by C. E. Murphy
"I killed the serpent." It seemed like a lifetime ago. Rasim stared at the foot of Asindo's bed, at a map pinned to the wall and at a braided piece of cloth from some distant land. He might someday have the same kinds of things in his own cabin, when an hour ago he'd thought he would spend a lifetime rebuilding the Ilyaran fleet. Small thoughts of that sort helped him say, "I did it in Kisia's memory," without tears sliding down his cheeks.
That was as much as he dared admit, though, so he changed the subject as harshly as he could: "The fleet, is it all right? Everyone's safe? Where have you been? I made Donnin sail north—!"
"We're four ships down," Asindo said after a moment. "We lost four score sailors, with that many more too hurt to work. It would have been worse, without your ideas. We fled," he said frankly. "We thanked you for your sacrifice and we sailed north at full speed. We spent two weeks in the Northeners' capital."
"But I was there," Rasim said dully. "Only a few days later. You weren't there."
"You undershot," Asindo said with odd gentleness. "You visited Hongrunn, lad. Their second city, not their first. It's a day's sail farther south. We left Ringenstand with the tide the day we learned you were there, but we missed you in Hongrunn. We've been on your rudder all the way south."
Dull surprise leaked through Rasim. He hadn't asked. Not once. He'd never thought to ask what city Donnin's ship had landed in. Not after they'd been met by royalty, not even when he'd been told Lorens and Inga had to correspond with their mother in a different city. It simply hadn't occurred to him.
"You brought up the fog," he said after a while. "On the sea last night. I was trying to, but..."
"We called it up before we saw land," Asindo said. "We wanted to come in unseen."
Hassin, who had remained silent, suddenly couldn't anymore. Teasing delight shot through his voice: "You slew a sea serpent for a girl, Rasim?"
Heat burned from Rasim's jaw to his hairline. "She deserved better than dying shipboard on her first sail."
"Then she's lucky, for she got better than that." Asindo opened his cabin door to say, "He's awake," to someone in the hall.
Kisia crashed into the room and flung herself at Rasim. Her momentum slammed them both against the wall, making Usia grunt with irritation, but Rasim felt no pain as she hugged him. "Keesha?"
"Keesha," she said, "is well and truly dead. I'm Kisia through and through now. Rasim, you scared me!"
"I sca—you were dead! The ship, I saw you, I saw it—! How did—?!" Rasim cast a bewildered, grateful glance at Hassin, whose power had thrust Kisia from one ship to another. "I thought you'd lost her," he said. "When the serpent took down that ship, I thought you lost her."
"I did."
"You—what?" Rasim's gaze bounced back to Kisia. "I know you have talent—"
"A conundrum for the guilds in itself," Asindo said under his breath.
"—but you'd only been studying sea witchery a week. How did you—?"
"I didn't. I don't know what happened, Rasim. The serpent broke the ship and I was in the water so fast I didn't even see it happening before I was drowning. Then the sea rose and scooped me up, shoved me onto the next ship's deck, but they all said it wasn't them."
"A rogue wave, maybe. Siliaria knows that serpent reigned chaos on the seas," said Asindo.
"It felt like magic," Kisia said with a note that suggested they'd argued about it before.
Rasim took her hand, reassuring himself she was still alive, then looked around the crowded little cabin. They were all still alive. A smile unlike any he'd felt in the past month stretched his mouth. Suddenly anything seemed possible, if they had all survived serpents and Northmen and islanders alike. "What's—how did I get on the Wafiya? What happened to Donnin?"
"She's settling in as the lady of the manor," Asindo said a bit dryly. "She thanked us and set us on our way. Kisia and Desimi brought you back to the Wafiya, and we sailed with the Northerners at dawn."
"Dawn?" Rasim blinked, first at Asindo, then toward the blocked-off porthole window. "What bell is it?"
Asindo snorted. "It's tomorrow, lad. You've been asleep for over a day. In my bed, no less, so I'd thank you to get out of it and let me rest."
Rasim's feet hit the floor before Asindo was finished speaking, but the captain laughed. "I'm joking, lad. Don't hurry yourself. You need food, and," he added with a wry look toward the door, "and to tell your tale to the crew. There's no sense in trying to put you back to work until the morning at soonest, and that depends on your strength."
