She hid herself on the other side of the moon. Watched Truvos tow her home away and thought everyone would forget her name. Forget she was part of the story.
“Tell me her name. Please.”
You already know it. She kissed his face. Every kheiron knows it.
She shifted into kheiros, unfurled her wings and flew away between moonbeams. Fen sat on the bank of the stream, stunned and staring. The moon had traveled far across the sky now, hovering between the constellations of Nyos and Minos. Showing her face. Reflecting a kheiron’s best side.
No, he thought. No, that’s wrong. We got it backward. The best side is home to the pegaso. And it never shows its face because it’s afraid.
When a kheiron stands in humos, he’s most like his ancestral mother. Vulnerable to attack. Scared and shamed, thinking nobody wants him.
To stand in humos is to honor that nameless pegaso.
“Her name is Humos,” he said.
He stood up on his two sound legs. He flexed his ringed fingers and willed his wings to release.
Trueblood likes a simple purpose. A reason. He’s not going on this voyage for destiny or prophecy, he’s doing it to bring Nye back to someone who’s suffering. That’s the job he wants to do well.
My job can be showing Humos she’s wanted. I can go on this voyage to bring her home.
I can if I’m willing.
Fen il-Kheir looked up at the waning edge of the moon.
And he decided.
Trueblood swam up to consciousness. He was warm beneath the blankets, yet a chill lingered in the air.
He opened his eyes.
Fen sat astride a chair, arms folded on its back, chin on top. His wings filled the cabin, blocking out the bed where the twins lay sleeping. The tiers of feathers, white and silver and perfect, rose and fell gently with Fen’s breath and Trueblood wanted them on his skin.
They stared a long, long time at each other.
The cold coming off the kheiron smelled delicious.
Fen lifted his head and unfolded his arms. He slid the ringos from the thumb of his fivehand. His eyes closed once as his wings retracted, melding back into his body. Without a word, he held out the circle of silver.
“No, you’re free,” Trueblood whispered.
“I know.” His finger extended further, the ringos dangling from its tip. “I’m free and I’m onboard now. I’m part of this now. Part of the quest and part of your crew. If you’ll have me, I’m willing to stay.”
Trueblood freed an arm from the blankets and started to reach. Then he hesitated. “It’s yours.”
“I want you to wear it,” Fen said. “My choice this time. It means something different now.”
Their hands touched, closing around the bit of silver for a breath in. A breath out.
Fen looked away, biting at his lip. “Did you look for me while I was gone?”
Trueblood nodded. “I didn’t like not being able to find you.”
Fen smiled. Then he swung his leg over, got up and put the chair neatly and quietly against the wall. “Amatos, Kepten.”
Until the morning.
“Amatos.”
Trueblood slid the ringos onto his finger. He closed his eyes and breathed in the cold, delicious scent of a kheiron onboard his ship. The scent of choice. Of freedom.
If you’ll have me, he thought. I’m willing.
The lark flew away and didn’t return for three days. Lejo was beside himself. When she finally swooped in, the tender-hearted boatswain gave her a glare that could sour milk. The capricious bird went meek. She flew toward Lejo, but he turned his back. Her chirp cajoled, but when he refused to speak to her, the warble grew contrite. Then she cried.
“Holy Helos, I didn’t know birds cried,” Fen said.
Trueblood looked slightly horrified. “That’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard.”
“Lé, for fuck’s sake, forgive her,” Raj said. “Before everyone’s heart breaks.”
Apologies were made and though the lark continued to take short, mysterious journeys, apparently she and Lejo reached an understanding and the ship didn’t suffer through any more avian weeping.
The Kaleuche arrived in Aybar, one of the few natural harbors on the continent’s east coast that could accommodate her hull.
Trueblood took a page straight from his father’s rulebook and put the ship under a strict curfew. Minoros under thirteen did not leave the ship. Period. Majoros did not go anywhere alone, and the maristos who accompanied them were to be armed.
Reading from another page of the True Way, the kepten declared those with business to conduct in Aybar would do so briskly. Preferably before sunset.
“Here.” Trueblood pulled the ringos off his finger and held it out to Fen. “I know you work alone. I won’t follow you. What happens in Aybar stays in Aybar. Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“While you’re being careful, try not to get yourself killed.”
“Is that an order?”
“A strenuous request.”
“Kepten, I think you’re starting to like me.”
“I hate your guts but the crew enjoys having you around. They won’t get any work done if they’re moping over your corpse.”
“Imagine that.”
“Fly in, do what you have to do and fly the fuck out.” He bit his tongue around the advice not to strut before the job was done. He wasn’t Fen’s father.
“You be careful as well. I notice the crew likes having you around.”
“Most of the time.”
Fen threw up a farewell palm, then loped down the gangplank. He turned back at the bottom and called, “Up the whale’s ass, Kep.”
Trueblood laughed at the sailors’ expression for good luck. “Who taught you that?”
“Melki.”
“I should’ve known.”
“It’s my new favorite phrase.” He waved again. “Up the whale’s ass.”
Trueblood raised a hand with the traditional comeback: “Hope it doesn’t fart.”
