Break the Chains

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  The coughing woman stiffened. Ripka peeked sideways at her jumpsuit, read the name stained in dark dye there – Junie. Ripka glanced around as covertly as she could. Everyone except her and Enard studied their gruel with a strange intensity.

  Ripka’s belly soured as Junie leaned back and drew herself up, preparing to launch a forceful cough right at the woman who had told her off.

  “Junie, there’s no need to–”

  Ripka was cut off by an explosive cough. Spittle dampened the hardwood tabletop with wet freckles. The other woman – Henta, her jumpsuit said – screeched and threw her bowl at Junie’s head, dousing her in pale sludge. Ripka jerked sideways, bumping Enard as she scrambled to get out of the way.

  Whoops and jeers exploded all around. The man sitting next to Henta burst out into a fit of laughter.

  Junie wasn’t laughing. The slender woman screeched with rage and leapt forward, the bowl that’d bounced off her breastbone raised like a club. Henta, grinning, sprung up to meet her halfway. Before Ripka could finish blinking they tangled together on the tabletop, hollering and kicking and bashing each other with any random piece of cookware that came to hand.

  A strange, stunned stillness filled the air – and then chaos broke loose. The shouting of the guards was drowned out by the delighted cries of the inmates. A great brass bell rang somewhere above, signaling a riot. Those seated at the table the two women squabbled on jumped to their feet and cheered on one woman or another.

  “Enough!” Ripka barked before she could stop herself, all her training as a watch-captain bubbling to the surface. Her instinct to restore order overrode her desire not to make a spectacle of herself.

  Enard blurted something she couldn’t quite hear. Didn’t care to hear. Blood thrummed in her ears as her heart pounded, preparing her muscles for action. She leapt onto the table and stood above the wrestling pair. They whacked one another on the head and back with gruel-smeared bowls, yelling expletives all the while.

  She saw an opening in the melee and seized it, grabbing Junie by the back of her jumpsuit. With a grunt she heaved the smaller woman back and the pair broke apart. Junie flailed, overbalanced Ripka, and she staggered – her foot hit empty air over the table’s edge. With a yelp she and Junie crashed backwards, sprawling onto the gruel and dust-spattered floor. Laughter roiled up from the spectators, but Ripka’s focus wasn’t on the bruise spreading on her hip nor her pride – it was on getting this pit-cursed woman under control.

  Grunting with the effort, Ripka wrenched Junie around and pinned her chest-down on the dirt, twisting her arms behind her in a classic restraint hold. She heard scuffling all around, the crunch of boots approaching, and looked up, ready to explain herself.

  It wasn’t a guard.

  Some big bruiser from the general population stomped her way, veins sticking out on the sides of his neck, fists raised in preparation to strike. Cold fear coiled in her belly. The man’s almond-dark skin was covered by the same dreary jumpsuit they all wore, but he’d gone to the trouble of ripping open a shoulder seam to reveal the snake tattoo of the Glasseaters.

  Now that she’d gotten Junie pinned to the ground, she saw the same tattoo peeking out from a ragged tear in the woman’s new jumpsuit. Wonderful.

  Stomping down her pride, she let Junie go and popped to her feet, backing up a step to put the fallen woman’s body between her and the advancing bruiser. His scarred lips twisted in a grotesque smile.

  And then he stopped short, the smile fading from his rage-blushed face.

  Enard stepped beside Ripka, hands held easy and open at his sides, narrow head tilted as he watched the bruiser approach. She frowned, not understanding the big bastard’s hesitation. Surely two unaffiliated newbies didn’t threaten him? Was there a guard nearby?

  “Tender?” the big man asked.

  Enard shrugged a little, saying nothing.

  Guards swarmed them, breaking apart the knot of prisoners and carting off the injured. Ripka let her wrists be bound behind her back, let herself be dragged away, mind whirling. As she was herded toward her cell, she caught Enard’s eye, and mouthed, “Tender?”

  “Later,” he said, and winked once before they were shoved into their respective cells with empty bellies and fresh bruises to nurse until the morning.

