Shoving past Berker, I stormed toward Calev.
My throat caught at the courage in his eyes.
“You can do this, Kinneret,” he whispered, no idea that my world had tipped into madness. “I’ll save Avi. I’ll come back. Old Farm will not stand for this. I won’t let them.”
He’d need a boatload of silver to talk anyone into saving anyone from the oramiral, especially if Berker ended up in a power position. Which, as the amir’s kaptan, he would. He might even secure the position of amir himself. I shuddered.
My hand shook as I placed the tiny fig on Calev’s head. It took every shred of my willpower not to touch his face as my hand lowered. One last touch. One last lightning bolt of joy.
“Berker knows,” I said.
“He’ll be paid. I’ll make certain Old Farm deals well with him. If he remembers that someday I will most likely take the chairman position, he will enjoy having this to hold over me.”
I swallowed. It wouldn’t be a happy life for Calev. Especially if Berker bought his way to being the amir. He’d have the silver from Ayarazi, and buying people and power was the Jakobden way.
“I will see you soon, then,” I said to Calev, my stomach churning.
Calev blinked and a tear ran from his eye. “Soon, my fire.”
I grew taller, stronger. I flexed my hand, fisted it, and pressed it against my thigh instead of my heart so no one else would see my declaration of love for Calev. My fire.
His lips tucked into a quick grin. My mouth longed to kiss his, to press into the feel and smell and strength of him. I took a heavy, deep breath of the dusty air.
“Sailor,” Berker called out behind me. “Now.”
The cuts on my arm and mouth throbbed as I put steel around my heart, walked thirty paces back, and threw the knife.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The clouds hung in the sky. The waves didn’t smash even though the sea cliffs were close by. The birds froze, suspended above us. The dagger rushed through the space between Calev and me. It was a tear in the colors of the world, a flash, an opening to the white, hot torture of knowing I’d killed my best friend, my love.
The weapon’s arc bent.
I’d missed.
It was going to hit him directly in the eye. Immediate death.
In that moment of a frozen world, when nothing but the dagger moved, I aged one thousand years. I was an old woman. My body was thin and insubstantial as chaff. Crevices marred my smooth skin, a line for every pain, every crime, every tragedy of my life. Mother. Father. Avi. Oron. Calev. The lines went on and on, from my eyes, along my cheek, to my neck and knobbed hands. But my eyes remained clear. It was my penance in that eternity of a moment—to see Calev’s red-brown eyes and the trust glowing from them the moment before I killed him.
“I’m sorry.”
His thick eyelashes lowered slowly, so slowly, then lifted again as the dagger landed.
My heart screamed. He wasn’t dead. I’d missed wide, but only by a hand. It was enough to prove my lie. Maybe.
Calev’s eyes widened. Scooping the fig from his head, he turned to look where the dagger had landed, far to the left.
All my energy poured out of me and I fought to stay standing.
Calev was alive. I hadn’t killed him.
Giving me a solemn nod, Calev started toward the crowd like all was settled. Hopefully, he’d find Avi and stay with her. I wanted them off this disgusting island now. Yesterday. My head buzzed.
“Well done,” Berker said, face void of any emotion. He glanced at two fighting sailors—one stocky, the other with hair like a cactus. “Tie her. Neck to wrists. Wrists to ankles. She has a meeting with the sea.”
An invisible battle axe chopped at my temples and the base of my skull. The buzzing grew louder.
It was time to die.
Please, I prayed. If I must become a Salt Wraith, make me a weak one, unable to harm.
I had to let go of my vengeance. If my heart clenched the hot anger for Tuz Golge for Infusing Calev, the oramiral for taking my sister, Berker for…everything, I’d have the power to Infuse masses and cause the death of countless innocents.
The spiky-haired fighter wrapped coconut rope around my wrists, making a slipknot. Had he realized how easy it would be for me to get out of that? Of course, where would I go?
The fighter glanced over his shoulder at Berker as he gave the ends of the rope to the other fighter, who wove them around my neck. The men tied my ankles. Another slipknot. The rope scratched at my skin as I turned to search for Avi and Calev.
