I just stood there, mute, as the man hurried away.
Calev elbowed me. “I bet that made up for the old man ship a little bit.”
“Yes. A little.”
Wanting to think a minute, I called another to relieve my place at the wheel, Calev trailing me. I went to the ship’s wide, copper salt pan, where seawater was exposed to sun and allowed to breathe back into the air, leaving the precious salt behind. It was mainly for cooking and salting the rare, edible fish we managed to catch, but of course, I had other uses for it. I scooped a handful and refilled my pouch.
This leadership, this charge, was what I’d always wanted. I’d longed for respect. A ship to kaptan. Equality with Calev. He’d danced with me last night.
But now, staring at my hands and thinking of how much they looked like Avi’s, all I wanted was my own craft and Avi on it, with Oron and Calev at my side in any manner they saw fit. I wanted safety.
I toyed with the ends of my sash as I made my way back to Calev and the others on the dais. The endmost bell was cool between my fingertips. “Strange…”
“What’s strange?” Calev nodded in a friendly way to the enormous blonde fighting sailor with the beautiful battle axe, the weapon I’d envied. She was cooking some flatbread in a pan over the brasier. Her looks were very plain, ugly even, but orderly. Nose neat above thin lips. Eyes with very scant lashes sat a bit too far apart.
“I never wanted safety before,” I explained. “I craved adventure. Wealth.” My gaze flicked to Calev’s strong cheekbones and chin, tanned from a life in the fields. “And…other things. But not safety.”
“When did you last feel safe?” he asked.
It had been years. “At my aunt’s home in Kurakia.”
There was a time when I longed to flee Jakobden with Avi and live with Aunt Kania. But my life was sailing. My life was in Jakobden. I loved Jakobden’s olive and lemon trees, and its Broken Coast, full of challenges. I had to be on the sea, my sea. It was home, where I’d lived with my mother and father. And it was Calev’s home too. I couldn’t leave him anymore than I could stop breathing.
“You’ve never told me much about your aunt,” Calev said.
“I haven’t seen her in forever.” Aunt Kania’s tower house with its four-story mud brick walls lorded over her nearly barren field of cattle brown as dirt and chickens even browner. “She lives outside Kurakia’s capitol. With far too many chickens.”
“Can there ever be too many chickens?”
“If you can’t get from door to yard without stepping on a dozen, you may have a few too many.”
“I bet chickens make for soft stepping stones.”
I cocked my head as we neared the amir’s quarters. “Soft, yes. Quiet, no.”
“Well, not the proud ones. But what about the humble ones, willing to sacrifice their comfort for yours?”
I snorted. “You’re starting to sound like Oron.” I knocked on the amir’s door.
Oron appeared at Calev’s elbow and threw his dreaded locks out of his face. “There is no such thing as a humble, quiet chicken.”
Two lines formed between Calev’s eyebrows. “Except those on your plate.”
A laugh sprang out of me despite my sadness and worry. “That’s horrible.”
A voice rang out from the sky cup, high above the black triangle of the mainsail.
“Land!” the scout shouted.
I grabbed Calev’s tunic, my fingers cutting into the fabric.
Ayarazi.
Running to starboard, I looked ahead. There, on the horizon, was an island that sloped like the back of a horse. It was too far to see the colors of the land, to judge it desert or forest, fertile or barren, a simple stretch of rock or a lost island of silver.
But my heart leaped at the sight of it.
Until it disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I blinked. Blinked again.
“Where did it go?” Calev ran a hand over his face and frowned.
A corner of the island came into view. But I couldn’t discern its edges.
“Not good.” Oron muttered something else and rubbed the frog’s leg hanging from the string around his neck.
A mist thickened and gathered on the surface of the water. As the rising sun glowed orange on the fog, the island seemed to disappear again.
“This is why no one’s found it.” I began climbing the mast. I’d get a better look from the sky cup.
The scout peered down at me. “Kaptan?”
“I’m coming up. Make room.”
