by Traci Chee
In the foretop, Midshipman Haldon Lac pressed his lips to Fox’s temple.
* * *
• • •
You miss a man so much,” someone said.
Blinking, Lac looked up from his mug of bourbon-laced tea and found Horse, the Current’s carpenter, watching him with sad, wide-set eyes across the crowded great cabin, where he’d squeezed his broad form between the black-haired girl and the scarred boy from Black Boar Pier, whom Lac now knew as Sefia and Archer.
That they were here, on the Current of Faith, with Lac and Hobs, was a quirk of happenstance that Fox would have found both curious and amusing.
If Fox had been here.
The rain continued its deluge outside as the Current’s cook and steward wound through the tangle of legs and elbows, refilling mugs. Cooky was a slim man, all skin and muscle, with a bald head and cascades of silver earrings spangling the rims of his ears. Aly, the steward, dwarfed him in height, but something about her demeanor almost made it easy to overlook her, though Lac had no idea how anyone could miss the magnificent blond hair she wore in long braids down her back. The two of them seemed to have found the perfect working rhythm, following and leading in turns, seamlessly weaving in and out of each other’s paths even in the cramped space.
It reminded Lac of working with Fox.
“Then what happened?” asked Meeks. Lac recognized him, too, from Black Boar Pier and from the legends—the second mate was a renowned storyteller, one of those people who could string you along for hours on nothing but his words. To think that such a man was listening to lowly, humble Midshipman Haldon Lac—
Fox would have told Lac not to let it go to his head.
He swallowed a few times before speaking again. “The foremast snapped as soon as the Alliance fired on us. Half my topmen fell immediately, and I—I couldn’t . . . the force was so great, I—” His gaze found Hobs, whose eyes were glistening faintly in the lamplight. “I lost my hold on Fox’s body, and she fell into the sea.”
“We both lost her,” said Hobs.
Draining the last of his tea, Lac described how the Fire-Eater had fought back as long as they were able, but ultimately they’d been forced to run up the white flag.
Surrender had been painful enough. In Lac’s mind, Oxscinians never surrendered. It was a disgrace to his kingdom, his queen, the far-reaching legacy of all the redcoats who’d come before him. But the Alliance had ignored the rules of combat; they’d continued to fire on the Fire-Eater.
“Even under the bombardment,” Lac continued, dashing angry tears from his eyes, “the captain kept her head. She gave Hobs and me command of the boats and ordered us to abandon ship. We shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have run—but it was an order, wasn’t it? We obey orders, don’t we? We took the injured and piled in. With the Fire-Eater blocking us from view, we escaped while the Alliance battered her again and again.
“Then there was an explosion so bright it was like the ocean itself was aflame. The Fire-Eater went up like a tinderbox. The captain had taken a lantern down to the magazine and detonated what was left of our powder kegs. Better to destroy the Fire-Eater than let those bonesuckers have her. She was no coward, the captain.”
And her sacrifice had worked. The boats had gotten away, and they’d been trying to make their way back to the Royal Navy ever since.
“But I had no idea where we were,” Haldon Lac admitted.
“Terrible sense of direction, see,” Hobs explained. “Not one of his talents.”
Lac chewed his lip. Fox had possessed an impeccable sense of direction.
“We’re four days from Jahara,” said Captain Reed from where he’d been leaning against the back windows, listening attentively. “Lucky for you, we’re headed that way now.”
Jahara was a mostly neutral island off the southern coast of Deliene, Oxscini’s northern neighbor. If Lac got them to the Oxscinian embassy, the redcoats would be clothed, fed, and sent back to the Royal Navy, where they’d all be given new posts, or perhaps promotions.
Well, not all of them.
Lac’s eyes felt so full they burned. He must have been making an unbearably unattractive face, because the captain straightened.
“What’s the matter, kid?”
“I—I told Fox we’d be heroes.”
“You think that leap she made wasn’t heroic?” Captain Reed laughed, but not unkindly. “Meeks, tell me that leap wasn’t heroic.”