Calev was looking left and right. The wind lifted his hair as he scowled at Berker.
“Where is my Intended?” Calev asked.
My skin itched with worry and the rough texture of the fibers. The man holding onto Oron’s arm pushed him through the other belled slaves and the large group of leather-clothed fighting sailors.
Oron stood in front of the oramiral and Berker, and I frowned.
My first mate gave me an odd look, then faced our captors. “Kinneret Raza did not kill the amir. Calev ben Y’hoshua did.”
A spear of ice gored me. “No!”
I lunged toward Oron, but the fighters held me. I had to stop him, shake sense into him.
“What?” The oramiral bent toward Oron, but Berker put a hand on his chest.
“What are you saying, dwarf?” Berker said, eyes narrowed.
“Don’t worry, Kinneret,” Oron said. “Avigail is off the island.”
“He’s lying!” I struggled against the men’s grip.
Oron swallowed loudly, his eyes watery. “I can’t allow you to die for Calev, Kinneret. You’re too important, too bright, to die for a crime you didn’t commit.”
My mind would not soak in his words. This had to be a nightmare. I was asleep. This wasn’t happening.
“Silence!” Berker waved a hand toward the ground and the slave shoved Oron to his knees.
The men holding me did the same and I hit the ground hard.
“Avigail left with Ekrem and Serhat,” Oron said.
Berker smacked him and spit flew from Oron’s mouth.
The oramiral straightened and put hands on his hips. “Are you saying the two disloyal fighting sailors escaped? They took the Old Farm’s Intended?” He looked to Berker. “Someone please tell me what is happening here.”
Berker grabbed Oron by the hair. “Explain.”
Oron’s throat moved and lines of moisture ran down his face. “They escaped. So they wouldn’t suffer when I told you the truth. The Old Farm,” he said it with spite, like he’d never cared for Calev at all, like Calev was a stranger, not a friend, “he was Infused when he stabbed the amir. He did it. Not Kinneret. Kinneret is innocent. Calev ben Y’hoshua coerced us all to help him. With his high position, none of us dared oppose the man.”
“No…” I realized then I was sobbing. Avi, Ekrem, and Serhat were safe. But Oron? Calev? They were doomed now. Their deaths showed in Berker’s shining black eyes.
Berker grew very, very still.
“What should we do?” he hissed.
The oramiral raised his eyebrows and touched his head, lost.
With a single clap of hands that jolted me, Berker said, “I’m finished here. Throw them all into the sea. And catch the fugitives.” He scanned the crowd. “Or I’ll throw you all in the sea along with them.”
Bells clanking, slaves and fighters grabbed Calev. They dragged us toward the opening in the quarry.
In the crush of sweating bodies, confused murmurs, and the oramiral’s shouted commands to make for the cliffs, I found myself within arm’s length of Calev, though bound as I was I couldn’t reach for him.
A wrinkle appeared between his eyes under his blue headtie. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told them right away, but Avigail—”
“You were saving her.” My throat tried to close around my sobs. “Don’t apologize. But…but they’ll catch Avi. They haven’t had enough sun to escape far enough away yet.
Do you think…think maybe your father has sent ships out to look for you yet? Maybe if they find them first…maybe…this is all my fault. All of it. My recklessness and going after the silver and—”
Calev’s jaw worked, and his eyes bored into mine. “None of this is your fault. You wanted the silver to change your caste, to improve your life, Oron’s, and Avigail’s. That’s noble. That’s a dream worth risk. If anything, this is all my fault. If only I’d moved faster the night Tuz Golge…” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
I stumbled on a rock and the fighter holding me pulled me up before I could fall, my wounds stinging.
“I…” Calev was the picture of misery. “I love you, Kinneret.”
My heart blazed.
Oron appeared at my side. “As touching as that was, the whole death-confession-moment is entirely unnecessary.”
“What?” I choked and coughed dust out of my throat.
Oron shrugged, one slave still holding his arm. The slave grinned.
