Lintang and the Brightest Star

by Tamara Moss

‘You!’ Lintang snarled to Yamini.

  The captain had been stabbed. Three times! What if Hewan hadn’t been there that night? What if Captain Shafira had died?

  No wonder Yamini’s punishment was never to be lifted. She hadn’t just betrayed the captain. She’d given her a death sentence.

  ‘I didn’t leave the captain’s side while she was healing,’ Xiang said. ‘And really, I could’ve done away with Hewan, taken out the captain and gotten the reward without looking back once. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t go back once I’d seen what the vigil were capable of. So I became a crew member. For real this time. I even gave the captain my mother’s leather armour to protect her. Not that it made a difference in the end.’

  There was something sharp in her tone for that last sentence, and Lintang again remembered their captain disappearing as swirls of colour into the jaws of the monster.

  Xiang tossed Yamini’s staff on the ground. ‘Consider that your lesson for the day.’

  She turned and stalked away, disappearing into the shadows.

  Lintang climbed to her feet, still glaring at Yamini.

  ‘I didn’t know it would turn out that way,’ Yamini muttered. ‘I just wanted the gemstones …’

  ‘Captain Shafira shouldn’t have let you back on board.’

  Yamini gazed at the forest floor. After a long, long time, she whispered, ‘I know.’

  ‘To think I’d started to trust you.’ Lintang tossed her branch away. ‘I guess I was wrong.’

  Eire woke everyone before dawn. She gave Kona her coat for the morning and disappeared to hunt. Xiang left to fetch them water from the river. When Eire returned she had a woolly, goat-like animal that they roasted over the fire and ate as the sun came up.

  ‘Last day of prophecy,’ Eire said, sucking the meat juice from her fingers. ‘We focus on task. Ten vigil, one governor, one mythie. Captain relies on us.’ She glared at Xiang, Kona and Mei. ‘Make sure you follow orders.’

  Lintang stared into the flames and said nothing. She didn’t look at Yamini, and she was certain Yamini was avoiding her gaze too.

  When they were done with breakfast, Kona kicked out the fire while the guardian earth drew Bayani back into its ribcage and put Pelita on its shoulders.

  ‘Why is it so keen to protect you, Bayani?’ Mei said curiously. ‘I’ve never heard of a sinka acting like this before.’

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ Pelita said, but it wasn’t clear whether she was talking about the guardian earth or Bayani.

  Eire nudged Opaya with her foot. Opaya grunted and stirred.

  ‘What are we to do with these?’ Eire said to Xiang. Her voice had an accusatory tone.

  ‘I’ll deal with them,’ Xiang said. They had no rope, as their supply had been in the satchels, but she used the belt that usually held her pouch to bind Opaya’s hands, and the leather scabbard belt Avalon had made for Lintang to tie up Salish.

  ‘Traitor,’ Salish growled as soon as he was awake. Horrible insults flew from his mouth. Xiang listened to them silently.

  Opaya just seemed stunned and hurt.

  Lintang pulled Kona aside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Kona said as soon as they were out of hearing distance from the others. ‘You seem quiet this morning.’

  ‘You were friends with Captain Shafira a long time ago, right?’

  ‘We worked together for a while in Kaneko Brown, yes.’

  ‘And Xiang? Yamini?’

  ‘Oh no – they joined the crew afterwards. Captain Shafira left Kaneko Brown because of them, actually. Well, because of Yamini.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  It was a while before Kona spoke again. ‘When the captain was in Kaneko Brown, she was very angry and lost. She’d been exiled from her country and framed for crimes she hadn’t committed, with no way to prove her innocence. She helped the Scorpalla in the first place just to feel like she was doing something worthwhile.’

  Eire whistled sharply and beckoned everyone to follow her.

  It was time to go.

  Xiang left Opaya and Salish where they were. Salish continued shouting obscenities after her.

  Lintang made sure to trail behind the rest of the group with Kona. ‘What changed?’

  ‘There was a rumour out of Zaiben. A young girl – very young, perhaps your age – had taken over a criminal ring and had become a sort of queen of thieves. Captain Shafira wanted to bring her onto the crew.’