  Chapter Four

  Three bunks were bolted to one wall, a scraggly rug nailed to the center of the floor. The bunks sported the barest of linens, and not so much as a trunk for clothing cluttered the empty room. Tibs tugged his hat down, no doubt to hide an insufferable smirk, and sat on the middle bunk. His long legs dangled, bootheels hooked on the bottom bunk’s rail, and he stretched spindly arms up to rest against the top bunk. In effect, cutting Detan off from any of the sparse cabin’s small comforts.

  “And just what do you suppose we’ll do if we can’t win Pelkaia to our cause?” Tibs asked.

  “Bah, she’ll come around. You know how old Pelly can be. Fickle as her face, that woman is.”

  “As you say, sirra.”

  Detan frowned. Tibs only called him sirra when he thought Detan was being particularly idiotic. He couldn’t think of a thing he’d done in the last few marks that was worse than usual by his persnickety companion’s estimation.

  “Who put sand in your trousers?” he asked, and turned to examine the door that held them. The Larkspur had been constructed to the rigorous specifications of its previous – and intended – owner, the exiled commodore Thratia Ganal. Ruthless woman that she was, Thratia was more inclined to cut throats than corners with construction. Unfortunately for Detan, it seemed Pelkaia kept up with the commodore’s maintenance schedule. The hinges were well-oiled, the ever-shifting gaps between the boards filled with waxen mortar.

  “You’ll pardon my sour mood if I find it a touch worrisome we’re sitting above all this–” Tibs stomped a boot on the annoyingly well-cared-for floor, “–and you seem pleased as punch to make things go boom.”

  Detan hid a grimace by giving the door another close examination. “It wasn’t my intention to make use of my sel-sense, but Pelly put me rather in a spot. If I refused, she’d realize how unpredictable my talent has grown, and then where would we be? If she doesn’t think she can use me, she won’t help, and if she won’t help, then Ripka and New Chum will have to get real cozy out at the Remnant, because our trusty ole flier sure as shit isn’t going to fare well crossing the Endless Sea. Not to mention pass for anything like an official vessel once we get there.”

  “Making the lady’s face go up, I understand. But that stunt with the knife?”

  Detan fiddled with the hem of his sleeve. “Saw that, did you? Err. Ah. Well, I mean, it was such a small amount.”

  “And did you mean for that demonstration to be quite so large?”

  “Not exactly, of course, but…”

  Tibs sighed, low and ragged, and the sound was like raking a bed of nails over Detan’s conscience.

  “Look,” Detan said, turning to look Tibs in the eye. “It’s getting better. I’m regaining control.”

  Tibs pursed his lips like a fish’s kiss, exhibiting his whole opinion in one bitter expression. The ship shifted, changing course with a sudden jerk, and Detan grew aware of the vast selium stores beneath his feet.

  All that sel, and all it would take from him was one flare-up. One tiny spark of rage to set the whole contraption ablaze. His stomach sank. This cabin wasn’t so different from the one he’d been held in, near on a year ago now. The bunks were new – the rug a nice touch of homeliness – but the warm scent of the wood, the subtle tinge of leather and iron in the air, dragged at him. Pushed at barriers he’d long since held in mind.

  Little ribbons of pain drew his attention. He’d been scratching at the interior of his elbow, at the ruby-red scar that Callia’s needle had left behind.

  It’d been year, sure. A year since that whitecoat, Callia, had strapped him to a table in a room on another airship. A year since she’d experimented upon him on behalf of th
e empire, dug around in his flesh and his blood to see what made his destructive sel-sense tick. Funny how that single event haunted him more than the first time he’d been a guest of the whitecoats.

  That first time, he’d been locked away in the Bone Tower like a proper prisoner. He’d had the scent of char from accidentally exploding his selium pipeline – and his fellow sel-sensitives – fresh in his nostrils. He’d given up then. Given himself over to whatever harsh end the empire had planned for him in their quest to dig the truth of his deviant sensitivity out of him.

  But he had escaped. He’d tasted clean air, open air. Found his way back to the Scorched and found a friend in Tibs, too. And that’s why it’d hurt so much, that second time, a year ago. Brief though Callia’s experiments upon him had been, not even the invasive prodding of the Bone Tower had left him so hollowed out inside. So unsure of the nature of himself and his ability. And Tibs had been there for him through both returns from the whitecoats’ clutches. He owed Tibs so much. More than he could ever find the words to say.

