“Just clap shut and leave me alone.”
Ahead, lay the greatest city of the Vanished civilization. And because I couldn’t abandon the people who had put their trust in me, Paono might never see it.
Ashkalan.
In Zyri’s memories, citizens whispered the name with pride and a hint of awe. Even the architects and stonemasons who’d built it were often found admiring their creation, gawking at the sight. Ashkalan’s terraces soared, wide and paved in stone, ringing the dark blue waters of the sheltered harbor. Each wall was straight and true, angled to catch the light of the long-day or the glint of the moon, throwing it back over the sea. Impervious stone laid in tune with Ioene’s lines of power. Even when lava spilled from the mountain’s peak, the molten rock would flow harmlessly over the city, while the citizens sheltered inside.
A low wall edged each terrace, supporting potted flowers and vines that crawled across the capstone. Trees in large urns marked the entrances to staircases connecting the levels. On each tier, buildings lined the rear walls, doors flung open in the long-day to let breezes rustle curtains and carry sweet sea air into back rooms. During the dark months, the flower pots held night foliage and glow globes. The scent of kivi blossom covered the city, and music played in every house.
As I walked along the narrow corridor to the upper city, these dreams of a better time danced in my head. Despite my frustration about Paono, my heart beat faster. I wanted to walk Ashkalan’s avenues, hear the jewelry seller’s cart creaking, smell the spiced flatbreads for sale at the dockside bakery.
At the last moment before entering the city, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I felt Ashkalan’s ruin as a blow to the chest. My arms were heavy and my legs weak.
The lava flows hadn’t harmed the stonework—the impervious construction had protected the walls as intended. But there’d been no such defense against rockfall or the creeping sprawl of foliage. Boulders had crashed onto the terraces, demolishing the flagstone pavement and crumbling the low walls at the outer edges. Once smooth as cut glass, the buildings’ faces were pitted from years of lashing by storms. Leaf litter drifted in corners like huddled beggars. Hinges had rusted into dust, leaving doors to fall forward into the street. The doorways looked like open mouths, gasping in despair at the ruin that surrounded them.
“Ashkalan,” I whispered.
The others followed me into the city. One by one, they stopped and stared. Islilla went straight to the nearest bench, a cracked stone slab carved with stars and waves. Unable to take her eyes off the sight, she groped blindly for a seat.
“Tides,” Tkira said. “It’s so . . . big. Amazing.”
None of them shared my horror at the devastation because none of them had seen the city in Zyri’s time. To them, the grand scale of the place was a miracle. When I pushed away my guide’s recollections and focused instead on the immense arc of the terraces encircling the harbor, the thirty-story plunge from our lofty perch to the docks below, I understood. No city in the Kiriilt Islands was half as wondrous as Ashkalan.
Maybe we’d had a chance, long ago, to become like the Vanished. But now, we spent almost all our effort fending off the Waikert. During our times of peace, we worked only to scratch our way back to the middling prosperity of two centuries past. Instead of hiring a foreign army while the gutterborn could scarcely afford food, much less the defense tax, the traders ought to hire sergeants and naval captains to train our commoners to fight. Forgive the defense lien. Stop stifling enterprise with the system of trader licensing.
But no matter my ideas, the traders wouldn’t change their ways. The Waikert would keep coming. And now we’d have no new nightforged weapons. Most likely, the powerful trader Houses would sail away to new lives, leaving us to our destruction.
But none of that mattered unless we found a way home. We needed a ship.
“We’ll find a bed for Heiklet near the water,” I said.
After descending a handful of terraces, we stopped to rest on a low wall where Zyri’s people used to sit and listen to orators. The closer we got to the harbor, the more debris cluttered the flagstones and sills and railings. I brushed an armful of pumice from a section of the bench before sitting. It felt good, as if I were cleaning up after a long absence. Zyri had started to influence my thoughts. With her life’s experience stuffed into my head, I wasn’t just Lilik anymore. I’d lived two lives. It would be hard to release Zyri once this was over. Like losing a piece of my soul.
“I see it,” Islilla said abruptly. “A ship.”
