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I was helping with the rigging, cause the wind had been strong all afternoon, blowing in from the south, hot and dry and tasting like dust and spice. It had everybody in a mood, especially the more superstitious fellows in the lot, and so there were a lot of charms getting tossed around, and certain words getting uttered. And everybody was drinking up the rum, superstitious or not. I'll admit that my hands kept going to my throat that day, rubbing at Naji's charm.
The wind picked up, and it howled through the sails, flattening 'em out and then billowing 'em up. Water sprayed out from the sea, huge glittering drops of it. Not a cloud in the sky, though, the sun hot and bright overhead.
Crewmen were crawling all over the rigging, and Marjani was up at the helm, throwing her whole body into keeping the ship steady. A big green wave splashed over the railing and slammed into me, and I fell across the deck, hitting up against old Chari's worn-out boot. He hardly offered me a glance as he pulled at the rigging, shouting curses and prayers alike. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed hold of the rope to help him out. The whole thing felt like a typhoon if not for the sun and the weird spice scent on the wind. Maybe it was that noble from the Mists, drawing the worlds together like Naji had said…
For a half-second, I caught a whiff of medicine, sharp and mean, like spider mint, and I shot back to Lisirra, to the entrance of the night market. The rope slipped out of my hands.
"The hell's your head, girl!" shouted Chari. "Hold on tight if you don't want to get knocked overboard."
The smell of Naji's magic disappeared. He can't, I thought, scrambling to pick up the rope. It has to be the Mists. He can't be doing this. It'd put me in danger–
And then another wave crashed over the side, and I managed to hold on tight, and all thoughts of Naji's magic washed away with it. I had a ship to keep afloat.
By then somebody was ringing the warning bell, the clang clang clang that meant an attack or a storm or just plain ol' trouble. Seawater showered over us like rain, the salt stinging my eyes and the sores in my hands. Chari turned around and grabbed my wrist and shoved me over to the foremast. "Get up there!" he shouted, jabbing his hand toward the rigging. Water streamed over my face, blurring my vision, but then I saw it: The storm sail had come loose.
"Shit!" I scrambled up the rope, slipping and crawling, my clothes plastered to my skin. The wind threatened to knock me off the rope but I dug my nails into the fibers, clinging with every bit of my strength. The sail flapped back and forth, snapping like a whip, though at least it was dry up here, away from the fury of the waves. I reached out and made a grab for it. Missed. Righted myself. Took a deep breath. Watched the sail and waited for it to snap back toward me. This time I caught the edge and yanked on it one-handed even though the wind had other ideas. My arms shook. My eyes watered. I screamed, trying to gather up the will to do this without dying.
And then I had it. That split-second between wind gusts and I had it. I tied the sail back into place, looping the rope with aching fingers.
The boat jerked, tilted, and I fell, grabbing at one of the riggings before I crashed down on deck. I cried out but the wind swallowed my voice right up and no one down below even noticed me.
I kicked out my feet, swinging up like a monkey. The wind kept on howling. I started crawling back down, my arms hating every second of it. Every part of my body ached.
And then I heard this low creaking groan, and I knew they were shifting the boat so we could run with the wind to safety. Under normal circumstances it ain't nothing I can't handle but with the wind and the hurt in my body it was too much. The movement knocked me loose. I managed to hang on with one hand, swinging out over the deck. What with the seawater and the sunlight, everything down there was covered in rainbows.
Then I lost my grip, and I fell.
I woke up and all I knew was the hurt. Pain vibrated through my body, all the way out to the tips of my fingers and toes. My head throbbed. But I was laid out on something soft, a pile of rope and old sails, and I guess that was why my brains hadn't spilt out all over the deck of the Ayel's Revenge.
She was moving, at least, soft and smooth, and there wasn't any wind or water splashing over the railing. No voices, neither, only the purring ocean, the occasional snap as the sails rippled overhead. I pushed myself up on my elbows, and when that wasn't the bone-breaking trauma I expected I forced myself to sit up halfway, my back aching, my head lolling.
The air was cold.
That bothered me. Ain't no reason for us to be anywhere near coldness, not at this time of year, and not where we were sailing. Don't care how bad that storm knocked us off course.
Not a storm, I thought, remembering the sunlight, the scent of spider mint, but I shoved the thought out of my head.
I took another few moments to pull myself up to standing, and then took even longer to recover from it, standing in place and swaying a little. Then I shuffled forward, limping from a twinging pain in my left thigh.
We were someplace else. I knew that soon as I came out from the under the shadow of the rigging. The sky was the color of a sword's blade, and the water lapping up at the sides of the boat was dark gray, nearly black, and everything smelled like metal and salt. We were north, up close to the ice-islands, maybe. I'd only been there a few times in my life but I remembered the smell of the air, that overwhelming scent of cold.
A handful of crewmen were bunched up at the port bow of the ship, all huddled together, not talking. Chari was there, and Marjani, her arms wrapped tight around her chest. I limped toward them.
"Hey!" My voice came out strangled, raspy. Nobody turned around. "Hey, what's going–"
I stopped. We were in sight of land. Way far off in the distance was a line of green, that vivid darkalmost-black green you only get in the north.
And below the line of green was a line of black beach and below that, a strip of gray. The sky. A gap between the island and the sea.
And like that, all the pain in my body got replaced with the icy grip of dread, and I remembered how I'd smelled medicine back during the storm, before I–
Marjani glanced over at me, her eyes widening. "Ana
I tried to choke out some kind of nicety, something about falling into the rope, something, anything to make her think I had nothing to do with us being within swimming distance of those horrible islands.