  Detan dragged his hands through his hair and stared at his feet.

  “Sorry.”

  Tibs shrugged, a slow roll of the shoulders that dismissed their whole argument, and pushed his hat back. “Think she really will come ’round?”

  Detan settled cross-legged on the floor and rubbed the rough side of his cheek. They’d been a week in Cracked Thorn before opportunity had arisen to get himself arrested, and his chin hadn’t seen the slick side of a blade since. He wiggled his bare toes.

  “Don’t know, truth be told. I figured the bait of the deviant list would be enough to tempt her along, but she didn’t seem half so interested as I’d hoped.”

  “Oh, the list that doesn’t exist?”

  Detan scowled and shushed him. “Keep it quiet, lest you want her to tip us over the side.”

  “Had you considered, by any chance, telling her the truth?”

  He stood and paced, irritated by the tight confines and lack of control. Wasn’t right to keep him cooped up like this, not when he hadn’t done Pelkaia any direct harm. It was downright inhospitable, come to think on it.

  “Think she’d let us keep Nouli, if she knew what kind of knowledge he holds?”

  “We can only keep him if they can find him.”

  “They will. He’s there. If anyone can suss that wily rat out of hiding, it’s Ripka Leshe.”

  “Wish I could say I shared your faith. Not that the lady’s skills are in question – I’m sure she’ll find him, if he’s there to be found – but what kind of man will he be? You think he couldn’t have gotten out on his own, if he wanted it?”

  Tibs plucked a deck of cards from his breast pocket and flicked out a hand. Detan stopped pacing and crouched down to gather up the fallen cards. Having something in his hands, something to do, kept his mind moving along smoothly.

  “There’s got to be a reason he’s stuck around. Maybe he fears the empire’s reach – or Thratia’s. Nouli served the empress a long time, and often on Thratia’s ships. Thratia knows he’s got an inside peek at her methods. Could be she wants him for herself, or wants him dead. This is Thratia Ganal we’re talking about. The woman they call General Throatslitter, and she smiles about it. The woman who the empire exiled for being too power-hungry. The woman who… Who killed an innocent woman, let her bleed out at our feet, just to make a point. Who sold deviant sensitives into slavery, not because she didn’t think it was wrong, but because she found doing so expedient to her plans. If I were Nouli, I’d hide behind the Remnant’s walls too.

  “But no matter his reasons, it’s got to be tried. Hond Steading has always relied on its legacy and its size to keep itself safe. The monsoon season will slow Thratia’s troops, but it won’t be long now. She wants Hond Steading. Valathea wants it, too. And my dear old auntie’s going to get caught in the crossfire. We need a strategist with inside knowledge.”

  “Putting a lot of faith in this man, considering who we’re up against. Putting a whole city in his hands, and you haven’t even said hello yet.”

  “Auntie Honding’s got a lot of things at her fingertips. Got watchers, sel-sensitives, loyalists, and every old thing you’d need to hold a city being besieged. But what she needs to win – to push back those forces and not just waste away until she’s rolled over by hunger – is a trump card.” He flicked out a card. Tibs snatched it up. “An upper hand Thratia won’t see coming. Nouli’s that. Even just knowing we have him will give her pause. Maybe make her be a little too slow, a little too cautious.”

  “Know what else might slow her down?”

  “Getting a look at your mug?”

  “Discovering the Lord Honding has returned home, trained, and is ready for her.”

  The cards in his hand rustled as he stifled a tremble. “We’re asking a lot of miracles of the world already. Wouldn’t want to push our luck.”

  “There’s no luck in asking for help.”

  “Depends on who you’re asking.”

  Tibs’s wizened little eyes swiveled to the door.

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Ask Pelkaia to train me? Black skies, Tibs, she nearly pitched me off the cliff the moment she saw me. We’re already asking her to help us get the gang out of the clink. Talk about pushing our luck – she’ll push back.”

  “Doesn’t have to be her. Could be your ownself.”

  Detan froze with a card held halfway out. “I don’t have the temperament for it.”

