Sea and Sand

by Alex Lidell

  An authoritative, military voice from the back of the crowd shouted an order for everyone to stand down, but the words fell as flat as Kyra’s own had. Something needed to be done to get the people’s attention, to snap them out of their rabid resolve to hurt.

  Her hand still clutching her skirt, Kyra rushed forward into the small space that still remained around the Tirik and his captors.

  “Leave him be! He’s done nothing,” Kyra called, not ordering, but pleading. She gripped the merchant’s thick arm with her slender hands. The merchant knew her. The fishermen knew her too. If she could get them to listen, to stop for one moment, she could end this. “Please,” Kyra said. “Stop. More violence will solve nothing!”

  The merchant twisted toward her, his nostrils flaring in the chill. With a single shake of his powerful forearm, Kyra’s grip fell away and she stumbled back, tripping over her own heels and landing on her rear. Breath caught in her chest, and she braced her arm on the ground, trying to stand.

  Grabbing the front of Kyra’s dress, the merchant hauled her to her feet, his bulk now looming over her and blocking out the light. Her heart stalled before starting into a gallop. No. No. He knew her. He—

  She saw the back of the man’s hand move in too familiar a way, and flinched even before it landed across her face. Pain echoed through her cheek, spidering through her face and scalp.

  “What’s this? A second Tirik pig?” A slur blurred the merchant’s words and eyes, which flashed in satisfaction as encouraged murmuring answered him from the crowd.

  “What?” Kyra shook her head, struggling to pull herself away from the grip the merchant still had on her dress. She twisted her head toward the fishermen holding the Tirik man between them. “You know me. I’m not Tirik. But even if I was—” She gasped as the merchant’s free hand clasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, examining her tan skin.

  “You look Tirik.” He sniffed her neck. Four times her size, he could snap her in half with a thought. Not that there was any thinking happening. “You smell Tirik. You love Tirik.”

  And then Kyra was airborne, tossed like a rag doll against the very pillar she’d read news from the day before. Her back struck the hard wood first, then her head. A ringing filled her ears, mixing with the swoosh of blood racing through her veins. The crowd closed around her, their voices rising in competition. She slid to the ground, a pace away from where the fishermen held the Tirik.

  The merchant cracked his knuckles.

  “Hang them both!” voices shouted from the crowd.

  “Burn them with our ships’ remains!”

  “Drown the rats!”

  A dog’s savage growl parted the crowd, the beast’s muzzle soaked in blood that dripped from his snapping square jaw. The mob shifted from the animal with greater enthusiasm than they showed for humans, and a dockworker too slow to clear the way screamed as teeth closed around his calf. The man beside him, a Biron guard who’d been busy shouting for Kyra’s head moments earlier, aimed his boot at the dog’s side.

  “No!” Kyra shouted at the guard. She knew that dog. And she knew the blond man who crushed the Biron guard’s nose before that kick could land.

  The dog’s head swung toward Kyra, his muscular shoulders rising and falling with deep, powerful breaths. Dark canine eyes met Kyra’s, and the dog’s short-cropped tail gave a single wag before the beast went back to his business of ripping men to shreds.

  The merchant in front of Kyra reached down to grab her.

  Hunter’s hands gripped the merchant’s forearm in midswing. With a smooth shift of weight, Hunter ducked beneath the arm he held and came up behind his foe. A bare blade Kyra hadn’t seen Hunter unsheathe flashed beside the merchant’s throat.

  “Call them off,” Hunter hollered. “Now!”

  Before the merchant could answer, the mob finally broke whatever line they’d held and closed in. Cursing, Hunter retracted his knife and threw his foe into the oncoming mob. A dozen legs tripped over and trampled the unexpected obstacle, the man roaring in pain as someone’s heel crushed his hand into the pier’s wooden planks. Blood flowed from the merchant’s torn skin as he rose to his hands and knees, trying to stand. A stray boot kicked his temple, and the man fell motionless, collateral damage of the rabid army’s assault.

