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“Are we go
“I can’t climb,” the manticore said.
“I’ll take you.” Naji cut across the beach. “All of you,” he added, when the manticore opened her mouth.
I remembered the day we arrived on the island, how close he pressed me into his chest. And it was weird, cause the last thing I wanted in the world was for him to hold me – but at the same time, it was the only thing.
Instead, he asked me if my hand hurt.
“What?”
“Your hand. That you burnt last night.”
Thinking about it made my skin tingle, but it didn’t hurt none at all. “No, it doesn’t. Told you it was fine.”
Naji gave me a hard look. I stared back long as I could.
“I’ll bring the manticore and Marjani down to the boat one at a time,” he said. “Don’t start rowing out to the ship yet.”
“I know that.”
Another dark look and then:
“Don’t leave me on the island, either. You know what would happen if I stepped out of the shadows on that ship. The crew won’t trust that sort of magic. I’d be tossed overboard.”
“I ain’t go
He glowered at me. I glowered right back.
“Good,” he said, and then he grabbed me by my uninjured hand and the darkness came in.
Marjani’s ship was a big Qilari warship called Goldlife, and it didn’t belong to Marjani but to a ski
The crew was rowdy and loud, drunker as a group than the crew on the Revenge, and even more lewd. The first day I had to hold my knife to some guy’s throat to keep him from grabbing at me.
When night fell, and we’d cleared out of sight of the Isles of the Sky, Marjani took me and Naji down to the brig. Nobody was down there on account of the manticore, though she seemed more preoccupied with trying to lick every spot of brig-sludge off her coat.
“Girl-human!” she bellowed when I dropped off the ladder. “I demand my release at once!”
I pressed my hands against the bars. I felt sorry for her, I really did, but even I wasn’t about to let her free on a ship full of men.
“If I let you out, you’ll eat half the crew,” I said. “And a ship this size, we need ’em to get you back to the Island of the Sun.”
She pouted.
“Yes,” said Marjani. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I turned to look at her. Somebody’d strung up a trio of magic-cast lanterns that swayed with the rhythm of the boat, casting liquid shadows across Marjani and Naji.
“We’re not going to the Island of the Sun,” I said.
The manticore hissed. So did Naji.
“You realize that manticore wishes to eat me, correct?” he said, sounding like snakes.
“No, we definitely are dropping off the manticore,” said Marjani.
The manticore hissed again, and I turned and shushed her.
“We’re just not doing it with this boat.”
Me and Naji both stared at Marjani, and she gave us this wry little smile.
“This is about that favor you want from us, isn’t it?” Naji asked.
“It won’t be difficult,” she said. “Certainly not for you…” she looked at me when she said that bit. “The Goldlife crew are go
“And then you’ll take me home?” the manticore asked. “Will you cure the Jadorr’a’s curse first?”
Nobody answered her.
“Who’s go
“Oh, absolutely not,” said Marjani. “We’ll captain her. Me and you together.”
Naji looked relieved, but I just stared at her.
“That’ll never work,” I said. “Ain’t no man’ll sail under a woman–”
Marjani held up one hand. “That’s why I needed both of you.”
“No,” said Naji. “Absolutely not.”
I looked from him to Marjani and back again, and in those sliding soft shadows I saw her plan taking shape: put Naji in some rotted old Empire nobility cloaks and he’d look the part of captain sure enough. A mean one, too, what with the scar.
“You won’t actually captain anything,” I said. “Right? We’ll use him to book a crew.”
“Exactly,” said Marjani. “Captain Namir yi Nadir. I started spi
“What!” Naji asked. “Why?”
“So men’ll want to sail with you,” I told him. “What kinda captain is he?” I gri
Naji was glaring at me, his eyes full of fire. Seeing him angry like that soothed the hurt inside me. Not a whole lot, mind, but enough that some of the sting disappeared.
“Of course not,” Marjani said. “I want men to sail with us, not fear us.” She turned to Naji. “I put out stories about you sacking the Emperor’s City with a single ca
The anger washed out of Naji’s face. “And people believed that?”
“People’ll believe anything, the story’s good enough. I also put out word that you pay your men fair, you offer cuts of the bounty even to the injured, and you’ll sail with women.”
“I do all that?” Naji frowned. “I’m not even a pirate.”
“No, you’re an assassin,” I said.
The anger came back again, just a flash across his eyes, but it was enough.
Marjani gave me a look that told me to cut it out.
“All of this is moot until we get a ship,” she went on. “So Ana
Naji scowled.
“This is the only way we’ll be able to complete the rest of the tasks,” Marjani said, and my face went hot, cause I knew then that he’d told her everything, about the curse’s cure and my kiss. “You’ll never be able to convince Chijal to do it, that’s for certain.”
And then she walked out of the brig before Naji had a chance to answer.
We sailed for four days and didn’t see another soul, just the gray expanse of sea and sky. It was colder on the boat than it had been on land, the wind sharp against the skin of my hands and face, like it could flay it from my bones. One of the crewmen, a boy from the ice-islands named Esjar who had white-yellow hair and looked about my age, gave me a pair of sheepskin gloves.
“For the lady,” he said, with this weird flourish I realized was meant to be an Empire bow.
I took the gloves and stared at them. Papa’d always told me to treat the ropes with my bare hands. Ship gets pissy otherwise, he said. Rope’ll slip clean away from you.
“They stop the cold.” Esjar spoke Empire, but he had the same hissing accent as Eirnin. “We ain’t in Empire seas anymore. Out here, you need them, same as you need that pretty red cloak.”
I glanced down. Marjani’d let me have her cloak once we came on board – she had another one, dark blue, that she said she liked better – and I had to admit it kept me warmer than any clothes I’d ever owned. So I slipped on the gloves.
They helped. Yeah, the ropes slipped out of my hands more often, but at least my fingers could move.
Esjar and I became friends after that, chatting sometimes as we were working the ropes. He’d actually heard of the Mists – most of the ice-islanders had, in fact, which surprised me, seeing as how they ain’t so well known in the south. Esjar explained to me that the boundaries between worlds are thi