by Sara Raasch
Cansu grinned. “Wait, your mother is Kari the Wave? You make so much more sense now.”
A swell of pride made Lu soften. “Do we agree, then? Your raiders will infiltrate Pilkvist’s crews and wait for information on Argrid and Ibarra, and I will return to New Deza to get what I can from the Council.”
“With us,” Vex added. Lu looked at him, surprised, but he smiled. “How do you think you’re gonna get to New Deza? We’ll take you.”
Edda darkened. “I don’t like the idea of you going somewhere without me for protection. Who knows how the situation in New Deza might change? How many days can you spare? Give me some time on Pilkvist’s crew. Three days. Maybe four. Let me see what news I can get before you go traipsing off into danger.”
“Can we wait that long?” Vex pressed.
Lu thought. “Cansu—can you have one of your raiders run a letter to my mother while we’re here? As soon as possible. One raider will surely travel faster than we could, anyway—but I will get to New Deza as quickly as Edda allows.”
Cansu waved her hand in agreement and made for the hatch. “Consider it done. I’ll get my raiders on their parts now.”
She paused, and her attention went for one soft moment to Nayeli.
Were those tears in Nayeli’s eyes or just a shadow? But she was smiling, the only one on deck who looked happy.
Cansu briefly returned her smile and disappeared into the hatch.
When Cansu was gone, Vex turned to Edda. “You think you can find Ibarra in three days? I still don’t like waiting here.”
He bounced on his feet, driven to movement by the same anxiety Lu felt wrapping around her lungs.
“The time would be good, actually,” Lu said for Edda. “Edda will have access to a lot of botanical magic. She can get me what plants I need to start working on your cure.”
Nayeli grinned. “Aw, Lu doesn’t want you to die!”
“I’m not that sick yet,” Vex said. “Besides, seeing Argrid defeated will do me more good than any cure.”
“The cure will help others across Grace Loray, too, though,” Edda added. “It’ll undo a lot of the pain Argrid has inflicted. It isn’t just about you, dear Captain. Lu’s thinking about the bigger problems, like she always does.”
Lu’s blush deepened in shame. Edda’s words were true—but in the moment, Lu had been concerned only with saving Vex. The simplicity of being able to help him felt so much better, so much less immense, than all their other plans.
Of course the cure for Shaking Sickness would bring healing to others on Grace Loray. Of course it would contradict more of Argrid’s influence. Lu should have realized that. Selfishly, she had wanted to do something small and easy and pure, for once in her life.
“I can start working now,” Lu said, pushing through. “I’ll need plants, though, and a work space to make the tonics. Do you know what plants the Church gave you?” she asked Vex.
“Does it matter?”
“Very much.”
He rolled his eye. “Of course it does.”
“There are plants that can help with remembering. Bright Mint, for instance.” Lu’s mind started flying through possibilities, various plants and what supplies she would need.
She could cure Vex. She wanted to cure him, and as soon as she let herself admit that desire, it filled every hollow part of her body.
She would not have to watch another person she cared about die of Shaking Sickness.
Vex grinned. Lu realized she had muttered the last part aloud.
Her eyes widened and she yanked her hand off his arm. He pointed at her, grinning. “You care about me?” he sang. “Oh, I knew this would happen. I’m not sure I have the energy for an errant love affair, so cure me first; then we can talk about—”
“I’ll be belowdecks,” Lu snapped, but her statement made him—and Nayeli, and even Edda—hoot with laughter. “No! I meant— Oh, you’re impossible.”
Lu swung for the hatch, but compared to the utter misery that had choked her earlier, this happiness felt far too good to let go of.
Her lips rose in a slow smile. “Even if I did mean for you to follow me belowdecks, Devereux, I doubt you would know the first thing about pleasing a woman of my class.”
She dropped down the hatch amid jeers and a groan of defeat from Vex. The noises muffled in the hall, and Lu paused, willing this to be all she focused on. This respite let her pretend that laughter was the only thing ahead and behind. That war was not brewing. That she had not decided to press on in search of Milo Ibarra.
