The contact Olyusha had given him, it seemed, frequented the Black Barge. Apparently, she only showed herself at dawn.
Daya, he thought, turning the name over in his head, and annoyed that Olyusha hadn’t been able to give him anything more. The name could belong to anyone, from any demographic—Northern or Southern Cyrilian.
“Can I bring you anything else?” the bartender offered, catching sight of his near-empty cup. “We’re closing soon.”
Ramson swirled what was left of his drink in the brass cup and set it down. “Not today,” he said, tapping his fingers on the chipped wooden surface of the bar top before turning away.
His contact would have to show soon, if the bar was closing.
The morning breeze was just beginning to pull in from the ocean, carrying with it a cool, briny tang that almost transported him back to another time, another place. Here, in the south of Cyrilia, the air was warmer, the days stretched longer, and Ramson leaned back in his seat as the sun seemed to break through the surface of the ocean, gilding it with glittering shards of gold.
His gaze swept past the mast, where posters had been pinned. Swept past, then back again.
And stopped.
Ramson stood abruptly, nearly knocking over his chair. In three strides he was at the mast.
Flapping gently in the breeze, nailed amid a number of other solicitations and signs, was a poster with an image of a girl. Her crimson cloak swept in an impressive arc behind her, and her hands were raised in a striking pose that he knew all too well.
Ramson peeled back the other notices to look at the full poster. Red Tigress Rising, gold letters declared. The Crown Princess lives. The rebellion begins.
It couldn’t be.
He’d spent entire days stalking the streets of Goldwater Port, hitting up all the shady inns where coin was exchanged for information on missing persons, but he’d found no sign of her.
Seeing a poster of her now, the scarlet of her cape curving just like it had in Shamaïra’s painting, felt nothing short of a miracle.
Ramson sensed someone brush up behind him a moment before the knife sank into the wood of the post with a thud, right between two of his fingers.
“I don’t believe you’ve paid yet.”
It was the bartender, her lips curled in a grin. Delicately, Ramson extricated his fingers from near the blade. He turned and easily swiped back the three cop’stones she’d stolen from his pocket. He recognized a good thief when he met one, and this one had almost gotten past him. Though he supposed not having paid for his drink yet made him the thief. “Lesson number one, love,” he crooned. “Wise men never keep all their coins in one place.” With a flick of his hand, the cop’stones vanished. “Is this how you get your tips?”
The girl laughed. “Only for those who come a-lookin’,” she said, and something clicked in Ramson’s head.
“You’re Daya,” he said.
She flashed him a grin of acknowledgment and tapped two fingers to her forehead in a mock salute. Ramson chanced a glance at the ocean, the sky streaked with brilliant tints of corals and reds, the sun warming his face. Dawn at the Black Barge.
Of course. He should’ve caught it.
Easily, he switched his demeanor, a wry grin springing to his face. Ramson plucked the knife from the post and flipped it so the blade pointed at his new companion. “Well, Daya,” Ramson said, “you’ll find that politeness pays.” Another flick of his fingers and the knife switched sides, handle sticking out toward the bartender.
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I find that dead men pay even better.” She snatched her weapon from him and slipped it into a chain hanging loosely from her hips. Turning, she crooked a finger at him.
Ramson slipped the poster of the Red Tigress into the folds of his shirt and followed. Daya sashayed to an empty booth and plonked herself down. She took a swig from a bottle she’d swiped at the bar and surveyed him through heavy-lidded eyes. “So, word is there’s something you want from me.”
A quick twirl of his fingers, and a bag of coins appeared in his palm. Ramson jingled the fat leather pouch at her. “I’d prefer to think of it as a Trade,” he replied. “I’m a businessman. I don’t take without giving.” The bag vanished with another twist of his hand.
Daya let out a loud, long snort. “That’s the stupidest lie I’ve ever heard.”
“Truth, lies—it’s all just a matter of perspective,” Ramson replied pleasantly.