The second mate’s face broke into a fetching chipped-toothed smile. “Nah, Cap. That’s the stuff stories are made of.”
“But she died.” Lac’s voice broke, embarrassingly.
“That’s the thing, kid.” With enviable grace, the captain made his way through the crowded cabin, and even in his grief, Haldon Lac could not help but notice how ruggedly handsome he was, how self-assured and at home in his own skin. The man refilled Lac’s empty mug from a crystal decanter. “Heroes die all the time.”
Lac found himself staring at Reed’s tattoos—skulls, sea serpents, a man with a black gun, and a maelstrom spinning in the crook of his left elbow, for the time he snatched the Thunder Gong from under the nose of his rival, Captain Dimarion.
“What’s more important,” Captain Reed continued, “is that you survived.”
“Why?”
The captain poured himself a finger of liquor and clinked their glasses. “Because survivors get to decide who the heroes are. And the villains.”
As the night wore on, they laid out a map on the dining table, and Reed and the others gathered around. To the west was Oxscini, Lac’s beloved Forest Kingdom, with its smaller islands to the south. Those islands were the reason Oxscini had never been conquered—no one had ever possessed the naval prowess to breach the heart of the kingdom.
To the east were Everica and Liccaro, the two kingdoms that comprised the Alliance.
And between the two halves of the map, closer to Oxscini than Lac wanted to believe, Hobs pointed out a spot on the Central Sea. “That’s where we encountered the Alliance line, sir.”
The Alliance was sailing west, spreading across Kelanna like a stain.
“That’s what the Guard wants,” said Sefia. “First Everica, then Liccaro and Deliene, and Oxscini and Roku last. If all goes according to their plans, it won’t be long before they’ve conquered all Five Kingdoms.”
“But why?” Lac asked.
“Stability and peace.” Her voice dripped scorn. “They think with all of Kelanna under their thumb, it’ll be a better world.”
“Peace through war,” Hobs said. “Seems a funny way to go about it, if you ask me.”
“Oxscini will give ’em a fight. But Roku”—Reed tapped the smallest of the kingdoms, a cluster of islands that, like much of Kelanna, had once belonged to Oxscini’s sprawling empire—“won’t be much of a challenge.”
“What’s the Guard?” Lac asked.
Sefia eyed him suspiciously. At that moment, she reminded him of Fox, who’d looked at him in precisely that way at the beginning of their friendship.
But it was Archer, the boy with the burned throat, who answered. His golden eyes flashed in the lamplight like a cat’s. “The real villains,” he said.
CHAPTER 3
Close to the Heart
The Current of Faith reached Jahara long after midnight, when even the seedier taverns and gambling dens of the Central Port were shutting their doors, but Archer and Sefia remained awake in the great cabin, planning their next moves with Captain Reed.
“In the morning, I’ll take you to the messengers’ post to get the Book,” Reed said, pacing in front of the glass cases that lined the walls. “The chief mate will see to the resupplyin’ of the ship, and Meeks will get a guide for the redcoats.”
Archer was a little disappointed. Over the past four days, he’d become friends with the Royal Navy soldiers, Lac and Hobs
in particular, and he’d hoped to see them to the Oxscinian embassy himself.
But his priority was the Book. His priority was Frey and Aljan and his bloodletters, who, like him, had once been kidnapped and groomed for killing by the Guard. He was the one who’d rescued them. He was the one who’d given them purpose. They’d all come together so brilliantly, so beautifully deadly, as they’d hunted down impressors in Deliene. Then he’d abandoned them as soon as they reached Epigloss, only returning for the promise of more revenge, more bloodshed. And he’d gotten Frey and Aljan captured by Serakeen.
He owed it to them to fix his mistakes. To protect them, the way he should have all along.
“Then you’re heading out?” Sefia asked, interrupting Archer’s thoughts.
