Sea and Sand

by Alex Lidell

  Kyra gulped, probing Catsper’s eyes and words for the path of least resistance. She had no strength for anything more. Not even to sit upright. Catsper seemed not to feel such a handicap, not after hours defying death in the rigging, not now when there was nothing to distract from the cramping pain. He stood with legs braced shoulder-width apart, his rough orange uniform shaped by shifting muscles beneath, his green eyes alert like a cat’s.

  Catsper was everything Kyra was not.

  “What do you want from me?” she whispered finally.

  Catsper’s hand cupped her chin, his head dipping down until his face was so close that Kyra felt his warm breath brushing the ridge of her nose. “Survive,” Catsper said softly. “I want you to survive.”

  She searched his face, so tense and reined in that a muscle ticked on the left corner of his jaw. Power and energy condensed inside a man’s body. A wall between her and the other prisoners.

  “Why do you care?” asked Kyra.

  “Because I do.” Catsper pulled away from her quickly, his voice brisk, his attention suddenly on his own hands. “Tonight, you will stretch. Tomorrow, you start training before you injure yourself by tripping over your own feet.”

  “Training?” Kyra stepped away, pressing her back into the bulkhead behind her. Without Catsper’s support, standing was cold and difficult. But what he was proposing, even the thought of it… She’d laugh if she wasn’t on the verge of tears. “With…with you?”

  “There are few others to choose from,” Catsper said evenly. He sighed, running a hand through short-cropped hair. That was new. “It will be nothing like what I put Nile and Dana through. We’ll build up your body, not break it down. If it means anything, I give you my word.”

  Kyra drew a breath. Unable to say yes. Unwilling to say no either.

  Catsper crouched, balancing easily on the balls of his feet. “Can you bear it?” he asked quietly, as if having heard the words Kyra hadn’t uttered. “Me gripping your wrists, my body very much in your space, all happening here in a room with no escape? Your muscles will hurt—in part from the daily strain, in part from what I ask. Confinement coupled with pain is a hard combination. For…anyone.”

  Kyra swallowed, her hands shifting to straighten her dress over her knees, only to remember she now wore burnt-orange trousers that scratched her skin. “I…don’t want to learn to fight. There are enough people injuring each other in the world without my adding to it.”

  Catsper cocked his head to the side. “All right, no attacks. Self-defense?”

  “No.” The word came out harder than Kyra intended, but she couldn’t help it, not with her blood rushing through her suddenly too-warm skin. “Just… Make me stronger. More flexible. Better balanced.” She bit her lip. “But don’t make me learn to hurt people. I don’t want to be good at that.”

  The marine nodded gravely, then uncurled to his feet, amusement returning to dance in his eyes as he once again stood taller than Kyra. “All body work and no fighting? There is a word for that in the Spade training camps you know.”

  “Exercise?”

  “Punishment.”

  Kyra chuckled.

  Extending his hand, Catsper cautiously brushed his knuckles down Kyra’s cheek. “Stretch today. Train tomorrow. And the day after that”—a tang of mischief peeked through his voice—“the day after that, we figure out how to communicate with Dana and Nile. If I know the princess, she’ll have a harebrained idea on how to get out of this mess by then.”

  Chapter 33

  Nile

  “You want to attack the Helix?” Domenic runs his hand over a fraying rope. With Andres leaning on the wind and water Gifted to propel the Arrow, there is more than usual stress on the rigging—which in turn keeps Domenic and me busy with repairs between the morning gun drills and afternoon sail practice. The small knives we’ve been issued for the task little qualify as weapons, but I feel better for having one in my boot. Domenic reaches past me to grab a fresh line, his fingers grazing my shoulder for a brief moment. I wonder whether he knows how I treasure these touches, reminders of a different world and a tentative, rekindling friendship. Domenic lowers his voice. “Did Saarik bounce your head off something too hard, or was it two weeks of work that made you go daft?”

