Fable

by Adrienne Young

  I slipped the belt around my waist and fastened it, the red blooming beneath my skin. My hand found the post of the archway, and I ran my fingers up the oiled wood one more time, looking out over the ship. Even bruised from the storm, the Marigold was still beautiful. And in a way, I would miss her.

  Men called out below as Hamish unrolled the ladder. He reached into his jacket and handed me a folded parchment. “A map. It’s a big city.”

  “Thank you.” I took it, smiling at the rare kindness.

  “Be careful out there.” Willa perched her hands on her hips. The sun caught the burn on her face, making it look bloodred, but the skin was healing. And now that Crane was at the bottom of the sea, I wondered if the part that couldn’t be seen would begin to mend too.

  “I will.”

  Her mouth twisted up. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.”

  Paj offered me his hand, and I took it. He squeezed once. “Good luck, dredger.”

  “Thanks.”

  Behind him, Auster gave me one of his easy smiles.

  “Fable.” West walked across the deck, the wind pulling his shirt around the shape of him as he stopped before me.

  “Thank you,” I said, holding a hand out between us. Whatever his reasons, he’d taken a risk in letting me come onto the Marigold. If I was never going to see him again, I wanted him to know that I understood that much.

  He didn’t take it. He shifted on his feet before me, his gaze trailing everywhere except my face. “Keep the jacket buttoned up and keep your knife where you can reach it. Don’t trade your tools, not even to eat. And don’t sleep on the street.” He lifted my hood into place as I pulled the jacket closed and fastened the buttons up to my neck. “Don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s better to be no one than to be someone in this city.”

  He thought better of whatever else he was going to say, closing his mouth and swallowing hard. I lifted my hand again, waiting for him to take it, and this time, he did. His fingers wrapped around my wrist and mine around his as I looked up into his face. “Thank you, West.” My voice was small.

  He didn’t move. It looked as if he wasn’t even breathing. I tried to let go, but his grip tightened, holding me in place. The pulse at my wrist quickened as he pulled my hand toward him and the scar carved into my forearm peeked out from beneath my sleeve.

  “I mean it, Fable,” he breathed. “Be careful.”

  His fingers unwound from my arm, and I stepped back to put more space between us, my heart pounding in my chest. I dropped my eyes to the deck and lifted myself over the rail, onto the rungs. He watched me climb down, the ladder swinging, and as soon as my boots landed on the crowded dock, something crashed into my side. I flew forward, catching myself on the hull of the ship with my hands to keep from falling into the water.

  “Watch it!” A broad-shouldered man barreled past me with a crate of fish on his shoulder, not even looking back.

  I pushed into the crowd, pulling the sleeve of my jacket down to be sure my arm was covered. The docks were alive with the business of the port, at least six times the size of Dern’s harbor. I wove in and out of the pockets of people, and when I reached the main walkway that led up into the city, I looked back one last time to the Marigold. She sat in one of the last bays, her warm golden wood the color of honey. On the quarterdeck, West stood with his arms crossed, looking out at me.

  I met his eyes one last time, hoping that even if I hadn’t said it, he knew.

  I did owe him. I owed him everything.

  He watched me for another moment before he finally turned, disappearing from the deck of the ship, and I breathed past the sting in my eyes.

  I walked into the river of hucksters, swirling around one another up the ramp that led into Ceros’s Waterside. Crews that had just docked were already on their way up the hill where temporary companions and bottles of rye awaited them in the city’s taverns.

  Saint’s outpost was nestled in the Pinch, a pitiful hollow where no respectable person lived or did business. Most everyone who did call it home survived off his patronage, which meant Saint collected a lot of favors. It was one of the reasons he’d been able to build all he had. He knew how to make people depend on him.

  Another shoulder shoved into me, throwing me back, and I hit a post, stumbling. But the thought hissed like a faint whisper, my eyes following the polished boots beneath the length of a sapphire blue coat.

