by Adalyn Grace
Men, women, and children alike bend over uprooted buildings and structures, some of them hammering at planks of wood while others pass out the mass of supplies around them. Their faces are worn and their lips press into flat lines. They work in silence, and they work fast. Impossibly fast, a whirlwind of flying hands and hammers.
It’s time magic; I never imagined seeing it used by so many would look this strange. Though they don’t have the power to alter time itself, they can either speed or slow their movements down, influencing how bodies interact within it. Those before me warp time to hasten their movements, hands moving in a blur that’s nearly impossible to follow as they work quicker than any human can sustain.
I can only imagine how taxing it is on their bodies.
This is not the simple fix I’d hoped for. This island is on the verge of collapsing. All of Visidia should be here helping, not wasting their money on silly water sports or lavish birthday celebrations. Valukans with an affinity to earth should be here repaving and cleaning up the destroyed buildings. They should be erecting new buildings while Curmanans with levitation clear rubble. Stars, we could even get those from Mornute to help them design once the rebuilding was done. And yet there’s no one here but the Kers. The Valukan aides who can manipulate water never should have been taken from this place—it’s fallen to ruin.
Father could have given an order to clean this island up within days. So why didn’t he? The Kers seemed to have supplies for rebuilding, but is that truly all he offered?
“This is a full season after the storm.” Bastian weaves through the streets with feigned confidence. “It hit the island early spring.” He wears a cloak as well, as do the majority of the villagers. Ours are nothing glamorous, but with theirs torn and faded gray from soot and overuse, we look entirely out of place.
I keep my ruby cloak snug against me and close the space between myself and the Kers hard at work.
Bastian hisses a breath. “What are you doing? I doubt we’ll find a mermaid here, we need to keep moving.”
I ignore him and crouch between a child no older than eight and a woman too old to be his mother, and reach out my palm for his hammer. “You should take a break. Let me help.”
The child peers up with cheeks full of dirty smudges, scrutinizing first my face, then my new clothes. My gut sinks at the way he eyes them with desire.
The woman is the one who gestures for him to hand over a hammer, her hands twitching in and out of vision. Her face flickers too, moving so quickly it’s as if she’s snapping in and out of time.
“It’s not every day we see a new face around these parts.” Her voice is like sliding gravel, coarse and grating. “A couple of storms, and suddenly people no longer believe you’re worth their time.”
Leaning over, the hood of my cloak looms over me, obscuring my vision. Somewhere behind me, Bastian groans as I push it back.
“Did you get these supplies from King Audric?” I ask.
Her hands slow as time adjusts around her, back to what I can keep up with. Her eyes are a bitter green that lift to inspect me before she barks a harsh laugh. “We have no king. Blarthe gives us these supplies.”
The hammer in my hand is so heavy I barely have the sense to lift it. My chest is tight, constricted, but I don’t look back at the others even as they loom behind me.
“They’re not from Kaven, then?” Ferrick keeps his voice quiet as he peers around at all the workers. Too many of them are children.
The woman’s jaw works as though she’s clenching something between her teeth. “Better not to speak that name around here. You never know who might be listening.”
“Then what about Blarthe?” Bastian presses. He crouches next to the woman, whose face is stern as she shoves a hammer hard into his chest. He grunts, and the young boy sniggers quietly. His hands have slowed to a stop, and sweat coats his peeling, sunburnt forehead.
“Why are your hands empty?” the woman huffs. “They look plenty capable to me. Perhaps if you use them, I might feel more inclined to answer your questions.”
Bastian scowls but drops to his knees all the same, and Ferrick eventually follows.
This woman and child are not the only ones interested in us. We’ve earned the attention of all those working to restore this building—a small shop, by the look of it. I grip the hammer, the anger between their brows and the tightness of their lips all the encouragement I need. Against Bastian’s advice, I shed my cloak and dig my knees into the ground for support.
