Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  I stop. Turn. Meet her beautiful brown eyes. “The woman that I am is a naval officer.”

  My mother takes a step toward me and catches my chin with her fingers “You are not any one thing, Nile. You are a daughter and a sister, a princess, a dreamer. You are many things that you’ve yet to consider. To experience.”

  Such as what, Mother? A bride? I jerk out of her grasp and quicken my pace, reaching the door before Mother can continue her line of thought.

  The clerk looks up, giving me the same sad smile he had earlier. “Good day, Princess.”

  I glance over the same empty leather chairs and untouched refreshments and stop my gaze at the wooden door behind the clerk. “Might I beg for a moment of His Majesty’s time?”

  The clerk wavers a moment until his eyes land on my face. Whatever he sees there makes him turn on his heels and knock twice on the doorframe. He sticks his head inside, speaking softly. Moments later, a tall, immaculately dressed young man strides out. Thad.

  “Did Father die without my knowledge?” I ask. The majesty title is reserved for the king alone, and I’m in no mood for politeness.

  “He’s away just now.” Thad motions me to one of the leather chairs in the waiting area. With his wide chest and coal-black eyes and hair, Thad favors our father as drastically as Clay and I take after the queen. Also unlike me, Thad puts muscle on easily. That muscle, combined with Thad’s significant height, gives him an aura of strength most believe born of hard physical training. I know better. Not that I care how tall or large or imposing the bastard is. Especially not today. Thad frowns at me. “Sit down, Nile. What is the matter?”

  I stay standing. “Are you and Father conspiring to marry me to Prince Tamiath?”

  Thad motions for the clerk to leave. “How did you hear that?” he asks, taking the other chair for himself.

  No denial. Clay was right, then. The blow of Thad’s words pushes me back. My face heats, my fingers curling into fists. I step away.

  “Nile. Wait.” His large fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “No, Nile, Father and I are not conspiring to marry you to Tamiath.” He sighs. “Mother is.”

  “Crock of shit, Thad. Since when do either of you entertain Mother’s opinions?”

  “Since a Felielle prince asked us to,” he snaps. Thad closes his eyes as if he, not I, is the victim in the conversation. “Tamiath may not be the heir to the throne, but he is important. And yes, Mother has her notions and ideas for your future, but this request originated with the prince. Whatever you heard, however you heard it—it isn’t what you think. We all agreed that you should meet Prince Tamiath before anyone broached the subject with you. Even you must concede that acquaintance is material to the matter. There is little sense in debating anything before then.”

  We all agreed. Anger chokes me, and several heartbeats pass before I can speak.

  Thad beats me to it. “There is something else you should know, Nile. Laila and I are expecting.”

  I blink, the directional change momentarily muddling my thoughts. Father had arranged Thad’s marriage to Laila, one of the Biron princesses, three years past. So far as I can tell, she and Thad know each other little better now than when they first met. “Congratulations.”

  “You don’t fully understand.” Thad rests his elbows on his thighs and leans forward toward me. The chair sighs beneath his weight. “Ashing will have an heir.”

  I shrug. “You speak as if I have my eyes on the throne instead of the sea.”

  Thad throws up his hands. “Damn it, Nile, why do you think Mother has kept her grip off you the past years? Because she’s reformed to Ashing ways?”

  I tense, certain I will little like where Thad is heading.

  “Don’t be daft, Nile,” he snaps. “If Laila was unable to bear children, it would become vital that you marry an Ashing man to continue the lineage. Now that she is with child, a foreign marriage would prove of greater value. And with Ashing’s reliance on Felielle’s subsidies, we can’t simply ignore their prince’s request.”

  The room shrinks in on me. Have I always been nothing but a commodity? My body coils, my head pounding. My words come in a whisper. “I’m not a goat, Thad.”

  “No, you are an Ashing royal.”

  I gather myself. “I am an officer in the Ashing navy. My place, my value, is aboard a ship of war.”

  “You were an officer in our navy. That sank with the Faithful.”

  I freeze. “What?”

  Thad rises and walks the few steps to the clerk’s desk. Removing a new leaf from a drawer he brings it back to the sitting area, holding it toward me. “This ran three weeks ago, while you lay fevered.” He pulls the paper back, just out of my reach. “You should sit.”

