“Skills?” Kelta raised an eyebrow. An interesting term for an eight-year-old to use. She’d spent far too much time following Asher around. “Let’s test that notion. You can start with carrying my case.”
Seemingly relieved that she was not facing any immediate punishment, the girl eagerly set about her task, tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth with effort as she lifted the case. Its corners bumped against her knees as they walked. It was not so heavy that she could not carry it, but it slowed their pace through the bustling walkways of the port. Kelta did not mind. It was less wearing, and it gave her time to re-arrange her plans. After a time, the streets became wider and better maintained.
“Where are we anyway?” Mim asked in a break from gaping at the metal-and-glass spires that climbed into the artificial sky. A small personal craft skimmed past in a scream of chrome and lights.
“Nirro. I was born here.” Kelta prodded the girl along. “I worked for one of the Ironvale lords before the Corsair moved to Narasmina. I still have friends here.”
I hope.
“Friends that will help Asher bring Er’lah back?” Mim asked, entranced with the dance of lit placards for advertisements and the unspooling media feeds whirling on the large screens of an open plaza. Far overhead, through the gaps between the impossibly tall buildings, the dome arched: a constant guardian against the unfriendly environment of the world outside, a desert of frozen gasses and scouring storms that could rend flesh from bone in minutes.
Perceptive indeed. Kelta chewed her lip. Natural abilities of a Binait or not, the child had a tendency to eavesdrop that bordered on the pathological. It made for a potentially dangerous combination. But her heart was in the right place. Kelta prayed the evils of the Known Worlds would never darken it as she grew to womanhood.
The girl frowned at her. She was reading her colors. “Don’t be worried, Kelta. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She smoothed the blonde hair, tucking stray pieces behind the girl’s ear. “Of that, I have no doubt, little one.”
The city had grown a great deal from the one frozen in Kelta’s memories. The government complex seemed to have tripled in size, but the pagoda dedicated to the house gods of the Conclave remained in its squat and ancient glory in a place of significance at the very center of the quad. As she remembered, it was still flanked by the temple of judges and the guildsworn barracks. She and Mim stepped aside as a line of men and women, dressed in the colors of their houses, filed past. New Ironvale Guild recruits, no doubt bound for training of some sort. She had a difficult time imagining Asher fitting in with them, let alone walking single file. Ultimately, time had proven that he did, too.
Mim watched them, enraptured. It filled Kelta with dread, the thought of losing another child to their ranks. She herded the girl along, ignoring her plea to explore the area further.
By the time they reached the row of dignified houses that marked the residences of the Conclave members and their aides, her hips and knees ached in concert with each stride. On Narasmina, she would walk daily through the terraced streets, making rounds to the houses of the new mothers, tending to the injured unmarried sailors that worked on the Corsair ships, and stopping to indulge in the day’s gossip with the shopkeepers. A trip of a few miles, she guessed. But it had done little to prepare her for the hundreds of marble steps that separated the carefully manicured properties that belonged to the Conclave.
Even Mim had grown sullen and cranky. The adventure of the moment had soured for her when they left the glitz and stuttering lights of the city center for the relative quiet of this more residential area.
They found the house that Kelta remembered. Mim put down the case with a grunt that was only part drama. The girl took in the hulking doorway flanked by twin statues of ancient two-headed deities meant to represent the house gods of Hirano.
“Your friend owns this place? He rich?”
“That’s a rude question.” Kelta tidied the sash on the girl’s jacket, a hasty purchase from an overpriced shop in the city center. It served to disguise the grease-stained smock beneath. How the child managed to collect dirt so quickly was a marvel. She lamented there’d been no time to add the Corsair sigil to the sleeve—an expected accessory for anyone calling on a representative of the Conclave. She decided that the less said about the girl, the better.
“My friend is not rich. The family that he serves is. He is the High Chancellor for Imperator Hirano.”
“Weird name for a family.”