Offended, Rasim said, "There's nothing wrong with my strength."
"You've slept for more than a day. I'll be the judge of your seaworthiness, boy. Kisia, get him to the galley and feed him as much as he can take. He looks half-starved, and I won't have Northerners castigating me for mistreating my crew."
"You have Northerners too?" Rasim had heard Asindo say it before, but hadn't quite realized what it meant. "How many?"
"Just the one ship. If it comes to us needing more, then we've a full war on our hands, and that's—" Asindo broke off with a glance at Kisia and Usia. "It doesn't matter now. Go eat, lad. We'll talk more later."
Chapter 25
The galley crew cheered as Rasim staggered in with Kisia supporting his weight. He'd been wrong about his strength, though he couldn't understand his own exhaustion. The work on Donnin's ship hadn't been hard. He entertained the idea that he had actually called up the thickening fog after hearing screams the night before. That might have exhausted him, though it seemed more likely the fog had come in with Asindo's crew.
Two nights before, not last night. He'd slept a long time. Maybe that was why he was so weary. He just needed food.
He sagged all the more when applause and shouts of glee met his arrival. The head cook, a skinny sailor called Jisik, squeezed through his staff to clap Rasim's shoulder. "Don't look so confused, lad. You're the fleet's hero, through and through, and you're back from the gullet of a serpent besides. You're a hero, Rasim. I've saved you some oranges."
Befuddled but happy, Rasim left the galley several minutes later with enough food for three boys his size, hobbling up to deck to eat in the fresh air.
It happened again on deck, work stopping in the name of applauding him. Heat scalded his cheeks and he ducked his head, delighted and embarrassed at the same time. Kisia patted his back and slipped away to let him enjoy the accolades, though she caught a few elbows in the ribs and good-natured winks as she left him alone. "All for a girl, eh?" someone asked, and Rasim's blush grew even hotter.
"It wasn't like that. Besides, my stupid idea about drowning it in air wasn't working. I had to do something." He hunched over his meal, defensive and also grinning, then offered up chunks of bread and cheese to the crew nearest him. "I can't eat it all."
"Don't be sure." Cersia, the sailor who blew the morning whistle that had started everything, took a hunk of cheese anyway. "You'd be surprised how much you can eat after a day's sleep. You did well, Rasim. But Siliaria's fins, mate, what did you do with the whistle!?"
He blinked at her, dismayed. She laughed aloud, clapping him on the shoulder. "I found it in the crow's nest. For some reason the captain told me to rouse everyone with a shout for the rest of the journey, though."
A tiny smile crept over Rasim's face. "I wonder why."
She grinned again, smacked his arm, and left him to take ribbing and congratulations until he could hardly stand it. Being a hero was less comfortable than he'd imagined it would be. He mumbled, "Anybody could've done it," once, only to have the sailor next to him bark disbelief.
"Anybody bloody well could not have. Who'd think of it?"
"Someone not too smart," Rasim said wryly, and everyone laughed. They didn't disagree, though, and that took some of the puff from Rasim's chest.
Finally Asindo came on deck, his presence clearing away Rasim's flood of admirers and sending them back to work. Equally relieved and disappointed, Rasim made his way to the prow, where he could w
atch and feel the ship's motion without being too much in the way. The water was turning blue again as they sailed south, and the wind was warm. With food in his belly and the ship's hull protecting him from the breeze, he was cozy enough—and still tired enough, it seemed—to drowse.
"You must think you're pretty smart." Desimi's voice was as hard as a foot in the ribs.
Rasim came awake with a startle. Desimi stood above him, arms folded over his chest, short black hair standing in the wind and a scowl pulling the corners of his mouth down. If they weren't actually on board, Rasim was certain he'd have been wakened by a kick, not angry words. He sighed and turned his face against the ship's curved prow. "Actually I think I'm pretty stupid, and really lucky. I should be dead."
"So should half the fleet, but no, you went and saved us all." Rage washed off Desimi with the weight of magic.
