I’m suddenly aware of the dozen eyes watching me, both on this keel and the one tied up alongside ours. The other captain stands behind his machine gun, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. He looks like a skeleton leering down at me. I detest such an audience, and my insides crawl.
“Not hard to figure it out,” one of our polers—the woman, Riette—drawls. “The princess got sick of the palace, and now her uncle’s sent soldiers to bring her back. Without regard for anyone who might get in the way.”
Captain Ashe narrows his eyes. “They were on the Lakeland side of the river. And you’re far from Prince Bracken’s Lowcountry.” He steps back into my space, crowding me against the rail. “Seems like an awful long way for them to follow. You didn’t outrun those Silvers all the way from Citadel.”
No, just the border.
Scowling, the captain surveys me again. This time his eyes snag on my clothing, the dark blue of the Lakelander uniform soaked through with river water. He grabs my collar, rubbing the fabric between two rough fingers. I slap him away, working hard to keep my strength in check.
His eyes are livid; he’s angry with me, and with himself. “You weren’t traveling with a convoy, Princess, and you weren’t attacked by rebels.”
I don’t expect a Red to understand. They don’t know what it’s like for us, what it’s like to be sold the day you are born.
“Keep the payment,” I hiss, stepping around the young captain. “I’ll make my own way from here.”
He grabs me by the collar again, daring to stop me. I could break his grip if I wanted. Shatter his hand without blinking. And Ashe knows it. But it doesn’t stop him. That infernal gold tooth winks at me, gleaming and terrible.
“You tell me who that was and what you’ve dragged my crew into.”
“Or what, Red?” I nearly spit. “I’ll get out of your hair. I’ve paid your price. What does it matter?” I almost expect him to hit me, and I would welcome the glancing sting. Anything to combat this unfamiliar twist of wretchedness in my stomach. I do what I can to keep my eyes on the captain and not the sodden little boy who nearly died for my foolishness. Still, I can’t help but look.
Big Ean shakes his head and answers for the captain. “You think they won’t track the boat, miss? Even if you’re gone?” He scratches his beard. “I think they will.”
He isn’t wrong. Orrian is nothing if not vengeful, petty, and altogether dismissive of Red life. The Lakelander prince has so much anger in him, and the rest is hatred.
“I’ll make it clear I’m gone,” I tell them weakly, the words already dying on my lips. It is a poor excuse, one we all see through.
The captain doesn’t let go of my collar, even as his grip slackens. “Who are we dealing with?” he growls, though his voice is tinged with need.
“His name is Orrian Cygnet. He is a prince of the Lakelands, a cousin to the nymph queen, and a nymph himself.” I focus on my boots. Looking down helps me speak. If I don’t have to see their pity or their anger, I can manage to tell the truth. “He is a terrible person—violent, vengeful, a monster of a man—and I’ve been betrothed to him since I drew my first breath.”
I look to the Red servants first, hoping for their derision. It was their son who almost died. They should hate me. But they soften before any of the rest, and it makes me want to vomit. They know firsthand what Silver monsters look like.
I don’t deserve their compassion. I don’t want it either.
“You slipped a Lakelander escort,” the poler Gill guesses. “When you crossed the border.”
Jaw tight, I turn to face the aging Riverman. “I killed a Lakelander escort. When I crossed the border.”
The captain pulls his hand away as if burned. “How many guards?”
“Six. Seven, if you count my companion from home.” I taste bile when I think of her, Magida, my oldest friend. Her blood silver between my fingers, her mouth trying to form words she would never speak. “She died helping me escape. But I suppose you could say I killed her too.”
A murmur goes through the crew on the other keel, rippling in a line right up to their captain. He twitches, uncertain, nervous to the bone. “Ashe, you should let her go,” he calls. “Shout up and down the river that she’s off the water.”
The captain doesn’t respond, his teeth gritted. He knows as well as I do what a risk that would be. He watches me, looking for an answer I cannot give.