  The meaty breakfast in Lintang’s stomach churned. Captain Shafira had gone to Zaiben specifically for Yamini.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think …’ Kona said slowly, ‘I think she was aware of just how precarious her situation was becoming. The more she was involved in the Scorpalla’s activities, the more fiercely the Vierzans hunted for her. And if they managed to kill her, Eire would take over the Winda.’ Kona stole a glance at Eire. ‘The captain knew that wasn’t the best outcome for the rest of the crew, but she’d given Eire her word.’

  They reached the edge of the forest and started up the narrow mountain path Opaya and Salish had been guarding earlier. Their boots crunched on the rocky ground.

  ‘How was finding Yamini going to help?’

  ‘The rules at sea for rogue vessels are different to the UR navy. If a captain is killed, the first mate is in charge. But if the captain names someone to inherit the ship – someone the rest of the crew will accept as their new leader – then they’ll be in charge.’

  ‘Are you saying Captain Shafira asked Yamini aboard so she could inherit the Winda?’

  Kona didn’t answer. The path wrapped around the mountainside. Up ahead it curved to a plateau, like a level platform carved into the slope.

  Lintang massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to digest the information.

  Yamini? In charge of the Winda? After everything she’d done?

  But Captain Shafira mustn’t have officially run it past the crew, because otherwise Yamini would be in charge right now. Did anyone else know Captain Shafira’s plans? Is this why Yamini wanted Lintang’s alliance? To have a lackey at her side when she challenged Eire for captaincy?

  How could Lintang have been such a gnome? Yamini had never wanted any sort of friendship. She’d just needed allies against Eire.

  And, despite supposedly having excellent instincts, Lintang had fallen for it completely.

  There was a shout from up ahead. Lintang and Kona ran to see what was happening. They got a full view as the ground levelled out, and Kona muttered a low oath.

  There wasn’t ten vigil. There were at least fifty.

  Salish and Opaya had lied.

  It was too late to retreat. Xiang, Mei, Eire and Yamini were surrounded. Eire was battling four vigil by a large pool of water from the recent rains. Xiang was on the other side of the plateau, where the mountain path continued to snake upwards. The guardian earth didn’t need to fight. None of the vigil could even get near it.

  Lintang’s grip tightened on her sword. With so many vigil nearby, Governor Karnezis must be just a little further.

  Several vigil spotted Lintang and Kona and raced forward to attack. Lintang met the first vigil’s sword with a parry and a retaliating swing. Kona took two people down. Lintang blocked and tried a fancy manoeuvre Xiang had taught her, spinning her wrist and forcing her opponent’s blade from his hand. She kneed him in the head while he was bending to retrieve his weapon, then spun to the next vigil.

  ‘Are you trying shika?’ Xiang yelled across the plateau.

  ‘No,’ Lintang said through gritted teeth. At the moment, she didn’t need it.

  These were more skilled than the vigil in Desa, and more willing to hurt her, but the situation wasn’t as bad as the ones she’d faced in Allay, where she’d fought both with a furious, frenzied attack to protect her friends and a panicked, desperate attempt to keep countless soldiers from stabbing her.

  This time her mind was calm, her actions controlled. All the training she had done in Desa, all t
he extra work she had put into her evenings with Yamini, was worth it. Her moves came easily. Her sword was an extension of her hand.

  Mud monsters rose from the ground to protect them. Eire hacked at the vigil with her khwando. Her fighting technique was heavy and violent compared to the fluid, swirling attacks of Mei and Xiang, but still her skills were unmatched by her opponents.

  A shout behind them made Lintang glance to the path. Opaya and Salish had freed themselves. Opaya held a small black ball with a string on it. Salish knocked two crystals together, making a flare. The string caught alight.

  ‘Bahatsi!’ Kona cried, diving to the ground.

  Lintang threw herself down too, and covered her head as Opaya hurled the ball.

  There was an explosion – a blaze of heat and thunder and light not far from Lintang. Her body screamed with an overload of sensations. There were shouts around her, but the sound was dampened. Her ears rang. Her head was fuzzy. She couldn’t see properly. Her skin felt scorched. Someone tripped over her and she hardly noticed.

