“You think you’ll ever be smarter than me, boy?” Kerlan hissed. “I have always been one step ahead of you. To me, you will forever be that poor, pathetic, sniveling beggar who crawled to my door seven years ago.” Kerlan’s laugh was a serrated blade as he lowered his face to Ramson’s. “You could have been great, my son. By my side, you might have changed the tides of this empire. Of the world. But now I suppose you’ll die unknown and irrelevant, your unmarked body rotting with the sewage of the Dams.” He grinned. “Just like your whore of a mother.”
Ramson spat at him.
Kerlan straightened, wiping the spit from his face as though he were cleaning some gravy from his cheek. “That felt personal, Ramson,” he said pleasantly, and Ramson knew that was Alaric Kerlan’s most dangerous tone yet. “And I suppose this will, too.”
At Kerlan’s signal, two members of the Order came in and shoved Ramson to his knees. The lashes of the whip nearly dragged him from consciousness. But it was when the bucket of black water came to meet his face that the real torture began.
* * *
—
Ramson knew the feeling of drowning well. As a Bregonian recruit, the trainers at the Blue Fort had wasted no time acquainting their pupils with the whims and wishes of the ocean. They learned to dive, to swim, to float, and to sink. They trained to hold their breaths in the ocean, to defy the need for air, and on some occasions, to nearly drown.
It was when Jonah Fisher died that Ramson realized one could never truly learn to drown.
It had happened one moon before the Embarkment, the most important examination of a Bregonian recruit’s career. At twelve years old, on the brink of adulthood, each recruit went through a rigorous mental and physical examination before a panel of the Navy’s most highly regarded fighters. The class was ranked, the rankings were published across Bregon, and captains of all ships in the Bregonian Navy came to select one recruit to take as an apprentice on their ship.
Exactly one moon before, Ramson had received a letter. It was from a healer in the small town of Elmford.
His mother was dying. It was something in the unhygienic water that the poor drank, the healer wrote, that caused rose-colored rashes and abdominal cramps and, in its last stages, high fevers.
His mother had asked for the healer only at the onset of the fever.
Ramson had felt the strength fade from him then, at that breakfast hall in the Blue Fort. Blue Fort recruits seldom visited home—at most once a year—but Ramson hadn’t been back since his father had shown up on his doorstep and taken him away in the middle of the night.
He still remembered the look on his mother’s face, a simultaneous mixture of terror and dread, as though she’d known this moment would come—her brown hair, already laden with wisps of gray from a hard life, and her hazel eyes, the ones that she’d passed to him, pleading at the door.
His father had turned from her and never looked back.
And so had Ramson.
He tore from the breakfast hall. His legs were pumping so hard that he thought he’d never stop running—past the iron double doors, through the open-air archways, until he was at the jetty, the ocean waves glimmering like jewels beneath a blistering sun. He needed to get away—to just do something mindless for a while.
Ramson dove into the ocean and swam.
When he resurfaced, a boy was sitting on the docks, waiting for him.
“Anything you’d like to share?” Jonah dangled a foot in the sea, making lazy circles.
Ramson sprawled out on the sun-warmed jetty and told him. His hair dripped with water, and the sun dried him until his body was sticky with salt. The waves lapped at him, bringing the briny scent of the ocean, and gulls circled the air, their cries drifting in the wind. It was almost cruel, how beautiful this day was.
“I know where you can get medicine for that,” Jonah said, after Ramson had finished.
The waves surged, slamming against the wooden post. Ramson felt breathless. “How?”
“The Rose Fever. They called it the Poor Man’s Sickness back in my town. Comes from dirty food and water.” Jonah tilted his head back, his eyes narrowing like a cat’s in the sun. “The Blue Fort has medicine for it. It’s just too costly to send to all the towns and villages. They hoard it for the Navy. The ones worthy of it. It’s all stored up in a warehouse facility of theirs.”
Of course Jonah would know. Jonah, with his uncanny interest in Bregonian state affairs, his research into the economy and trade and distribution of supplies.
