Once Stolen

by D. N. Bryn

  The hat woman grabs my chain as I pass and yanks it. The smell of my own blood hits me so hard I can taste it. It seeps from my arm in ripples each time I tremble. A throbbing fog clouds my thoughts, broken only by Thais’s scream.

  The hat woman barrels into me and digs her fingers between the patterned ridges running along my scalp. The chaos it casts through my skull overwhelms me, shatters me, cuts me off from my body and my thoughts and my very existence. As I writhe, the redhead vanishes from my grasp.

  Then Thais is there, a swirling mass of dirt and rain, sliding her body between the hat woman’s and mine. Her lips move with a fury, and she presses her hand beneath the woman’s digging one, forcing her grip to withdraw. For a moment, all I can feel is the thrum of Thais’s pulse in her fingers, like the beat of an ignit.

  As soon as her hand comes away, I thrash out from under both humans. The chain drags after me. Netting wraps around my tail. I plunge into the shadows beneath a long table, curling against the wall behind it. Movement from the main street echoes through the wood. Run, escape, part of me thinks, but the rest of my mind sobs too loudly to hear it.

  A knock at the front door turns the room utterly still. From my vantage beneath the table, I can’t see the door itself, but the hat woman pauses from helping up the redhead, and the pipe lover picks up another metal pole. All their eyes fix on the entrance. I shake, and my blood drips over the clamp, splattering on the floor.

  Quick as a snake, Thais snatches a blue ignit out of the stunned redhead’s hands and runs to me. I flinch and grip my necklace like it might free me from this disparate black place I’m spiraling toward. But Thais only grabs my fingers, placing the ignit between my palms, and rips the netting away from my tail. She bunches it up, shoving it out of view.

  Under the soothing rhythm of the ignit, my spiraling stops. Stops because of Thais. Thais.

  But the knocking continues.

  A human calls into the shop, and from our nook beyond the door’s line of sight, Thais translates their words for me: “Is everything all right in there?”

  My heart skips, but the ignit I strum beneath my fingers soothes the ache in my bones. The pipe bearer’s gaze bounces from Thais to the other two humans. Feather-hat shrugs and the redhead just stares at me, a crooked tweak in their full lips, their curls a mess around their face.

  More shouting from beyond the door. Thais’s hands shake as she relays the new message: “Open up in the name of the Fang!”

  Oh, muck. My new ignit almost slips from my fingers when I sign. “They found me—they’ll take me—”

  Thais touches her fingers to mine, a soft quick brush. “We won’t let them.”

  Why? Why is this muddy frustrating insulting boat shit of a human so determined to do good, even if that good means helping someone like me? “You really are a fucking hero.”

  Something blooms warm in my chest as I sign it, but Thais looks toward the other humans too soon to see my words. She scrambles to hide the revealed parts of my tail with empty boxes and the fallen shelves before scooting back under the table with me.

  The pipe bearer opens the door, and Thais continues to translate.

  “Hello?” This must be the pipe bearer. “How can I help you?”

  Now, the person at the door: “There’s a savage boiuna reported loose in the village. What happened here? Were you attacked?”

  I feel the new human step over the threshold, and I stop breathing, wishing the shadows would eat me up.

  The pipe bearer laughs. It grates a little along my ridges with an awkward stutter that digs like claws into the bruising on my scalp.

  “No, no,” Thais translates the pipe bearer’s words. “I was working on a—” Thais pauses and then goes with, “machine, and it backfired, made a bit of a mess. But we’ll watch out for the boiuna.” The pipe bearer pauses, then adds, “What are we supposed to do with this snake if we find it?”

  “Rubem Veneno prefers it alive, but it might be dragging around a young village dancer. If you have to kill it to get to her, or to protect yourself, then so be it.”

  My blood runs cold, another drop of it seeping onto the wood.

  The pipe bearer speaks again, “Compensation?”

  “The Fang Cartel supplies you quite nicely as it is,” the cartel human replies. “Be happy that you’re doing us a favor, and maybe Rubem will throw a few more ignits into your next shipment.”

