Kingdom at Sea

by Jill Williamson

  Wilek looked up, frowning. “Thalassa?”

  “Barthos betrayed my loyalty,” Father said, scowling up at the cheyvah head mounted on the wall. “But Thalassa has so far given us safe passage. She will take Barthos’s place in my five. You would all be wise to join me in paying tribute to the goddess of the sea.”

  “You are wise to say so, Your Highness,” Canbek said.

  No one else spoke until the door closed behind Janek and the king. Sir Kalenek moved Wilek’s chair to the end of the table. Wilek sat down and rubbed his hands over his face as the rest of the council took their seats.

  “I, for one, am glad Sâr Janek is not false,” Kamran said. “I’ve always liked him.”

  “Liking him is different from trusting him,” Oli said. “We’d be wise never to do that.”

  “Will the rosâr really sacrifice at sea?” Danek Faluk, Duke of Highcliff, asked.

  “Oh yes,” Wilek said. Of course he will.

  “Father has never consulted logic before,” Trevn said. “No reason he should start now.”

  Maybe so, but Wilek must try. He dismissed the council and set off to talk with his father. He strongly believed Miss Onika’s claim that Arman had allowed the Woes to destroy the Five Realms because of the people’s wicked ways. Resuming human sacrifice would not set the fleet on a better path. With overcrowded ships and too many inexperienced captains, they were vulnerable at sea. Best not to tempt He Who Made the World.

  “Father refused to listen to reason,” Wilek said as he exited his cabin for the sacrifice, his High Shield, Sir Kalenek Veroth, in front and Agmado Harton behind as his backman. “With Janek’s reinstatement as a prince of Armania, I dared not push too hard.”

  “At least the sacrifice will go swifter on the ship,” Kal said. “Without the long ride to Canden and back.”

  “I preferred the distance,” Wilek said. “It always forced me to think long and hard about the life being wasted.”

  “Not wasted, really,” Harton said. “Sacrificed to a goddess. Thalassa’s probably the first face the poor soul sees when arriving in Shamayim. She will put him in a place of utmost honor.”

  Wilek used to believe that, but not anymore. He paused at the crossway and glanced back, taking in Harton’s lazy eyes and easy smile. “After everything we’ve been through with the Woes . . . Miss Onika . . . killing Barthos . . . Do you really believe that, Hart?”

  His backman shrugged. “I can’t explain everything, but I do know that we killed a cheyvah, not a god.”

  Kal had stopped as well, and Wilek took in the stark contrast between his grim and scarred High Shield and his handsome, skirt-chasing backman.

  “Just you keep your opinions on that to yourself,” Kal said. “Rosâr Echad believes our sâr killed Barthos—formally adding Godslayer to his title. We will give him no reason to doubt his choice, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Harton said.

  They continued down the corridor. Wilek didn’t care what people thought about the past. It was the future that bothered him. Human sacrifice was wrong—forbidden by Arman. Yet until Wilek became king, he was powerless to stop it. And if he pushed his father too far, he might lose his place as Heir. “According to the Book of Arman, life is valued above all else. Arman does not wish us to pour out our own lifeblood for offerings, be they love or guilt offerings.”

  Since Wilek had been reading Trevn’s Book of Arman, he had discovered just how many ancient Armanite traditions the Rôb church had changed. The biggest had been the worship of several dozen new gods in addition to Arman. It was because of this that Armanite believers had started referring to Arman as “the God” or the “One God.” Wilek had always admired Arman but had never once believed him to be the only god. All that had changed now, and Wilek wondered how he had ever believed anything else.

  Kal turned up the companionway, and they met a young woman coming down. A young woman of twelve years who should have been in bed.

  “Hrettah!” Wilek said, wondering what the princess was doing out alone at this hour. She reached them, and Wilek grabbed hold of her shoulder, noticing she was holding a bronze canister in her arms. “What are you doing?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” she whispered.

  “Well, go back to bed and try,” he commanded. “Where is your shield?”

  She merely shook her head and sprinted away, her bare feet slapping the wood floor of the corridor.

  “What is she up to?” His mother’s concerns about the attacks on women and girls came to mind. He would have to speak with Rosârah Valena in the morning. It was far too dangerous for Hrettah to be out at night alone. Wilek could not protect those who did not follow the rules.

