Sea of Strangers

by Erica Cameron

  “They’re not stopping us.” I tilt my head to glance at him. “I don’t think they work.”

  He nods, his expression more solemn than I expected. “Symbols rarely do.”

  I watch his face carefully. “Still no word from your friend?”

  “We’re too far away from Po’umi. The garakyu only reaches for five miles.” Although his hand falls to the belt pouch where he keeps the clear sphere he can use to send messages, he doesn’t take it out. “I only hope they’ll know how much trouble I need to be prepared for.”

  “Will your leaders really kill you on sight?” Sanii sounds skeptical.

  “That’s the worst possibility. I’m still hoping no one figured out where I went.” Osshi takes a deep breath, pulling his attention back to us instead of his homeland. I glance at the cord on my wrist and try not to think about mine. “If they don’t know I went hunting for proof of the bobasu, no one will be looking for me, but…I don’t think that’ll happen.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Your people dying is the only thing I’m worried about, if my squad meets a Ryogan one.” They fear magic and only a small, specific class of their citizens are weapons-trained. So far there’s little I’ve heard about Ryogo that scares me. “Worry more about your friends and our way in than what will happen when—”

  Osshi jolts, then both hands drop to the pouch. My heart skips a beat when he nearly fumbles the palm-sized globe into the water. Recovering quickly, he steps away from the railing to speak the spell that brings up a swirl of color in the clear sphere. “Bless the Kaisubeh am I glad to see your face, Iwakari-tan.”

  “Don’t be happy yet.” I can’t see Iwakari, but his voice is clear. And breathless. And shaky. A quick glance at Sanii, and I know ey’s noticed, too—something is wrong. He warns, “Flee, Osshi. It might not be too late if you head back to sea right now.”

  “What happened?” Osshi brings the orb closer to his face. “Where’s—”

  “Arrested. And I will be, too, if I can’t stay ahead of the tyatsu.”

  Osshi’s eyes go wide and white. “Go to my father! He’ll—”

  “You think the tyatsu didn’t grab him first?” Scorn and anger fills Iwakari’s voice. “You didn’t think at all before leaving on this Kaisubeh-cursed trip of yours, did you? Of course you didn’t! Answers before everything else, right, Osshi-sei?”

  Bellows and blood. I spot Tessen coming up from the lower deck, and I whistle him closer. We’re going to need a new plan. Because of course we are. It’s been too many moons since a plan I’ve helped make has actually worked.

  Osshi doesn’t speak. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. Iwakari, though, takes an audible breath. “Forget it. I promised you and your father I’d help, so I am. By telling you to stay away from Po’umi and every other port on the east coast. If anyone spots Kazu’s ship, the tyatsu will be on you as soon as you land. Just tell me one thing, Osshi.”

  “What?” His voice is thick.

  “Was it worth the voyage?”

  Osshi nods. “In ways you won’t believe until you see for yourself.” Abruptly, he straightens, his gaze focused intently on the globe. “Remember the place I took you to last summer? When you got drunk and slept a whole day?”

  “You’re bringing that up now?”

  “Do you remember how to get there or not?” Iwakari must nod, because the set of Osshi’s shoulders relaxes. “Head there. I’ll meet you. I’ll protect you from it all, I promise.”

  “Your father and most of your friends have been arrested, and you’re being chased by the tyatsu, and you’re still chasing children’s stories?” Iwakari scoffs. “Not this time, Osshi. You’re on your own. Just don’t get yourself killed, or your father will never forgive me.”

  And then the garakyu’s colors are gone, leaving Osshi staring at nothing.

  Small mouth pressed thin, he puts it away, his eyes fixed on the deck of the ship. “I need to talk to Kazu.”

  Tessen, Sanii, and I watch him walk off. His first steps are slow. Then each one is faster until he’s almost running to the rear platform of the ship. To the west, Po’umi is coming into view. It should have been the end of our journey, but now we’re veering away from it, running back out to sea.

  The golden-bright haze of early morning has intensified. The light’s glare doesn’t come close to the desert sun, but it’s enough. Ships fill the protected harbor, some smaller than the one that carried us here but many larger. All of them have sails in bright colors: blues, greens, whites, yellows, and intricate multicolored patterns.

