Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One

by Alisha Klapheke

  His eyes closed and he lifted his face, swallowing hard. Oron’s voice called across the abyss of bloodlust, toward the man I loved more than any other.

  “Kinneret.” Oron’s voice scratched against the wraith’s planted thoughts. His fingers were in his ears, the sailors beside him, shaking and eyes wide open.

  Sucking a salty breath, I stood. I tore my dagger across the wind that blew my skirts around my legs.

  I would not let Tuz Golge take us here.

  I could do this.

  I sheathed my dagger and took salt from my pouch. I spread the grit from the insides of my wrists, over my sleeves, and onto my collarbone, to my pulse points. The wind rose and tossed my hair wildly. The sea rolled as I knelt.

  I slapped my hands together and shouted to the wraith.

  “I ask how you escaped the quarry!”

  Hissing. Nonsense. Garbled words, a mix of Kurakian and the Jakobden tongue.

  But behind the power and the hate and sharp mind, panic danced through the sounds. Uneven. Low, then loud.

  Realization flooded through me as the wind sheared against us and rocked us hard in the water. Calev killed the amir. Tuz Golge owed us. The boat righted, and I knew exactly what to say.

  “Speak in this tongue,” I said. The salt thrummed against my flesh like a thousand tiny hearts beating in the same rhythm as my own. “We have done your work. We have slayed your wife. You owe us obedience.”

  The hissing grew into snarls that matched the rising wind. Calev and I slammed into one another, both grabbing for the mainsail mast as the sea grew angry. Oron and the fighters latched onto the sides of the boat, their faces like yesterday’s ash. My salty fingers grated against the mast and one of Calev’s hands. I pressed my forehead against his. He was whispering. Eyes closed and one hand on the shamar yam. He was praying.

  Nothing! Tuz Golge shouted into my thoughts. I owe nothing!

  My words hadn’t moved him like they should’ve. What was I forgetting?

  The wraith’s sharp intent pushed against my will, drowning it in darkness and pain and the desire to unsheathe my dagger and slide it along Calev’s face to destroy the beauty Tuz Golge would never again possess.

  I fisted my hands and pulled myself against the mast, squeezing it with my arms, trying to feel the boat under my sandals and the wood against my skin instead of the hate, the hate, the hate.

  Calev’s lips moved fast as nightwingers. Sweat became diamonds on his chin, tangled in the beard he’d grown over the last few days. He brought his hand from the prayer shell to his mouth, touched his lips once and began praying again.

  The salt! Aunt lined her mouth in sea salt!

  I ran my first two fingers along the insides of my lips.

  My skin puckered as I shouted, “Yes, you do owe us, Tuz Golge. You will listen. I am Kinneret Raza, born on these waters, slayer of the demon Asag, conqueror of the lost silver island, and you will speak with me!”

  The intensity of rage and inky fingers of mind control flattened and cracked. My will, like a small orange sun, squeezed into the small, broken places, shining through the cracks in my thoughts. They brought memories with them.

  Calev. Chin held high. Teeth gritted together. Determined face. His laugh at the well. The velvet of his hands on my waist at the waterfall. The feel of his lips, his mouth smiling against my neck.

  And Avi. Strong, long fingers on the sail’s ties. Stubby nails. The dimple in her otherwise fierce face.

  I would be fierce for her.

  For Calev. And Oron. And these two warriors who’d risked all to help us.

  The orange sun of my will blasted through the broken lines of the wraith’s twisting hate.

  The wind settled.

  Speak, Kinneret Raza. The wraith hung still as death over our heads. What would you ask of me?

  Everyone stared.

  “Is it talking to you?” Oron asked, taking a step.

  The fighters relaxed their hold on the boat and put hands to the battle axe and yatagan at their sashes, as if weapons were any use against this threat.

  I gave Oron a nod and he stepped back again, crossing his arms. His mouth pinched up and Calev stared.

  He reached a hand out and I took it gladly.

  I closed my eyes and let the salt thrum against my skin and spoke silently to the wraith.

  How did you escape the oramiral’s island?

  Why do you desire this information, sailor?