  “Yet you’ve refused to give up the possibility.”

  “What in the pits is that supposed to mean?”

  Tibs closed the fan of his cards and pressed them facedown against his thigh. “I get why you won’t go back to Hond Steading. I do. But for all your running away from that city – you still bear its brand. You still count yourself its heir. What do you think’s going to happen when Dame Honding dies, and you’re the only sack of flesh drifting around the Scorched with a proper heir brand on his neck? Think the city’s just going to sit quietly and wait for you to get yourself together? Think your abandonment won’t cause upheaval? Won’t hurt people?

  “You could relinquish it. Could cross it out and demand Dame Honding burn some other sod with the burden. But you don’t. You’re still responsible for that city in your heart – so you’re going to have to take control of yourself real quick. Nouli can’t do that for you.”

  “Five,” Detan said.

  “Excuse me?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, where his family’s crest had been branded into his skin at the age of twelve. He’d wanted it, then. He’d never really stopped wanting it. Never stopped knowing what it meant. It wasn’t the power, not really, though most would see it that way. It was stewardship, his mother had told him while her jaw creaked from the bonewither eating her alive. It was a promise from Detan to Hond Steading. A promise that he’d do his best to care for the city for the rest of his life. A chance to do something right.

  “Five lives. Last time I was there. Last time I took responsibility for the city. I stood with a group of five miners moving sel and lost control. That little demonstration landed me in the Bone Tower, guest of Callia’s bastard colleagues, and I’ll be damned if I ever get myself anywhere near a situation like that again. I do what I can for Hond Steading. I just do it from a distance.”

  “And is it the whitecoats that keep you up at night, or fear of failing your responsibility to Hond Steading?”

  “That was three years ago. You think I wouldn’t do worse now, pushed just right? Staying away is the best thing I can do for them. Finding Nouli and sending him there is the second best.”

  Tibs pressed his lips together and laid out a pair of cards. The ship slalomed sideways. Detan nearly lost his balance as it bumped up against something firm and unforgiving. A soft squeal reached his ears, the complaint of wood and metal rubbing shoulders. He was grateful for the distraction. Detan popped back to his feet and slipped his cards into his pocket.

  “Are w
e under attack?” he asked the air, staring at the iron-bound door and wishing he could see what was happening.

  Tibs chuckled. “Under attack by a dock? Sure.”

  Before he could muster a response the huge door swung open. Coss leaned against the doorframe, brows raised in amusement. Detan flicked his collar to straighten it and tried to look confident, unconcerned. Coss smirked.

  “Pack your things, lads, you’ve arrived.”

  “I’ll have you know, I arrived ages ago,” Detan said.

  Coss rolled his eyes. “Cute. Now heave-to-it.” He stepped aside, leaving the doorway wide open for them to pass through. Detan peered at that sliver of freedom, suspicious.

  “I’d hoped to bend your captain’s ear a little while longer,” he ventured.

  “Hope all you want, Honding, she ain’t interested. Am I going to have to grab some boys to help you on your way out?”

  “No need for that,” Tibs said. He levered himself out of his sprawl over the bunks.

  “And may I ask which lovely establishment of the Scorched you’re dumping our sorry hides in?” Detan asked.

  “See for yourself.” Coss gestured toward the side of the ship with one arm.

  Detan peered over the ship’s rail. A city of brownstone and twisted wood splayed below him, the square buildings tall and wide, their roofs peppered with airship moorings and outdoor sleeping quarters. The city was tucked into the curve of a frothing bay, the angry splash of the Endless Sea adding some rare greenery to the shoreline. Beyond the sprawl of buildings and streets, cactus and pricklegrain farms sprouted, their plots mirroring the city’s square towers.

  In the far distance, little more than a black smudge on the sea against the horizon, he could make out the first of the Remnant Isles. Somewhere beyond that blurred dot, Ripka and New Chum awaited. Hopefully with Nouli in hand. Detan swallowed.

  “Petrastad,” he said.

  “Very good!” Coss clapped him on the back. “I see you paid attention in geography.”

  “Does this mean Pelkaia intends to help us?” he asked, sharing a sideways glance with Tibs as the lanky man slipped up to the rail alongside him.