Walking back to the aftercastle, he noted the mixed dynamic on the anchored ship. Most maristos and majoros had zero interest in sightseeing in the armpit of the world. Meanwhile, the under-thirteen minoros lined the rails, salivating at the forbidden fruit of Aybar. Nothing made a boy yearn for something like making it off limits.
Eleven was going into the city and taking Sixten with him. On a leash, he half-joked.
“You both mind your Ps and Qs,” Seven said.
“I take Qs,” Sixten said.
Eleven scowled at his older brother. “You know, I’ve been out of diapers some time now.”
“I mean it, Lev. Get into trouble and you’ll be answering to me and Mami.”
This was no empty threat. Even when these brothers were thousands of miles from home, their mother’s presence loomed large. A woman who’d borne and raised nineteen children did not suffer horseshit gladly. One message falcon reporting bad behavior and her grown boys would get the business end of her wooden spoon when they arrived back home.
“Give me the strap over the spoon any day,” Seven said.
Ikharus-Lippé True had always brought this famous matriarch a small gift from his travels. Now Trueblood knew why. He’d have to find a little something for her before they returned to Valtourel.
Accompanied by Raj, he made his way through the teeming city.
I-and-you-without-Lejo is a very different feeling than I-and-you-without-Raj, he once wrote in his most private journal. Alone with Raj, there’s always the possibility of finding incredible fun, but also the possibility of getting into trouble.
Raj stopped short and put a cautionary forearm across Trueblood’s path. Mumbling, “Careful,” as a horse-drawn wagon thundered by, ignoring the dismayed cries of pedestrians.<
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As they moved on, Raj’s eyes were everywhere at once, consulting the map, memorizing the route, pinpointing not only their location but the whereabouts of every person in a ten-foot radius. Watching for hazards. And always keeping Trueblood at the center of his gaze.
The kepten had never walked along holding hands with Raj. Not once in any city, anywhere, ever. Still, he’d never not felt the pilot’s solid and dependable presence, exactly where he needed it to be. Whether at Trueblood’s side, or a step ahead or behind, Raj was always and reliably there. And in a place like Aybar, Trueblood preferred his hands to be free.
“Gods, it stinks,” Raj said, skirting piles of trash, offal, human and animal refuse. Rats were everywhere, walking down the middle of streets like they owned the place and giving you dirty looks for being in their way. Stray cats and dogs were in the hundreds and it was a good thing Lejo was behind on the Kaleuche. Trueblood would never get him out of here empty-handed and Gods knew what kind of dirt and disease the creatures would track onto the ship. They’d barely made it past the wharves and already he felt filthy.
Get in and get out, he thought, lengthening his stride and shouldering his way through the crowd. “What’s this place we’re going to?” he asked.
“One of the House Tru hostels. The giantword is loĝigos.” Raj looked back and grinned. “I only know that because Abrakam never misses an opportunity to educate.”
“Wouldn’t it be the most obvious place to hide spice?” Trueblood said.
“Sometimes things hidden in plain sight are overlooked.”
“Thank you, I feel much better now.” Trueblood tightened his grip on the sword at his belt and flexed both calves to feel the knives sheathed in his boots. Raj was similarly armed.
No heroics, no trouble. Get in and get out.
The map’s route led them further into the city. Along streets where the houses on either side leaned precariously forward, turning the thoroughfares into pens. Little statues of Minos were built on corners and stoops and bovine faces carved into any malleable surface.
“I don’t see any minotaurs,” Trueblood said.
“I think they mostly live underground,” Raj said. “Héjo, I see one. Just past that tavern on the left.”
Trueblood tried to keep it to a glance and not stare. He’d gone his whole life in the presence of horsefolk, taking their existence for blind granted. But his mind refused to process a human body with a bull’s head. Looking at this impossible and revolting hybrid, he finally understood the scholars who lost their minds trying to fathom kheirons.
One of your kind killed my mother, he thought. Killed her for the keys to the Nye vault. We had to divide up what was left of the spice and hide it all over the world. Now here I am to get the last of it. But I could kill you while I’m in the neighborhood. Exact a little revenge of my own. I have the right.
The thought filled his mouth with metallic relish and for a twisted moment, he imagined the bull’s head mounted on the wall of his study.
“Easy, Pé,” Raj said. “Get in and get out, remember?”
Almost regretfully, Trueblood shook his thoughts free of the vendetta. “Let’s go,” he said.
“It’s down this way. At the end of this street.”
But nothing was at the end of the street.
Except a crater in the ground and a few charred beams.
“Hold my fucking horses,” Raj said.
As if approaching a dead kraken, they walked toward the remains of the loĝigos and peered down into what used to be the foundation. A group of wretched individuals in rags looked back up at them.
“Salu,” Raj said. “What happened here?”
The band of unfortunates slinked back into a corner, shaking their heads and mumbling.
Trueblood took his hand off his sword and showed both empty palms. “We’re strangers to the city but we know this was a loĝigos. House Tru owned it.” Given his appearance, it was pointless to pretend he wasn’t a member of the dynasty in question. “I had people here. What happened?”
