Song of the Current

by Sarah Tolcser

  “Markos, stop it,” I whispered. He was talking as if he was already dead.

  “You need to know. In case.” His hand curled warm around my arm. “Now. What is his name?”

  “Tychon Hypatos. Iphis Street. I’m not going to need this.”

  “I hope not.” He released me. I expected him to step back, but instead he inclined his head toward me.

  We were only inches apart. It would have been easy to lean my body against his. Easy to mess up his hair and press my lips to that triangle of soft skin at the base of his neck. Images jumped unbidden into my mind: Markos, pushing me up against the locker and kissing me over and over until we were both breathless. Hands under clothes.

  The rum and my embarrassment made my face burn. How can you ever be certain a person is thinking the same thing you are? I heard his uneven breath and saw the jumpy way he glanced away from me, and I knew at once that he was.

  “I’m going on deck,” I blurted out, shouldering past him to escape the warm, cramped cabin.

  Air was what I needed. Fresh air, to calm the buzz of the rum in my head. And in other parts of my cursed body.

  Maybe I wasn’t the right girl for this kind of adventure. In the stories, the heroine is a lady locked in a castle. Or a common girl with dreams of being special. Or a servant who meets a handsome boy who will take her away from all this.

  A heroine is always someone who wants out.

  Well, I didn’t. I wanted Pa back. I wanted to inherit Cormorant someday. So I didn’t have the favor of the god in the river. So what? I could still be a wherryman. This boat was alive beneath my boots, a friend and a home. I already had the life I wanted.

  I didn’t want to be swept off my feet by some Emparch, to have everything else in my life seem smaller and emptier by comparison. At the end of this, I would deliver Markos to Valonikos. Or we’d all be run through by the Black Dogs. Either way, I’d never see him again. Sixty years from now, I’d probably be an old woman knitting in her chair, telling the tale of the one exciting thing that happened in her life.

  Suddenly I didn’t want that either.

  Current carry you, the folk of the riverlands say. It is many things. A greeting. A benediction. An acknowledgment that the river continues to flow around us, no matter what happens.

  To me, tonight, it felt like a warning.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  “You know, Bollard Company has a branch in Casteria.” Kenté perched on the cabin roof, legs dangling. Her skirts flapped in the wind as we tacked up the Neck.

  They ought to have called it the Spine, for that was what it looked like on the map, a narrow bay with many short, bony tributaries. Leaning posts marked out a channel between the cliffs, which were dotted with caves. So far we’d seen nothing suspicious, but I was still wary. In the northern riverlands, you can see sails moving far away, but here a ship might hide among the rocks. Rumrunners and pirates made these waters perilous.

  I knew what Kenté was going to suggest. “No.”

  “Caro, they can help us. Don’t you think you’re in a bit over your head?” She must have registered my stubborn glare. “A bit! I just meant a bit.”

  “You didn’t hear Ma and Uncle Bolaji. D’you know what their first thought was, when they heard Markos’s family was murdered?” I demanded. “Getting a better trade agreement.”

  I glanced at the cockpit, where Markos sat across from Fee, staring determinedly into the distance. He had taken one of his swords out and was slapping the broad side against his knees. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I lowered my voice. “So, yes. I was afraid Ma would hand him over to the Theucinians. The Bollards are—” I stopped, not wanting to offend her.

  Kenté’s nostrils flared. “You think we’re no better than the Black Dogs.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  She shook her head. “You got the same problem as your father, Caro. You’re too independent.”

  “A wherryman follows no man but the river,” I said. “A wherryman is—”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s your pa talking, not you. Your mother killed a man to protect you, no questions asked. Any of us would’ve done the same. We’re family.”

  But Markos wasn’t a Bollard. I watched him turn the sword over, sunlight glinting up and down the blade, and sighed. Since two nights ago, when we’d drunk Kenté’s rum, our interactions had been excruciatingly polite.

