by Traci Chee
Fox had been graceful too, but she’d had a different sort of grace—alive and bodily, like she was fully in her skin at all times.
Ed was the opposite, and that was the thing that Lac wondered at most. The boy was so sad sometimes, it was as if he were disappearing, even when he was surrounded by the other sailors, chanting in unison as they reefed sails or hauled up the anchor. You might not have noticed if you weren’t looking for it, but Ed was Lac’s friend, and Lac noticed.
He wanted to cheer Ed up, but they were trapped on the Hustle with Captain Neeram and their disreputable crew, working like dogs for meals of hardtack and beans, so sometimes he borrowed a few young chicks from the henhouse and brought them to Ed, where he was crying quietly in his hammock, to sit on his chest and peep softly. Sometimes Lac and Hobs would just be with him in the crow’s nest, staring out over the indigo seas and talking until their next grueling watch.
Sometimes Hobs told jokes—or Hobs’s versions of jokes, which Lac had to admit he never quite understood.
“What’s it called when you sit between two desert sorcerers?”
“What?”
“A sand witch sandwich.”
Or: “There are two sand witches with two sandwiches. Which sandwich did the first sand witch wish for when her sister sand witch wished away her first sandwich?”
“A fish sandwich,” Ed replied.
“Yes, but what kind of fish?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. Tuna!”
In fact, with little better to eat than some sort of beige glop that the cook tried to pass off as porridge, they often spoke of food. Lac and Hobs would talk of the street food they planned on making Ed try when they reached Epidram: skewered eel, plantains fried in oil, roasted nuts they’d pluck out of steaming shells. And Ed would lean back on his hands and describe in wistful tones the richness of Delienean wines, the supple flesh of persimmons harvested from bare winter branches, warm cheeses made with milk from black-faced Heartland sheep.
Beyond this, however, Ed would say nothing of his past, and the mystery made him even more interesting. Hobs was convinced he’d been a kitchen boy in one of the provincial castles and, when the Hustle’s cook wasn’t looking, planned on sneaking him into the galley to whip up something delectable out of their dwindling stores of salted meat and eggs.
Whoever Ed was, both Lac and Hobs liked him, and to make sure he fit in, they taught him to care for the chickens and the pigs, which seemed to bring him out of his sadness even when it was heaviest upon him, and to sing bawdy redcoat drinking songs so he could join in with the rest of the crew during the dogwatches.
Like Lac, most of the other sailors were anxious to return to their kingdom. Some had family. Many, like Captain Neeram themself, were former redcoats—dishonorably discharged, perhaps, but former redcoats nonetheless.
Everyone was jumpy, on high alert for the slightest sign of the Alliance. With their false colors, Neeram didn’t think the Hustle would run into much trouble, but their forged identities wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny—or any scrutiny, truthfully—and without armaments more powerful than pistols, rifles, and a single swivel gun, they wanted to avoid a confrontation at all costs.
So they fled when they saw other ships on the horizon, even when Lac protested that they could be Royal Navy vessels. The lonely weeks passed, and the chill northern winds were slowly replaced by long afternoon downpours.
But every day, they drew nearer to Oxscini. To Epidram. To home.
They were only a day out when they spotted lights on the horizon. In the east, the great whale was rising out of the sea, drawing the curtain of night over the sky, and all across the southern horizon, lanterns were flickering to life like a field of fireflies on the water.
Ships. There had to be at least fifty of them.
The Royal Navy? Lac almost wept with joy. What a grand welcome after their two long weeks at sea!
“Light the lamps!” he cried. “Raise our true colors!”
No one listened but Hobs, who ran for the trunk where they kept their signal flags. Even Ed didn’t move from the rail.
“Belay that,” Captain Neeram snapped.
With the scarlet Oxscinian flag clutched to his chest, Hobs looked to Lac, who looked to Neeram, confused. “But, Captain, they need to see we aren’t the enemy.”
Neeram flicked their fingers, and someone relieved Hobs of the flag, stuffing it unceremoniously back into the trunk. “We need to see they aren’t the enemy,” they said, lifting a spyglass to their eye.
Lac smiled at their foolishness. “There’s no way the Alliance could have gotten here so quickly.” Jahara and Deliene had joined the Alliance the day the Hustle had left port. The Alliance would need another three weeks minimum to muster a fleet before they could set sail from Deliene.
Gently, Ed laid a hand on Lac’s arm. “Let’s wait for confirmation.”
Haldon Lac smirked. His smirks were perhaps the least attractive of his smiles, but he could already picture the consternation on Neeram’s face when they saw what he already knew, and he felt he could afford to look a little less than his best when the captain was proven wrong.
But they remained grim as they lowered the spyglass.
“What colors are they flying?” someone asked.
Red and gold.
Lac was already opening his mouth to laugh triumphantly when Neeram shook their head. “They’re Alliance. Flying blue, gold, and white,” they said.
Haldon Lac’s jaw dropped in a most unattractive fashion. Alliance colors? The Alliance had reached Oxscini?
Ed’s hand fell from Lac’s arm as the boy drifted to the rail, his brow furrowed in thought.
