Air and Ash

by Alex Lidell

  “Get below!” Domenic calls. “Get below, all who can. Others, hold fast!”

  I twist to look at the mast. Catsper and the seaman helping lower Craig are just stepping onto the deck. Sandra is in the shrouds, holding our safety line. If she lets go, Simons and I will die when the wave comes. If she takes time to secure it, she will never make it down to deck in time to save her own life. Our eyes meet. She knows too.

  I expect my thoughts to race, but my mind is calm. “Let go,” I call to her.

  She shakes her head.

  “Get down,” I shout again.

  “Hold fast, fish bait!” she shouts back, her cold hands tying the knots that would anchor the line even if—when—she lets go of the rope.

  I will her fingers to move faster, to make time to tie herself in as well.

  The wave crashes over the eastern wall of Inuk Bay. I grip Simons. “We will be knocked from the yardarm,” I call into his ear. My heart races. “Hold on to me and our rope.”

  Instead of starting on her own harness, Sandra is adding an extra safety knot to our anchor.

  With shuddering breath, I cut my gaze to the water giant, and the thin thread of hope that we may come out of this unscathed rips violently as the wall of water smashes into land. Nothing stands a chance before the wave. Not the trees, or rocks or any living thing that has the misfortune of calling the coast home. I gasp as I realize the uprooted tree trunks and boulders ride with foam, spinning and smashing and moving.

  The wave is still going, tearing hungrily across the land. Domenic shouts to turn the helm. The water is halfway to our bay. Three quarters. Domenic gives up shouting and throws himself beside the two helmsmen, struggling with the wheel to angle the Aurora’s nose properly into the coming disaster. The mad monster of water seems even bigger as it rushes toward our bay, its foaming maw filled with debris as set as cannonballs on destruction.

  With a deafening crash, the water spills into Inuk Bay. The Aurora’s bow rises higher and higher into the air, balancing precariously. At least until something hard smashes our stern and spins our axis. Dominic’s hard-won angle of attack shatters, and the Aurora rolls to starboard.

  Ten degrees. Twenty. Forty-five.

  Gravity pries my fingers from the yardarm, and I’m flung into the air. The harsh jolt of the harness catches me. I swing beside Simons on the mast, gasping, as the waterline rushes toward me. Close. Closer. The salty spray shocks me.

  We are going to capsize.

  No. We can’t. It is my fault the Aurora is here, and I can’t let this happen, not without a fight. Whatever the cost. I twist in my harness to examine the sail. The canvas struggles, wanting to balance the ship. Keeping my eyes on it, I brace myself and reach for my magic. There will be no control when I release it. No tameness. No assurance I will ever rein in that raging beast again.

  Now.

  I choke, buckling under the strain, as the wind explodes around me. The air rushes, uncaring about my body, how it pours into my lungs and mouth and eyes. I can spare no attention for my body either. All my might, all my efforts are directed at keeping one little corner of magic pulled taut, just enough to shape the wind’s course into the sail.

  The wind blows. Storms and hail, it blows. The howling in my ears echoes through my bones. My lungs burn. Everything burns. I’d sob if I could, but my body is not mine to control anymore. I am a wind magnet, and channeling the air into the sail will be my last willful act.

  I hear a pop as the canvas responds and hope it is enough. It has to be. The wind shakes me like a rag.

  The ship rocks. Starboard and port. Starboard and port. Bloody indecisive frigate.

  I swing. Limp and empty and dizzy.

  Starboard and port.

  I don’t care anymore. I’ve no strength left to care.

  And then the ship tilts to port and rights before my world goes black.

  I am alive.

  And breathing.

  I deserve neither benefit. Simons and I swing on our tether. The boy is shaking. I am too drained to shake. Too drained to move. I reach for my magic and find it gone. I should be excited. Or scared. But I am beyond feeling. When a crew of seamen climbs out onto the yardarm to help us, I let myself be manhandled back to the mast. Only when my limbs are solidly wedged on the mast’s holds does my body agree to minor cooperation. Step by step, I climb down.