I may not have the speed of the Kers, but angry determination constricts my throat and weighs my hands every time I pound the wooden planks, over and over again, until my skin is slick with sweat and my breath comes in pants.
Each strike of the hammer echoes my shame and anger. This is worse than anything I imagined. How could Father let this happen? Our people should be here, not dancing beneath torchlight and drums, or trading pearls for overpriced snapper as part of our kingdom suffers. How could he not even send them supplies?
Though the young boy doesn’t complain, his face is tight with pain as he hammers. His hands are chapped, the angry red flesh raised. I spy Ferrick watching him work.
“Hey,” Ferrick says gently, drawing the boy’s attention. “What’s your name?”
The boy hesitates, turning to seek permission from the woman who appears to be looking over him. When she says nothing, he turns back to Ferrick and says, “My name’s Armin.”
“Those hands look like they could use a break, Armin.” Ferrick shifts so that he’s closer to the boy, crouching before him. “Why don’t you let me help heal them for you? It’ll only take a minute.”
Again, Armin looks toward the woman. Her small nod is enough for him to drop his hammer and shove his hands into Ferrick’s chest with a grin.
Armin scrunches his nose as Ferrick works, making a face through the strange feelings that come with healing—always a quick flare of pain, and then an almost unsettling warmth.
Ferrick tries not to let on how exhausting his work is, but it’s in the tension between his brows and the tight line of his lips. It’s in the stiffness of his hands, which cast a faint orange glow onto the boy’s skin as he mends Armin’s hands.
“This is amazing!” The boy stares at his hands in awe when Ferrick falls back and wipes the sweat from his forehead. They look like the hands of a child—soft and no longer cracked or peeling.
People begin to cast looks at Ferrick and Armin from over their shoulders as they work, their interests piqued.
“I’m glad it feels better.” Ferrick smiles as he turns to the woman next to Armin. He extends a hand. “I can help yours, too,” he offers, but she bats his hand away with a huff.
“I’m in pain for a reason,” she grumbles. “And I always want to remember what that reason is. Help them, instead.” She points behind Ferrick, to a small group of people who have congregated.
“I have this catch in my shoulder,” one says at the same time another asks if he can get any relief for his aching neck.
Ferrick’s mouth slackens as he stares up at the hopeful faces. But he doesn’t hesitate. He ushers everyone to form a line and pats the ground in front of him. The first Ker sits and offers Ferrick his left ankle, and the healer promptly gets to work.
My attention is drawn away only when the woman beside us presses a hand against my back, and my body lurches. I don’t realize how quickly I’ve begun to move until my hands become a blur. Though the rest of the world is the same, I’m faster than ever, sped up so fiercely that my breaths come in sharp gasps as I try to adjust. The wall I work on goes up quickly, nail after nail, panel after panel, but with so few of us, it still takes too much time.
Bastian works silently beside me, hammering, lifting, grunting, with movements almost too quick to make out. I’ve no idea how long we’ve been going, but none of us try to stop the other. We work in a wordless understanding that, for now, this is the least we can do.
After everyone’s healed an
d the shop we’ve been hammering away at stands proud, the woman whisks sweat from her brow and leans back to take in a series of long, tired breaths. I try not to look at her, so wrinkled and aged beyond her years. She presses a hand to my shoulders again, and it’s as though all my energy is sapped out of me.
I gasp, choking for the breath that tries to escape, and drop my hammer to the dirt as my hands slow. While working, I hadn’t noticed this tiredness; it catches up to me at once, nearly knocking me back. My hands are stiff and calloused, as though I’ve spent a full week working. I press my palms to the ground, trying to steady myself as time catches back up to me.
This magic is a strange, dangerous thing.
“You’ve the same hardness to your face as your father.” Her voice is cool as the breeze when she speaks.
I whip my head up to look as strands of her red hair pale into a stark white. Her voice is quiet enough that, at first, I believe I’m hearing things. She keeps her attention ahead and on her work.
