by J M D Reid
Estan’s ears perked up.
“Why did . . .?” Ary’s face paled as he trailed off.
“Who chose you, Ary?” Excitement swallowed his contemplation of Esty’s profession. His entire body tensed. Anticipation pumped through his veins. Tell me, Ary. Share with me. We can learn so much if we work together. Why did the Church call Nzuuth a blasphemer? What is so heretical about her poems? Who betrayed Theisseg? Was it Kaltein, or did something else happen two thousand years ago? What is the Church hiding?
Estan trembled. Ary grew quiet, his anger vanishing. “Chaylene. Why did she choose me? That’s what I meant.”
Irritation flashed through Estan. “You don’t have to lie to me, Ary. You can trust me with your secret.”
Ary swallowed, his fists clenching and relaxing. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Estan fought against the trembles. The moment had arrived. Estan put all the reassurance he could into his eyes. “I’m your friend, Ary. I’m not going to blab to the crew like Vel. Nor am I a Sadhonian merchant trying to seduce your wife and sell you rotten fruit.” Such a curious idiom. What is the origin of . . .? No! Stay focused, Estan.
“I know that, but—”
The stomp of laughing sailors descending into the hold clamped Ary’s jaw shut. Disappointment curdled Estan’s excitement into a weight sinking in his belly. Ary had come so close to sharing his breeze. Crates scraped and creaked as the sailors made space to sit.
“I think you’re full of pig dung,” a man said. “You and Voasin didn’t enjoy that Vaarckthian hussy together.”
Ary’s entire body went rigid.
“Sure did,” a sailor answered.
Ary’s fists clenched. A ruddy hue blossomed across his face. Estan had witnessed the same intensity in Ary’s eyes right before they’d charged the foredeck during the Cyclone.
“Ary,” Estan whispered, seizing his friend’s wrist. “It’s just talk. Chaylene would never—”
“I know!” he snarled. He sucked in a deep breath, knuckles going white. “This is all that Storming Vel’s fault!”
“What she look like without those britches on, Sharthamen?”
“Skin as smooth as Sowerese silk and black as midnight. And hot. She burned. She was so wanton. It was all me and Voasin could do to feed her fires.” The sailor gave a coarse laugh.
The others joined him.
Ary growled and ripped his arm from Estan’s grasp.
“Don’t,” Estan hissed, grabbing Ary again. Strength quivered through Ary’s arm.
“Me and Voasin put quite the set of horns on the strutting sergeant!” The sailor gave a wicked laugh. “And the looks his missus been givin’ us . . . I know she’s eager for a second go.”
“Your lies are pathetic, Sharthamen,” a new voice spoke up. “All you sailors from the Spirituous gust empty air. The sergeant don’t strut. You should’ve seen him during the Cyclone—”
“He may have fought like a wild boar, but his wife squealed like a wet sow when I slid my—”
Ary’s roar exploded out of him. He shoved Estan hard. Pain flared in Estan’s mending ribs as he crashed back into barrel of bone sabres. Before he could right himself, Ary burst out of the armory.
“Stop, Ary!” Estan cried out in impotent fear.
*
Ary’s blood howled through his veins.
The bulbous-nosed Sharthamen gaped as Ary barreled forward through the dimly lit hold. Three sailors sat on crates with Sharthamen, all swallowing at the sight of the thundering marine. Ary’s vision darkened into a cone focused on the sailor’s hated face. Sharthamen squealed as Ary seized his shirt.
“What did you say about my wife?” Ary demanded, knuckles popping. The dark storm raged. Fury crackled through him.
“I . . .” Sharthamen’s brown face paled. “N-nothing.”
Ary threw him into a crate. Wood splintered. Sharthamen grunted as he bounced off and landed on the deck.
“You called her a wet sow!” Ary thundered. He kicked the rising sailor in the chest.
The air exploded out of Sharthamen. He crashed onto his back. His face grew puce as he coughed. “I . . . didn’t mean . . . it . . .”
Hands seized Ary’s coat. With a bellow, he broke free and fell upon Sharthamen like a bolt of red lightning crackling out of black skies. His fist slammed into the sailor’s face, smashing his over-ripe nose. Blood spurted hot against Ary’s knuckles.
