Once Stolen

by D. N. Bryn

  I cough, breaking the surface and sucking at the air, but my lungs remain too tight, too heavy, too damaged. Through the pain, a soft thrum soothes my head ridges the slightest bit, drawing me toward it. I catch the ignit as it sinks into the water, finding the familiar smooth side where I’ve been rubbing my thumb. Clutching it to my chest, I wait to feel alive again.

  As my body fits itself back together, I sense a second, third, and fourth stone drop into the tank. I scoop them up, creating a dazzle of red and blue and yellow and purple. Their nearness soothes me like a cold balm spreading over a burn.

  My vision focuses, finding Rubem. He’s pulled his chair close and perches on the edge of it, two fingers tapping furiously. They slow with the same beat as my heart. His fishnet gloves are gone.

  He gave me the ignits. His ignits. Four of them. It must be some kind of trick. Thais offered me the blue ignit back at the mechanic shop because she’s some crazy hero, and it was never hers, and she didn’t want it. But Rubem has none of those reasons.

  “If you’re all right coming out of there, we can get your tail wrapped up,” Rubem says.

  With my bones back into place, I feel the subtle ache of my oozing gashes again. And Rubem—Rubem who gave me ignits—is offering to fix that, and to let me out of this confinement in the process. My mind flickers back to my earlier assumption that he’s trying to trick me somehow, but if this is a ploy, I can’t figure out what he means to accomplish. I also can’t find a good reason to say no.

  With great care, I pull myself free of the tank, holding my new ignits in my mouth until my entire tail lies properly across the ground. I soak the floor with water and a little blood. Rubem watches, never attempting to touch me no matter how many times his fingers twitch my way.

  I curl the wounded part of my tail in front of me. My body seems to have come back together smaller and weaker than before, more child than adult. “Have at it, I guess.”

  “Yes. Right.” He shakes his head and takes a sip of his wine, then pulls out a container with medical supplies.

  For all the confusion I smell from him, his now fishnet-free hands never waver as he cleans and bandages the fresh gashes, surveying the old ones while he does. I think, maybe, his bewilderment has nothing to do with the cuts, and everything to do with me.

  “Why give me these?” I sign, one hand still clutching the ignits to my chest as he finishes tying off the last bandage.

  “You needed them.” Rubem scoots backward to rest against his seat. “I didn’t know if there was a certain color or number, so I improvised.” His hand moves to his wineglass, and his fingertips touch the rim before he yanks them away. “I have something I need as well. I don’t suppose it’s quite the same, because I wasn’t always like this, and the pain its lack causes is more emotional than physical. But still, I understand.” His fingers twitch, and he lifts the glass properly this time, taking a long sip before he sets it down. “Besides, these few ignits are nothing to me.”

  Of course. Nothing compared to the number Thais’s hoard will supply him. “You’re not getting Thais’s ignits.”

  Rubem’s chest vibrates in something like a huff or a laugh. “What does she even need that multitude for?”

  My hands stay up, but no response comes because I’ve asked the same thing since I first learned of her hoard. I curl a little tighter around the ignits Rubem gave me and ask instead, “How many is a multitude?”

  Rubem’s lips curve in an expression that could be everything or nothing at all. “More than there’s ever been in one place before, on the rivers, or in the mountains, or throughout the swamps, or even around the rest of the world, I’d wager.”

  The mere idea of it overwhelms me, desire bursting like a dam, too torrential to catch it all, to do anything but be swept downstream. The more I think, the more I wonder if it’s too good to be true. “How do you know?”

  “Speculation, mostly,” Rubem admits. “Thais’s mother spent fifteen years scouring this side of the continent for every ignit she could get her hands on, stealing, trading, murdering. Outside the Murk, we were just beginning to harness the ignits’ powers, but we never would have had enough of a supply vacuum for the cartels to take control if that woman had not siphoned off so many of the stones.” He takes another sip of his wine. “Maybe she destroyed some of them, maybe she threw them into the sea, maybe she had them shipped to some distant continent to sell there, but I don’t think so. I think they’re all at her old trove, thousands of inactive ignits. And I need to be the first one to reach them.”