  “Well. Then, I’ll be sure to let you know if I stumble across this boiuna. What’s it supposed to look like?”

  Thais finishes the signs and adds two of her own, pointing at me, then tapping her head: “What do you think?”

  I fit the ignit into a spare bit of my necklace wire with one hand, letting its gentle throb calm my growing panic, and sign with the other, “I don’t trust the mechanic.”

  Thais nods. “I don’t either. They could be a decent person, but they could also get a nice bundle of ignits if they sold you directly to the fisher’s guild. They could just be biding their time. I don’t want to risk it.”

  The cartel human speaks again, but instead of translating for them, Thais reaches her hand up, feeling along the table above us. Two pieces of metal clank together. The hat woman and the redhead glance at us, and while the first looks away, the redhead’s eyes seem glued to me. Their mouth opens, but their companion wraps an arm around them, whispering something in their ear.

  The humans at the door keep talking. Thais draws down a set of tools. She reaches for my arm, and I flinch, but I motion for her to get on with it, rubbing my ignit to distract myself. She sets to work. The metal bites into my scales, fresh blood oozing, but the pin holding the clamp together slowly comes out. The ping of it hitting the ground is dampened by the creak of the door closing.

  I yank the clamp off so quickly it grates, but this burn flares with the good kind of pain, reminding me that I’m alive and free. Free. Thank the mists, I’m never letting another piece of metal touch my skin again.

  Thais’s hands flash. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.” Blood drips along the sliced rim of my scales, and the nerve-rattles threaten to descend again at any moment, but my own honesty cuts deeper than either, because I am good now, despite it all, and damn do I want to get the fuck out of here.

  The pipe bearer walks back toward us, and the eyes of the other two humans turn our way. I glance down, my muscles tensing. Thais’s fingers wrap around mine. The slightest tug from her springs me forward. I shove by the hat woman, knocking her and her companion to the side with my tail as I drag Thais through the hallway. We fly out the back door and down the tight path.

  I almost freeze at the sight of the main street. The scent of humans precedes their hazy forms, extra lanterns shining through the mist and weapons waving like deadly limbs. Thais tugs me forward. I squeeze my new ignit until its pulse settles in my veins and follow her lead. If she meant to hurt me, she could have done it back at the mechanic’s shop, and if she meant to sell me, she would’ve been smarter to keep the clamp on my arm. For whatever crazy heroic reasons, she sincerely wants to help.

  We dash between the buildings, Thais leading the way, but barely two intersections pass before we stumble into a loose troop of humans turning a corner. We push through them. Their shouts sting my head like a knock in the skull, and the pounding of their feet follow us through the streets. A net hurls past me, trapping someone deeper in the mists instead. Gunfire rings through my spine, but I launch us around a bend.

  Our pursuers multiply, forcing us to turn ever farther from the direction Thais tries to flee. Her breath grows heavy. My muscles burn, the wooden road tearing into my belly, and the drying blood from my arm wound cracks against my scales. We veer onto a wide path. The lights burn brighter but farther apart here, nearly overcome by the mists. At the end of the road rears a massive wooden wall. The soft vibration of rippling water fluctuates from beyond it.

  Water, like the river. We’re almost safe.
>
  I sling my tail over the wall and pull Thais up with me. We run headfirst into an ornamental fruit tree. I slide through the branches, toward the trickling, but when I drop, I find myself not in a stream at the village’s edge, but surrounded by a dark courtyard.

  Thais lands beside me. Wood paths wind around flower boxes with orchids and ferns, and the water vibrates from a little waterfall over a pond on the other side of the fog-laden space. The whole place holds such a stillness that it feels like we have passed into a different world, as though the boat village has its own private boat-human Murk.

  Lovely crimson rocks litter the planters. I snatch one, giving it a quick glance. In the shadows, I swear they look like uncut rubies, but with this many so casually placed, they must be the more common red garnets. I pop one into my necklace beside the ignit to look at later.

