Snake Heart

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Why did you leave?” he whispered.

  He hadn’t meant to let the question slip out, nor would he have wished the words to be so soft and full of emotion. It seemed to surprise Pey Lu, too, who had been lecturing in a very matter-of-fact tone.

  She leaned back in the chair, stroking her chin as she regarded him. “Does it matter? After all these years?”

  He sensed that she did not want to discuss it, but he couldn’t keep from saying, “I’d like to know. Father never spoke of it. Of you. And I don’t remember anything. Falcon remembers a bit, but...” He shrugged helplessly.

  Pey Lu looked toward the porthole. “You know I was a warrior mage and an officer in the military long before you were born. I loved the war. You’re not supposed to love war, but I loved the challenge of pitting myself against others. Wizards, warriors, anyone. I liked finding ways to win, even when the odds were against us. And then the war ended. I was in the army, and we still practiced and drilled, but it wasn’t the same. It was a game, not the real thing. There weren’t lives at stake. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And then I got that letter from my father.” Her mouth twisted in an expression of distaste.

  “Your father?” Yanko did not know her side of the family as well as his father’s. Many of them had moved out of the province after she had left, dishonored and distrusted, the same as the White Foxes.

  “A young man I’d served with in the war approached him and asked to marry me. I barely remembered him. He was one of many officers that I met during those years. I served on many ships, being transferred to the front lines, to wherever they needed me most.”

  “My father,” Yanko said quietly.

  It had been an arranged marriage? He hadn’t realized that. He shouldn’t be surprised, as it was common among moksu families, but Father had never mentioned it, at least not in his hearing.

  “Yes. My own father was proud of me but had this notion that women were supposed to settle down and make babies, not hurl fireballs at enemies. With the war over, he agreed to arrange the marriage. He believed we would be a good fit, based largely on the White Fox clan name rather than any real knowledge of your father, I later learned.” There was that twist to her mouth again.

  “I think Father adored you,” Yanko said, feeling that should somehow have helped.

  “I had a lot of adoring admirers.” She looked away from the porthole and back at him. “That happens when you become a war hero. It might happen if you succeed in wresting that lodestone away from me and dumping it in the Great Chief’s lap.” Her eyes narrowed, a warning in the expression, a warning that she had no intention of letting that happen, and that she was speaking in the hypothetical. “You would have adoring admirers that want to marry you too.”

  “That would be... unprecedented.”

  She snorted. “Give it time. You’re a handsome boy.”

  Yanko resisted the urge to rub his chin, with a few nascent hairs poking through after a couple of days without shaving. He wished it would happen with Arayevo, but he didn’t know if honor and fame would be enough to make her want to choose him over the sea.

  “So you never wanted to be there?” he asked.

  “No. For my parents’ sake, I gave it a try, but I was restless, and I was—let’s be frank—a horrible mother. Patience isn’t one of my virtues, and back then, my temper was even shorter. Babies are rather fragile, you know. You’re not supposed to get frustrated when they’re crying all night and lash out at them.”

  Yanko stared, not knowing what to say. As with the lecture on magic, she spoke matter-of-factly, and he couldn’t tell if any old pain or regret lay beneath the words.

  She did lower her voice when she continued. “Trust me, whatever you think, you were better off without me around. You would have hated me, and I’d already come to resent—” She shrugged and spread a hand, palm up.

  “Me?”

  “You boys, your father. My father. I figured it was better to leave before something happened—before I did something that would be even more inexcusable than becoming a pirate.” The wry twist to her lips suggested she knew exactly how inexcusable their people found that. “I doubt many would have even cared about that if I hadn’t ended up being rather good at it.”

  “Good?” He almost choked on the word. “You’ve killed hundreds. Thousands? How many ships have you sunk?”

