by Tara Sim
Ever since he had foolishly agreed to marry her, Cayo had felt as if he were in a fugue, existing only because his lungs and heart stubbornly refused to stop. Since his father would never agree to an engagement with the Slum King’s daughter, they were going to pretend that Romara was a member of the Rehanese gentry until the marriage contract was signed. And then the other shoe would drop, and the Slum King would get the status he so craved.
“Drink?”
He blindly grabbed whatever was on the serving tray offered to him. Soria would have frowned to see him drink again, but Soria wasn’t here, and wasn’t that the whole point? He took a big gulp and immediately recognized the taste of Calamity, the drink of choice for gamblers who were quickly spiraling into bankruptcy and needed something to fortify themselves. It was typically made with lupseh, a Ledese alcohol, and a mix of bitters and cherry syrup, with just a hint of coffee bean to deepen the flavor.
The taste brought him back to the dens, to the smoke-thick rooms and the hot press of bodies. His friends clapping him on the back, spurring him on.
One more round, Cayo?
He glanced at the server who had offered the tray. The Kharian man seemed to be in his thirties and had a wholly unprofessional look to him. His hair was a bit too long, his nails a bit too ragged.
“So where is the countess, anyway?” Cayo asked. “Shouldn’t she be at her own party?”
The server righted his tray, which had been tilting to one side. “She’s bound to make her entrance soon, m’lord.” His words were flat and laced with annoyance. He quickly moved on to a flock of young women, muttering as he went.
Cayo took to his drink like a man dying of thirst. New plan: He would get drunk, and then he would tell his father that he was gaining a criminal for a daughter-in-law. Cayo sputtered a laugh into his glass, his blood already fizzing after not having had alcohol for so long.
Then he blinked. As he stared into the crowd, he began to recognize one of the faces: Philip Dageur, the son of wealthy immigrants from the Rain Empire.
And Sébastien’s ex-lover.
Would he know where Bas was, or what had happened to him? Cayo knew they were still friends—and perhaps a bit more than that—and that Bas would never want Philip to give him charity, but it was the one place Cayo hadn’t tried.
As Cayo began to make his way over, a voice projected across the garden.
“Noble gentry of Moray, I present to you, Countess Yamaa!”
Cayo turned at the crescendo of applause. A woman with brown skin and black hair was descending one of the marble staircases. Although she wobbled on a stair here and there in her high-heeled shoes, there was still something commanding about her that spoke to him. He gravitated toward her, a wandering planet in need of a star to orbit.
But when she turned her face in his direction, his stomach gave a violent lurch.
It was the young woman who had spoken to him at the countess’s last party—the one who had insulted him and claimed his father employed children.
She was Countess Yamaa?
His mind raced as he tried to recall exactly what he had said to her. He had disparaged her taste, her party, her attitude…everything. Feeling sick, Cayo turned and frantically looked for a way out that wouldn’t involve passing by her. Philip was gone—damn it—but he spotted Tomjen nearby, his lanky arm slung around a lowly lord’s daughter. Cayo began to make his way to them when the countess’s gin-strong voice easily broke through the din of the party.
“We meet again, my lord.”
He froze in place. A few curious onlookers glanced his way, including Tomjen, who quickly read the scene and widened his eyes at Cayo in a way that said don’t mess this up. Cayo quickly downed the rest of his Calamity, thinking the name too appropriate for the situation.
Countess Yamaa approached him, her smile reserved, subtle, like the outline of a weapon hidden under a coat.
He bowed in greeting. “Countess.”
Her smile broadened. “Ah, so you do know me.” She again wore her necklace of pearls, but the dress was wholly different. The bodice was an impossible patchwork of colorful embroidered flowers, woven through with green-threaded vines that snaked up her belly, ending in a few blooming buds over the curve of her chest. Her skirts were long and made of gauzy blue layers, each hem ending in another burst of flowers.
She was wearing her own garden.