  On land, buildings spread in all directions, rising with the slightly sloped landscape. Po’umi is packed right up to the base of a steeper hill that climbs several hundred feet up from sea level—a seemingly unguarded hill that’d be the perfect spot from which to attack the town. All of it is almost impossibly colorful, and I can see everything from the water because Po’umi has no walls.

  How can they protect themselves without a wall? Maybe they really do expect those statues to protect them. My squad alone could take over the city in an afternoon if we wanted.

  “We needed to head north already, didn’t we?” Tessen asks as we stare at the shore. “That’s where Chio’s old village is.”

  Sanii nods. “And as much as you and Rai hate traveling by water, it’ll be faster than trying to run there.”

  “I hate traveling by water in storms,” Tessen corrects.

  I glance at the door to the lower deck. Despite what I told Osshi about the outcome of a fight between his people and mine, reality is bringing doubts with it. “We need to fill in Tyrroh and the andofume. They’re looking for Osshi now, which means we’re more likely to be spotted and stopped if he’s with us.”

  “They’ll try to stop us.” Sanii looks up at us, eir dark eyes defiant.

  “And either they’ll somehow succeed, or we’ll be hunted the whole time we’re here, and they’ll only have to follow the trail of bodies to find us.”

  Tessen laughs. “As if Rai would leave anything more than ash behind.”

  “But even the best warriors and the strongest mages can be overwhelmed by superior numbers, and that’s just one of their cities.” I wave my hand toward Po’umi. “The Ryogans could easily overwhelm us if we gave them a reason to try.”

  Neither of them has a response for that.

  When we leave the main deck to look for our commanding officer and the andofume, my thumb traces the cord around my wrist again. One of them had better be able to come up with a new plan for infiltrating Ryogo. Otherwise, we’ll have to take our chances against greater numbers. Just heading out to sea and staying there like Iwakari wanted Osshi to do isn’t an option. There’s no rot-ridden way I’m leaving Ryogo without the answers I need to save Yorri and kill the man who took him from me.

  …

  We stay ahead of the storms and away from the shore for days. A week. Ten days. Two weeks.

  The rainwater we collected during the storm ensured we had plenty to drink, but we were running dangerously low on food back when we were closing in on Po’umi. Our rush north means we can’t stop for more. Only the fish we catch keep us from starving.

  The training we couldn’t do during the storm begins again. Just not the type we’re used to. It’s not Tyrroh running us into physical exhaustion with drills and practice, it’s Osshi and the andofume making our brains hurt with language and customs and reading.

  Sanii and I were right about the wall of tiny markings we found in the cave under Sagen sy Itagami—they mean something when someone knows how to decipher them. Osshi and Tsua started teaching us to read before the storms hit, and the calm seas let us go back to that practice.

  Learning how to see the meaning behind these marks is more memorization than any of us have done since we were children expected to know the laws of the clan by rote. It’s exhausting.

  I pick at the knot binding the red niadagu cord around my wrist, one of the dozen we stole from Imaku. Nothing I lea
rn can tell me for sure how to break the four niadagu cords binding my brother to the black rock of that rot-ridden island. He’s not on Imaku anymore, but he’s still locked to the black stone platform, wherever the bobasu’s servants moved it. Where they moved all thirty-nine platforms.

  Tsua gave me a theory on breaking the niadagu spell before I tried to rescue Yorri the second time. It’s only a theory, though, the only one I have. If it doesn’t work, I won’t ever be able to free my brother from whatever prison Varan has him in now.

  The work is hard and my eyes, fingers, and head hurt by the time we’re finished each night, but at least it gives us something to do besides waiting. We’re waiting to see if the few Ryogan ships we pass turn to pursue us. We’re waiting until we’re far enough north to risk nearing land again. We’re waiting for Osshi to be within range of another so-called friend who might be able to sneak us into Ryogo undetected.

  I hate waiting.