  “Many. As many Turgonian craft as Nurian. Our people should thank me for that. It’s always been the challenge that’s appealed, not the booty, and Turgonians field cleverer strategists on their military vessels. Our people rely too much on magic. We idolize powerful mages rather than the handful of brilliant strategists we’ve had over the years. The ways of Shri Nah Strong Bear and Kahlee Black Badger should be studied in schools. Instead, our military academy teaches that your ship is powerless if it doesn’t have a Sun Dragon or a Water Wolf on board, standing at the bow with magic ready to unleash.”

  She herself had come from the Water Wolf line, Yanko recalled, a clan with a history of powerful magic users, even if it hadn’t been quite so close to the Great Chief’s family as the White Foxes.

  “Why kill them at all, though?” Yanko asked. “Turgonians, Nurians, anyone. When the war was over...” He groped for a way to ask why she couldn’t control her urges and be happy with the training exercises and practices. To pursue violence needlessly—at the least, it was selfish. In her case, it was homicidal. If not genocidal.

  “The tools created to thrive in that war remain. Yanko, you don’t teach a dog to hunt rabbits, then condemn him when he brings home a kill, just because the stewpot is already full.”

  “But you’re not a dog. You’re a human being.”

  Another wry twist to her lips. “I shall thank you for such a magnanimous compliment.”

  “Those villagers on the island, and the Kyattese in the cave,” Yanko said slowly. “They weren’t strategists who could challenge you. Why kill them?”

  “I did not. Some of the men did.” She waved vaguely toward the deck. “These aren’t soldiers. Denying them their sadistic pleasures ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. And if they slaughter a village or two now and then, it adds to the Midnight Fleet’s gruesome reputation. Makes it less likely for unworthy foes to waste my time and their lives by challenging us.”

  He swallowed. She spoke so casually. Honestly, he supposed, but it chilled him. He would rather have had an excuse. A suggestion that events sometimes got out of control and that she regretted it. Instead, he didn’t think she regretted much of anything. She had no conscience whatsoever. Had she been born that way? Or had the army inoculated it in her? Would the army have done that to him after five years at Stargrind and years more serving?

  Yanko rubbed his face, afraid of the answer, of the idea that he could become a cold-hearted killer, someone who stopped caring about the rabbit that went in the stewpot.

  Pey Lu stood up and gestured to the door. “Do you want to work on fireballs? We only have a few days until we reach our destination.”

  “Our destination?” He unfurled his legs and slid off the bunk. No matter what he thought of her choices, he would be a fool to pass up a chance to learn magic from her.

  “I looked over the Mausoleum Bandit’s journal before your friends stole it. He kept his valuables on Stone Key Island.”

  Had that been the name of the place with the village? He hadn’t even known.

  “The lodestone, however, was something he intended to use soon. And he would have done so if his ship hadn’t been caught and sunk. According to his journal, it and some other tools that would prove useful for the quest are on another island.”

  She did not name it. She had been more open with him than he expected—perhaps than he wished—but she still saw him as a competitor in this matter. Not unwisely so. He shuddered to think of some future in which they led opposing fleets and had to fight each other. That might have happened if he had gone into Stargrind and become an officer in the arm
y. And would she have seen him as one of those foolish Nurian officers who studied magic instead of naval tactics and military strategy? Likely so.

  Yanko followed her out of the cabin. Today, he would learn from her, but for the sake of his people—and his family’s honor—he would have to find a way to escape and complete his mission. If he truly wanted to redeem his clan’s honor, and his own, he should find a way to kill her and end her reign on the high seas. At the least, he should deliver her to the authorities at home and let them figure out a way to incarcerate her.

  “One mission at a time, Yanko,” he muttered under his breath as she led him up to the top deck. “One mission at a time.”

  Chapter 15

  The fireball struck the waves, briefly highlighting the piece of driftwood floating behind the ship before extinguishing itself, smothered in the dampness. The log wasn’t so much as charred. Yanko sighed at it. He had been somewhat impressed with the size of his fireball, but flinging one through the air did not do much good if it failed to affect the target. Granted, a target soaked from years floating around in the ocean tended to repel fire.

