Oathen

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  “Fear not, frustrated bodyguard,” Meena teased, not caring which way he took her words. “Sanych is far more relevant to this quest than any of the rest of you.”

  Salvor frowned in interest. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t sing the song to save the world without her,” she murmured, slipping back inside the cabin. “Good night, my lord Thelios.”

  ~~~

  Salvor opened his cabin door and saw that Geret was snoring on the top bunk, his still-shod feet dangling over the wooden rail. He seemed unmolested by Rhona’s tucking-in. Salvor stepped over and tugged the prince’s boots off, setting them down quietly. He closed his eyes for a moment, recalling the feel of holding Sanych once more.

  Despite being the son of a crafty Dictat member, I’m a fool in all the worst ways.

  “Salvor.” A voice came from the narrow hallway.

  Also, pay attention! Folly’s bastards, if that had been someone with a blade…

  He turned around. “Did you forget Geret’s stuffed snuggy, Captain?” he asked.

  She squinted one eye, then let the question pass unanswered. “You guard Geret. Do you guard his secrets as well?” she asked, coming into the small room and shutting the door behind her.

  “What little I know of them, yes.”

  “I would have shared this with the Seamother, but…” She slid her eyes to Geret’s form, and behind her tiredness and inebriation, Salvor saw sadness. “I need him, in every way.”

  The sudden admission caused him to raise his eyebrows and blink.

  “I think it began the moment we met, back when you were all stomping around in that dirty caravan.”

  He glanced at Geret, dead to the world. “Yes, I can see he possesses myriad attributes that bards the world over would kill to proclaim,” he replied.

  Rhona grinned briefly. “I’ve made my claim tonight.”

  “Claim? Is that like Kemsil’s Circuit?”

  “No.” She shifted to the other foot and leaned on the door behind her. “Clan life is uncertain, so we take what we can get, whenever we can get it. When a Clan woman likes a man well enough, she claims him—she protects him and rewards him, and he gives his main loyalty to her and her bloodline. There’s no dirtwalker equivalent, but it’s somewhere between a business partnership and marriage. It’s as permanent or temporary as they want it to be; a lot of claims begin and end when our clan gets together for Spring Trading.”

  “Geret’s duty to Vint doesn’t include being claimed by pirate wenches. Though it often slips his mind entirely.” Salvor recalled berating Geret in Salience for wanting to traipse after Sanych instead of being a proper prince.

  She huffed a mirthless laugh. “I didn’t figure you for the possessive sort.”

  “Sorry, he’s not my type,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

  “He’s Sanych’s type, though. I saw them kiss on the beach tonight.” She delivered the words casually, but her eyes remained locked on his.

  Salvor stilled. “They what?”

  She sniffed. “Right after that cannonball struck the cliff. I looked below to see who was dead, and she was kissing him. You were still at the lift.”

  “Folly’s blindfold,” he swore, shaking his head.

  Rhona looked at him for a long moment. “You want Sanych for yourself?”

  Salvor rolled his eyes, unable to believe he was having this conversation in a room where Geret lay passed out two steps behind him.

  “I’ll take that as an aye. You should help me, then, and we’ll both get what we want.”

  “Help you? I can’t do that,” he replied. “Geret’s duty is to free his cousin from the cult’s spell, and then go home and help his uncle run the country. There is no room in that plan for sailing away with pirates, even for a lark. Our culture is much different than yours when it comes to men and women, anyway.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Salvor sighed through his nose. Explaining the particulars of Vinten romance to a drunken pirate in the middle of the night seemed like an insurmountable task, so he simply said, “Let’s just say that, in contrast to Clan lives, ours are very, very certain. In addition, Geret’s as contrary as a hot winter day when you try to force him. But once he sets his mind to something, it’s impossible to sway him. I’ve learned that the hard way,” he said, rubbing the faint scar on his cheek. “He has to see the truth for himself, or he’ll never see it at all.”

  Rhona studied him for several long moments. Then she smiled. “Of course. I knew you’d see the way of it.” She stepped closer, laid her hands on his shoulders for a moment and kissed his cheek. Then she was gone.

  Salvor stood undecided for a moment, wondering if it was worth his time to go set her straight on his meaning, but he figured she might not remember it in the morning.

  He removed his shirt and hung it up to air out, then pulled out a folded one and laid it flat to unwrinkle. As he smoothed the fabric across the top of his small table, a new thought struck him. Why couldn’t he help himself by appearing to help Rhona? After all, as Imorlar was fond of saying back home, truth was truth, but the packaging in which it was delivered in made all the difference.

  His shirt smoothed and ready for morning, Salvor slid into his bunk and was asleep in moments.