  I’m a man’s height from the deck when the fear seizes me. My stomach cramps and my breaths quicken and my chest squeezes. Anxiety shudders through me. My hands tighten on their holds. No. They try to tighten, but my fingers refuse to move. Light flashes before my eyes, bright and green and blinding. I feel myself let go. It’s odd, as if it’s happening to someone else and I am a mere observer. I know someone is shouting my name. And I know I can’t answer.

  I’m in the air. And then my ankle hurts. And my head cracks against the deck. I hurt, but I can’t move, even away from the pain.

  “Ash.” The voice is Domenic’s and very close. “Nile!”

  “Is she all right?” a boy asks.

  “She is alive but unconscious,” says Domenic. “She was on the bloody yardarm during the great wave. Who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to let her descend on her own?” An arm snakes under my knees and another one beneath my shoulders. I’m in the air again.

  My body is reporting in now, but I keep my eyes closed. Better go with Domenic’s presumption of capital fatigue. I let my head loll onto his chest.

  “I’ll get her below,” Domenic says.

  “I’ll do it.” Catsper’s voice. “You’ve more to do on deck than I.”

  Domenic concedes the point, and I am transferred. The movement jars my ankle, and I bite my lip to keep from whimpering. Unconscious people typically don’t whimper.

  Catsper moves off with me toward the companionway. “You can open your eyes now,” he says dryly. “I’ve dealt with violence long enough to know when someone is actually unconscious.”

  My face heats. I open my eyes and allow Catsper to ease me down the companion ladder, taking what weight I can on my good leg. The dazed thud of the fall echoes through my skull. I sway.

  “Let’s move, Ash,” Catsper orders, steering me to the Cove.

  “You have the bedside manner of a hyena.” The words slur as the images from the mast slam me. Craig. Simons… “Sandra? Did Sandra—”

  “Dead.”

  I draw a breath.

  “Mourn later. Talk now.” Catsper helps me inside and onto a sea chest. “What happened on the masthead?”

  My hands are torn between cradling my head and my ankle. “I lost my grips. Couldn’t hold on any longer.”

  “Crock of shit.” Catsper crosses his arms over his chest and leans down toward me. “A decent crock, mind you, and you’ll sell it to Dana. But like I said, I stake my life on fighting. And I was watching you.”

  Flattering. “What do you bloody think happened?” My voice sounds as drained as I feel. “I contemplated ending my life, but by the time I made my decision, I was only seven feet from the deck.”

  He squats beside me and unlaces the boot of my injured leg. “Do you think you might have similar ideas again?”

  I don’t know. I cradle my head in my arms. “I let the magic take over to try to fill the Aurora’s sail. I wasn’t exactly expecting to survive the experience, so give me a bit of leeway for not knowing what my body planned next.”

  Catsper snorts. “You need to stay out of the rigging until you’ve worked it out. And better tell Dana, before he orders you up for some nonsense.”

  “No.” I grab Catsper’s wrist. “You can’t tell him. He’ll… Gifted aren’t exactly welcome on ships. Or anywhere else. If Domenic finds out, he’ll put me ashore and think he’s doing both the navy and me a favor.”

  “I don’t make a habit of breaking confidences.” Catsper pulls free of my hold. “But you must give him some explanation.”

  “I bloody swung off the yardarm through a tsunami. A bit o
f muscle fatigue is rather understandable, Catsper.” I rub my arms. “And I’m not climbing anywhere with a hurt ankle.” Not for a few days.

  I hope I can work things out by then.

  Chapter 34

  I jerk in my hammock. My entire right side is shaking, and my heart races the winds. It’s the third such spell this short night. My body has no reserves left. Even when the convulsions release me, I continue trembling inside my sweat-soaked shirt. I’m cold, as if I’ve fever chills. Pulling up the blanket, I wrap it tight around my shoulders and suckle on a bit of ginger root.

  “Nile.” Ana’s voice intrudes. “Do you need help? You are unwell.”

  Of course I’m unwell. I want to disappear into my cocoon and stay there until someone promises that the terrors of the night are over. I want my mother.

  Since I also want my life, I force myself to sit up instead of burrowing deeper into my bedding. My lip stings, and I realize it’s bleeding. I’ve bitten it. Quickly, I swipe my forearm over the cut. “My ankle hurts a bit is all.” It isn’t a lie. My leg throbs.