  Two weeks. After a few days of going through the motions, my whole being concerned with avoiding whips and scars, I can finally think straight. Which seems to be making Domenic nervous. I blow into my cupped hands to warm them. The day is gloomy, with rough seas, gray skies, and a constant drizzle that allows nothing to dry. With over half the Arrow’s complement untrained landsmen, the ship handles so poorly that I marvel at us failing to capsize altogether whenever a serious wave bounces off the hull. It’s little wonder Lester cut Andres loose from the fleet days ago with orders to get his ship in order or else sail the Arrow back to the Republic and hand her off to a captain who can turn her useful. Between the rough seas and a crew that can’t understand—much less follow—most commands, we’ve not moved very far.

  I squat next to Domenic to examine a thick line vital for controlling the mainsail. It, at least, is in good shape. “Andres needs a better crew, and he wants a better ship,” I say quietly. The prisoners are allowed to converse only in Tirik, which Domenic speaks none of. I watch Piranha, the smaller of our Bevnian captors, who nonetheless makes Domenic look normal size, pace the deck. When the Bevnian is at the farthest part of his lap, I speak as quickly as I can. “Helix is the perfect lure, if we can find her. And with a bit of sabotage here and there, we can ensure the Arrow loses the engagement. Fails with those flesh-melting balls they keep below. We signal Zolan, and he’ll figure it out.”

  Domenic’s lips press together, the unvoiced request for details hanging in the air.

  Details that I don’t want to give him. Not when he might use them to sabotage my plan for my own safety. Not when knowing can get him hurt should things go wrong.

  My jaw tightens, and I raise my face to the wind, the magic in my blood prickling. Not a healing friend eager to play, no, not anymore. What brews inside me now is a rabid predator, ready to kill the moment it breaks its chain. The crack of a breaking mast echoes in my memory, the rip of rope, the screams of dying seamen. I swear the magic basks in the memory, delighted at its former strength and freedom.

  I’m at the rail in a moment, vomiting over the side. My heart flutters, my body shaking in dry heaves. Not a convulsion; I’ve had only one of those the past two weeks, but a dawning new reality. I can never touch that chain, never let the murderous magic escape. Even it if kills me. Until it kills me.

  Domenic gives me the courtesy of feigning blindness, though there is a worried edge to his gaze. And silence, which I return in kind.

  My magic… That’s another topic best kept to myself for fear of what Domenic would do if he knew the truth.

  Piranha turns back toward us, and Domenic waits out the rotation, his hands deftly making repairs until it’s safe to speak again. “Even if the Helix is still here and Andres somehow decides to seek her out and finds her, we still can’t coordinate this type of engagement without having someone on the quarterdeck privy to the Bevnians’ orders and intent. Either that, or learn how to read minds.” He shifts, putting himself between me and the cold wind. “Plus, I’ve a feeling Andres wants to fly this afternoon. One of those wind callers was up on deck earlier.”

  I curse. We are already a good distance from the Helix’s last known point, and the magic-harnessed wind and sea would put us too far for Andres to consider returning, no matter how juicy the potential prize.

  Domenic shuts his mouth abruptly as Piranha enters hearing range. “Rope bad,” Domenic says to me in his horrid Tirik. “Need fix.”

  I nod absently, my mind swarming in reflex to Domenic’s news. If Andres wants to fly today… Storms and hail. We have to do something. Quickly. Scenarios, like games of wooden ships, play themselves in my mind, forming and dissolving too quickly for conscious thought. Domenic is r
ight. We need insight into the Bevnians’ plans to put our own into action. We need the quarterdeck.

  My heart thumps in harmony with the Bevnian’s approaching steps, and I’ve only a heartbeat to spare when an idea settles. “Tell Piranha you think this line is bad too,” I whisper quickly, tapping the thick main line I’d been studying.

  Domenic’s incredulous stare pierces into me, but I’ve no time to explain.

  “Please,” is all I can whisper before I must scurry away, pretending I don’t feel the crew’s annoyed sneers. The captured Diante feed their dignity by reminding themselves that, unlike me, they at least are male; the Tirik prisoners dislike my Lyron origins as a matter of course, and the Bevnians believe me little more than livestock. “Bad rope.” Domenic says dutifully a few paces away from me, a few paces behind me, bringing a perfectly healthy two-inch-thick rope to Piranha’s attention.