  “You have been convicted of wrongdoing and sentenced to die,” Father Burl Mathal said. “Tonight you atone for yourself and all Armania.”

  This line usually belonged to the king, but halfway through the ceremony he’d had a spell and forgotten what to say. His aides had taken him back to his chamber, and the Rôb priest went on alone.

  Without a tongue the convict merely rasped. He had killed a man in a knife fight and had taken on substantial wounds of his own, including the loss of his tongue. Master Uhley said he wouldn’t last more than a day or two, which was why Wilek had chosen him.

  Mathal looked up to the recently remodeled Thalassa pole. It had once held a bronze of Barthos’s likeness at the top, but Father had ordered it changed for tonight.

  “Here is our exchange, goddess!” Mathal said. “Here is our substitute. Here is our atonement. This man goes to death so that we might earn your favor and proceed to peace and long life.” The priest nodded to the guards, who tipped up the plank until the convict slid off and over the side.

  The man’s tongueless scream sounded like a raven’s caw. A splash followed.

  A gasp turned Wilek’s head. A young woman ducked behind the mizzenmast. Miss Amala Allard, if Wilek wasn’t mistaken.

  For sand’s sake! Were all the young ladies exploring this evening? “Did you see her, Kal?” Wilek whispered, though he knew the answer already from the grim expression on his shield’s face.

  Kal grunted. “I will see that Miss Amala makes it safely back to her cabin where she belongs and that she knows how inappropriate it is for a young lady to be out alone at night.”

  Wilek nodded, and Kal slipped away to deal with his youngest ward.

  Wilek had once thought Miss Mielle a handful, but Miss Amala had turned out to be twice as bold with no common sense whatsoever. He did not envy Kal’s responsibility in raising the girls.

  With Kal off scolding his ward, Harton escorted Wilek to his chambers. As per routine, Harton entered first to clear the room, then Wilek followed.

  Before Harton could step out, a guard knocked and pushed open the door. “Forgive the interruption, Your Highness. You are needed in Rosârah Valena’s chambers right away. Sârah Hrettah has been attacked.”

  Hrettah! Wilek scurried from the room, knowing this had been his fault. When he’d found Hrettah wandering before the sacrifice, he should have sent Harton to escort her back to her cabin. Why had he been so careless with her safety? There was no way to keep security on board a ship so overcrowded. How many more would be attacked before they reached the island?

  If they ever found the island.

  Aldair Livina had assured them all that the place existed, but almost seven months before that, the king had demanded the former admiral’s early retirement for insanity in the wake of his wife’s affair and later death. On the word of Trevn and Duke Odarka that it had all been a mistake, Wilek had convinced the king to reinstate Livina as captain of the Seffynaw with the charge of leading the fleet to the island he had discovered.

  But Wilek had been wrong about trusting Teaka and her shadir in regards to Janek’s parentage. What if he had been wrong to trust Captain Livina as well?

  Wilek and Harton followed the guard down the lengthway. The ship surged beneath him and he steadied himself against the bul
kheads just outside Rosârah Valena’s cabin. Once he regained his footing, he entered and found Princess Hrettah reclining on a longchair.

  “Wil!” The princess jumped up and clutched him. “She took my face! She took it and put it on her own!”

  “What happened?” Wilek asked the fourth queen. He could not fathom why anyone would dare attack one of the princesses.

  “A sailor found her bound and gagged, roaming the foredeck,” Rosârah Valena said. “She cannot recall what happened except that she saw a woman’s face change into hers.”

  “She took my face, Wil, and walked away looking like me.”

  Wilek’s stomach churned. Charlon on the Seffynaw? The mantic woman had impersonated Lebetta after she’d been killed. Could a mantic take the form of the living?

  He glanced at Harton but couldn’t ask questions about mantics in front of an audience without giving away the secret of his backman’s mantic past. “Fetch me Teaka,” Wilek told a guard, who raced out the door to obey. Wilek settled onto the longchair. “Hrettah, sit with me.”

  She did so instantly, her wide brown eyes staring helplessly up into his.

  “What did this woman look like?” he asked.