A wind like glass shards tore through my hair and across my arms and cheeks. I tucked my head down.
Oron called up from the deck. “Just so you know, from now on, I am deemed forever correct in every assumption.”
I scowled down at him. “And what assumption are you talking about now?”
Calev narrowed his eyes at Oron.
Oron crossed his muscled arms. “The one that involves frigid weather mixing with the hot and humid air to which we are accustomed and what it will do to us. The assumption that we are about to freeze our important bits off in the middle of a wet, cold nowhere with no opportunity for one last huzzah.”
Looking to the sky for patience, I crawled into the cup. The scout scooted to the far side of the mast that ran through the middle of the perch, giving me a clear, or in this case totally unclear, view of where the island used to be.
“It’s still there,” I called down, looking again. “It’s hidden in a weird reflection between sky and sea.” I directed my voice at Ekrem who’d taken the tiller. “Keep our course trained toward the last sight of the land.”
I’d thought it would be good to have a high view like this, a view my own boat never could permit, but it’d been worth nothing in this case. As the scout tripped in trying to get out of my way so I could climb down, I cursed this fat, old man ship again. I missed my boat. I’d already have been at the island by now.
The second my sandals hit the deck, my arms were stiff with cold and my hair crusted in ice crystals. Oron and Calev huddled with everyone else, around the brazier. It was ridiculous. One bumping the other. None getting enough heat from the metal bowl to thaw their fingers.
“I don’t need everyone on deck. Go below deck and out of this weather. Except for you, please.” I pointed at the stocky sailor, Ifran. “And Oron. Calev, would you give the amir my apologies for not answering her summons, and tell her to get her tail up here.”
With smooth steps, the amir mounted the stairs and came to my side at the tiller. Berker walked near her, his eyes sour and sharp. A heavy cloak covered his shoulders, but the amir faced the biting wind like a sparring opponent, her grin sharp.
“Speak,” she said to me. Her voice might’ve been like bells, but sometimes they were scary bells.
Berker’s gaze traveled up and down as he studied me. Planning my death, no doubt.
I raised my chin and looked the amir and him in the eye. “I saw the island. It is approximately twenty-two knocks northeast.”
Her elegant brow reached toward her headstrap and its grape-sized silver bell. “And the island is now…”
“It’s there. I saw it. So did the others. This mist and the light are just masking it.”
She pressed her lips together. “You saw this too, Calev ben Y’hoshua?”
“I did, my lady.” Calev ran a hand up and down my arm and I shivered from both the cold and his soft touch.
Berker tensed. He’d seen the gesture.
Calev and I were getting brave lately. I didn’t have time or brain room to consider what that might mean.
Oron swished back the last of a cup of wine. “The island was there, my lady. And if we’re to find it again and do any silver mining, you might want to give us some more wine to keep our hands from freezing solid.”
The amir’s hand landed with a crack on Oron’s cheek. My pulse thrummed in my fisted hands. She was definitely not my hero anymore.
“Insolence,” Berker
hissed at Oron.
Oron straightened and wiped his bleeding lip. He gave a deep bow. Calev held me back.
“Is that the medicinal wine my physician dosed for your twisted back, dwarf?”
Seas, I wanted to punch the woman.
The amir looked like she believed Oron had a bad back about as much as she believed we’d seen the island.
Berker sniffed. “He’s taken more than three times the amount he was prescribed. But we’ve allowed it, considering his…condition.”
Instead of being put out like I would’ve been if someone spoke about my stature like it was a disease, Oron beamed and headed back to the wine barrel to refill his cup.
The amir's jaw tightened. “If there is an island in the middle of this, get us there, Kaptan Kinneret Raza. I will be at the prow.”
Berker remained, unfortunately, and the amir walked away, her head held high. Calev went with Oron to get a rag for his cut cheek.
The deck looked more slick. Ice. The wind died off and the sails drooped. We were becalmed.
“Lucky for you, the amir likes you, sailor,” Berker whispered. “Don’t get too comfortable. I will set everything to rights as soon as we find that silver.”