  The younger man frowns at the object. Unlike the Tirik and Diante prisoners, Piranha seems perfectly at ease with the harsh weather, wearing the sleeveless shirt the Bevnians are fond of. “The main line is fine,” Piranha says after a moment, growling softly when Domenic presses the fiction. “Don’t touch it. Just…go away.”

  Domenic bows in surrender and retreats, the tops of his ears pink from his unseamanlike declaration.

  Sending a mental thank-you to him, I turn my attention to Kyra. Finding a moment to speak with the girl is more difficult, and the best I can do is a quick brush-by when our divisions are sent down to the hold for dinner. Whether she understands my whispered request or not remains to be seen.

  The weather worsens by the afternoon, the newly impressed Diante civilians having the hardest time of it. In the past two weeks, they’ve learned the basics of Tirik commands, but the cold and the swaying ship are reducing them to miserable beasts willing to move only if staying huddled proves more painful.

  “Can we blanket them, sir?” Piranha asks Saarik, the young man’s eyes on a shivering sailor.

  Saarik smacks the back of Piranha’s head. “Have you never so much as trained a dog, boy? What damn message are you sending if you reward laziness with blankets?” Saarik turns his face in disgust as Kyra stumbles past, hanging on each rope she passes to keep herself steady until she finally reaches the rail and vomits, much as I had done earlier. Saarik rubs his face. “Though I say we cull the lot and restock. This shit isn’t even worth taking back to the village.”

  Saarik’s gaze cuts to me, standing too close to his coveted quarterdeck. I rush off before he can make something of the infraction. Domenic is right: if we are to know what’s happening, much less have a chance of influencing it, we need a foothold in the middle of the officer cadre itself.

  Half an hour later, Domenic’s gut feeling about Andres’s flight plans proves true as the Gifted Bevnians, healthy, beautiful, and tattooed, emerge on deck. The young woman in front, a gorgeous water caller with a delicate nose and full, pale lips, beams at the ocean, apparently unconcerned for the lurching ship.

  The magic in my blood thumps in recognition of its brethren, sending a rash of fear along my skin. Fear and, perhaps, envy. Where are the tolls magic takes on the Bevnian Gifteds’ bodies? How do Bevnian water callers not bleed out, their wind callers not convulse? Do Bevnian metal callers keep their minds too?

  My understanding morphs as a fourth Bevnian, a young man I’ve not seen before, trails behind the Gifted trio. As proud and large as the others of his kind, he moves with the clear precautions of a water caller’s precarious existence. Slow, careful, watching his every step for fear of tripping, while a pair of sentinels clear a path around him. Clearly, not all Bevnian Gifted are free from side effects.

  My breath catches. A cure. The bastards must have found a cure to turn some of their Gifted immune to magic’s ill effects. Yet, of the four Gifted on deck, only three have received it.

  Andres’s lips press together, his gaze unhappily on the young man even as he speaks to Saarik. “Presuming Trice isn’t here out of sheer recklessness, I take it Nora is about to ascend to the gods?”

  “I have a day or two until then,” the woman at the front of the Gifted trio responds in the commander’s place, either unaware or unconcerned about the breach of etiquette. She waves her arm toward the water caller. “Don’t worry yourself, Andres, Trice is ready.”

  Piranha lowers his gaze. “You’ll be missed,” he tells Nora.

  “I’ll be honored,” she replies coolly.

  “Stations, Mr. Saarik,” Andres barks, ending the exchange. He calls out the heading to the helmsman while Nora and her two wind-calling companions take their places at midship.

  “All hands prepare to wear ship!” Saarik calls into his speaking trumpet at Andres’s nod.

  My stomach clenches, the curiosity over the Bevnian Gifted yielding to more immediate dangers. I spread my legs wide, my hands braced on the rope I’m to haul, my gaze on the choppy seas and cresting waves. Exam time. For my plans, my schemes. Storms. Sabotage is not an exact science.

