Chula stood ramrod straight at the door of the cuddy cabin, also in a blue dress jacket, his dark features grim as stone, his eyes gazing over her head. Beside him Horace swayed easily on his feet with the gentle motion of the deck; he offered her a smile and his hand, and she accepted both gratefully to step over the high hatch coaming onto the crowded deck. Mouse fluttered down from the rigging and settled on her shoulder, solemn and silent.
Every man, woman and child—the two cabin boys were barely into their second decade—stood at rigid attention upon the deck of Orin’s Pride, and she felt the weight of their gazes. She knew them all, had lived with them on Plume Isle, watched them work in her shipyard, tend their gardens, fish in the lagoons, bear their children and see to her every need with a devotion that bordered upon worship. That devotion, she knew, was what brought them all on this voyage and had sent so many to their deaths. Though their eyes were gentle, some tearful, she felt their devotion like a condemnation.
With Chula and Horace flanking them, Feldrin guided her to the taffrail. When they turned to face forward, the deck was a sea of faces. Cynthia held her own face in stern repose, resisting the urge to look away; she made herself meet those eyes, endure their stares. They deserved it. Feldrin’s hand clasped hers, and she gripped it like a lifeline in a gale. He had agreed to speak, taking her burden onto his broad shoulders once again.
“We’re assembled here to honor our dead,” he began, his voice pitched to reach every ear, “by whose sacrifice our son was saved. When we asked you all, our friends, fer help in this, we didn’t know that so many would pay so dearly. Had we known, we likely wouldn’t have asked, but had they known the price they would pay, I’d venture a guess that they, and you, would still have come. So, we honor their decision, and their sacrifice, and we thank them, and all of you, from the bottom of our hearts fer the gift you have given us.”
Feldrin turned to Horace. “We will now read the names of those who have left us, and those among us who knew them best will speak of their deeds in life.”
Horace read the first name: Quinta, a young woman Cynthia remembered for her flashing smile and the thin scar on her nose. Her friend, Trepa, stepped forward and gave an account of how Quinta had helped him build his first dugout, and how they had paddled it together around the lagoon.
And so it went, name by name, deed by deed, and each one Cynthia remembered in life. Each name brought new pain to her heart, and when they reached the last name, Kloetesh Ghelfan, she stepped forward with tears coursing down her cheeks.
“Kloetesh was a rare friend of mine,” she said. The words scraped her throat raw with emotion, and she had to stop for a moment before she could continue. “Without his kindness and his guidance, I would never have built my first ships, and would never have become a seamage. Feldrin and I honor him by naming our son, Kloe, after him.”
Murmurs of approval swept across the deck of Orin’s Pride, but before another could speak, Cynthia raised a hand and continued.
“And I would like to add one more name to the list, though she was not one of us until the end. Kelpie, mer Priestess of Odea, who saved my life three times. The first time was when I plunged into the ocean, sure of my death, and emerged a seamage. The second was the day Bloodwind died, when his demon sorceress attacked both Mouse and me; again, she healed me of a mortal injury. The third time was two days ago, when she saved not only my life, but every life on board this ship.” She remembered her conversation with Tailwalker that morning, and added, “She taught me that love, for good or ill, is the strongest force in the world.”
“So let us honor them,” Feldrin said, his clear, strong voice booming out over the mass of tear-streaked faces. “Let us never forget that they gave their lives out of love, for us, and for our son, Kloe.”
Chula stepped forward then and, to Cynthia’s surprise, he began to sing in a low, melodious tone, in words of his own language. The others picked it up immediately, their voices as one, calling on Odea to take the honored dead into herself, into her limitless and never-ending sea, where all things are renewed.
Orin’s Pride sailed on, the wind that Cynthia called from Odea’s breath filling her sails and carrying the song of the natives out over the sea. Cynthia gazed into the blue depths. The sea had given her so much, and had taken so much away. Occasionally, she glimpsed the shining scales of the two mer who rode their wake, and wondered about what kind of relationship might be salvaged with them. But right now, she didn’t care. She had the man she loved beside her and their child in her arms, and they were sailing home.