But now, when Milo was brought to the Council, an unaligned criminal would not be the one returning him—a whole syndicate would. It would not merely prove the raiders’ innocence; it would set the course for a unified country of the Council and raiders. It would create a nation of acceptance.
Lu’s eyes lifted to the hatch. She smiled and headed for the room where Teo slept.
26
THE SHIPS ELAZAR chose to take were galleons in the older style, with masts and sails. Elazar’s ship, Ben’s, plus three war brigantines made a small armada as they left Deza, gliding into the Ovidic Ocean. The sails would take about a week longer to reach Grace Loray, and these ships were typically used for ceremonial purposes, so it was unsurprising that Elazar told Ben, “It isn’t for speed, Benat—we sail these ships to remind the islanders of the time we walked hand in hand with them on Grace Loray’s shores.”
Before the war. Before the Church seized control of the island and started its mission to purify it. Lifetimes ago.
Ben’s ship was the Astuto. Cunning. Elazar’s, the Desapiadado. Ruthless.
Ben stood on the forecastle deck of the Astuto, elbows on the railing, head lifted to let the ocean breeze pick through his hair. They’d filled the past hours with packing, planning, and tying off loose ends in Deza. Ben had been grateful for every task, mundane things to keep him busy.
Now everything was still.
“We’re to meet your father’s suppliers off the southern coast of Grace Loray.” Jakes’s voice didn’t make him turn. “They will have more plants for your tonics.”
“Who are these suppliers?”
“He didn’t say.”
The ship reeled. Ben pulled in a lungful of salty air, willing his face to stay stoic as he gazed at the blue horizon. “I haven’t given you your assignment for the voyage,” he told Jakes.
“Ben—”
“You take liberties, Defensor.”
“Don’t do that.” Jakes grabbed Ben’s arm and forced him to turn. “I told your father what he asked me to report, but my heart was always yours first. I obeyed him because he is my king, and his vision will bring about the change the world needs. The change my family believed in before they died.” Jakes drew in a breath, his voice quaking when Ben looked away. “It’s what you want, too, Ben—I didn’t do anything that you don’t also—”
“You told me you joined the defensors to serve the Pious God,” Ben said. He could dismiss his nausea as seasickness, not his own repulsion at himself. “It should please you to know that the task I have for you now came to me from the Pious God himself. It is your holy, ordained mission.”
Jakes stayed quiet. He kept his hand around Ben’s arm, and Ben didn’t push him away.
“You served quite effectively as my father’s spy. That role will continue—Defensor Rayen, you will now be an intermediary between my father and myself. I will send for you when I have need to transport messages to the king.”
“You can’t be—”
“After this voyage, you may choose any post you like—as long as it is not in my household.”
“Ben—”
Ben glared at him, the first time he had looked at Jakes with anything other than adoration. It didn’t destroy him as he’d expected—he was too furious for that.
Jakes pulled on his arm, trying to draw him closer. Ben shoved him away.
“Do not expect to entertain the same freedoms you have previously enjoyed,”
Ben stated. “You have proven fit for one position while in my employ, and that is to spread information to others. The Pious God rewards those who exercise abstinence, and we became far too practiced at sin, Defensor. This is punishment for our meaningless indulgences.”
He choked on his words.
It wasn’t meaningless. Not to me.
Ben stalked away. The moment his eyes left Jakes, his fury fizzled out. In its place came aching, destructive sorrow.
He’d been a fool to think . . . to feel. . . .
And Elazar had used that. He’d taken advantage of Ben, a violation that crawled up from the recesses of Ben’s soul and dragged disgust along every nerve.
Ben reeled down the stairs to the Astuto’s main deck, scrambling across the wood for the center hatch. He dropped below, dove behind a pillar in the second-deck hall, and retched up everything he’d managed to eat since his entire world had overturned.
