Scrambling to my knees, I supported him. “You can’t get up yet. Rest. Later you can get up.”
With a nod, he let me lower him back down. The effort must’ve sucked him dry because he slept again almost immediately.
The gray light of near dawn and Calev’s rustling woke me. He was trying to sit up.
I lodged a hand under his arm, too afraid to say much and realize this was a dream. “Don’t rush it. I don’t want you dying on me again.” Fear sharpened my words.
Shaking his head, he braced a hand on his knee, and I helped him sit.
His wound was clean and smooth. Still red and a bit swollen, but healed. Aunt’s magic was strong. I squeezed Calev’s hand, then let go, knowing if I kept touching him, I’d throw myself at him like an idiot.
His ebony hair fell over one side of his face as he swallowed. “I need a drink.”
I had to grin as I scooped water from the bucket near Aunt’s hammock into a wooden cup and handed it to him. A part of my own thirst was quenched.
Now to find Avi and complete the answer to my prayers.
The bones above Calev’s chest were sharper than they had been before his injury. His stomach, though still muscled, sunk in like a depression between two waves. He sipped the water I gave him, his throat moving as he threw his head back. I hugged myself to keep my arms busy.
He set the cup down. “Now tell me about this wraith.”
I did.
And to refrain from staring at Calev’s bare chest, to keep from crying with relief at his healing, I allowed my eyes to stray to the window’s view. Behind Calev, night lightened into day. A purple-white glow laced the edges of the Topa tree where Aunt and I had spoken to that wraith, where I’d learned…what? That I could control a spirit? That I had enough Salt Magic to glean information from the legendary Tuz Golge?
I shared all this and more—everything—in hushed whispers with Calev. Before he could say anything back, Oron flipped out of his hammock and landed flat on his back.
“Creations of the Devil,” he spat, rising and dusting his hands.
Then everyone was awake.
“You should not be up yet.” Aunt scowled at Calev and patted at her braids, which had grown fuzzy during the night.
The two fighting sailors eased out of their hammocks, the bells on their shoulders jingling, and looked Calev up and down. My insides going cold, I put a hand on my dagger. In a second, they could be on him and he could be dead.
“Ah,” he said. “They know what I did.”
I nodded. My finger circled my dagger’s cool hilt, and the wind from the window tugged at my curls.
Oron smirked. “That they do. I strongly suggest you explain your side of the story before they decide your handsome head would be a fine decoration for their sashes.”
The sailors advanced on him, step by step. Aunt’s room went from cozy to cramped.
Unhitching himself from the wall, Calev held out his hands and lowered his chin a little.
“I had no fight with your amir. I hated what she did to Ifran, but aside from that, she was Old Farm’s friend.”
The three stopped, within striking range from one another.
Ekrem’s eyes were calm, but Serhat stared at Calev with death in her face. They traded a look, then Ekrem said, “Because Kinneret believes you, we do also.”
Serhat’s jaw tightened and she turned her head away.
Ekrem’s words made me stand taller. I took my place at Calev’s side, Aunt and Oron muttering at both ends of the room about how the sun wasn’t even up yet.
“So you’ll go with us?” The question was one I’d asked Calev so many times, the words so familiar to my lips. But I was far from anything truly familiar now. In Kurakia. Making plans to deal with a wraith. Asking loyalty from high-caste fighters. “To meet with Tuz Golge and break my sister out of Oramiral Urmirian’s quarry?”
“We are your fighters now, kaptan. Command us at will.”
Aunt made a shushing noise. “Never thought I’d see a girl with no cattle to her name command two of the amir’s. If you’ve never ordered beasts, how are you to order men? Now, go down to the courtyard, let my animals out of the gate and wash yourselves to eat. Gather some eggs while you’re there and gain some advice from those hens as you do.”
Advice? From hens?
“I’ll ready some oatcakes and dried beef,” she said. “We’ll treat the farmer’s wound once more, then you can be on your way.”
The fighters climbed down the ladder, Serhat’s head disappearing from view as Oron walked over and grabbed my arm and Calev’s.
