Snake Heart

by Lindsay Buroker

  Kei landed on Yanko’s shoulder, talons sinking in, wings stirring his hair. “Puntak, puntak!”

  Kei sounded delighted to have found him, but Pey Lu’s eyebrows rose at the racial slur, as did the eyebrows of several Nurian pirates within earshot. A big Turgonian pirate snickered to himself.

  “Important people, you say?” Pey Lu asked.

  Yanko had never figured out the exact status of his hosts the night Dak had taken him to the Komitopis homestead, but he was positive they were relatives of the Turgonian president’s Kyattese wife. No need to mention that to Pey Lu.

  “Very,” was all he said, hoping she wasn’t thinking of killing and stuffing the impolite parrot. She probably wouldn’t be worried about threats from the Kyattese, but what if she thought he was some familiar or spy for Yanko? As if Yanko knew how to do anything but dispense food to the bird.

  “Seeds?” Kei bobbed his head and looked at him.

  Didn’t you gorge yourself on seeds and nuts before leaving the island? Yanko asked silently.

  Kei made a contented noise and plucked at Yanko’s hair with his beak. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of affection or if the bird thought he had seeds behind his ear.

  Two barefoot pirates jogged up to their captain. They looked to be even younger than Yanko. What made people turn to this life so early?

  “Pirate bastards,” Kei announced, “pirate bastards.”

  The pirates’ eyebrows flew upward. Eyebrows had a tendency to do that in Kei’s presence. One boy fingered a cudgel hooked to his belt.

  “Are you telling him to say these things?” Pey Lu asked.

  “No. Apparently, his previous owner taught him some epithets. This is how he greets people. The first one was for me.”

  “Cap’n, do you want us to secure your, ah—” the one speaking frowned at Yanko, a confused tilt to his head, “—prisoner?”

  Yanko wondered if the resemblance was noticeable. Pey Lu’s face was weathered and worn, her beauty lingering but faded. Yanko had no idea if he could claim any beauty—or handsomeness, as he would prefer—but they shared the same black hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn’t sure if he could match other elements of his face to hers, but he had been told by many relatives that he did not look like his father, not the way Falcon did. His features were finer, not unlike hers.

  Pey Lu gazed thoughtfully at him. She had released his arm, but she still gripped a sword.

  “There’s a hole in the roof of the brig,” Yanko said.

  She snorted. “Yes, I understand my cabin shares that feature.”

  She was dry in a way that reminded Yanko of Dak. He was amazed she wasn’t furious, especially when the older man who had reported to her earlier returned to give her a tally of the dead.

  “Seventeen so far, Captain,” he said. “Mostly at the hand of the big Turgonian that was with him.”

  He cast an accusing look at Yanko, one that made him want to look away. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone. He’d just wanted the lodestone. Not for the first time, he wondered if all these deaths and all this destruction would be justified in the end. Assuming he escaped here and found the stone—and he wasn’t sure if he should assume either of those things would happen now—would it truly lead his people to a fertile land that could be used to feed the millions back home?

  “Thanks to your magic, and that of Oskan and Tonsils, we delivered far more damage than we received,” the gray-haired man continued. “Wish we still had Inky though. A healer would be real useful, and he had that ability to shield people too.”

  “We’ll find another healer,” Pey Lu said. “Assuming you all don’t want to retire once we get paid for this one.”

  The pirate looked wistful. “Retirement sounds nice right now.”

  Pey Lu said nothing to agree.

  “Uh, the prisoner, Cap’n?” one of the youths asked.

  “I’ll question him myself.” Pey Lu pointed toward the stairs. “Let’s chat, Yanko.”

  A surly part of him wanted to tell her not to use his name, or at least to call him White Fox or Honored Enemy. He didn’t want to be her friend. Not that she had indicated she wished that. He didn’t see how she could after he had been responsible for the deaths of so many of her people. Even if human lives meant nothing to her, he had also broken into her cabin and stolen that journal, something she must believe valuable since she had hand-carried it back to her ship. Maybe she was pretending to be reasonable with him in the hope that he would put up less of a fight when it came to answering her questions.

