Right. Good for me. I press the heels of my ashy hands against my eyes, probably staining my face like a burglar. “Whatever, Aakesh.”
“You are at risk now,” he continues all pensively.” He knows you, Harry Iskinder, better than you know yourself. Your reactions were not all as they should be for the ignorance you pretend. He is aware that you lied to him.”
Acid rises in my throat. “I didn't lie to him.”
“You know where to go next, and he does not. He acts to save his species from extinction, a goal greater than the worth of an individual. If you remain in his way, he will kill you.”
No. No, I'm not hearing this.
“He will weep as he slays you, Harry Iskinder.”
“Shut up!” I turn away, facing the wind that pushes at my skin and dries my sweat. More manipulation? Now, when everything is at stake?
I wish I could just go to the Soothsayer house, or even a bar, and forget all of this for a while. But haven't I done that enough?
I've run away all my life. Run away from my father, run away from my home city. Run away from the responsibility of making an heir, run away from the harsh fact that if my ancestors couldn't find the Hope with their maps and clues, I have no chance.
It's time to stop running.
Bakura's stew attempts an escape. I try to picture what my vomit would look like falling from this height, and in spite of myself, it makes me smile.
“Nice master?” says Gorish, patting my knee.
“I don't see a way out of this.” I breathe deeply. “No matter what I do, there's a price.”
Aakesh says nothing.
We still don't have enough money to go to Shangri-la, and I forgot to ask Parnum for any. Completing our contracts with the old captain would do it, but I don't think we can wait that long. While we earn, Bek hunts.
The soot darkens my hands, leaving the creases like little white paths all over. Like a map.
I have a complete map. I could just take my crap and leave without my Travelers, but that means going to the black water alone. I can't. I just can't do it alone.
It's time to stop running. The Iskinder line can't die with me. I may have messed up nearly everything else I was born to do, but there is one thing I can control. I can make an heir, leave him a copy of my map, and then go toward destiny with less regret.
Gorish hugs my waist. I put my hand on his head. “It's time to start being a grown-up.”
He blinks up at me, as if I'm telling him to act adult.
“Not you, little buddy. Me. I have to shore up my loose ends.” The conflict is something I can't resolve yet. Aakesh said the Sundered can't heal, and he's only interested in saving the lives of his people. But Parnum said the Sundered have a plan to take dominance back—whatever that means—and when they do, they're going to kill us all.
Whichever it is, I have no way to tell now. I know one thing: reaching the Hope first will give me the power to make a difference because I'll have a choice.
Even if we have to steal the money, we can't wait anymore.
“Nice master?”
I rub between his eyes with my thumb. “This is a pretty messed up situation.”
He nuzzles me.
“Have you come to a decision?” Aakesh says.
“Yeah. Nobody's going to like it.”
He does his half-nod, as if he expected no less.
Whatever, Aakesh. Just whatever.
Grit digs into the palms of my hands as I climb the ladder back down.
Okay. There's Sandra. One of my options. Honestly, the only good option. The only woman I personally know I'd trust with something this big.
Choosing her makes sense. She's kept up with me for years. She's paddled as strong and hard as the men, never complaining when they bitched and moaned, never causing any drama or accidents or broken tools. She's trustworthy. She's responsible. I never knew my mother, but if she'd been anything like this, I'd have been in great hands.
Aakesh sighs.
He doesn’t get how important this is to me. He doesn’t get what this means the future of my family. I guess I can’t expect him to.
Sandra's alone, or at least I don't see any other Travelers near her. She's buying fresh fruit from a stall—a good sign. That's the healthy option. She smiles her shy little smile, not meeting the eyes of the merchant. She's just so quiet. Aakesh's vision gave her brilliant colors, but I'm not sure she—
A pickpocket tries for her little moneybag.
Before I can shout, take a step, anything, she dislocates his arm.
Holy hell.