“We just needed another moment. And a nice distraction. The slaves and the fighting sailors,” Oron said, “are going to rise up against Berker.”
I froze. My captors pulled me onward.
Calev’s mouth dropped open. “When?”
“What do we need to do?” I searched the faces of the men and women around us, but none gave up the game.
Oron licked his chapped lips. “When they take you to the cliff’s edge, call up some of your fine Salt Magic, my kaptan.” He grinned.
Nothing was funny.
“Don’t scowl at me, sweet,” he said. “I do think you’re too special—”
“That’s not why—”
“I think if you’re going to die, it should be for one of the many fantastic crimes you actually have committed. It’s a shame to take the handsome one’s single chance at infamy.”
Calev looked offended. “Single chance? I’ve committed as many crimes as Kinneret. What about falling for a low-caste?”
“Oh, that’s not worthy of infamy really,” Oron said. “You’ve missed the good crimes. Kinneret never takes you along for the truly spectacular infractions.”
Calev’s gaze went to me.
My mouth snapped open, my cut pinching at me. “We don’t have the sun—”
Calev interrupted. “What have you done without me?”
I threw my head back. “Fire and Sea, give me patience. Just a few pre-harvest opening runs up the northern coast. Nothing that should be illegal. Now where exactly is my sister?”
Before Oron could answer, we were at the cliffs.
The wind, salty and carrying grit, buffeted my body. The slaves and fighters pushed us toward the edge. My foot kicked a clump of sandy dirt from its grassy perch. The earth fell until it disappeared into the roiling waves and angry rocks below. If the men and women around us were making a show of this, they were certainly convincing.
Calev and Oron tugged and jerked as slaves tied their wrists, ankles, and necks, as mine were. Berker and the oramiral slithered around the right side of the group. The oramiral crossed his arms and smiled like this was all a fantastic bit of entertainment. Both his and Berker’s tunics waved in the wind—yellow, black, and red.
“I, Kaptan Berker Deniz, declare you, Calev ben Y’hoshua, as killer of Amir Mamluk of Jakobden of the Broken Coast. I declare you, Oron No Name, and you, Kinneret Raza, as conspirators in this man’s terrible plan. I give you to the sea.”
I didn’t have salt for magic and if I did, I couldn’t grab it. My wrists were still bound. Why hadn’t they untied me on our walk here? Too risky? So I was meant to be the final distraction. If I created a spectacle, the slaves and fighting sailors could hit Berker, the oramiral, and those loyal to him as they looked on.
The tallest of the slaves eyed me and held Calev over the cliff’s edge.
Calev simply closed his eyes.
The muscles in his arms were relaxed and his lips moved in what I guessed was a silent prayer. I couldn’t believe how calm he was.
Then he looked at me, and I knew.
He was calm, because he believed I could pull this off. That I could make magic happen and save us all. Respect. He respected me. I wasn’t just the one he joked or played pranks with, the person he kissed for fun. He was following my lead.
I laughed.
The people around me frowned like I’d gone mad.
But I was happy, not crazed.
Calev had been following my lead this entire journey. I’d only now seen it. He did love me. And he respected me, believed in me.
I wasn’t about to disappoint him.
I chanted under my breath, fast and sharp, as I dug salt from under my fingernails.
“The Fire and the sea listen,
Listen please to me.
Your chosen prays
Along with me.”
My eyes flicked to Calev, whose beautiful lips whispered.
“Lift the winds,
Bring them from the waves,
Bring them high to shield us.
With your power, crash,
Arise, blast across this field.
Remind all who made this sea
And the magic in it.”
I stared out at the Pass. A spot on the horizon flattened into a watery sheen, like an air-filled sail. It grew toward us, spreading out and on until the sea below the cliff didn’t hold a single wrinkle.
It was wind. Sheering across the water. Rising.
The massive gust roared up the cliff and threw Calev and me back, showering everyone in sea spray.
I laughed as Berker shouted, “Salt Witch!” and the oramiral’s tunic tangled him, a fancy net around a surprised fish.