“Except your eyes are different. His tell lies with their smile, bright enough to make you believe them. But you?” Those bitter green eyes flick to me for the briefest moment before her hands start up again, hammering away. “You glare. Like something’s wrong, and you’re the only one who can fix it.”
My tongue is dry and my mind numb. I’m not certain if her words are praise or further condemnation, but the woman doesn’t clarify. She simply finds another plank of wood and gets back to work while others set bricks around the structure. Shakily I pick my hammer back up and do the same, slower this time. The woman watches me from the corner of her eye.
“Kaven showed up after the storm,” she says after a moment, chilling my blood so fiercely my wrist seizes before its next strike. “After your father took away the Valukans who’d been helping us tame the tides. We needed the help; we wanted safety and comfort for our families. Kaven preyed on that. He offered us a chance to help him end the king, so that we could learn to protect ourselves and our home with Valukan magic. Many accepted his offer, for they had no better choice. But you won’t find those people here. Kaven’s set them up in Enuda, on the southern edge of the island, and no one who’s gone has made it back.” She turns her face away, voice dropping. She doesn’t need to say what she’s thinking aloud; we all know the danger of multiple magics. How they consume you slowly, and then all at once.
“Blarthe rolled in after Kaven to prey on the stragglers, bringing three ships stocked with food and supplies,” she continues after a moment. “He’s in charge, now.”
My hands shake so fiercely I have to squeeze them tight to grip the hammer and strike again. “Why didn’t you take his offer?” I ask, because it’s the last bit of hope I have. If all these people refused Kaven because they still believe in Visidia—and in the Montara monarchy—then there’s time to turn this around.
The woman grinds her teeth together as though I’ve slapped her. “No one’s going to take me from my home.” Each word is fierce as a cannon strike. “Blarthe is no saint. Some might say he’s even a worse option. But for those of us who want to remain living in the place we call home, he’s our only choice. So thank you for your assistance,” she whispers eventually, though the words are anything but soft praise. They bite. “But if you truly care to help, then the next time you come here, it better be with an entire fleet. And it better be soon.”
I dip my head and lift the hood of my cape back over it so that no one can see how deeply her words sting, or the shame on my face.
Behind me, Ferrick’s crowd has dispersed. His skin is ashen and sweat dampens his shirt. But still, he sets a hand on my shoulder, silently offering to heal my hands.
Like the woman, I push him away.
“Let me feel it,” I tell him. “I want to remember the reason for this pain, too.”
From then on, nothing but hammers sound until daybreak.
* * *
There are no long goodbyes when we continue our journey hours later. We leave only with leaden, guilty consciences, throbbing hands and shoulders, and instructions on where to find a man named Blarthe—as the one who runs this town, he has the best chance of knowing where we can find a mermaid.
We dodge bent and rotting oak trees as we travel through cracked cobblestone streets, footsteps painfully slow as our work takes its toll. Even the grass here is sad. It’s dying in most places, brown and ready to snap.
Here, the people we run into are few and far between. Those we do see pass us, lugging building supplies up the winding streets, to where others hammer away at rapid speed. From what I can see, much of Kerost’s landscape is flat. There aren’t mountains so much as there are hills with yellowing, overwatered grass. More Kers climb those mountains, building homes on the highest peaks—but they’re not high enough to hide from hungry tides.
This island is fragile, leeching onto life. Its pulses of willful survival strike my core like a heartbeat.
This isn’t the kingdom I imagined ruling, and I’m sharply, painfully aware that my father’s choice is the reason why. No birds roam the sky and the air is quiet even of insects. The land is gray and covered in upturned rocks and dark soot. My hands throb again, confirming Kerost needs more than a handful of people with time magic to help restore the island. They need the backing of our kingdom.
We take another series of turns before arriving at a small cluster of buildings, all of which are built from dull gray pebble stones. Some are chipped and punctured with empty holes.