I did my best to ignore that stupid grin of his. “Unless you freeze to death first, hm? To the oars!” I ordered the sailors. A chill like needles pricked my throat and nose.
Calev returned. “The rowing will keep us warmer. So that’s one good thing.”
I grinned at him, shivering. “I can always count on you for the light in the dark.”
Leaving Berker with his plotting, Calev and I started toward the sailors leaving the deck.
The amir’s voice stopped us. If I hadn’t already been frozen, I would’ve frozen then. “Calev ben Y’hoshua, please keep me company here,” she said.
Berker was one step behind us. “Yes, you should keep yourself away from the low-caste vermin.”
Calev spun. “She’s not—”
I hit his arm gently and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Just go,” I whispered.
I broke away and started down the ladder to belowdecks.
“Be sure to empty the chamber pots in our and the amir’s quarters as soon as you can be spared,” Berker said. “Calev ben Y’hoshua will dine with his high-caste equals now.”
Scrambling down the ladder, I held my tongue. Now wasn’t the time for angry words. Soon as I had some silver to my name, Berker was going to eat every single one of his insults.
BESIDE THE FIGHTING SAILORS, I was pretty close to worthless at the oars. My wiry arms were nothing to their limbs of cedar. I pulled alongside them, and we tugged the ship closer and closer to the spot where we’d last spotted the island. The bitter mist sliced through the openings in the ship’s sides, flaying us with a cold that rattled teeth and turned bones to ice.
We hadn’t gone far before five men and women had developed a chill so debilitating that they couldn’t row any longer.
“Kaptan?” A woman with red-brown hair similar to my own turned around on the bench in front of me. “Should we stop?”
“No. We must get through this. And the movement will keep you warm.”
As the ship lurched slowly through the water like a wounded beast, worry scratched at my mind. If this lasted through the night, we’d all freeze to death. I’d forever be known as the low-caste kaptan who threw an entire amir’s guard into the next life as wraiths.
“Stronger!” I gripped the oar’s worn grain and pulled, my shoulders moaning. “Faster!”
Oron appeared beside me, smelling like charcoal and wine.
“You could help, you know.” I jerked my chin at the open spot beside me. Ash blackened his cheek. “What have you been doing? Sleeping in the braziers?”
“The mist is thickening.”
I swallowed. “Not what we needed to hear, Oron. Here.” I stood, my hands throbbing. “Take my place. I’m going to get everyone down here. More bodies means more heat.”
On deck, I shouted to the sailors manning the wheel and compass. “Everyone belowdecks. If we stay close together, we might keep from freezing to death. You,” I pointed to the man at the compass, “stay and watch and take note of our direction as best you can. Watch for the sun. Climb to the sky cup to check for land when you deem it best. Switch with a crewmate when you need warmth.”
I ran to the amir’s quarters. The lady, Berker, and Calev sat around a rough wooden table laden with brass cups, shell bowls half-filled with figs, and wide plates of dried goat’s meat.
“I ordered the crew belowdecks to stay together for warmth—”
“You’ve arrived at the perfect time to clean the table for us and the pots in the side chamber,” Berker said.
I looked to the amir.
Her gaze, cold as the fog outside these wooden walls, ran over my face and hands. “Yes. A bit of simple work may do you good. You don’t want to forget where you’ve come from, sailor.”
Taking a deep breath, I went to work.
Calev’s pained stare never left me as I cleared plates, scraped leftover bits into the bucket by the door, gritted my teeth, and tried to remember this was all for my sister. Calev had his part to play and I, frustratingly, had mine.
The amir, Berker, and Calev went to speak to the sailors, who flowed down the stairs opposite the amir’s quarters and flooded into any available space around the oars, cannons, and sleeping quarters.
The last of them cleared the stairs’ slats and I, bucket in hand, climbed to the deck. A skeleton crew operated the ship, Ekrem at the wheel and compass and a few others manning the lines and blocks.