“Giantsbled went away long time ago,” one fellow said.
“Went where?”
The man shrugged. “Them just left.”
“Maybe ten years,” a toothless woman said. “And not gradual. Them all left at once and the loĝigos sat empty.”
Ten years. Trueblood was seven-almost-eight when Alondra was sacked and the kheirons loaded as many casks of Nye as they could onto the Cay. Surely by the time he was ten, some of those casks were here in Aybar.
The giantsbled left. Did they take the Nye with them?
“What happened then?” Raj said. “Who came to live here?”
“Was a brothel for a time,” the first man said. “Then one night it blew up. Big fireball straight up into the sky. Us watched it burn. Destroyed everything and everyone inside.”
“You need sunpowder for that kind of explosion,” the pilot said.
“Some say minotaurs were trying to make a new kind of fadara,” the toothless woman said. “Us heard about new things going on in the drug trade. Them’s been trying to heat up the poppy sap and get it to combine with kyrrh.”
“Kyrrh doesn’t combine with anything, sister.”
The woman’s mouth was dark and vast as she laughed. “It will if you get it hot enough. If you got iron nerves and a deft touch with sunpowder.”
Raj looked at Trueblood and quietly asked, “What happens when a clumsy touch with sunpowder meets some hidden casks of Nye?”
“You blow a hole in the ground and destroy a street.” The kepten sighed. “The casks either left with the giantsbled or went up in smoke.”
“Fuck me,” Raj said.
“Give them something for their time and let’s go back to the ship.”
Raj handed down some khesos. Walking away from the pit in the ground, he put a hand between Trueblood’s shoulder blades. Two rubbed circles, a pat, then it dropped.
“Nothing for it,” he said.
“It wasn’t for us, so it passed us by.”
The rest of their walk back to the wharves was silent and sober.
“Well, I hope Fen had better luck on his errand,” Trueblood said.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a collective exclamation ran down the street. Heads tilted up and fingers pointed.
“Khe l’khe,” Trueblood said, shading his eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”
Above the city a pegaso hovered. Copper-red with a black mane and tail. The sunrays burst through her snowy wings. Off one rear leg dangled a rope, which she was attempting to shake free.
“Looks like a thwarted pego-napping,” Raj said.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Trueblood grinned. “Not.”
Another communal gasp, louder this time. Fen was in the sky, shirtless and splendid. Racing after the pegasos, he looked like a giant dove.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Raj said slowly. “Fen’s getting laid.”
Penton was right: something about the architecture of Haize’s new brothel was off. Fen stood back from the two-story building, examining and mentally measuring its front façade. All the right-hand windows were aligned a good four feet from the outside edge. Fen moved over and noted the right side of the brothel had no windows at all. Whatever business was going on in that narrow space, it wasn’t for public knowledge.
Fen rubbed his fingertips against his palm, trying to come up with a plan and wishing his charm were with him. Herd mentality was never more useful than when strategizing.
Access to that space is hidden, he thought. It wouldn’t be on the ground floor, which is open to the public. A door kept closed and off limits raises suspicion. It’s upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Maybe it’s a trap in the floor. To get into that space you have to be in the know, or you have to pay.
He jingled the coins in his p
ocket. He could pay. Money wasn’t an issue. It was the logistics of doing this alone.
This isn’t a job for one, he thought, exhaling the bitter resignation. Not today. Go find Haize. That’s the unfinished business.
Behind him, the air split with the neigh of a horse.
Kheirons, legantos, have only a small affinity with common equines. They share no language, rather the connection is at an elemental, instinctive level. This shrieking whinny chilled Fen’s blood, but it was the words within it that grabbed him by the soul.
Help me.
This was no workhorse.
Fen whirled around and nearly unfurled his wings before fully assessing the situation. Across the cobbled plaza, his eyes locked onto a copper pegaso mare. Her wings strained against the air, dragging against the ropes around three of her legs. Three men were holding onto her bonds while a fourth dodged the kicks of the mare’s free limb.
She screamed again in Fen’s head. Her terror was contagious, triggering something deeper than herd mentality. This bond was cellular. It was the folk in horsefolk.
“Mydam,” he called, hustling through the crowd.
“Get back, you idiot,” one of the men cried.
“Watch that hoof, sailor, she’ll kick a hole right in your chest.”
Fen shut his mouth and spoke from his equos.
Mydam. It’s all right, I’m coming.
He threw both his body and thoughts through the chaos. Hands grabbed at him, yanking him from certain danger.
“Look out, you fool.”
“Lad, get back, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
A desperate whinny of words poured out of the mare. Fen saw she was young and far from home. And growing hysterical.
“Ease off,” he said, putting a commander’s authority into his voice. “This isn’t the way you catch a pegaso. Give me that.” He hipped one of the foreleg men out of the way and caught up his rope. “Come here, my beauty.”
Look at me, mydam. Pretend to come to me. I won’t let them hurt you.
Fen filled his eyes with greed and gave a complicit glance at one of the captors. “She’s gorgeous.”
The Voyages of Trueblood Cay Page 29