“It can’t be!” Lac cried. Calculations had never been a strength of his, but it was patently, mathematically impossible for the enemy to have reached Oxscini before them.
“It is.”
“But how? Even if the Alliance left Jahara the same day we did, we’re smaller and faster. We should have beaten them here.”
“There is one explanation,” Hobs ventured, “but you won’t like it.”
“What?” Lac looked, bewildered, from Hobs to Neeram.
But it was Ed who answered. He looked over his shoulder with those infinitely sad eyes. “Deliene must have been planning the attack for months, long before they joined the war. Before the king was even gone. Arcadimon just had to—to wait for him to die before sending the fleet south.”
“We have to warn Epidram, then!” Lac said immediately.
Captain Neeram leveled him with a withering glare. “We don’t have to do anything,” they said coolly.
But he was too stupid or too brave to back down. “But all those people—”
“Are not my responsibility.”
“But you’re one of us!” Lac cried, his voice breaking in a most embarrassing fashion, though even his mortification couldn’t stop him now. “You have a duty—”
“I was one of you. I was even part of a fleet like that once. You know what a fleet that size is for, boy? It’s only got one purpose.” When Lac didn’t reply, they continued, “Destroying cities. Battering them until no one is left to man the ramparts. That’s what we did. That’s what they’re going to do. And when they’re done, they’re going to walk in and take Epidram for themselves. That’s not just an attack—that’s an invasion. And if you think the city has even a shred of hope of surviving it, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought you were.”
Lac blinked angry tears from his eyes. They were right, though he didn’t want to admit it. Couldn’t admit it. If he admitted it, he’d be admitting the city would fall. He had friends, senior officers, lovers there. They’d die if they weren’t warned. He couldn’t admit that.
Instead he said, stubbornly, “There’s got to be something we can do!”
“
There’s no moon tonight,” Hobs offered helpfully.
“Yes! We can douse our lamps and sneak past—”
Neeram’s eyes went cold. “No.”
As if of their own accord, Lac’s feet carried him forward. He caught their arm. “Please, Captain, if we could just let them know the Alliance is here . . .” He attempted one of his most dazzling smiles. No one refused him when he smiled like that.
But they jerked out of his grasp so suddenly he stumbled forward. “Stupid boy. Do you know how close we are to Epidram? The invasion will be there by dawn. If we go in now, we’ll never come out.”
Hobs bit his lip. Ed, still at the rail, seemed to have left his body, his mind drifting somewhere far away.
Lac, however, squared his shoulders. He lifted his chin. “Then you’re a coward.”
There was a pain in his jaw—
—and he was on his back, the deck hard beneath him, staring dazedly up at the darkening sky.
Hobs tried to leap forward, but the second mate, a burly, barrel-chested man with a braided beard, caught him by the arm and jerked him back like a rag doll.
Lac tried to stand, but he’d only gotten to his knees when there was a sharp pain in his stomach.
Captain Neeram had kicked him! Rotten hulls, it hurt.
“I’m a coward?” they snarled.
Lac wanted to vomit. Oh, he dearly hoped he wouldn’t vomit.
“Would you have me sacrifice my crew?” Neeram demanded, punctuating the last word with another blow from their pointed boot.
Lac doubled over, clutching his stomach while the captain kicked him again and again.
“We ain’t redcoats anymore. We don’t owe our lives to queen and kingdom.”
Lac felt something in his side crack. He curled up on the deck, hands over his head. Somewhere in his haze of pain, he could hear Hobs wrestling with the second mate. There was a thud, and he heard Hobs’s rough breathing near him.
Lac coughed. Blood sprayed from his lips. Dimly, he wondered if he’d be able to clean it from his clothing. As the blows continued, Hobs tried to put himself between Lac and Neeram’s boot, but Lac shoved him unceremoniously out of harm’s way.
Things were going dark. Lac was going to faint, he was fairly certain. For a brief moment, he hoped he would faint elegantly so Ed, if he’d come back to his body by now, wouldn’t think less of him. But as Neeram kicked him again, Lac realized belatedly that he was already past the point of looking good. He tried to get up, but his body was no longer obeying him.
Stupid body! There were people to save. His people. He couldn’t just lie here while they were in danger. Not again, a voice inside him whispered.
Suddenly, the blows stopped. He peered up through the shelter of his arms and the first thing he saw was Ed—tall and dark and slender—drawing Neeram aside with the unobtrusive courtesy only Ed possessed.
“Sir?” Someone shook Lac—Hobs, with a bloody nose and a cut lip. Good old Hobs.
What was Ed saying to Neeram? His lips were moving. But no sound was coming out. No, Lac could hear a ringing. A definite high-pitched whine. But there was no earthly way Ed could be making that sound.
Neeram’s lip curled. They said something to Ed, their words slowly becoming more distinct. “. . . more trouble than you’re worth.”
“We can change that,” Ed said quickly. “We’ll work for half rations. I don’t know what your plan is, but you might need the extra hands in the days to come.”
“Sir?” Hobs shook him again.
“I’m all right,” Lac burbled through a mouthful of blood. He wasn’t even sure his words were intelligible. “Help me up, will you?”
