Raav and Tkira heaved Heiklet into the bottom of the boat. One by one, the others vaulted over the low rail and plowed forward to make room for the person behind.
Gaff slapped my back when I clambered into the boat, so short of breath I could barely talk. “Row!” I puffed. I craned my neck to check our pursuers. Cold fear stabbed me—Mieshk’s oarsmen were already to the other boat. We’d never outdistance them.
My shoulders slumped.
“Lilik.” Raav held up a makeshift bow. He’d crafted it from a foilwood stick, stringing it with the cord from our supplies.
“We’ve got arrows carrying oil-soaked rags,” Tkira said. “Lots, since none of us is much of a shot. Gives us a chance.”
The boat jerked forward. I fell off my bench and into the bottom of the shallow hull, mostly atop Heiklet, who moaned. Gaff, sitting behind me now, held a pair of oars clutched in his horse-sized hands. We skimmed out of the shallows.
“Okay, slow,” Raav said. “I need to aim.” He plucked a tuft of shaved bark from within the oiled leather pouch at his neck. After fluffing it on the bench I’d just vacated, he struck sparks from the flint and steel. A wisp of smoke curled up to join the pall of smoke that hung over the shore.
Suddenly, one of Zyri’s memories surfaced. Her family often took holidays on the long-gone smaller islands. While relaxing beneath an awning of thick silk pitched to block the sun, they cooked fish over the campfire. Porpoises leaped in the softly crumbling waves. Zyri wiggled her toes in the warm sand.
I shoved away the recollection. Now was not the time.
The rag on Raav’s first arrow burst into flame, and he aimed the shot high. It arced over the water, dribbling flame that sizzled when it hit the sea. The shot fell at least fifty paces short.
Mieshk’s oarsmen took up the paddles, and they heaved in unison, sending the boat rocketing from the shore. The line fixed to the shore anchor snapped tight with a twang, and the boat jerked to a halt—it would have been comical in another situation. One of the men shouted and speared a knife down on the stern rail. The rope rolled out from beneath the blade.
“Incompetent,” Tkira said. “Maybe we didn’t need the arrows after all.”
“Wait,” Raav said. “Look down the beach. Away from the crowd. Don’t be obvious about it.”
About a hundred paces from the group, Katrikki was sprinting for the water. I squinted, confused. On the beach, Paono rolled on the gravel, clutching his groin and face as if he’d been attacked.
Katrikki splashed into the shallows, casting panicked glances at Mieshk’s group. When the water reached her knees, she dove and swam, seal-like, straight for us.
Was this some attempt to attack our boat and earn back Mieshk’s regard? Or had she and Paono worked out another plan?
Raav’s face was hard. In it, I saw nothing of the boy who’d been so tender with me. “Club her when she gets close. Let her drown.”
I winced at his words. “Wait,” I said. “She claimed she’d intervened because we were losing the fight. We owe her the chance to explain.”
The others stared at me, incredulous. I squared my shoulders. No matter Katrikki’s flaws, if we condemned her without a trial, we were no better than Mieshk.
“Katrikki’s just one girl,” Islilla added. “She can’t sink us single-handedly.”
“Dead weight if you ask me,” Tkira said. “Is that trader going to take a turn rowing?”
Gaff tugged on the oars again, lightly so as not to upset Raav when he stood to fire another arrow. “Better choose fast. She’s a good swimmer.”
Indeed, Katrikki was already more than half the distance to our boat.
Tkira sneered. “Fine. Haul her aboard. We can always throw her off into deeper water.”
As the oarsman on the other boat finished sawing through the anchor line, our little vessel rocked hard to the side. Raav lifted Katrikki over the rail. She slipped into the boat like a fish, corn-silk hair plastered to her shoulders and back. Her clothing sucked tight to a figure that not even I could ignore.
No wonder Paono loved her. I glanced down at my flat chest, the scraggly strands of my typical Istaniker hair.
An angry roar came from the beach. The blacksmith marched toward Paono, lifted him off the gravel, and laid a heavy punch into his gut. He shook Paono hard before dropping him back to the earth.