The group jumped, startled. Perhaps due to the empty buildings around us, the sense of abandonment that hung over the city, we’d fallen into silence.
“Where?”
“What?”
“Show me!”
Everyone jumped to their feet, climbing onto benches to scan the docks below. Islilla remained seated, simply pointing down at the dock nearest us. From here, the drop appeared straight down, though another dozen terraces separated us from the water level. I planted my palms on the outer wall, tugging to make sure the stones weren’t loose before leaning over.
The docks lay in shadow, hidden from the moonlight by the high walls of the city’s amphitheater. Down in the gloom, the ship was discernible by the faint outline, blue-green algae glowing where wavelets met the vessel’s wood.
“Yes,” Raav whispered.
My knees wobbled. I couldn’t tell much by looking at the vessel. It seemed big enough. The shape of the hull looked like every other boat I’d bothered to notice. But the approval of a trader meant he thought the ship had a chance at being seaworthy.
“Okay, Heiklet first,” I said. “Check the buildings for a bed. Islilla, will you . . .?”
“I’ll stay with her,” the small sentinel said. She smiled, but I knew she was disappointed not to see the ship right away. I made a mental vow to hurry back and relieve her as soon as we finished our initial inspection.
We split up, heading for open doorways. Raav, having left Heiklet resting on a bench, followed close behind me.
Just before ducking into a building, I turned to him. “Will the ship sail us home?” I asked.
Raav’s teeth glinted when he smiled. “I need to see her up close, but my gut tells me yes. To Stanik Island and on past to the Waikert Archipelago if we wanted. You did it.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek.
I checked to see if anyone was watching, but they were already inside. My cheek cooled where his moist lips had been. I didn’t know whether to wipe away the damp or ignore it. Well, I couldn’t ignore it at any rate, just like I couldn’t ignore the graceful dip in the center of Raav’s upper lip or the way his smile made me stare at the curve of the lower one, but I figured I ought to pretend that his kissing me was no big deal. Starting with not acknowledging it by wiping away the saliva.
“It wasn’t just me. Everyone who escaped Mieshk made this possible. Like Heiklet . . .” My voice cracked.
“She’ll be okay,” Glancing behind me into the building, he gestured with his eyes. “Bed in there.”
I called the others, and Tkira and Raav carried Heiklet into the room. A cot stood against the heavy blocks of the wall. Chisel marks textured the gray stone, calling forth images of the long-ago masons who’d built it.
Heiklet murmured when they laid her down and covered her with a blanket. Eyes half-lidded and vague, she hadn’t spoken in some time. Islilla sat on the ground beside her friend. She stuck a hand under the covers and laid it on Heiklet’s arm.
“We’ll be back soon.” Impulsively, I crouched and hugged Islilla. After laying a hand briefly on Heiklet’s forehead, I led the others back onto the terrace.
Despite our concern for Heiklet, nervous energy sent us hurrying down the stairs. Gaff hobbled at almost a run, hopping and leaning on the stone railing.
On the lowest levels, the air smelled strongly of the sea. The lack of a breeze and the landslide blocking the channel
kept the harbor’s water calm, but it was far from stagnant. The tide was out, and even from two stories up, I saw stone pilings bristling with akal mussels. Jellyfish lazed in the calm waters.
The city loomed above, stack after stack of stone buildings climbing the heights, wrapped around the harbor like an oyster cradling a pearl. Even if the ship wasn’t seaworthy, we could do well here. We could clean up the debris. Restore buildings here and there. See Ashkalan renewed, bit by bit.
I tugged on a lock of hair. These yearnings came from the changes that Zyri had worked on my mind. I knew it. It had to stop. No matter how remarkable Ashkalan had once been—how astonishing it was still, one thousand years later—we couldn’t stay. Ioene was not the gentle island she’d been. If the storms or an eruption didn’t ruin us, Mieshk Ulstat would. No place on the island was safe, not even Ashkalan.
Besides, despite Zyri’s recollections, I wanted nothing more than to see my father and Jaret again. Beneath us, the ship that would take me back to them tugged lightly on a mooring chain. I joined the others in the mad dash for the gangway.
