Naji frowned a little, but I thought that was reasonable enough. Why wouldn’t they want to know where they came from? ’Sides, the King was a fish. Couldn’t expect him to understand everything about the land, just like we can’t be expected to understand everything about the sea. Any pirate in the Confederation and any sailor on the up-and-up could tell you that.
“Regardless of our origins, you are welcome back to my kingdom any time you wish,” the King said, and he gave one of those bows, deep and sure-finned in the water.
“I will visit as often as I can,” Naji said, returning his bow, and I knew he meant it.
Armand appeared at the entrance to the garden, accompanied by a pair of shark sentries.
“Ah,” the King said, “it’s time.”
“Your water-breath will wear off soon,” Armand said. “We should wait in the air-hall.”
The King turned to us. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to stay longer?” he asked. “You can stay in the air-hall. I’m certain we could provide food for you.”
“We need more than food, I’m afraid.” Naji smiled, polite as could be. “We can’t go long without fresh water – ah, that is, water without salt.”
“And we want to make sure our ship’s still waiting for us when we get back,” I added.
Naji’s voice flashed a warning in my head, but the King only nodded. “I look forward to your future visit,” he said to Naji. “I will investigate this matter of saltless water. And remember, all you must do is come to these coordinates. We will know it’s you.”
Armand rippled in the water like he was impatient. “I don’t wish to be rude, your Grace,” he said, “but if the water-breath were to wear out here in the open, the effects would be disastrous.”
“Ah yes, of course, Armand.” The King bowed one last time.
We swam out of the garden and through the city to the big empty hall where that hissing glass box sat waiting for us. The potion kept working all through the trip, and for about five minutes or so after we arrived in the big empty hall. When it did wear off, though, it wore off quick as it had come on. One minute my breath was churning through my head and the next I had that tightness in my lungs that meant I was drowning. I pushed myself out of the water, onto the platform. Naji shot up a few seconds later, gasping. It felt weird to breathe air again. It was so thin and insubstantial, like spun sugar. I felt like I couldn’t get enough of it.
Naji and me didn’t really talk on the ride up, though he held me close like he was afraid I would disappear. I didn’t feel all that different now that the curse was broken, but Naji was filled up with light, like the glow of the algae down there in the depths of the ocean.
Part of me was afraid he’d leave, now that he wasn’t bound to me, but I told myself over and over that he was bound to me in other ways. I told myself he didn’t have to be bound to me at all in order to love me. And the way he held me on the way up, his face pressing into my hair, water pooling at our feet, it helped convince me that I was right.
The Nadir was waiting for us when we surfaced. Thank Kaol.
Naji watched us load up the treasure, crewmen carrying it down to the holding bay – we were gonna split it proper, on account of how little actual pirating we’d been doing. Me and Marjani’s idea. Naji didn’t seem to care at all, and he watched us load up the cargo in happy silence. The only time he spoke was when he leaned over the railing and thanked the shark sentry.
“No,” said the shark. “Thank you, Naji of the Jadorr’a.” Then he turned to me and said, “And you, Ananna of the Nadir.”
The shark and the glass box disappeared beneath the waves. You’d never know there was this whole city down there, full of talking fish and a king like an underwater manticore. Naji slipped off into the captain’s quarters, and I moved to chase after him, but Marjani stopped me.
“What happened down there?” she asked. “Naji seems–”
“Cured?” I asked.
Her eyes widened.
“Yeah,” I said. “The last part of the curse, remember? Create life out of an act of violence?”
She nodded, and I told her about the city and its inhabitants, the overflow of his magic. I told her how my blood, with its little trickle of ocean-magic, had mixed with his, and that’s how everything came together.
“So we’re done,” she said. “We don’t have to sail around chasing after his curse anymore.”
I nodded.
“Now what?”
“You’re captain,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “You know what I want to do,” she said softly.
I got a heavy weight in my chest. A realization. “Yeah.”
We stood in silence for a few moments. Then Marjani broke off from me and stood next to the railing. The Nadir bobbed in the water, held in place by sea-magic. She was waiting to be set free. I could feel it thrumming through her planks and her sails.
“I had a thought,” Marjani said. “A few days ago, actually, sitting in the garden room with Saida.”
“Well, I’d hope you’d had more than one thought the last few days.”
Marjani laughed. “Saida was playing an old Jokja song on the reed, and I was sitting there listening – I never did care for sitting around listening to palace music, but with her it’s different. Anyway, I was listening to this song and thinking. Thinking about the Nadir and her crew. And you.”
The wind blew across the water, slammed against the frozen sails. Everything tasted like salt. I didn’t want to go back to Jokja, I didn’t want to live in the palace and smell the flowers blooming in the jungle. I didn’t want to watch the rains fall every afternoon. Most things are only nice for a little while. Jokja was one of ’em. The sea wasn’t.
“It’s your boat,” I said, voice small enough that the wind swallowed it whole.
“Not anymore,” Marjani said. “It’s yours.”
I didn’t speak, didn’t move, I just kept staring out at the ocean.
