by Megan Derr
"Oh, shut up. I refuse to be mocked by a man who looks like he got into a fight with several cans of paint and came out the loser for it."
Raiden ignored that. "So I hear you suffered an inordinate number of attacks."
Kin grimaced, folding his arms across his chest. "They're getting worse, yes. I'm still handling it, but unfortunately I think it would be best if the Kumiko stayed in port for an extended time."
"Not an option. We leave again in two days. Make certain she's ready for a journey to Pozhar, and from Pozhar we will be going to Sanhoshi."
"I'm not certain what part of that statement makes me want to punch you most," Kin said, barely unclenching his teeth enough to get the words out. "We just got back, Raiden! Even at the busiest times of year you give me five days home before I am gone again! And what do you mean by 'we'? You do not travel with your ships, not ever. I do not want you on mine. Why in the name of the Dragons' are we going to that storm-forsaken island?"
Raiden nodded his head toward the warehouse. "You're going to want a drink before I tell you."
"The moment we are out to sea, I am throwing you overboard," Kin snapped and ignored the warehouse in favor of stomping off down the street toward his favorite pub.
Sighing, Raiden decided he'd better give Kin time enough for a couple of beers before he broke the news that they were going to be escorting a royal prince and had agreed to more or less obey his every wish. Turning to the crew unloading his goods, he chatted with them about their recent voyage in detail, the troubles they encountered with the sellers and buyers abroad, tucking every little scrap of information away. "I have new buyers coming tomorrow for the Pozhar wools, so make certain they don't store those too far back."
"Of course, Master Raiden."
Raiden left them to it and finally went to go find Kin. He slipped into the pub, ignoring the momentary hush that always fell in his wake. He pushed his way through the crowded pub to the corner that was Kin's usual seat. Kin, as ever, was equal parts beautiful and dangerous looking. A hush might have fallen when Raiden stepped into the room, but it was to Kin everyone gave a wide berth. In a room full of people with dusky and sun-gold skin, and hair ranging from pale blue to deepest violet with nearly every ocean shade in between, Kin had white skin, white hair, and stormy eyes. Dressed in all black with only a gray sash to cut the severity …
Well, no one ever picked fights with the two of them. Those who knew them well left them to pick fights with each other. Raiden thanked the woman who brought him a bottle of his favorite cheap wine and a cup. He poured out a small amount, sipping it slowly for a moment before he finally said, "I am sorry we must leave again so soon. I was hoping we would have more down time, but circumstances changed as of this morning, and a bargain struck is exactly that."
"I don't want to know," Kin groused, finishing off what was likely his second beer and signaling for a third that was almost immediately brought. "Tell me."
Raiden pitched his voice low enough that Kin would still hear him, but no one else. "We have been hired by Prince Nankyokukai to take him wherever he wants to go, and where he wants to go is Sanhoshi."
"Why?"
"He has not said, and I do not ask questions when I think I will not like the answer," Raiden said, finishing his wine and pouring a new glass. "I received a missive from him this morning saying that we must go within two days, so that is what we shall do."
Kin scrubbed at his face, and Raiden noted the fresh scratches on his hands and arms, sadness washing over him as he compared the hardened sailor with the boy who had snuck aboard one of his ships so many years ago. Kin scowled when he caught Raiden looking. "What? No man dressed like an advertisement for the city brothels should look that somber."
"I find it amusing that your malign my attire when you look like you belong to the Brotherhood of the Black Rose."
Gesturing crudely, Kin finished his third beer and called for a fourth. "So, I barely have time to rest before I must—why in the name of the Dragons' are you pressing me and the Kumiko into service for this? The Fuujin would be a much better choice for a journey of that nature. It would also be safer, given that I just told you the attacks are getting worse and I should stay on land for a bit."
"Even if you attract the danger in the first place, no one is better than you at warding it off," Raiden said. "We're going to attract it whether you are there or not, after all."
Kin grunted. "True. I still don't think it's a good idea to have me and a royal prince aboard; we are likely to draw thrice as many mermaids into a fight, and it's a long haul to Sanhoshi, especially when the storms keep getting worse as well."
Raiden shrugged. "We do what we must do."
"You could have said no," Kin groused.
"It's a good opportunity."
"For what? You are the wealthiest merchant, and I daresay the wealthiest man, in Kundou. You have every permit it is possible to get, and there is not a single trader or shopkeep who does not know your name in four countries. You have absolutely no reason to cater to the whims of a spoiled prince who is—oh, right, we don't know what he's doing, because you're willing to rent us out without explanation. What exactly did you get out of this bargain?"
Raiden smiled, but before he could speak, Kin made a contemptuous noise. "Jewels, I might have known. You and your storms-forsaken jewels."
"I also got a royal secretary out of the bargain," Raiden said.
Kin choked on his beer, coughing for several minutes before he finally got control of himself. "What?"
"Prince Nankyokukai is turning over the contract to his secretary the day we set sail. You know I will pay you and your crew handsomely."
"I don't care if you gave me every paaru to your name," Kin snapped. "I don't want to do it."
Raiden set his wine down. "Which is why I am ordering, not asking."