  ~~~

  With the light of early afternoon shining hazily through a high layer of clouds, the Lenila met up as planned with Rhona’s other six ships behind an uninhabited, rocky spur, and Ruel returned to the Princeling, where he received due praise from the crew for a job well done.

  Meena was eager to get under way, but Kemsil begged for a little time to practice with the Circuit. “I wouldn’t trust my life to someone who had just picked this up the night before; I’m not sure why you would.”

  Meena paused and looked him in the eye; it seemed his words had struck a deep chord with her. “Thank you, Kemsil.”

  Kemsil scratched his stubbly chin and eyed the symbols on the Circuit of Sa’qal. The device gleamed orangely even in the full light of day. “I stole you with proper vengeance; you work for the House of Jath now.”

  He began to practice.

  ~~~

  Geret came up on deck well into Kemsil’s tests and stood quietly atop the aft castle. He still felt queasy from the amount of champagne he’d guzzled last night. Or possibly this morning.

  For a long while, no one approached him, but they chuckled and grinned at him from a distance. He wondered if he should be remembering something that would explain their reticence and good humor. Then Salvor climbed the stairs and approached him.

  “My prince,” he greeted him, “how’s your head today?”

  “It’s trying to be a spout for my stomach,” Geret replied. Seeing the knowing look in Salvor’s eyes, he squinted at his bodyguard and asked, “Did anything interesting happen last night?”

  The nobleman raised his eyebrows, the very picture of innocence. “You mean aside from marrying a pirate?” he asked.

  Geret’s eyes bugged, the color leaching out of his face. “I…what?”

  Salvor let a tiny smile cross his lips.

  “Folly take your smirk,” Geret growled. “That’s not funny.”

  “Perhaps my prince should reconsider how much champagne he drinks in one sitting, then. We aren’t anonymous dock workers anymore. You’re a prince again, and such knowledge is sure to bring out everyone’s agendas. Including those of captains who deem you worthy of their lips.”

  A fuzzy memory surfaced in Geret’s mind, in addition to Sanych’s delirious kiss on the beach. His stomach clenched; had she seen him kissing Rhona? He couldn’t recall. “Rhona kept my glass full; I guess I didn’t realize how much I was drinking.”

  “She did, eh? Clever woman.”

  “Who’s side are you on?” Geret asked, glaring.

  “Alas, yours.” Before Geret could retort, Salvor stepped close and hissed, “Close your teeth and listen. I was only half-joking about the marriage issue. Rhona has a clear agenda
towards you; you’ll need to be careful how you tread with her.”

  “She wants to marry me?” Geret blurted in disbelief.

  “She wants to ally with you. She was spouting something about wanting you in every way. Worse, she knows that Sanych kissed you last night.”

  Geret warmed at the recollection of Sanych’s kiss. “But Sanych was just woozy from Meena’s shielding.”

  “Nonetheless, I believe her action has forced Rhona’s hand. She’s laid a claim on you, which, to her, means she wants exclusive access to you. You need to stay away from Sanych, in case Rhona takes it out on her.”

  Geret bared his teeth. “She wouldn’t dare.”

  “She’s already dared. You recall the book-stabbing incident on our very first day out of Salience? That was before any official claiming.”

  Geret swallowed, seeing Rhona’s action in a new, darker light.

  “Rhona is making a political move. Interference will be handled according to Clan law, as we are aboard a Clan vessel. I’d like to think that you have no intention of bedding a pirate wench on our little jaunt to Shanal—”

  “Of course I don’t!”

  “—So I say, just let her play her games. Let her feel like she’s in control, and it’ll go better for all of us. Including Sanych.”

  “I can’t just pretend I’m willing to run off with her, Salvor!”

  Salvor gripped his shoulder and fixed him with a stare. “Yes, you can. And you will. You know what will happen if you don’t.”

  Geret gritted his teeth, trying to think of an alternate plan.

  Salvor lifted a corner of his mouth. “If it helps, just pretend you’re me.”

  Geret’s lip curled, and he pushed Salvor back a step. “I’m not you. I’ll never be you.”

  “That’s true,” the nobleman replied. “I’ve always been a step ahead, and I always will be.” He turned and descended the castle stairs.

  Geret let out a long sigh of irritation. “Folly. I think I’ll stick to mango juice from now on.”