“My wife is no SOW!” he roared and bashed his fist again into Sharthamen’s face. A blackened tooth danced across the decking. “She’s no HUSSY!”
His fist hammered hard into Sharthamen’s cheek, snapping his head to the left. Heat burned in Ary’s knuckles.
“She never touched Vel! And she NEVER touched you!”
“Please!” Sharthamen gasped, lips spilt open, scarlet spilling over his swelling face. He struggled to lift his arms to shield himself. “I didn’t . . . do nothing . . . with her . . .”
“Say it louder!” Ary’s left hand caught both of Sharthamen’s wrists. He yanked them over Sharthamen’s head, exposing the man’s face.
Ary’s fist crashed into the sobbing sow’s temple.
“Say you never touched my wife!”
Ary smashed his fist down again.
“She wouldn’t have anything to do with a piece of dung like you, Vel!”
Again.
“She wouldn’t!” the man sobbed, lines of crimson streaked across his face, bloody spittle running down his cheeks. Reddening flesh squeezed his right eye shut. “We tried!”
Bones snapped in Ary’s fingers, agony racing through him. He snarled through the pain, his fist battering over and over into the piece of dung’s face again. Hot fluids sprayed across his face.
“I’m sorry!” screamed the sailor. “I’m sorry! Please!”
More hands seized Ary’s arms. He thrashed to escape them. He had to pound Vel’s face into a pile of mangled meat. He roared like a beast as he fought. His arm straightened to connect his fist with the sailor’s bloodied face, but the hands were strong. They hauled him back.
“I never touched her!” the sailor wheezed. “I never touched her.”
“What in Theisseg’s damned Storm is going on!” a woman bellowed. “Sergeant Jayne!”
Captain Dhar appeared before Ary, her severe face glowering down at him.
Ary snarled, not caring. He struggled one last time to break free of the men holding him back. The sailor blubbered and stared at him in fear.
Fear.
Good!
“Ary?” Chaylene gasped. “What are you doing?”
His wife’s words severed his anger.
Rage deflated out of him as awareness crashed into his mind. Guts and Estan held his right arm while the Bosun and a sailor named Charlim the left. Others stood pale-faced and gaping around him.
His wife stared at him with that same horror in her eyes she’d had on the Xorlar when he’d almost killed . . .
“No,” Ary groaned, staring at Sharthamen’s face battered and swollen.
The strength left Ary’s body.
“I . . . I . . .” he struggled to speak as he looked up at the captain, sweat and more dripping down his face.
Her face grew even harder. “Secure him in the brig! You, fetch the medical officer!”
Ary didn’t resist. Sharthamen’s sobs chased him.
Chapter Eighteen
The Dauntless’s brig lay at the bow of the ship, a small, triangular space formed by the hull narrowing into the prow. Bars of hardened ceramics, running from floor to ceiling, separated Ary from the rest of the ship. He lay on his side in near-darkness, his hands bound in thick hemp rope before him, the knots sealed with tar. Another rope secured his feet to a heavy beam.
Sharthamen’s blubbering haunted Ary as he stared blankly into the dark. The ache in his knuckles faded as his Theisseg-cursed power healed swollen flesh and broken fingers. A cold, dark shame crushed him. He’d lost control again. Why couldn’t he keep his anger in check? Wh
y did it flare out of him as a tempest rampaging through the skies?
It wasn’t even Sharthamen he was angry with, not really. It hadn’t been his face he’d pounded, but Vel’s. His former friend was spreading those vile rumors about Chaylene. How had he never seen what a piece of dung Vel was? How had he failed to smell the gagging stench of the man? How could Vel claim to love Chaylene, then boast to everyone about her wantonness?
I know she never touched him! So why couldn’t I just swallow my anger? Over and over he asked himself that as he waited for his punishment, sentenced to a labor camp.
Chaylene materialized out of the darkness. He stared at her as she knelt before his cell. She reached through the bars to grasp his hand. He kept his limp as he felt her loving caress. He didn’t deserve her comfort. Didn’t deserve her.
I’m cursed by Theisseg. That’s why I hit him! She filled me with her hatred. That’s why I get so angry.
Ary jerked his hand away.