  Which was awkward on a boat the size of Cormorant. His legs were so long, our knees bumped under the table at meals. When he’d reached for his mug at breakfast this morning, his hand had brushed mine, causing both of us to drop into a squirming silence. It wasn’t even like anything had happened, but the tension of the almost-kiss thrummed between us.

  I startled as Kenté scrambled up, whistling an alarm. “What?”

  “Trouble, I think.” She stood with one arm wrapped around the mast, skirts whipping out to the side. “You said you were looking for a cutter or a sloop? One’s coming up the Neck.”

  My whole chest twisted. “What colors?”

  “White sails, black paint. She’s not flying any flag.”

  I jumped down into the cockpit. Bracing my elbows on the stern, I shook Pa’s brass spyglass out of its bag and extended it. “It’s Alektor, all right.”

  I lowered the glass. On the horizon, the city of Casteria was a blur. The Black Dogs would be upon us before we could reach it. It wasn’t a guess. It was a certainty.

  Cormorant was pitched far over, beating up the Neck as fast as she ever could. I trusted Fee’s skill at the helm, but a wherry was built for hauling cargo. The sloop made better headway against the wind than us. She was just plain fast, crashing along with mainsail and jib close-hauled, and a triangular topsail wedged between the gaff and the mast. We couldn’t outrun a boat carrying that much canvas.

  Markos took the spyglass. “They followed us!” He stood so close behind me, I felt the warmth radiating off him.

  “They can’t have,” I said too loudly, to cover the jangling of my nerves. “We’d have seen them.” I exchanged sober glances with Fee. They would be on us within half an hour.

  “They know what you look like,” Kenté pointed out. “You and Markos should hide. Fee can sail. There are plenty of frogmen in the riverlands, and there’s a chance they’ll mistake us for a different wherry.”

  My mind raced. Alektor had been berthed right across from us in Siscema. Philemon would know the wherry Octavia left port three nights ago, but other wherries might have departed overnight too. Perhaps he didn’t know which one carried the Emparch.

  “Get down.” I seized Markos’s shirt, dragging him to the cockpit floor. Belowdecks would be better, but Cormorant was my wherry. There was no way I was going inside. I sat cross-legged, sweat dampening the back of my shirt. We’d be safe enough as long as we stayed low.

  Markos clutched one of his swords in his lap. “What’s your plan?”

  “Haven’t got one. You?”

  “I was hoping you knew some kind of sailing trick,” he said.

  “Not a lot of tricks to sailing. Ships carrying more canvas go faster.” I was thinking as hard as I could and coming up with nothing. “Kenté, can you do an illusion or something?”

  “Not in the middle of the afternoon.” She wrung her hands. “I need the dark.”

  “We don’t have any extra sails, do we?” Markos asked me.

  “Where would we put them?” I snapped. “Do you see a bowsprit?”

  “You know I haven’t the faintest idea what a bowsprit is.”

  We had no choice but to fight. I folded and unfolded my fingers, trying to calculate how long it would be until we were in range of their muskets. I hated this—the waiting. Cormorant’s bow was like a knife, slicing the thick damp air.

  I glanced up at the pointed tip of the sail and realized with surprise that I couldn’t see it.

  “Fog,” Fee said.

  I popped up on my knees,
then onto my feet. Alektor had completely disappeared into the gray mist.

  Markos joined me, shivering. “Does bad weather usually come up this fast?”

  “It can, this close to the sea.” It was odd though. The day hadn’t even been cloudy.

  “Are we? Close to the sea?”

  “Of course. The Neck is saltwater.”

  A wet chill lay over the water. I could still see the chop of the waves and feel the wind on my face, but the land had vanished, and so had much of the Neck. I lifted the big clapper bell we used to ring out our position in foggy weather.

  “Is that a good idea?” Kenté squinted into the murky fog. “Won’t they know where we are?”

  “Would you rather get run down by a barge?” I clanged the bell. The Black Dogs were the least of my worries right now. We were far more in danger of running into a post or those rocks. “Dead by pirates or dead by shipwreck is still dead.”