“Ashe, I’ve got hot cargo here. I’m with you easy river or hard, but if I’m caught with what I’m carrying . . . ,” the other captain continues, pleading now. He expects Orrian and his gang to jump out of the river at any minute. It’s not a bad instinct.
Orrian is nowhere near as powerful as the Lakelander queen or her daughters, but he is still formidable. And while he can’t turn the entire river against us, he’ll certainly try.
A muscle jumps in Ashe’s cheek as he thinks, running a hand through his dark hair. Without knowing it, I do the same, twisting my hair away from my face.
“I’d be gone already if I thought he wouldn’t follow you,” I admit quietly, and it’s the truth. I knew that by stepping onto this keel, I would be marking every other person on it. “There’s a reason I told you not to take on anyone else,” I add, hissing through my teeth. If only to jab at the captain, to ease the sting of my own shame.
He rounds on me again. I expect him to shout. His whispered snarl is somehow more horrible. “You lied from the start, Lyrisa. Don’t put that on me. You’d still be ratting on the docks if I’d known what you were running from.”
“Well, you know now,” I reply, trying to look bolder than I feel. If he tosses me from the keel, I’m done for. Orrian will track me down in a few hours and march me all the way to the Lakelander capital at gunpoint. “You’re the captain on this keel. It’s your decision.”
Rifle still in hand, Riette takes a step toward us. Her two tight braids have come undone in the skirmish, and her hair frizzes around her face in a brown cloud. “We could tie her up. Leave her on a rock on the Lakelander side. And be on our way.”
The threat is so ludicrous I have to laugh. “Tie me up with what? I’m a strongarm.”
She immediately retreats, flushing. “Just a suggestion.”
“We should keep her,” Gill argues. “If that Silver strikes again, I’d rather have one on our side to trade. Or to help.”
“Help bury you, more like,” Riette grumbles under her breath.
The captain lets it all pass like the current, standing firm as the crew chatters around him. Suddenly he shouts over their words, quieting them all. “Hallow, you got room for four more on your keel?”
On his deck, the other captain hesitates. He surveys his boat, already crowded with cargo, crew, and his own passengers. “Yeah, I suppose,” he says after a long moment.
Ashe wastes no time and turns around with a snap. He waves Daria, Jem, and their children across the deck, gesturing to Hallow’s ship.
“Get your things. He’s your captain now,” he says, his words trembling with the weight of a command. Then he looks to his crew with the same fervor. “We make for the confluence. Lose him on the Great River. He’ll be beyond his own borders. Let him fight through the Freelands if he wants his princess so badly.”
His princess. I feel sick at the words, their implication. And their truth. Ashe is right: I belong to that foul person; I’ve belonged to him as long as I can remember. No matter what I have to say about it.
And still I feel the need to warn these Reds. “Orrian won’t be deterred by borders,” I say, pacing after Ashe.
He glares at me for a second. “Do I look stupid to you?” Leaning against the rail, he shouts to Hallow’s crew and his own. “Put out the word to every boat and raft you pass: there’s a Lakelander prince in our lands. That should set the bounty hunters foaming.”
Confusion steals over me. I narrow my eyes. “Bounty hunters?”
“You think smugglers are the only lawless kind in the Freelands?” he
says, throwing me a dark smirk. “If the right bounty crew gets word of your prince, they’ll hunt him down before he can hunt you.”
I blink, trying to imagine what kind of bounty crew would be required to stop Orrian. But far from the Lakelands, with only his guards, without any kind of aid from his kingdom . . . It’s certainly a start.
I bite my lip, then nod. With one hand, I gesture for the rifle.
Ashe is quick to give it back.
“At least it’s a plan.”
The two keels move downriver at speed, putting a safe distance between us and Orrian’s assault point. He’ll be on the move again by now, but farther inland, away from the river’s edge. There’s no more cover on this stretch, and he’ll certainly be moving by transport. The roads are some miles north, giving us time to make up ground. We pause every fifteen minutes, giving Hallow time to get ahead of us. Hour by hour, the distance between the boats spreads, until he’s out of view even on the longest stretches of river. Our speed picks up too, between the motor and the strengthening current. I assume we must be getting close to the confluence, where the Ohius meets the Great River. Where no land, on either side of the water, answers to a Silver crown.