“Hush, little one. Remember your promise to help me.” Kelta waited for Mim to look her in the eyes. She made no effort to hide her feelings. Wanted the girl to know the regret and sorrow she felt for her next words: “I’m going to ask you to watch this man’s colors.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “But you said not to—”
“I know.” She placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve told you in the past that it is wrong to read the colors of others without their permission. But this is a very special situation.”
Mim chewed her fingers, a habit she’d cultivated when she was particularly conflicted. Her eyes sought the carved marble steps beneath their feet. Then, she drew herself up, puffing out her chest. “If it’s to help Asher and Er’lah. Then okay.”
“Good girl,” Kelta said with a small smile. She sobered. “He’s a complicated man. Don’t be shocked by that. I need to know if you think we can trust him.”
A question furrowed Mim’s eyebrows. She nodded. “I think I understand.”
“Remember how much I love you. No matter what.”
It took everything in her power to turn away from that small upturned face. With hands that were remarkably steady, she pressed the chime at the door.
Sixteen
Mim did not like Kelta’s friend or his house. Not one bit.
But she did her best to behave and not upset Kelta. She sat on the cushions of the little sofa covered with ugly embroidered shapes that she guessed were supposed to be flowers. She kept her hands firmly clasped on the lap of her new coat with the itchy collar and resisted the urge to swing her feet back and forth. She’d promised Kelta and meant to keep it, especially if it was part of a special mission.
Mim pretended she was a Guild spy and made it a point to take in everything: the furniture (boring), pictures on the walls (even more boring) and the tiny little ceramic figures of dancers that looked more like dolls (just weird) on one low-lying table. She wondered why a man with no children would have dolls, and decided she should ask Kelta later. Her colors were fluttering all over the place and asking questions at the wrong time would probably just make things worse.
The house wasn’t like any house Mim had seen on Narasmina. There were no sprawling green patios stuffed with fruit trees or hanging vines. It felt like a giant stone box with holes cut for windows and doors. Everything was polished to a sheen. They were shown to a room filled with chairs and cushions so rigid looking, she doubted anyone had ever jumped on them or even entertained the thought.
A tall servant with a long face and dark little eyes had looked them both up and down before leaving with a slow, creaking stride. His colors were as muted as the walls of the so-called house. He looked as if he’d always been that way, sucked-in and lifeless like the driftwood sculptures Mr. Thonn made.
He came back with another man, but stood at the door and called out his name first…Klavid Yasu…in such a way that seemed silly, as if Kelta had forgotten who she had come all this way to see. After bowing to them both at the doorway, the new man practically danced into the room with an exuberance that made Mim want to giggle.
“Kelta, dear heart! It’s been ages.” He embraced Kelta in one of the fakest hugs Mim had ever seen, kissing the space over each of her cheeks as if she had spider-lice. The air that breezed into the room with him smelled like girly perfume. He was not very fat, but his face was round, the cheeks pinked with rouge. The waxy eyebrows were drawn on over his eyes with little curling flourishes.
It was all topped with flaming pink hair styled into sections that looked like a dried-out fan sponge.
“It is a delight, Madame. A delight!” He clapped his chubby hands together. The rings on his stubby little fingers glinted as he waved and gestured in his excitement.
“And what an adorable sprite you’ve brought with you.” His eyes moved over Mim, and she was glad when he looked away, back to Kelta.
The man was a liar. He was not delighted to see them. Only surprised and maybe a little annoyed. There was nothing dangerous about his colors, though. Mim relaxed the tiniest bit.
Kelta looked at her, a question on her face and nerves coming off her like little blue sparks. Mim gave a little nod. It was OK, she guessed. A yellow wave washed over Kelta, extinguishing most of the nerves, but not all of them.
For all of his bright hair and twinkling clothes, a darkness that was the ugly brown of an old scab was nestled in the center of his colors. It lacked the sharp outlines like when people were mad or worried about something in particular. It was the same watery blur as when people had been bad so long, they didn’t know that there was a difference between being nice or not. It made her worried, but she told herself to be brave, reminded herself of the mission.