  ~~~

  During his practice, Kemsil discovered that he could alter the Circuit’s default form, a sphere, to any other shape he could hold in his mind, allowing him to hide any or all ships from view. Unfortunately, doing so precluded him from being able to do much else, as he had to press the single-circle symbol and hold the new shape in his mind.

  “Don’t worry, Meena’s always hidden. I learned what this symbol does,” he assured Rhona, indicating the pair of triangles on the Circuit, after she expressed concern over his ever-changing mental focus. “It was the one the former users of the Circuit used to keep their Patruses safe in battle. She’s pressed the symbol with me, so the Circuit will protect her no matter what formation I choose. It won’t let me exclude her until she presses the same button with me again, and it lets me pinpoint her without even looking.”

  The sun reached its zenith. Kemsil informed Rhona that his testing was complete, and that the Circuit required more effort to extend its range, rather than to obscure more people and things inside itself.

  “So if we sail closer together, we’ll tax you less,” Rhona summed.

  “Exactly,” he said, rubbing his temples with his fingers.

  “All right,” she said, tapping her chin with a finger, “the maximum range you reached was about half a league in all directions. We can’t very well sail all the way to Shanal within your orange circle. The first good storm will scatter us. I’ll put a scout ship or two ahead. If they run into trouble, the rest of us can still have the element of stealth.” She grinned wickedly.

  “My thanks, good captain,” he said.

  Rhona ordered the other two caravels in her fleet, Green Pearl and Uncle Goldpouch, to scout. Their crews raised anchor and headed out among the sun-drenched western islands of the Jualan archipelago. Rhona led the Princeling and his four escorts after it, with a gap of several miles since the waters were calm. Her caravel led the way, flanked by two galleons a few lengths behind on either side, and the remaining two brigantines followed behind them, nosing toward the gaps between the three ships.

  The day passed quietly; the few ships they sighted took no notice of the visible scout ships. When the last of the sun’s afterglow had left the western horizon, Kemsil sat down against the rail and let his head fall into his hands.

  Rhona had handed off the steering to Ruel for a few minutes while she ate an avocado, and she squatted beside the Jualan in the light of the ship’s jellyfish lamps, chewing.

  “They’ll never catch you now,” she said.

  The refugee nobleman turned to her, a wry smile on his face. “That either.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t possibly miss them. Your own family wanted you dead for ruining their deal! Me, I’d be looking for ways to pay that favor back.”

  Kemsil clenched his jaw against a flurry of emotions. “My childhood, my youth, my entire culture, are dust to me now. I will never again set eyes on the Celestial Calendar, where I would slip away to avoid my sisters’ bickering.” He huffed a small snort of nostalgia. “Nor my secret beach, down through the cave that fills at high tide, where the sharks sleep.”

  “There are more than one of those,” Rhona said, laying a hand on his arm. “Though I hear what you’re saying. You should join the Clan, and sail the seas with us,” she offered. “We can offer you endless horizons of amazing wonders, and all the adventure your heart will ever crave.”

  He raised his eyebrows, considering, and she chuckled.

  “I’m serious. Keep it in your mind, if you live through this crazy plan of the Seamother’s.”

  Kemsil laughed. “I’m not so sure death would be a bad thing.”