"Yes, Master Raiden," Kin said coldly, then finished his beer, rose, and walked out. Raiden sighed softly and finished his wine, then set several copper coins on the table before leaving the pub himself. He found Kin at one of his smaller warehouses, snapping at everyone foolish enough to wander too close. He pointedly ignored Raiden.
"I ordered new clothes for you," Raiden said. "If you go today to get them adjusted, they'll be delivered the morning of our departure, and you'll have a whole new set for the mermaids to destroy."
"Choke on your own smugness," Kin snapped, but a small bit of the tension left his shoulders. Though he was by no means vain, Kin was very aware of being Captain and under Raiden's employ—and a merman. Always on the outside for one reason or another, he was fierce about those little things he thought made him fit in more, or at least intimidated people enough they did not mess with him or dare snub him.
Raiden would have called it endearing if he felt like having his nose broken. "So are you on board?"
"You made it very clear I am," Kin said, not deigning to look at him.
"If you really do not want to do it, Kin, you know very well I will not make you."
Kin heaved a long sigh and raked a hand through his hair. "You know I'll do it. I have no idea what is going on in that head of yours, Shima, but I will do whatever you ask of me, you know that." His hand went to the dagger he had affixed to his belt. The dagger was worth a fortune, more than even Kin probably realized, but he also knew Kin would tear down entire kingdoms before he ever parted with it.
"You know I'm grateful. There is no one else I trust so implicitly, and I do not think this will be an easy journey for anyone."
"Probably not, but it would be a good sight easier if you had bothered to find out why we are going all the way to Sanhoshi."
Raiden shrugged. "His Highness does not know we call it that. My impression is that he does not know that anyone else knows of the island."
Kin paused in the middle of barking at a sailor who still looked very wet behind the ears. He sent the boy running with a look and a gesture, then turned back to Raiden. "Why not tell him we know of it?"
"Because I want to know what is hiding in the mist, and I will not do that by giving away my own position."
Sighing again, Kin said, "Fine. Whatever. I am off to the tailor's and then to my own rooms. I will see you in the morning. Make certain they tend my ship, and there had better not be so much as one nail out of place!"
"Aye, Captain," Raiden drawled, ignoring the scathing look Kin cast him, chuckling as he was left alone. He returned to his office and sat down behind his desk, shoving aside ledgers and other bits of paper to unearth a clean sheet, as well as his various writing implements. He quickly wrote out a missive to Prince Nankyokukai, then sanded the letter. When it was dry, he folded it closed and sealed it with dark blue wax into which he pressed his personal crest: a three-mast ship with bolts of lightning behind it.
Returning to the warehouse, he snagged one of the apprentices and sent him off with the letter, then set to work ensuring his new batch of goods were put away correctly and his clerks catalogued it.
He could not wait to have a secretary who was up to the task of helping him to keep it all straight; just thinking about all the secretaries he had tried and discarded set his head to throbbing. "What in the storms' do you think you are doing with those bolts of silk?" he demanded.
The man in question nearly dropped the bolts of silk, only regaining them at the last. "They go in 3-B—"
"No, they most certainly do not, and I want to speak to whatever idiot is telling you that. Now!" Raiden said, feeling his headache growing. Soon all of this would be left in the hands of the men he appointed to the task. No doubt, upon his return, it would all be a mess, and he would have been robbed blind, but money was an easy thing to recover.
He just hopped the journey he was about to undertake proved to be worthwhile. If it all failed, the disappointment would crush him. Drawing a deep breath, Raiden let it out slowly, then turned and left the barely-contained chaos of the warehouse. If anyone really needed him, they knew all the places he could be found. He walked through the streets, lost in thought, turning over and over everything that could happen on the long journey to Sanhoshi.
He had not seen the island in a long time, not since he had taken Kin with him several years before. It was a small island, deserted and barren. There was nothing there of interest to anyone.
Raiden was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a woman screaming—it was a scream of fear, of pain, of outright despair. He looked around for the source, then strode toward the cluster of people standing in front of a tiny little house that looked on the verge of collapse.
It took only a moment to realize what was going on between the priest, the woman, her husband, and the two bundles to which the woman clung for dear life. "Screaming will solve nothing," Raiden said quietly, but he may as well have shouted, the way everyone fell silent, their attention snapping to him.
The priest scowled and drew himself up, the image of pomposity in his dark blue robes marked with the symbol of the Order of the Three Storms: three clouds in gray, one with a yellow bolt of lightning, one with blue wind markings, and the last with a white snowflake. Raiden loathed arrogant priests. "It's none of your affair, merchant."
"The needless death of a child is the affair of every man," Raiden said. He looked at the babies clutched tightly to their mother's breast. "They cannot be but days old."
"Four days," the woman said, crying, her husband ashen faced and resigned beside her. "Please, Priest, do not take my children away."
Shaking his head, the priest replied, "Twins are a mark of evil, you know that. They cannot be allowed to live."
"That custom is old-fashioned, and it was stupid to begin with," Raiden said and almost laughed in the priest's face at the way he puffed up and grew red faced.