  Drawing up her knees, Kyra covered her head with her arms, bracing herself for a blow. Hunter disappeared from her line of sight, and the dog was working his savage way through the crowd. Through her arms, Kyra saw Princess Nile’s familiar face as the girl elbowed her way toward her Tirik friend. Unafraid, determined, nothing like Kyra herself.

  One of the fishermen was midblow when Nile came upon him, and savagely redirected his fist from the girl’s head. Kyra’s mouth opened in a wordless scream, but the princess pivoted away from the strike, sidestepping the blow even as her elbow collided with the man’s temple.

  The fisherman went limp and dropped to his knees.

  Nile shook out her arm.

  “Nile! Behind you!” a large man in a naval uniform roared in warning, sudden fear pulsing from him as he fought his way toward the princess. His dark hair whipped behind him, his focus singularly, fully on Nile.

  He was too late. As Nile turned in response to the warning, a pair of hands was already grabbing her from behind. Before she could react, Nile’s attacker hurled her headfirst into the pillar Kyra crouched beside.

  Nile shifted in the air, striking the unforgiving wood with her shoulder instead of her skull. A moment of frozen grimace, then the princess was gasping for air, her eyes wide. Gripping her injured shoulder, Nile tried and failed to rise.

  Kyra reached out her hand, grasping Nile’s elbow. “Are you all right?”

  The princess recoiled as if burned, her dark eyes cutting up to meet Kyra’s. And for the first time since the princess entered the fray, Kyra tasted Nile’s fear.

  Chapter 10

  Nile

  The dull thud of impact echoes through my body a moment before the pain catches up to it. I gasp, then gasp again as the magic in my blood flares so violently, I wonder if lightning hasn’t struck my skull. Above me, men pummel each other with rabid fury. Their homes have been attacked, lives and livelihoods wiped from existence overnight. They want—they need—for someone to pay the tab.

  A pace away, Quinn struggles on his hands and knees while Domenic fights two men at once, trying and failing to make progress toward the pillar. Catsper dances in the middle of the riot’s storm. His blurry form twists, kicks out behind him, recovers in time to block a club aimed for his head. I wonder whether he doesn’t feel his injuries just now or simply doesn’t care. The wild savageness in his eyes suggests the latter. I try to rise, but the ground tips sideways.

  “Are you all right?”

  My magic pulses, sudden and so hard that it takes me a moment to realize that someone is touching me, holding my elbow. Tanned, slender fingers pulsing with magic of their own. Storm and hail. The girl from earlier. Cowering at the foot of the same pillar I’d just been bounced against, she has a hold on my flesh now, her dark eyes staring into mine and her magic whipping my own into a frenzy.

  I jerk away from her touch, fear washing through me. My shoulder screams, and my magic growls at the sudden separation. I manage to get my feet under me on my second attempt, blocking blows as I rise.

  The girl remains down on the ground. Wrapping one of her arms protectively about her head, she presses the other against the pillar behind her. I’m about to haul her to her feet and pull her away from the pillar altogether, when my magic gives another start. At the wooden pillar’s base, a few inches from where the girl’s hand grips the wood, there is now a small trickle of smoke, a kernel of blossoming flame.

  Understanding floods me. A flame caller. I’ve no time to contemplate the impossibility of a flame caller surviving into adulthood as I bring my knee and elbow together to block someone’s limb and gently tap into my own magic. The kindling fire will take too long to grow into a
noticeable distraction, but with help…

  Sending a small breeze to billow the infant fire, I keep my eyes locked on the girl’s even as I raise my voice. “Catsper!”

  The marine grins, grabs the closest man with a heavy coat, and knocks him into the flame. The girl screams as fire grabs dry material, eating it with greater ease than the pillar’s damp wood.

  “Hold fast!” I command the other Gifted, my wind and her fire twining together. Catsper’s victim screams and sheds the garment, which now crackles freely in the chill air. A tendril of smoke snakes into the air. Another.

  “Fire!” someone screams, others picking up the call. “Fire! Fire!”

  The rioters stop, their priorities shifting from violence to self-preservation as quickly as they’d tipped from civilization to murder. I breathe out a long, slow breath as, one by one, men leap away from flame. And from us. There is likely a better way of breaking up a riot than setting rioters on fire, but the fire works too.

