Grace and Fury

by Tracy Banghart

  Nomi smiled wanly. She, too, wished Malachi had gone after the other girls. That he’d never cornered her under the overhang. That he’d never kissed her. That she’d never kissed him back.

  By the time the two girls settled themselves at the table, Cassia had already helped herself to several tiny sandwich rounds. For today’s outing, she’d piled her shimmering hair on top of her head and secured it with a jaunty pink bow. She wore a flattering, low-cut pink swimming robe. The garment was designed like Nomi’s, with stretchy fabric that crossed over the bust and billowed into a short skirt, except Nomi’s was black.

  Maris had tied her dark hair back in a thick braid and her willowy body into a shimmering gold swimming robe.

  “Good morning,” the Heir said to the group.

  He wore navy swim trunks, leaving the golden skin of his chest and arms bare. His satisfied smile made him look like his father.

  He was staring straight at Nomi.

  She dropped her gaze to her plate as heat rose to her cheeks.

  Beside her, Maris ate a sandwich, her head turned to watch the waves. Nomi drizzled honey over a small round of flatbread and tried to eat it, but her stomach wouldn’t settle. Not with the Heir sitting across from her. Not with the memory of last night playing through her mind. She wished Asa were here. He’d distract his brother, send her a secret smile, remind her what they were fighting for.

  “How did you sleep, Nomi?” the Heir asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Very well,” she replied, clipping the words. “You?”

  “I slept quite well.” His voice deepened. “A good storm has a way of clarifying things, doesn’t it?”

  Maris turned away from the water. Cassia cocked her head.

  Nomi could only smile awkwardly and push at her food, her appetite gone. As soon as the plates were cleared, she stood up. “Excuse me.”

  She escaped to a spot near the water. Her hands shook as she pulled off her sandals and dropped them into the sand. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, the sunshine bright and hot against her face.

  “Do you enjoy swimming, Your Eminence?” Cassia’s voice floated out over the crash of waves.

  Nomi stepped into the water. It was cool against her flushed skin, and the waves were gentle. Out here, she didn’t have to pretend. She didn’t have to see Malachi’s satisfaction at claiming his prize. Maybe he thought her gift of the gloves meant she had resigned herself to him. But he was wrong.

  Suddenly, there was a giant splash behind her. Nomi turned, just as the Heir pushed through the water toward her. “Very refreshing,” he said.

  Nomi’s mouth dropped open. “Your Eminence.”

  Malachi shot her a little smile before diving into the water, submerging completely. When he surfaced, he shook like a dog, spraying water at her. “Can you swim?”

  Nomi shook her head. In Lanos, there had been no need to learn.

  He reached out and put his hands on her arms. She was so shocked at his touch, it took her a moment to realize he was drawing her slowly into deeper water. She resisted. Her toes dug into the sand as little swells lapped against her collarbone. Fear blossomed in her chest. Too deep, too deep. “Please, Your Eminence.”

  Did he enjoy scaring her? Nomi’s heart beat faster.

  Malachi stopped moving, his hands still loosely encircling her wrists. “When I was five,” he said in a conversational tone, “my father threw me into the water. I figured out pretty quickly how to float.”

  Nomi’s breath caught. That was horrible. What if he’d drowned?

  Is that what the Heir was going to do to her?

  “We’ve no place to swim in Lanos,” she said, her voice trembling. She stood on her tiptoes as a bigger swell pushed at her, sending panic shooting through her. “I’ve always thought it would feel nice, but—but it’s frightening.” She took a step back toward shallower water.

  His hands released her, but instead of backing away, he moved closer, his skin sliding against hers as he wrapped his arms loosely around her. “That’s what I’m trying to say,” he said, in a different, softer tone. “I don’t think it has to be frightening. Here—put your arms around me. I’ll show you.”

  He’s toying with me.

  Reluctantly, Nomi lined her arms along the tops of his, letting her hands rest on his shoulders. She stared fixedly at his throat, where his wet skin glistened.

  “Look at me.”

