Oh, would it truly hurt me to humor him? “Mephi,” I said. “Mephisolou doesn’t quite roll of the tongue.”
“I think it sort of does,” Alon said, a smile returning to his face.
“You call him what you like then. Mephi,” I said, offering a hand to the creature. I expected him to sniff my fingers or to bite them, but he only lifted his paw and placed it on my hand – like we were two old friends greeting one another in the street. A shiver went up my arm, raising the hairs up to my shoulder. I pulled my hand away gently and ventured to stroke the fur on his head. All solemnity vanished. Mephi leaned into my touch so hard that he fell over, his body curling on the deck. He murmured like an old woman digging into an especially satisfying stew.
I laughed – and I’d not expected to laugh for a long time after Deerhead Island. As if my laugh had startled him, Mephi jumped to his feet and scrambled back to Alon, rolling into him and grabbing at his fingers again. The boy giggled. And then, quick as a storm rolling in, he began to sob. “Is it gone? Is it really all gone?”
The people. Trapped. I swallowed, aware of Alon’s eyes on me. “Aye, I think it is.”
He sobbed all the harder. But it would be worse if I’d hidden the truth from him. Reality was a harsh mistress, but it was one that could not be denied.
Mephi curled at the boy’s side, patting him with his paws as he cried. And then the creature stared at me.
Was he expecting me to do something? I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said. The wind whipped my words away. If Alon and I were old friends, and he were a young man, I’d take him to a drinking hall and we’d speak all our happy memories of the dead. I’d offer him a sprig of juniper to burn with the body. But Alon was just a boy and I had no juniper sprigs to burn here, nor a body. “Your auntie might have made it out,” I said. This felt like a lie. He didn’t seem relieved by my words. He might have believed me in the initial shock of the quakes, but now, in the water of the Endless Sea, my words had nothing to hide behind. Mephi still stared at me.
“Your auntie was a fierce woman,” I said, raising my voice above the wind. “When I met her, she made me promise to save you. She was afraid for you. She loved you so, so much.”
He’d stopped sobbing, though his voice was thick. “She said she would make me dumplings for my feast. If I lived through the Festival.”
I nodded. “She was making them when I met her.”
Alon dried his tears on his sleeve. “Was it the Alanga? Are they back?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “The Emperor is supposed to be protecting us from them. That’s his job.” Lies, again. At least they felt that way to me.
Alon’s gaze focused on the horizon. East, where his parents lived. “I want to go home.”
And I wanted to get him home. Other boats had passed us by. First the Imperial caravels, eating up their supplies of witstone, and then the Imperial traders, and then common folk who had perhaps inherited a small store of the stuff. I’d dumped an entire two boxes overboard. If I’d left the boy behind, I might have been able to get away with keeping one. No. I’d done a good deal of terrible things in the name of finding Emahla; even so, there were lines I didn’t cross, even when I’d first been at my most desperate. Otherwise, how could I ever face her again? So I puttered across the ocean with just the wind in my sails to move us along.
I checked my navigational charts. The islands were all migrating north-west and into the wet season, but the ones in the Monkey’s Tail moved closer together this time of year. I made some swift calculations, taking into account the islands’ movements. If we were headed east, the isle would be slowly traveling toward us at the same time we sailed toward it. “Get some rest,” I said. “We’ll be there by nightfall.”
The boy fell asleep almost instantaneously, as though he were a construct and I’d embedded this command in his bones. Mephi curled into his side. I hoped the boy’s parents didn’t mind that I’d foisted a pet onto them.
I was as good as my word, though I always was. We docked at nightfall, just as the sun had slid below the horizon. I waved away the biting bugs that seemed to appear once the sun disappeared and moored my boat. The trade construct at the docks didn’t give me much trouble. Oftentimes they’d look from me to my boat, to me again when I declared no goods. But if a construct could get tired, this one was tired. It accepted my docking fee with a snap of its beak and told me all was in order.
I had to shake Alon awake. “We’re here,” I said. “You’ll have to tell me how to get to your parents’ home.” He nodded at me and pried Mephi loose from his side. “Aren’t you taking him with you?”