  I looked up and the chaos of the dock halted, everything slowing with the stalled beat of my heart. The breath burned in my chest, my mind racing through a flood of memories that rushed in, drowning me.

  The man looked over his shoulder as he passed me, the set of his angled jaw tight.

  It was him. It was Saint.

  The trader who’d built an empire. The father who’d left me behind. The man who’d loved my mother with the fury of a thousand merciless storms.

  He blinked, his eyes sparkling beneath his hat for just a moment before his gaze fell back to the dock.

  And as if I’d only imagined it, he kept walking.

  TWENTY-ONE

  He’d seen me.

  He’d seen me and he knew exactly who I was. It was in the clench of his fist as he looked back over his shoulder. In the tick of his jaw when his eyes met mine. He’d recognized me.

  Saint knew I’d made it to Ceros and he knew why. Just like I knew why he’d kept walking. I’d never broken the promise I’d made him. Not a single person in the Narrows knew that I was his daughter except for Clove, and Saint wouldn’t acknowledge me out in the open like that. He wouldn’t risk anyone wondering who I was.

  He disappeared in the crowd of dock workers, his steps steady as he made his way to the large ship pulling into the bay. His crest was painted onto the sail at its bow.

  I pulled my hood up tighter, my breath hitching in my chest. My throat burned, tears pricking behind my eyes. Because he looked the same. How was that possible? He was the exact same handsome, rugged man he was the last time I saw him.

  The bell rang out, marking the opening of the merchant’s house, and I turned in a circle, steadying myself on the post with one hand. Saint would meet with the helmsmen of his arriving ships before he went back to his post at the Pinch. When he got there, I’d be waiting for him.

  I climbed the steps up from the harbor and stood at the scrolling iron entry to Waterside. It was the worst of Ceros’s slums, a filthy stretch of burrows that ran the length of the shore past the harbor. Beyond that, the city was a maze. Streets and alleyways wound like tight knots, people spilling out of every window and doorway. The largest port city in the Narrows, it was a bustling hub of trade and enterprise, but it was nothing compared to the opulence of the cities that lay in the Unnamed Sea.

  I pulled the map Hamish had given me from my satchel and unfolded it against the mud wall in the alley. If the harbor was behind me, then the Pinch was northeast. It wasn’t easy to get to, and maybe that was one of the reasons my father had chosen it for his post. No one expected a wealthy trader to hole up in the most squalid corner of the city.

  I lifted myself up onto my toes, trying to spot the nearest ladder to the bridges. Beyond the next market, I could see shadowed figures scaling up over the rise of rooftops. I folded the map and shoved it into my jacket, slipping into the main street. People crowded between the buildings, coming to and from the market with baskets of potatoes and bushels of grain.

  The mouth of the street spilled out into the square, where brightly colored canvas canopies and awnings cast a pink shade over the market. The dusty air was filled with the scent of roasting meats, and the vendor stalls snaked in wayward lines, their tables and carts stacked with fruits and fish and bolts of cloth in every color.

  I shoved through, watching the bridges to keep track of where I was going. My belt and my coin purse were tucked safely inside my shirt, where no one could get to them without cutting through my jacket. But my hand instinctively reached between the buttons to find the handle of my knife.r />
  A short woman with a huge silver fish slung over her shoulders pushed through the market, carving a path, and I followed her, sticking close until we were on the other side. I found the line to the ladder, and when it was my turn, I climbed the ropes. The cool wind blowing over the city hit me as I rose higher, the thick odor of the streets cleared away. I pulled the fresh air into my lungs, leaning into the netted wall of the bridge as people moved past. The wood planks bounced under my feet, slightly swinging, and I hooked my fingers into the ropes and looked out over Ceros. The rising brick walls and tattered roofs reached up from every inch of the city, the system of bridges weaving in between them all.

  To the east, I could see the Pinch. It was the lowest part of the rolling landscape and the most densely populated. The crumbling structures were stacked on top of one another like teetering blocks.

