For Wreck and Remnant

by Kate Avery Ellison

  “Right now, they all believe I’m dead.” Lyssia... my heart twisted. She must feel like she’d lost everything.

  “All of them, yes,” he said, “except for Annah and me. Your mother is planning a service. Your body was ‘removed for cremation’ and you were brought here.”

  A servant knocked on the door, bringing soup. Tallyn helped me eat it. The broth warmed me. It was bland, not like something Tob would have made.

  “How are the others?”

  “In shock.”

  Guilt rippled through me. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

  “I know,” he said, “but this is for your safety. Soon it will be past, and we can focus on other things. The Dron and Itlantean alliance, for instance.”

  I reached for the water again, but my fingers, still numb, knocked over the glass. Tallyn mopped up the mess with his handkerchief and handed me the cup.

  “How much time do we have left until we must meet them?”

  “The trip to the meeting coordinates will take a few days,” he said. “We’ll have to leave tomorrow.”

  I shoved back the blankets and tried to move my legs. My left foot twitched, and I hissed as pain shot from my toes to my hips.

  “Careful.” Tallyn covered my legs again. “You need rest. Your mobility will return.”

  I leaned back against the pillows with a sigh. “Where did you find out about such a poison?”

  Tallyn’s mouth flexed in what might have been a grim smile. “I am a man of many secrets. Now rest. You will speak with your grandmother soon.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Annah’s cool hands on mine woke me from a fitful sleep filled with nightmares in which Nol held knives to my throat and a figure in black revealed himself to be Kit. I gripped her fingers tightly as my vision focused.

  “Grandmother,” I managed.

  To my shock, she didn’t scold or correct me.

  “You seem stronger,” she observed, squeezing back.

  “I feel stronger,” I said.

  “Good, because you are going to have to travel soon to the meeting point with the Dron, as Tallyn must have already told you.” She reached for a bowl on the bedside table. “I brought soup. Perhaps I should feed you. I understand you’ve been spilling things.”

  I chuckled in spite of myself at the thought of this cool, dignified, blind senator feeding me soup, but she was serious. I let her spoon some into my mouth, and to my amazement, she did it perfectly.

  “You are very adept,” I said.

  “Being blind has only made me more observant.” She jabbed another spoonful in my mouth.

  I swallowed. “You need to get rid of your incense.”

  “Oh?”

  “My mother told me that she gives it to you to keep tabs on who has been to your house. The scent is distinctive and strong.”

  Annah’s mouth curved into a strange smile. “How like her. But of course, I’ll be rid of it at once. A pity—I liked it. But then, that’s why she chose it.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t understand their relationship, and I didn’t think I ever would.

  Annah finished feeding me and stood, soup bowl in hand. “Rest. Tomorrow, we depart.”

  ~ ~ ~

  When I next awoke, Tallyn was waiting. He helped me rise, and I was pleased and relieved that this time, my legs cooperated. He handed me a plain gray bodysuit and tunic to change into, and informed me that a small shower waited through a door in the wall. Gingerly, I bathed myself and dressed. As I plaited my hair into my usual four-strand braid, I stared at my reflection in the bronzed mirror.

  Everyone else still thought I was dead. Lyssia, Tob, Laimila, my mother, Nol. Garren was probably rejoicing. And the others? They had already lost people. They’d already suffered so much.

  Still, a strange sense of freedom danced in my heart. I could go anywhere. I could leave this complicated net and return to the surface, live on one of the islands. Take a new name, a new identity.

  Was that what I wanted?

  I stepped back into the room where Tallyn waited.

  “I’ve had servants pack a bag for you,” he said. “We will be taking a large ship belonging to the senate, but I’ve had the Riptide stored aboard it.”

  My heart lifted a little at the mention of my ship. I was glad to know I wouldn’t lose her, wherever I was going.