He couldn’t be a bad man because Kelta wouldn’t be friends with him otherwise. Right? She did say he told lies a lot. Mim wondered if she lied enough if her own colors would turn that ugly scab color too.
Mim frowned, looking from Yasu to Kelta and back.
Kelta had this strange expression on her face, like the fake smile she used when she was talking to the tax-assessor back on Narasmina. It was a pretend conversation that adults used when they really meant to say other things. They were seated in the middle of the room on a sofa bigger than the dining table at home. Their conversation slid into topics that Mim found boring: weather, the state of travel between the territories, the trading prices. Asher had once told her that the words people said weren’t always important. He’d explained it was the things not being said, that lived under the pleasantries and fake smiles, that mattered most.
She tried her best to focus until the servant reappeared. He’d brought with him a giant silver tray piled high with tiny cakes and a steaming pot of what smelled like chick-spice tea. She forgot her consternation momentarily as she eyed the delicately frosted little loaves decorated to look like flowers and birds. Her stomach rumbled.
It’d been forever since her stolen meal on the ship. She waited for Kelta to nod her approval before taking one of the little cakes, resisting the urge to snatch a second or third. She sensed that would not have gone over very well. The tall man handed her a bowl of saffron-milk, which was fine because she hated the bitter taste of chick-spice tea and failed to understand why grownups seemed to drink it by the gallon.
“Klavid,” the charming lilt left Kelta’s voice. “Forgive my bluntness, but I have come to ask for your help. There is a delicate matter. A young woman—Erelah Veradin—has become a guest of the Corsair. She’s terribly ill and in need of a talented splicer. There are none on Narasmina with the required skill.”
Mim set the cup down. Her lower lip thrust forward as she watched Kelta’s colors muddy with fear and then turn a brownish green, a color that she’d never seen before on Kelta. Guilt. Mim’s stomach wormed into a knot. The little cakes no longer seemed so appealing.
“Of course, my dear.” Yasu cocked his head. It made Mim think of the little dog Mr. Thonn’s wife had. It was an evil thing, eager to snap at ankles of any passerby. “Master Hirano’s physicians are trustworthy, discreet.”
“She will need to be kept safely, as well as the child she bears.”
One of the artfully drawn eyebrows raised on his powdered face. “Forgive my curiosity, but may I venture a guess as to the father?”
“Who is to say?” Kelta dipped her chin and Mim saw her look over at her. It was the kind of gesture adults used when they did not want kids to hear gossip.
Yasu waved a hand as if he were swatting at a bug. “Of no matter. I can see to this Veradin woman’s needs. She will be welcome on Nirro. Granted every hospitality of her station.” He stopped. It was a long pause, calculated. “But, of course, there is the matter of your master, Asher Corsair. There are those that would see this as preferential treatment to a renegade house. He is, after all, a guildsworn who has broken his vows.”
“About that….” Kelta bit her lip. A tremble entered her voice, and her colors surged in an alarming way. “You must get me an audience with Master Hirano. I want to plead on Asher’s behalf. I believe I have something of great value that would earn his renewed favor. Certainly, it would be enough to pardon him of any wrongdoing and earn his reprieve.”
Yasu made a weird face like he’d just bitten into a rotten piece of fruit. “And what would this be?”
She took a tiny black pouch out from her skirt pocket and emptied its contents into the palm of her hand. Mim leaned forward. She recognized the tiny device of metal wires and the strange little cube. The air caught in her throat. That’s Er’lah’s!
She wanted to shout. She’d never want anyone to have it, especially this Yasu-man with his dirty brown aura and his strange-smelling clothes and pretend smiles.
“And what is this?” he asked, inspecting the device in Kelta’s palm.
“Fates willing, the key to Ironvale’s rise to power in the Reaches,” Kelta said. “Grant me an audience with Master Hirano, and I will tell him all.”