“That was my thought,” Marjani said. “When I was listening to that music from my childhood. The thing is, I became a pirate to run away from Jokja. But I don’t have to run away from it anymore. And if anyone deserves her own boat, it’s you.”
“The crew’ll never–”
“The crew’ll listen to anyone who takes them up to the Lisirran merchant channels and pays them fair. And they’ve listened to you before.” She smiled at me. “They’re as tired of Arkuz as you are.”
I didn’t bother to correct her; she was right.
Another wind-blown pause.
“Don’t let some Confederation scummy blow a hole in her side,” Marjani said, “that’s all I ask.”
I nodded out at the sea, a nervous happiness churning up inside me. “I’ll try my best, Captain.”
She laughed.
“Lady Anaja-tu,” I said, correctly myself.
“More accurate.” She paused. “Go plot the course back to Jokja. We’ll tell the crew about the trade-off once we make port in Arkuz.” Then she pushed back away from the railing and hopped up on the helm and shouted, “Get your asses back to work! We make sail for Jokja and then Lisirra!” She gazed across the deck. “You can all quit your bitching, cause it seems we’re pirates again.”
That got a roar out of ’em.
As they readied the boat to turn back toward civilization, I slipped into the captain’s quarters to draw up our route. When I walked in, though, Naji sat up on the bed and said, “Come here.”
“Don’t have time for that now.” I nodded at the navigation maps. “Gotta chart us a new course. We’re heading for Jokja and then…” I couldn’t help myself; I broke out into a grin. “Marjani gave me the ship! So we won’t be staying in Jokja no more. I figured we’d make sail for the Empire merchant channels and then head to Qilar. Ain’t been that way in a long time, and–”
I stopped. He doesn’t have a lot of expressions, sure, but I can tell happy from sad. And he wasn’t happy right now.
<
br /> “I know,” he said quietly.
“You know? How the hell… Oh.” I frowned. “You were in my head, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” No apology, no explanation. “Ananna, I won’t be able to sail with you to Qilar.”
“Why not?” I could feel his thoughts pressing against mine, but I shoved them away.
“Because I will have to stay behind in Lisirra.”
The room got drawn and quiet. The curtains hanging over the port holes shimmered in the sunlight as the Nadir made her way east.
“Ananna,” Naji said, “one cannot just leave the Order.”
I stared at him. My heart felt the way it had when he didn’t smile at me. Like it was frozen.
“But you did,” I said. “You ain’t been a part of the Order–”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
He didn’t answer right away, and I lunged across the room and made to hit him, though he caught me by the wrist and sat me down on the bed. “I don’t understand!” I shouted again. “You haven’t been part of the Order for going close to a year now! I ain’t seen you take no commissions or meet with any of them–”
“That’s not true,” he said softly. “You saw me in my trances. I didn’t take any commissions, no, because I was cursed. It was a… hindrance.”
I went limp. All the anger just collapsed out of me and turned to sorrow.
“I’m so sorry.” He reached to touch my hair, but I slapped his hand away. He didn’t try to touch me again. “I didn’t think we’d break the curse, and in truth, some days I didn’t… I didn’t want it broken, despite the pain, because I didn’t–”
I stared down at my knees, heat rising in my cheeks. “You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“So now what?” I asked. “You go back to… to wherever, to your castle in…” I didn’t know where the Order was located. Lisirra? Or the capital city? Who gave a shit?
“It’s not a castle,” Naji said.
“Whatever! I won’t ever get to see you again.”
“That’s not true,” he said, and he pulled me close to him. “You’re a pirate, Ananna, you can sail to wherever I am, and I can come to wherever you are.”
I was hot with anger and I thought about how he wouldn’t once smile for me and then I thought about how he kissed me like I was the only person in the whole world. I thought about the light in his eyes whenever he was happy. I thought about how he shied away whenever I touched his scar and the way his hands traced the tattoos on my stomach.
“I love you,” I said.
He blinked.
I don’t know why I said it. It was true, but I was also furious with him. I guess I just wanted him to know what he was leaving behind.
“I love you, too,” he said.
My face got real hot, then, and it wasn’t just the anger.
“Then don’t leave me!”
“I’m not,” he said. “I just can’t… I just can’t stay.”
“What!” I shoved him away. “That’s what not staying means, you idiot. Leaving.”
“Ananna, I’m bound to the Order. If I try to leave, permanently, they’ll kill me. A permanent death.”
“As opposed to an impermanent one?”
“Yes,” Naji said, his eyes serious. “I work blood-magic, remember?”
He reached out to touch me, but I jerked away from him. He said my name again, and it was full of all this sadness and longing, but I refused to look at him. I gathered up the maps and the divider and carried them outside, up to the helm. The air was calm and I could weigh the maps down with some bottles of rum if need be.
Anything to get away from Naji. At least for a little while.
Marjani glanced at me but didn’t say nothing when I stretched my maps out on the deck of the ship. The wind blew my hair into my eyes, and I cursed, trying to get the divider to slide across the map.
“I got Jeric to cast the fortune,” Marjani said. “Looks like the air’ll be clear from here to Arkuz. How long are you thinking it’ll take? We had that storm on the way out…”
I was grateful to her for giving me the ship to talk about so I wouldn’t have to think about Naji. “About a week and a half, looks like.” I smoothed my hand over the paper. “We should have enough supplies. I haven’t checked the stores in a while. Have you?”
