Ekrem’s chest expanded, and his vest creaked like a saddle as it stretched over his broad build. He exhaled very, very slowly. I turned away from him to peer over my shoulder. The shore crept up behind us. The sailor looked to his crewmate. He was asking her what she thought. It all sat on her shoulders. Calev. Avi. Oron. Me.
Serhat stepped onto her bench and leaped deftly over Calev.
“What are you doing?”
She leaned into Calev’s face, her body glancing against my back.
“He can’t answer your questions now,” I said. “When my aunt—”
The sailor held a hand up to my face and I shut my mouth.
She brushed a large hand over Calev’s askew headtie. Her finger touched the line of pale skin that normally hid beneath the cloth. I tugged at my oar, twisted slightly in my seat. A word sneaked out of Serhat’s mouth, but I couldn’t understand it. Turning her fair face to me, her gray eyes found mine, and I swallowed. Her mouth was a line and her eyes cold as the mist surrounding Ayarazi.
“If your aunt can heal him, we will talk then.”
I took a breath and glanced at Oron. So we had time. No promises, but we had time between now and their decision whether or not to avenge their amir.
I’d take it.
Giving her a terse nod, I drew my oar into the boat and hopped into the knee-high seawater to drag the boat onto the shoreline. The others pushed and shoved along with me, sweat blooming on our brows. Already the Kurakian sun was a burning brand on my cheeks and arms. Sand squelched into my sandals, but I didn’t mind. We had made it to my mother’s homeland.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Skirting the walled capitol city of mud-brick tower houses with their grass-topped roofs, we wove down the path cattlemen used to take their beasts to market. A small crowd of black-skinned Kurakians surrounded us, their clothing bright with purple and red dye, but dusty. Calev rode my and the sailors’ shoulders, and Oron led the way.
He elbowed one cow, headed out of the city perimeter like us. “Get your massive hind end to the side, beast.”
A woman in a one-shouldered dress and elaborately braided hair laughed with her friend. The bare-chested cattleman at the cow’s long-horned head gave us a scowl and chit-chitted at his animal to move it along more quickly. The cow bellowed, and the owner drew a whip from his loose pants and cracked the beast lightly.
“How far away is your dear aunt’s bastion of healing, Kinneret?” Pushing the tentacles of his hair out of his face, Oron squinted at the horizon of scrubby Topa trees and dry sloping land. “Or have you tricked us all and are luring us into the Kurakian desert to die slowly out of spite?”
I took a heavy breath of spice and manure, and adjusted Calev’s legs on my shoulders. Gripping his ankles, I tried to speed up. I could tell the fighters were keeping their pace slow because of me.
Oron’s question sparked an idea. I’d done my part to keep the fighters safe during the sun they’d spent with me. Maybe if I brought up a few of those instances, they’d be more likely to believe Calev’s Infusion was truth instead of lie.
“If I’d wanted you dead,” I said, “I’d have slit your throats as you slept last night.”
That would remind them of what Calev and I were. On their side. Good people.
We cleared the city’s uneven wall and started up a steeper rise toward the countryside.
A cloud of red dust spun into the air and Ekrem coughed. “Good for us you stopped at simply slaying our leader, hm?”
Oron snorted. “For one normally so quiet, you certainly know how to craft a verbal strike.”
“Striking is who I am,” Ekrem said. “I am a hit. A cut. A slash. A blade and a bite.”
I looked over Calev’s leg at the fighter, then turned to see what his crewmate would say, if anything at all.
She raised her gaze from the patches of scrub grass along the path, to Oron’s frowning face. “A kick and a cry of rage. Always, always, always coming for our enemies.”
Goosebumps dragged over my arms.
I’d heard the fighters’ creed before, tales about it from my parents. But I’d never heard it spoken in all seriousness by those who upheld its intent.
I had to win these two to my side. When Calev was healed—because I couldn’t even think about my aunt failing in that—I needed these fighters to help me somehow rescue Avi.
Calev moaned. My plotting dissolved into the sting and burn of fear.
I rubbed my thumb over the bone at the bottom of his ankle. “Soon. We’ll get you help soon.”
