Bren shook his head, his face an undecided mix of disapproval and admiration. Bleak shrugged innocently.
‘What?’ she said. ‘We have to play to the strengths we were given.’
Later, Bleak went down to the wharves to watch the sun set. She sat at the end of an abandoned jetty, chewing half a loaf of freshly baked sourdough and swigging from a flask of wine. Pondering which of the moronic village girls had bedded Maz without using the contraceptive potion, she was momentarily content, dangling her feet over the edge of the jetty, the dark water below licking at her toes. The stolen beaded bag lay beside her, its contents splayed out across the timber planks. She was quietly pleased with the day’s plunder. First, a dainty coin purse with Connos, the earth god, embroidered in painstaking detail on the front.
Connos. She’d almost laughed when she’d seen the likeness of their continent’s god – what had he ever done for Ellest, for her? She had always been more inclined towards Lamaka, the goddess of water, who Bleaker Senior and Bren prayed to. Fishermen and their water gods, she scoffed.
The purse itself held plenty of silver, enough for a few days’ worth of mead at least. Then there was the rose-gold pillbox and its contents. Bleak reckoned it would fetch a pretty price at the moon market if she played her cards right. Plus, there were some jewelled hairpins as well. She let her fingers wander to the ratty knots of her own hair, and nearly laughed aloud at the thought of using the accessories herself. Where would a gutter-rat-pickpocket wear jewelled hairpins?
She glanced at her reflection in the water and snorted. She’d always thought her round, odd-coloured eyes made her look as though she could be split into two different people. There was a strangeness there that made people turn away and shift uncomfortably. Freckles speckled the skin across her button nose, and her pointed chin often jutted forward in a show of audacity. But she looked gaunt – the half-starved appearance of a stubborn, orphaned pickpocket.
She held the last item, a trinket of her own – a length of rope. Its ends were frayed and it smelled of the sea. She didn’t know how long she’d had it, years – many years. Bleaker Senior had given it to her. He’d made her practise every knot to perfection before he’d agreed to allow her on his ship.
‘If I’m gonna be hosting a woman on board, she’s gotta at least be better than every man. Nobody can argue with skill,’ he’d say. ‘Show me a barrel hitch. Show me a bowline.’
She threaded the rope through her fingers, smiling at the memory. Such a simple thing – a length of rope – and yet she swore it had saved her sanity, saved her life on more than one occasion. She began the loops for the double overhand knot, before pausing to guzzle from the flask. Her eyes scanned over the drag of the current before her, the water slapping against the sides of pontoons and pleasure yachts, as she tasted the sharp bite of the cheap wine on her tongue.
A cure was all she’d ever wanted. Something to stop the voices in her mind, the judgements, the bitterness, and the despairs that weren’t her own. Something to put an end to her condition. Her life would be simpler, more enjoyable without it, not to mention less dangerous. The use of magic by anyone other than a royal had been illegal for one hundred and fifty years, and the penalty was death by mist. But Bleak was a mind whisperer, a reader of thoughts, and she’d never learned how to control it. At any moment, her mind was flooded with the thoughts of those around her. She was a rebel to the crown without intent. Ashai folk, they used to call them, the people who could wield magic. But uttering that word nowadays, even in Angove, was asking for trouble. From the posters she’d seen during her trips to the capital, the crown was still very much on the hunt for people like her, people with ‘conditions’. But after years of enduring, and years of searching, she was at her wit’s end. She had chased healers all over Ellest, none who had either the skill or desire to help her. And so, as she had drunkenly moored her boat the night before, she’d decided she’d have to venture across the seas, perhaps to Battalon or Havennesse, to find a cure. When she found one, she could quit the drinking, she could start her life.
