“He doesn’t need to keep me down,” I said. “I’ll take your punishment. I’m not afraid of you.”
I jerked my arm free of the slave’s grasp.
The oramiral smiled wide. The steel blade’s tip made a small line down my forearm. The pain was bright like the sun at midday. Shocking and loud and never faltering.
“My sigil is simple. Just a cut stone atop a silver coin.” His eyes looked into mine. They were as lovely as a snake’s when it tries to charm you before striking. “Fitting, don’t you think?”
He turned the tip slowly, pressing it into my flesh, to make one corner of the quarried rock, another, and another, until the shape was complete.
Calev exploded from the back of the room. The oramiral stood and shouted as Calev raged through the crowd. Slaves reached for him with slow hands, almost half-hearted in their attempts. Calev’s eyes were storms and his blue tunic whipped around him like wind-churned clouds. He snagged a yatagan from the nearest slave’s sash and hurled it at the oramiral.
The man dove right and his laugh echoed off the low ceiling. He caught Calev by the throat as the yatagan clanged to the floor.
My heart jumped and strained as I struggled to my feet.
Oron slipped to my side and pulled me back as I eyed the fallen weapon. “No, Kinneret. It won’t work.”
Backing Calev against the wall, the oramiral’s fingers tensed on Calev’s throat. Calev’s eyes were unblinking. He kicked at the older man, who deftly bumped the strike to the side. The oramiral pressed his body against Calev’s, keeping Calev’s legs from moving. The oramiral pinned one of Calev’s arms to the wall and secured the other with his elbow.
“Stay out of this Old Farm. I don’t want your community or the amir’s wrath set on me for injuring you, but if you interfere with my work, I’m within my rights to strike you down, or at least, ruin that face of yours. It’s nearly as fine as mine. It would be a shame, really.”
His gaze slid over Calev’s headtie, down his cheeks, and I struggled against Oron. I could strike him now and he would be dead. If I could make my move before his slaves caught me.
“Impossible odds, Kin,” Oron hissed.
The oramiral pulled back and knocked Calev across the temple with the dagger’s hilt. Calev dropped to the floor, eyes shut.
Returning to me, the oramiral sighed. “That was delightful. Now to finish this torture you are so insistent upon, my sweet.”
Blood was ink on my skin, showing the lines of my pain, the strokes of the man who had started me down this path to death.
But really, this was my fault.
So I forced myself to take the pain of the oramiral’s dagger. I ignored Avi’s cries and Oron’s swearing. I didn’t dwell on Ekrem’s shouts of mercy or Serhat’s sucked breaths and murmurs of my accomplishments to the slaves. I didn’t even look at Calev on the floor.
I lived in the pain.
The dagger cut the circular shape of a silver coin into my arm as sweat drained from my hairline, down my temples, dripping onto my chest.
“You should smile, sailor.” The oramiral’s voice was a caress in the red dark of the pain. “You have demons and I’m cutting them out of you.”
My eyes flashed open.
He nodded sagely. “I, too, have demons. I know the look of one who knows she deserves the pain. So smile about it. Smile.”
“I won’t do anything for you. I’m nothing like you.”
“Oh, no? You caused all this trouble for these people, these innocents.”
“But I’ve learned from it. I won’t repeat my cruelties.”
“Smile.”
“No.”
His eyes glittered and he lifted the blade to my mouth. “Yes.” He slipped the tip into the side of my mouth and nipped the dagger up.
I pulled back, and he grabbed my wrist, the one he’d cut. My head swam. It was a small slit, the one where my lips met, but the pain was so much, too much.
“Now you have a jaunty grin, at least.” He jerked me into his face. “I always get my way.”
At least Calev and Avi might live. It was the only thing keeping me from crumbling in on myself.
It was the light shining through the pain.
An agonizingly familiar voice came from the door behind us.
The oramiral found his feet and looked over me and the rest of the crowd.
“The message was accurate,” the slippery voice said. “My sources said the traitors were here and here you are. Greetings, oramiral.”