The sun lashed its rays down on our heads and the bare shoulders of the Kurakian men who continued on the path to the next city. We went west and left the crowd. A Topa tree, resembling a hand rising from the dirt, crowned the next hill.
“There,” I said. “My aunt’s place is beyond that tree.”
“Into the hand of the Fire,” Oron mumbled, quoting the first kyros’s three-hundred-year-old address to his conquered Jakobden natives. “I wonder…should we hope our young man here is delivered into that hand or left behind to fight with us?”
It was a good question. If Calev survived, he’d only live to be injured again if he stayed by my side like I knew he would. Was it selfish of me to wish for that?
“Oh, don’t look too torn,” Oron said, touching my sun burnt arm. “He would come with us no matter what you tried to do to prevent it. The man is quite in love with you, I fear.”
My heart leaped and bumped into my ribs. After what happened at the waterfall, I’d guessed Calev did have feelings for me, but I thought maybe it was only lust for what he couldn’t have. But then again, if I did survive this to become a real kaptan… Wait. He’d killed the amir. I’d been by his side. We were both doomed to die in the worst way if we ever returned home.
“What’s to fear?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Who cares about caste anymore? It’s not as if we can ever return to Jakobden. Calev’s Infusion has set us on a path out of our home country. And I don’t…I don’t know…”
My words tripped and fell back inside me. For once, I had no real plan.
“Is this it?” Ekrem said.
“Yes. We’re here. The ancient homestead of the Turays, my mother’s family.”
My aunt’s farm looked much the same as the last time I’d seen it, holding my mother and father’s hands with Avi trailing along behind us. A low, dirt wall surrounded scrub, three large Topa trees, the hen house on short stilts, a brick oven, and Aunt Kania’s four story, mud-brick tower house. Dodging green-throated roosters and black-brown hens, we carried Calev through a gate crafted of sticks and knotted rope.
“You weren’t joking about the chickens.” Oron nudged an especially curious one away with his sandal. It clucked and spread its wings, flying the short distance to a hen house ramp.
Desperation for what to do about Avi and worry for Calev threatened to burst through my skin, but I tried to keep my voice light. I didn’t want to douse the fire of hope inside me or the others. “I never joke about chickens.”
Aunt Kania appeared from behind the second hen house, her skin dark and polished as Topa wood, as Mother’s had been. A basket balanced in the braids of her head. Above her traditional, red Kurakian scarf, her wide smile faded as she studied the load on our shoulders.
I wanted to run to her, to bury my face in the bright pink folds of her one-shouldered dress and breathe in the tangy scent of dust and the cool, green smell of healing ointments. It would remind me of Mother. I knew it would. It would be comforting and wonderful.
And a waste of sun right now.
“Greetings, Aunt. I’m sorry it’s been so long.” I held my palm up as we did in Jakobden, and she quickly dipped and shook her head in the Kurakian greeting. “My friend needs you. He took an arrow to the back. His lung might be injured too.”
She tossed the basket to the ground and hurried over, her red linen scarf flying behind her like she had wings.
“Get him to my rooms,”
she said.
Her Kurakian accent lengthened the vowels of the Jakobden tongue—the language everyone knew, the trade language.
As we walked through the rough arches underneath the tower house and headed toward the ladder, I lowered Calev’s legs and let the fighters manage him in the narrow space.
A lot of rushed instructions, sweating, and fretting later, we had Calev on my aunt’s top floor.
Aunt leaned over him as he lay on her striped rug. We gathered around, a smelly group for sure.
One ear on his chest, Aunt listened and clucked her tongue. “Not good. Not good.”
My skin went cold.
Oron grumbled something and walked to a corner, his hand over his mouth. Serhat and Ekrem helped themselves to a jug of water on Aunt’s table and sat on her stools.
Aunt reached toward a set of shelves under her hammock near a wide, open window. Withdrawing a crock, she met my eyes. “He will probably die.”
I shivered. Kurakians never did coat the truth with syrup.