  “You believed it would go out as soon as it struck the water, so it did,” Pey Lu said from behind his shoulder.

  Yanko grimaced.

  She had been chatting with her Turgonian lover, who spent more time on this ship— the Prey Stalker, as Yanko had learned—than on the one he supposedly captained. He had been hoping she hadn’t seen his failures. At least her voice remained calm and instructional; she did not sound irritated or impatient. After she had confessed to having a temper, he’d been worried she would find his abilities disappointingly substandard. He kept telling himself that her opinion did not matter, but it was hard not to want to impress a parent, even a parent he’d had no memory of before meeting her on the island. He wished there were some rocks so he could cause an earthquake—surely as impressive a feat as lighting a log on fire—but the floor of the ocean and the nearest rock lay a mile below. Even if he could affect earth that far away, he doubted anything would be felt up here.

  Now and then, a whale or another large sea creature swam past. He could have communicated with them, but to what end? Sending a kraken to crush the ship he was on wouldn’t be a good idea. Besides, four other ships sailed to the side of this one, the two that had been at the battle and two more that had joined Pey Lu en route.

  “Should I not have believed that?” he asked. “Wasn’t it inevitable?”

  “You burn hydrogen molecules floating in the air to create fire. You have even more fuel down there.” She gestured at the ocean, and a wave in the distance caught on fire, the flames dancing on the surface.

  Yanko shifted uncomfortably, sensing fish being burned alive. Whether intentionally or not, she had caught a school floating near the surface. At least in the air, one rarely had to worry about more than the occasional insect being caught by flame.

  “Don’t think,” she reminded him. “Just do what you’ve already trained your body to do.” She pointed at the driftwood log, which she had left for him to practice on.

  Feeling frustrated, and annoyed by the needless killing, even if only fish had died, Yanko scowled as he concentrated. First, he warned nearby creatures away from that log, then he did his best to create a fireball, one that wouldn’t be doused by the water. He gripped the railing with both hands and launched it with his mind.

  A startlingly large fireball formed in the air and hurtled toward the log. It lost its spherical shape when it struck the water, but it was as if oil lay atop the waves. It spread out, burning with great enthusiasm, flames leaping ten feet and more into the air. A surge of alarm went through Yanko as he imagined a chain reaction spreading across the ocean. The thought of losing control made his concentration lapse, and the flames died out. Not oil, he told himself. Something that would only burn with the help of magic.

  “That never stops looking odd,” Gramon said.

  Pey Lu laid her hand on the back of Yanko’s shoulder for a second. “That’s one log thwarted. Good.”

  The log? He’d almost forgotten about it. It had been charred down to half its size and still smoldered, its blackened surface less visible against the dark water.

  “Why—” Yanko paused, glancing back at Gramon. The Turgonian wasn’t as loathsome as a lot of the other pirates—even now, two shirtless brutes were engaged in a knife fight farther up the deck, and it did not look like practice. Still, Yanko felt uncomfortable asking questions about magic around him. He did not want to be mocked by strangers.

  Pey Lu must have guessed at his reticence—or maybe she read his thoughts—for she waved Gramon away and stepped closer. “Yes?”

  “I’ve noticed lately that it’s when I’m angry or frustrated that things come more easily. That’s the opposite of what I’d always been told, and the opposite of what I experienced most of the time when I was growing up.” Yanko waved toward the remains of the log. “I was annoyed.”

  “Anger can be the enemy, especially when you haven’t mastered something—most people tend to flail ineffectively and just grow more frustrated. I think that with you, it is as I’ve said, and you already understand the basics—even more than the basics, as you’re more advanced than you seem to believe. Getting angry makes you forget to think and analyze. Your brain is getting in the way of your effectiveness. In addition to your tendency to analyze, you worry about the consequences a lot. Did you really warn the fish to get out of the way before you flung that?”

  “There’s no reason to kill needlessly,” he said sturdily.