Every second ticks like a clock, grating inside my skull. I clench my teeth against the sensation. Two hours since the attack. Three. Four. I have the sneaking suspicion that Orrian is enjoying this. He always did like to play with his food. Hope is not something I’m used to, and while the captain seems to have faith in his river and his people, I cannot.
I’m glad the children are off the boat, and their mothers too. At the very least I won’t have them dragging at the back of my mind. They’re on a dangerous enough journey without adding a fugitive Silver to the equation.
I’m thinking of them when the captain eases up to me, this time with less of an attitude. He leans over the stern at my side, elbows planted on the rail. His sleeves are rolled up, showing more scars and fading bruises. River life is not easy for these people, not by a long shot.
“So, Orrian Cygnet.” There’s such disdain in his voice, even more than he expresses for me.
I sigh, looking at my hands. My fingers are crooked, broken so many times in my ability training that even skin healers couldn’t fix them properly. “He’s part of the royal line, close to the throne but not close enough for his own tastes.”
A shadow crosses Ashe’s face, even in the bright light of afternoon. “You know him well.”
“I know him well enough.” I shrug, remembering our few bitter encounters. He was quick to reveal himself as a terrible man. “We met a few times, and I found his character lacking.”
“I take it your uncle didn’t agree.”
Scoffing, I shake my head. “Oh, he knows Orrian’s nature. He just doesn’t care.” Next to me, Ashe flushes and I’m surprised. Reds are so strange, so emotional. “Just because you get secondhand news about Silvers doesn’t mean you know how we live.”
He smarts under the jibe, lashing out. “So you murdered six people and ran.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same?” I hiss at him, knowing the truth. My response is swift and cutting. As my words hang between us, I square to him, raising my chin so I can look him in the eye. Instead of the Red captain, I see six corpses laid out, their faces burned beyond recognition. Magida with them, her body in ashes.
He doesn’t hesitate. Ashe is not one to second-guess himself or his intentions. “I would have done the same.” Then he leans toward me, brave enough to put a finger in my face. As if scolding a child. We’re nearly the same age. “But I wouldn’t drag innocents into it.”
“Really?” I sneer, my voice rising. “And your friend? He’s running guns right now, isn’t he? With passengers on board. You telling me you’ve never done that?” His flush darkens, and I know I’ve scored a point in whatever silly game we’re playing. I keep pressing. “Odd, for a Red to be running guns this direction. The civil war and the Scarlet Guard are behind us.”
The captain doesn’t have a slick or smart response for that. His bravado falters, if only for a second. He probably didn’t even know his friend was running guns west—and therefore running guns for Silvers. Tiraxeans, Prairie lords, maybe even raiders farther west. Selling gunmetal to those who would kill him without blinking.
Perhaps I understand the Red river folk as little as they understand me.
“There’s a difference between us and you,” Ashe finally snaps. “We do what we have to in order to survive, to carve out a life. Not because we don’t agree with which palace we end up living in.”
The words land like a blow from a hammer. I feel them deep in my chest, cracking my heart.
As a child, the first thing my father taught me was restraint. Even young strongarms can kill without control, so I learned early to keep my temper in check. If not for that stern tutelage, I suspect I might slap Ashe across his face and separate his head from his shoulders, or at least his teeth from his jaw.
I manage to hide my sudden rage behind my court mask.
“There’s a difference between us and you,” I force out, repeating his words. “I don’t expect you to understand it, or me.” Then I shutter my feelings, drawing a single, steadying breath. I’ll tell him what he needs to know, to keep us both alive and this keel afloat. “Orrian hunts with his court friends. They’re drunks, fools, noble idiots who take delight in the pain of others. I suspect that’s who he’s with. Their delight in the hunt and their taste for drink is why we aren’t all dead on the river.”