  A touch of magic on his shoulder propelled him toward the stairs. It didn’t hurt—it was just a nudge—but it reminded him that, whether she sounded reasonable or not, he was her prisoner.

  Chapter 13

  Yanko twiddled his thumbs while sitting on a bunk in the cabin next to the one his team had come up through during their earlier incursion. Kei perched on the back of a chair that had been on the floor when Yanko entered. It wasn’t a guest cabin, if pirate ships even had such a thing, and clearly belonged to someone—a weapons holster hung on a hook and clothing stuck out of a drawer. A tray on the desk held a collection of gaudy rings. Yanko had the uneasy feeling that the cabin might belong to someone who had died. Why else would he be placed here, if not because nobody else needed it now? It was located adjacent to the captain’s cabin, but Yanko doubted Pey Lu worried he would escape. She hadn’t bothered to tie him up, and he sensed that there wasn’t a guard outside the door. They had sailed away from the island a while ago, so where would he go, even if he did escape?

  He hoped that Dak was following along in the underwater boat, but that was no guarantee. As soon as Yanko had been left alone, he had searched with his mind, hoping to feel Dak, Arayevo, and Lakeo out there, alive and safe. But wherever they were, they were too far away for him to sense.

  If Dak had deciphered that journal and found directions to the lodestone, he would have gone after it. Even though he had been openly skeptical when he learned what the artifact could supposedly do, his government would surely rather the Turgonians have it than the Nurians. Arayevo and Lakeo might have argued to go after Yanko, since neither of them had any interest in the lodestone, but would they have been persuasive? It wasn’t as if they could overpower Dak and pilot the underwater boat themselves. Even if Arayevo had experience with sailing now, it was not the same thing. Would Lakeo care about helping Yanko, after she had made away with a pile of coins? Maybe she was even now leafing through one of those Polytechnic brochures and picking out her classes.

  Yanko touched his chest, where the prince’s letter still nestled in an inner pocket, between his undershirt and his silk tunic. It was amazing that it hadn’t fallen out, given the craziness of the night and the repeated water dousing. The pirates had removed his gear and searched it, but they hadn’t patted him down fully back at the waterfall. He hadn’t taken the letter out since his clothes had dried. Maybe the ink wouldn’t even be legible after being wet multiple times.

  His stomach growled. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. Before they had gone to the island the night before, he was sure.

  Kei squawked. “Chips? Seeds?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any.” After all the dips Yanko had taken into water, he couldn’t even produce crumbs from within his pocket.

  Kei shared a memory of a basket full of chips on a clay tile counter. Yanko recognized it as the Komitopis’ kitchen and wondered if the parrot missed his home.

  “We’re a long way from there, my friend,” he said softly. “We’re prisoners right now.”

  Kei thought of a bamboo cage with parrots in it. He understood more than Yanko would have thought an animal could.

  “Exactly.”

  Two knocks sounded at the door, and it opened before Yanko could do more than wonder if the person would leave him alone if he said go away. Not that he necessarily would have. He had been in the cabin with nobody but Kei for company for hours while the ship had undergone
repairs and set sail to wherever its next destination was. He could sense some things with his mind, but he couldn’t hear conversations, and he was curious about where they were going. Had Pey Lu read the journal before they’d found it and already gotten an idea of where the lodestone might be hiding?

  She was the one to walk into the cabin, accompanied by the gray-haired Turgonian who had swatted her on the back—or maybe that had been the butt—at the waterfall. He wore a fresh scar across his cheekbone and looked tired. Pey Lu must have been up all night, too, but she appeared energized rather than enervated, her eyes bright as she strode in and considered him. She reminded him uncomfortably of Arayevo.

  “Pirate bastards,” Kei announced cheerfully, “pirate bastards.”

  “Is that greeting for me or for you?” the man asked. Gramon, that was his name.

  “I know who my parents are,” Pey Lu said mildly.