  Distantly I heard the sounds of other vessels—bells small and large, and one blaring horn. That was likely to be a seagoing ship, far out. It was hard to tell the direction of noises in a fog. If one of those bells was the Black Dogs, I didn’t know which.

  Fee’s fingers tightened on the tiller. “Can’t see,” she whispered.

  The posts marking out the channel were wraithlike in the fog, but I could see them. How was it that she, with her sharp eyesight, could not?

  Fee’s long tongue darted out to lick her lips. She shook her head in defeat. “Anchor.”

  If we anchored right there in the middle of the channel, a bigger ship might plow over us. The fog was thick, but I was sure we’d sailed in worse.

  I pushed the bell into Kenté’s hands, and she glanced up, startled. “Ring this on the count of sixty,” I said.

  A strange sense of exhilaration ran through me as I took the tiller. My worries about Alektor trickled away. I was at the helm of Cormorant. It felt right. Far off our starboard bow, a post stood in the mist. I adjusted course, pointing toward it.

  Markos leaned out to peer around the cabin. “Fifty,” he counted. “Fifty-one. Fee thinks we should drop anchor.”

  “It’s all right. I know where I’m going.”

  “Caro, be reasonable. I can’t even see your hand on the tiller, and it’s three feet away.” His voice rose. “We’ll run into the piling or the cliff or … or …”

  “I can do it.”

  He and Kenté exchanged dark looks as she struck the bell. “How are you doing it?”

  The post looked like a tall, thin ghost in the fog, but I could see waves striking its base. “It’s not that thick.”

  “It is that thick.” He sounded exasperated. “It’s all just gray, as far as the eye can see.”

  “Hang on, I’ve got to turn here.” I glanced up at the sail. “Post coming up.”

  Markos gripped the cockpit trim, knuckles pale. His eyes dropped to meet Fee’s as she held on to the edge of her seat, her body braced. None of them trusted me. I ground my teeth. Well, all right. If this was the way they were going to be, I’d do it alone.

  “Come about!” I called out, and Fee roused herself to help guide the boom over, flinching as she tightened the sheet around the cleat. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t going to hit anything.

  “It’s letting up,” Markos said many minutes later.

  I wiped sweat from my neck. Behind us fog hung like a great cloud descended from the sky, but ahead sun rays pierced the gray. Instead of only one post, I could see three. Markos was right. The fog was lifting. As I watched, a tiny gust of wind rippled the waves.

  “I suppose that was your god at the bottom of the river,” Markos said. “Telling you where the posts were?”

  I wished with my whole heart that it was true, but I’d been listening for small things this entire journey, and all I’d heard was a lot of nothing. Besides, it couldn’t have been the god in the river—or Fee would have been able to see through the fog too.

  My chest clenched. “The god in the river tells me nothing.”

  He gave me a quizzical look.

  And so here we were. It is a scary thing, giving your truth to someone. But beyond that, I was reluctant to say it out loud, as if doing so would somehow make it final.

  “Markos.” I paused, biting my lip. “I don’t hear the god.”

  “But you said all the Oresteias are favored of the god. You said—”

  My ears were warm. “I didn’t lie, exactly.” I wished I could sink to the bottom of the Neck. “The god in the river does speak to the Oresteias in the language of small things.” My voice wavered. “Just … not to me.”

  “What about the fog?” He studied it, a thoughtful line appearing between his eyes. “That was obviously river magic. Magic of some kind anyway.” He turned to Kenté. “It wasn’t you, was it?”

  She shook her head. “A shadowman works the magic of dark and light, sleep and awake. Not weather.”

  “Shadowmen can make illusions,” Markos pointed out.

  “True, but then it wouldn’t feel like a fog.” She shivered. “This one seemed cursed damp enough to me.”

  The lower end of the Neck still lay in cloud. Alektor had been swallowed up. Meanwhile, off our bow, the city of Casteria sprawled along a white line of beach, close enough that I could clearly pick out individual buildings. The afternoon sun shone on the great stone arch of the Archon’s estate, while tiny sails dotted the harbor. We had made it.