  I stare at the headline, Faithful Treason, and sink into a chair. My fingers are numb as they accept the print.

  “One week past,” I read aloud, “the glory-seeking officers of the Ashing Ship Faithful defied the king’s orders and attempted to transport a valuable intelligence package by themselves through Tirik-infested waters. Unsurprisingly, the hubris ended in failure when the seventy-two-gun Faithful encountered a Tirik vessel of one hundred ten guns and sank in subsequent battle.”

  “You can read to yourself, Nile,” Thad says. “I know what it says.”

  I ignore him.

  “‘While the Faithful’s zeal for victory is reflective of Ashing ideals,’ King Greysik of Ashing told the Lyron League Joint Fleet Admiralty at the Cloud Palace in Biron, ‘this glory ride was a misguided scheme of a too-proud crew. Captain Fey should have waited for reinforcement.’ The king vowed to discipline all involved. The—”

  I glare at my brother. “These are lies, Thad.” The words squeeze past clenched teeth. “Father had ordered the Faithful to forge ahead alone. He is the one who wished to show off before the other kingdoms. He lost the book and killed my captain and my crew.”

  “The Republic destroyed a third of the League defenses in the last year,” Thad says, tapping a spot in the middle of the Ardent Ocean. “Let us see who the League will feed to the Tirik if the war fails to turn, shall we? Eflia North and Eflia South.” He points to the fat part of the teardrop in the east. “Corrupt and dumb as rocks, but they have iron deposits in their mines and gold by their riverbeds, which no one else in the League does. Felielle?” He jabs at the inland kingdom. His voice rises with each word. “Too difficult to carve a slice from the middle, so the Goddess worshipers there are safe. Biron?” Thad’s palm covers the kingdom in the northwest, the largest in the League. “They are the League. We need them, not they us. And the bastards know it. Are you visualizing this with me? What have we left on the map?”

  I keep my mouth shut.

  “Spardic and Ashing,” Thad answers for me, spitting the words. “The warriors and the sailors.” He jabs the point of the teardrop. “And who is here, at the western tip? The smallest, the closest to the Tirik, the easiest to amputate? The one whose military expenses are so high, it can’t afford its own survival? Which kingdom is that, Nile?”

  Thad draws a breath and steps back, his anger gone as quickly as it had come. When he speaks again, it is with softer, conciliatory tones. “Ashing can ill afford a sour reputation and can afford to offend Felielle even less. League resources are scarce, and we are the smallest of the kingdoms. A peninsula jutting into the Ardent Ocean. If the cost of defending us outweighs our contributions, the League will expel us. If the Felielle halt our subsidies, we will starve. If the League expels us, the Tirik will strip our land. And as for Clay… I hear the Republic experiments on the Gifted. Part of their People’s Committee for Prosperity’s Greater Good plan. So, what would you do in Father’s place?”

  “Heeded Captain Fey’s advice and held the Faithful back until reinforcement caught up.” Thad doesn’t get to lecture me on consequences of the war, and as for the reference to Clay, that was a low, crafted blow. Thad cares as little as Father does about my twin.

  Thad shrugs. “It was a calc
ulated risk. Had you succeeded, Ashing would have come out the hero.”

  A headache strikes me, and I sway, tightening my fingers on the desk’s edge for balance. The candles flicker. I pull the newsprint from beneath the map. “This isn’t true.”

  “Truth is irrelevant.” Thad’s voice grows hard. “Perception is what matters.”

  The door behind the clerk’s desk swings open, and my father’s graying head shows through the opening. The king who was away just now, according to Thad.

  My stomach clenches. Pushing myself straight, I bow and scrape up strength for a confident voice. “Good day, my lord.”

  The king’s gaze fixes on Thad. “I require the charts of Felielle royalty and the noble court.”

  The door closes.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. A few heartbeats pass in silence, then Thad sighs. “Your ship failed one of the most important missions of the war, Nile,” he says quietly. “Did you honestly expect a hero’s welcome?”

  My body shakes, my fingers trembling at my sides. “This isn’t fair,” I whisper.