Captain Reed tapped an eight-beat rhythm on an empty glass case. “Yep.” The Current and the Crux would load up and set sail for the Trove of the King, the greatest treasure hoard in Kelannan history. Hundreds of years ago, King Fieldspar of Liccaro had collected all his people’s amassed wealth and buried it somewhere in the caverns beneath his kingdom. For generations, treasure hunters had told tales of the Trove’s labyrinthine tunnels, the pyramids of gold and silver ingots, the halls overflowing with gems. The contents of just one of the caves would have been enough to satiate even the greediest of appetites.
But Archer knew that deep hunger in Reed’s blue eyes was for one treasure and one treasure only: the Resurrection Amulet, a magical object that allowed you to cheat death. It had been lost for generations, buried somewhere in the maze-like tunnels of the Trove, but if he found it, it would at last give him the immortality he’d craved for years.
If you wanted something that badly, for that long, you wouldn’t let anything stop you. Not even a war.
“Wish you were comin’ with us,” the captain said, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, “in case we need you to read something else for us.”
Like the rest of the crew, Archer had memorized the paper’s contents—it was a copy of the poem they’d found inscribed on the bell of King Fieldspar’s ship. He had been a Guardian, they surmised. That was the only way he could have written out their only clue to the location of the Trove:
The brave and the bold may find Liccarine gold
Where the stallions charge into the spray.
Where the sidewinder waits, the heart lowers its gates,
And the water will show you the way.
Reed believed that the riddle would lead them to four different landmarks—starting with Steeds, a headland of rock shaped like two wild mustangs on the far side of Liccaro—that would reveal the way to the Trove of the King.
But Archer and Sefia would not be there to see it.
“I’ve been teaching Meeks and Theo to read,” she said.
Reed scoffed. “Meeks and Theo are smart, but they ain’t you.”
She shrugged. “I can’t leave Archer, Cap.”
Under the table, Archer found her hand. She laced her fingers in his. “And I can’t leave the bloodletters,” he said.
His bloodletters. His responsibility.
“I know, kid.” Reed sighed. “They’re your crew.”
Once Archer and Sefia had the Book, she would teleport them to the bloodletters, in Epigloss, Epidram’s sister city in northwest Oxscini, where they’d rescue Frey and Aljan. After that, they’d sail the bloodletters’ ship, the Brother, to Haven, where they’d wait for the Current and the Crux to return from the Trove.
The hidden outlaw sanctuary was run by the only two people to whom every thief and cutthroat in the Central Sea would listen: Adeline, the Lady of Mercy, who’d given Reed’s old silver-and-ivory revolver its name, and Isabella, the gunsmith who’d made it for her. The women were living legends.
“Haven’s here.” Captain Reed pointed on the map of Kelanna, still spread out on the dining table, to a spot in the Central Sea surrounded by the Five Islands.
The Five Islands Archer was supposed to conquer.
Right before he died.
No, he thought. He was going to bring the bloodletters to Haven, where they were going to swim and till the earth in the shadow of the island’s old volcano. He was going to listen to Sefia’s stories and kiss her in the mornings and build her a house in the trees. They were, all of them, going to let the war pass around them like water around a pylon. And they were, all of them, going to live.
There was a sudden knock. Startled, Archer jumped to his feet, grimacing at the pain in his side. He hadn’t popped his stitches in days, but the occasional twinge was a reminder that, for the moment, thread was still the only thing keeping him together.
Gingerly, he touched his bandage as Dimarion, captain of the Crux, entered the great cabin. He was like a king, Archer thought. A tyrant who believed he owned everything he saw simply because he’d seen it.
Dimarion leveled his ruby-handled cane at Captain Reed, who had stopped his restless movement. “I arrange for resupplying your ship with the best provisions Jahara has to offer—graciously, I even pay for some of it out of my own pocket—and you can’t even be bothered to let me know you’ve arrived?”
Reed leaned against the edge of the table, smirking. “Didn’t want to disturb your beauty rest.”
Dimarion laughed. “My dear captain, there’s no rest for the wicked.” Then, seeing Archer standing at the table, he crossed the room in a few quick strides.
For a big man with a cane, he was surprisingly light on his feet. No wonder none of them had heard him approach. Archer stepped over the bench to meet him.
“Sefia.” The pirate captain gave her a little bow.