The voice hung in the air as my ears buzzed and my cuts flamed.
Berker.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The oramiral pushed through us to meet him. On shaking legs, I stood to see them hold palms up to one another.
“Welcome to my island,” the oramiral said.
As they traded formal greetings, Calev rose from the floor, rubbing his head. His face was flushed, but when he was standing, he went pale. He started toward me. Swallowing roughly, he heaved a heavy breath and gritted his teeth. His gaze was on my arm, then my mouth.
I turned toward our enemies.
Berker smiled darkly and his gaze slid to me. “That one, Kinneret Raza, low-caste sailor, she killed the amir. She will die today.”
“What?” Oron struggled against his captors.
The oramiral’s face dropped and his lips parted. The shock changed his features. For once, he looked weak, unsure. He swallowed. “Truly?”
Crossing the room to me, Berker tapped my leg with his shoe. “Did you think you would get away with this, scrapper?”
I wasn’t about to tell them it was Calev’s hand who struck the amir down. If I could convince Berker and the oramiral that I took Calev against his will, at dagger-point, I could get him out. He could still get away and take Avi with him. If Berker didn’t recognize my sister. I didn’t think he’d ever had the chance to see her. I’d try to get Ekrem and Serhat out of it too, and Oron. I always had been fantastic with lies.
“I almost escaped,” I said proudly.
He sniffed. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh no? I coerced my first mate, an Old Farm, and two fighters into thinking the amir had gone mad and attacked me first and that you wouldn’t believe me. That if I could get away to the oramiral and tell my story, we would set things right. I’m a good liar. It was only the tangle of the oramiral mistakingly taking the Old Farm’s Intended as a slave that tripped me up.”
Hopefully, Berker and the oramiral wouldn’t begin figuring the days or order in which the events happened.
Narrowing his eyes, Berker leaned closer. His breath smelled like fish and tatlilav left in the sun. “Where is that sister you were so determined to rescue?”
This was the hitch. He knew why I’d set out with the amir to the lost island of silver.
“She’s dead. We came for both her and Calev’s Intended. We infiltrated this horrible island, set a fire as distraction, and broke into the old castle fortress. We saw my sister…” I shuddered for effect and nudged the gash on my lip to increase my pain and wash the color from my face. I stared at Berker. “She was dead in a corner. We took up Calev’s Intended and used wings of cloth to glide to the sea.”
“Is this a child’s sleeping mat? Am I to believe this outrageous nighttime story?” He turned to the oramiral.
“It is true, Kaptan Berker. Parts of it, at the least.” The oramiral’s lip twitched, and he touched the jeweled dagger that sat once again in his sash. “They sailed through the air on framed cloth supports. It was a wonder. Too bad she will die for it. She is rather clever. And quirky.”
Berker raised his eyebrows.
“She asked for torture.” The oramiral grinned, turning my stomach.
I swallowed bile and cold sweat washed over my back and face. My arm throbbed, but I focused on Berker’s face, on the oramiral’s. They had to believe this.
“And Ekrem and Serhat.” I nodded at the fighters. “They were persuaded to help me because of
their duty to the kyros’s law. To the agreement between the Empire and Old Farm. In the face of the amir going mad, they felt they had to help Calev. That he was their duty. And the tiny man…”
Oron flinched, but I kept on, guilt gutting me.
“The dwarf is a fool. He believes anything anyone tells him.”
“Why bring him along at all?” the oramiral snapped.
Maybe if I spun this well, Oron could find a life here. It wouldn’t be one he liked, but a bad life is still better than none at all.
“Because he works the lines like he was born to it,” I said. “You’d take him too if you knew his skills. He’s the one who designed the gliders. He is dull as a training blade when it comes to people and facts and lies, but with mechanics, he’s a genius.”
Oron squeezed his eyes shut. Tears ran from under his lids and his chest heaved.
The oramiral clapped his hands, his face grave. “In light of the developments then, I hand this criminal to you.” He pointed at me. “Slaves ten and twenty-three, take the Old Farm and his Intended to Jakobden.”