She just grabs his arm and twists it out of the socket, then grabs her fruit and runs like a bastard on fire. Nobody knows what happened or why this guy's on the ground wailing like a lunatic.
Wow. That's a side I haven't seen before. I follow her at once.
She's hard to catch. Sandra hurries down the street, blending in easily. She's short and slender, and her coloring and clothing just melt in with her surroundings. She keeps her head down, her body-language screaming please don't touch me.
You know what? It works. She's more capable than I ever gave her credit for.
My nerves catch up with me as I catch up with her, just in time for me to open my mouth. “Sandra! Wait!”
She stops and stares up at me, her big brown eyes wide and spooked.
I have no idea how to do this. “Um. Hi.”
She just blinks at me.
I rub the back of my head. “Can we talk?”
“What is it?” she says, her eyes going even wider.
You're the only woman I can trust plays on the tip of my tongue, but that's not how to start this. “Okay. Look, I'm not good with words, so ... here.” I reach into my shirt and pull out a key on a chain. “This is the key to my family vault in London. You know, up north.”
She blinks. Yeah, I bet that seems like a weird intro.
“I'm trying to be practical. Lay out the stakes.” Deep breath. “We Iskinders live by a few set rules. One of them is that we always send funds to London, to the bank there, for our heirs.”
Does she get it? Not judging by that stare.
I'm rambling like an idiot. “I don't have an heir, but things are changing. Big things. I think I'm going to die, and before I go, I need to make one. Uh. An heir. I need to make an heir. Today.”
My face is on fire.
So is hers.
Even Toddy could pull this off with more finesse. Could I be more awkward? I take her hand—it gives me something else to look at—and put my key in it. “If you're willing to bear my heir, then it's yours. The vault. All of it.”
Sandra's mouth hangs open. “Harry, I ... what?”
“Nice master?” Gorish tugs my arm. “Maybe go somewhere else?”
Sandra looks startled, and I remember the lies Tomas spread about my Sundered.
Yeah. This isn't the greatest location to talk about this. “Sandra, please just walk with me. I won't push. I know this is the most messed up thing I've ever said to you, but please hear me out.”
She puts the key back in my hand, and for a second my heart plummets. “I'll listen. But you ... you need to make more sense.” She says that like she trusts that I can make sense of this. I think I won a point.
We walk for a while, Sandra studying the ground and my Sundered Ones following silently behind us. We get away from the market and into a nicer section, still filled with ash, but less fish-stink.
“Try explaining again.” Her hand brushes mine. “I don't understand what you're saying.”
I can't tell her everything. I just can't. “There's ... a plot. Remember the mess in Danton? This is worse. Bigger. And if it succeeds, a lot of people are going to die.”
She glances at me, thoughtful. “What plot?”
If she doesn't believe me, it's over. “A plot to destroy the Sundered Ones.”
Sandra looks thoughtful, her brow knit. She doesn't seem horrified. “That might almost be kinder.”
&nb
sp; I stop walking. “Kinder?”
She shakes her head.
Is that the choice Aakesh made today, death over enslavement? I don't know. “Look, kind or not, I'm involved, and I'm pretty sure I won't be coming back.”
She looks at me. “Then don't go.”
Breeze kicks up the litter by our feet, scraping the pavement like impersonal applause. “I have to,” I whisper.
“If I'm carrying your heir, I shouldn't travel anymore,” she says really quietly. “I won't risk a child on the water. That means I can't go with you, even if you do come back.”
She's smart. I picked the right person. “Yeah. I know. It's a lot to ask.”
“But it isn't.” She frowns at me. “If you have an heir left behind, it means you have an extra reason to do the right thing.”
I stare at her.
“Tomas has said some crazy things,” she says quietly. “I don't know what's going on, but I know you. I know you'll do the right thing. Especially with a child left behind. You can be too kind, but you're not stupid.”