  “You’re right.” He holds my gaze. “But your duty is to Ashing. Whether you carry it out on the quarterdeck or in a bedchamber is secondary.”

  Chapter 8

  I wait until darkness. Whatever Thad said, I’d have no choice. Never did. I have always been a pawn in the throne’s game; the only change now is that I know it.

  My future in the Ashing navy is over. I will never become an Ashing admiral. I will never hold any Ashing command. My hands tremble as I dig a seabag from my dressing room and stuff it with the bits of my life that lie close at hand. Three sets of sturdy clothes, some coin, my spyglass. Nothing that marks my lineage. There is no need for a uniform. I have lost my right to the quarterdeck, the sacred place where the ship’s officers walk.

  The last thought stings as it penetrates. I shake myself. I am expelled from Ashing already. The only question remaining is whether I’ll leave to Felielle as an exotic toy, a pampered prisoner of a spoiled prince or… To the sea, as someone else. Someone free.

  I sling my bag over my shoulder, take a candle, and slip out of my room. There is one last thing to do. Edging into my twin’s chamber, I sit on Clay’s bed and take his hand in mine. When he opens his eyes, I lock my gaze to his. I can say nothing to him for fear he’ll repeat it. No explanation, no apology, no good-bye. We sit in silence as my candle burns. Had you told me Mother’s words on purpose, Clay? Were you looking out for me? Do you understand? My eyes begin to sting. Whatever else, by leaving, I am betraying him.

  No.

  In that moment, I know what I will do once I walk away from the palace gates. I will leave, not just for me, but for us. The only us there is. Ashing be damned, I am going to save my twin. Two years of duty as a common seaman on any Joint Fleet ship will get the Letter of Service I’d need to join a civilian merchant vessel. I’d find one that trades with the mysterious Diante Empire. A few small merchants still do in the backwaters. And then I will go into the Diante Empire itself. Will find the Metchti Monastery. The cure.

  I have to go. I rise. “Be safe,” I whisper to him.

  “Be safe,” Clay whispers back.

  And then I am gone.

  Dawn is still a half hour away when I step onto the docks. The smell of fish hangs thick in the air even with the market closed. The fishermen go about their morning business with practiced briskness. The occasional youths who’d drawn the short straw of night duty patrol the pier, stepping around the few foreign sailors who lie passed out drunk on the ground. I try to paint each scene into my memory, to take with me. I do love the Ashing people. They judge each other by skill and effort, and they want every child to grow into a master. We’ve no people to waste.

  Except, apparently, me.

  I find the ship I need anchored in the least convenient of all slots. Her name is the Aurora, and she is one of the ships in the Lyron League Joint Fleet. Fodder. Second-rate fodder. That’s how I’ve always thought of the ships under Joint Fleet Admiralty’s control. But what the Joint Fleet lacks in quality, it makes up in quantity. However second-rate, rat infested, leaky, or poorly handled the League’s Joint Fleet ships are, the Joint Fleet itself is ten times bigger than any kingdom’s private armada. And the Joint Fleet Admiralty, comprised of representatives of each of the six kingdoms, knows how to wield its dull but large weapon for the greatest effect against the Tirik Republic.

  So the Aurora it is for me. She is a small man-of-war with twenty-six guns and no history of past glory or consequence. A bit of loitering in search of a midshipman who’ll invite me into the Aurora’s company, and it is done. At the last moment, I realize I still wear a pendant with the royal insignia. When the middie girl turns away, I toss it into the sea. I had spent a lifetime building a worthy Princess Lieutenant Greysik. The change to a common sea-dreamer girl takes less than an hour.

  The growing wind troubles the sea. The boat carrying the middie and me to the Aurora is obliged to make constant turns to avoid capsizing. Dull gray sky promises rain, and I huddle around my seabag, bracing myself for my new life. A common sailor with neither rights, nor rank, nor friends. Well, the latter isn’t new. I haven’t had friends since Clay fell ill, except perhaps the short-lived illusion of one with the stranger on the beach. But I have had the privilege of courtesy and trust, which I can enjoy no longer. I am no one. I am scared.