  Grey clothes blurred in her vision as one of the vigil stabbed at her, but the blade was blocked by a staff.

  Yamini.

  She chased the vigil away from Lintang, her shouts muted beneath the unbearable ringing.

  It seemed to take forever before Lintang’s senses started returning. She uncurled herself as the smell of smoke touched her nostrils.

  The guardian earth was on fire. Pelita was still on its shoulders. She must’ve been screaming but Lintang couldn’t hear her.

  And Bayani was trapped inside the guardian earth’s ribcage.

  ‘No.’ Lintang tried to get up. Her legs weren’t working. ‘No. No.’

  She had already seen Captain Shafira devoured by a monster. She couldn’t watch her best friends burn.

  The other vigil were already regaining their bearings and coming at the crew again. Mei was surrounded by three opponents, and Eire was fighting six. Kona fought off attackers as he ran towards Pelita and Bayani and the burning guardian earth.

  Someone grabbed Lintang’s coat while she was distracted. She gasped as a vigil hauled her to her feet. She managed to wriggle out of her coat and stumble away from him, but her legs were shaky from the blast. And her sword was on the ground, too far away.

  The vigil threw her coat aside and grabbed her hair, dragging her towards the lake. Shika, shika, she needed to do shika, breathe in, breathe out –

  She barely had a chance before the vigil slammed her backwards into the water. She lay on the bedrock, momentarily stunned as she stared up at the blurry sky past the surface of the lake. Bubbles rushed against her face. The water was freezing. But she was in a shallow section – all she had to do was sit up and she’d be able to breathe again.

  Except the vigil was pinning her down.

  She kicked and thrashed to free herself. The surface was two hand-widths away. She wasn’t going to drown when air was so close. She had fallen into the ocean more times than she could count. Caletromian mermaids had tried to take her under. The Kanekonese siren had dragged her to the deepest depths of the sea and she had survived. She would get out of this.

  Of course she would.

  If only Keelee were here. This was when the lightning bird normally swooped in to save her. If there had ever been any hope that Keelee hadn’t been medicated, it was vanishing as swiftly as Lintang’s breath.

  She remembered the words she had learned by heart her entire childhood.

  Don’t breathe in.

  The water was a villager’s friend, an ally, providing them with food and sustenance. But if they found themselves trapped underneath, they must never, ever let it enter their lungs. She had always known that. And she had trained to hold her breath for long periods of time with Eire. She would be fine.

  Don’t breathe in.

  She would definitely survive. Definitely. Definitely.

  Don’t breathe in.

  Her lungs were ready to burst. Precious air was so close, so incredibly close –

  Tears burned at her eyes – that she was dying for breath, that she would drown this close to the surface, that she was going to do the one thing she had be taught not to – but she couldn’t help herself, she couldn’t stop it.

  She opened her mouth.

  And breathed in.

  Water rushed into Lintang’s lungs, fast and terrible. She stared, unblinking, towards the sky, waiting to pass out, waiting for it to be over.

  Waiting …

  Waiting …

  Something touched the back of her neck. It was like a stream of bubbles bursting up from the bedrock and hitting her skin, making her hair flutter. She wriggled instinctively. It tickled.

  She hadn’t died yet. In fact … she kind of felt better.

  She took another breath. Again, water rushed into her lungs. Again, the stream of bubbles hit the back of her neck.

  She couldn’t be certain, but she was pretty sure she was breathing underwater.

  Impossible. People didn’t breathe underwater. Sharks breathed underwater. Fish breathed underwater. They had gills …

  And scales.

  She had a scale. A fish scale. Nyasamdra’s mark –

  The mark! It was at the back of her neck. It wasn’t bubbles bursting up from the bedrock, it was bubbles streaming out of her skin, hitting the bedrock, and bouncing onto her.

  She could breathe underwater.

  We Islanders aren’t so easily drowned.