A bud of hope unfurled in Ramson’s chest. “My father,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “He’ll know where it is. He—”
Jonah grabbed his ankle. “Your father doesn’t give a damn about your mother.”
“He’ll do it for me,” Ramson snapped.
“Don’t be naïve.”
“Don’t be so bitter!” Ramson shouted. “You don’t understand, because you’ve never had a family!”
Jonah’s eyes darkened; his brows furrowed. “I do understand. You’re my family, Ramson. My sea-brother and my best friend. I would do anything for you.”
Ramson snatched his foot back as though he’d been burned.
“Wait, Ramson,” Jonah began, but Ramson had already taken off. He ran past the alder trees in the Blue Fort’s courtyard to where he knew his father’s office was. The Naval Headquarters was an adjoining building to the Blue Fort Academy that recruits seldom visited—Ramson would sometimes walk past with his classmates and sneak glances into the shaded courtyard and latticed windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of his father.
A figure hovered by the door; Ramson’s heart ballooned at the sight of his father’s sandy hair and solid frame.
“Admiral!” he called. His father never answered to anything else. “Admiral—”
His father turned, the shadows of the alder trees dappling his features. Ramson saw now that he’d been speaking to someone—the dark-haired Commander of the First Fleet. The one Ramson’s father wanted Ramson to impress. If everything worked according to his father’s plans, Ramson would join the First Fleet aboard Commander Dallon’s ship.
Roran Farrald’s face remained stoic, even when he caught sight of Ramson.
“I need to speak to you,” Ramson panted, slowing when he drew within a dozen steps of his father. He added, “Please.”
Roran Farrald’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m very busy.”
“Please, sir!”
“Another time.” Roran Farrald was turning away, striding after Commander Dallon.
“My mother is dying!” The words burst from Ramson. “Please, she needs your help.”
Roran Farrald froze. His back was to Ramson, but even beneath the shade of the trees in the courtyard, Ramson could tell his outline had gone rigid. Farther ahead, Commander Dallon watched impassively.
Roran Farrald barely turned; Ramson could just make out the profile of his face, cleanly cut and square, utterly ascetic. “And why,” Roran Farrald said softly, his words slicing through the slight breeze that stirred the leaves in the yard, “would your mother have anything to do with me?”
Ramson stood there a long time after his father was gone, beneath the swaying alder trees, the leaves rattling around him in the wind, their shadows scattering over him. The bright flame in his heart turned to stone that day, and when he went back to Jonah, he spoke quietly, with measured calculation. “Show me where the medicine is.”
They snuck out of their dorms that night, when the moon retreated behind the clouds.
The Naval Headquarters began at the western end of the Blue Fort, stretching across cliffs that plunged precariously into the ocean. It was a symbol of the Bregonian Navy’s dominance of the seas—and utterly off-limits to the public. Jonah had speculated that it held classified information, such as naval secrets and warfare strategies.
&nb
sp; It was near pitch-black outside, the cool breeze briny and speckled with sand, the grass of the courtyard soft beneath their boots. They stole across like shadows, and within minutes, they were outside the headquarters.
A pair of patrols passed by; Jonah shoved Ramson behind a tree. Ramson had never felt like this: adrenaline pumping through his blood, his heart pounding as though it wished to tear from his chest. And then, a beat later, Jonah was rounding to the back of the building. Ramson watched in awe and fascination as he pushed and a door appeared in the stone wall.
“An escape tunnel,” Jonah whispered. “I studied structural maps of castles. They all have these. So I found the Headquarters’.”
It was dark and silent inside, and it smelled of salt. The flooring was uneven, and Ramson stayed close to Jonah. After a while, the tunnel opened up. They stumbled through an iron door, and then they were inside the Bregonian Naval Headquarters.
This section of the Headquarters was dark—but from several hallways down came the faint light of torches. They passed corridor after corridor of seemingly endless doors, the marble floor sleek beneath their velvet steps, until at last, Jonah paused in front of an iron door that looked exactly like the rest.