Rasim looked up at him in astonishment. "You didn't want everybody to die, did you?" Half a breath later he understood: Desimi had wanted to be the hero. Again, like he'd been when he'd listened to Rasim's command at the docks and begun lifting the waves that would save Ilyara. A laugh choked Rasim's throat. "If I'd thought of throwing you in instead of me I would've done it. Your magic's a lot stronger than mine. You wouldn't have almost died."
His voice hardened, a bitterness he tried to keep buried finally rising to the surface: "You would've killed the serpent and come up out of the sea on a whirlpool, looking like Siliaria's own son, instead of being dragged unconscious from a pool of blood by pirates and getting yourself almost sold to slavers. Goddess, Desimi, what does it take? You're bigger than I am, stronger than I am, and my magic is never going to match yours. Captain Asindo followed your lead at the docks. I saw it, Desimi, I felt it. He didn't take control of the magic until the water had to be lifted free of the harbor entirely. That was your witchery that saved the city."
"It was your idea."
"Ideas are cheap," Rasim snapped. "They don't mean anything without the talent to see them through, and I'm never going to have that on my own."
"I'm never going to have the ideas," Desimi snarled back, then spun on his heel and stalked away, leaving Rasim staring after him in bewilderment.
"He hates that he jumped when you said hop, at the docks." Hassin joined Rasim as Desimi, fierce and lithe as a big cat, leaped to the sails and swarmed up to correct an already perfect knot. Rasim transferred his confused gaze to the third mate, who watched Desimi, not Rasim, as he went on. "It's not your northern blood he hates, though he doesn't realize that. It's your wits. I've watched you grow up together. You're the natural leader, not just with Desimi, but with others. It wasn't just he who jumped when you said to, after all. We all did."
"It was a good idea," Rasim whispered, a little defensive and mostly uncertain.
Hassin chuckled. "Yes, it was. But you're thirteen, and you gave an order that witches four times your age responded to without thinking. Desimi's smart enough to see that, and smart enough to recognize people don't react to him that way."
"They might if he didn't try to push them around so much."
Hassin's mouth twitched again. "Maybe. He wants a fight, Rasim. He wants to be able to defeat you so he knows where he stands."
"I'm not going to fight!" Rasim burst out, then lowered his voice into frustrated intensity. "First, he'd kill me, so what's the point? We both know he'd kill me. But all I want is to sail, Hassin. I just want to be on the sea. Fighting would get me kicked off the Wafiya." His hands made fists and loosened again, over and over. "I wish I could. I wish I could fight him and show him who's stronger, but I wouldn't just lose the fight. I'd lose everything."
Hassin pursed his lips, looking at Rasim. "Not many boys your age see that clearly. Including Desimi."
"It'd be more fun if I didn't," Rasim muttered. "But we're already orphans, Hassin. We already lost everything once. Losing it again is just...stupid. I wish Desimi could see that."
"Maybe he will someday. In the meantime, not fighting is smart."
"Sometimes smart isn't as great as everybody thinks." Rasim slumped against the ship's wall. "I'm just glad he's alive. I'm glad you're all alive, even if he hates me for being alive. And I didn't even get to say goodbye to Donnin. Why did we leave so fast?"
"Mmm." Hassin sat beside Rasim. "Lady Donnin's daughter said there was a Northern spy aboard the ship that had sailed with Donnin, someone who had betrayed you to Roscord. She said you'd told her about the spy." He lifted an eyebrow, asking for verification of Adele's story. After a moment of struggling to remember when he could have possibly told her—the moment he met her, maybe!—Rasim's face cleared and he nodded. Hassin, satisfied, nodded as well. "We thought if there were spies among them, we'd best sail for home on the first tide, in case there's any trouble brewing there. They've a half-night's head start on us."
"A ship of Northerners is going to get looked at funny if they just sail in," Rasim objected. "They haven't been welcome since the fire."
"They're still our trading partners, and they still come, once or twice a year. They won't be turned away."
"And when we show up with another ship full of them?"
"Someone," Hassin said toothily, "will notice. Rasim, are you ready to talk to the captain? I think you have a lot to tell us."