The girl cackled. “I like you,” she said. Her gaze roved to his now-empty hand. “But I like the sound of your money more. So, tell me. What is it that you want?”
Ramson tilted his head. “I never do business without knowing a bit more about my partners.”
The girl grinned at him. “Sure, I’m an open book,” she said cheerfully. “Daya of Kusutri. Set foot on a boat as a kid and never got off, never looked back. Made my days sailing. Business’s been bad here in the great Northern Empire lately, so, I’m sailing where the wind blows and where the goldleaves shine.” She raised her bottle of liquor at him before taking a swig.
The Crown of Kusutri was a small coastal kingdom neighboring Nandji, known for its skills in seafaring. Now that Ramson had a closer look at this girl, he noticed her skin was a shade darker than most people in Southern Cyrilia, her hair ink black and braided in the intricate hairstyles of some of the Southern Crowns. He heard, too, the subtlest difference to her intonation of certain vowels, the way someone tried to bury a foreign accent. Like his own.
He watched her carefully, taking in the shift of her linen shirt over her shoulders as she raised her bottle of liquor and took a swig. Peeking over her left collarbone was a tattoo: a woman with the sun haloing her head, rays of it spiking like a crown. Amara, the Kusutrian goddess.
At least this girl was honest.
Ramson leaned forward. “I’m interested in hearing more about your jobs to Bregon,” he said.
Daya raised a dark eyebrow. “What about them?”
“Specifically, what types of jobs you did for Alaric Kerlan.”
Her face tightened. “I know you,” she said softly, her gaze glinting as she traced over his face again. “Last I heard, you’d famously broken out of prison. Ghost Falls, was it?”
Ramson morphed his face into a wolfish smile. “Then you’ll know that I’m looking for Alaric Kerlan,” he said, “and willing to pay anything for his head.” He gave a delicate pause. “Unless you have any lasting loyalties.”
“I do have loyalties. My loyalties are to whoever pays me most.” Her eyes landed on his hands.
Ramson took the signal. Deftly, he slid the pouch of coin across the table to her.
Daya snatched the pouch, running it through her fingers. A wicked smile crossed her face. In the blink of an eye, the coins vanished. “Well, then, Portmaster,” she said. “You wanted to know about my jobs for Alaric Kerlan.” Daya cupped her chin with a hand. “My first job for him was well over eight years ago.”
“Eight—” Ramson bit down on his words. That would have been shortly after Kerlan was exiled by his father. What kinds of trades had Kerlan carried out back then? Ramson had always thought any jobs overseas had sprung up after his own involvement in establishing Goldwater Port as the hub of foreign commerce. “Never mind. Go on.”
“He needed ships that weren’t recognizable,” Daya continued. “Small and quick. Mine fit the bill perfectly.”
“What was he trading?”
“Ah,” Daya said. “See, that’s the thing. Alaric Kerlan was not trading anything back then. He was shipping people to Bregon.”
Ramson’s stomach tightened. “Human trafficking?”
“No, not in that sense.” Daya scratched her head. “Rather, his own people. He had me bring members of his Order to Bregon, all on one-way tickets.”
Ramson’s mind was alr
eady spinning. “Do you know what he was doing with these men?”
Daya scratched her chin. “I think he has unfinished business in Bregon,” she said at last. “I’ve heard rumors of his exile…but I think he planted members loyal to him in Bregon. I think he still has men in Sapphire Port, awaiting his return.”
The world seemed to shift, like two pieces of a puzzle coming together to form a bigger picture. Ramson had thought that after Morganya’s takeover, Alaric Kerlan and his Affinite trafficking business would have been utterly destroyed, the Goldwater Trading Group crippled by this loss.
All this time, though, Ramson’s former master had been years ahead of the game, building up a network not only in Cyrilia but across the Whitewaves as well…in the largest Bregonian trading port.
“Why?” His words were quick, urgent. “What is he planning in Bregon?”