Katrikki cringed and hid her face in her hands.
“Get that boat blazing, Raav,” Gaff said.
Raav fired a third arrow. It landed within arm’s reach of the boat. The lead oarsman turned around and raised a paddle, ready to deflect the next missile.
Tkira cursed. “This isn’t going to work.”
She was right. We’d be lucky to land a single arrow on the boat when it would take many more to set the mist-dampened wood blazing.
There had to be something else we could do.
“Speaker?” I whispered. “Can you help?”
I’m sorry. Our influence over your world is too limited.
“But you collapsed the tunnel.”
We used our affinity with Ioene for that. The tunnel is part of the island. We can’t sink a boat.
But maybe they could help us set it afire. I snatched the rucksack of supplies and pulled out one of the lamp oil flasks. “What if . . . what about nightforging? You guide our swords, don’t you?”
Yes. If we’ve been bonded to an object, we have a high degree of control. . . .And I think I understand your plan. Yes, we’re willing.
“Islilla,” I said, “get Heiklet awake.”
“I’m awake.” Heiklet’s face was almost unrecognizable. One eye was swollen shut, and a deep purple bruise covered most of her cheek.
“Call a strand and help him or her enter the flask,” I said.
“No reliquary?” she said.
“Speaker?” I asked.
Your brass boxes are effective to keep us confined, but you don’t need them to compel us. It’s the same process.
“No need. Just call and then direct the strand.”
Heiklet nodded, trusting me even after I’d led her into Mieshk’s clutches. I wanted to hug her as she mouthed the words that initiated the calling trance.
It’s a good idea, Lilik. Tie a burning rag around the neck. If one of you can throw that bottle with enough aim to pass over the boat, we can do the rest.
“Actually light it?” I asked. I’d intended to ask for help landing the flask in the raft, figuring the infused strand could help it tip and pour oil onto the wood so that we’d need few arrow hits. Or, failing that, so that we could toss in a tuft of burning tinder when they got close enough.
Of course. What were you planning?
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Heiklet’s skin went white around her bruises, and sweat slimed her forehead. “The flask,” she said.
As soon as I placed it in her hands, she massaged the glass.
“It’s done,” she said after a moment.
“Raav, can you throw well?” I asked.
“No better than I shoot arrows.”
“Let me,” Gaff said. “No one grows up farming potatoes without learning how to throw all sorts of things.”
A farmer? I’d always assumed he was seaborn, a step up from the commoners birthed on land. Interesting, but a story for another time. I wrapped the rag and lit it, and Gaff heaved the bottle over the gap between the boats. It sailed over the oarsmen’s heads. The lead man raised a paddle to bat it aside, but before glass struck wood, the flask disintegrated into a thousand glittering pieces. Fire bloomed in the sky, spraying gobbets of burning oil in a wide circle on and around the boat. Where the oil landed, splotches of fire bloomed on clothing and wood. The oarsmen slapped at the burning patches, stripping off shirts and beating at the flames. I smelled their hair burning.
And so brave Alavie gives her spirit to the aether. We remember and cherish her sacrifice.
“What? Wait—she had to accept dissolution to do that?” I whisp
ered. I knew nightforging was wrong when I asked for their help, but decided it was a better choice than more aurora sacrifices, as the spirit would still exist, though bound to the flask.
I said we had a high degree of control when bonded to an object. However, it is something else entirely to alter that object, as it would be to change the shape of a prison meant to hold you. Only an abrupt change from spirit to nothingness could shatter the glass.
I grabbed a handful of my hair. I hadn’t meant to ask for such a thing.
She went willingly. Many of us have been speaking with her lately. Mieshk’s pull was becoming too much for her to bear, and it was an honorable choice.
That didn’t make it okay, though. I clenched my fists in frustration, vowing to remember her name as the flood of grief spilled from the Vanished into me. Alavie.