“In here,” Jonah whispered, and pushed.
A shrill peal blasted through the silence; Ramson clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound seemed to set off a reactionary chain. He heard the muffled sound of distant bells beginning to ring, the high-pitched alarms blending into a cacophony of screams. Jonah was shouting at him, tugging at his arms, but his knees had buckled and he sat on the floor, dizzy and paralyzed with fear.
Footsteps rang, echoing through the corridors, and torchlight blazed behind them.
“Ramson!” Jonah shouted, and with a final tug, Ramson was on his feet and they were running in the opposite direction, back to the escape tunnel—
Light blazed before them as a patrol rounded the corner; he gave a shout, and a second patrol followed him. At the sight of Ramson and Jonah, he strung an arrow onto his bow and aimed. “Halt!”
Ramson was shaking so hard that his knees knocked together.
“Hands up!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jonah comply. “Please, we’re recruits from the Blue Fort,” Jonah said. “We got lost—”
“And ended up in a secure facility?” A voice sounded behind them, one that raised the hairs on Ramson’s neck. With dreadful premonition, he turned.
Roran Farrald stood behind them, dressed in a plain gray tunic. His face was as placid as the surface of a still lake. But Ramson had never seen such fury in his father’s eyes—dark, the color of storm clouds and midnight waters. They seemed to tremble as they settled on Ramson.
“Admiral Farrald.” The patrols bowed their heads in respect, but the archer kept his arrow trained on Ramson and Jonah.
“What in the devil do you think you’re doing?” Roran Farrald’s voice cracked over Ramson like a whip.
Before Ramson could reply, steps sounded; four to five men rounded the corner, and Ramson recognized all of them as high-ranking officers in the Navy. Among them, he spotted Commander Dallon.
“What the hell’s going on here?” a silver-haired officer asked.
Roran Farrald’s eyes blazed as he took a step forward. He looked between Ramson and Jonah, and finally, his gaze settled on his son. “You are guilty of trespassing in a top secret government facility. You are aware this is punishable by death?”
Ramson thought he would throw up. Death. He’d studied Bregonian law, but he hadn’t thought the laws would apply to them. Surely they applied to ordinary citizens, yes, but…not to recruits at the Blue Fort Academy.
His father’s coal-black gaze was still focused on him. “Was this your idea, boy?”
Ramson tried to speak, but fear had sewn his throat shut. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out. More footsteps sounded; more patrols had arrived, and more Naval officers in nightclothes. The bells continued to scream.
“It was mine.”
Ramson’s head snapped to the boy beside him. Jonah stood in the frame of the half-open door, his shadow stretching long and thin behind him. His face was pale, but his raven-black eyes glimmered in the torchlight.
“I wanted to steal the medicine,” Jonah continued. Words—the truth—pushed against Ramson’s chest, needing to be said. But another warring instinct—fear—pushed back, paralyzing him to the spot.
“For what reason?” asked the silver-haired officer.
Jonah gave only the slightest pause, indiscernible to anyone but Ramson. “I’m trading it in town. People pay good mint for that kind of stuff. I asked Ramson to come along for fun. He’d make a decent partner.”
There was an uproar from the officers. “This is organized crime!” Silver Hair cried. “This young man cannot be permitted to walk free tonight!”
Yet as the officers continued to yell, only one person was silent. A strange expression had crept onto Roran Farrald’s face, one that resembled…triumph.
“Enough,” he boomed. “Guards, nock!”
“No!” The cry tore from Ramson, small and feeble and lost in the fray. He flung out a hand, pushing Jonah back, meaning to protect him.
“Let go of my son,” Roran shouted, but Ramson’s knees had given out and he held on to Jonah, gasps racking his chest. The bells shrieked in his ears, drilling into his head.
“Father,” he cried. “Please—”
“Let go of my son!” Roran roared again.
“I’m not touching him!” Jonah yelled.
“Guards,” bellowed Roran.