I don't know how to respond to that. Aakesh turns his face away. Gorish just watches us, wringing his hands. Soot swirls around our feet, dark and silent.
Sandra bites her lower lip and puts her hand on my chest. “I'm willing. It's an honor to be asked. I know that. I'm scared. But I'm willing.”
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and put the key back in her hand.
“I don't need—” she starts.
“Then pass the key on when he's old enough, okay? I won't take it back. It would be dishonorable. That's not how Iskinders work.”
“He?” she smiles weakly.
“Aakesh will make sure it's a he.”
She recoils. “He's involved with this?”
“I mean ... Sundered Ones guarantee conception, and guarantee the gender.” My face burns again. “It ... we have sons. In the Iskinder family. It may not seem fair, but you know it's easier for men on the black water, and this child has to be able to lead.” If I find the Hope, if all this horror is ever over, I could have daughters, too.
Snap out of it, Harry. Be an Iskinder. Focus.
She takes the key. “I get it. It's stupid. But I get it. I guess the sex of the child doesn't matter that much.”
I take what's left in my money pouch and use it to get us a room in a nice hotel. There's no way I'm taking her back to that yellow-bulb soot-hole for this.
She makes forgetting things easy.
We're slippery with each other, happy, warm. Naked bodies look so silly laughing that we laugh even more, touch even more, kiss more than we have to to make a child.
This has grown to so much more.
This is just right.
Aakesh isn't here. He did his hand-waving-thing to make sure we'd conceive a son, then took Gorish out to the balcony. They haven't come back in. Smart Aakesh.
She has perfect breasts. I ought to tell her.
She likes that.
Sometime during the night, I hold her and smell her hair and listen to her sleep-breaths, and realize I want to come back to this. I want to be with her more. I wish I'd been with her more already.
She stirs to whisper in my ear. “Come back to me.”
I promise I will.
I was wrong about not having a home. Tenisia wasn't a home. It was a place. A person is a home. This is home.
We sleep.
But not very much.
I can't believe it's morning.
Her kisses ate the hours. It isn't fair. I could use another day, another lifetime of here and now.
The warm morning breeze flutters my half-open shirt around my body. Aakesh waits for me on the balcony with his hip against the railing and Gorish by his feet. Gorish smiles cheerfully up at me.
I look at them. Last night, for a few hours, none of this mess existed—Parnum, shattered hopes, death sentences. She's asleep behind me, perfect under her covers. I'd give the whole world to be back there with her.
“I have taken the liberty of gathering your things, my lord,” says Aakesh quietly, and waves his hand to show me my bags and maps, piled carefully in the corner of the balcony. “As per your request, she has a copy of your map with instructions. Your child would—theoretically—be able to follow your mission.”
I don't even have to go back to the nasty yellow room. I'm spoiled. Sundered who anticipate are really useful. “Thank you. We should go. One way or another, we can't afford to wait any longer.”
“Say goodbye, Harry,” says Aakesh.
There goes my buzz. “What?”
“Say goodbye. She will conceive in thirty-three hours. If you do not say goodbye, you will regret your inaction.”
And then sometimes, having a Sundered who anticipates is freaky as hell. Am I going to die? Is he planning for me to? “Thirty-three hours? It takes that long?”
He does his half-nod, then studies me closely. “She is not what you think her to be.”
I stiffen. Now what's he saying? “What are you talking about?”
“She loathes us. We are repulsive to her.”
“Whatever, Aakesh.” Maybe he's right. Maybe I don't care.
I look back toward her. The blanket has twisted to reveal her leg, a perfect, graceful curve from hip to breast to collarbone. I want to paint her. It's sudden, that urge, gripping, like I haven't had in years. She'd be perfect on canvas, nude.
No, just mostly nude. All-nude would be only for me.
“She would be happier if we were gone from the world, Harry Iskinder,” Aakesh says quietly.” And for no other reason than she finds us ugly.”