  Governor Karnezis had told her that in Zaiben. He’d miraculously survived a shipwreck, and now she knew why. Surely others across the Twin Islands realised too. Islanders were supposed to have a special relationship with the water, but Lintang had thought it was just a story. All those times she had almost drowned while travelling on the Winda! If she had only breathed in, she would’ve been fine.

  The weight lifted from her. She jerked up out of the pool and sucked in a lungful of air. There was a trickle down the back of her neck, expelling the last of the water.

  She didn’t know what she expected to see, or how she’d been saved, but the view before her was nothing she could’ve imagined.

  The circus people had arrived. Mei’s friends had come, whirls of colour among the vigil.

  There was Solasta, with three fyredragons shooting flames at anyone with a grey uniform. A fourth fyredragon had pulled off the vigil who’d attempted to drown Lintang, and was now chasing him away. There was the big man, Barballo, who trained the tigris, swinging spiky weapons. The girl with the scary beaked mask used her hoops to trap vigil. Some of the acrobats were here too, their movements fluid and tight, a telltale sign that they were using shika.

  How had they gotten here?

  Lintang choked in relief when she saw the fifth fyredragon slither above the battle with Pelita and Bayani on its back. It must’ve saved them from the burning guardian earth. Pelita was waving at everyone. Neither looked too badly injured.

  But the guardian earth …

  The poor guardian earth was facedown on the other side of the pool, charred and steaming. The mud monsters had melted around it.

  How awful. Lintang had started to believe they could save every mythie.

  ‘Bayani!’ she cried.

  Bayani whispered in the fyredragon’s ear, and it veered towards her. As soon as it was close enough to the ground, he stumbled off it and hauled her from the pool. She slumped into his arms, shivering. The bite of the air was getting worse with each heartbeat.

  Pelita jumped off the fyredragon too. She kissed Lintang’s cheek. The fyredragon puffed on Lintang, and the water on her hair and clothes and skin evaporated, leaving a warm, dry feeling.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lintang said, and she realised she knew it. ‘Alis?’

  The dragon wriggled its body happily.

  ‘Hello to you too.’ To Bayani, she said, ‘How did the circus people get here?’

  ‘They rode the fyredragons,’ Bayani said. ‘They travelled all the way here to help us. Captain Sh
afira must’ve sent Qourees a message back with that redbell, explaining about the tenth day of the prophecy.’

  Yes, there was Qourees, smaller than the vigil she was fighting, but swinging a sword like a true warrior. She looked angrier than anyone on the plateau.

  ‘Hey, where’s your coat?’ Bayani said. ‘Pelita, will you get Lintang’s coat?’

  Pelita skipped off, followed protectively by Alis.

  Lintang had recovered enough to sit up by herself. Bayani smiled at her. There were tear tracks on his face between smoky smears. ‘I saw when you went underwater. I’m so glad you figured it out.’

  He must’ve learned the truth after the siren had dragged him into the ocean. He’d been under for so long that day. Lintang had always wondered how he’d survived.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me –’

  – that Islanders can breathe underwater?

  She tried to say the second part. She willed her mouth to open and her tongue to move.

  Nothing happened.

  When she looked at Bayani, he gave her an understanding smile.

  They couldn’t speak it out loud. That was how it had been kept quiet for so long. Nyasamdra’s magic bound their tongues. The sea guardian was gone, but her influence wasn’t.

  Eire would be furious next time Lintang held her breath on and on and on during training.

  Pelita returned with Lintang’s coat, and Lintang rugged herself up gratefully. She grabbed her sword and faced the path that led further up the mountain. Everyone else was still locked in combat.

  Bayani gripped her arm. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I have to get the Curall from Governor Karnezis so we can save Captain Shafira.’

  ‘Just wait for the others. At least for Eire!’

  But Lintang was already running. She heard Pelita call cheerfully behind her, ‘Have fun!’ and Bayani’s desperate cries for her to stop. She couldn’t stop. It was the last day of the prophecy, and every grain of sand that fell was time Captain Shafira was stuck in Hallaxa. She left the plateau and the battle behind, and started up the narrow, winding path, keeping her mind on the task of running rather than on the monster.