Captain Neeram must have finished negotiations with Ed, because they shook their head. “Fine. But if he makes trouble again, I’m taking it out of your hide.” They looked around for other dissenters. “We’re sailing south.”
South?
In his befuddlement, Lac tried to picture the Oxscinian coastline. The eastern edge of the Forest Kingdom was a mountainous maze, impervious to large-scale invasions. The next logical point of attack was Broken Crown, where the kingdom broke up into smaller islands.
“If we’re lucky, we make it to Broken Crown in time to warn them that the Alliance is coming. We still get to be heroes, but we get to be heroes who live.” For good measure, it seemed, they kicked Lac once more. “That all right with you, pretty boy?”
Pretty? Lac mouthed, torn between laughing and sobbing. Heroes?
They weren’t heroes.
Heroes didn’t let hundreds of people—people they were sworn to protect—die.
Did that make him a villain?
Or worse, a coward?
Stupid brave, Fox had called him. But he didn’t deserve to be called that now.
He felt Ed and Hobs lift him up by the armpits as the captain rattled off their orders. They were running again. Like he’d run from the Fire-Eater. Overhead, wind filled the sails, and they sped away, the lights of the Alliance fleet disappearing into the night as they left Epidram and all its people to their fate.
CHAPTER 12
How We Fail
Archer dashed to the edge of the lake. He had to get to her. Shedding his coat, he thrust his hand into the water, hoisting Sefia onto the shore. She spit, coughing, gasping. She was soaked—and freezing—shivering in a fit to shake her bones apart.
Ignoring her protests, Archer pried the Amulet and the moonstone from her grip, setting them securely in a depression among the rocks. He began pulling off her shoes, her coat, the waterproof trousers, all her sodden layers, peeling them back and tossing them into a dripping heap until she was in nothing but her underthings. Then he took those off too.
He’d never seen her naked before, but he didn’t stop to look as he wrapped a blanket around her, tucking it over her trembling shoulders, her exposed toes.
It was happening again. He was going to lose her again. And this time, it would be permanent. If she didn’t get warm, she’d die.
As he yanked a bedroll from the packs, he heard Sefia’s voice. “F-fire.”
“We’re in a cave. There’s no fuel.”
“The breeze.”
Stupid. He could have kicked himself. The wind was getting into the crystal gallery somehow. He just had to find where, and hope there’d be kindling outside.
“There.” She pointed over his shoulder as he wrapped the bedroll around her. “The exit.”
“How do you know?”
Her voice was fading. “My magic came back.”
So the poison had finally left her system. Archer took her chin in his hand. She wasn’t shivering anymore—was that a good sign?—but her skin had gone pale and cold as snow. “Don’t die on me.”
With painful sluggishness, she nodded, and in a voice so soft he barely heard it, she whispered, “Never.”
Handing her the moonstone, he hoisted her up and carried her over the crystals until he reached an opening no bigger than a crawlspace, blocked from view by a crystal point as large as his torso.
Sefia wasn’t doing well. He helped her through the exit, cringing as she whimpered, trying to get her uncooperative limbs to move. Outside, she lay in the sand, curled into a ball with the blankets and bedrolls heaped around her, as he gathered thorny shrubs and dry branches.
Then, with flint and tinder, he lit a nest of withered grasses and lifted it to his lips, blowing gently, just as Sefia had taught him half a year ago, in the jungle.
Smoke bloomed in his hands, followed by flame. He shoved the tinder bundle under his pile of sticks, where the dry desert scrub quickly caught fire.
Nearly sobbing, Sefia tried to crawl toward it, but her arms and legs no longer seemed to be working.
Archer swept her up again, positioning her closer to the flames. “I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
He fed the fire, he dried her hair, he collected their belongings from the cave and dressed her in the warmest clothing they had, crawling under the blankets beside her and wrapping his arms around her like he’d never let go.
Slowly, her body seemed to thaw. Slowly, Archer’s heart stopped racing.
He’d almost lost her. He’d almost let her slip away, into the water, the cold, the impenetrable dark.
He could stand loss. He knew it well, like a familiar touch.
But he couldn’t stand to lose Sefia.
Closing his eyes, he buried his face in her hair, and when she mumbled a sleepy response, her body uncurling in his embrace like a new leaf, he held her closer—precious and alive.
* * *
• • •
He must have slept, because when he awoke, Sefia was watching him, her face a hand-span from his, her eyes dark and serious.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Better.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm, brushing his thumb across her lower lip. “You went into that water for me? So I wouldn’t touch the Amulet?”
She nodded. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “But you did anyway, didn’t you? When you pulled me out of the water?”
“Nothing happened, though.” After he’d built the fire, he’d stowed it safely among their things. “It was you who—who almost died. To save me. Because you always save me. You always choose me.”
She bit her lip. “Archer—”
He kissed her on the forehead, on each of her cheeks. “Now that we have the Amulet,” he murmured, “we’re only days from leaving the Trove. We’re one step closer to Haven . . . and the rest of our lives.”
With a small sob, she buried her face in his chest.
He stroked her hair, surprised. “What’s wrong?”