The slaves shuffled Calev and Avi toward the door.
Avi sobbed. “Kinneret!”
Keep your tongue, Sister. Keep quiet. Don’t give yourself away. The prayer went around and around in my thoughts like a miller’s wheel. I stood and looked at her, tears burning the cut at my mouth. I nodded once curtly, not wanting to ruin my lie. Her mouth opened and she went limp, fainting in the slave’s grip. He scooped her up and took her through the door, into the light.
Calev twisted in the slaves’ clutches, his eyes a lightning bolt into mine. It was as if he was saying No. I won’t let you do this.
I knew my Calev. I knew his thoughts as well as I knew my own. He would get Avi home, even if it meant my death. He knew what that meant to me, to both of us. But he would do everything in his power, to his last breath, to get back to this island before they killed me, and pull me out of the flames.
I know, I mouthed. A sad smile pulled at my cut. Blood, hot and salty, poured over my lips and down my chin. Our gazes locked and flames washed through my skin, my muscles tensing. His eyes were brighter, darker, more alive than anyone else’s. I love you.
While Berker and the oramiral convened, the slaves tried to jerk Calev out of the door, but he turned quick and freed one arm, enough to give him a second to mouth back.
I will come for you. I will return.
They pulled him away and he was gone.
I fell to my knees, relief a sweet taste on my tongue. I could withstand anything if I could see them safe, as well as Oron and the fighters.
Ekrem and Serhat could handle themselves in the trial. Because that’s surely what Berker would do. He would have to take them back to Jakobden. There was no avoiding it, but after all this, they could handle it with the story I’d given them. Serhat wouldn’t want to lie, but Ekrem would lead her where she needed to go. He would slip them both past death, at least. They’d be tortured, but not killed. Ekrem would see to it. He was a survivor. I knew when I saw one, because I was one too.
Until now.
Now I was a sacrifice.
My heart settled into the role. Someone had to take the blame for the amir’s death. And if Calev had spoken up, we’d all have suffered the worst of what Berker and the oramiral could think up. It had to be me. It made sense.
“Little man,” the oramiral said. “I will take you myself, as payment for my trouble. I could use a fine sailor on my full ship. And I want a set of gliders. They would be rather diverting, I think. Berker, I assume you must take the two fighters who aided in this with you to face trial in Jakobden.”
Berker was rubbing his chin, one arm tucked under the other. He hadn’t yet fully swallowed the hook. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I suppose so.”
His gaze flicked to Oron, who’d gone white around the mouth. Oron stared at the flat stones beneath the oramiral’s curved-toe slippers.
Berker’s eyes widened. “It’s all settled then. I won’t need to take this girl back. She killed the amir. Coerced the amir’s fighters and an Old Farm into breaking the law. She will die now. But first, first I think, she should prove her dagger skills to us. There should be a test of her ability.”
The oramiral frowned. “Why do we care how she is with a dagger?”
But I knew. My heart iced over. If they saw how weak I was with the weapon, they’d know there was no way I could surprise and murder the amir. The amir had been the sharpest of fighters in her youth. Though she’d been older when Calev killed her, she was still fast. She’d still had her fighter’s sense. If I couldn’t prove myself with a dagger, this entire rescue mission would very quickly spin into the abyss like a sucking whirlpool, taking all my loved ones with it.
Maybe if I simply showed confidence now, they would leave off the test.
I stood, my head spinning and my wounds growling and burning. “I’ll do it.” I smiled and let the cut rip open wider. Blood spilled down my chin and I knew I looked as evil as I needed to look. “I love to show off in front of high-caste weaklings.”
Berker’s gasp was a nice little gift even though my stomach tried to crawl out of my mouth.
The oramiral shook his head. “She is wonderful. Now let us find a suitable spot for this test.”
Berker nodded and started out the door with the oramiral at his side.