Seventeen
Wedge is what Maeve called her vessel. An ugly name for an even uglier ship. It had all the elegance of a brick with stubby wings adhered to its sides.
Jon had never thought he’d miss the Cassandra they’d abandoned on Hedalia more.
“It’s…hideous,” he muttered, taking in the ungainly sight.
The hangar that housed it was nothing more than a re-engineered cavern in the ice and rock of the Shallows, Tove’s self-described place of “banishment.” Judging from the condition and layout of the ancient structure above that served as general quarters, it was likely to have started out as an outpost during the earliest days of the Expanse.
Corsair did not respond. It suited Jon. They’d had few words for each other since Tove’s trusted guard escorted them through the labyrinth of passages that led here from where they’d left the Cassandra.
Heavy blast doors, large enough to swallow a squadron of strykers, dominated the far wall. Wind cried and bellowed from that end of the hangar, pushing frigid reminders of the weather outside through cracks and crevices. This deep underground the air was cold, damp. He heard the steady trickle of water in the darker corners. He reminded himself that they need not stay here long. They’d leave soon for the Fray on this vessel, helmed by Maeve, who apparently possessed the skills to navigate the dangerous region.
A sharp hissing curse broke his inspections. Maeve looked up from her crouch over the open compartment on the vessel. Judging from her expression, she’d heard his comment. Her mouth pulled into a sneer as she raked the ropey mass of hair from her face. The act left three perfect streaks of grime across her forehead. It gave her the look of some tribal carnivore, more suited to scavenging the twisted deep green of a primitive jungle than manning the delicate controls of a ship.
“Hideous or no, crester, Wedge will keep you among the livin’.”
“I wouldn’t antagonize our ride.” Corsair deposited an enormous satchel onto the bare earth floor. There was the unmistakable sound of metal on metal, hollow. A quick look at the ramp of the Wedge’s cargo hold told Jon he had already loaded enough to kill an entire Regime squad three times over. “She’s a little…unstable.”
Maeve snorted then returned her attention to the compartment. Occasionally, she muttered something under her breath in a language Jon did not recognize. He got the impression she was talking to the ship.
“A little?” Jon moved out of her earshot. “Even without the jdrive, we can use the Cassandra. Be in and out before an
yone notices.”
“And end up as so much debris on the other side in the Fray.” He made a gesture to mimic an explosion, palms facing, fingers splayed. “Sceeloid mined it over a century ago. Got no maps to it. None of them left around to ask anymore. No eyes there. The mines key off anything that’s got a velo signature. Only way through is a grav-slip drive.”
“Grav-slip?” Jon stepped back, taking a deeper look at the inky matte hull of the vessel. “This is a Sceeloid ship.”
“Crester ain’t just pretty meat. He’s got a brain box to match.” Maeve’s voice erupted overhead. Somehow she’d soundlessly crept across the hull in her bulky armor and now lurked over the canopy of the cargo door, her upper body hanging over its lip. “Was a Sc’loid ship. Wedge is mine now.”
She fell forward almost lazily, body turning in midair to land on her feet with feline grace. Her moves in armor were natural, fluid as she sauntered through the cargo hold to the forward compartments. “Don’t touch nothin’, crester.”
“We can’t trust her,” Jon hissed at Corsair in Eugenes when he was certain she was actually gone.
“Who said anything about trusting her?” he replied in Commonspeak, returning to his inspection of the ammo stores. “She knows the Fray. Hates Sceeloid more than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s our best chance at getting in and out of the outpost.”
Jon regarded the darkened interior of the vessel. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I.” Sela’s voice.
He felt something deep behind his ribs stutter.
He turned. Sela stood into the square of light thrown out from the Wedge’s cargo bay. Her expression was as impassive as ever, amber eyes looking through everything and everyone.
Jon remembered the first moment he’d encountered her, back in the ops room of the Storm King. He’d thought the same thing then: This is what a goddess looks like.
Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3 Page 7