“You’re certain about meeting with the Salt Wraith? Calev, talk sense into her.”
“I trust her,” Calev said quietly. “And I’m not a sense-first man. I’m more of an adventure-first, challenge-obsessed land lover.” He grinned.
I elbowed him gently, my cheeks warm, then patted Oron’s hand. “There is no sensible way to do this. We have to grab this opportunity, this one small, dangerous edge on the situation, and go.”
“Go?” Oron held both hands up. “Just like that?”
Calev and I nodded in unison.
Oron gusted out a breath and folded his hands behind his head. He turned away. “Foolish youth.”
Aunt’s steady hands urged us toward the ladder to do as she’d instructed. “Yes, small man. They’re so ready to give up the short life they’ve had.”
Calev went down the ladder and Oron stepped down behind him, looking up at me. His wine-dark eyes were bright in the strengthening dawn.
“I’m not so sure about your aunt’s sanity, but in this instance, the woman is right.”
“This is our life to live, Oron. And I won’t do it without my sister by my side.”
He swallowed loudly and continued down the rungs. “It’s not as if I meant…all right then. But Fire help me, I do not wish to die on the sea or at the oramiral’s hands.”
“I know, I know,” I said, passing through the last floor before the courtyard. Dust from Calev’s sandals rained on my head as he came down after me and I didn’t dislike it at all. I was just so glad he was alive.
“I’m guessing that you, Oron, prefer to die in a feather bed with a woman’s arms wrapped firmly around you,” Calev said.
I leaped from the ladder to land in the courtyard, narrowly missing a hen who squawked her annoyance.
Oron grinned. “How well you know me.”
Calev laughed and tucked his hair behind his ears. It was strange to see someone in an Old Farm headstrap without a fine, embroidered tunic. The blue Kurakian pantaloons made him look taller.
Oron’s mouth tucked up at one side. “I think I’ll grab some eggs while you two…wash.” He jerked his head toward the pump well that the fighters had left to open the gate.
Laughing, Calev and I zigzagged, laughing, through chickens that brushed along our legs and beat wings at our feet. At the well, he insisted on pumping the water and allowing me to cup handfuls of lukewarm water to throw over my face and hands. I went ahead and doused my head too. The day wasn’t going to grow any cooler and I was already sweating. Calev winced a little but managed to toss a handful at me. I got him back right in the eye.
Calev went quiet and still.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling your wound? Should I get Aunt?”
“It does hurt. But that’s not… We shouldn’t be laughing and enjoying ourselves while Avi is…” His throat worked and tears burned at the corners of my eyes.
My chest caved in as I tried to keep breathing. “We should laugh. It’s hard, but we should. She would want us too.” I squeezed out the ends of my hair and kept my face turned toward the ground. The sadness in his eyes would make me cry like last night and we didn’t have sun for tears. “We need some smiles and laughter to give us strength for what we’re about to do.”
“I don’t know why it always surprises me when you say wise things. After all our lives, it shouldn’t. You’re right. If we’re going
to deal with the darkness of a wraith, we need all the light we can rouse.”
I looked at him then. His black hair shuffling over his bare shoulders. His honest, red-brown eyes, the eyes that always held a spark of mischief. His hands on the pump, ready to help me with more water if that’s what I needed. I pressed my eyelids shut and tried to sear the image of him on my mind. I never wanted to forget this moment. It was the light I would need to face the creature that twisted my good Calev into a killer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
That night, the moon opened its eye over the horizon and stared at us as we gathered on the Kurakian beach. The sea was the pale blue of ice, stretching out from the shore in one solid, clean mass under a steady wind. My heart ached to sail on it. I couldn’t see our boat yet, but it was there somewhere. Tiny, and a sad, little thing to ride on into the night, but it would have to do. My hands clenched with the need to feel a tiller’s worn, wooden grain and tug a coconut fiber rope. Beside me, white light cloaked the fighters’ emotionless faces, Aunt’s braids, Calev’s wavy hair and strong nose, and Oron’s smirk.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Oron said, putting a fist under his chin, “but that’s not the boat in which we arrived, dear kaptan.”