  He handed me a cloak. “Cover your face with this. We need to keep your survival secret until it’s necessary to reveal it, and even then, the numbers who will know it will be few. Tempest is a shadowy organization that has tentacles everywhere, including the senate. Right now, I don’t know whom to trust. The fewer people who know of your being alive right now, the better, and that includes some of the people who will be going on this mission. So, until then, with the diplomats and officials who will be aboard the ship, you’ll have to stay hidden in your room. It’s better that way anyway, since you are still recovering.”

  I nodded. I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and together we slipped out the door.

  ~ ~ ~

  We took one of Annah’s rail carriages to the ship, which waited in a private docking bay at Verdus’s shipyard. When I saw it, I almost forgot to keep the edge of my cloak covering my nose and mouth.

  The ship rose over everything else in the yard. The hull gleamed white and silver, and ports glittered like diamonds in rows on the prow. The body curved like the body of a whale.

  “This way,” Tallyn said, steering me toward a boarding plank.

  Inside, the ship was just as opulent. Lush carpet deadened our footsteps as Tallyn guided me through a series of common rooms to the sleeping quarters. Mine was small, with a single bed that folded down from the wall and a port that overlooked the docking bay. Through the window, I saw the Dron approaching, and I drew back. My throat tightened at the sight of Nol. He walked with his shoulders slumped, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed steadily ahead on the ship. I watched him until they disappeared, and then I went to my bunk and sank onto it. My legs trembled from the exertion. I was still recovering... or was that just nerves? I brushed a strand of hair from my face with a shaking hand.

  Tallyn watched me. “Are you all right?”

  “Just a little weak still.”

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a packet. “Here. These will help you as you recover. They’re herbs, a special blend I found many years ago.”

  I took the packet from him and sniffed it. The green powder inside smelled bitter. I set them down on the bed. “Are they... the Dron... journeying with us?”

  “No,” he said. “They’ll take a separate, smaller ship.”

  I sighed.

  Footsteps rang through the corridor next to me. I heard my grandmother’s voice, and others I didn’t recognize. Senators?

  “Sleep now,” Tallyn said. “Rest as much as you can. I’m not sure how much there will be after this.”

  I lay down on the bed and covered myself with the blanket willingly, because I was shivering in earnest now. Tallyn pressed a cup into my hand, and I smelled the same bitter scent as the herbs.

  “Drink,” he said, and I did.

  I shut my eyes. Sleep claimed me quickly, and with it dark dreams.

  Nightmares rolled over me in waves, which Tallyn had warned me would be an effect of the poison leaving my body. In them, I was a child again, standing in a corridor while ships passed through the glass outside. The sea was jewel-blue, and chunks of white floated in the water. Arctus?

  A man stood beside me, and although I tried, I couldn’t decipher the features of his face. He gripped my hand tightly, almost too tightly. I tugged on his arm, and he released me. He seemed distracted.

  I wandered the corridor alone, watching people pass and gazing at the ships through the glass. A beluga whale swam past, and I giggled.

  The man returned and recaptured my hand. He was familiar somehow, but I didn’t know who he could be. He knelt beside me and
put a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

  Something about his voice pulled at me, making me cognizant. I was dreaming. This was a dream.

  Someone called my name. The images evaporated, and I awoke.

  “Aemi.”

  I sat up, breathing hard. The dream had been so vivid I almost felt it was a memory.

  It was Tallyn, knocking on the door. I let him in; he’d brought me soup. I drank it, and I missed Tob’s creations. The broth had little flavor.

  “We’ve left Verdus,” Tallyn informed me. “It won’t be long now.”

  I set the bowl aside and drew my knees to my chin. Nervousness rioted in my stomach. “When we arrive at the meeting place?”

  “The senators will discuss an alliance with the Dron. We’re counting on Valus’s story convincing them to work with us.”

  I remembered something. “There was a woman with the Dron, Tilya, who asked me about Perilous.”

  Tallyn’s gaze sharpened. “You mentioned this before. What did she say?”

  “I think... I think at least some of them are looking for it. I want to speak with her and discover what she knows.”