  I jumped up, passing the tiller to Fee. “I’m going to—to get the sail ready.”

  I didn’t have to do anything to the sail, but only Fee knew that. She watched me scramble out of the cockpit, a strange look on her face. Sympathy—and something else I couldn’t name.

  My eyes stung. I didn’t want her feeling sorry for me.

  “If you don’t hear the river god, why didn’t you just say so before?” Markos persisted. I heard his boots on the deck behind me.

  I walked faster. “Because I didn’t want it to be true.” Tears hovered in my eyes, but I fiercely blinked them away. “I’ll still get you to Casteria. We’re almost there, and I didn’t need any god to do it.”

  “I know you will,” he said. “Caro, if what you say is true, this only means you’re more talented than I thought. If these other sailors hear the river, then how good must you be, to come so far without that advantage? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” I lied. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “All right,” he said slowly. “I only wanted to ask … are you sure? What if this fog is a sign? What if the god is speaking to you?”

  He was wrong. He had to be. Pa said the day my fate came for me, I would know, but if anything, I felt more uncertain than ever.

  “You don’t even believe in the gods,” I said.

  “I’ve always believed in the gods. I just didn’t believe they speak to us.” Hands in his pockets, Markos scrutinized the fog. “Until now. You’re the one who made me reconsider. All that talk about your language of small things and your river god and your pig man. Why are you so reluctant to see that this fog is magic?”

  I wished he would drop the subject. I’d been so close to accepting my fate, but now he was threatening to make me hope again. And I didn’t want to hope. Not when there was no point.

  “I’ve tried and tried to hear the god.” My fingernails bit into my palm. “I can’t. Markos, you don’t know how it feels to think all your life that you’re meant for something special, and then find out you’re … not.”

  He just looked at me.

  “Oh,” I whispered, realizing what I’d said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Never mind.”

  “Look, Markos,” I said. “You can’t fix this for me, but we can still put things right for you. We’ll get you and your sister to Valonikos. We’ll get your throne back.”

  The moment the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I hadn’t meant we. Perhaps someday he would raise an army and march on A
khaia. But I would not be there.

  He gave me a half smile. “You think you can do just about anything, don’t you?”

  If I did, it was only right. I was descended from blockade runners and explorers. Boldness was twice in my blood. I felt it singing through me as I stood on deck, the wind tangling my hair. We passed fishing boats and bobbing crab traps, until finally Fee steered us past the red buoy marking the entry to Casteria harbor.

  Kenté let out a whoop. “We made it!”

  I saw before they did.

  My knees buckled and I swayed, reaching out to hold on to the forestay. It wasn’t fair. Not after we’d come all this way.

  Tied up at the dock, her sails furled and stowed, was Victorianos.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  “You know this is a trap, don’t you?” I watched Markos pace the cabin. “It’s a trap for you, and your sister’s the bait.”

  His fingers flexed on his sword hilts. I knew from the stiffness of his face that he was barely containing his emotions. “I don’t care. I have to get her out.” He punched the locker. “Damn.”

  “I understand, but—”

  “Oh, excuse me.” He shook his fingers out. There was a red mark across his knuckles. “I wasn’t aware your entire family was recently murdered. Don’t you dare tell me you understand,” he said hoarsely. “She is all I have left.”

  “Well, I wasn’t aware you had recently lost all your sense,” I snapped. “If you ever had any. What exactly do you plan to do?”

  “Cleandros is a traitor.” He lifted his chin to stare ahead. My rage tended to boil hot, but his was ice cold. “I will challenge him to single combat.”

  I’d suspected it was going to be something noble and stupid like that. I bit my lip to keep from making a sarcastic comment.

  At my silence, he narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You were thinking it,” he said. “Very loudly, I might add.”

  “It’s just …” I hesitated. “If you think the shadowman or the Black Dogs are going to fight fair—”