  Most of the time when I take a break, I head up to the main deck, needing the open air. I stand at the railing, watching the Ryogan shoreline pass or studying the crew to learn as much as I can—just in case we really do have to steal a ship to make it back to Shiara. Today, Zonna is already in my usual spot, his elbows on the railing and his eyes locked on the green, mountainous horizon.

  “So much has changed. This isn’t my parents’ home anymore,” Zonna says softly when I join him. “It’s never been mine, no matter how much I imagined it when I was a child. Uncle Varan loved to sit me down and tell me everything about Ryogo.”

  “Uncle? Is that a Ryogan word?” We’d been speaking Itagamin, but even when I search my mind for a translation, I don’t know what that means. “I thought they called Varan and the others bobasu here.”

  Zonna blinks, his focus shifting to my face as understanding dawns. “Right. The yugadai. I’d forgotten that, somehow.”

  “I don’t know what yugadai means, either.” It’s not his fault I haven’t learned everything about Ryogo. I won’t take it out on him. I won’t, but it’s frustrating.

  “Chio used to say everything broken on Shiara was a punishment,” Zonna says. “Chasing the Kaisubeh was what led Varan to whatever it was that gave him immortality, and he’s been running after them ever since. I really don’t think they like it.”

  I really don’t think they exist, and I also don’t want to give Varan that much credit, but I close my mouth on the words, hoping Zonna will explain with actual answers. Thankfully, he takes a long breath and keeps talking.

  “You need permission to have a child in Itagami, right? The pairing has to be approved by the Miriseh?” When I nod, he runs his fingers through his hair, distress clear on his face. “That’s the yugadai. When Varan and Suzu took control, they spent hundreds of years using Shiara’s original inhabitants, his followers, and the bobasu themselves to breed stronger mages and better warriors.” He pauses. “Given what Itagamin mages are capable of now, they succeeded.”

  No, I want to protest. We need permission and the Miriseh’s blessing because resources are scarce and keeping the population steady is the only way to survive. They’re the only ones who can give us the ability to have children in the first place.

  “I’m sorry.” He watches me carefully. “We weren’t sure if we should tell you or not.”

  No, no, no. But then, why else would Varan not only have to approve the birth, but the parents as well? And why was there such a strict ban on a nyshin or ahdo pairing with someone from the magicless yonin class? And why the bellows would Zonna lie about this?

  “We didn’t know about it for almost a century. Not until the first Itagamin escaped to Denhitra. She was injured, and when I healed her, I found…” Zonna shakes his head. “From what we’ve learned since then, Varan has the hishingu mages alter every citizen of Itagami who might be capable of producing a child. They make the changes young—immediately after puberty, we think—making it, well, not impossible, but extrememly hard for conception to happen.”

  My hand drops to my stomach. My mind buzzes. Someone changed my insides just to make sure I wouldn’t have a baby? Not that I wanted one, especially not now, not with everything I have to do, but to have the choice made for me… Did I ever have any control over my life, or has it always been an illusion?

  “I can reverse it for all of you if you want,” he quietly offers.

  I’m shaking my head well before I can manage words. “I don’t— No. You can ask the others if they want you to…but it’s not a good time for anyone to get pregnant.” I’m barely able to wrap my mind around the fact that I can without the bond blessing from Varan and Suzu. I don’t want to think about this right now, so I ask, “What’s the yugadai got to do with an uncle?”

  Zonna exhales heavily, but doesn’t protest my obvious avoidance. “Because of the yugadai, it’s rare for any couple to have more than one child, right? You and Yorri were an exception rather than an expectation.”

  “In more ways than one.” Full-blood siblings are uncommon; the only exceptions are usually born from sumai pairs—two people who chose a soulbond, something tying them together beyond death. So, as rare as full siblings are, it’s rarer for them to be placed in the same nursery. Yorri and I only had the chance to grow up together because of misunderstood directions. And now Zonna is telling me our births were part of a plan, the same revenge plan that Varan’s pursuing across an ocean. Followed by an army of intentionally bred warrior-mages.