  “For me then. Wonderful.” Gramon cracked his knuckles, eyed the bird, and then eyed Yanko.

  Yanko tried to appear calm, not moving from his cross-legged position on the bunk, but it occurred to him that the Turgonian might have been brought in to punish him if he didn’t answer questions to Pey Lu’s satisfaction. The man looked to be in his fifties, but like Dak, he still appeared fit and muscular. Turgonian bloodlines seemed to breed nothing but burly warriors who were capable of decapitating enemies well into their sunset years.

  “You don’t know who your father is, Gramon?” Pey Lu asked. “That explains much.”

  “Oh, I know who the warrior-caste street licker was. He’s the one who refused to acknowledge me or my mother.”

  “It’s good that you’re not bitter about it, fifty-odd years later.”

  “Turgonians like to keep their bitterness close. It fuels aggressiveness.”

  “And here I thought that aggressiveness was a result of the poor rations served to your soldiers.”

  “At least our soldiers get rations,” Gramon grumbled. “I’ve heard your people are surviving on rice.”

  Pey Lu shrugged indifferently. “We’re small people. Rice is enough.”

  As before, Yanko did not know what to make of their playful relationship. It was at odds with what he imagined being normal for thieves and cutthroats.

  “Are the Turgonians the ones paying you to look for the lodestone?” Yanko asked, on the chance that he might get some free information before they realized what he was up to.

  Neither person answered his question, though they did look at him. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spoken and reminded them he was there.

  “We’re the ones asking the questions, boy,” Gramon said, then nodded at Pey Lu. “Did you want me to twist his arms behind his back so that he whimpers or just stand threateningly by the door?”

  Pey Lu hooked a thumb on her weapons belt, one laden with two pistols, a long knife, and an ammo pouch. “This is my son, Gramon.”

  The big Turgonian’s jaw grew slack. He looked back and forth between Pey Lu and Yanko a few times before recovering his composure and saying, “I’m not sure that answered my question. He killed Jantz and Fish-Eye and a lot of others.”

  “I suspect your Turgonian counterpart did the killing,” Pey Lu said. “He’s just a boy. Why are you working with a couple of Turgonians, Yanko?”

  “A couple?” he mouthed before he realized she must have glimpsed Lakeo and assumed that height and those muscular arms made her Turgonian.

  Pey Lu took a step toward the chair, considered Kei, then sat on the end of the bunk instead. The closeness felt strange, as if she was coming in to ask him how his studies were going, as he went over homework from bed. She gazed at him, her eyes holding his. She’d asked the question casually enough, but there was an intensity to that gaze. She expected him to answer the question, this question and others, he was certain.

  Interestingly, she seemed to be blaming Dak for the mess that Yanko and his team had caused. A part of him was tempted to let her go on doing that, especially if it would mean her sparing his life or not punishing him with arm twisting—he glanced at Gramon, who had settled for leaning threateningly beside the door, his armory of weapons on display. But letting Dak take the blame would not be honorable.

  “They are—were—working for me,” Yanko said.

  “You’re in command of a veteran Turgonian soldier?” Pey Lu asked.

  Yanko looked toward Gramon. “Does that not ever happen?”

  “Not usually unless you save the Turgonian’s life a few times,” she said. “They aren’t fond of Nurians.”

  Gramon grunted, but did not otherwise comment.

  “Also, eighteen year olds usually don’t command anyone,” she added.

  Yanko lifted his chin. “We are—I am moksu. Command is expected.”

  “Not at eighteen. Did you apply to Stargrind?”

  Yanko had a hard time keeping his chin up at that question. Her opinion shouldn’t mean anything to him, nothing at all, but he did not want to confess to his failure at the entrance exams. She probably already thought he was a puny excuse for a magic user, based on how easily she could push him around.

  “I applied,” he said.

  “But didn’t get accepted?” Her face remained neutral as she asked questions, and he couldn’t tell if she was disappointed.

