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As long as I didn't think about the Isles of the Sky. As long as I didn't think on how Naji's curse was an impossible one. Cause I knew that just cause I could see my future again, that didn't mean it was going to happen.
After a while, Naji started coming with me to my lessons with Marjani. He didn't ask – of course he didn't ask – but he did show up at the captain's quarters one evening after di
"I hope you don't mind if I join you," he said. "But I find the crew…" He hesitated. Marjani looked like she wanted to laugh.
"A pain in the ass?" I offered.
"Tiresome," Naji said. He tugged at his hair, kind of pulling it over his scar, and I frowned, wondering what the crew had said to him.
"I have to go with Ana
Naji settled down in this gilded chair in the corner and watched me and Marjani work without saying nothing. It took me awhile to chart the course from Lisirra to Arkuz – I was using some calculations Marjani had given me, from an old logbook. I felt like I'd taken way too long to get it done, but when I finished Marjani looked sorta impressed.
"Nice work," she said. "You're a quick learner." She smiled. "You would've done well at university."
That made me real happy, cause nobody had ever said nothing like that to me before.
"Yes," Naji said. "She would have."
Marjani glanced at him. "Where did you attend?"
"In Lisirra. The Temple School."
"Oh." She flipped through the logbook and handed it back to me. "Lisirra to Qilar," she told me. "Go."
I sighed like I was a
Naji nodded and said, "I didn't study ack'mora there, if that's what you're asking."
"I'll admit I was curious." Marjani smiled. "I've no ability for sorcery, myself. I studied mathematics and history. At the university in Arkuz."
"I've been there. It's lovely."
"The city or the university?"
"Both."
It was like they were speaking a whole other language. Universities and history and sorcery. I wondered what I would've studied if I'd got to go to university. Piracy's probably not an option.
"I've been to Arkuz," I said. "We sailed up the river into the jungle to trade with some folks there."
"Really?" said Marjani. "I always hated the jungle. You never know when it's going to rain." She leaned over the map. "Oh, good work," she said.
"I've got it?" I'd been so wrapped in listening in on Marjani and Naji's conversation that my hands must've kept on working while my brain lagged behind.
"You've got it," Marjani said.
After that, Naji came to my lessons about every day, I guess cause he and Marjani had bonded over both going to university. He didn't have a lot to offer in the way of navigation, but he and Marjani would tell me about other stuff they'd learned, like all these weird stories about the different emperors over the years, or how to calculate the volume of an empty container without having to fill it with water first. It was fun.
Then Marjani got me to start helping her with the true navigation, the navigation that was taking us around the sirens and three weeks out of our way and, as far as me and Naji were concerned, delaying the trip to the Isles of the Sky. One morning she called me down from the rigging and handed me her logbook and a quill and the sextant.
"I need measurements," she said. "You know how it works. Get going."
The crew stared at me while I stood there fiddling with the sextant. Marjani trotted off to speak with the captain up at the helm, and I felt real conspicuous with everybody's eyes on me. But then I lifted up the sextant and peered through it up at the sky and the whole boat fell away.
I stopped doing as much work in the rigging after that, since Marjani had me taking measurements for her every day. Seems that charting a new course on the water's a bit risky, as you're creating a new path in addition to the usual work of checking where you are in the water. But we stayed on course, still moving up toward the north and to the east, and Marjani said it was partially cause I helped her. I didn't necessarily believe that, mind, though I suppose I had no reason not to.
One afternoon I crawled up on deck to make the usual round of measurements and noticed immediately that something was off. There were a lot of voices shouting and yelling, but it wasn't about rigging or wind or none of the usual complaints. At first I thought we must be under attack, that some tracker from the Mists – or worse, the Hariris – had followed me and Naji all the way to sea. Immediately my heart started pounding and I went for the knife at my hip. Which I still hadn't replaced. Stupid. I needed to ask Naji for his knife or nick it off him while he slept.
But then I realized I didn't hear the clank of sword against sword, or the pop of a pistol. And nobody'd sent out the call to arms, neither. It was just yelling. And jeering.
And my heart started pounding all over again.
I raced across the deck to where Ataño and a couple of his cronies were crowded around the railing. Naji was there, too, staring at them stone-faced. Ataño said something I couldn't make out, on account of the wind blowing in off the waves and beating through the sails, but he pushed up the skin of the left side of his face until it snarled the way Naji's face did sometimes and his cronies laughed like it was the fu
Me, I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.
"Fuck off!" I screamed. All three of 'em turned toward me and I took off ru
And then Ataño was flat on his back, Naji crouched on his chest with his sword at Ataño's throat.