Archer had been too wounded to see anyone when he and Sefia had first teleported to the Current, but Dimarion had demanded an audience with Sefia. She’d been on the Crux for hours, telling him their story, from her parents’ betrayal of the Guard to Archer forming the bloodletters to learning the magic of the Book.
“Captain,” she said coolly. She didn’t return the bow.
Then the pirate turned to Archer. He looked down at him like a jeweler examining a diamond, his gaze lingering on the knotted scar that encircled Archer’s neck—the scar the impressors had given him, the same one each of the bloodletters had, the same one given to all of the Guard’s “candidates”—the scar that made him the boy from the legends.
The boy with the unstoppable army.
“I’ve been wanting a look at you,” Dimarion said. “But Captain Reed insisted on keeping you caged away like one of his prizes.”
Archer could feel Sefia bristling beside him. Had she summoned the Sight? He wouldn’t put it past her to fling the man across the room if she thought he was a threat.
Or if he annoyed her.
“And now that you’ve had a look?” Archer asked.
Captain Dimarion sniffed. “You don’t look like a born killer to me.”
Born killer. That was what the impressors had called Archer. But he hadn’t been born this way—he hadn’t even been born Archer—he’d been made, chiseled and chipped away at until he was no longer the little lighthouse keeper he used to be, but Archer, chief of the bloodletters, a legend for what he’d done to the impressors in Deliene, with stories of his brutality and efficiency in battle quickly spreading to the other kingdoms.
And he’d chosen it. Maybe not at first, maybe not intentionally. But yes, in the end, he’d sought out the fights, he’d wanted the kills, he’d shaped himself into whatever he was now.
Trapped, he thought. He was trapped by destiny. Unless he and Sefia could escape it.
Dimarion was still watching him, as if waiting for the bloodlust to overtake Archer like a red haze.
Archer already knew how he’d incapacitate the pirate. Captain Dimarion’s brute strength and his cane were worth considering, but Archer was faster, even with his bandaged side, and in the back of his mind he’d already be
en devising ways to strike Dimarion’s weak joints, his old wounds ripe for reinjury. But violence was not a party trick Archer unveiled for curious spectators.
To him, violence was something ugly, something to be ashamed of.
And at the same time, something precious, to be carried close to the heart.
When Archer didn’t respond, Dimarion pivoted to Reed. “You could offer me a drink, you know, but I suppose such hospitality is beyond you.” Picking up a crystal decanter from a side table, Dimarion poured himself three fingers of liquor and settled in one of the armchairs as if it were a bejeweled throne instead of threadbare velvet. “I have information for you.”
He paused. He seemed to be waiting for them to applaud, or perhaps bow.
Archer sat.
Sefia yawned.
Sighing, the pirate captain took a sip of his drink, licking his lips before declaring that the Lonely King, Eduoar Corabelli II, was dead. “Poison,” Dimarion explained. “He took his own life, same as his father, in the same room as his father.”
Deliene, the Northern Kingdom to which Jahara ultimately owed its allegiance, was without a monarch for the first time in generations. Conveniently, the nobility from the four Delienean provinces had already decided upon a regent to replace him. “Arcadimon Detano,” said Dimarion. “An adviser and friend to the late king, apparently.”
“And no one protested?” Sefia asked.
“The decision was unanimous.” The pirate tapped one ringed pinkie on the edge of his glass. “Does that surprise you?”
“It surprises me,” Reed said. “Gorman shoulda put up a fight for the crown.”
Gorman was the northernmost of Deliene’s territories. Kaito, Archer’s second-in-command, his brother in arms, had been Gormani.
Kaito. Archer closed his eyes. Sometimes, the boy still came to him in his dreams: He’d be sketching battle plans in the dirt. He’d be leaping into a frigid river, whooping with joy. He’d be bloody and snarling. He’d be dead on the ground, with Archer’s bullet between his eyes. Sometimes they’d talk. Sometimes Kaito would forgive him. Sometimes not, and Kaito would say Archer was so broken inside he’d never be whole again, no matter how many lives he saved.