  “She was no taller than me. She had lighter brown skin and gray eyes. Her hair was short, done up in side braids and knots. And she spoke in a foreign tongue.”

  It sure sounded like Charlon. Wilek fought the shiver than stood his arm hair on end. He would not let anyone see his fear, especially not Hrettah.

  “Did she say anything to you? Do anything?” he asked.

  “She cut off some of my hair. I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn’t work.”

  A mantic for certain, but why take Hrettah’s likeness? He suddenly thought of seeing Hrettah earlier, when they’d gone up for the sacrifice. “Hrettah, did you see me tonight? In the crossway just before the stairs to the stern deck?”

  Her frown answered his question before her words. “Did I see you where?”

  “My daughter knows better than to go traipsing about the ship alone, Your Highness,” Rosârah Valena said.

  “I’m sure she does.” Wilek hugged the girl to his side and stroked her hair. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

  “Wilek.” She leveled a glance at him. “I am not a child.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “If you will catch that woman.”

  “I promise to do so.”

  The door opened. The guard he had sent for Teaka had returned without her. Kal was with him, though.

  “Well?” Wilek asked.

  “A, uh, private word, Your Highness?” the guard said.

  “Very well.” Wilek followed the guard into the corridor, Kal and Harton with him.

  “The old woman is dead,” the guard said when the door was closed. “Found her lying in her bed. Looks to have died from old age, yet her cabin has been ransacked.”

  Wilek heaved a sigh. Randmuir Khal of the Omatta’s mother, dead? The man had never liked that Wilek had persuaded her to act as his advisor. Now he would be furious.

  “There’s more, Your Highness,” Kal said, nudging the guard.

  “The first mate and ship’s boy both saw Sârah Hrettah enter the old woman’s cabin just after dark,” the man said.

  “Ah.” Charlon had killed Teaka. It made perfect sense. Teaka had betrayed Charlon by breaking the compulsion over Wilek and helping him escape the Magonians. If Charlon was on board, she must have decided to enact revenge.

  Wilek shuddered. “Charlon of Magonia is on board the Seffynaw.”

  Charlon

  You have failed,” Mreegan said.

  The Chieftess of Magonia sat on a chair beside the window in Lady Zeroah’s cabin. A cabin aboard the Armanian flagship Seffynaw. Mreegan and Charlon both had reddish-brown skin and the gray eyes of a mantic. But Mreegan’s beauty outshined all. Tall where Charlon was short. Shapely where Charlon was formless. Graceful where Charlon was awkward. Though Charlon did not look like herself at present. She wore the mask of Lady Zeroah Barta.

  Charlon stood across the small room. Back to the door. Arms crossed. Defensive. “I have not failed yet.”

  “I grow tired of sharing the goddess with you,” the Chieftess added. “A great shadir deserves better than your dismal efforts, don’t you think?”

  Such words! “Magon would disagree,” Charlon said. “The Great Goddess believes in me.”

  “You should have succeeded in this assignment long before we became stuck on boats in the Eversea,” Mreegan snapped. “You are weak, even after compelling yourself with magic. These people would hang you if they found out who you really are, yet you still harbor compassion for them.”

  Not all. For a girl in a trunk, always. Such a thing was wrong. No matter who the girl was. Or that she had twice spat in Charlon’s eye. “What would you have me do?”

  “Give up your quest and release Magon to serve me alone. We will return to the Vespara, where I can devise a new plan. We must find land. Once we have a home, then we can worry about the prophecy of the Deliverer.”

  To the Vespara. A place Mreegan would rule over Charlon as Chieftess. The role the Great Goddess had promised. Promised Charlon would have. Once she became Mother. “I will not go. Not until I conceive the Deliverer. The Seffynaw carries all the Hadar men.”

  “You have had more than enough time to catch one of these princes, yet you continue to wait on Prince Wilek.”

  “He is the natural choice.”

  “We are out of time!” Mreegan yelled. “I have no more ahvenrood. We must return to the Vespara before our masks wear off. I leave at nightfall. With or without you.”