Alon yawned and shook his head. “Mephisolou wants to stay with you.”
“Mephi should be with other Mephis,” I said. It was fine by me if the boy wanted to keep him as a pet, though I couldn’t speak on behalf of his parents. I couldn’t keep a pet aboard my ship. Before Alon could protest, I scooped up the creature, strode onto the dock and knelt. I lowered Mephi into the water, making sure he was awake and could swim. He flipped onto his back in the water, watching me. “Go,” I said. “Find others of your kind.” As if he understood, he flipped back over and dove.
I waved the insects away from Alon as I returned to him. “Let’s go,” I said.
Alon gave vague directions. His home was a “little ways” up from the dock and “beside a big tree”. I let him lead us in the dark, crickets singing in the brush all around us. It was busier than usual this time of night, other refugees searching for shelter like sea turtles dragging themselves onto shore, hoping to nest. We finally stopped in front of a modest home with a thatched roof next to a towering banana tree. Despite the vague directions, it seemed to be the correct house. I knocked on the door loudly.
A man answered, his face pale. And then he broke into sobs when he saw Alon. He knelt, grabbed the boy and held him. Beyond him, I saw a woman lying across a bed, her face flushed, sweat beading at her forehead. Her eyes met mine briefly. I knew that hollow look. Shard-sick. Somewhere, her bone shard was in use, and it had nearly drained her life. No wonder Danila had been so desperate to save the boy. I couldn’t hold her gaze.
Instead, I found myself staring at the bald pate of Alon’s father as he buried his head into his boy’s shoulder. “We’d heard,” he said. “We heard what happened.”
I wasn’t sure what to say – I’d brought them back their son, but he’d lost a sister, and was soon to lose a wife. When the man finally drew back, he looked up at me from his spot on the stoop.
“Danila asked me to save him,” I explained. “I owed her a favor.”
“A moment,” he said, before retreating back into his house. He came back with ten coins, all silver. A small fortune for a fisherman. He pushed them on me. I took them graciously. I’d just dumped two boxes of witstone into the sea; I couldn’t be expected to start turning down money. I wasn’t a monk. Even if I were, I doubted the walls of a monastery would save me from the Ioph Carn.
“Join us for a meal? It’s the least we can do, and no one will be sleeping tonight, not after the news.” Alon was kneeling at his mother’s side, stroking her hair with careful fingers.
The hard pallet and blanket on my boat called to me. I might not be able to sleep on it tonight, but I could at least rest my head on something. “I’m setting sail in the morning,” I said, “but thank you. I’m searching for someone. They left on a boat – a little smaller than an Imperial caravel – with dark wood and a blue sail.”
The man was nodding, and my heart jumped. “I saw such a boat only yesterday. It must have stopped for supplies, but if you’re trying to catch it, you’d best hurry. I was out fishing, and the thing skipped right past me, faster than a dolphin sailing the waves. Only one person aboard, as far as I could see. It was headed east. I’d say Nylan.”
Emahla. I’d find my answers. I’d find her – I just needed to catch that boat. “Thank you. And one more thing.” I beckoned him close. “Your son. I rescu
ed him before the Tithing Festival. The records are gone. Scar him in the right spot and no one need know.”
Alon’s father pulled away, his eyes wet with tears. Alon’s shard would never be used to power a construct; he’d never need fear his life draining away at any given moment. “Who are you?”
The disappearance of the island had shaken me to the core, wiped away my levity. But now, I found a measure of it again. Who was this man going to tell? I’d saved his son. “Jovis. Best smuggler in the Empire.” I pulled up my sleeve to show him my navigator’s tattoo – I really, really ought to wrap that.
And then I turned and headed back toward the docks, feeling more pleased with myself than I had in days, the silver coins jingling in my pocket.
I felt quite a bit less pleased with myself when I awoke the next morning, gasping for breath, my jaw aching. I must have clenched it in the night – dreaming over and over of the shaking island, the whole of it sinking into the sea. And I dreamt I was with it, my body sinking into that endless depth, the darkness closing in on me, the weight of the water crushing my lungs. But I was still on my ship, the water calm, my pounding heart louder than the gentle knock of boats against the docks.