  “I’ll see what I can discover by talking to the Dron,” Tallyn promised. “As for you, continue to rest. Take those herbs. They’ll help you sleep.”

  He left, and I did as he said. My mind returned to my dream.

  I’m sorry.

  Why was the man sorry?

  I lay back down and shut my eyes, hoping to dream again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I TOOK THE herbs and slept on and off for the next two days, and I dreamed again and again. Sometimes I was in Arctus, sometimes Verdus. Sometimes my tiny hands held a spear while larger, stronger ones guided me in throwing it. I heard laughter—my own—and as impossible as it seemed, I felt happiness. I even dreamed of lying in a shallow boat while waves rocked me and birds chased through a blue sky overhead, while a woman sang a soft lullaby and I cried silently because my head ached. Each time I woke, my mouth tasted like ash and my chest throbbed with emotions I didn’t understand.

  The final dream filled me with even more confusion. I stood in a room, the ceiling dark and dotted with lights in random patterns. Before me was a table, glowing with light. A hand tapped at different circles, and the circles enlarged to show terrain—tiny, perfect paths, waterfalls, and buildings. A voice told me to remember, the tone urgent and hushed.

  This time, when I woke, I felt afraid. The undercurrent of the dream crept into my bloodstream and made my heart thud. I tried to sleep more but I was too restless. My skin crawled with the memory of the feelings I’d experienced in the dream, and my legs ached to move, so I paced from the bunk to the porthole again and again. The third time I passed the porthole, I stopped and pressed my face to the glass.

  The ship was still, gently rocking with the motion of the sea around us. Underwater cliffs gleamed like black walls in the distance. Between them, I saw a Dron ship lurking in the shadows of a crop of rocks, bulky and strange with cobbled together parts and tacked-on technology, looking like an ugly brown fish that had been half-chewed and spat out again still alive.

  They had come, as they’d promised, even if they were bristling with weaponry pointed right at us.

  We were at the rendezvous point.

  It was time.

  I knew Tallyn would want me to wait for him, but I couldn’t stay in this tiny room any longer. I dressed clumsily, my hands shaking as I covered my shoulders and head with the cloak and wrapped the end of it around my nose and mouth. I opened the door and slipped into the hall compartment. The thick carpet made my steps silent as I crept along the corridor.

  The main common room was ahead, down a spiraling flight of stairs. Voices carried loudly as I approached.

  “...Aren’t going to come aboard this ship!” someone was insisting. “They’ll see it as a trap.”

  “And the Itlanteans won’t go aboard that rusted excuse of a transport,” another voice argued. “They have to come here.”

  I looked around the corner and my heart stumbled. Nol, Olis, and Garren stood in the middle of the common room, all of them appearing agitated. Two Itlantean officials faced them, arms crossed.

  “There is no neutral ship,” Olis said. “We are going to have to trust each other.”

  “I don’t trust the Dron ilk,” one of the officials said, an assistant to a senator whom I’d seen before when visiting Annah. I recognized him. He was Arctusean. “They murdered our people in cold blood.”

  Garren made a face. “And no Dron trusts you baby stealers either, Itlantean. Your hands are stained with the blood of innocents. You stand here and accuse us? You have no shame!”

  The senator’s assistant made a sound of disgust in his throat, and Garren’s face reddened. He lunged forward, fists clenched. Nol grabbed his arms.

  “Garren!” Olis shouted.

  The official jumped back. “Savage,” he hissed.

  I wanted to leap out and yell for them to shut up and listen, but I remembered Tallyn’s words.

  I couldn’t reveal my presence yet, not when we didn’t know who we could trust within the Itlantean government.

  “Enough.” The voice was Annah’s. She stepped into the room, and the strength of her presence was sufficient to calm the others.

  I pressed against the doorframe, breathing out in relief.

  “Let us take a brief break to cool all our heads,” Annah said.

  Everyone glowered.

  “Now,” she said sharply.

  The Itlanteans stalked away, muttering, and I pressed back against the door. The Dron stayed where they were, Garren seething, Olis looking shaken, Nol still holding on to Garren’s arm.