  A reminder of what could have happened had the spell caught me seconds earlier.

  “I’ll wrap it for you,” Ana offers, fishing a long bandage from her sea chest. “So what do you think Dana will do to us?” There’s more than a bit of worry in her voice, and I little blame her. We diverted the Aurora against orders. Domenic won’t be pleased. Especially since, given the actual nature of Price’s disaster, the diversion into Inuk Bay likely did us more harm than good. The landmass did slow the coming tsunami, but the shallower waters also gave it its height. Had we been farther out, we’d likely have ridden above the disturbance with barely a care—depending on where exactly in the archipelago the wave would have found us.

  A storm had been the more likely threat, the one we’d prepared for.

  A calculated risk.

  “We’ll discover soon enough,” I say glumly, though the mention of Domenic spurs my pulse back into a gallop. I feel him lifting me from the deck, my head resting against his shoulder. His anger at my injuries. Because he thought fatigue and the sea were to blame for my pain. He’d not have been so kind had he known the truth. “Our decision was sound given the information we had.”

  Ana looks little convinced. Her hands work the bandage around my ankle deftly, though. A skill from one of her anatomy books, perhaps.

  It takes several minutes, but I manage to shrug into a respectable tunic. At least I’ll look decent before Domenic tears me to shreds.

  The trek to the deck is a slow hobble. I hold on to the bulkhead as I move, my foot unable to bear weight for more than a moment. Which, given the situation, is good. Domenic won’t send me aloft with a hurt leg. I have no business in the rigging today. Not tomorrow either, most likely. Not until the spells subside.

  If they subside.

  The deck is alive with whispers. The death wave was an omen. No, it was the Gods’ punishment for letting the Tirik boy live. The Goddess had guided us into the protection of the bay. It was all unnatural. It was nature at its zenith. It was Gifted work.

  It was weather and navigation.

  “Gather round, all hands,” Rima barks over the sailors’ rumblings. “This is an elite ship of war, not a women’s washroom.”

  The murmur dies. Both watches cluster around the quarterdeck where the captain stands flanked by his officers and middies. Domenic sees me in the crowd, and his face darkens. Whatever moved him to care for me yesterday is gone without a trace. If there is anything I could do to hurt him more than going behind his back and lying, I’m unsure what it is.

  Domenic’s eyes say he’d like to clamp me into irons himself, if not for Rima’s order to gather the crew.

  Captain Rima clears his throat. Conjuring a way to explain yesterday’s events, I wager. He puts his hands behind his back, calm and neutral except for the vein pulsing in his temple. “Late last night,” Rima announces each word with perfect clarity, “I ordered the Aurora into the safety of Inuk Bay. The Bay’s shores protected the ship from the worst effects of the great wave, which raged across the ocean this morning. This was neither the Gods’ wrath nor salvation—it was basic good seamanship of the kind we practice on Aurora’s decks each day.” He pauses, looking across the faces in the crowd. The crew nods cautiously, slowly. They want to believe him. They want to trust that their lord and master has control over fate.

  I wonder how many of us know it’s all a bloody lie. The middies and I. Domenic. Catsper. I search the gathered faces for hidden sneers, careful cutting glances, but find none. Either the sailors are sold on Rima’s claims or are too smart to display their thoughts. The Spades stare straight ahead.

  Rima paces several steps and continues in the clear, confident voice of a schoolmaster. “The great wave itself was likewise no mythical being. It was caused by an earthquake as all such waves are.”

  “Why did we not go deeper to sea, sir?” a hand asks.

  I hold my breath.

  Rima smiles. “Given the unpredictable nature of the weather gods, this was the safest choice, I assure you.”

  “How far did it reach, sir?” someone else calls out. With the cursed shallowness of the Ardent Ocean coastline, the damage along the main continent would be catastrophic if an earthquake or great wave touched it. Manyfold worse than whatever we see here.

  “There is no way to know,” the captain answers. He doesn’t say that it might have been hundreds of miles. Doesn’t tell them that their homes on the mainland may have fallen.