  Thais steps forward cautiously, surveying the unlit windows of the surrounding rooms. “I don’t know where we are—I never came to this part of town.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We just have to get into the river.” I move toward the decorative waterfall, searching the ground. “Are there grates? Doors? Anything leading down?” I slide to a stop. The mist swirls away from me, shifting over the stone-lined pool built into the wood. Clear water drains down to it from a pile of rocks. I lean in, and a small caiman scoots away, hiding in a gap between the rocks.

  A gentle breeze carries forth the scent of wine and one so much like the heat of the sun in the afternoon that the night seems to pull away. I freeze. In an archway beyond the pool, a bug net billows, and the leader of the Fang Cartel, Rubem, steps out.

  FOUR

  Precious Stones, Perilous Poisons

  When does bravery become stupidity?

  That’s a trick question: all bravery is stupid.

  RUBEM HOLDS A VIAL of luminous green and a glass of dark wine red, but his preoccupied hands drift in a motion that mimics the budding flowers in Lily’s name. He stops when his eyes settle on us. He sets down his glass and places the vial into the front pocket of his shirt where it glows beneath the thin fabric, gently pulsing with an ignit’s soft heartbeat. With one fishnet-encased hand, he flicks a switch on the courtyard wall. The hum of a machine starts up, lighting lamps throughout the garden.

  A shudder runs through my bones, and I clutch my neck-lace-bound ignit, letting the thrum of it sink into my heart. I feel Thais gasp beside me.

  “I was expecting someone else, but I suppose you’ll do,” Rubem says.

  Her hands fly into motion. “You’re not taking us.”

  A twist comes over Rubem’s lips. “I admire your spirit, child.” Each gesture is as dark and fluid as the alcohol he smells of. The long red flaps of his coat and the loose bundles of his beaded braids flare silently as he works his way around the pond. “Perhaps I was too impulsive, having you hauled to me like a captive. We could be working together in this—should be. I must have your mother’s ignit hoard, one way or another, but if you’re willing to help me, to hear me out, then you’ll be under my protection. Not prisoners, but partners.”

  My breath catches, my darkest fears throwing me visions of Thais stepping to Rubem’s side and the two of them turning viciously on me. I doubt she would, but I slide backward anyway, coiling my tail. I hit a flower box. The scrape of scales on wood to my right lures my attention just long enough for me to spot the shape of another one of Rubem’s pets plodding closer, this one a massive crocodilian, as though the caiman from the pond has somehow grown to be twice my size. I go still, refusing to give it a target to snap at.

  “You can return to your performing, Thais, with my protection and funding for your travels. No other cartel will dare seek you out. You’ll have boats, instruments, a mansion to return to—anything your heart desires. You can even continue your friendship with the boiuna, if you wish.” Rubem pauses, his stare digging into me. “I know you both have no one else.”

  “You’re not planning to do anything bad to him, then?” Thais asks.

  Rubem’s brow does a funny twitch I can’t read. My heart recoils. No. No, Thais tried so hard to save me. She’s a fucking hero. She can’t—

  But I would. I would hand her to Rubem in an orchid wreath if he promised me a hoard of ignits and a safe life to lead with them. The understanding jerks my heart anew.

  “What I will do with him is still to be seen.” The fishnet gloves on Rubem’s smooth brown hands make terrible sickly patterns as he waves one into the lamp light.

  I nearly can’t watch, gripping my ignit tightly.

  “But I would never hurt him,” Rubem continues, “if that’s what worries you. I’ve no desire to harm anything that comes from the Murk. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  Just words—lies, I’m sure of it. What does a boat shit cartel leader care about those from the swamps?

  Thais glances at me, but I can’t hold her gaze. Her features shift as though she’s trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what. Run? Stay? Are you really worth this much to me? I know the answer to the last one. I’m not worth that much to anyone, even a person with a moral compass as pristine as Thais’s. I bunch my muscles, tracking the monstrous crocodilian at my back as I prepare to flee, but something stops me, some twinge in my chest. Will Rubem take Thais captive again if I run? It shouldn’t matter.

  It doesn’t matter. If she decides to work with him, he won’t hurt her. And I wouldn’t care if he did.