“Go!” Tkira yelled. She slapped Gaff on the shoulder. He yanked the oars while she and Raav took up the other sets. The boat darted forward. Water sprayed from the paddles when the flashing oars erupted from the sea, dousing us. I blinked the salt water from my eyes, scanning the beach, desperate for a glimpse of Paono. The other boat, burning and sinking, blocked the view. Men dove from the doomed vessel into the sea.
A hand slipped into mine. Small, fine-boned, and cold. Startled, I looked over at Katrikki. The anguished expression on her face mirrored my emotions. At that moment, I realized she’d been telling the truth. Her actions on the beach were a ruse, intended to help us escape. And I’d nearly ruined it.
I stared at the receding shore. What would happen to Paono? Would he be able to convince Mieshk that delicate Katrikki had overpowered him? And if he did, would the Ulstat continue to value who’d let an asset as important as Katrikki escape?
I squeezed her hand while the beach fell away behind us. I might never like her, but she cared for my friend. We were joined by our fear for him.
Chapter Thirty-One
IN ZYRI’S MEMORY, stone paths crisscrossed the island. People strolled in flowing day-season clothing, following narrow walkways to orchards filled with blossoms and hanging fruit. Where water sprang from rocky outcrops, children played in the pools. Terraced fields with fresh-turned soil stank of the fish meal that the farmers used to fertilize the soil. Zyri held her breath and ran past these, woven sea-grass sandals thumping softly against slate flagstones.
She recalled the night-season as well, though she was younger at the time and only traveled the island with her parents. Through the long months when the sun vanished, the islanders lit the paths with glass globes. Sparks flickered within as if the lamps were filled with glimmering stars. Once, Zyri asked her father to hold her up for a closer look.
Examining this memory, I was astonished to see that the light came from small insects. On Stanik Island, fireflies and glow beetles were dim blue-green dots of light, whereas these insects shone bright enough to light the path for ten paces in either direction.
With so many memories to sort through, I found it easier to navigate if I stopped and closed my eyes while exploring them. Otherwise, the doubling of the landscape, Zyri’s recollections painted over what I saw, dizzied me.
Our small group crashed through brush and scrambled over frozen lava flows, guided by landmarks that existed in both her memories and my world. Cliffs with a particular angle to the sea. A spring that flowed from three places onto a staircase of rock shelves. Occasionally, I crouched and ran fingers over stones flatter than the usual volcanic jumble, remnants of those long ago paths.
Expecting pursuit by sea—Mieshk’s camp had one vessel left—we’d left our boat behind. After a half-hearted attempt at camouflage, mooring it between a group of boulders within the tidal zone, we’d forged off across the island.
Though my navigation slowed our progress, no one complained. Heiklet hobbled forward, leaning on Tkira for support. Islilla followed behind, ready to steady her friend if she stumbled backward. Even Katrikki marched with determination, stopping only to tie her hair back in a practical knot after it caught in the third clutch of brambles.
I glanced behind us often, afraid that Mieshk would find our trail. When we reached yet another boulder field, a forest of massive, jagged stones, I stopped. We’d have to weave our way through, leaving the paths of Zyri’s memories each time we detoured around an obstacle. It would take forever.
“Nightstrands, isn’t there another way?” I muttered.
“Whoa . . .” Katrikki said.
I spun. “What?” My voice was sharper than I’d have liked.
Her eyes dropped from mine. “I wasn’t paying attention last time you—when you spoke, the strands danced.”
Somehow, it had slipped my mind that both Heiklet and Katrikki could see the souls that swarmed me. They’d controlled their reactions, despite how my slithering coat of nightstrands must have looked to them.
“It’s okay,” I said.
Ah, progress. You’ll be a good leader someday, Lilik. In our time, channelers almost always held the high public offices because of their access to so much of our ancestors’ wisdom.
I took a breath. Enough with the history lessons. “Yes, fine. What about my question? Can’t you tell me which way to turn? This is too slow.”
We don’t see as you do. You’ve glanced at Zyri’s memories from her time as a spirit, I assume? We can perceive people, sometimes as clearly as if we still lived. But places are vague and the connections and distances between them fuzzy. One moment, I am near you, and the next I might visit the old city—if I weren’t afraid that I’d succumb to Mieshk’s pull without you to anchor me. Yet I can’t describe the path I’d take in a manner that would have meaning for you.