  Slowly, she raised her chin. His gaze found hers, as intense as it had been when she’d first seen him, when he’d caught her in the hall. “I promise. I won’t let you go.”

  He pulled her closer, until their bodies slid against each other. Slowly, he moved into deeper water. Heart in her throat, Nomi felt the sand fall away under her feet. Reflexively, she tightened her arms around his neck. Too deep, too deep.

  But she was floating. His embrace kept her head well above the water, and the rest of her flowed. She kicked her feet a little, feeling the rush of the current.

  Her eyes widened.

  He smiled. “See?” he said softly. “It’s not so bad.”

  The tightness in her chest eased a little. “I feel so light. Like a—a cloud. I could float away.” How she wished she could.

  “Well, let’s not float away quite yet.” He grinned, and for a moment, he looked almost playful. “It was a hard start for me, but I love swimming now.” Something about the way he said it, the warmth in his eyes, sent heat through her body. His hands slid down her back and the current pushed them closer together, so close her legs drifted around his hips of their own accord. She was holding on to him everywhere.

  Everywhere.

  Nomi drew in a breath. She was still looking him in the eye, their faces a mere inch away. Her stomach turned over. His eyes darkened; the intensity was back, all playfulness gone. The world reduced to the silken slide of their skin, the shrinking space between their lips.

  “Have you found the gift I left for you?” he asked softly.

  “Gift?” she asked stupidly. It was suddenly very difficult to think. What was wrong with her?

  “The book.”

  The book? Nomi’s body went rigid. Asa had given her the book. Hadn’t he?

  “Why in the world would you give me a book?” She tried to sound unperturbed, but her voice shook, betraying her.

  “Your sister could read,” he said, his body swaying with the insistent prodding of the current. “I thought maybe you could too. I was hoping…” He didn’t finish the thought.

  The moment—any softening she’d felt toward him—shattered.

  A trap, a trap, a trap.

  Nomi wasn’t walking the high wire anymore. She was gripping the line with a single hand. Falling wasn’t a question of whether but when.

  “No, Your Eminence,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I can’t read.”

  The sun lit his eyes to a bright golden brown. Nomi couldn’t look away. “I see,” he said at last, but she couldn’t tell if he believed her. “It was a gift, as I said. Maybe not entirely innocent, but it wasn’t intended as poison. If you can read—”

  Nomi’s head swam, and suddenly, the miracle of weightlessness felt like a curse. She couldn’t escape from him, not in water so deep. And she needed, so much, to escape. “Please,” she whispered, pulling against his arms. “I want to get out of the water.”

  “Have I upset you?” he asked, and she couldn’t tell if he was asking with real concern or mocking her.

  “I just—I don’t like the water anymore,” she said as the panic built in her chest. She yanked herself from his grasp, her head dipping under the water. She sputtered, terror tightening every muscle. But somehow she made it to shallower water. Somehow she made it to shore.

  Her teeth chattered. Her lungs ached.

  She splashed up onto the beach and reached for a towel from one of the chaises. It was hot in the sun, but she still shivered as she wrapped it around herself. Malachi splashed up behind her. “Are you okay?”

&n
bsp; She curtsied awkwardly and bowed her head, aware that Cassia and Maris were watching. “I am, Your Eminence. But I’m cold. May I return to my room for some dry clothes?”

  “Of course.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but she couldn’t bear it.

  The chill didn’t leave her for the rest of the day.

  THIRTY-ONE

  SERINA

  IT TOOK SERINA three days to find the courage to approach Hotel Misery. In that time, she spoke to no one, hiding deep in her cave when the guards made their rounds and subsisting on clams she dug out of the sand and berries she found near the edge of the forest.

  She hoped that Jacana would bring her news, tell her Oracle had already brokered a truce.

  She waited for Val and wondered why he hadn’t come to find her. Had he forgotten their conversation about the eastern beaches? Or did he not care, now that she was likely to die anyway?

  She thought of Nomi, at the mercy of cruel men. Had the Heir celebrated his birthday yet? She knew what would happen when he did, and how much Nomi would suffer.