  Thousands of inactive ignits. My chest flutters. Then it clenches with guilt because my focus still sweeps right over Thais’s need for a green ignit and straight to my desire for her hoard.

  Rubem interrupts my musing with a rumble deep in his throat. “You know, I could use someone like you—someone who could get into the deepest cracks beneath the mangroves.”

  Suspicion rears its head within me. I flick out my tongue, but he smells weakly of interest and nothing more. “Why? Do you want me to collect the Murk’s ignits for you?”

  “No, no. And I’d prefer not to rob the Murk of anything, but I may be able to solve most of our problems if I can get ahold of one of the ancients.”

  His other signs were all present in the boat human’s dialect, but this one—the specific word he uses to say ancient—is a Murk sign. Only a Murk sign. The boat humans called them nothing but Big Trees and Dangerous, because they never figured out what lay within the hulking rock-hard trunks, the glimmering life that wasn’t plant or animal. Yet Rubem, like Lily, signs it as though it’s a usual part of his vocabulary. But I still have to ask, “You know what an ancient is?”

  “I know.” Rubem leans forward. “I’m well aware that the ancients are a life-form all of their own, a fungal-like creature, but not a fungus at all. They take over the mangrove from the inside, latching to its energy source, which they’ve used to produce ignits with fresh enthusiasm in recent generations.”

  I shake my head. “There were ancients along the river systems once, but they’ve all died out since you fucking boaties moved in. If you could get one now, what makes you think you can keep it alive?”

  Rubem takes a sip of his wine, but his gaze never leaves me. “They died out because my father’s fucking people were destructive fools who wouldn’t nourish the land if their very existence depended on it. If I had to keep an ancient alive, I believe I could do it. I know better than them.”

  “You’re not really one of them, are you?”

  “I’m not anything.” He downs the rest of his glass in one go and stands to refill it, his fluid motions like a silent breeze. Like a piece of the Murk. But just a piece, not a whole. More questions jump to my hands—what if the boat humans learn about the stolen ancient and come for the rest—but he doesn’t turn back, just stares into the wine, swirling it around, then around again. “So, would you do it? Would you join with me? For the moment. Or perhaps longer. You’d be an apprentice of sorts, I suppose.”

  Join Rubem? A burning flash of bile rises in my throat, but as it fades, I realize the distaste comes from a flimsy instinct, meant to protect me from someone who was never my enemy to begin with. The longer I dwell on the idea, the more I find I like it. And I like Rubem. He’s blunt about the edges, but not unkind, just rational and a little messy. I could enjoy working with him, under the right conditions. I could enjoy molding myself after him too.

  I brush my fingers over the ignits in my lap, watching their slow glow shimmer under my touch. I wanted a solitary ignit-hoarding life. But what if I could have more? An ever-growing hoard of ignits and people to belong with. A family.

  But that thought drags my mind to someone other than Rubem. “And you’ll leave Thais alone if I do?”

  “I’d want to.” Rubem frowns. He sips from his glass. “If we get an ancient, I won’t need her hoard. Whatever the case, I was never the one who wished any harm on her—or you. If you help in this, you will be granted as
many ignits as I can spare.”

  As many as he can spare. I trace the four he’s given already, and a part of me wants to settle forever in their thrum, to be happy with just this. But the other part thinks of multitudes. If I work with Rubem, I would be settling for merely many ignits instead of a whole host. If I work with Rubem, Thais will still need someone to help her reach the hoard and dampen her poison.

  But she has Fern and Xera now, and I have an opportunity for a life with enough ignits, free of cartels and fishers hunting me. A life that wouldn’t include Thais. Thais, who would leave me after we reach her hoard anyway. Thais, who hasn’t come for me.

  I cringe. “I don’t know. I have to think.”

  Rubem’s chest contracts, and he rubs his fingers against his forehead. He takes another sip. A deep stillness settles in, broken only by his drinking as he stares out the window. Through it, the swamp turns to grey, fog curling in between the roots of the mangroves.