“But he’s strong.” I knelt beside Calev. His hair was soft, despite its sandy grit. His parted lips had lost all their pink-plum color. I drew my finger along their perfect edges. His breath was warm. “He’s the eldest son of the elected leader of Old Farm.”
Tilting her head in a maybe sort of gesture, Aunt said, “A strong bloodline. Will it be enough?”
Using a water skin and a fold of linen, she washed his wound. He stayed asleep, his face pale but not gray. Not the color of death. The unguent she tucked into the arrow’s hole smelled like cinnamon and pepper and green plants. Taking a handful of salt from a pouch on her belt—a pouch much like my own—she began her magic.
Rubbing her palms together, her hands moved like fish darting up and down as she whispered prayers in Kurakian. I spoke nothing of the language. My mother had done her best to teach me. I had zero talent for languages other than my own.
Sitting cross-legged, she rocked back and forth. The grass mat beneath the rug crackled with her movements. Dusting sea salt over Calev’s back and into his hair, she prayed over and over, her words blending together and lilting like she was very nearly singing. I couldn’t look away from her. The sounds. Her hands. The salt sparking in the light from the window.
“Does Salt Magic work on land?” I asked.
Aunt shrugged. “Who knows what truly works? Could be coincidence when things go our way. Could be prayers. Maybe magic. Some things I know work, but…we do it all, just in case.”
With a final word, she placed one hand at the base of Calev’s skull and the other below his wound. I’m not sure if it was my fatigue or the fire in me, longing for his return to good health, but it seemed as if the air around her hands and his body shimmered.
Calev’s back moved in one deep breath. A deeper breath than I’d seen him take in a long while. Since the boat, at least.
Then Aunt looked up at me. The fighters remained silent. From the room’s back corner, Oron breathed entirely too loudly. Calev wasn’t breathing loudly enough.
“Now we wait.” She took my wrist in her warm, dry hand. “You rest, my niece.”
If I slept, what would I wake to?
“Wait,” I said.
As Aunt stood, I grabbed a handful of her dress. I had to tell her about Avi.
Wrinkles formed between Aunt’s scant eyebrows and she eyed the rest of our party curiously. “You have a story to tell. I have Kurakian chicken to share. Wash, then we’ll eat and you’ll tell your tale.”
Taking turns at the rocky, struggling creek outside Aunt’s walls, we did our best to wash our travels from the creases in our arms and the backs of our necks. We hurried back to the tower house, following the spicy scent of the food she’d cooked for us in her outdoor oven. She’d laid a table fit for an amir near Calev’s resting form. I crouched to run a quick hand over his clammy cheek.
“Don’t stop fighting, my Calev, my luck, my friend,” I whispered, my heart beating sluggishly in my chest.
Someone touched my back, and I jumped and turned to find Aunt’s kind face smiling sadly.
“He must indeed be lucky. To have such a friend as my Kinneret. You are your mother’s lightning strike, her beating heart.”
I swallowed. “I was.”
Aunt jerked her head once. “No. You are. She lives in you and your sister.”
The word turned me inside out. I fell into Aunt’s arms, crying like a child.
“The oramiral took Avigail. I was searching for Ayarazi, for a map Old Zayn had heard about and we ran too close to Quarry Isle and the oramiral’s men boarded our boat and they took her from me. They took Avi to the quarry.”
Her gasp jerked my head off her chest. “Ah, no. No.” Her arms tightened around me.
“It’s all my doing,” I said. “All my fault.”
She made shushing noises into my ear, and I tried to quiet, knowing I was making a fool out of myself in front of the fighting sailors.
Pressing her mouth closer to my ear, Aunt whispered, “It is not your fault, child. Tell me. Tell us all.”
The dinner forgotten, we sat around the table as I poured out my tale of Avi and the map and our travels and the island of silver, coming back around to Avi. Oron’s interpretations punctuated my descriptions.
“The oramiral’s mind is not sound.” Aunt lit a powdered stick of incense in the center of the table. The resinous scent of myrrh cloaked the musk of animals wafting through the open window. I hated that she used the expensive stick on us. It was meant only for the most important events. “The amir should take him from that island and put another in his place to run the quarry. It is a shame, really, that the madman has no one to care for him and keep him from hurting people.”