Marjani didn’t answer. And I realized with a start that the entire ship had gone silent: there was no creaking of the masts, no thwap of water against the boat’s side.
For a moment, my heart froze.
“Marjani?” I whispered, and I twisted around to face her.
A man was standing at her side, one hand grabbing her arm and the other holding a knife under her chin.
The knife looked like it was made out of starlight.
The man’s feet ended in mist.
“No!” I jumped to my feet and drew out my sword.
“Ah, that got your attention.” The way he talked reminded me of Echo, cold and empty. He kept his knife at Marjani’s throat and she stared at me, shivering, although her hand was creeping up to her pistol. “And you know what I want.”
He grabbed Marjani’s hand and twisted it around behind her back. Marjani let out a muffled scream.
“Let her go!” I shouted. “She don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Of course she does,” the man said. “She denied my offers as well.” But then he shoved her away from him so that she stumbled up to my side. I didn’t waste a second: I swung my sword at him. It sliced through his shoulder and came out at his waist. All he did was laugh.
Marjani pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him. He laughed again.
“The ship is mine,” he said. He jerked his head toward the crew, who were doing their work all neat and orderly with faces as blank as masks. “They aren’t as protected as you–” he jerked his head at me. “Or as knowledgeable as you–” At Marjani. “But I can’t captain her to the assassin until you tell me where he is.”
My heart jolted. He doesn’t know. Naji’s charm was still working. He doesn’t know Naji’s on the boat.
“We don’t know where he is,” I said. Marjani stayed quiet, just kept her gun trained at his chest.
“Lies.” And he reached back his hand and slapped me hard across the face, hard enough that I stumbled back and slammed against the railing. I was stunned that he could touch me. My fingers grasped for the charm. It still hung around my neck. He laughed. “I’m not Echo, child. Echo is only a piece of me.” He leaned closed. “I can smell him all over you. His magic. His filthy little dirt-charm.” He sneered at me. “You don’t protect him as well as he thinks.”
“Shut your mouth.” I darted forward and grabbed Marjani and pulled her close to me. She gripped her hand in mine.
The man slid toward us. His mist curled around my bare legs. One of the maps had blown over beside us and the mist smeared the ink into long unreadable streaks.
“I’ve sent Echo to you so many times,” he whispered. “Both of you.” He grazed his fingers against my cheek and his touch burned with cold. When he touched Marjani she flinched away. “Did you not believe her? All those things she offered?”
I spat on him.
He laughed and wiped the spit away. “That’s no way to treat a lord, my dear.”
“You ain’t no lord.”
“But I am. Of course you know that. He told you.” He smiled again, only this time there was something strange in his smile, like part of his face didn’t work. The left side. Like it was scarred–
I knew what he was doing. Giving me what I wanted. Showing me Naji’s smile.
“Ananna, be careful,” Marjani whispered. I barely heard her.
“Stop it!” I screamed, and I sliced my sword through his belly this time, and all that came out of him was mist.
Where’s Naji? I thought, and then I remembered. He wasn’t cursed any more; he wouldn’t know I was in danger–
Our blood-bond. He knew Marjani gave me the ship, he should know about this.
Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he wanted me to die, then he could go back to the Order and never think about me again–
I didn’t really believe that.
The man reappeared right close to me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my skin. “Couldn’t tempt you with ships and lovers and power,” he whispered. “Couldn’t even tempt you with a smile. But there are other ways, of course.” And his mist crawled in through my nose and my mouth, crowding into my brain.
“Don’t listen to him,” Marjani said. Her voice sounded far away even though she was still pressed up against me, her hand in mine. “He’s doing something to you. Don’t listen–”
The man turned to Marjani. She gazed up at him. I gripped my sword tighter. The mist was still in my head, turning my thoughts cold and hard. She was going to betray Naji. She didn’t love him the way I did. It wouldn’t even take much. One sentence. He’s on the ship. In the captain’s quarters.
“Don’t even try,” Marjani said, gritting her teeth.
The man laughed. “Don’t you want to see what I can offer you?” And he pressed his hand on Marjani’s forehead. She screamed and jerked away.
“I know what you can offer me,” she said. “Slavery and imprisonment.”
“You’re not as easy to fool as your first mate,” he said. “She at least let me show her what I had to offer. I believe she even considered it, one bright day.”
I felt myself turning hot. A pang of guilt pierced through the fog. How could I think Marjani would hand him over? Cause he was right. I almost had.
“Yes,” the man said, turning back to me. My whole body turned to ice. “You did almost give him up once. Because he had hurt you. And he’s hurt you again, hasn’t he? I can smell it on you.” He buried his nose in my hair and breathed in deep and my whole body crawled with revulsion. “He could stay, you know,” he said. “Sail with you through every ocean in this world, blowing your enemies away with spells and blood magic. Never go back to the Order lair again.” The man gave me a lazy grin. “He just doesn’t want to.”
“And could you give me that?” I shot back. “Naji at my side?”
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