  I think of Thais, of her gleaming eyes and her hero’s heart. Nothing stirs. Not that I’m waiting for the soft plodding of her bare feet or the crash of Fern’s great tail or the tiny ping of Xera’s crossbow bolt. But I tap out Thais’s rhythm anyway, embedding it into the colorful stones in my lap.

  The gentle vibrations of my fingers against the ignits almost drown out the thrum of an arriving boat. Someone calls from the deck. Rubem’s eyes widen. He sets down his glass so hurriedly the wine nearly sloshes, and his hands clench and unclench as he calls up in response.

  He turns to me with widened eyes. “The fishers are here.”

  FIFTEEN

  The Path of the Hurricane

  Maybe all people find friends

  in the most mysterious of places.

  Or maybe it’s just us

  who can’t find them any other way.

  THE SIGN POURS THROUGH me, a chill first, then a flood of boiling oil. “But I saw . . .”

  My words hang, because I’m such an idiot. What I saw was Lily and Wolf becoming penajuar lunch, not the whole fisher’s guild annihilated. Maybe those two fishers I feared most were Rubem’s primary contacts, but more horrors like them pollute the same river.

  “You can’t let them in here, they’re fishers! They kill everything that isn’t human.” I wave to the assorted creatures around us, as though Rubem’s love for animals will slap him out of this nonsense.

  “I can’t keep her out.” Rubem’s throat bobs; his signs mirror the movement. “But I doubt Lily will harm you now, as long as she thinks you’re under my control.”

  My brain sticks to the fisher’s name, digging in with rows of teeth. And I am still such an idiot, because she’s not dead at all. She’s smarter or faster or just plain luckier than I anticipated. I shove my blue ignit into my necklace. Lifting my torso into the air, I pull back my lips. “I don’t care. She’s killed my kind. I would eat her for less.” It comes with a dual threat: I will eat her, and I can eat you all if you try to control me. Not that any of these humans are small enough to fit nicely in my stomach.

  But Rubem shakes his head with such vehemence his braids jerk back and forth. “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take, not yet. Not when she might have the North prepared to storm our jungles at her brother’s word.”

  Over the course of our conversation, his hardness has gone soft, his sharp edges receding, turning a violent cartel leader into a tired lonely man with Murk skin. His red undertones remain, but as his whole being draws itself together, they only serve to make him all the more terrifying. He is not from the rivers or the Murk. He is something deadlier than either. His hands flash like bullets.

  “Get into the bathroom.” The thud of a new pair of boots hits our deck, and the light from above shifts and flickers as people pass in front of it. I pick up no scent but Rubem’s, his sun-kissed smell turned night dark with dread, scorched in the fires of a terrible resolve. His gaze burns me down to mere cinders. “You are on my boat, and you will listen to me like your life depends on it.”

  “You…” My sign droops because through his fear-laden determination, I catch a whiff of salt and metal. Despite all my anger and desire, my blood goes cold. I make the sign for Lily, dragged through the chest-pounding motions for evil.

  Rubem nods. He ushers me into the bathroom, shutting the door so forcefully that it clunks against my coiled tail. A little silver lock with a keyhole holds the window closed now. Not that I care. I may be hiding from Lily, but I won’t flee from her too.

  As Rubem charges up the stairs, I crack the bathroom door back open, just enough to peek through. Near the top step, he all but throws his body in the path of a human with familiar black boots and billowing blue pants, blood staining the fabric in splotches.

  I can barely make out Rubem’s hands as they shift angrily through a series of signs. “If you touch my animals, I swear by the stones I’ll gut you and your brother, consequences be damned.”

  The human takes another step downward, forcing Rubem back. Her hands come into view, oddly pale skin almost glowing in the dim light. “—yet more demands.” Her salt and metal scent follows, like gunpowder blasted on a cold wet coast, a hint of something floral barely rising through the sewage.

  Rubem stiffens. His fingers flinch toward his pistol. “These are promises.”

  “If you say so,” Lily replies. She shoves past him, marching down the stairs like she’s half metal herself—resolute and nearly indestructible.

  This close, with no fight or flight to distract me, it’s like I’m seeing her anew. Her nose sits tiny on her face, her jawline stiff and her eyes round. Little brown spots cover all her exposed skin, and beneath her dingy bloodstained clothes, the top of a brooch peeks out, its golden design gleaming with lines that glow a faint silver, like an ignit turned to liquid.