“I’m sorry, Ary,” Chaylene whispered.
He didn’t answer her.
“This was all my fault. I should’ve told you about those pieces of dung.” Heat entered her voice. “Before we reached Vesche, they wanted to . . . have me. I was coming out of the privy, and they were waiting for me. It was disgusting. The things they said . . .” She shuddered. “I should have told you, but I was afraid you’d . . . do this.”
Even Chaylene knows I’m dangerous.
“It’s one of the reasons I never told you Vel kissed me.” She sighed. “You love me so much it scares me sometimes. It’s so passionate. But . . . you can’t beat up every man that whispers things about me, Ary.”
The shame swallowed him.
“I understand why you did it. The things they were saying about me were terrible.” She smiled “And . . . thank you for defending me. Just . . . you can’t act like that, okay?”
Chaylene seized his hand. He tried to pull away, but she squeezed tight, her face hardening.
“I’m not letting go, Ary. You made a bad mistake. But I talked to the captain. I told her what happened. What they’ve been saying about me. Don’t worry. I don’t think you’ll be in too much trouble.”
“I should be,” Ary croaked, his voice raw, throat parched.
Chaylene’s thumb caressed the back of his hand. “I know. But I don’t want you to be. Sharthamen is sow’s dung. His face will be banged up for a while, and he’s on light duty, but he’ll recover. The medical officer’s quite certain he’ll recover, minus a few teeth you knocked out.”
“I get so angry sometimes.” He stared at her. “I can’t help it, Chaylene. It just lurks in me. This . . . this storm that wants to slam into everything. I try to keep pushing it down. I try to swallow all the filth, to not vomit it back up.”
“Ary . . .” she sighed.
“You don’t deserve what they say about you. I want to make them all see that.” The heat grew, the tempest stirring in him. He gritted his teeth against Theisseg’s curse.
“I do deserve this.” Her smile twisted into something looking bitter. “I flirted with disaster, Ary. I made mistakes. I should be the one paying for them, not you.”
“It’s all Theisseg’s fault. If she’d never cursed me . . .”
Chaylene huffed. “Theisseg doesn’t control you.”
“She does. I couldn’t control myself at the Dawnspire. I almost brought down the skylands. That’s what she wants. She wants to be free at the cost of everything.”
“I’m not so sure. I’ve been thinking about it. How can the Storm and the skylands be tied to the same objects? There’s something we’re missing. We need to learn more about them.”
“No!” Ary snarled. “I’m done. Theisseg can rot.”
He ignored the pitiful, pain-filled scream echoing in his memory.
“She cursed me! My ma never would have hated me if She hadn’t touched me!” Ary strained at his bonds; the words his ma poured on him as a child spilled over him, dark and filthy, as brackish as water festering in a drainage ditch all spring. “I wouldn’t have this anger burning inside me!”
“You should be angry! I’m angry! You think I liked what they said about me?” Chaylene squeezed harder. “You’re my husband. You have every right to get mad when a man says such despicable things about me! You just need to control it better.”
“Theisseg cursed me.” He clung to it.
“You’re not cursed. That’s just an excuse, Ary.”
He frowned at her.
“Just like I used my blood as an excuse.” She shifted. “When I . . . when I was going for walks with Vel, when I was thinking of . . . of doing those things he’s claiming about me, I would think it wasn’t my fault. I’m Vaarckthian. Cursed.”
“But . . .” Ary protested. “You’re not any different from a Vionese girl.”
“I know that now. But . . . when I heard it every single day of my life, when every woman and girl in Isfe whispered it about me, it was so easy to believe it. When I was feeling guilty for wanting Vel, it was easier to just blame my blood. I couldn’t control myself, so I didn’t need to feel guilty. ‘I’m Vaarckthian. We just have hot blood. Maybe . . . maybe I should do it.’ That’s what I thought, Ary.
“And your ma fed you that same dung every day. She called you cursed. You swallowed it. I watched you, Ary. You would . . . force yourself to devour it, eating her rotten words instead of spitting them back at her. No wonder your anger bursts out of you. You ate so much of it. You believe that you’re this brutal man, a beast just waiting to explode.”