Aunt was smiling. The sailors made appreciative grunts and nodded, pointing to a wooden craft with two masts bobbing in the shallow water off the shore.
My heart jumped. “Did you do this?”
I squinted and the two lateen sails wrapped against the masts reflected a flash of pale moonlight. Long ties at the boom fluttered in the breeze.
“I have much,” Aunt said, still smiling. “Cattle. A home. Chickens. And no children. No man. No woman. I’m glad to have the chance to help my sister’s children.”
Her lips tilted down at one side and she took my fingers in hers gently. She stroked the back of my hand with her callused fingertips and the child inside me wanted more than anything to run back to her tower house and curl into a hammock.
“Get our Avigail safe,” she said. “You can do it. I know you can.”
My throat was hot and dry. “If I fail…”
Aunt tsked with her full lips. “It is not good luck to talk of that.”
“We should have a shamar yam.” Calev picked up two shells from the sand and studied them with a look of concentration. He tossed one down and cupped the other, his serious eyes meeting mine. “I don’t have paper for the prayer, but I can speak one into its hollow and secure it to the mainsail with my headtie.”
Aunt elbowed me. “You are right. He is lucky. He knows how the world works.”
“Thank you. For everything.” I hugged her, my arms and hers tight and strong. She smelled so much like Mother, like dust and green things and spices from the land that was foreign, but somehow familiar to me.
I didn’t want to let go. I was dying to let go. Because every minute we waited, Avi spent another in the quarries.
Aunt thumped her hand on my back. “Go. Go on now.”
When I pulled away, tears wiggled down her beautiful, sloping cheeks. She wiped the moisture away impatiently, frowning.
“And the Wraith Lantern?” I asked.
Surely she’d thought of that. But if she hadn’t, maybe we could get one at the market. Aunt had never been to sea. Kurakians hated the water. She might not realize how many wraiths roamed the skies. Though we meant to meet with one, more than that would be suicide.
“It hangs from the center mast.” She gave a nod.
Oron looked impressed as we neared the craft, our feet splashing into the cool, rolling water. One sail ruffled loose like a woman’s skirts. “Kurakian-style sailcloth,” he said. “I haven’t seen such handiwork since I worked on that northern ice wine ship.”
“Kurakian craftsmanship on an ice wine route?” I lifted my newly filled bag of salt from my sash to keep it from being doused.
Chest-deep in water, we made it to the boat. Aunt took hold of the fore and Calev went toward the back. Aunt had sewn a tunic for him out of one of her plain, dusky blue work dresses.
“The kaptan had a fondness for the women of this land.” Oron hefted himself into the craft as we steadied it. “He appreciated their many…skills.”
Calev snickered along with Oron and I threw a look at them. Oron wasn’t talking only about sailcloth.
Aunt shook her head and smiled, helping me up. Though I didn’t need the assistance, it warmed me to have her hand at my back, ready to be there if I slipped. I hadn’t had an older person take care of me since Mother and Father died. Unless you counted Oron. But he was as much trouble as he was help.
The fighters crawled aboard and gave Calev a hand up without exchanging a single word. How deep did their loyalty to me go? Was it really enough to forgive Calev for killing their leader? There wasn’t much I could do about it, so I pressed the worry into the corner of my mind.
With one last wave to Aunt, we rigged the sails and tracked a line away from her tiny shape in the shallow waters. I’d never be able to thank her enough for saving Calev. If her idea to meet with Tuz Golge worked and we discovered a way to get Avi out, I’d be further in her debt and happy to be there.
Oron lit the Wraith Lantern while Calev whispered a prayer into the shamar yam and tied it to the mainmast. The orange, silver, and black flickers from the lantern’s wick passed over their faces, illuminating cheek hollows, accentuating noses and whites of eyes.
The Pass was a wide road of white and black beyond our boat. I’d need to see clearly if we were to get to the place we’d first met Tuz Golge. We had to keep the lantern lit in case we had to deal with another wraith.
The moment I thought the word, one swept away from the moon toward us.