Closing the space between them, the priest back-handed him. "It is still law! You will keep your blasphemous thoughts to yourself, merchant! Money and fancy clothes do not mean you have the right to sneer at the holy. It is recorded, sacred fact that twins ruined Kundou and should they live, those evil two will be reborn again and plunge the world into irrevocable darkness."
Raiden rolled his eyes. "I have travelled the world a dozen times and seen twins in many places. If the world is plunging into ruin, it is not because of two men or the threat those two men will return."
"Blasphemer!" the priest snarled and backhanded him again. "You are no priest. You are a man of money, little better than a whore, dressed in your gaudy clothes and flashy jewels. You would not know piety if it struck you like lightning."
"I know that the gods considered life sacred. I've read the holy texts of every nation, priest, and that is the message most oft repeated: life is sacred. I am allowed my opinion, right or wrong, and I say that the gods would not approve of the deaths of two babes. They are only days old. They have not had time to do right or wrong, save to keep their poor parents up at all hours, and that is not their fault. Leave them in peace, priest. I might be a wealthy whore, but that means I have money enough to donate—"
The priest backhanded him a third time. "Do not think to bribe me, merchant. I will—"
"That is quite enough," Raiden said, grabbing his wrist and squeezing it until the priest cried out in pain. Raiden eased his grip slightly, but did not let it go. "I vow to guard the children of the sea. I vow to guide the children of the sea. I vow to love the children of the sea. That is the vow you took when you accepted the robes you wear, priest. If you are condoning the murder of children, then you are not loving the children you guide and guard."
Sneering, the priest replied, "You are not a priest, you are nothing but a gaudy whore. Do not presume to tell me how to behave. Whores know nothing of pious men."
"What's going on here?" a voice demanded sharply. Raiden reluctantly let go of the priest before turning to the guard who had finally come to investigate the problem.
"This woman bore twins," the priest said. "She will not hand them over for execution. This merchant decided it was his place to interfere. Please see he leaves and that the children are handed over to me, as the law dictates."
Raiden was gratified by the distaste that flickered across the guard's face. "The law says they must be returned to the sea by the next full moon," the guard said. "Let the mother have a few more days with her children, priest. There is no law against that." The priest did not move, only puffed up like a blow-fish.
"He said go," said another voice, and Raiden half-smiled as Kin joined the group. Immediately, people recoiled when they realized abruptly just who Kin was and, by default, who Raiden must be. The priest looked as angry as a mermaid, but when Kin rested a hand lightly on the hilt of his sword, he turned and stomped off, calling over his shoulder that he would be back for the babes in the morning.
Raiden pulled out a small purse of coins and tossed it at the husband, then turned away and hurried off, eager to avoid making more of a scene. "What are you doing here?" he asked Kin.
"There was a problem that required my attention," Kin replied with a sigh. "I was on my way back from having a word with the man trying to fleece us on material with which to repair the sails."
"If you keep threatening all the people involved with ship making and maintenance, pretty soon you will have to make new friends in Pozhar just to get any repair work done."
Kin shrugged, unbothered by the comment because they both knew that no one dared turn away Raiden or anyone tied to him. "Speaking of making enemies, I don't think it's wise to make them of the priesthood. There isn't much that can touch you, Shima, but the priests definitely can. I never understood why you are so vehement—"
"I do not like to see people abuse their power," Raiden cut in sharply, then winced. "Sorry—"
"Oh, shut up. I know what it means to you, even if I do not comprehend it. The world is better off without religion, if you ask me."
Raiden smiled faintly. "Do you really think the world is better off without religion? Without the gods?"
"Maybe," Kin said. "Without
all the hatred people have for the gods, or because of the gods, I would not have an entire race attempting to wipe me from existence and my own people afraid of me. I am lucky my own mother did not decide to kill me when I was born a boy."
"Your mother loved you, and she was obviously free of the zealous rage that consumes her sisters if she left the sea to live with your father and bear you."
Kin shrugged. "Rage always wins in the end. Eventually, it will get me, too. That priest will probably not get a chance to kill the twins, thanks to you, but I've no doubt another priest will. It is a miracle that I have lived so long."
"Miracle has nothing to do with it," Raiden said. "You keep yourself alive, Kin, and I have no doubt you will live a very long time."
Mouth twisting bitterly, Kin replied, "Yes, I will. When everyone else is dead, I will still be exactly as you see now. My mother once told me she was two hundred years old. I thought she was being silly at the time. But I think I have stopped aging. How long before my crew notices? How long before everyone notice? Eventually, those idiotic priests will come for me, and I shudder to think what they will do to me."
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it until it's time to worry about it," Raiden said. "No sense in worrying about a storm that is on the opposite side of the world."
Kin made a face, but let the matter drop. "So did you send your missive?"
"Yes," Raiden said. "We should hear back shortly. We will have to meet with his Highness to finalize the journey and payment." Kin sighed, but Raiden ignored it. He did not think it would take long for Kin's winds to change direction once the journey was well underway.
He really could not wait for Kin to actually see Prince Nankyokukai. Kin did not have many weaknesses, but arrogant, pretty men were definitely one of those few weaknesses, and he would be all the more infuriated to know he was weak to a royal. They would be entertaining to watch, to say the very least.