It happened so fast. Ramson saw the archer nock, the bowstring grow taut. And then the head of the arrow shimmered as it released, cutting through the torchlight, sleeker than a whisper.
Years later, Ramson still couldn’t tell why he did it. He wanted to be brave, he wanted to be selfless, like Jonah—but in the end, in his very flesh and bone, he was made of cowardice and selfishness.
Ramson ducked.
There was a soft wet sound, like a knife slicing through an apple. Jonah made a small noise—it might have been a gasp—and slowly, quietly, like the last leaf on an alder tree, fell.
Ramson barely remembered what happened next—someone was screaming, but all he knew was that he’d dropped to his knees and scrambled to Jonah’s side, shaking his shoulders, convinced that he would wake up and laugh at having tricked everyone.
Yet slowly, he realized that the screaming was coming from him. Jonah lay still, his body wobbling like that of a puppet as Ramson shook him. And all Ramson saw were Jonah’s midnight eyes, open wide as though in surprise, and his black hair spread across the floor like raven’s feathers. Nothing made sense—Jonah, lying there, blood pooling silently on the floor, arrow shaft protruding from his chest, when he had been alive and yelling seconds ago.
The image stayed in Ramson’s head, carved into his memory, as his father and the officers murmured in grave tones, as he was dragged out by the guards. The moon was impossibly bright, and a wind howled through the alder trees, whipping his face.
They took him to a room that was at once familiar and unfamiliar. The maroon walls were lined with portraits of a happy family, the young daughter laughing as her auburn curls shimmered. The cherrywood desk was clean and cold to the touch, everything in the room arranged to a sterile tidiness, devoid of warmth.
His father’s office.
The door shut; a mug of something warm and strong-smelling was shoved into Ramson’s hands.
“Chocolate and brandy,” Roran Farrald said in his cool baritone. “Drink up.”
Ramson leaned over the mug and threw up.
“Grow a backbone,” he heard his father say. “Are you going to vomit every time you see a man die?”
“Why am I not dead
?” Ramson whispered.
“The orphan confessed. He manipulated you. You will be punished, but the bulk of the blame lies with him. And he has been lawfully sentenced.”
“Lawful—” Ramson’s hands shook, and he raised his gaze to his father. “I’m the one who asked to steal the medicine,” he whispered. “I told you that my mother was sick—”
Roran Farrald’s gaze was colder than steel when he cut across Ramson. “Jonah Fisher was prosecuted for illegal trespassing into a government facility, perpetuation of organized crime, manipulation of a minor—”
“You know that’s a lie.” Tears pooled in Ramson’s eyes. “It was my fault.” He heard, again, Jonah’s steady voice, taking blame for a crime that Ramson had committed. Saw, again, the glint of firelight on the arrowhead, the ricochet of the bowstring, the fletch spinning through the air toward him.
And he’d ducked.
“I killed him.” The words tumbled from his mouth, broken, numb.
“No,” Roran Farrald growled, and his large hand clasped Ramson’s chin tight enough to bruise. His gaze scorned. “You are so weak, you foolish boy. Can’t you see? You must learn from this, if you wish to get anywhere in this world. Friendship is weakness. There are only alliances, made to be broken when it serves your gain.” He lowered his voice. “There is something to be gained from every tragedy, every loss. You and I both know that Fisher would have beaten you in the Embarkment. Fisher’s death comes at a convenient time for you. Now you will be ranked—”
The mug exploded against the wall behind Roran. Hot chocolate and brandy dripped down like blood. Ramson was on his feet, his hands shaking. The rage that had been simmering within him had boiled over, and he found himself screaming at his father. “My best friend—my sea-brother—is dead, and all you care about is some blasted examination?”
“Men like me—like us—cannot waste time on friendships and love.”
“My mother—”
“Is dead,” Roran finished calmly.
Ramson was spitting, choking on his own fury, but he wanted his father to feel his pain—to feel something. Wildly, he grasped at words to twist into his father’s heart like knives. “Is that why you wouldn’t help her? Because she was a waste of time to you?”
Blood Heir Page 28