Gaff went aboard first, insisting that his time pulling oars in the depths of plenty of decrepit tubs best qualified him to assess the safety. When he stepped on the gangway, I cringed—the wood was one thousand years old. Back on Stanik Island, wooden fences rotted within twenty years, rails sagging from the nails that pinned them to the uprights until the middle turned to mush.
Gaff’s crutch thunked hollowly on the bridge, while his leather shoe sole whispered against the planks. Sounded solid enough—no cracks or groans warned of imminent splintering, and the gangway barely shivered under his weight.
It seemed impossible. I searched Zyri’s memories for the answer. North along the coast, a bay once cut deep into the heart of the island—gone now, obliterated when a whole section of the mountain blew outward, chased by a spray of lava. A Vanished shipyard had graced the bay, derricks and cranes, stacks of timber planks, an orderly row of dry docks. On neighboring hillsides, women and men had worked fields where the pitchplants grew. Brilliant magenta flowers bloomed on vines that swelled black with a particular resin. Zyri remembered it smelling of licorice and pine. After each board was fitted to a ship’s hull, planed to the proper smoothness and pressed into the graceful curve that would slice the water like a knife through cream, men came with buckets of that resin, paintbrushes ready. Once a day for a whole year they coated new-made ships—the wood soaked it up, and you could always recognize a fresh ship by the scent of licorice on the air.
After rubbing my palm on the gangway, I smelled my hand. No hint of resin remained, but it seemed to have done its job. Ships built to sail for a thousand years, and no one needed to press tar into leaky gaps or oil the deck’s wood. I wondered what the traders would give to learn the secrets of their making.
“Well?” Tkira called. “Can we come aboard?”
Gaff had paced a circle around the rail, stomping now and again to test the planks’ integrity. He raised a cautionary hand. “One minute more. Raav, I need the lamp. Want to check below.”
After putting flint and steel to a lamp we’d brought from the sanctuary, Raav adjusted the flame and stepped onto the gangway to hand it across. Gaff disappeared into the hold, the light glowing warmly off ancient timbers and out of glass portholes while he explored the interior.
The others were as impatient as me, shuffling and fidgeting. Katrikki huffed and stepped onto the bridge, but when Raav laid a restraining hand on her shoulder, she retreated.
“Well I’ll be dragged and drowned.” Gaff’s grin was wide as his over-sized hands when he clomped back up onto the deck. “Bunks for twenty, and they’ve still got oars shipped and stowed. Not a leak I can see. Don’t understand it.”
“Then . . .?” Katrikki asked.
“Yes. Welcome aboard.” Gaff gestured grandly, waving us onto the ship.
Closer inspection showed the ship’s age. Though the wood hadn’t rotted—the mast thrust up as straight as that on a trading fleet’s flagship—cleats that would fix the sheets and other lines to the deck had rusted into vague lumps. We’d have to repair those.
I followed Raav into the hold. As we descended, the ship rocked slightly, reacting as our companions moved back and forth upon the deck. Remembering my first below-deck encounter with him, me emptying my stomach into a bucket that wasn’t quite big enough, I blushed.
Gaff had left the lamp at the bottom of the ladder. Grabbing it, we headed deeper into the hold. Sheltered from the weather, below-deck rust was only surface level. The first cabin we entered must have been the galley. Along with a small sink, a long stove with two oven chambers occupied most of a wall, and cabinets complete with sturdy latches for adequate stowage in heavy seas lined the others.
“Lilik?” Raav said suddenly.
“Yes?”
His gaze locked with mine as he laid hands on my upper arms. “What if I don’t want to go back?”
“What?”
“I don’t want to lose the things I have here.”
“Like what? Starvation? Loneliness?”
His serious expression stole the smirk from my lips.
“Like freedom. Until we found this ship, I hadn’t thought about my brother in days. Now all of a sudden, I feel the old Raav creeping back. I’ve spent my life afraid of Frask. Accepting his cruelty because it was expected of me.”
The answer seemed simple. “If you really don’t care about your inheritance, why acknowledge him? Why give him the power?”