It was exquisite.
“I should apologize for my forwardness when last we met,” she said, fidgeting with the clunky rings she wore before clasping her hands together. Her hair was down tonight, curled elegantly over her bare shoulders and braided through with jasmine blossoms. Cayo could smell them even from where he stood, thick and fragrant. “Perhaps I’d had a bit too much to drink.”
“No, it’s…it’s fine. I mean…” It wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine. “All is forgiven, my lady.”
“I’m glad.” She nodded toward the tables at the back of the garden, sparkling with trays of silver and crystal. Her silver earrings swayed with the motion. “Have you eaten? I have the best cook in Moray under my roof.”
From whose family did you steal him? Cayo wondered. “I’m afraid I have no appetite tonight.” He looked around nervously, seeking an escape route. “It’s a lovely party, though.”
“You think so? Not gaudy, as my last one was?”
He winced. He had said that to her face, hadn’t he? “Not at all, my lady.” Cayo cleared his throat, heat crawling up his neck as he thought back to the way he’d insulted Countess Yamaa in front of a girl he’d mistook for a stranger. “I must apologize for my forwardness as well.”
Amusement flashed in her eyes. “Everyone should hear a bit of critique now and then. Keeps one humble.”
He couldn’t forget all she had said. Still, there was something about the slope of her neck, the vulnerability of her bare shoulders, the sheerness of the gauze between the stitched flowers of her dress that tied his tongue into a useless knot.
“You seem distracted tonight, my lord.”
“I’m simply wondering how many hours of labor it took to pay for this party of yours,” he replied. He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyebrows go up. “After all, you own your own debtor ship, don’t you? The Brackish?”
“Good memory,” she murmured, almost as if to herself. “I can see you’re trying to goad me, but it won’t work.”
Anger, sharp and sudden, hooked into him like a barb. What gave her the right to criticize his family? The Calamity swam through him, fortifying his backbone and sharpening his tongue. “Are the children in this garden paid for by their parents’ debt? Do their earnings slide into your pocket when they’re not looking?”
At last, a flash of true anger crossed her face. In that moment, he saw through the pretense and glimpsed something like truth in her eyes, something as dangerous as it was fathomless.
“Do not presume to know me, my lord,” she said softly.
“And do not presume to know me, my lady. I’m much more than a…what was the phrase you used? Drunken playboy?”
The dawning realization on her face was even more satisfying than pulling a winning hand of Scatterjack. He could practically see the scene of that night flitting through her mind’s eye, the wholly unabashed way she had stomped upon his family’s name. Flushed, the countess held back a grimace of mortification.
“Lord Cayo Mercado,” she murmured.
He bowed with a sarcastic flourish.
She was quiet for a minute, her teeth clenched. “I see. And you think you have the right to come here and judge me for the same rotting thing your father has exploited in order to build his fortune? As I said, you cannot presume to know me.”
Cayo was startled by her use of the word rotting—he had only ever heard the servants use it—but he didn’t let it distract him. “I know enough. You’re Kharian, perhaps also Rehanese, with a fortune that likely came from dealings with the Rain Empire. Now here you are in Moray, flaunting all you have fo
r those who think with greed instead of compassion. They don’t see the children working around them. They don’t see you as a person. They see you as a nothing but a lovely ingot of gold, and they’re all itching to chisel off a piece of you for themselves.”
The countess had begun to fiddle with the pearls on her necklace, watching him steadily during his tirade. A thin white scar lined the side of her palm. “Is that also what you would like to do, my lord?”
“No.” The truth of his answer surprised him, and perhaps her as well. “I want…”
He wanted this city to run on something other than gold. He wanted someone to help him escape the Slum King and Romara.
He wanted Soria to get better. To not leave him like their mother had, like everything good did sooner or later.
But before he could finish, there was a short scream followed by a splash. The countess turned sharply, layered skirts fanning out around her. In the pool with the floating lanterns, the little girl Cayo had spotted earlier was flailing in the water. The partygoers yelped at the shock of it, but no one moved to do anything.