  Around me, the crew starts into motion. Hollow-eyed Tirik plod to their stations, shoulders hunched against cold, insult, and lash. The Diante, who understand the routine commands by now, move with greater enthusiasm than their Tirik counterparts, but lose in clumsiness what they make up for in speed. The sight is uninspiring, and, despite their ignorance of my plan, tension crackles between the Bevnian officers. Handling a ship in agitated weather—be it natural or Gifted-stirred—takes skill, seamanship, and a synergy of both officers and crew. The Arrow must not just move quickly after all, she must move in the right direction and neither break nor capsize in the process.

  Andres squares his shoulder. “Elements. Mark.”

  I hold my breath.

  The Gifted trio turn their faces to the skies. The wind and sea gather with a collective sigh, growing and angering into a rising gale. The Diante begin to pray, quieting their moaning chant only when a rope’s end enforces the silence. Andres lets the Arrow fall a few points off to larboard, and our sails fill with a glorious pop, the ship lurching into flight like a spurred stallion.

  “Steady!” Andres barks. “Hold helm. Wear ship! Get us flying straight and hard, Mr. Saarik.”

  My oversized shirt billows and flaps as the ship turns into the wind, harnessing its flow for best direction and speed. Salty spray stings my eyes as the ship finds its course, accelerates, races. The bow rises, sails strain, the ropes—

  Snap.

  Even knowing what’s coming, I flinch at the horrid sound of the main line separating in two. Right at the spot I’d asked Kyra to scorch at the core when I brushed past her on the way to dinner.

  The crew screams, ducking as the broken rope whips around and the suddenly free section of canvas flutters in the hard wind. The Arrow turns about, unsteady and bucking in the rough seas.

  Andres’s eyes widen. “Elements, halt,” he bellows even as Saarik calls for a new main line to be rigged, the rogue sail lowered, for ropes to be let out and hauled in as required to balance the ship.

  They are good orders. Right orders. But they are unusual, filled with new words and difficult phrases in a language that half the crew barely understands. Even Domenic, whose seamanship the Bevnians have come to rely on, can do little to help. Keeping my face schooled, I marvel in gleeful horror at how quickly the Arrow’s bewildered crew—more concerned with doing something than doing the right thing—grasps the wrong lines, hauls too hard or not hard enough. At how quickly the Arrow starts to spin on her axis, threatening true damage to the rudder.

  At how quickly the ship becomes the chaotic world I need her to be.

  Because the key to persuading a superior to accept an offered solution is to ensure the right problem.

  Filling my lungs, I slide a bit closer to Andres and add my voice to his—translating the captain’s orders with clear, loud efficiency. The captain blinks at me. Once, twice.

  I shut my mouth and cower, my shoulders curling in subservience. No threat here, Andres. N
othing but a means to rein in your crew. My heart pounds, my breath still while the captain assesses me, the ship, the crew. The Diante, though no more skilled than they were minutes ago, are at least throwing their backs into the correct tasks now, the slipped control of his ship creeping back into Andres’s grasp.

  “Looks like you’ve earned yourself a new duty, girl,” Andres barks finally, sending a wave of triumph though my racing blood. “Stay at my side until I release you.”

  “Aye, sir,” I whisper, my head still bowed as I ascend the quarterdeck, ignoring Domenic’s gaze.

  Chapter 34

  Kyra

  The only person Kyra hated more than Nile, as she watched Piranha whipped within an inch of his life, was herself. Kyra hadn’t known why Nile asked her to weaken the thick rope that looked like any other, hadn’t guessed that Nile maneuvered the young Bevnian to vouch for that very line hours earlier. But Kyra hadn’t asked either.

  And now Andres and Saarik exacted their vengeance, not on the two women who sabotaged the rigging, but on the man who’d fallen victim to their trap.

  Even Piranha himself felt he deserved the punishment—or had felt it when it started. He’d shored up enough dignity to conceal his fear, had hung on to that inner strength for a great deal longer than Kyra thought possible. That was when the only sound aboard had been the crack of leather and distant, rolling thunder. But that had been many lashes ago. Dignity was long gone now, Piranha’s silence yielding to desperate, wounded screams that weakened with each new blow until his voice was a sad, hoarse whimper. Crimson ran from snow-white skin, a soft steam rising from the wounds as hot blood met cold air.

  “Brother—” Piranha whispered, unable to do more than lift his head from the deck by the time Saarik was finished.