  Tell me.

  A laugh, dark and bitter like soured coffee. I didn’t. I died. In the waters. You know that.

  Tell me.

  I gathered fallen bamboo on my treks up the stairs to the slave quarters. It is open air. But you know that. Your sister, yes? She hides in the shadows there? She slaves for the oramiral?

  I wasn’t about to bend and give him knowledge he had no right to. How did you escape?

  I removed my tunic, ripped it down the middle, tied it to the bamboo I’d lashed together with rope I’d stolen from the guards’ storage bins, and I created a glider.

  Details.

  I made a sturdy length of framed fabric and sailed off the slaves’ castle walls into the air and down over the Pass.

  My concentration faltered. A sail? For the air? But how would that work? How would you catch the wind and then direct yourself with only a long strip of framed fabric?

  Like someone had drawn a blade across the tie between my Salt Magic and Tuz Golge, the sense of the wraith left my mind and floated away.

  The sky was clear of spirits and a bank of blue-black clouds gathered.

  He was gone. I collapsed onto the deck. Bamboo and a tunic? That was the great information I’d risked everyone here to get?

  I couldn’t breathe. It would never work. My Avi was lost.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Calev opened his eyes. “What did he tell you?”

  It was then I noticed my hands were shaking. I hid them behind my back, but Calev grabbed them gently and rubbed the backs with his thumbs. “You should be scared. There are times when I’ve wondered whether you’re human like the rest of us.” He smiled grimly as he kept on stroking my hands, flipping them over and starting on the palms, massaging them now and pulling me closer.

  It was a trick and I knew it, but I let him tug me into the circle of his arms. My shaking grew into a full-body tremor.

  My mouth pressed into the soft blue fabric of the tunic Aunt had made him. His chest tensed under my lips and the strength there, both in muscle, and beneath that, in heart, gave me hope.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle the wraith. It was all on me. And—”

  “And it wasn’t sailing. Or anything else you’ve done before this sun.”

  He held me tighter as I felt a hand on my back. Oron.

  “You did well, my kaptan,” Oron said, peeking at me and smiling with tears in his eyes. “You used what your aunt taught you, claimed your status with the spirit, and gleaned information from the other side. Very well done. I would’ve messed my tunic and leaped overboard, so all in all I’d say the evening has been a resounding success.”

  Ekrem pressed fingers into his temples, shaking his head. Serhat glared like she was upset she hadn’t attacked the wraith and Oron might serve as a good second choice of target.

  I looked down at the X stitching along Calev’s short sleeve. “But…the wraith talked about things I didn’t understand. I don’t think it’s going to help Avi.”

  “Maybe we can make sense of it.” Calev stepped back, and I turned away to look out over the waters.

  “He said he made a sort of sail out of bamboo and his tunic. He jumped from the top of the slaves’ castle quarters and the sail helped him soar through the air, to the Pass.”

  “How would sticks and fabric hold a man?” Oron rubbed his chin. “And I think we should decide on where to make landfall. That brewing storm looks almost as threatening as Tuz Golge.”

  He was right. Those clouds, snipped and
billowing, meant lightning and high wind and slashing rain.

  But where could we go?

  Not home. We would be questioned by the amir’s men and women who hadn’t left on the journey. They may have even received a rock dove, telling all, from Berker by now. If they didn’t yet know, Calev’s father and kin would question him on his lengthly disappearance, his clothing, his scar. The story would come out, then what was left of the amir’s retainer would strap us to horses and rip us to pieces.

  We couldn’t go straight to Quarry Isle. As much as I wanted to get to Avi, we had to plan if we were to emerge with her alive, instead of full of the oramiral’s canon shot and spears.

  Ayarazi? Definitely not. Kurakia again?

  “Kurakia is our only choice.” I untied the rope that had helped flip the sail. “We’ll use this storm-blowing wind to take us east.”

  But when we landed, what then? Tuz Golge’s idea made no sense.