  Ah, here was proof! That the goddess trusted Charlon. Better than Chieftess Mreegan. For the great shadir had taken Charlon to the old woman Teaka. A simple spell and stores of ahvenrood came to Charlon. She eyed the bronze canister on the sideboard and smiled. She did not need Mreegan’s root now. Nor would she tell Mreegan so.

  Because Mreegan would take it. For herself.

  Charlon lifted her chin. Stood tall. “I will not abandon Magon’s call. I do not fear the future. Of failing masks or living at sea. Magon is with me. Always. She will protect me.”

  Mreegan stood, strode toward Charlon, shaking her finger while she spoke. “You are a weak fool. I misread your anger as strength, but it has never been anything more than self-pity. I was mistaken to declare you Mother.”

  Charlon stood firm. “I am the Mother. You will see.”

  Mreegan shook her head. “The day of the Mother will come, but I no longer believe she is you.”

  “Magon has told me. I am the Mother. I will not fail her.”

  “Yes, well, you cannot succeed without ahvenrood, and I have no desire to be executed alongside you when our masks wear off and Prince Wilek sees who we really are.” Mreegan walked past Charlon. Toward the door.

  “Magon will provide,” Charlon said to her back. “Your lack of faith shames the goddess. That you would walk away. Away from her decree . . . You are not worthy to lead Magonia.”

  Mreegan turned, her face a veil of thunder. “You dare insult me after all I have done for you? You are a fool. Your mask is failing and your token host is dying. Can you not smell her death approaching? You have failed.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Nightfall, if you wish to return with me.” Mreegan opened the door and left.

  “You will regret abandoning me!” Charlon yelled after her.

  The door fell closed on her words. Charlon flipped the lock. Sank onto the bed. Gritted her teeth to fight off tears that threatened.

  Alone again. But for the captive. Hidden in the trunk under the bed.

  The cabin did reek. Of death. Charlon could not disagree. But the smell was not Zeroah. King Jorger had died. The first day of the voyage. Heart forever silent. Mreegan had used magic to push his body out the cabin window. And once Mreegan knew her ahvenrood was nearly gone, she had magicked the struggling Flara out the windo
w as well. Splashing water. Drowning maid.

  Zeroah might have died too, if not for Charlon. She would not allow Mreegan near the girl. Charlon let her out once a day. To eat. To drink. To use the privy bucket. Mreegan had mocked Charlon for it. But Charlon knew. Knew what it was like to be captive.

  Charlon wanted it to end. For Zeroah’s sake. For her own too. But she would not let Mreegan decide when.

  She stood. Paced across the room to the mirrorglass. Studied the reflection of Lady Zeroah. Tired of wearing this face. Even more weary of the black mourning dress. To honor the death of Princess Nabelle. The color did not make the skinny girl more attractive. Perhaps she was simply too plain. Too plain to tempt Prince Wilek. His concubine had been provocative. Now that Charlon had more ahvenrood, she might risk a small spell to enhance the girl’s figure.

  It would not help. Mreegan was right. Charlon had no hope. No hope of seducing Prince Wilek. Lady Zeroah was too demure. To behave differently would call unwanted attention. Besides, the prince had little time for his betrothed. His father was ill. Too ill to pressure him to marry. With Princess Nabelle gone and Prince Wilek preoccupied with his duties as Heir, the contracted wedding seemed forgotten. That his people came first did not surprise Charlon. Not in the least.

  “Go to Prince Janek instead,” the Chieftess had said. “I imagine he would delight in claiming his brother’s betrothed for his own.”

  No doubt he would. Such a task might prove easier. It mattered not which prince fathered Charlon’s child. So long as he was a Hadar. Yet she abhorred Prince Janek. He was everything she hated in a man.

  The Chieftess had also suggested Charlon wear Mielle’s mask. Approach Prince Trevn. In his youth he might not so easily recognize a trap. And while Charlon would enjoy putting Mielle in a trunk—for a day or two, at least—she was not yet ready to give up on Prince Wilek.

  Lies, her heart said. Charlon simply did not like Chieftess Mreegan telling her what to do.

  The Chieftess was wrong. She would see. Now that Charlon had plenty of ahvenrood. And Magon’s help to use it. Success would come. And once Magon declared Charlon Chieftess of Magonia, Mreegan would be sorry.