Daya shook her head. “Beats me. I took care not to eavesdrop or show any interest in his business. Had a feeling Kerlan wasn’t the type to leave loose trails. I only did a few jobs for him. Seems like bad luck to associate with this man.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Ramson said.
Daya leaned forward. “Though,” she added, “there has been word of new activity on his end here in the black markets…”
“I’m listening.”
“Well.” Daya jingled her pouch of coins suggestively. “I could use a little more…persuasion.”
Ramson put his chin in his hands, mirroring her pose. “How about a job?”
It was an old trick in negotiating, but Ramson found that it always worked: to throw them the bait before offering the fish. The key was to set the other party’s expectations lower than what you planned to offer, so that they were more willing to accept once you put forth your actual proposal.
Daya had the look of a fish on a hook. “What type of job?”
Ramson looked to the ocean, which was beginning to sparkle under the morning sun as though it held a thousand tiny, fractured diamonds. The water here was a stunning cobalt blue, and no doubt ruthlessly cold. It was a sight that he’d grown to like, and one that, he found, he wasn’t quite ready to part with just yet.
He drew a breath. “You give me the information I need, and I’ll hire you for a trip to Bregon.” He reached out and plonked the second pouch of coins in the middle of the table. It landed with a considerably heavier thud.
Daya licked her lips. “I think we’re about to be great friends,” she said, and then lowered her voice. “Rumor has it that Alaric Kerlan brokered a new Trade deal—a trafficking scheme to Bregon.” She gave him a pointed look. “Affinite trafficking.”
Ramson considered. Olyusha had said Kerlan’s new schemes had something to do with a new development concerning Affinites. This could certainly fit the bill.
“I’ve been watching the ports,” Daya continued, “and I’ve seen unmarked ships set sail at night. I can confirm I’ve seen people board those ships after dark…and I can confirm that the last of them left several days ago with Kerlan on board. If you want to catch him, we need to move quickly.”
Ramson hesitated. Why would Kerlan begin an Affinite trafficking scheme to Bregon? More important, who on the Bregonian side could be the buyer of such a transaction? The militaristic kingdom of his birth was not one that particularly cared about the magen, its population of Affinites.
He had a feeling that the conspiracy ran deeper, but for now, one thing was clear. If he wanted to find his former master, the answers lay in Bregon.
A weight settled in Ramson’s chest. From the folds of his shirt, he drew out the piece of parchment, smoothing it out against the warming wood of the table between them. If he left now, they might never meet again.
But he couldn’t afford to wait forever.
He tapped his fingers to the painting. “Any idea what this is?”
Daya raised a dark eyebrow. “You want to be careful who you show that to. They say the exiled princess was spotted at the Imperial Inquisition in Novo Mynsk.”
Ramson’s grip on the parchment tightened. “Do you know who made this, and where I can find them?”
“Nope. I’ve only heard rumors that people are rallying to her name. Times are hard, with the new Empress. You’ve heard that she’s persecuting non-Affinites. I fled the north just in time, Amara bless.” She shuddered. “Not a bad time to get out of this empire, Portmaster.”
Ramson looked to the sea. He thought of Shamaïra’s painting, with the gold and the water and the slash of red in the midst of it all. He’d thought that was a sign for him, that he would find Ana again in Goldwater Port, that, by some miracle or twist of fate, their destined paths would continue to intertwine.
He held up the poster of the Red Tigress. Beneath the sun and golden haze of waves, the image of her scarlet cloak on the poster cut a streak of bright red against the scenery, an almost-perfect rendition of Shamaïra’s painting.
Perhaps signs were for fortune-tellers or fools after all.
Ramson blinked. And blinked again.
There, outlined against the warm morning light of the sun, was a shadow, fast approaching. Too large to be a gull.
He was on his feet, his boots thudding across the deck of the Black Barge, until he reached the wooden quay. A startled laugh burst from him as he lifted an arm.
The snowhawk landed on his shoulder, talons biting into the thick leather of his coat. It regarded him with intelligent golden eyes, the wind ruffling its snowy feathers.