He hadn’t had time to feel any of this. They had moved from Grace Neus holding cells to the palace to the docks, Jakes with him, Elazar leaving to oversee his own preparations. Now it crashed into Ben, every memory of Jakes warping so he saw Elazar there too, sneering at his son, who could be manipulated by a pretty face, a soft touch.
All those days of Ben letting himself hope. All those moments thinking he could save Argrid and not live a lie. But the future that awaited him was in scheming, making sacrifices of himself for small, weak victories over Elazar.
He had to be hard. He had to not feel. He had to be his father’s son.
“My prince?”
It was a different defensor. Jakes hadn’t followed him.
Ben dropped against the pillar, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes?”
“All is prepared as you asked.”
Ben wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Wanting to retch again. Wanting to dissolve.
He straightened his blue tunic and nodded for the defensor to show him the way.
They’d set up his laboratory on the Astuto’s middle deck. The room was long and narrow, with two portholes giving light alongside encased lanterns. A table lined the back wall; cupboards were locked and stocked with vials, jars, extra necessities, bought with the last of the Mecht’s aid money. A crate held the plants his father had ordered for him.
Ben’s final request was here as well. The true request—everything else had been to cover this one foolish hope.
In the middle of the room, the Mecht warrior sat on a chair, chains across his chest with his wrists shackled to the rear legs. A muzzle again covered his mouth, and two defensors, pistols drawn as though the man might break loose on a whim, flanked him.
“Give me the keys to his bindings, and you are dismissed,” Ben told the guards.
One of the defensors gave a look of horror. “My prince, I do not advise releasing—”
“How else am I to uncover the secrets of his magic?”
“Then we will stay. For your protection.”
“I hardly think so.” Ben stepped up to the Mecht. “Is he dangerous? Yes. But we are on a wooden ship, so unless he’s suicidal, I do not believe he would risk open flames. Anyway, this man is in the beginning stages of recanting. He will not displease the Pious God. Will you?”
Ben looked at him. The Mecht’s eyebrows drew together.
“See? I’ll be quite safe, Defensor,” Ben said as though the Mecht had agreed. “I would not subject anyone to the work I do. I do not ask you to stay. The Pious God has tasked me alone with this mission. If I require your assistance, I will give the order.”
The defensors bowed and handed Ben the keys. As the door closed behind them, Ben undid the Mecht’s muzzle.
“You could have made things difficult for me,” Ben told him. “Thank you.”
The Mecht gave him a disdainful look.
Ben leaned against the table, eyes on the keys that he bounced in his hand. The temperature of the room increased, or perhaps it was Ben’s expectation, thinking the Mecht infected the air around him with heat.
“What do you want?” the Mecht finally asked. “I have not accepted recanting.”
“You haven’t recanted. You don’t ‘accept recanting.’”
The Mecht snorted as though to say, You want to talk about grammar?
Ben smiled, but it was a frail expression. He closed his fingers around the keys.
“My father wishes me to create permanent tonics, as the Mechts have created with Eye of the Sun,” Ben said.
The Mecht’s blue eyes narrowed, their color intensifying. Ben had never seen that in anyone else, eyes that changed with a person’s mood.
“I. Will. Not. Help. You.” The Mecht spoke each word with lethal precision. “Your priests think to break me with torture. It did not work. You will not work either.”
Blood drained from Ben’s head. “They tortured you? How?”
The Mecht fell silent.
Ben shoved away from the table. “It doesn’t matter.” It does it does it does. “My father wants these tonics. The Church backs him. Argrid will rejoice in a weapon ordained by the Pious God to wipe out our enemies and reclaim Argrid’s glory.”
As Ben spoke, the Mecht’s breathing escalated, smoke streaming from his nose. Ben doubted his certainty that the Mecht wouldn’t unleash his hellfire on a wooden ship.