  He should have admitted that hubris had thwarted him, but it wasn’t fair to admit to that without explaining other things, things she was responsible for. “Our family is not loved in Nuria anymore. It was not—” a fair test, he almost said, but it hadn’t truly been unfair. He found it difficult to lie with her gaze on him. She might even know if he lied. Who knew what she could do besides flinging fireballs? “My preparatory schooling was insufficient. Father couldn’t get many tutors to visit, and they wouldn’t stay for long. I mostly learned from books.”

  He wanted to squirm out of sight as soon as the confession escaped. It sounded like whining. What kind of war prisoner whined to his captors? To pirates? If Dak had been the one being questioned, he would have stood here in silence, glaring balefully at his interrogators. Yanko wasn’t even being interrogated. He was sitting on a bunk with his mother, being asked about his life.

  Once again, Pey Lu’s face was hard to read. Maybe she was disappointed. Maybe she didn’t care.

  “What’s Stargrind?” Gramon asked.

  Yanko had forgotten he was in the cabin. Being reminded of that did nothing to bolster him. Whining in front of a Turgonian seemed even worse than whining in front of the woman who had birthed him.

  “The academy that trains warrior mages,” Pey Lu said.

  “You go there?”

  “Yes.” She did not smile with nostalgia or look wistful for some bygone era. Maybe she had loathed it. Who knew?

  “Why did you leave?” Yanko asked, surprising himself with the question. He hadn’t thought he cared. Arayevo was the curious one. Maybe Yanko had been as a boy, but he had long ago accepted that his mother had left and simply did not care about any of them. She had never checked on them, and there had been no letters. Even a pirate could have managed to send letters, if she wanted to.

  “Who is the Turgonian man you were with?” Pey Lu asked, ignoring his question.

  He glared back at her, feeling petulant. Didn’t she owe him an explanation? She hadn’t left after Falcon’s birth, but months after Yanko had been born, she had walked away forever. It was hard not to take that personally.

  “I don’t know his full name,” Yanko said. “He’s my bodyguard.”

  Gramon snorted.

  Pey Lu looked at him. “You never saw him, did you?”

  “No,” Gramon said. “I have no idea if he’s anyone but some soldier booted out of the service for beating up an officer, but a Turgonian warrior isn’t going to sign on to be a bodyguard for some Nurian boy.”

  “Do they actually kick Turgonians out of the army for beating up officers?” Pey Lu asked, some of her dry humor returning. “I thought that might be taken as a sign of gum
ption.”

  “It depends how important the officer was. Mangling a lieutenant a little might be all right.”

  This time, she snorted, but her face regained its serious mien as she focused on Yanko again.

  “And the young women that were with you?”

  “Friends from back home.” He wasn’t sure he should be answering her questions, even vaguely, but so far, they did not seem to be anything important. Dak and the others had gotten away. What did it matter now if she had a faint notion as to who they were?

  “And who did you say charged you with the task of recovering the lodestone?” Pey Lu asked.

  “I didn’t.” Yanko had no intention of telling her, either. Unless in doing so, she might be convinced to turn her back on the person who contracted her and join him. Would she? Would the prince consider paying pirates? If it helped the country? He groped for a way to test her. “Someone important, someone who might be able to pay more than your benefactor.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Someone who might be able to clear your name and let you return to Nuria as a citizen, not as a wanted criminal.”

  “That is also doubtful. And I have no interest in returning. Or currying favor with some bureaucrat.”

  “Don’t you miss anything about home?” Yanko asked, though he was starting to get the sense that she might be even more like Arayevo than he had realized. Maybe the sea was home, and she cared nothing for the place she had been born, just as she cared nothing for the family she had been born into—or the one she had married into, for a time.

  “Nothing that would make me sell out those who hired me.”

  “The Turgonians?” Yanko guessed, glancing at Gramon. If that were true, wouldn’t Dak have known about it? No, perhaps not. He had spent much of the last year in Nuria. Even though he had checked in with his people on Kyatt, he might not be high enough ranking to know what was going on in the government.

  “The rightful owners of the artifact,” Pey Lu said.