≈
“Don’t give ‘em the satisfaction!” Dura shouted, straining against the bindings of her cage as the screams of pain and terror faded to sobs, then silence. Only the droning chant of the cannibals’ ritual continued. It would end, she knew, when their meal concluded.
Nineteen left, she thought, looking down the line of tiny cages. One of us dies every second day as sure as clockwork.
“They’re going to kill us all one by one, aren’t they, Dura?” someone said in dwarvish. The woman in the next cage looked at Dura with tear-filled eyes. Her name was Pica, and Dura had taught her the dwarvish language.
“Aye, that’s what they’re plannin’, lass.” Dura had abandoned any hope of rescue days before; all she hoped for now was a quick and painless death, though she refused to admit it to anyone. In her soul, she knew they were doomed, but refusing to say it aloud was enough to keep her dwarvish defiance firmly in place. “But Mistress Flaxal should be back from her jaunt in a few days, so mayhap some of us’ll survive.”
“You don’t believe that, Dura,” Pica said. She had been doing joinery for Dura for more than a year, and was a fair hand with a coping saw. She would make a fine carpenter’s mate in any shipyard in the realm. If she lived long enough. “You’re just saying it to keep our hopes up.”
“Aye, that could be, lass, but the gods themselves take lessons from dwarves when it comes to stubbornness, so I’ll jist keep me cards close to me vest ‘till the reaper comes callin’, if you understand me thinkin’.”
Pica shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, Dura, but I don’t understand that thinking at all.” She shifted in her cage, and pulled something from a fold of her tattered loincloth. “Odea will receive us all when this is over and done. It is not dying, but the manner of my death that concerns me.”
“Whassat ye got there, lass?” Dura squinted and caught the glint of glossy black stone in Pica’s hand. “A bit of shale rock?”
“Obsidian,” Pica answered in a bare whisper, her dark eyes flicking sidelong to make sure none of their captors were close enough to hear. “It’s sharp, but I don’t know if I have the courage to use it.”
“Then buck up there, lass! Come nightfall, use it to cut the bindings on yer cage, and hightail it outa here!”
“I thought of that, but then I thought about what they’d do if I was caught, and I would be caught, Dura.” Pica turned her dark eyes back to Dura and her face fell. The defeat in Pica’s expression made Dura ache in sympathy. “That’s not what I was thinking of using it for.”
Dura’s heart sank when she realized Pica’s true intention.
“Don’t ye do it, lass,” she said, surprised at her own vehemence. “Ye got too much ta live for!”
“Too much…” Pica shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dura. I would have liked to build more ships with you.”
Dura’s protest caught in her throat as Pica drew the small bit of volcanic glass down one wrist, then the other. Bright blood pulsed from the wounds in jets, and Pica leaned back and sighed out a long, wracking sob. Blood pooled swiftly in the dirt beneath the cage, then more slowly, until it stopped completely. Pica gave one last convulsive breath, and stilled.
Eighteen, Dura thought, turning her gaze away. She muttered a dwarvish prayer for the swift passage of
Pica’s spirit, but her mind was muddled, and she couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts kept returning to the sliver of obsidian that Pica had secreted away, and what Dura would have done if it had been hers.
≈
Emil collapsed into Camilla’s arms, his breath coming in deep, exhausted gasps. She held him close, gripping his shoulders streaked with the sweat of passion and the red tracks of her nails. Never in her life had she felt such a desperate need, such a craving, as if Emil’s touch could burn away all the evil, hatred and loathing that Parek had left in his wake. At first, he had been reluctant to accede to her request, not wishing to stress her so soon after her ordeal, but Camilla had been insistent. She needed this. She needed him.
She still needed him.
She traced her fingers down and up his back and nibbled at his neck. “Again,” she whispered, teasing his ear with her tongue. “Please, Emil. Again.”
“Half a moment, my dear,” he said between breaths, laughing. His hands caressed her skin, and he entwined his fingers in her hair. Gentle…always so gentle.