Bleak looked at the completed overhand knot in her hands, and undid it to start again, a sheepshank knot this time. She didn’t have to think, she didn’t even have to look; the looping, threading and pulling of each different knot was second nature to her. The knots of a sailor, the knots of a fisherman. She would tie and untie them absentmindedly, letting her thoughts unravel along with the rope …
Her small fingers wrapped around the damp rope along the dock. She was six years old, gazing out onto the water, with her ma and pa by her side. She was thrilled to be out of the stuffy terrace house. They had taken her down to the wharves, where she loved to watch the fishing ships depart. They had come too early that day, and the fishermen were still packing up their equipment, after having sold their produce to the local marketers, chefs and royal kitchens. Her mother had screwed up her nose at the smell, and winced as the hem of her skirts had dragged through the muck, but she’d said nothing.
The family of three wandered along the wharves for a time, the little girl giggling at the silly names her pa dubbed the ships. Finally, Ma had abandoned hope for her gown and turned to her daughter, a beaming smile upon her face.
‘Let’s play hide and seek,’ she said.
Here? They were never allowed to play on the docks! In her excitement, the little girl hadn’t realised that her mother’s grip on her arms was too tight, and that behind her, Pa was throwing his hands about wildly as he spoke to a foot soldier who had appeared from nowhere.
‘Quick,’ her mother said, her face a mask of enthusiasm. Turning around to face the sea, she began counting. ‘One … Two …’
The little girl didn’t wait another second – she was an amazing hider, her pa said so.
‘Three …’
She ran towards the stacked crates where all the fishermen were washing their hands and faces in great big barrels of water.
‘Four …’
Her mother’s voice followed her.
‘Five …’
The little girl weaved between the fishermen, some of them crying out in protest. She ducked under tables and crates, the smell of fish scraps suddenly overpowering. Her ma definitely wouldn’t look here.
Beyond the familiar voice counting, there was shouting and the clang of metal.
‘Eight …’
Ma was getting close, but there was no way she’d find her here. She drew her scraped knees up to her chest, feeling the dirty water and fish innards soak into her dress. Ma couldn’t be cross – she was hidden really well. She was going to win!
‘Ni—’
The little girl saw the puddle of water around her change colour. Murky trails of pink seeped into it, and then a deeper, darker red saturated the hem of her pastel-yellow petticoat. From beneath the tables and crates, she saw Ma, and Ma saw her. Ma put a single bloodied finger to her lips, her eyes fighting to stay open.
Shhhh …
Wide-eyed, the little girl nodded.
Bleaker Senior, his men and a much younger Bren were packing up for the day and washing down the streets when, with a bundle of nets in his arms, Bleaker Senior spotted her, her face peering out from behind a stack of empty crates.
‘What in the realm —’ he started, before looking around and falling silent. He paired the blood on her face with the commotion earlier and scratched his chin.
Is she hurt? Where’s all the blood from? By gods, what am I going to do with this? Who is she? The guards want —
She jumped at the man’s internal voice, a sudden intrusion into her own mind. He was inside her head.
There was a crash down near the docks. From where she was still crouched, she could see the guards kicking over stalls and rifling through people’s trunks and carts. They went so far as to attempt to lift a woman’s many-layered skirts. She shrieked at the indecency and her husband came running, objecting furiously.
‘Maybe the girl wasn’t with them,’ said one guard
to his superior as they moved closer to her hiding spot.
‘Like hell she wasn’t. I want this place searched from top to bottom. I don’t give a damn whose skirts you’ve got to ruffle, and I don’t care if it takes all bloody day. Find her.’
Gods. Those bastards. Hunting down a child. Her parents —
Bleaker Senior took a final look at her before striding forward and dumping the pile of nets he was holding on top of her.
‘Not a sound,’ he murmured, as he scooped her and the nets up in his arms, and dropped them into something else. She landed on her tailbone, pain blooming, but she had sense enough to muffle her cry. Wheels moved beneath her. As she was rolled down the dirt path and onto the timber planks of the wharf, she could hear Bleaker Senior’s thoughts. Questioning himself, cursing himself and then —
‘Evening, fellas,’ his gruff voice sounded.
‘Bleaker,’ said a guard in greeting. ‘Seen anything odd today?’
‘What do you mean, odd?’
‘Little girl, dressed up little thing. Hanging about the docks?’
‘Now that is odd … What would a little one like that be doing around here?’
‘None of your concern. You seen her?’