THE WHITE WALLS of the quarry blinded me, the dust coating my throat and my teeth. The sun poured onto my head like molten gold, all the beauty taken and replaced with scorching heat. Sweat ran along my temples and rose from the crooks in my arms as I followed Berker and the oramiral. Their men marched behind us. Their faces didn’t give away whether they believed I’d killed the amir or not. They might not care. The amir never did anything for them. She allowed the oramiral to take whomever he chose as a slave.
Like someone needed burning after death, we were a double-line of grim-faced mourners headed into the very belly of the place that had been my sister’s nightmare.
I twisted to find her in the crowd. Two large, gray-shirted slaves stood at her sides. One held her arm with spindly fingers. She leaned toward him like he was a friend rather than a captor. Made sense. She was probably still so weak. Bile rose in my throat. Monsters. All of them. My poor little Avi. I gave her a sad smile and she blinked like a sweet, tiny owl with wings that had been plucked naked.
I breathed out my nose, trying to keep my rage in check, to keep my story believable. She was my friend’s Intended. Not my sister. It was the only way she’d get out of here alive.
Berker’s gaze scanned the faces around me. I wished he’d get on with this. I was either going to pass the test or not. Freedom for Avi and Calev or the end for us all.
Standing around frying to death wasn’t going to change the situation.
“I’m here. You have the dagger. What else do you need?” My arm thumped with the rhythm of my heart. “Should I put on a new skirt and do a little twirl?”
Berker’s eyes went dead. “I’m looking for your target.”
Despite the heat, a chill gnawed at my bones.
Calev stepped up and put himself between Berker and her. “I’ll be the target.”
I couldn’t move.
But it was probably good I was frozen. Berker’s dead eyes and oddly quiet voice told me his mood was like the first kyros’s fireblooms, a technology lost in time. The old stories said when Quest knights rode over the silent explosives waiting under the road’s dust, they didn’t have time to scream before the sudden flash ate them whole. Berker was waiting like that, biding time to explode.
“Fine,” Berker said. He pointed to the far wall of the quarry. “Stand there, if you would, Calev ben Y’hoshua.”
He said Calev’s full name like it was a curse. Stupid man. If he knew anything, he’d make sure not to say the name, the name that brought all kinds of luck down on us. A cruel grin tugged at my lips.
“Old Farms are so brave!” the oramiral shouted,
and clapped his hands like an idiot. “I hope your aim is good, sailor!”
Because Calev volunteered himself, they had to go along with it.
“Now,” Berker said to me. He handed me a dagger, the amir’s jeweled dagger and the same that had killed her, and also, a fig.
“Um, kind of you to offer refreshment, but I can’t say I’m overly hungry.”
“You will place the fig,” he walked toward me, “on your lover’s head,” he whispered. His breath smelled like old butter and sour wine. “You will spear it with the blade from thirty paces.”
I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t have the skill.
I would kill Calev right here, right now.
“And,” I coughed, “and if I don’t?” If I can’t?
Berker smiled. “You’ll all be put to death. I think you may be protecting the Old Farm.”
I forced my voice not to shake. “Why would he kill the amir?”
“That I don’t know. But she was a trained fighter. Seasoned. You are a dock rat. The Old Farm and the two fighting sailors with you are the only ones who could’ve done it. Since you’re lying about your sister, you’re doing all of this to protect them both. It has convinced the oramiral. But not me. Failing in this test will convince the oramiral of the truth.”
One question bumped against my lips, forcing its way out. “Why do you say my mother was a liar?”
“Your parents and I tested for release on the same day. Your witch of a mother lied to the masters, claiming your father solved our group’s assigned problem instead of me. The apprentice masters gave your father and mother the last two spots, and I slaved here for three more years.” He spat at my feet.
I tried to hold myself calm, to still my trembling bones, but my teeth chattered. Was he lying? It felt true, though my heart fought the story. My mother had betrayed him and saved my father. After seeing the slave island with my own eyes, I understood some of his venom.
But even if it was true, this wasn’t justice.
“I am not my mother.”
“No. But when I hurt you, I am closer to feeling satisfied. This is your penance. Your family wronged me.”
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 27