I'm not listening to any more of this. “She’s worthy. Worthy in ways you’ll never know. You can't rile me today, Aakesh. I'm too happy.”
He shrugs and goes silent. Guess that's that.
I go back to join Sandra.
There's no time for breakfast after our goodbye. That's okay. Her kisses really do swallow time.
● ●
● CHAPTER 28 ●
His Name is Aakesh!
I arrive before anyone else and talk to the dock manager to buy us some time.
I can't take my Travelers out with me in ignorance. I wait for them at the end of the dock, alone, surrounded by black water and big ships. Weary Sundered climb the rigging behind me, their eyes pale with death, their limbs trembling. This is our world. These are the things it takes to survive. I want my Travelers to understand that this could all change.
When they arrive for their morning assignments, they're sent to talk to me instead.
Nobody looks like they want to hear me speak. I feel ... short. And young. “Good morning,” I say, meeting their eyes, each in turn. “They're going to hold our jobs for us for half an hour. I just want you to hear me out before you go back.”
This sucks so hard.
I thought propositioning Sandra was difficult. This is a thousand times worse. It's impossible to make it all sound simple. Yes, everyone: Parnum found clues to the location of the Hope. Yes, there could be a Sundered plot to kill us all, but there for sure is a Bek one. No, I was wrong, the Hope isn't what I thought. Yes, there are space aliens. No, I don't know the next clue.
No, I don't have all the answers. At least I'm not running away from that fact anymore.
“So this is why you didn't sell them,” Demos says, rubbing his chin.
Gorish leans against my leg, harmless-looking, cute. Aakesh couldn't look harmless if he tried.
“We have to find the Hope first,” I say, trying to sound not-crazy. “That's the only thing that'll give us leverage to change the outcome.”
“Harry.” Kaia says slowly. “Harry, this is crazy. We have to tell someone. The lawmen. Somebody.”
“That won't help,” I say. “Maybe they'll arrest Parnum, or maybe they'll arrest us, but no matter what, they wouldn't let us go after the Hope ourselves, and they sure as hell won't be able to stop Bek.”
Demos looks grim. “That isn't the biggest probl
em. I'm not sure Parnum's wrong.”
Neither am I. But if I say that, it's over.
“Your Sundered One has freaked me out from the first moment I saw him,” Tomas pipes up.
Yeah. Well. He does that. “He also saved your asses in Tauri. My Sundered isn't the bad guy. Focus, people.”
Demos steps closer. He's taller than I am, broader, older.
I stand my ground.
“Every time there's a reversal, the Sundered One kills its claimer.” Demos makes each word heavy. “Every time, Harry.”
“Yeah, out of self-defense,” I counter. “I don't think you'd do much better if somebody made you a slave.”
Maybe that wasn't a good thing to say. He stares at me as if I told him reversals were good things.
“What about those of us who are free, master Demos?” Aakesh counters mildly. “I saw you on the landfall before Harry claimed me. I could have done anything to you then. Sent your fire out of control, removed your boats, or weakened their seams. You would never have known I was there. We, the unclaimed Sundered, have chances to kill you all the time. We could attack your cities. We could free the canals—but we do not. Consider these things as you decide.”
It takes everything I have not to look afraid.
How many ways have they thought of killing us over the years? Nobody talks about this, about the free Sundered, about the power they have and just what they could do if they wanted.
My own words to Demos haunt me. If I were the one enslaved, watching my people being caught, used, killed, and fed to the black water, I would want everyone who'd done it dead. I'd want to kill them all.
Demos sighs and shakes his head.
Behind us, the morning shift has already started banging, sawing, scraping away. They're not going to hold our posts open for us much longer. I swallow. “Look. I'm going. I have to.” Don't make me go alone. “If you're not going with me, then leave.” Please don't make me go alone. “But this is your one chance to make a difference. This is your chance to matter.” For the love of hell, don't make me go alone.
The Sundered Page 21