  The wind gusting brightly, the storm chased our boat neatly back toward Kurakia. The speed made my blood sing through my veins. Normally, I would’ve been light and happy during such a successful sail, but now, no. We were racing to nowhere. I had no answers and was no closer to rescuing Avi. Plus, soon the amir’s absence would be taken as something out of the ordinary. We’d planned on three days away. It had been seven. Maybe eight.

  I rubbed at my eyes, my knees dipping when the hull slapped the water. The kyros and Old Farm would send men and women looking for the ship. Kurakia was the closest known landing spot. Aside from Quarry Isle. And Aunt couldn’t protect us. Her city-state of Lutambiarum would give us up without a thought. Calev’s father might try to protect him. But maybe not. Calev had committed the crime. He was guilty. If they didn’t believe us, he would be condemned to die. If they caught us here, no one would speak up for the fighters, Oron, or I. We were good as dead.

  I finished my bowl of Kurakian chicken and licked the orange spice off my fingers. Though my soul hung somewhere low as my feet, my stomach couldn’t be ignored. Besides, I needed food to get my mind working.

  Calev pushed his now empty bowl to the center of Aunt’s table and leaned back in his chair. “A sail. For the air.” He put his hands on his elbows and sighed.

  Oron finished Aunt’s remaining store of tatlilav and belched loudly. “Let’s try it.” He hopped up and slapped his thighs. “I’ve lived a good life. Strap the bed linens to me and toss me off the roof.”

  He started toward the hammock he’d been using, assumably to grab the linen sheet tangled in the woven coconut ropes. I stood and snared his arm.

  “Though I’m impressed you’ve matured enough to offer yourself, we’re not throwing you off things,” I said, looking to Aunt and Calev for help.

  The fighters were down in Aunt’s courtyard, training with their beautiful, flashing weapons. No matter. They wouldn’t care about Oron’s impending doom.

  Aunt cleared the wooden bowls from the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You will find the answer, Kinneret.”

  Oron tugged his sleeve free from me. “We already have. Me. The roof. Fabric.” He began flapping his arms like wings.

  Calev laughed, though his eyes were sad. None of us could stop thinking of how long Avi had been gone now.

  “Oron, exactly how much did you have during the meal?”

  Oron eyed him. “Are you asking about alcohol intake or would you also like to know food consumption for weight considerations?”

  “I think he’s talking about the tatlilav.” I asked.

  He held his hands up. “Well, I want to be sure to provide such information as our Old Farm friend sees as necessary for tossing men from roofs.”

  Calev grinned.

  Oron rubbed his chin. “I believe I imbibed around three bowls each of tatlilav and chicken.” Patting his slightly round stomach, he added, “Just about perfect for a would-be eagle, I think.”

  “Eagle?” Calev said. “I’m thinking more of an overgrown, extremely ambitious chicken.”

  Aunt rubbed the clean bowls dry over her water bucket, laughing quietly.

  I gave Aunt a quick hug, passed Oron and Calev, and started down the ladder.

  “Come on then, bird of questionable descent. We must check your wings,” I said, the rungs smooth under my tired hands.

  Oron, Calev, and I dodged chickens and pecking roosters and walked out of Aunt’s courtyard and into the patchy grass of her fields.

  “We will sneak into the slaves’ quarters. Then, because we’ll no longer have surprise as our ally, we’ll glide off Quarry Isle.” I nodded, more to myself than anyone else. It was a ridiculous plan, but the only one I had.

  “You’re the kaptan,” Oron said.

  We were fools. “We need bamboo,” I said, heading toward the creek. A clutch of green shaded a cow and her calf. The mother turned her head to look at us with big eyes. One of her arm-length horns brushed benignly over her young’s bony spine.

  “Better not anger her. She could skewer and kabob us without moving a hoof.” Oron stepped behind Calev and eyed the cow.

  I looked to the sky and shook my head.

  Calev put a hand on the first group of stalks we came to. Their light brown lengths reached higher than the roof of Aunt’s tower house. Lime-green leaves fluttered in the dry breeze.

  “Has your Aunt cut any?” Calev asked as we snaked through the small forest. “Saplings grow right out of their harvested elders.”

  Oron chuckled. “Spoken like a true Old Farm.”