  A good answer. Very good. Rima’s words are the only ones to stand a fighting chance in preventing the ship-wide panic the morning’s whispers betrayed. Captain Rima is not daft. Not by a bloody long shot.

  And I am smart enough to fear that.

  Rima’s tone firms before the hands can shout more queries. “I will hear nothing more of wild speculation and children’s stories. I have done what I could to keep us safe. Now it is your turn to put the Aurora to rights and back on course.” He straightens his tunic and turns to Domenic. “Dismiss the crew to their duties, if you please, Commander. And report any further nonsense to me directly.”

  Domenic calls the watches to duty stations, and the Aurora’s day shrugs into its routine. Kederic finds my eyes and gives me a ghost of a smile. Rima may have dug his version of events from his rear end, but the declaration also happened to put the Aurora’s first officer in the awkward position of being unable to throttle us without contradicting his own superior. Well, openly throttle. I imagine the inevitable conversation with Domenic and have little desire to smile back at the middie.

  A work crew of sailors brushes past me and hops into the rigging. Just watching them makes my hands tremble. I can’t go into those ropes. Not if I want to live. Swallowing, I turn and hobble away in search of something useful I can accomplish.

  The purser thrusts inventory ledgers into my hands the moment the suggestion leaves my lips. He also vows to hold me accountable for any discrepancies between the books and the stores, and I don’t bother fighting the point before actually seeing which supplies have survived the great wave. I’ve no illusions that my counts, rather than Rima’s will be reported to the Admiralty, but I will feel better knowing the true state of the ship.

  And I will feel better being out of sight today.

  The hollow pit in my stomach whispers that an earthquake can reach far. Very, very far. To Ashing. My kingdom, my people. Do our ports still stand? Are the fishermen’s boats now debris? The timber we use for building and repairing ships grows along the coastline, or did. Will there be food? Storms and hail. With the much of the Joint Fleet recently destroyed, there must be few resources left in the League. Certainly not enough to help rebuild the tiny coastal kingdom that had probably taken the worst beating from this disaster. The other kingdoms will be too absorbed in their own affairs to care.

  Storms, Ashing’s own princess was too absorbed in her own affairs to care. My face burns.

  I shut
my eyes. If I appeared suddenly and sold myself to the Felielle prince, would that buy the subsidies that would save Ashing? I swallow and lean my forehead against the bulkhead, my heart heavy. Because I know the answer to that. No. Not while I’m a cripple. Even if I managed to return now and bluff my way through the exchange, who knows what retribution would come upon Felielle’s discovery of my Gift and thus Ashing’s treachery.

  I find my way down to the same hold where I once discovered Price. I wonder how the boy is doing, but checking now would be the height of foolishness. More importantly, I trust Catsper and his Spades to keep Price safe in their care.

  The stale air digs into my lungs. Taking shallow breaths, I hang my lantern on a hook and face the casks of salt pork and ruined bags of flour. Hidden from the judgmental eyes of my shipmates, waging war on fatigue is increasingly difficult. I let myself slide down to the deck and brace my back against a coil of rope. My eyes count the barrels, comparing the figures to those in the purser’s notes until my lids droop heavy with sleep.

  I snap my eyelids open and blink. I can’t sleep on duty. Storms and hail. I rub my palm over my face. Just for a moment, my body begs. Not sleeping, just resting.

  The next time I open my eyes is to a creaking sound behind me. I startle, jumping to my feet and yelping as my ankle takes weight.

  “What in Goddess’s name are you doing here?” Domenic’s voice demands.

  My heart sinks into my stomach. My gaze scurries across the hold, as if some means of escape might open for me in the bulkhead. Instead, I hear the sound of Domenic’s steps as he navigates around the foodstuffs to stand before me.

  He crosses his arms. The ice in his eyes is sharp enough to cut. “I said, what are you doing here?”

  “Counting salt pork, sir.” I lick my dry lips. The hold feels small. “Incidentally, we are overstocked.”

  “I’ve heard of worse predicaments.”

  The silence between us stretches taut as a bow. I pinch the bridge of my nose, struggling to bring my mind into focus. Why could not this confrontation have happened when I was fresh and ready for battle?