“Can you warn me if Mieshk is getting close?” I asked. “We’re too vulnerable, traveling like—”
Think about it. She won’t be able to follow your track any faster than you follow Zyri’s memories.
“But you can tell me if they’re—”
Yes. We can tell you. Lilik . . . there is something else. The young nightcaller—she’s exhausted. We see her weaken, but she’s afraid to admit it and slow the group.
Heiklet? I whirled. She looked beaten. Exhausted. But no worse than she had on the boat.
“Heiklet, how do you feel?”
“Tired,” she said. Behind the puffy skin of her injuries, her face looked so young. So hollow.
“Rot,” I whispered.
I dug through the rucksacks and came up with a blanket and the scissors. “She can’t walk anymore,” I explained. ”Paono and I used to tie fabric straps into a chair to carry his Nan on our backs. Raav, Tkira, come here.”
I cut strips and fitted them to their bodies. I had to stand on tiptoes to snug the straps around Raav’s shoulders. “Comfortable? You can take turns carrying her.”
He tugged on the slings, shifting his shoulders while I helped Heiklet settle against him, her head lolling. “I never would have thought of something like this. Seems so long ago that we left Mieshk to find you. We made the right choice.”
He brushed fingers down my forearm. Katrikki’s eyes widened. When I laid a hand on his ribs, she looked away.
The moon slipped behind the mountain, and still we walked. After what felt like a day of searching, we rested at a spring. Heiklet’s face was swollen like a bullfrog’s throat, and several whip lashes leaked blood. I held her hand and whispered comfort. As soon as we reached Ashkalan, she could rest and begin to heal.
Islilla discovered a statue in the nearby brush, a woman standing on a pedestal. Vines twined around her, abloom with five-petaled flowers. The statue was perfect except for a few chips and a missing nose. Abruptly, I recalled an evening when Zyri and Tyrak sat at this very spring. They were just friends then. He was throwing pebbles in the spring’s pool, and Zyri had a strong urge to grab his hand. But she didn’t because she was afraid he didn’t feel the same way. After he died, she regretted waiting so long before she told him how she felt.
“We’re closer than I thought,”
I said.
Heiklet smiled up at me, her swollen face pale beneath the bruising. “I can’t wait to see the ship that’s going to sail us home.”
The upper entrance to the city passed through a narrow cleft between cliff bands. Without Zyri’s recollections as a guide, I wouldn’t have spotted it. With luck, that meant we’d be safe from Mieshk after we entered.
Once I saw our destination, we marched at double our pace over the last lava flow. The entrance towered in front of us, a hallway through the stone scarcely wide enough for Gaff to walk without turning sideways. I stepped into the gap. Though the walls pressed in, I felt no panic. This fissure would hide and protect us.
“Speaker?” I said.
You can call me by my name, you know. Peldin. To fix me in your mind, imagine a handsome man of about thirty years. Tall. Some people said I moved with uncanny grace.
“What?”
Peldin chuckled, a warm, low rumble in my mind. I’m sorry. It was just too tempting. I’ve been without a body for so long. It amuses me to remember. Now, what was your question?
“Paono will never find this place without help. Will you give him a guide like Zyri?”
Peldin didn’t respond for a long time. I leaned back against the crevice wall, fighting growing unease.
A bond like you share with Zyri is possible only for the most powerful channelers.
“Then how will he . . .? He won’t last in Mieshk’s camp, especially after he steals the figurine.”
He’s more resourceful than you think, Lilik. If he must leave Mieshk’s camp, he’ll find a way to hide and survive.
“But he doesn’t know how to find food. I’m going back for him.”
Paono doesn’t, but we do. We’ll help him. You can’t risk yourself; these people need a leader.
“But I said we’d wait before setting sail.”
I know. You thought you’d have the chance to say goodbye. I’m sorry.
Throat tight, face burning with anger, I pushed forward along the stone corridor.
Think about your duty, Lilik.
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