  Serina tried to guess what Renzo was doing. She closed her eyes and imagined him wandering through Lanos’s central market. He passed stalls of fresh meat, skinned rabbits and chickens hanging by their feet, ready to roast. The fruit vendor, with buckets of burgundy cherries, bright bloodred strawberries, and juicy peaches for sale. Next, a stall of dried fruit: sweet pineapple, crunchy dried banana chips, chewy rings of apple spiced with fresh-ground nutmeg. In her mind, Renzo paused before their favorite baker, Alonso, and his baskets of warm loaves of bread. Renzo chose a cornetto and a flaky pastry filled with hazelnut cream. He grinned boyishly, flicking back his dark hair.

  Without Nomi there, who was cutting his hair?

  Serina pulled her thoughts back to Mount Ruin with an effort. Tears snaked down her cheeks. She stood up. It was time.

  Before she left her little cove, she collected as many clams as she could find and twisted them into her shirt. She took a tiny sip from Jacana’s water flagon and slung its strap over her shoulder. Her knife, the one salvaged in the fight, hung from a hole she’d cut in the waistband of her pants.

  She hiked south along the coast for an hour before heading inland. The island wasn’t large—it would probably take a full day to travel from the southernmost point to the northern tip—and it was relatively easy to navigate. Paths crisscrossed the grassy lands and the forest, and the lava fields were open, allowing full visibility. Serina used the guard towers to mark her progress, though she steered well clear of them.

  She found a small stream and replenished her flagon. She watched for boar, but found no sign of the animals.

  Eventually, she reached the amphitheater. Full of women and death, it was terrifying. Empty, as it was now, it was eerie. Too silent. The air thickened, and for a moment, she fancied the spirits of all the women who had fallen here watching her. Serina shook her head, trying to banish the thought.

  By the time she reached Hotel Misery, it was late afternoon.

  Just after the turnoff to the half-ruined building, a tall woman stepped into the path. Her hair hung over her shoulders in two long braids and a thick scar ran along the side of her neck. She crossed her arms over her chest threateningly. “We don’t take in strays.”

  Serina unwound the end of her shirt to reveal the clams, heart pounding. “Call this a peace offering. I’m not asking you to take me in. I just want to talk to Slash.”

  The woman gave her a long look. At last, her hard stance relaxed. “Follow me.”

  Serina followed her down the rocky path to the hotel. Massive entry columns extended crookedly to the sky, caught in an eternal wave of lava rock. The lobby’s carved latticework ceiling had collapsed, and chunks of white marble tile were visible in a few small gaps the lava left untouched. Huge ceramic vases lay broken and half melted, their vibrant blues and reds scorched off. Tattered, charred bamboo walls tapped eerily against each other when the wind blew.

  Serina shivered. She’d thought Oracle’s cave was a depressing place to live, but this was truly a misery, as its name suggested. It was too easy to imagine the hotel guests running for their lives. Too easy to imagine the ghosts.

  The woman led her through the destroyed lobby and to the left, down an open-air walkway bounded on one side by the stone and steel shell of a building and on the other by a brackish, bad-smelling canal. A matching building framed the opposite side of the water. Both structures were three stories high, lined with railed terraces and dark holes where doors should have been. At the end of the canal, a wide, round tower linked the two buildings. Most of the tower had burned, but its curved iron skeleton and ribs of concrete remained. At its base was a shallow marble staircase; Slash sat at the top, sharpening scraps of metal into knives.

  She looked up at the sound of footsteps. Her spiky black hair framed an angular face crisscrossed with knife-thin scars. “What’s this?”

  The lookout said, “She said she wanted to talk to you.”

  Slash glanced at the woman. “And?”

  Serina stepped forward and gently unrolled her clams again, setting them at Slash’s feet. She resisted the inexplicable urge to curtsy. “I don’t want anything from you but to talk.”

  Slash raised a brow. “I don’t talk to traitors.”

  “You can talk to the woman who spared your fighter,” Serina said, sounding more fierce than she felt. In truth, it was all she could do to meet the woman’s eyes.