  “Miss?” A little girl stopped, pulling at the hem of my jacket. She held up a small square of white silk with a ship embroidered in blue thread. “Coin?” Her pale blue eyes looked almost white in the bright sunlight.

  I stared down at it, the wrinkled cloth spread across her dirty hands. The ship was a large trader, with four masts and more than a dozen sails.

  “Sorry.” I shook my head, moving past her.

  I started across the bridge, keeping to one side and watching carefully. There was a time when I had the route to the Pinch memorized, but the bridges were confusing, and it was easy to end up in the opposite direction if you weren’t careful. I took a turn, going east until I found one that ran north. The late morning sun bore down, reflecting where the harbor crept out over the water. I couldn’t even tell which ship was the Marigold from here.

  In the distance, the bells in the tower rang out, signaling the close of the market, and a moment later, a flood of people were climbing the ladders in a steady stream. I stepped onto a bridge that tilted up before it dropped back down again, and I could already smell it. The stink of the Pinch was something that burned in your nostrils and didn’t leave for days. And for those who lived there, it was something that became a part of them.

  The streets below turned muddy and dark as the bridge slanted all the way down and came to a dead end. The ladder that dropped to the ground was covered in the same muck. I pulled the collar of my shirt up out of my jacket to cover my nose and held my breath as I climbed down. The shadows of the buildings cloaked most of the Pinch in shade, despite the time of day. The sound of wild dogs barking and babies crying echoed through the narrow street, and I pulled my map out again, trying to get my bearings.

  It looked the same as it did four years ago, except there was more of everything—mud, people, refuse. And with the walls of buildings pulling up around you, you could hardly see the sky overhead.

  I followed the alley that broke off from the main pathway. It twisted through buildings so narrow that I had to turn sideways in places to get through. Eyes peered down at me from windows above, where wet clothes flapped on lines. The familiar broken archway reached over the roofs in the distance. The rusted iron was a garland of the same triangular sails that adorned Saint’s crest. I made my way toward it as the sun dropped, the temperature falling with it.

  The alley widened again, opening up to a circle of wooden doors. All green but one—a brilliant blue with a bronze knocker depicting the face of a sea demon. Its wide eyes looked down at me, its tongue unrolled.

  Saint’s post.

  More eyes peered down from above, probably people my father had paid to keep watch. But I knew how to get in. I’d done it a hundred times. I unclasped my jacket and took it off, tucking the length of it into my belt before I fit my fingers into the crevices of the smooth white clay wall. My hands were bigger than they were the last time I’d climbed it, but the cracks and holds were the same. I lifted myself up, using the door knocker as a foothold, and when the edge of the little window was within reach, I leapt for it, catching the rim with my fingertips and swinging over the drop.

  My elbow hooked into the lip of wood, and I fished the chisel from my belt. The edge slid in easily, and I shimmied it up to lift the latch. It was a small window, and I had to wedge myself in, dropping my belt inside and shifting my hips until I’d squeezed through. I landed on the tile hard, groaning against the sharp pain that exploded in my ribs, and pushed myself back up to my feet.

  The room was dark, only the light from the small open window coming inside in an angled beam. I searched for a lantern, feeling along the shelves until the toe of my boot ran into the leg of a desk and my fingers found a candle. I struck a match and held the lantern up before me, the lump coming back up in my throat.

  Maps. Charts. Lists. Diagrams.

  A bronze scope with his name engraved on its side.

  Saint.

  It was all the same. Just the same, like him. As if the last four years hadn’t happened and no time had passed at all. He was still here, still sailing, still trading and bartering and building ships.

  Like I never existed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Four years ago

  That night, the sharp sound of the bell rang out, and my father came for me, pulling me from my hammock, bleary-eyed and confused.