Ekrem took the lantern from Oron and held it high over our heads. The crystalized spirit drifted over our sails, its evil intent lashing against my thoughts like a desert lion’s claws. Sweat dripped down my nose as I plugged my ears with my fingers.
Oron sat next to me, Calev on my other side. “Can’t you control this one too?” Oron shouted above the wraith’s sweeping noise and its accompanying hissing whispers of murder and rage. The whites of Oron’s eyes and teeth were bright in the near dark.
“It will leave,” I yelled back. “I’m not wasting any salt.”
The wraith pressed on my mind.
Fury.
Blood.
The taste of blood.
Salt in my mouth.
Flesh in my teeth.
I opened my eyes when something warm brushed against me. It was Calev. Fingers in his own ears, he’d scooted closer to me and his elbow touched my back. He lay his forehead against mine and I inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of him—sun-warmed earth and lemons—to wash away the wraith’s sour wrath.
The shadow dusted over us once more, then seemed to leave. The blood-lust was gone. I took my fingers out of my ears and looked at each of my crew in turn.
The fighters were hunched over, their heads brushing their knees. Making the Fire’s sign on his forehead, Oron crossed his thick legs.
Calev gave me one of those smiles. “We made it through.”
Warmth flooded my stomach and I turned away to focus on my words.
“The Tuz Golge’s attack will be different from that,” I said as we found spots to sit around the decking. “Some of us know how he feels inside the head. It’s a sharp thing. Intelligent. Difficult to block out.”
The headsail, the smaller of the two triangular sails, lagged a little. We needed to jib and track toward Jakobden’s angry coast, and the wind was cooperating.
“Hopefully my Salt Magic will control it, but keep your ears plugged and your mind alert in the case that I fail.”
At my command, Oron lowered the headsail and Calev and the fighters tucked it away. “Take a line, everyone,” I said from aft. “We need to jib. When I shout, let them run through your fingers.” Everyone but Calev knew exactly what to do, but I didn’t want to single him out, so I called out directio
ns for all.
When I shouted, they did as asked, and the ivory sail flipped high over the mast. We took control again and brought the bottom of the sail back to the boat’s side. We tied, Calev tying right alongside us like a real sailor. I smiled.
The only thing loud now was my heart. It shivered like a scared dog at the thought of how exposed we were and how reliant on the small lesson I’d had with Aunt. We were almost to the place where we’d seen Tuz Golge.
Black water lapped on all sides and the wind stayed steady. With Oron’s clever help, Calev’s good eyes, and the fighting sailors’ strength, we easily wove around a high ridge of shining rock.
And at a calm stretch—as calm and open as the Pass can be—I started calling for the wraith.
Sitting cross-legged, across from Calev’s encouraging face, I raised my dagger and carved a circle in the air about my head. I whispered the words Aunt had given me, “Raturookumruntarah. Rumininah. Rumininah. Buruqnahrumtilrirah. I listen. I understand your cause. I understand your cause. Speak to me, and I will hear you in your empty place.”
The Kurakian words tripped out of my mouth and caught on my lips with quick turns in emphasis and hard sounds. It was not a beautiful language. It had only been my aunt’s lovely voice matching the calming din of night insects. My own pronunciation lacked skill.
Would it work?
As Aunt had instructed, I began chanting the amir’s name. “Mamluk, Mamluk, Mamluk.”
Her former sailors’ heads snapped up and they glared before blinking and seeming to resign themselves to the situation. They knew as well as I this was no time for anything except completing this horrible chore and living through it.
Then my head seemed to crack open.
Tuz Golge slipped into the mercury light over our heads. Roughly the shape of a man in a flowing tunic, the edges of his spirit-self leaked into the sky like spilled poison. The lightest part of him fogged the place his face should have been. His shadow, impossibly large, blotted out the moon and a sick light rained down, a fitting match to the twisting evil in our thoughts.
I went from enjoying the smooth beauty of Calev’s skin to imagining the press of a knife separating flesh from bone. Blood in patterned lines down his cheeks and chin and throat.
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 21