  The beast at my back lurks a little closer, its ridged tail sliding like a tree trunk across the wood. I spring over the caiman pond. One hand holding the ignit in my necklace tightly, I grab for the roof on the other side. I whip my tail around, splashing as I climb, but my fingers find no hold on the roof tiles. The weight of the moving crocodilian shudders the wooden courtyard floor. It snaps for my tail, missing by a scale.

  I slip from the roof and leap again. I need both hands to pull myself up, but I can’t let go of my ignit. I can’t.

  I feel the vibration of the beast’s teeth descending a moment before they drive into my tail, pushing through scale and piercing flesh. My grip on the roof fails. I hold my ignit tightly and tuck my head in as I smack against the wood like a wet towel. My belly burns from the impact, but I force myself to writhe, wrapping my body across the crocodilian’s. I encircle its thick neck. It tries to whip me off, clamping harder on my tail in the process.

  The vibrations of Rubem’s shouting rattle along my ridges, but they feel distant and unimportant.

  I jab my thumb into the beast’s eye socket. It hisses and rolls, my tail still caught in its jaws. I loop around its body and tighten my hold on its neck and legs, latching my thumb farther into its skull. It snaps its mouth open, careening in a panic. I yank my tail out from its teeth and twist tighter around its neck, waiting for it to go limp.

  The scent of Rubem’s fear and anger surges through the air with burning intensity. He slams into me. One of his fishnet-covered hands touches my scales, and I jerk away from him. My grip slides down the crocodilian’s body. The beast rolls once more, pinning the lower half of my torso between its rough hide and the wooden deck. It struggles inside the coils of my tail.

  Rubem lunges for me again, but Thais appears on the other side of the crocodilian. She chucks an uncut gem from the planters at Rubem’s face. He ducks, but the motion distracts him. His pet monster whacks into him from its blind side.

  I tense my muscles with everything in me, forcing the noose tighter around the crocodilian’s neck. Its movements slow. Rubem screams again. His hands shake, and he launches a punch to my head, straight for the lines of my ridges. Just the sight of his impending fishnet gloves tears my world into strips, and I can’t move. I can’t move.

  Thais leaps over the crocodilian’s side, barreling into Rubem. They go down in a twist of fabric and limbs. The soft glow of Rubem’s vial gleams as it falls from his pocket. It cracks against the ground. One of Thais’s flailing hands slams into it. She yelps. When she lifts her arm, red oozes i
n a thin strip. From the cut, a glowing trail of green traces its way through her skin, pulsing. She shudders, and I feel the tremble so deeply in my bones I think I might be mirroring it. Then she goes limp.

  I unfurl myself from the crocodilian like lightning, rolling it off me in the process, and spring to catch her before she can hit the ground. Thais! Don’t be dead now. Don’t be dead because of me.

  Her corpse can’t sit at the top of everything else I’ve fucked up in my life.

  Her chest rises and falls, ragged. She jerks out of my arms, and bile pours from her mouth in heaves. Rubem stares at her, then at the broken vial. His senses seem to return with a wave of emotional scents too chaotic for me to distinguish. He stum-bles.

  Grabbing Thais beneath her armpits, I drag her away from him, toward the wide wooden door on the other side of the courtyard, the door back into the town. As I slam it open, I coil my tail beneath me and hold on to Thais’s waist, preparing for more cartel humans, for fishers, for hunters. But the only people in view of the little path to the doorway catch me off guard: the older two from the mechanic’s shop, the redhead and the feather-hat woman.

  The hat woman draws her pistol, but she aims it at the ground, trying to see past us to where a wet-faced Rubem trembles, his arms around his bleeding crocodilian. With her flowing red cape and broad chest, the hat woman looks far more intimidating than he. Her companion rushes to my side. Together we help a weak Thais into the street, the hat woman covering our backs.

  She barks something, and Thais answers, shaking her head. Her limbs drag heavily as she stumbles between us. After a moment of hesitation, the feather-hat woman holsters her gun and picks Thais up like she weighs no more than a palm branch. Curling my tail back and forth beneath me, I watch her and the redhead walk through the fog. The redhead glances over their shoulder. They wave for me to follow, but when I don’t move, they shrug and leave me be.