  I had an idea. It was a fledgling of inspiration, perhaps a long shot, but worth a try.

  Tallyn would be angry, but I didn’t care. I stepped into the room and threw back my hood.

  “Aemi?” Olis faltered.

  Nol’s head snapped up at the sound of my name.

  “We thought...?” Olis began. “You’re alive?”

  Even Garren was speechless.

  Nol stared at me hard, and then he dropped Garren’s arm and crossed the room in three strides. Before I could speak, he cupped my face with both his hands and kissed me desperately.

  When he drew back, he rested his forehead against mine and exhaled. “You’re alive,” he whispered. “How are you alive? I saw your body.”

  I gazed into his dark eyes. My blood hummed and my lips sparked. “Poison,” I said. “That mimicked the effects of death.”

  “I... I thought the world had ended.” He kissed me again. “I can’t believe it. What happened?”

  “Hey,” Garren said gruffly. “There isn’t time for this nonsense. In case you hadn’t noticed, these Itlantean idiots won’t negotiate, and we’re running out of time before Nautilus destroys us all.”

  I touched Nol’s face. “Later,” I said. It was a promise. He nodded.

  Nol stepped back and slid his arm around my waist. We turned to face the others.

  “About that,” I said. “I have an idea.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I stood in the common room of the Riptide with the Dron representatives on one side and the Itlanteans, including Annah and Grimulus, on the other. Tallyn stood with me. My face was shadowed by the cloak, so I was not recognized by the Itlanteans. The ship bobbed, forcing everyone to brace themselves, because we had surfaced.

  Neutral territory. Private ship.

  Both parties had reluctantly agreed. The Itlanteans, although they wouldn’t admit it, were terrified to be above water even though they were still within the walls of the ship. The rough rocking of the waves had them white-eyed and stumbling. Garren, I noticed, smiled broadly at this. It was the first time I’d seen him with such a cheery expression.

  The Sagessor leader called Caliona, who was also Olis’s mother, was present along with
a representative for each of the other Dron divisions. They were grim-faced as they faced the Itlanteans.

  “We are here to talk about peace—” Annah began.

  The Sagessor cut her off. “Peace,” she hissed. “We will not be made a mockery of. You have a secret that you are hiding, one that could redefine this negotiation.”

  Annah’s eyebrows rose.

  Caliona looked at Garren. “One of my emissaries informed me that you are harboring Nautilus’s son, on account of the fact that he claims knowledge about the lost city of Trulliman.”

  Shock flitted across Annah’s face before she controlled it.

  “And how,” she said, “did you come to this understanding, exactly?”

  “Why, the son told us himself.”

  The Dron parted, and Valus stepped forward. Shock punched me in the gut. What was he doing? He was pitting us against each other.

  “The Dron have sought the lost city of Trulliman for centuries,” Caliona said. “It is holy ground to us.”

  “It is a military asset,” Jak shot back angrily. “It needs to be contained.”

  “We don’t even have the assurance that this fabled city exists, or any idea where it could be,” Grimulus said. His voice was cold and sharp, but the Sagessor didn’t flinch.

  “It exists,” the Dron woman insisted, “and you will not steal it from us.”

  “Steal it?” Jak snapped.

  “The way you filthy Itlanteans stole our children,” someone shouted.

  At this, Jak started forward.

  A dozen weapons were suddenly pointed at almost every face in the room.

  Tallyn was the one to push himself into the middle of the fray. “Stop! Stop fighting. The city exists.”

  Everyone looked at him. The air was so thick with tension I could choke on it. Garren’s finger twitched over the trigger of his weapon. Sweat beaded Valus’s upper lip.

  “And you know this how, Itlantean?” Caliona asked.

  “I belong to an order that has searched for this city for decades,” Tallyn said. He drew back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a mark in the shape of an eye.

  I could not contain my gasp at the sight of it. The same mark Myo had branded on his wrist, the one I’d seen when I’d first encountered him in the Village of the Rocks.