  “Time to leave,” says Catsper, moving out of Domenic’s way as the man strides to me. Dock workers with buckets and guardsmen with clubs are already replacing the rioters, and it would be best if we disappeared before questions begin. Tam has Quinn’s arm draped over his shoulder and pulls the Tirik away. Bear, the overgrown little coward, comes leaping from wherever he hid during the fight and makes his rounds around the group, all wet nose and wagging tail.

  “Can you walk?” Domenic’s arm snakes around me recklessly, his steady body offering support to mine. There is a cut across his cheek and blood crusted on his shirt, but his eyes examine me with an intensity that pierces my chest. His hand rises halfway to my face before he gets control of it and curls his fingers into his fist instead. “Goddess, Nile. You look like hell.”

  “I’m all right.” I swallow a wince. My body throbs, my right side a single screaming bruise. Inside me, magic vibrates like the lingering chord of a violin. Leaning on Domenic, I turn toward the fire-caller girl. She is still crouched on the pier, her once-yellow dress a mess of blood and dirt. “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Kyra,” she whispers as Catsper hauls her to her feet and motions us to start walking.

  “Is there anyone whose business you don’t stick your nose into, Kyra?” the marine demands, pulling her along behind us.

  “You two know each other?” My voice is hoarse, and my mouth feels stuffed with cotton. The girl looks positively fragile with wide eyes and delicate, trembling fingers, which is about as far from Catsper’s usual choice of company as one can get.

  Kyra’s gaze flickers to Catsper, who still has a supportive hold on her arm. “No. We just spent a night together.”

  Catsper snorts, and heat consumes my face.

  The rooms Tam and I share at the inn are strategically chosen to ease the approach and retreat routes for our respective lovers. Slipping a key into the lock, Tam now swings the back entrance open and ushers everyone inside and up the creaking staircase to the second floor. Unlike the pristine front entrance, wine stains decorate the wooden planks and a bouquet of smells ranging from stew to sweat hang in the poorly ventilated air. Another door leads directly from the back staircase into our sitting room. The lock obeys my keys with a click, and I stand back to allow the others by until Domenic takes the door from me. The change from the back staircase to the plush rug of our room is stark, the stale air changing to clean freshness tinged with a hint of salt from the sea.

  My magic flickers as Kyra walks past me, waving to hers in happy greeting. This isn’t normal. Nothing about my magic has been normal since Clay.

  Tam settles Quinn onto a chair. “Are you all right?”

  Quinn presses his lips together and nods. His left eye has swollen completely shut during our walk, and he breathes with a caution that speaks of bruised ribs. “It happened quickly. A few insults and shoves… Escalated until everyone with an opinion joined the fray.”

  “Why didn’t you call out to us?” I press my back against the wall and slide down to sit on the floor. My magic settles to a low simmer, but the world at the corners of my vision still blurs and sharpens at disorienting intervals. I’ve no idea whether Kyra’s presence or my body’s recent encounter with the wooden pillar is the culprit.

  “Besides not wishing to start a riot?” Quinn hangs his head, speaking to the floor. “If they attack me, it’s a few upset hooligans swinging fists. If they attack you, it’s Biron subjects assaulting Felielle royalty at best, and naming you Tirik sympathizers at worst.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s identity registered by the time the fighting started,” says Catsper. His skin is flushed, anger seeping from his gaze. The marine’s signature chill calm is nowhere to be seen as he wheels around to tower over Kyra. “What the hell did you think was going to happen when you stepped into the middle of a mob? A rational discussion on the philosophy of scapegoating?”

  The girl flinches away from the marine, though her face flickers up to answer the challenge. “What was I supposed to do?”

  Tam, who belongs to the wine-drinking school of disaster management, fishes a set of glasses and a bottle from his travel trunk. “People are getting desperate, especially in the coastal towns,” he says grimly. “It was bad enough when the fighting happened out at sea. This morning, the Tirik struck land. I fear what happened on the docks is only the start. Something is happening in the Tirik Republic, something that is turning the war in their favor. And damn me if I know whether they’ve devised a new weapon or started pressing every able body into armed service.”