The wet clouds of the mist danced across the deck like ghostly sails. My bones shook, and I gripped the bucket’s handle tightly to keep from dropping it. My nails had gone blue at the tips. I knew I should be miserable, but my heart raced at the unfamiliar feeling of true cold. This was adventure.
I smiled sadly, wishing Avi could be here. Well, if we survived this.
“Kinneret Raza!” Ekrem’s light eyes narrowed and he pointed into the white.
Blue, green, and black appeared between the plumes of cold mist. I dumped the bucket’s contents over the ship’s side and ran to Ekrem, a warmer air teasing across my chest and arms. Feeling crept back into my fingers and toes.
“My lady!” I shouted, leaning this way and that, to see if the colors were what we wanted them to be.
Ekrem said a quiet prayer. “It is Ayarazi.”
The island materialized as everyone crowded onto the deck.
The sailors made the Fire’s sign.
The amir cursed.
Calev and I joined hands, releasing one another before anyone could see.
Waves crashed and sprayed water over a line of gray rock and bright coral. The island rose, green and cool, behind the barrier. Plumes of spray rose from a waterfall that graced a far off peak. Near a blanket of purple growth on a low hill, a ridge of stone made a scar across an emerald valley. There was movement, tiny spots of dark in the landscape.
The coast’s vicious teeth had one gap. We could fit.
Maybe.
If everything went the way I wanted it to. If this fat, old man ship listened. If the salt heard my prayers. If I had all the best luck.
“Calev, I’m going to need you by my side. On deck. Every second. Without your luck on this, we are dead.”
“But I’m not good luck.”
I pinched his lips shut. “You are.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ignoring Berker’s loud muttering about what my status would be in the afterlife, I whispered over the salt. It dusted back to its home in the cold waters surrounding an island that, before today, had only existed in bedtime tales told in my father’s rumbling voice.
“And the silver threads through all things on the island,” he’d said, adjusting the blanket so that Avi had more than the small amount I’d given her. I remembered watching fire smoke dance through the small hole in our hut’s roof. “The color
runs in the waterfalls, the rivers,” Father said. “Grasses grow there, more than you’ve ever seen even in summer near Old Farm. The green is laced with the precious metal. A handful of grass would weave beautiful sashes for my little ones.” He’d touched our noses, a press, each in turn. “Forget the wraiths, children, and dream of the horses there, every color. Pick your favorite and ride her across the sloping valleys and through the rivers, kicking up silver water.”
My heart shied from the memory like a beaten dog.
The whites of the sailors’ eyes showed as they put hands to the lines and stared at the rocks.
“Wait for the lag!” I called out.
Oron stood beside the mast, his gaze focused on the red leather jerkins surrounding him, making certain the fighting sailors carried out my demands in perfect harmony. He put his face to the wind and leaned into it. He was feeling the wind and the sea’s intent. Oron was the best sailor alive, aside from me. We both felt the Pass and the Fire in the waters and wind like music and soft hands, urging and pulling. With him helping me, we might just make it.
I turned to say as much to Calev, glad to break away from thoughts of my broken family, but the spot behind me was empty.
“Calev?”
The stairs held only Ifran ordering another sailor to tighten the line that ran with its mates to the rippling black shell of the mainsail.
When I spun back around to check our progress toward the gap in the breakers shielding the coastline, Oron’s hand was cupped at his mouth. I could only catch a bit of what he was saying.
“…tracking too far West…the fore lines should be…”
He was right. We were off. I’d been searching for Calev instead of listening to the sea and the wind. The mining drills weighed more than this ship should’ve been carrying. Poor old, fat man of a ship.
“Tighten the lines, but keep all hands on them. I need them fully released at my word,” I called out over the deck.
Oron gave a quick nod and whipped around, gesturing and working the lines, moving like a moth between the glint of the metal and the white of the ropes, the fighting sailors buzzing and tugging lines around him. I eased the wheel around, feeling the tug of water below.
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 14