Cayo rushed forward, but the countess was faster.
In the time it took her to get to the edge of the pool, she had kicked off her heels and torn off the outermost layer of her skirts. Then, without hesitation, she arced gracefully into the water. It was more than graceful—she seemed to meld with the water, like molten metal. Like she had been born in it.
She swam to the girl and grabbed hold of her, using one arm to propel them back to the edge. A server helped them out onto the bank, the little girl coughing and sputtering.
The partygoers erupted into applause. Cayo stood there in shock, trying to parse out what he had just seen: a countess, ruining her gown for a servant. Where had she learned to swim like that?
The countess asked for the server’s jacket, which she wrapped around the girl’s trembling shoulders. The server led the girl back to the house to recover.
Cayo approached the countess, dripping wet and wringing out her long hair, as excited lords and ladies flocked around her to commend her for her bravery. He glared at them, thinking that they could have just as easily gone in after the girl if they’d thought to put down their drinks and canapés for one second.
“Thank you,” he said when he caught her attention. He wasn’t sure why he was thanking her, exactly, but it felt right.
She tossed her wet hair over her shoulder. Her dress was sodden, heavy and damp and clinging to her skin, and he once again had the impression that she was some kind of sea creature who’d mistakenly found herself on land.
Then she leaned over and spat. The lords and ladies murmured in surprise, then laughed in delight.
“It’s a tricky thing, water,” the countess said. The kohl smudged around her eyes gave her a wild, untamed quality that both frightened and fascinated him. “If you don’t know how to navigate it, it can take everything from you.”
She dismissed him as easily as turning her head and excusing herself politely to her crowd of admirers. She made her way back to the main house, and he followed her with his eyes.
Perhaps he had misjudged her. Perhaps there was something even rarer hiding under all that gold.
Trickster told the people that if they prayed to him, he would find them a suitable leader. The people prayed and left out bowls of sweet milk with herbs. They thought Trickster would find them a worthy emperor, as that was all they had ever known. But at dawn on the third day, they found a woman clad in red standing on the steps of the Ruby Palace. She was their empress, she said, and as the people bowed, Trickster fed on their confusion and lapped up their surprise, sweeter than the milk they had offered.
—KHARIAN MYTH
It took all of the countess’s willpower not to slam the door behind her.
Soaked and seething, she went to the window and peeked around the curtains at the party below. Cayo Mercado was still by the pool, gazing up at the main house with a complicated expression. He had all the fine features of one born to wealth: soft skin, glossy hair, an air of assuredness. And a smile that knew exactly what it did to those it was aimed at.
Of course—of course—he had to turn out to be the Mercado heir. Fate had never been kind to her; she saw no reason why that should change now.
She had actually enjoyed talking to him at the first party. She found his casual mannerisms and blunt speech refreshing after an hour of pointless niceties with the Moray nobility. She had dropped the Mercado name in the hopes that he might know them, that perhaps she could turn him into an ally. She had even been hoping to see him again.
In her room, she changed into a dress of peach and coral, the skirt filled with embroidery work of shells of different shapes. She had been planning on saving this one for the next party; she would have to get another commissioned so that the petty nobles didn’t start whispering about how Countess Yamaa recycled her dresses.
Liesl, her “lady-in-waiting,” bustled into the room after her. “What, may I ask, was that?”
“Don’t start,” she growled, flailing in her efforts to close the dress’s clasp at the back of her neck. Liesl helped her.
“Eager to return to the party?” Liesl asked when she turned back around. She was a couple of years older than the countess and originally from the Rain Empire, pretty and plump with light brown skin and curly chestnut hair. Although Liesl called herself Landless, she was technically only exiled from the Rain Empire after having been caught spying in a nobleman’s estate.
“No, but every second I stand here talking to you is a second I’m not getting closer to the Mercado heir.”