Serhat’s forehead wrinkled. “You don’t blame the oramiral for the way he beats his quarrymen? The way he—outside of battle—steals children, men, and women for slaves?”
Aunt stood, the folds of her dress slipping into vertical lines like a rushing river. Her eyes were sharp. “At least he takes them in his confusion and is not like you and your amir, who take slaves with clear heads merely because of battles won and lost.”
The fighting sailors pushed away from the table, faces pinched. “You question our honor?” Ekrem’s voice punched out and up toward the grass roof.
Oron hopped off his chair and made a short wall between them and Aunt Kania. “We’re in a strange situation here, my friends. We won’t agree on everything. Kinneret cannot tolerate too much spice in her dumplings, but I would bathe in it if given the opportunity. We must band together in the face of our differences to save this Old Farm innocent and Kinneret’s sister.”
“I don’t believe the Old Farm boy is innocent,” Serhat whispered, her words slithering into my ears.
I waved my hand and accidentally knocked over the incense. “He was Infused! You must believe me. Why would he want to kill the amir? The amir supports her people. A new amir may not.” I wouldn’t bring up the throat-blood oath he’d taken. They most likely already knew about it, but if they didn’t…
Aunt’s brow wrinkled. “What are you saying? Jakobden’s amir is dead? This young man,” she pointed at Calev, “slayed the amir? The one who managed peace between our country and yours?” She spun to face me. “Is this true? Was he Infused? Why was he alone with the amir on the waters?”
“He wasn’t alone. And it was on land. The Infusion…it-it was different.” I shook my head trying to think of a way to explain. “The wraith that Infused him felt sharp, cunning. It wasn’t all crazy rage. It was fingers in your thoughts instead of kicking feet. Calev didn’t hurt anyone until he had an opportunity to kill the amir on Ayarazi. I was the only witness.”
Her mouth pursing, Aunt walked on shaky legs back to her chair. She put hands on the woven back and leaned in, breathing heavily.
“Could it be?” she mumbled. “If it is, we might have a chance.”
“Could it be what? Chance to do what?” I asked.
She motioned for everyone to sit again. The sailors frowned and began to argue.
“Tut tut. Enough of this. What has happened is bigger than our arguments.” She pointed to Oron. “The short one is right.”
Pulling his tunic against his arm to show its shape, Oron’s mouth twisted. “I prefer well-muscled, but go on.”
Everyone sat and leaned in to listen as Aunt began to talk. We couldn’t help themselves. Aunt possessed the most rich, lilting voice.
She eyed each one of us in turn. “Have you heard of the Tuz Golge? It is most likely a bad idea to mention it in your Jakobden lands, but it is a tale of your amir. The one your friend slayed. The woman is, was, far older than she looked, I’m certain. The Luk warriors always did age well.”
“She was old?” I asked. The amir’s skin had possessed a few wrinkles, but she’d been beautiful still.
“That’s just frightening.” Oron’s eyes went wide.
I scowled at him and he held his hands up.
“What? Old women who look young?” He shook his head. “That’s like offering up a carton of mangoes for sale, then giving your customer a crate of prunes.”
I punched his shoulder. Hard.
Talking to Aunt Kania, I pointed at Oron. “I’m sorry I brought him. You were going to say something, Ekrem?”
Ekrem nodded, but kept glaring at Oron, a promise of death etched in his features. Oron really needed to learn to be quiet. “If your blood is purely Luk,” Ekrem said, “you live much longer than most.”
“Does that mean you and Serhat—”
“No.” Serhat brushed the incense powder I’d spilled back into its dish. “We are of mixed blood. Desert race, northern blood, and Luk, of course. Almost all are mixed now.”
Aunt Kania handed a bowl of chicken around the table. “Amir Mamluk once had a husband.”
“He was taken to the quarries, wasn’t he?” Oron licked his lips and tucked into the food.
“Yes.” Aunt ran a thumb over the side of her mouth. She didn’t seem to want to eat. Me either. “He gambled,” she said, “and was sent to the quarries by his own wife.”
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 19