The docks around me were full, with more ragged boats anchored offshore. Deerhead Island was no small land mass, and though most people had not escaped, some still had. The Emperor would have to send constructs, soldiers, food. The chaos would at least buy me some respite from the Ioph Carn. If I were very, very lucky, they’d assume I was dead.
Though I would have liked to have left at first light, I needed to start making up for the money I’d lost from tossing the two boxes of witstone. So, after wrapping my tattoo with a strip of cloth, I headed to the market.
The market was no grand, sprawling maze of merchants’ stalls. It consisted of two alleyways, the smell of refuse mingling with the scent of dried peppers, frying goat meat and baked goods. The cramped alleyways were made even more cramped by the unwilling visitors from Deerhead Island, seeking out supplies as they sought out loved ones on other isles. I ran a few quick calculations in my head and stopped at a merchant selling sweet melons. They were grown mostly on the southern isles during the dry season, and since we were headed into the seven-year span of a wet season, they’d become more valuable. And they’d be even more scarce now that Deerhead Island was gone. I bargained down the merchant with ruthless efficiency, though the price was higher than I would have liked. She’d just finished tying the twine around the boxes, and I’d reached to lift them when a voice sounded from my right.
“They did a good likeness of you in the posters. Clever, paying orphans to take them down. But it seems the Empire truly wants to make an example of you.”
A hat. I’d wrapped my tattoo, and had changed from the soldier’s uniform, but I had not worn a hat. I felt the way a rabbit must when it feels the noose about its neck. And like a rabbit, I’d keep kicking. “The eyes,” I said, turning to face the speaker, my melons in hand. “They never get those right.”
Philine leaned against the wall of a building, one foot crossed in front of the other, perfectly relaxed. She wore a sleeveless quilted tunic, showing off the muscled tone of her arms. A short wooden baton hung from her belt, though I knew she hid knives on the rest of her. “I think they made you look more handsome in the posters,” she said.
“Truly? I’ve heard the opposite from most people when I asked.”
She had the most interesting way of rolling her eyes without ever seeming to take them away from me. “Yes. They told me you thought you were funny.”
It wasn’t a good sign that they’d sent Philine after me. She wasn’t flashy; I thought if I looked away from her I might mistake her for a piece of the wall. But her ability to track down the people the Ioph Carn were looking for was the sort of thing you saved for drunken fireside storytelling – when your audience might believe you. I held up my free hand, palm facing her. “I was on my way to see Kaphra.” I glanced around and leaned in. “I have two full boxes of witstone. That should cover my debt for the boat and then some.”
Her hand reached for her baton. “You never should have incurred a debt at all. You were supposed to finish paying it off before you sailed away on it. It’s not a debt; it’s a theft, and you know how Kaphra feels about those who steal from him.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw a man and a woman watching us a little farther down the alleyway, both in quilted tunics, weapons at their sides. More of the Ioph Carn. They weren’t as subtle as Philine was. “He always had another task for me. It would have taken half a lifetime to pay that boat off.” I wasn’t sure why I was arguing with Philine; she had no power to grant me clemency, but it seemed to be buying me time. The woman I’d just purchased the melons from had backed away from the front of her stall at mention of Kaphra, doing her best to blend in with her merchandise. Most merchants paid some dues to the Ioph Carn; perhaps this one didn’t. It was a small isle after all.
“Yes,” Philine said. “And you agreed to those terms.”
“I have my boat moored at the docks,” I told her. “This should only take a moment.”
She considered. Two full boxes of witstone was a fortune, and no matter how angry Kaphra might be with me, he’d welcome the extra supply. Ioph Carn smugglers used a good deal of it when they had to outrun Imperial ships. She turned to beckon to the other two Ioph Carn, and I took the opportunity to run.