“Now, Emil,” she whispered, kissing his neck, tasting his sweat, feeling his pulse pounding against her lips. She didn’t need gentle, not now. She needed him to scour away the last vestige of every other man who had touched her. She needed him to make her forget Parek ever existed. “Please…”
“The spirit is willing, my dear,” he said, propping himself up onto his elbows and smiling down at her, “but the flesh is weak.”
He rolled away, and she reluctantly let him go. He lay on his back, and she curled up against him, one leg draped over him, her chin on his shoulder. She traced designs in the damp hair of his chest with her fingers and listened to his heart pounding in his chest. Its cadence eased, and his breaths calmed.
“Would that I were a younger man,” he murmured, his soft fingertips brushing her shoulder.
“I don’t want a younger man, Emil,” she assured him, nipping at his shoulder. He tasted salty, coppery, and her head spun with it. “I want you.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the light curtains billowed with the night’s cool breeze. A storm was coming. She could feel the building pressure of it, a line of early summer squalls that would rake the Shattered Isles, bringing welcome rain. Camilla kissed Emil’s shoulder, tracing the lines her nails had left, while the thunder pounded in her head. So good. She watched his pulse—beat…beat…beat—in his neck, and the thunder in her mind took on its rhythm.
Men are like storms, she thought, letting her fingers play. All they need is a little coaxing.
“Can you feel it?” she asked, teasing him with her nails, her need redoubled. Lightning flashed outside, and thunder crashed only a second behind. Then came the muffled rip of wind-driven rain falling in torrents, beating against wind-tossed palm fronds.
“Hm hmmm,” he murmured, a lazy smile spreading across his lips. “You are relentless…”
“Yes, I am,” she said as she rolled on top of him. Sitting upright, she kneaded the muscles of his chest. A blinding burst of lighting silvered the room, simultaneous thunder so loud it shook the bed, as rain and wind lashed across the balcony, dampening the curtains. Camilla felt the storm surge into her like a lover, and her fingers flexed.
“Ouch! Camilla!” Emil shouted, his grip hard on her wrists.
“Oh! Emil, I’m sorry!” Camilla bent to kiss the weeping wounds her nails had left, dizzy from the thunder pounding in her head, the sharp wind blowing across her skin. She tasted his wounded flesh, and felt the storm rise within her.
Epilogue
Death and Life
“Like a bloody hot-house, ain’t it, Corporal?” Private Yarel wiped the sweat from his brow and fingered the neck of his uniform. The squall was past, but it had dumped enough rain to make the night swelter with humidity. “Not a soul about. Could we loosen our collars for the night?”
“No.” The corporal was a career marine hoping for a sergeant’s position, and not likely to bend any rules. Yarel knew it, but there was no harm in asking. “Be thankful that you’re on the night watch and not the day. Besides, it’s better than sitting in that stinking hole Rockport, or even Tsing Harbor. At least there’s a breeze here.”
“Aye, but there’s inns and doxies in them places.” Yarel fingered his collar again and shrugged. “Just don’t put my name on the list of volunteers for permanent garrison here, if you please, Corporal.”
“Not my choice, and you know it.” The corporal turned away with a snort of mirth. “I’ll mention your name to the sergeant, though.”
“I’d appreciate it, Corporal. Goodnight.”
“Just keep your eyes open, Yarel. These natives make me nervous.”
“Aye, Corporal. I’ll keep an eye open.”
He turned away, hiding a derisive smile. There was no danger from the natives, Yarel knew. They were upset, to be sure, but about the pirate attack, not the imperial presence. Some were downright friendly, as a matter of fact, and several of his mates had found out just how friendly they could be. The women were willing, and their men didn’t seem to mind them taking up with the imperials.