The slaves and fighters rose to standing. They’d been prepared, prepped, for this distraction. Their yatagans, axes, and daggers flashed as they turned on their masters, and those few still loyal to them, with wild howls.
Calev had somehow snagged a dagger and, already freed by a stranger, was running toward me with a face of grim determination.
A fighter cut Oron loose, and he turned to see the oramiral’s yatagan slicing down. Oron spun.
Before I could shuffle to Calev to shorten his spring, a hand grabbed the rope connecting my neck to my wrists and ankles.
Berker’s face leaned into mine.
“Kinneret!” Calev was almost to me when a yellow-tunic wearing slave flung a hand at him. Calev blocked the strike and moved to hit the man.
Berker twisted the rope holding me. My neck burned. Pressure built in my head.
I was choking.
“Your magic won’t save you today, witch,” he said.
I fumbled with the rope, trying to breathe, to get even a second of air. I brought my knee up like Calev had at the oramiral’s house. It connected with Berker’s groin and he growled.
He shoved me off the cliff.
CHAPTER FORTY
The air tore at my cheeks and eyelashes, my clothing, and hands as I tumbled through nothing. I was headed for rocks or water. Couldn’t tell which. If I submerged tied, it wouldn’t matter. I would drown. I would still become a wraith.
Fevered, I tucked my thumbs and tried to work my hands free. The rope bit into my skin as I squeezed and pulled and fell.
One hand slipped free.
I pried the other loose, pain lashing over my cut flesh. Straightening, I threw both hands over my head and arched my back to find blue, to find the water, to aim.
And then I was swaddled in the cool blanket of the sea. My head thudded, the deeper water pressing painfully against my eardrums. Green-blue surrounded me. Where was the surface? My lungs screamed for air.
Then luminescence like melted butter slid into view to my left. My ankles still tied, I drove both legs through the water like a fish would, kicking toward the light. I rolled my torso and let a wave of movement course down my body, to my legs. My feet were a tail, a fin.
The light grew.
My lungs sparked and shivered.
I broke the surface with a gasp and swallowed in air, perfect, wonderful air.
Swimming as best I could, I used the movement of the current to drive toward a large rock at the shore. I heard so many noises, broken by the water’s sloshing around me. This was taking too long.
Still, I swam. And swam.
I pushed toward the rock, the current helping for a breath, then hauling me out again.
It’d been so long since I fell. My limbs shook with fatigue. If I didn’t get to the rock soon and out of the water, I’d miss it all. The battle would already be won or lost.
A heavy swell rose and I went with it, grasping, reaching until my fingers found the nearest rock. The wave crashed and I tucked my head to my shoulder to avoid being bashed senseless against the unforgiving island. Grasping the mussel littered rock, I pulled myself up and scrambled onto the sand. Finally.
Calev. Avi. Oron.
Sheltered by man-sized rocks, I used an emptied oyster shell to cut the rest of my ties. Navigating the rough shore along the cliff’s base, I searched the beach for the way back up. The sun had moved. I’d wasted so much light.
“Kinneret!”
I whipped around to face the sea and there, among some wide, flat rocks, under the graying sky, sat a boat with yellow, slack sails. One of the oramiral’s, half beached, a hole in its side. Avi huddled near the boat’s rope ladder. Her arms shook as she tried to pull back the string on a crossbow. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
On the black and gold sand near the boat, Ekrem, Serhat, Calev, and Oron fought men and women in yellow tunics. The oramiral’s personal slaves. Ekrem’s yatagan and Serhat’s battle axe lashed through the air at their attackers. Calev’s dagger was a minnow again. The knife cut the yellow-garbed slave here and there and there again as the slave barely managed glancing blows to Calev’s shoulder and arm.
Another fighter—no, it was the oramiral himself—raged down the hill toward Avi. His silken clothing billowed and his mouth leaked blood as he grinned at Avi. His yatagan flashed in the sun.
Ekrem had his opponent on his knees at the prow of the craft. Soon, he’d be free to fight, but not soon enough to save Avi.
Waters of Salt and Sin: Uncommon World Book One Page 28