  Tam’s words tear through me. We need the Diante, and when I fail to deliver them, the coming deaths will lie on my soul. My chin drops to my chest. I’m a sailor. Nothing more, nothing less. “We are setting sail in two weeks,” I tell Catsper, my voice hollow and distant. Domenic shifts his weight. I swallow. “Did Spardic Command—”

  “I’m cleared to sail with you,” Catsper says, sticking his hands into his pockets.

  Tam, Quinn, Domenic, and I all turn our heads toward him. Even Kyra looks over, though her gaze is more confused than incredulous.

  “I was under the impression that Spardic Command said not just no,” says Tamiath, “but hell no.”

  Catsper shrugs one shoulder, a flicker of rage touching his eyes for a mere heartbeat. “I can be very persuasive.”

  Kyra raises a brow, which Catsper ignores. Whatever night the two spent together must have been…memorable.

  I cough quickly before my blush gives away the direction of my thoughts. Domenic and I are yet to touch that territory, with him—not me—holding the line. “We should start getting ready, then.” I force my body to uncurl and straighten my back. “Two weeks is little time to prepare for a six-month adventure. Are you well enough to get home, Kyra? We can ask one of the guards to escort you.”

  “Actually…” Kyra swallows and looks at a spot on my cheek, just below my eyes. “The reason I was on the pier today… I was looking for you.”

  “Me?” My pulse stutters. Magic. Had she somehow learned of my Gift before this morning? Was it a plan to blackmail me that spurred her to seek me out, that makes her dark eyes wide now? A nightmare repeating itself. I brace myself for the inevitable threat, the one where Kyra promises to reveal my Gift if I fail to do her bidding. My voice tightens. If the girl so much as hints at exposure, I’ll toss her into the bilges for six months to keep the rats company. “Why?”

  Kyra frowns at me, as if she’s somehow heard my thoughts and found them odd. “I’d heard you were sailing for the Diante Empire,” she says in a thin voice, her teeth worrying her lip. “And I wanted to beg for employment aboard your ship.”

  Not a threat, an employment request. It takes me a moment to work through her words. Besides being Gifted, which Kyra might have been able to conceal if not for my magic’s new trick, the girl is tiny and fragile. Her body is little suited for a sailor’s labors, and she is too old to join the ship’s youngsters in carrying gunpowder. Which, on further reflection, would
be a horrid idea anyway. “You would like to enlist in the Felielle navy?” I say as neutrally as I can manage.

  “Stars, no.” Kyra blinks as if confused why anyone might desire such a thing. “I’m from Milan. It’s—”

  “In the far archipelago, I know.” That explained the unusual accent and behavior. Until the recent earthquake temporarily made the resources of the Siaman archipelago vital, the islands there saw little to no traffic from the mainlands. It’s entirely possible that before this morning, Kyra may truly never have witnessed what a mob of otherwise rational people could do when together. I motion for her to continue.

  “I’d like to get back there, and no merchantmen will sail to the Siaman just now. But you are heading that way. So… I can cook, and clean and wash laundry.” Her clear soprano quickens with each word. “And you would need to pay me nothing, just…just at the end, take me home. It won’t be so very much out of your way. And I will work for as long as you might require. We—”

  I hold up my hand. I don’t need a cook or a laundress. What I need is secrecy and a bloody miracle. “The Helix is a fifty-four-gun man-of-war, Kyra. She isn’t the kind of ship you imagine.”

  Kyra frowns. “I don’t understand.”

  “What Nile means,” says Catsper, crossing his arms, “is that we carry gunpowder and humans, and need you setting the ship aflame as little as we need you rummaging inside our heads.” He turns toward me. “Kyra might have mentioned that, in addition to being a brilliant tactician and fire caller, she’s also an empath.”

  Empath. Empath. A year ago, I’d never have believed such a thing possible. A lot of things changed in a year, me not the least of them.

  “Please,” Kyra says quickly, her words racing Catsper’s. “I will do anything you wish. I know some physic too. I come from a family of healers. Doesn’t your ship need a doctor? If you lot are going to be killing each other, you’ll need someone to take care of you.”