  “Why not?” Rhona asked, slicing another bit of avocado off and biting it off her knife.

  “Cursed to be an eternal refugee, alone in the world?” Kemsil shook his head. “I’m young and vibrant, cursed with an old criminal’s life. If I sailed off with you to a life of adventure, any Clan woman who bestowed a gift of claiming upon me, as you have done with Geret, would die of my curse once her claim was consummated,” he said, sliding his eyes over to hers. “Geret has my envy.” He grinned, shrugging a shoulder.

  Rhona blinked and said, “You’re sweet, Kemsil, but I’ve already laid forth my claim, and I don’t want to die just yet. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  He bowed his head to her and smiled. “As you wish, fair captain.”

  She offered him a thick slice of her avocado, and he accepted with a nod of thanks.

  ~~~

  Across the deck, Meena motioned Geret over to join her and Sanych. He resisted an urge to glance at Rhona; the last thing he wanted was for the captain to take out her anger at Sanych again. But it’s Meena, the Seamother, he reasoned. Even Rhona couldn’t expect me to say no to her. He ambled over.

  The brisk wind ruffled the Shanallar’s frosted red hair as she said, “It’s several more weeks to Shanal, even at the swift pace of the Clan ships. We’re hidden by the Circuit until we arrive there, but once we reach the coastal waters near Cish, that may change.”

  “How?” Sanych asked, clasping her hands.

  “Remember the volcano I mentioned just outside the city?” They both nodded. “That one’s active. But the entire city, the harbor, and the countryside for dozens of miles around all lie within an enormous ancient caldera. The cliffs that form the caldera wall reach out into the sea and form Shelter Bay. There is magic everywhere within the caldera’s walls.”

  “You think they will sense us through the Circuit’s barrier?” Geret asked.

  “It’s not impossible. Their magic will be much stronger within the caldera.”

  “But won’t the magic of the Circuit be made stronger as well?” Sanych asked. “It should still protect us.”

  “The Aldib didn’t create the Circuit of Sa’qal; they stole it. It’s an ancient device,” Meena said, “from the era when magic was still plentiful. I have no idea if it was formed by earth magic or by on
e of the other magics that died out. If it’s made of earth magic, we’ll be fine. If not…” She shrugged.

  “Folly in a firkin,” Geret swore.

  Meena pursed her lips. “Exactly. We can’t rely on the Circuit until we know if it’ll work the way we need it to. So I’ve made a new plan which serves more than one purpose. First of all, I need you to trust me absolutely.”

  Sanych frowned. “After all we’ve been through, you have to ask that of us?”

  The Shanallar’s green gaze encompassed them both. “And second, I need you to get captured by the enemy.”

  Chapter Nine

  “The unrest started by the Cult of Dzur i’Oth four centuries ago resulted in the collapse of the monarchy of Shanal,” Meena explained, as she sat with Kemsil and the Vintens around Rhona’s cabin table. “One of the strongest Jualan Houses of all time, the House of Tamkrit, saw an opportunity for more land than they could possibly own, even if they conquered every island in the Archipelago, and they took their entire people to Shanal, proclaiming themselves liberators and stabilizers.”

  “And that actually worked?” Salvor asked.

  “It actually worked,” Kemsil confirmed, “for a while. The nation welcomed the change. Their rule was known as the Tamkrit Dynasty, though it only lasted three generations. Jualan was the official language of the rulers of Shanal during that time. I think they’ve kept many Jualan words to this day.”

  “Yes, they have,” Meena said.

  “Oh, well that’s handy,” Geret grinned, speaking Jualan to Kemsil. “We’ve already learned that from you.” When he caught Sanych’s questioning glance, he repeated himself in Versal.

  “Well, I haven’t,” Sanych said.

  “Shanallese has been the official language again for three hundred years,” Meena reminded them. “Though they still spoke Jualan exclusively in some of the distant villages during my last trip to Shanal. That was about sixty years ago.”

  “So,” Sanych asked, “we need to learn Shanallese?”

  Geret rolled his eyes. “I hate studying.”

  “You seemed to learn Jualan easily enough,” Salvor commented.