No, if there was danger here, it would come from off-island, and with a dozen warships on station, there was little to fear. Night watch was a necessary precaution, but there was no real danger. Yarel strolled his patrol area with one hand on the pommel of his sword and the other tucked in his belt. The burned-out shipyard had been dismantled, but the massive ship-hauling device had escaped the flames and loomed tall in the moonlight, its upthrust frames resembling the skeletal fingers of two cradling hands. He passed one of the haul’s massive wheels, almost as tall as he was, and trailed his sword hand over the rusty iron rim. He had to concede, it was peaceful here, no loud tavern brawls or signaling trumpets, just the night sounds of the jungle, the hum of the insects, the lap of the water on the black sand beach, and the roar of the distant surf on the reef.
All was quiet.
Yarel strolled out the long wooden pier near the mangroves where the little smack Flothrindel was chained to the dock. This, he knew, was the admiral’s main concern: he didn’t want the natives stealing the boat and running off without his permission. Under the wan light of a crescent moon peeking through scudding clouds, her graceful lines shone as if she were spun from beams of starlight. She was a sweet craft, her elvin lines pleasing to the eye, yet seaworthy and speedy, if the tales of her passage from Plume Isle to Tsing and back in less than a fortnight were to be believed. Yarel wondered if Joslan’s concerns were more selfish than defensive; the little boat would make an elegant admiral’s yacht.
“Maybe, someday…” he murmured, tucking both hands in his belt. Plans for the future—retirement someday, maybe with a corporal’s pension—rambled through his mind, distant and vague. He wouldn’t mind having a little fishing smack like this, taking her out a few days a week from Tsing Harbor to catch grouper or the big dolphin-fish that ran in the deep. The income would supplement a pension nicely, and there were doxies aplenty in Tsing on which to spend it.
A splash off the end of the dock snapped his reverie, and he looked down into the water, counting the concentric ripples. Some fish had been startled, probably by a barracuda hunting by moonlight. The big fish prowled like wolves in the shallows.
“Careful.”
Yarel whirled at the lilting feminine voice behind him, reaching for his sword. His cry of alarm caught in his throat, however, for before him stood a woman of such surpassing beauty that it took his breath away. She wore naught but a filmy nightgown, sheer enough to tempt his eye with a glimpse of her curvaceous outline. Her pale skin shone luminous in the moonlight, her face framed by a wreath of dark hair. Her lips were full and smiling, but her eyes were cast in shadow.
“Who— Pardon, Lady, but what are you doing out here?” he asked, peering at her more closely. By
the gods, she was beautiful. He’d never seen a woman quite like her before, certainly not on this forsaken little island, of that he was sure. Nobody could forget a woman like this.
“Enjoying the night,” she said, her voice low and haunting. She approached him, raised one slim hand, and traced her graceful fingers across his chest. “You should be more careful, walking out on the docks like this. You marines wear mail under these handsome uniforms. If you took a plunge, I daresay you would sink like a stone.”
“Don’t worry about me, Lady,” he said, still cautious, but not wanting to be rude. Perhaps the poor lass was touched in the head. “We’d best get you to the keep and into a robe. A lady like you shouldn’t be walkin’ around in naught but a night shift.”
“Oh, I’m warm enough,” she said, raising her hand to caress his stubbled cheek, “and we have time enough.”
“Time enough for…” Her hand blazed a lazy trail down his cheek to his neck, her fingertips brushing the lobe of his ear, then lingering. He reached up to pull her hand away. As much as he thrilled at the caress, he was far too aware that they were standing out in the open, in full view of the other marines on night patrol, though he saw none about. “Please, Lady, I don’t…”
“Oh, but you do,” she insisted. Her smile spoke volumes as she raised her other hand to cradle his face between her warm palms. “I can feel it in you, and I need it.”
“You need…” Words failed Yarel as she drew him near. He couldn’t speak, struck dumb by her beauty, her manner, and those luscious lips so close to his.
“Yes…I need it.” Her lips touched his in light, teasing kiss. This close, he could see her dark eyes, black in the moonlight. “I need you…” she breathed into his mouth.
“But I…” he began, but then her lips were pressed to his, her tongue darting, teasing. Without conscious thought, he found his hands on her, crushing her against him. His will fled as her mouth trailed down his neck, and her hands twined in his hair, pulling him close.
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