  I didn’t know what was happening until the hatch flew open before us, and the lightning struck so close to the ship that it blinded me, the sound erupting painfully in my ears. Black spots drowned out every bit of light in my vision, and I blinked furiously, trying to clear it.

  Saint tucked me into his jacket as well as I could fit and then he barreled out into the roaring wind, the rain spinning, not falling in any one direction.

  I’d never seen rain like that before.

  “Mama!” I shouted, looking over my father’s shoulder for her, but there was almost no one on deck. And when I looked up to the tangle of clouds above us, I screamed. The mainmast of the Lark had snapped in two.

  I knew what that meant. There was no coming back from a broken mast.

  We were abandoning ship.

  I clawed out of Saint’s jacket, slipping from his grasp and hitting the deck so hard it knocked the breath from my lungs.

  “Fable!” A wave crashed over the starboard side, sweeping him off his feet, and I ran for the hatch.

  “Mama!” I screamed, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice. There was only the howl of the wind. The growl of the ship.

  Arms wrapped around me, dragging my weight to the back, and another face appeared before me. Clove. Saint threw me in his direction, and I slid over the flooded deck until I slammed into him.

  He didn’t wait. Clove climbed up onto the railing with me in his arms and jumped into the wind. We fell into the darkness, hitting the water with the sound of a thunderclap, and suddenly, everything was quiet. The raging storm was replaced with the deep hum of the sea. Beneath the surface, motionless bodies churned in the black water, the masts and prows of long-dead ships illuminated below us as the lightning struck again and again.

  When we came back up, I choked, clinging to Clove with shaking hands.

  Saint was suddenly beside us. “Swim!” he shouted.

  Another ear-splitting crack sounded like a cannon shot, and I turned in the water. The Lark’s hull was splitting in two. Right down the middle.

  “Swim, Fable!” I’d never heard my father’s voice sound like that. I’d never seen his face broken into pieces with fear.

  I cut through the water, swimming as fast as I could against the suck of the sinking ship pulling it down with it. Saint stayed with me, coming up over the crest of every wave at my side. We swam until I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs and my stomach was half full of seawater. When the orange light of a lantern flickered ahead, I started to sink. Clove’s hand took hold of my shirt, and he pulled me along with him until I was floating on the water in his wake. When I opened my eyes again, one of my father’s deckhands was lifting me into a small boat.

  “Mama…” I cried, watching the bow of the Lark sink in the distance. “Mama, mama, mama…�
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  Saint didn’t speak a word when he climbed in after me. He didn’t look back. Not even once.

  We didn’t raise the small sail until the next morning, when the gales had hushed and the sea fell into sleep. I sat at the stern, filling buckets of water until the hull of the rowboat was empty. Saint’s eyes stayed on the horizon. It was only then I noticed that the man who’d pulled me from the water was injured, his pale face betraying his fate. It took him only hours to die, and just moments after he took his last breath, Saint dumped him over the side.

  We pushed up onto the smooth beach of Jeval the next morning. I’d never been to the pyre-rich island, but my mother had dredged its reefs. I lay on the sand, the waves crawling up to touch my bare feet, and while Clove went to find food and water, my father took the knife from his belt.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked, looking me straight in the eye with a calm that terrified me.

  I nodded, and he took hold of my hand with his rough fingers, turning it over until the soft skin of my forearm was between us. I didn’t know what he was going to do until the tip of the knife had already drawn blood.

  I tried to pull away, but a firm look from him made me still under his touch. I buried my face into my knees and tried not to scream as he cut into me, engraving smooth, curving lines that reached from my elbow to my wrist. When he was finished, he carried me out into the water and cleaned it, bandaging the wound carefully with torn pieces of his shirt.

  Clove returned with a bucket of shellfish he’d bartered for down the beach, and we made a fire, eating the meager supper in silence. My stomach roiled against the pain throbbing in my arm, my heart aching with the loss of my mother. And we didn’t speak of her. In fact, I would never speak of her again in those years on Jeval.