Senior laughed. ‘As usual, gents, I never see nothin’.’
He pushed the trolley onwards, and no one stopped him.
Later, when Bleaker Senior asked her name, she repeated his back to him.
Bleaker. Bleaker. Bleaker.
The sun pulsed red as it lingered on the edge of the realm and Senior’s ship set sail for Angove. The rowdy fishermen were soon drunk on ale, with market banter flying between them, as the little girl cowered in the corner. Senior draped a woolly blanket over her small shoulders, and rested his hand on the crown of her head.
‘You’ll come to find we’re not so bad, Half-Pint,’ he said.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the muted purple dusk brought Bleak back to the present. The gentle salt breeze was cool against her sunburnt skin, soothing her churning thoughts. Lanterns glowed on the decks of the docked yachts, and a lone fiddle sounded in the distance. The timber planks creaked beneath her as someone sat down next to her. Bren’s callused hand offered a paper bag.
‘Thought you might be hungry,’ he said, looking out onto the water, the reflections of the moon, the stars and the lanterns glimmering atop its surface.
Bleak took the warm paper bag from him. How long had it been since she’d had a hot meal? Her mouth watered as she opened it up and spotted golden pastry.
‘Ma’s famous palma pie,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the flat expanse of sea.
She bit into it and stifled a moan. She remembered Mrs Clayton’s palma pie – spiced meat and gravy held together with buttery, crunchy layers. Growing up, she and Senior would often have dinner at the Claytons’. Mrs Clayton was one of the few people Bleak knew who felt happier when she had more mouths to feed.
Bleak offered Bren her flask. Taking it, he gave it a little shake, listening to the contents slosh around inside, before drinking.
‘Calm tonight,’ he said, nodding to the lazy pull of the sea.
‘I noticed.’
‘Been a while since we been on the water together.’
‘I prefer solo trips.’
‘Ya might need another set of hands if yer planning on heading to Battalon or Havennesse.’
‘Who said I was?’
‘It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Ya ain’t found what yer looking for in Ellest. I could help ya find it if you’d tell me what it is.’
Bleak was quiet.
‘This tastes like shit,’ Bren said, passing the wine back to her.
‘I know.’
She grimaced as Bren’s thoughts began to leak into her mind, his questions, his observations about her, his sadness.
Why won’t she … All I do … If I could just have a chance …
She couldn’t listen anymore. Getting to her unsteady feet, she bid him goodnight and left him on the jetty. Home, she needed to get home.
Right near the base of the cliffs was the marina and Bleaker Senior’s old warehouse. It now housed ropes, spare sails and parts for many of the vessels that docked at Angove, but above it was the loft: her quarters. The only place in the whole realm she called her own. Bleaker Senior had lived in the cottage beside it, but that had been seized by the town mayor only days after Senior’s passing. It had been torn down not long after. It’d been nothing short of a miracle that she’d been allowed to stay in the loft. Although, they had never allowed her to read Senior’s will, which she suspected favoured her.
She tried to remember a time when the people of Angove hadn’t reviled her. Perhaps it just hadn’t seemed so bad when Senior was around. By now, she’d gathered that he’d shielded her from a lot of ill treatment, he and the Claytons. But she couldn’t keep asking that of them, not after Senior passed, not after they’d lost Willem and Tobias. She had to rely on herself, especially if she wanted to sail to Battalon, and Bren … She’d have to leave him behind.
Bleak clawed her way up the ladder into the loft and drew it up behind her. The loft itself wasn’t much. She’d dragged bales of hay around to create some semblance of furniture, but it hardly mattered. She had few possessions, and certainly wasn’t one for entertaining. In the corner lay a crumpled pile of clothes, handed down from Bren and his brothers, and a thick, waxed cloak – one of the few things she had as a keepsake from Senior. There were also several flasks and glass bottles she used to store her mead. She reached for one now, the silver one – her favourite. She kept this close to the pile of hay on which she slept.
Alone. She exhaled a shaky breath. Alone again at last. She drank from the flask, the liquor burning her insides as she gulped it down. And then she slept. A sleep filled with surreal details: sailing knots and mist, her name on a stranger’s lips, and heat, a pulsating heat throbbing in the air around her.