  Slash sat back in the rusted chair and spun the knife in her hand.

  Serina suspected she had seconds before that knife flew through the air and buried itself in her chest. “The crews should join together and take the island,” she said, words blurring together in her haste to get them out before the woman attacked. “The guards have firearms, but there are fewer of them, and we know the island. If we joined together, we could share resources. We could be free.”

  The knife paused.

  “What did Oracle say? Presumably you shared your thoughts with her first.”

  Serina struggled to hold Slash’s gaze, Her mouth was dry as sand. “I betrayed the crew by submitting. She felt she had no choice but to banish me. But that’s what Commander Ricci wants. He wants us to fight each other, to never question how things work here.”

  “Why question it? This is our reality.” Slash tested the tip of her blade.

  “It doesn’t need to be,” Serina argued. “Commander Ricci put hundreds of women on an island, barely supervised, and told them to learn to fight. He’s given us all the tools we need to overthrow him.”

  Slash stood up slowly and descended the three shallow steps until she and Serina were on the same level. Serina held her breath.

  “You’re a freshie and a stray, and you know nothing,” the woman said finally, twisting the knife in her hand.

  Disappointment choking her, Serina turned to go. “Thank you for hearing me out.”

  From behind her, Slash’s voice rang out. “Have you spoken to the other crews?”

  Serina glanced back over her shoulder. “Only you and Oracle so far. I started with the strongest.”

  Slash regarded her through narrowed eyes. “If you can get the heads of the other crews to agree, I’ll consider it. But only if there’s a plan. A good one.”

  Serina sagged with relief. It wasn’t much to hold on to, but it was something. “Thank you.”

  Slash nodded her dismissal. The woman who had brought Serina into the hotel now led her out. As Serina left the ruined lobby, Anika walked in. She stopped dead when she saw Serina. For a long moment, they stared at each other, and then Serina was past her, out into the fading daylight. The lookout walked her to the main path and then disappeared into the woods.

  Serina sipped from her flagon, ignored her grumbling stomach, and began the long trek back to the east beach, a cautious hope pacing her. Tomorrow she would go see Twig. And maybe Jacana would make headway with Oracle.

  Serina reached the east beach just a
s the sun set, sending the night streaking across the sky to find her. She stood at the edge of the water and watched the stars appear.

  Someone whistled behind her.

  Serina whirled, yanking the knife from her pants, hard enough to rip the fabric further.

  Bruno stood a few feet away.

  “I’ve been wondering where you holed up,” he said. The darkness hid his face and turned his black-clad body into shadow.

  “Go away,” Serina snapped.

  Her fingers tightened on her knife. She wasn’t the submissive girl she’d been the last time they’d met, but she was still scared.

  He shifted closer. She fought the urge to step back.

  “Why should I?” he said, his voice flat. “You don’t have a crew to protect you anymore. I can just take what I want.”

  “You can try,” she growled, and then she lunged forward. She was betting he hadn’t seen her knife in the dark, and she wasn’t going to wait for him to attack first. She stabbed him in the gut, but it was a shallow wound.

  He roared. Without hesitation, he backhanded her, hard enough to send her flying to the gritty sand. She kept her grip on her knife, but it was now slick with blood. As she stumbled to her feet, he kicked her in the side, sending her back to the ground.

  “Submit,” he muttered. He loomed over her, his feet on either side of her hips. She hooked one of his legs with hers and surged upward into his wounded stomach as she twisted, bringing him down. Her knife slashed his side.

  She made it to her feet and was almost free when he grabbed her ankle and yanked.

  She went down again, sand filling her mouth. She spit and screamed, her panic and fury all-consuming.

  Bruno’s grip dug into her skin, shackling her to him. Slowly, he stood up, dragging her toward him. Panic filled her. She kicked and wriggled violently, terror lending her strength. Her arm hit her water flagon. She scrambled for it as something to throw at him, but it rolled out of reach. Her foot finally connected with his knee. His hands slipped, just for a second.

  He grunted as she pulled herself free.