"I think you have a lot to tell me." Only when Hassin looked at him oddly did Rasim think perhaps it had been an arrogant thing to say. He drew breath to defend himself, then let it go. He hadn't intended to end up at the center of a whirlpool, with events speeding around him uncontrollably. But he was there, watching pieces of flotsam flash by. The Great Fire and the smaller one just a month ago, and how they linked to Queen Annaken's death; the sabotaged water supply in Hongrunn; even Donnin's plight with Roscord, which was unrelated but still whipped around Rasim. But maybe it wasn't unrelated after all, because Donnin had promised Rasim an army if he needed one, so she might yet be drawn into the Ilyaran war.
His stomach clenched at that last thought. War. It wasn't a word he'd used, not even in the silence of his mind, but now that it lay there in his thoughts, stark and harsh, Rasim knew it was the only word to use. Cold with the realization, he followed Hassin to Asindo's cabin.
Night fell before he finished telling them about his adventures over the past weeks. They, like he, had confided their suspicions about the Great Fire to the Northern queen, Jaana. They too had garnered support, and Jaana's conviction had increased when she'd learned about Hongrunn's poisoned water supply from Inga.
"I still haven't figured out how to get that salt fountain out of there," Hassin had said then, and all three of them had fallen silent a little while, considering the problem. Then Rasim had begun his story again, remembering to mention Inga's theory about the weakened magic outside of Ilyara, and possibly even within its royal family.
That, he saw, was no surprise to Asindo or Hassin. Rasim felt young and foolish for a moment, wishing he had access to the same information that his older crewmates did. But then, there were many things he knew that most of the others didn't know. Things that not even Kisia, whose observations had set Rasim on this path, didn't know. That was considerably more unfair than Rasim not being privy to observations that had no doubt been made long before he'd been drawn into this intrigue.
Growing up, he thought grumpily, was much more complicated than it seemed from the outside. "What will we do when we get home? Who can we trust?"
"Ourselves," Asindo replied, and it was a long moment before Rasim realized there would be no further answer.
Chapter 26
Ilyara hadn't changed in the weeks Rasim had been gone.
Standing at the ship's prow, watching the golden sandstone city rise up from the river banks, Rasim realized he'd expected it to. He'd never been gone from his home so long before, or experienced so much or changed so much himself while gone. It seemed reasonable to expect that the city would have changed, too.
But it was the same, from the gold-and-white splashed banners th
at flew from the highest points all the way down through the sweeping broad streets and the crystal blue water fronting the city. From this distance there were no visible scars from any fire, not the great one and not the smaller one only a few weeks earlier. People weren't visible as individuals, only as a moving stream in the streets, their clothing bright between yellow walls. The Seamasters' Guild's distinct shape rose up near the water, sending a pang of homesickness through Rasim. It seemed silly to be homesick now, less than an hour from the Ilyaran docks, but he'd hardly had time before.
Footsteps sounded on the deck behind him. He glanced back to see Kisia, and at a slightly greater distance, Desimi as well. Kisia smiled and came forward. Desimi stayed back, but they were both watching Ilyara, and looked the way Rasim felt: surprised the city hadn't changed, homesick, relieved, and somehow sad.
There were duties they should be attending, but no one came to scold them as Rasim turned back to look at the city, too. Maybe the older sailors understood. Maybe it was like this for everyone, the first time they came home for a long sail. Maybe they all stood at the prow, wondering how the city could be so much the same when they felt they had changed so much.
It remained the same until they came around the long spit of earth that protected the city's harbor from the river and sea. Rasim had seen tall masts peeking over the spit, but not until they entered the harbor did he see that they were on Northern ships.
Ships, not ship. There were five Northern ships just within the harbor's mouth, blockading it. Blockading it, their ships linked by booms and chains and casually dangerous warriors who kept watch from the decks, obviously prepared for a fight.
A bark of incredulity ran through the Wafiya's crew. Asindo came forward, raising a hand for silence. Rasim and Kisia fell back from the prow, getting out of the captain's way. They ended up next to Desimi, who muttered what Rasim was thinking: "Nobody can hold the Guild back with a handful of ships. Why haven't we just sunk them?"
"There must be a reason," Kisia breathed. "Maybe Isidri wants them to feel as if they're doing well."