Chapter 2
Bleak’s nose itched as the smell of smoke filled her nostrils. Her skin was clammy, her hair wet with sweat, and – she opened her eyes.
The warehouse below her was ablaze.
Flames were devouring the rope, the nets, the wooden planks, everything. Fire licked up the beams of timber, racing towards the bundles of hay, the stash of liquor serving as fuel. She had to get out. Now. Bleak scrambled towards the ladder, hauling it up into the stifling heat of the loft and angling it towards the window. It was the only way out. She glanced down at the angry flames below, and pushed the ladder through the window, her heart in her throat.
This was not how she wanted to go. Death by fire. No, not like this.
Something exploded behind her – the alcohol. She didn’t have time to scream. She flung herself out of the entrance with the ladder, and pushed off from the building. Falling took forever, and also no time at all. Bleak tried to twist the ladder around, tried to position herself so she’d land nimbly on her feet, but she plunged towards the earth. She hit the ground with a thud, and the heavy ladder crashed down on top of her. She didn’t move. She didn’t know if she could. She was afraid to try.
Am I dead? But she could hear her own ragged breathing, taste the smoke she was coughing up from her lungs. Her chest burned as she spluttered. What happened?
Someone kicked her side, sharply. Bleak groaned, bringing her knees up to her chest and her hands up to protect her face, but thick, rough fingers closed around her upper arm and dragged her upwards. She staggered, grimacing at the pain in her side from the kick, and the jarring in all her muscles and bones from the fall. How was she alive?
Daylight blinded her.
‘Thought your fisherman could blackmail me?’ growled a deep voice.
Bleak’s eyes flew open. Blinking through the haze, she saw Maz’s face only inches from her own.
‘What?’
‘Don’t deny it, it’s too late for that.’
‘Maz, what … what happened?’
S
uddenly, she became aware of all the people. Maz’s friends, and beyond them, some of the villagers who had come down to the water to enjoy the show. She could hear a group of sailors struggling to put out the warehouse’s flames.
‘What do you want?’ she said, trying to twist out of his grip, ignoring the painful protest in her arms, her heart racing.
‘To teach you a lesson,’ he snarled.
‘Consider it taught. You’ve burned down my home.’
Maz snorted. Bleak searched the faces of those around her. Nothing. No pity or empathy; none of these people would step in. She was the town drunk, the town freak, a nuisance, a nobody. What did they care what was done to her, whether she lived or died?
Well, she cared. And she wasn’t going to let Maz touch her. But Maz’s grip was firm, bruising her upper arms with his meaty hands. If only she had a weapon. A thrill went through her as she remembered – the rope!
Slowly, she edged her hand to her trouser pocket, disguising the movement with a bigger, bolder struggle. She loosed the length of rope between her fingers at her side. Maz was momentarily distracted, making a vile remark to one of the leering men nearby. She twisted from his grip and flung one end of the rope to her other hand. She pivoted and landed behind him, with the rope now burning a line around his throat. She pulled the two ends tight, and Maz gasped for air, his hands flying up to fight the rope cutting into his windpipe, but Bleak held firm. She looked around wildly, knowing that this moment of advantage wasn’t going to last long, and that if they caught her after this, things would be even worse for her. She rammed a knee hard into Maz’s kidney, and his legs buckled beneath him. He was rasping for air; any longer and she’d kill him. Bleak took a deep breath, released the rope and shoved him into the crowd.
She sprinted for her life. Her legs pumped hard beneath her as she tore up the hillside, wincing as her bare feet stumbled over sharp rocks. She left the sea and the docks far behind, and didn’t look back; there was no time. She shoved the length of rope back in her pocket as she ran, ignoring the pain from the fall and the burning in her calves from the steep incline back up to the village centre. The coastal sun was hot on her back, and she was panting now, her whole chest heaving. Gods, she was unfit. She raced through the town centre, weaving through the throng of staring people. Their thoughts slammed into her.
Heart of Mist Page 2