  “They’re fish.”

  “I feel it when they’re in pain.”

  Her brow creased. Yanko braced himself for the disappointment or the mocking that Father had given him when he had long ago explained why he could train hounds for the hunt, but he couldn’t join in himself.

  “That may be why you struggle with fire, then.” Pey Lu rubbed her chin as she considered him.

  Yanko tried not to feel like she was pondering how to make use of a hound afraid of the hunter’s gun.

  “Fire kills,” she said. “That’s how it is.”

  “Yes. One could throw warning shots over an enemy’s head, but they would grow fearless, I assume, if you never hit them. And I don’t think I could...” His gaze drifted to the charred log, now growing distant as the ship continued sailing away. He couldn’t do that to people. He still had nightmares about the kraken.

  “They do, indeed.” Pey Lu lowered her hand and drummed her fingers on the railing. “If you go through Stargrind and join the army, your instructors will do their best to desensitize you to that, especially since you have the potential to be very powerful. They’ll want you to be a pure weapon.”

  Very powerful? Clearly she hadn’t seen him fumbling through the entrance exams. Though he wondered now if she was right, if he had more potential than he realized, and it was his mind that was getting in his own way.

  “Is that what they did to you?” For the first time, he wondered if his mother’s indifference to human life was natural. Had she been born not feeling empathy for others, or had that been inculcated by her superiors? By instructors who had seen her potential and wanted to turn her into a pure weapon.

  He shifted uneasily at these new thoughts. Falcon hadn’t been turned into a heartless monster in his two years in the army, but he wasn’t a mage. Nuria had always considered foot soldiers to be for little more than defending those who could manipulate the mental sciences.

  “There was a war coming,” Pey Lu said. “They knew they would need weapons equal to the Turgonians’ technology.” She shrugged, not seeming bothered by the past. “I don’t remember ever caring one way or another about fish, so I doubt I was the challenge for them that you would be. Some animals can be broken and some are destroyed when it’s attempted. They might do that to you without even realizing it.” She frowned at him—disturbed by this image?

  It certainly disturbed him.

  “There a
ren’t any wars with Turgonia on the horizon,” he said, hoping that was true. What would happen if Dak found that lodestone before Yanko and took it to his homeland? Wouldn’t his people fight for that continent? Especially if it was lush enough to make excellent farmland?

  “There’s a war even closer than the horizon,” Pey Lu said, “on our home soil.”

  “The rebel factions.” Why did everybody know more about what was going on at home than he did? What worthless newspapers he and his uncle had been reading.

  “I predict the Great Chief will be removed or killed within the year. And then? There are too many factions that want to try their hand at ruling the nation. The war for supreme power over it could be long and bloody. It could end up with the Great Land being divided into smaller countries, countries that would then be easy prey for other nations, if they couldn’t band together.” She shrugged, as if it mattered little to her. “Stargrind will be rushing candidates through and yes, making tools effective for war.”

  Yanko would have been entering the first year of his schooling by now if he had passed those exams and gone away to the academy. Was his mother right? Would they already be trying to break him?

  “Work on air and telekinetics,” she suggested. “Mind magic would be useful too. That can be more powerful even than fire. Fire can make a man run away and scream. Ideas can make him turn his entire army in another direction.”

  Mind magic. She meant manipulation. Yanko could see throwing the image of flames into a captor’s mind for self-defense purposes, but he did not care for the idea of manipulating people to do as he wished. He supposed that in some circumstances, it would be better than incinerating someone. “I could stand to improve my telekinetics skills. You said that was one of your specialties?”

  “Much more than telepathy and mind-to-mind skills, yes.” She nodded toward the waves. “I need to see where you are. Lift that kelp up and plop it on the deck.”

  “Kelp? You trying to get the cook to pull out a new recipe?” Gramon asked, walking back over, a spyglass in his hand. He tilted his head, silently requesting a word with Pey Lu.