  My mind spins. Memories surface, my attention snagging on one in particular—the nyshin pair who’d wanted to have a child and had been denied. Without a reason. It had been unexpected—almost all nyshin pairs were approved. Lack of detail sparked rumors that tainted both the nyshins’ reputation for moons, and it ended a relationship between the two, which had seemed to be heading toward either a life-long partnership or possibly a sumai. Did all that happen because of the bobasu’s yugadai?

  I press my hand against my abdomen, betrayal and hurt and confusion churning. How do I add this to everything else? I don’t even know if this matters now. What is this when compared to Yorri vanishing, the lies about Ryogo, and the deliberate attempts to destroy so much of what I loved about Shiara? Where does this fit between everything else that’s happened?

  “Varan doesn’t want people forming blood-ties because those almost always become more important than the clan as a whole. It was to my parents. Varan blamed their ‘desertion’ on me. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but I was only part of it.” Zonna exhales and leans over the water. “If blood-ties were all that mattered to my father, we never would’ve left Itagami.”

  “Because Varan is Chio’s blood-brother.” Tsua and Chio told us that much before we left Shiara. “Which makes him your uncle?”

  “The brother of your father is your uncle,” Zonna confirms.

  “I wonder if I have an uncle.” It’s a ridiculous question. The answer doesn’t matter. If I ever get back to Shiara, no one in Itagami is going to want to talk to me, blood-relative or no, and no matter how often I tell myself I don’t care, just thinking about being turned away by my clan makes it hard to breathe.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain.” He looks almost apologetic.

  I force myself to shrug. “I’ve lived the first seventeen years of my life without an uncle. I’m sure I can live another seventeen without one.”

  “I don’t doubt that, youngling.” Zonna smiles gently, but it turns strained when his eyes lock on something behind me. Tyrroh is approaching, his eyes bright and his steps quick. It makes the ache in my chest ease to see him.

  The only good thing about waiting is that, eventually, it ends. And right now, I desperately need the distraction.

  After Tyrroh gestures for us to follow him, he leads us to the room he’s been sharing with Osshi. Tsua and Chio are already seated at the low table with Osshi, and Osshi is holding his garakyu again.

  “What did your friend say?” I ask as Tyrroh, Zonna, and I sit.

  �
��I don’t know yet,” Osshi says. “We were waiting for you.”

  Why? I bite the question back. And have to hold back even more questions when Tyrroh leans down and whispers, “Listen closely. No matter what his friend says, we’ll need to come up with a plan that has at least a chance of success.”

  Finding success depends on how you define it. Killing Varan is everyone else’s top priority. Sanii and I are the only ones who are more concerned about saving Yorri. But to do the latter, even I can admit we’ll probably have to accomplish the former first.

  Osshi lifts the garakyu to his lips and murmurs to it. Colors swirl inside as the magic in the sphere connects his sphere to the one his friend has.

  “Osshi Shagakusa.” The voice is resonant and melodic and carries a faint rasp. “I do not usually find you in this corner of your country.”

  Tsua and Chio exchange a loaded glance, one I don’t understand. Across the table, Zonna seems just as perplexed.

  “Maybe not, but I’m extremely glad to find you here, Lo’a.” Osshi’s smile is strained. “I’m calling in my favor, and it’s not a small one.”

  “Changing your mind after so many years?” Curiosity fills Lo’a’s voice, but all she says is, “What do you need?”

  “I’m on a ship off the eastern coast—we’re just passing the mouth of the Mysora’ka River. I need you to meet us north of there, somewhere secluded and safe, and take us to Uraita.”

  “You are right. That is no small favor.” Wariness has infused Lo’a’s voice. “And you said ‘we.’ How many are traveling with you?”

  His gaze jumps to meet Tsua’s before he swallows and looks back at the garakyu. “There are fourteen, including me.”

  “Aloshaki ki’i olea’o ka lea’i ho’uliopolikia.” Lo’a’s laughter sounds surprised. “Where in this world did you pick up that many people desperate to get to a nowhere village like Uraita?”

  “Meet them and see,” Osshi presses. “Will you help us, Lo’a?”

  “I think so, yes, but I need to talk to my family first. I will call you in an hour with a place to meet if they agree.” The garakyu clears, the connection gone.