“I did explode!” Sharthamen’s blubbering rose in Ary’s thoughts.
“And I . . . I . . .” She shook her head. “I almost embraced my excuse, too, Ary. You’re a good man.”
He snorted.
“Briaris Jayne, you are a good man. A decent man.”
“No, I’m not. I wanted to rip Sharthamen apart. All of them. Vel. The other sailors. I wanted to rip through the ship and hurt them, Chaylene.” Raw words at his sore throat. “If it wasn’t Theisseg’s curse, then that means it’s just me. That I’m a beast.”
“A beast wouldn’t be flogging himself!” Heat burned through Chaylene’s words. “If you were such a monster, you would be thrilled that you’d hurt Sharthamen. You’d savor what you did to him. But you’re not. Remember that.” Chaylene stretched out on the floor, lowering her head to his level. Her eyes possessed a glossy gleam in the dim light. “Remember this guilt inside of you—this pain that’s crushing your heart—the next time you want to punch a man. Remember that you have a choice. You don’t have to be a beast. You are a good man. You are strong enough to decide for yourself instead of surrendering to your excuses. Remember this guilt, and that I love you.”
Chaylene’s words resonated inside of him. He could feel them humming like the plucked strings of a lyre. His hand shifted, grasping hers now, clutching it as he stared into her eyes. He felt her sincerity, her belief in him, that he could constrain it. That he could choose to be a good person. His ma’s words, Theisseg’s touch upon him, hadn’t driven him to beat Sharthamen. Like with Grabin on the Xorlar, he’d burned to seize control of his life. He couldn’t do anything about his ma, but Grabin . . . Sharthamen . . . only he did it the wrong way. After he’d tried to punch the Sergeant-Major, he’d decided to channel his anger into being the best damned marine on the Dauntless. To help the others be just as good to spite the Theisseg-cursed bastard.
He needed to do the same again. Instead of showing the crew that these words bothered him, giving proof to their accusation, he needed to direct the destruction into being something better. Instead of acting like a petulant child throwing a tantrum, he needed to be a man. To be strong. To show that he had faith in his wife’s fidelity.
When his anger swelled, he had to manage it. Control it. Be better than it. Next time . . . next time he might murder someone. Cold terror squeezed his heart. He’d come within a heartbeat with Grabin.
The darkness retreated
, burning away like fog before the sun. Ary squeezed Chaylene’s hand. “Thank you, Lena.”
She smiled at him, “See? A choice. Zori taught me that.”
“Wise girl.”
“You’d never know it, but she is.” Chaylene’s smile fell. “There’s another problem.”
Ary furrowed his brow. “What?”
“You’ll probably be flogged,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Not much I can do about that.”
“The medical officer will examine you afterward.” She pressed her head against the bars, the ceramic framing her face. “You need to control your healing, Ary.”
“Can I?” Ary asked.
“It’s a Blessing. I’m sure you can.” She drew her boot knife. “Give me your palm and let’s start practicing.”
Ary did. She grasped his hand with her free one. She drew a deep breath, grimaced, and slashed. Crimson welled in a bubbling line across his palm, the pain sharp. The heat flowed through his body to the wound.
He healed.
“Concentrate on it, Ary,” she whispered, her thumb stroking along the cut. “Gain control of it.”
“Right,” he nodded and focused on the heat.
*
Vel couldn’t help grinning as he stirred the fish stew. Ary’s downfall had been breathtaking to witness from the galley. Vel relived the memory of Ary thrashing in the grip of four people. Vel couldn’t wait for his shift to end so he could seek out Chaylene.
She’d finally witnessed her husband’s brutality.
“You best watch out,” Aychene, a sailor, said as she leaned into the galley. “I would hate for your pretty face to be as banged up as Sharthamen’s.”
“I wouldn’t want to deprive the women of the Dauntless my smile.” Vel grinned at her. She was a fetching enough lass. Vel had enjoyed her on the voyage from Vesche in the brig. A few whispered words, a few lies about her beauty, and the fool had spread her thighs.
Shame the brig is occupied, Vel thought, I could take Chaylene in there and enjoy her.
“Still, you should stop bragging about her. She’s just going to get you in trouble. Unlike me.” Aychene winked, slow and promising.