Ashe frowns. “Yet.”
“Yet,” I concede. I drag another hand through my hair, then tie it back into a quick tail. Better to keep it out of my way. Ashe watches me as I move, assessing me like the threat I am. I match his stare. “You really think you can lose him?”
I haven’t been on the keel long, but I doubt its top speed can outrun a prince. And we are on a boat, after all. It severely limits our path.
Despite my misgivings, Ashe seems to inflate. This is his domain, and he knows it well. “I think men like him are cowards deep down, and he won’t chase you beyond the safety of his own kingdom.”
“Normally, I’d agree,” I say. “But Orrian is proud. And losing me wounds his pride. That, he will not allow.”
Something pulls at Ashe’s face again, some tick of annoyance. He grumbles under his breath. “Easy job, easy river.”
I cock my head. It sounded like a prayer, something a foolish Lakelander might mumble before battle. “What’s that?”
He shrugs. “Just the code I like to live by.”
“Oops,” I say weakly, if only to lessen the tension a little. It doesn’t work and he remains next to me, tight as a coiled wire, ready to spring. I turn a little, putting my back to the keel again.
He mirrors me, blocking out the crew diligently at work behind us.
“Why save the boy?” he says suddenly, and he sounds as young as he looks. Not a captain, but a young man barely older than a teenager. Unsure, confused. Unrooted for the first time in his life. Without anchor or path.
I chew on my lip. Why save the boy? Part of me smarts again. Would he ask that question of a Red? Does he think us Silvers so beyond heart and compassion? Have we given him any reason not to think so?
“You jumped in too,” I finally reply. “Why save the boy?”
He blushes, red rising high on his cheeks.
“You know,” I breathe, “you really could have left me. I’m sure he wouldn’t have followed a Red keel out of spite.”
I don’t know why, but he relaxes, the great tension in his lean shoulders dropping away.
“Probably not,” he agrees. Then, to my shock, he nudges my shoulder with his own. “Luckily, I have a better moral compass than you.”
FIVE
Ashe
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
I should throw her in the river and be done with it. Leave her to splash around until her prince fishes her out. Get her away from my keel and my
crew. And somehow I just can’t damn do it. Riette and Gill keep watching me like I’m insane. Big Ean has a stupid grin wider than he is. All three of them are probably thinking the same thing. That I’m smitten with the infernal Silver nuisance, and willing to risk all our lives to get her where she needs to go.
Just the accusation, even unspoken, makes me itch.
Easy job, easy river.
Well, this is a difficult fucking job on a suddenly difficult fucking river.
I decide to put as much distance between us as I can, leaving her to watch the stern while I patrol the bow. I point out rocks and errant obstacles on the current far more than I should, especially for Riette and Gill. They’re good enough to ignore my nerves, letting me nanny them through the next few bends.
The sun dips ahead of us, approaching the western horizon. The trees thicken on the Freeland bank, and the Lakeland fields, open and empty, stretch to the north. The current quickens beneath us. Every second feels stolen and each breath is a gasp.
We should be at the confluence by morning, and that’s where I’ll leave her for good. There’s no way I’m taking her to the Gates like this, not with a Lakelander prince lurking river knows where, hunting our ship. He could dry up the riverbed for all I know, leave us stranded in the mud to pick off as he likes. Silvers have done worse. I know it. I’ve seen it firsthand. We aren’t human to them. We’re just things to be used and discarded.
That’s how she sees us. That’s why she’s here, to use us to get downriver.
So why save the kid?
She jumped into the river knowing a nymph was waiting for her, ready to drown her or drag her away. All for some quiet Red kid she didn’t know from a stump. A Red servant’s son, nothing and no one. And a Silver princess jumped into that water to save him, knowing what it could do to her. Knowing the danger. I can’t shake it from my brain, what a risk she took, and for who.
I almost wish she hadn’t. Then I wouldn’t care what happens to her.
I shake my head. Ludicrous.
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