them. “Does that mean I can wield it?”
“As long as you’ve been wearing it, it is probably beginning to attune itself to your brain waves. It’s certainly possible that you could learn how to use it, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to begin. I have always been a warrior, not a scholar. GeNavi, Nell’s mother, would have been able to tell you more.” She leveled a look at me. “It would be extremely foolish to experiment with for a number of reasons, not least of which is that we are on a floating vessel in the middle of a shark-infested sea.”
“I understand. I would never put us all at risk that way. I just wanted…” Now it was my turn to trail off.
“You can still learn to defend yourself, Addie,” Nell said, gesturing to the dagger I still hadn’t brought myself to actually train with.
“SeRali is an excellent knife-fighter,” the captain offered nonchalantly.
I changed the subject. “So how did you wind up here?” I asked SuEllen.
The captain raised her chin just slightly and then lowered her face, seeming to think for a moment before speaking. “That is a longer tale for another time, but the short version is that I was out on a mission when there was a coup in Levelia. I was unable to return, my access having been blocked by the new king. The resources on this world are scarce, and it is not always safe for us to port. We became pirates by necessity.”
“What about your family?”
“Until I saw PeNelope, I was sure they had all been killed. I still have hope for my daughter, but I doubt seriously if another royal would have survived.” SuEllen’s eyes were far away, and she clutched Nell’s hand.
Even I wasn’t insensitive enough to ask why her daughter would have survived if the others hadn’t. The whole subject was clearly painful for them both. Before I could try to come up with something to say, the captain cleared her throat.
“But it is a blessing to have PeNelope home. Where I hope she’ll stay.” The comment was pointed, as was the look that accompanied it.
Nell looked torn, then her eyes sparked. “Why don’t you stay, too, Addie? You said yourself there’s nothing for you in Ceithre. Levelians are your best chance at helping figure out the necklace, and they would keep you safe.”
SuEllen cleared her throat.
“We would keep you safe,” Nell amended. “Sorry, it’s been a while. Better yet, we’d have time to teach you to keep yourself safe.”
I deliberated over what she was saying for a moment. She wasn’t wrong about any of it. I had been wondering what I was bothering to go back for.
“I’ll think about it. The staying, the dagger,” I said.
But in truth, I had made up my mind about both already. Even Shensi already seemed to love it here, wandering the large vessel much more independently than she had The Seaductress. Nell had told me she brought Shensi because she knew I’d need the company and wouldn’t want her left to my father’s dubious care, but I wondered if that was the whole story. Had she realized all along there would be nothing to go back to?
The triumphant gleam in Nell’s eyes told me she knew as well as I did that come Hobatsi Island, I wasn’t getting off this ship.
The Princess
The Levelians had a saying. “Wish for the stars and catch on fire.” It was supposed to convey that wishes were dangerous and rarely granted in a way that benefited the wisher.
PeNelope had hated that saying and its implications her entire life. To her, it was just another way to quash her dreams, to keep the Levelians content in their stasis. She never could have imagined how the warning phrase would turn out to define her life.
But on this particular day, that thought had not yet entered her mind. PeNelope was only ten years old. She was in her Auntie SuEllen’s suites, escaping her studies to visit her best friend and cousin, BeLa. Today was BeLa’s day off from training. It was not PeNelope’s, but that hardly seemed relevant.
“Nell, give me a hand here.” The bronze gadgets of BeLa’s goggles stuck out at varying lengths around her face, giving her the appearance of a startled sea creature.
“Is this going to explode in my face?”
“I can’t promise, no.” BeLa held out an extra pair of goggles.
“Good enough for me.” PeNelope donned the goggles before stepping over to hold the proffered beaker.
Three minutes later, Captain Emery walked into an orange cloud of smoke and the distinct odor of singed hair. The girls, who had been merely startled at the minor eruption they had caused, were downright terrified at the sight of the second-most powerful woman in the queendom.
SuEllen took two measured steps inside. She surveyed the damage to the table and rug, the frayed ends of the girls’ silver-threaded braids, and finally, the identical expressions of dread widening both sets of emerald eyes.
There was a tense moment in which Nell imagined the variety of inventive ways in which her Auntie could punish them. And then the most peculiar thin
g of all happened. SuEllen, the paradigm of decorum, the Levelian above all reproach, burst out laughing.
Chapter Twenty-One
CLARK
As Locke and I finished the last of our sparring, I reflected on the fight we’d had with SuEllen earlier. I hadn’t laughed for long. After Locke and I had our arses handed to us several times over by SuEllen’s combination of swordsmanship and teleportation, we did eventually work out a strategy for combating her. We were both sweating and panting by the end, and she looked little the worse for wear by the time she excused herself to dinner.
Locke was a skilled fighter, but I had wished I could go against her with Xav. Over a decade of training together had put us in sync in a way I would likely never achieve with another person.
Before she left, I had taken a moment to ask her about the data cylinder, fishing it out of my pocket. Her eyes had widened.
“How in the worlds did you come by that?”
“A man who has since died gave it to me. It contains information I need.” I had decided on honesty in the hopes that it might yield results.
But then, she had shaken her head.
“We don’t keep tech like that on ships.”
Locke and I had continued sparring while I tried to work off the disappointment of yet another dead end. Time passed until the setting sun took me by surprise. Now, it was time to wrap it up, as we’d been training for hours.
“You’d better get to bed, old man,” I said to Locke. “Don’t want you shirking your chores tomorrow.”
“Watch yourself, boy.” Locke didn’t smile, but I saw humor in his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to risk injuring you in another spar. Perhaps I’ll just let Ms. Kensington fight my battles for me. You seem plenty scared of her.”
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