I might not have been as bulky as any of the three of them, but I was quick on my feet and knew how to work around a crowd. The two boxes of melons swayed at my side, the twine digging into my fingers. I’d lost the witstone; I couldn’t lose the melons too. The refugees shuffled through the alleyway like ghosts, silent and morose. No one was lively enough to stop me or to mind too much as I wove around them.
Philine would be following, unburdened. And even if she hadn’t seen where I’d gone, she would find me.
The way I saw it, I hadn’t had much choice. Seven years ago, on the morning Emahla had gone missing, I’d seen in the distance – so faint I’d thought it a dream – the dark boat with the blue sails. A blink and it was gone.
I’d tried to find some semblance of a life without her, but no one had wanted to hire a half-Poyer navigator who came without Academy recommendations. When the Ioph Carn had approached me with their offer, it had seemed the best way to get away, to leave my grief behind.
And then, two years ago, I’d seen the boat with the blue sails again, clearer, but fading into the distance faster than I’d thought possible. I’d failed her for five long years, not knowing where to go or what to look for, instead of trusting my own eyes. So I stopped responding to Kaphra and struck out on my own. Two years I’d spent chasing rumors on my stolen boat, both evading the Ioph Carn and sending them what money I could to pay my debt. And now I was closer than I’d ever been and they wanted to stop me?
No. Not this time. I kept my promises.
I wove through the streets, my breath ragged in my throat, my boxes of melons banging against my thigh with each step. Faces flashed by me – old, young, weathered and smooth, but all of them weary. Some faces were still covered in dust from the collapsing buildings, tear tracks cutting their way from eyes to chins. The docks were just a turn around the corner.
A shout went up behind me, and I glanced back before I could help myself. Philine’s lackeys made their way through the crowd far less gracefully than I had. One of them had overturned a bucket of fish, sending a silvered stream into the street.
But where was Philine?
I turned around just in time to see her hurtling out of the corner of my eye. Her shoulder struck mine with an impact that knocked my breath halfway out. The twine around the melon boxes tore from my grasp. It felt like I was watching myself fall from a distance. I struck the ground shoulder first, my hands still trying to get a hold of the melons.
“You don’t have witstone,” Philine said.
“I have melons,” I choked out when I co
uld finally get a breath. “You can sell them for a tidy profit.”
“Not interested,” she said, her voice flat.
“I’ve been sending money to Kaphra, plus smuggler’s fees. I send a cut of all my profits. I don’t want trouble.”
She loomed over me, blocking the rising sun. A thin, black tendril of hair had come loose from her plait, swaying against her cheek with the ocean breeze. The other two Ioph Carn pulled up beside her, breathing heavily. Philine lifted her baton free of her belt. “And that’s why we’re not going to kill you.”
A street never clears so quickly as when the Ioph Carn are about to visit a beating on someone.
Even when the first few blows fell, I was thinking about how I could get away, how I could best them. Pain exploded across my shoulders and back, blotting my vision with red. I grabbed for something, anything, that could get me out of this situation. Only the dirt of the street and a few small, loose stones. I threw them at her anyways, and Philine dashed them away with one gloved hand. “I don’t enjoy this,” she said. “If you stayed still, it would go faster.”
I believed her when she said she didn’t enjoy it. Her fellows didn’t seem to hold the same philosophy as she did. A kick to my ribs sent me sprawling in the dirt, and I caught the glimpse of a grin, white teeth flashing like the underside of a bird’s wing.
Pain layered on top of pain – sharp over dull, bright over bruised. I heard the strikes of Philine’s baton more than I felt them – beating against my ribs like a drumstick, my body an instrument. A person could dance to the beat had they the inclination. The world around me faded, grew muffled, as though I were perceiving everything through a woolen blanket.
“Stop,” Philine said. Her lackeys ceased and took a step back in unison, obedient as any construct. I licked my lips and tasted copper.
“I don’t care if you ever had the witstone you promised me. I don’t care if you ever will,” she said. “I’m here to take you to Kaphra.”
She didn’t wait for me to give any sign that I’d heard her; but then again, I couldn’t have if I’d tried. Even my tongue hurt. I might have bitten it during the beating. I seemed to discover some new injury with every movement.
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 6