Voices filter from behind one stone slab door, beneath a deceptively elegant sign that says VICE. I immediately adjust my cloak around me, skin crawling from nerves I can’t quite explain. There’s something off about this place.
Ferrick squints at the sign. “Even if he does know where we could find a mermaid, how do you intend to get him to tell you?”
Bastian pats the side of his cloak and the pouch he stole from Mornute jingles, heavy with coin. “Everyone has a price.”
There’s a makeshift handle built into the stone slab. Bastian doesn’t wait another moment to use it.
I’m nearly knocked back by a pungent odor as warm air greets us. Ferrick chokes on it, but quickly stops himself when Bastian elbows him in the side.
The smell is a mix of vomit, oily bodies, and what seems like iron. I know better, though. I’m familiar enough with the smell to know it’s blood. Yet the lustrous panels of dark wood are spotless.
I peer up enough to see the store itself doesn’t quite match its nauseating stench. The walls are painted a handsome amethyst with thick whorls of silver and gold that swoop from the crystal chandelier on the ceiling and thin as they near the floor. There’s a bar in the corner constructed from ivory—sleek, polished, and impossibly different from everything outside.
Dozens of Kers sit on heavy bar stools, a giant spinning wheel between them. A tiny ball whirls around the middle, floating over a series of squares and numbers as the wheel spins and spins.
“Care to try your hand at a game of roulette?” a raven-haired woman asks Ferrick, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Just last week, a friend of mine won five years. What do you say, handsome? Come give it a try.”
The entirety of Ferrick’s face floods a deep crimson. Beside him, Bastian scoffs.
“We’ve no interest in your rigged games,” he says. The woman pouts her full pink lips, but I pay little attention.
It’s as though I’ve been struck. My knees buckle as I suck in a sharp breath, eyeing the handful of Kers who sit around the roulette wheel, gambling away not money, but years off their lives. They’re time trading—a rare and banned practice where only the most skilled Kers are able to transfer time from one person to another.
And they’ve no shame in their actions. They do it openly, not trying to hide their crimes.
Kerost truly has been abandoned.
Someone slams into my shoulder, forcing me to bite back bitter words as I stumble. But the man who knocked into me doesn’t look back. He drun
kenly sways past the wheel and toward the back of the strange store, where another line is forming.
Everything about this place feels wrong. But the longer I’m here, the more the smell of iron fades beneath the sweet scent of warm vanilla and heavy spices of cinnamon and nutmeg. The aroma twists around me, attempting to calm me and mask the stench of blood.
Women in a variety of silks are lined up in the back. Some hold their jaws high with determination while others look shy and bashful. All their eyes, however, are cool and lethal as they slice through the crowd.
A young man stands before them. His hair’s blond as sand, and the smoothness of his milky-white skin matches the ensnaring grin he flashes at the crowd. We catch him in the middle of a spiel he speaks fluently, undoubtedly well practiced.
“—so let’s forget all our struggles then, shall we? It’s worth it, after all! One night, after all our hard work, to finally be treated as a man should!”
There are grunts of agreement from the crowd, full of men who hungrily eye the women before them. My anger swells; it takes everything in me to keep my mouth clamped tight.
I assume this man must be Blarthe, though he seems too young to run this place. He has to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, though it’s hard to tell when his skin is spared from even the slightest wrinkle. He’s bright where the other men are barely standing, exhaustion weighing them. I highly doubt he’s the one who’s been doing any of this “hard work.”
He waves the first woman over, a Ker with smooth pale skin and spiraling waves of red hair. Though Blarthe opens his mouth to speak, she interrupts him.
“I want five weeks,” she says haughtily, earning a roll of the eyes from several of the girls behind her.
Blarthe’s grin wavers with annoyance, but he catches himself before it breaks his placid face. “She means two weeks,” he offers instead, teeth gleaming.
Someone in the small crowd raises their hand, and the girl steps down to take it with a grin. The man who’s bought a night with her gives a wave to the crowd as he and the woman disappear to a private room in the back.