Ben shifted around the chair and unlocked the Mecht’s bindings, speaking as he worked. “I don’t want to know how to make magic permanent. But my father will expect results, and I’m smart enough that I would, one day, figure it out. You know how to make magic permanent—so I need you to stop me. If I get too close, redirect me. Don’t tell me why. I need to make it look convincing, as if I’m trying, until I can . . .”
There his great plan ended. He could go back to his one feeble idea, to make the healing potion and give it to the Argridian people, explaining that it was magic, and not the Church, that healed them. But he didn’t have enough support, not with Elazar watching so closely. One Heretic Prince could not bring down his father and the Church, and convince a devout country to change their ways. Elazar would have him burned the moment Ben started to contradict him.
Ben needed time—and this would buy him some.
The Mecht rose from the chair, rubbing his wrists. He still wore his old clothes, tattered and stained, but he smelled more like fire than like he’d spent weeks in a cell. Ben stood behind his chair, and the Mecht turned, his expression hard.
“I can’t trust anyone in my whole goddamn country,” Ben said. “Which is why you’re here. You hate me, and I trust that more than I trust the people around me who claim to serve the Pious God.”
The Mecht allowed himself one beat of surprise before his anger returned, stronger. A single flame licked his lips. “This is a trick.”
“I understand you have no reason to believe otherwise. But it isn’t. Help me, and I can ensure you won’t return to a Church holding cell. I can make a case to spare the rest of your crew.”
The Mecht shrugged. “Kill them. Free them. I do not care. I bought passage on that ship with service, not loyalty. I joined when they traded off the Mechtland southern coast.”
Ben remembered then—the captain of the Mecht ship, telling the defensors in Deza that this man was not part of their crew, and the Church could have him.
“Then I know that you intended to get off that ship a free man,” Ben said. “You’ll need to recant. Make it look like you’re a servant of the Pious God now, so you can move about freely.”
The Mecht took a large step back. “A trick. I knew it.”
“Not a trick. A lie. To survive.”
“I would rather die with truth than survive with lies.”
Ben’s exhaustion had been keeping him in a state of thoughtless movement. But here this man clung to integrity like Ben was some self-righteous monxe chanting empty prayers.
He would have shouted if defensors hadn’t been nearby. The best he could do was grab an empty vial and hurl it to the floor, where it shattered, gla
ss spraying against his boots.
Predictably, it didn’t make him feel any better.
“Someone will have heard that,” Ben said. “Defensors will be here soon, and they’ll haul you away to a cell in this ship, then one back in Argrid—or they just might kill you, and this country will keep hurting people because you couldn’t say one goddamn lie. I expected more from a fearsome Mechtland barbarian. Didn’t realize I’d get a coward.”
“We are not barbarians,” the Mecht shot back. “My country may be dangerous, people dying in the streets, starving, blood flowing—but we know our enemy, and our enemy knows us. Here, you have no honor. It is secrets. It is lies. I will not be Argridian.”
“You aren’t in the Mechtlands. You can’t wage battles here like you do there.”
A knock at the door. “My prince? Are you all right?”
Ben kept his gaze on the Mecht. “Am I?”
The Mecht’s hands balled.
“I don’t ask you to trust me,” Ben said, “or like me. I . . .”
His words fell. God, what was he asking? For the impossible.
The Mecht said nothing. Ben’s shoulders went slack as he neared the door, one hand out to the knob, already reciting what he would have to say.
The prisoner is not fit to recant. You were right, Defensor. Take him away.
“All right,” the Mecht said.
Ben stopped, fingers around the doorknob.
“All right,” the Mecht repeated when Ben looked back. “I play by Argrid’s rules. But you are not my prince, and I am not your subject. And we wage war by my rules when the time comes.”
Ben forced his face blank as he opened the door. A defensor had his fist raised to knock again, a pistol in his other hand. More were behind him—Jakes, too.
“Apologies, defensors,” Ben said. “My new assistant dropped a vial. Days in a cell can do that to a man, I understand. But, Pious God willing, he will soon be strong again.”