  “Have you spent much time at sea?” the midshipman sitting across from me asks with a Felielle accent and a kind smile. Her name is Ana Lionitis and she is a mousey girl of sixteen. Her narrow shoulders fold in on themselves, her hair hanging limply in the moisture-laden darkness. When the shifting light of the lantern catches her hands, I see the nails painted with pink glaze. In the eyes of the navy, Ana and I are as far apart in status as a royal and a stable boy.

  “A bit, ma’am.” I cling to my bag. “Not enough. And you?”

  Ana nods. “Six months.”

  I turn down my face before it gives away my thoughts. Sixteen is much too late a start for a midshipman. Most middies go to sea at ten or twelve, learning the ways of sailing and command. I went to sea at eight.

  Most middies are not Felielle girls either, I remind myself. Women do not take up arms in my mother’s homeland, but Ana has. From Ana’s defeated posture, I doubt her reasons for doing so are pleasant. And I’m sure they are none of my business.

  Ana too has avoided asking my reasons for enlisting. Those who love the sea sign on with captains directly, choosing leaders known for adventure and glory. Those signing up by night want to escape their life, not drag it to ship with them.

  “Is the sea to your liking, ma’am?” I ask, because I don’t know what else to say.

  She looks away.

  “It may grow on you,” I say quietly.

  “Not with our officers,” she whispers.

  I wisely avoid pointing out that she is part of “our officers.” As a middie, she is an officer in training, the lowest of the breed, but an officer nonetheless.

  We both sit alone for a while, silent until the oarsmen pull the bucking boat within a cable length of the frigate’s looming hull. My stomach flips, and, for the first time in years, the sickness of sea motion clutches my throat.

  “Here we are,” Ana says. “The Aurora. She’s a fine ship.”

  I seize the chance to study the frigate from the outside. The Aurora is as far from a “fine ship” as one can get. She is too old to upgrade, too small to join fleet-level engagements with large ships of the line, and too slow for use for dispatch. And her heading to the backwaters station in the Siaman Sea speaks to all that. I’d wager she’ll see duty no more exciting than escorting merchantmen back and forth between the small islands in the archipelago of Lyron’s southern boundary.

  The Aurora is also my best chance to survive. Far away from the mainland and its eyes, the Aurora will be a world in and of herself. And her particular backwaters station is fortuitous to my needs, which is not a small
part of the reason I chose her.

  The Siaman Sea, where the Aurora is assigned, flows between the archipelago on Lyron’s southern border and the Diante Empire’s north shore. It separates the Lyron League and Diante Empire in the south the same way the Ardent Ocean separates the Lyron and Tirik mainlands in the west. Unlike the Lyron mainland, however, the archipelago’s population is so tiny and unimportant that the islands are Joint League protectorates. No kingdom wants them, not with their lack of fresh water and redundant resources. Even the native trees, which would make valuable timber for building ships, are of little use since the same trees grow all along the Ardent coast on the mainland, where they are infinitely easier to harvest.

  To get to the Siaman Sea, the Aurora will be obliged to sail south through the Ardent Ocean and traverse the narrow Bottleneck Juncture into the Siaman. The Lyron archipelago in the Siaman Seas is as close to the Diante as anyone from Lyron ever gets. That far out from capital cities, there is even some trade between Diante and Lyron merchants. With villages, drinking water, and goods as scarce as they are, people are flexible. For my purposes, the Aurora’s post in the Siaman Sea is perfect.

  I hold the reins of my life now. Perhaps for the first time since birth.

  Clinging to that thought, I climb aboard in Ana’s wake and survey the deck. The wood planking is old and, by Faithful’s standards, filthy. Few sailors move with a will; fewer still do any work outside a petty officer’s supervision. Eyes turn to me, hostile and predatory. Men’s eyes. I search for the women and find few, with gazes harsher than the men’s.

  I force myself to stay steady. I knew it would be thus, did I not? The Aurora is a ship of the League’s Joint Fleet, not Ashing’s private armada, where women sail as readily as men. Fortunately, as far as regulations go, the Joint Fleet’s are similar to Ashing ones. Equality between genders, forbidden sexual relations between officers and enlisted seamen, and castration of anyone who forces himself on another. I will be all right. At least on that front.