“Gods be damned,” Ramson said softly, and then his gaze latched on to the object in the bird’s beak. The lock of black hair glistened like silk in the morning sun, and the entire world seemed to shift.
Linn.
Over a moon ago, when she’d disappeared after the battle at the Salskoff Palace, Ramson had sent out a snowhawk with her scent to track her. He’d thought it a lost cause.
Until now.
“Is that…a bird?”
Ramson turned. Daya was gaping at him, her gaze darting to his snowhawk.
Suddenly, it was as though disparate threads were coming together. The snowhawk, bringing him news of Linn. The poster of the Red Tigress.
And he had been looking for just one sign.
“It’s not just any bird,” Ramson replied, and with a few light steps he was back at their booth. He snatched up the poster, picked up the pouch of coins from the table, and tossed it to her. “Wait for me here. Consider this down payment.”
He might have laughed at her bewildered expression. “Wait! Hey! Hey!” she shouted as he barreled past her. “Should I ready the ship?”
But Ramson had already leapt onto the dock and was running down the streets of Goldwater Port, his snowhawk soaring in the air above him, his steps surer than he’d felt in a long, long time.
Ana rode through the night with Yuri and his companion, a Redcloak girl who had tracked Ana’s movements through the mountain with her Affinity to snow. “Follow me” was all Yuri had said to her before turning away and mounting his valkryf. It had been a quiet journey, each of them wrapped thickly in furs, focused on the tread of their steeds.
The sun had just broken from white-capped waves when they arrived at Goldwater Port, and the city was beginning to wake. The squeaking of wagon wheels blended with the screeches of gulls overhead. Here and there, colorful tarpaulins propped up as the morning markets sprang to life, raising calls from vendors hawking fish and seafood and rainbow-hued fabrics.
Ana felt as though she had stepped into a different world. One of the southernmost cities of Cyrilia, Goldwater Port bordered the Dzhyvekha Mountains that separated the Northern Empire from the Southern Crown of Nandji. Long ago, nomadic tribes that wandered the Dzhyvekha Mountains and the Aramabi Desert had settled into Southern Cyrilia, building cities of their own and taking the cultures of the two lands and shaping them into something at
once familiar and new.
My mother included, Ana realized. She’d never seen so many people with Mama’s complexion—rich fawn skin and umber-dark hair. Mama had been born here, yet raised in the north in Salskoff, the capital of Cyrilia, where the climate and people were colder and the buildings were pale, with drops of color in red rooftops and gilded domes.
Southern Cyrilia was warmer and vibrant, thriving with dozens of colors in the space of a dacha: sun-yellow domes dotted with green circles and sky-blue turrets with gilded edges and poppy-red spindles on rooftops that spiraled in alternating patterns of deep violet and royal blue and lime green. It made Ana think of Shamaïra’s brightly colored quilts and settees, the brocade curtains she used as room separators, and everything in her dacha that she had brought with her to the Northern Empire as a reminder of her home.
Mama’s ancestors had come from here. And it was half of her legacy that Ana had inherited.
“We’re here.” Yuri’s tone was still closed off, his face unreadable.
They stopped in front of a shop with a cheerful yet faded lemon exterior and a redbrick roof. Large glass windows looked in and the early-morning sun hit a chipped wooden sign hanging on the door. Dama Kostov’s Kafé, it declared. Closed.
Yuri’s companion stepped in without pause, but Ana grabbed Yuri’s wrist. He froze, and when their eyes met, his were no longer the steady coal gray that she had known her entire life. A fire roared within them.
A distance stretched between them, filling with everything they hadn’t said until it gaped into a bleeding abyss. And Ana thought of the shadows, of a knife in her back and a cold voice. You are the antithesis to our movement.
“What do you want from me?” Her voice came out hollow from days of neglect.
Something flickered in Yuri’s eyes. “I just want to talk.”
He stepped into the shop, leaving her looking after the silhouette of a boy she’d once known.
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