“If I could just walk away from my family, start fresh, I would. But I’d need somewhere to begin. Some sort of job. Do you really think that a commoner craftsman would hire me? A shopkeep? They’d assume I’m too soft. Raised with servants that attended to my smallest need. They’re probably right, too.”
“What about the trader markets? You talked about scratching your way up.”
“I can’t touch them until my brother inherits. It’s accepted for siblings of heirs to raise their own fortunes and even acquire the five ships required to found a new House—subject to Council approval, of course. But as long as my mother’s the official head of our House, my brother and I are expected to support her enterprises. If I leave my brother’s home, I’ll be banned from the markets for years.”
“I’ll speak for you in the meantime. My father can help—”
His hands dropped from my arms. “There’s that, too.”
“There’s what?”
“When we go back . . .” He turned his back, leaned his arms on the stove. “That’s it for us. For any chance I might have with you.”
Why? Because I was gutterborn and he was a trader? Did he really care what people thought of us? Until now, I’d been unsure of Raav’s intentions, wondering whether I was nothing but a distraction during our months away from home. And in truth, I was still confused and hurting over Paono. I needed time to sort out my feelings. But the notion that he’d be embarrassed to associate with me stung.
“Say something,” he said after a long silence.
“Unlike you, I’m not worried about what people think.”
Raav moved, fluid, like smoke pushed by the wind. One hand went into my hair and the other around my back. He pressed shaking lips to mine, desperate. The kiss lasted only a few breaths, but I felt every inch of his body against mine, each tremor in his arms. When he drew back, his eyes were closed. He rested his chin on top of my head.
“Thanks for not slapping me,” he said.
I nodded dumbly.
After a moment, he continued. “And no, I don’t care what other people think. I’m worried about you. I know you like me—you just haven’t figured out how much. That’s okay. Here on Ioene, I have months to convince you. Years maybe. When we go home, even if my brother disowns me, we’ll be trader and commoner. You might beg your friends or family to give me a job. We might talk. But I’m afraid you’ll stop noticing how much we have in common. How well we work together.”
&nbs
p; “I’m not sure what to say, Raav. I—I do like you. There’s just so much going on.”
“If Mieshk weren’t a problem—if we dealt with her—would you stay here with me? Would you think about it? The city is strong enough to protect us through the storm season. We could rebuild this place.”
His words tugged at my soul. We could be like Zyri and Tyrak. Spend lazy evenings on the beach just watching the waves and the stars.
“But Mieshk is here. And she won’t give up as long as she breathes.” A shiver climbed my spine when I recalled the sight of Anker’s skull caved from Raav’s weapon. Ioene had made monsters of us.
He must have felt me stiffen. “I know,” he said. “I wasn’t saying I wanted to kill her. Not really. I just want something to hold on to. Something to think about on the homeward sail. Will you promise to consider me—us—once we’ve returned home?”
I stepped back from his embrace. My body didn’t want to; I wanted to return to that kiss. It didn’t seem fair, though, not until I understood my own heart.
Just then, footsteps slapped the floorboards outside the galley. Katrikki—why did it have to be her?—burst in the room carrying a lamp and a length of rope.
“Problem,” she said.
“What’s that?” Raav asked.
“Take an end.”
She held up the rope, and Raav grabbed a frayed end. Katrikki yanked.
The line was so decayed that it parted without a sound. Dust floated in the air while the ends dangled limply from their hands.
“The sails are the same. Rotten. No use even trying to raise them.”
Silence followed her words.
“Can we row?” I asked, finally.
Katrikki hardly acknowledged my question, staring instead at Raav. Ships were trader business.
Raav squeezed my shoulder. “Takes at least a dozen men at the oars to move a vessel this size. That’s if they’re well-fed. Even with healthy oarsmen, we’d run out of rations before we made it back. We need the wind.”
“What about the sails from the Evaeni?” I asked.
Katrikki shook her head. “Burned. Other than our small handful of blankets, the only cloth we know of is the canvas Mieshk is using for tents.” She grimaced. “Obviously not easy to steal.”
Shattering of the Nocturnai Box Set Page 22