  “It’s true.” I pushed some fallen branches back to look for stalks at the base of a broken trunk.

  “What?” Calev cocked his head and crossed his arms.

  I laughed. “Don’t get defensive. It’s just how you all are. You call mature trees and plants elders.” A smile pulled at my lips as he raised his chin. “Old Farms see growing things as they see people.”

  Eyebrow lifted, Calev took a step toward another bunch of smaller trees and shrugged. “Our mindset has worked so far, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes, yes, Lemon Prince,” Oron said, taking a small, green-handled saw from his sash. We’d borrowed it from Aunt’s tool rack outside the henhouse.

  “I don’t enjoy that title, Oron, and you know it.” Calev frowned as he cleared thorny brush away from the base of the head-high stalk Oron had found.

  “That’s exactly why I used it.” Oron grinned in Calev’s face.

  Calev glared at him.

  “Be careful, chicken-eagle, this one will be manning our escape boat after we fly from the quarry slaves’ quarters roof.” I held the stalk steady as Oron ran the steel teeth back and forth.

  Calev’s gaze snapped to me. “What?”

  “I can’t risk the oramiral getting his hands on you.”

  “First, he won’t take me. I’m Old Farm. Second, what makes you think I’m going to stay in the boat while you blast into the quarry to battle trained fighters?”

  I stood and put hands on my hips. “First.” I couldn’t keep the bite out of my voice. “You are an Old Farm who murdered the amir. You don’t need to borrow anymore trouble. Second, you just try to keep me from going in there after Avi.” My blood burned under my skin. “Just. Try.”

  Oron stopped sawing. “Whoa, there, kaptan. Remember who the enemy is here.”

  “It’s the oramiral,” Calev said slowly. “And I will not watch as you, Kinneret, pointlessly subject yourself to possible capture.”

  “Pointlessly?”

  I gritted my teeth and stared at Calev, who’d raised up and matched my glare. His red-brown eyes were on fire and it made my blood even hotter.

  This was my rescue mission and my sister and my magic that had gotten us this far. He was not going to lash me to the mainsail to keep me safe like I was a child. I didn’t care who his father was or how old his blood or how smart he thought he was.

  “You think I’m pointless?” My voice coiled and raised its head like a cobra.

  “Acting
like you are a fighter is pointless when we have two actual fighters in our party. You are the sailor. You should stay in the boat. That’s the safe choice. The smart choice. And you well know it, Kinneret. You’re being obstinate.”

  My head was about to come off. My fingers itched and trembled. I wanted to lunge at Calev and shake him until he felt how impossible it would be for me to perch in safety a stone’s throw from where my own sister was being held by the worst man in the world.

  “Kinneret.” Calev put hands on my shoulders and I couldn’t breathe I was so frustrated. “Kinneret. Just admit I am right. Oron can stay with you. The fighters and I will rescue Avi if it’s possible. If it’s not, you being there will make no difference and only risk your life too.”

  Then we both went silent. Like the eerie quiet before a storm. Anger and love and frustration and everything we’d been through rushed through me, burning me, jerking me, setting me on fire. Calev’s mouth didn’t move. His eyes were black stones and his chest rose and fell like he was about to—

  Oron put his hands between us and tried to push us away from one another. “All right now. You two are either going to fight or…well…we don’t have the sun for any pleasant diversions, if you’ll recall. No matter how long it’s been coming,” he muttered, finally succeeding in shoving us each back a step. “Now help me cut this ridiculous tree so we can make the ridiculous wings.”

  I swallowed, my throat dry and scratching. “Fine.”

  Calev’s jaw tensed and he turned back toward Aunt’s house. “Fine.”

  WE ENDED up cutting five stalks taller than Calev and headed back to the courtyard to meet Aunt. Calev kept stretching like his healed wound was bothering him a bit. It was amazing the wound didn’t still have him half dead and on the floor of Aunt’s house. I wished I could heal like Aunt Kania.

  She greeted us with a white-toothed smile. “I’m very interested in this. I have meditated and think this may actually work.”

  Oron tossed a hand up. “Oh. Well. She meditated. We must be on the right path then.”