Liesl’s eyes widened, and she ushered her to the vanity table to fix her makeup and tie up her hair. But by the time the countess flew back downstairs, bursting out the front door and breathlessly scanning the glittering crowd for any sign of Cayo Mercado, he was nowhere to be seen.
Finally, she spotted him at the end of the winding path that led to the estate, hailing his carriage. Gritting her teeth, she clutched the skirt of her new dress and hurried to the stairs.
One of the nobles saw her and lifted his drink. “Behold, our fearless countess!” The others around him cheered and applauded.
She forced a smile and started down the stairs. These people only cared about two things: their money and their legacy. She could take money easily enough; any thief worth their salt could. But legacy…That was what would hit Mercado the hardest.
From her vantage point on the stairs, she watched as Cayo Mercado climbed into his carriage, its gilded edges worn and dulled—a sure sign of hard times.
He was in for much harder.
She wished it didn’t have to be him. But wishes, like fate, had never done her any good.
After the party was over, she kicked off her wretched heels and changed out of her dress into a simple outfit of black, her trousers tucked into tall boots and her sleeves long and tapered. She braided her hair and washed off her makeup, stripping away the countess bit by bit. Outside the silks and jewels and rouge, she could finally take a full breath, the relief of coming back up after a long dive.
Downstairs, she found Beetle curled up on a stool in a corner of the kitchens, blowing steam off a big mug of tea Cicada had prepared for her. He was busy washing pots and pans now that the party was over, some of the other Bugs—former Bugs—helping him. The kitchens were warm and smelled of garlic and ginger.
“You told me you could swim,” she scolded, arms crossed. The girl flinched. “Why did you lie?”
“I’m sorry, Silv—I mean, Amaya,” Beetle murmured. No, not Beetle anymore—Fera.
“Shh!” She looked around until she remembered where she was. She still had to remind herself every day that they were no longer on board the Brackish, that they didn’t have to conform to Captain Zharo’s whims.
That Beetle was now Fera and she was now Amaya.
Except that she was also Yamaa: a mysterious and wealthy countess taking Moray by storm.
For a
moment, she thought she might be overcome by incredulous laughter. How, how had she managed to trick so many people tonight? She still felt like the ragged girl who smelled of fish guts, but no one else had seen it; they had seen only a young woman with more wealth than she knew what to do with.
Roach, she thought sadly, her chest tightening, what would you say if you could see me now? It killed her that she might never know.
“How did you end up in the water?” Amaya demanded.
“There were coins at the bottom and I thought I could grab them.”
“You were never trained as a diver. That was incredibly foolish of you.”
And it had been incredibly foolish of Amaya to dive in after her, but the alternative would be Fera drowning, and she couldn’t have that. But now the gentry would be talking about it nonstop; she had already gotten a taste of their hunger for rumormongering as she’d flitted from guest to guest.
Fera whimpered and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Amaya sighed and scratched at her head, hair still damp.
“Look,” Amaya said, “I get it. I really do. But you have to be careful. No one can suspect who we are and where we came from. Remember?”
Fera looked up at her, her small face flushed and miserable-looking. But it softened as she nodded. She trusted Amaya; otherwise, she wouldn’t have joined her.
On the Ledese island where Boon had first taken her, Amaya had forced him to make good on his part of the deal.
“Buy the Brackish,” she’d said. “I want to be sole owner.”
Boon had done just that, using Avi as an intermediary. But to her dismay, Captain Zharo had disappeared as soon as the gold had traded hands.
“It’s just a slight delay,” Boon had told her as she seethed. “You’ll get his blood on your hands one way or another.”
The Water Bugs had been given a choice: try to go home on their own, or follow Amaya to Moray and become part of Boon’s plan until she got enough gold to send them back to their parents with riches of their own. Most of them had followed her, but a few of the older ones had taken off, barely pausing to thank her for their freedom. She couldn’t blame them.