  “That’s not a risk I’m willing to take, not yet,” Rubem said. Maybe he’s right. If Lily could survive the penajuar and still reach us here, then my measly attack would be futile.

  I cannot see the creatures her gaze flickers over as she wrinkles her nose, but I smell her disgust turn her already harsh scent even more bitter. “Your crew tells me the girl was here.”

  From the base of the stairs, Rubem remains silent, his hands going still in a way that overflows with unused energy. His fury and pain rake across my senses. I close my nose tight to keep from coughing it out.

  “And you let her escape. Again.” Lily pauses to trace the edge of the birdcage. “What is this now, the third time? Fourth? We put you in charge of this cartel because you claimed you could do a job for us.” She turns on Rubem. Her fists seal around the front of his shirt, and she slams him into the wall, knocking aside the skunk bird cage in the process. Angry vibrations bellow from the bird as it struggles to right itself, and I nearly miss the tremor in Lily’s throat. With one hand, she signs, “Next time, you keep her. Whatever it takes.”

  “The poor child is already suffering.” Rubem’s jaw pulses. “I don’t want to hurt her more.”

  Lily releases him with a shove. A little knife flips into her hand. She presses it to his pulse, the tip digging into skin just red enough that I almost miss the drop of blood it draws. “And I don’t want to hurt you—I have actual villains to dispose of. Sullying my hands with your barbarian blood is wildly inconvenient for me. But I will do it. I will raze your precious Murk for every ignit it’s worth if I must.”

  Between the odd angle of my viewing and the impeding lines of the doorway, I doubt myself. His precious Murk. But it’s my precious Murk too. I must have seen right, because even if I don’t belong here, the fire to fight for it burns through me, just as I smell it burn through Rubem, turning him back into a sun so bright it hurts to watch.

  He moves like a vengeful wind, knocking Lily’s arm away and slamming her backward. She slashes at him. He ducks from her reach, so fast my eyes nearly fail to track, and blocks the attack, once, twice, three times before they come apart, sliding into their original stances.

  “I said I w
ould get you that hoard, and I will,” Rubem snaps.

  “Sooner than later, Veneno.” A rough vibration comes from Lily’s chest. “Is that really your surname? Veneno. Venom.” She gives him one more look, then turns back toward the stairs. “I can’t wait to leave this pathetic jungle behind.”

  It seems like something she should be muttering to herself alone, but the reaction it inflicts in Rubem—relief flooding his scent name—makes it obvious why she signed it. She wants him to know he has only this last act to get rid of her. Only to find and torture a dying hero.

  She pauses at the first step. With her lips sealed closed, she continues, “There’s always the other way to fulfill your end of the bargain. If you tell me where the ancients are latched, then I’m happy to take one of those instead.”

  With that, she leaves.

  Rubem rushes to his fallen birdcage. His throat vibrates gently as he puts it back into place. I wait for the clatter of Lily’s boots to leap from the boat before I burst out of the bathroom.

  The open stairs form a perfect route back to Thais or to my old life or to anywhere but here, in this mess, with this dark northern omen hanging over it. But my irritation billows up, too hot and heavy to run from. “You silt-breather, you don’t want the ancient for yourself, you want it for Lily.”

  Rubem slumps to the ground, grabbing his wine bottle on the way. He takes a long drag directly from it. His chest vibrates, and the alcohol overwhelms his smell, all but the dosing of sunshine. Laughter. He’s laughing, but with something dark and senseless mixed in, as though bitterness drenches his hilarity. It makes no sense. Not when he shakes so hard he looks like he’ll come apart at the seams, or when he launches up, waggling his bottle and taking another swig.

  “That’s it, that’s a truth,” he replies, his dismal humor infiltrating the fluidity in his signs, turning them stiff and abrupt. “I want to steal the Murk’s most sacred creature to make a crazy foreigner leave without ripping apart either it or the young woman I put in her path. Because somehow, some gods-forsaken-how, I’m accidentally the emissary for a place that won’t even recognize my existence.”