The Pirate's Wish

The desert swirled around me, cold and sad with the night-time.

I wasn’t going to cry, and I wasn’t going to remember.

“What are you doing awake?”

It was Marjani. She came walking from the direction of the desert, her robes stained with dirt at the hem.

“Where the hell were you?”

“Thinking.” She folded her arms in front of her chest. “You look like you had too much ahiial.”

“I left when you did,” I muttered.

“I know.” She sat down beside me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She folded her legs up against her chest and tucked her chin on her knees. “You got that boon yet?”

Kaol, she had to ask that, didn’t she? I spat in the dirt.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Take it as a yes.” I glared off into the darkness. “And I don’t want to talk about it so don’t ask.”

Marjani blinked at me and then lay her cheek against the top of her knees. We sat in the dusty quiet until I couldn’t stand the sound of silence no more.

“When we leaving?” I asked.

Marjani lifted her head. “Tomorrow, I imagine. Later, though. After the crew’ve all slept off their hangovers.”

“We got a course laid out yet?”

Marjani hesitated. I peered at her, wondering what she was keeping from me. The mystery kept my mind off other things.

“We aren’t going to Lisirra,” she finally said.

“What? Why?” I dropped my head against the palm tree. “Another damn delay? Marjani, you’ve no idea how much I want to get rid of Naj… of the curse.”

Marjani gave me a weird look, but all she said was, “We’re going to Jokja. I know of starstones there.”

“You didn’t think that might’ve been important to mention before?” But then I remembered seeing that brooch stuck in the map at Arkuz. It hadn’t registered at the time, but– “Kaol, how long have you been pla

“Since Bone Island.” Marjani’s expression didn’t change. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you, but – I had my reasons.”

I glared at her.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to… go back.”

Something about her voice softened me. “Is it dangerous for you?”

“Probably not,” she said softly. “The king died three weeks ago. I received word when we were on Bone Island.”

“The king? You got banished on orders of the king?”

“The king had a… personal co

It took me a few minutes to realize what she was saying.

“You tried to court the Jokja princess?”

Marjani blinked at me a few times, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. Then she laughed. “I never thought about it that way before.”

“But it’s what you did! Merciful sea, Marjani, that’s a hell of–” I stopped. “Wait, so she’s the queen now? Your, ah, your friend? That’s how it works in Jokja, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“She ever pick a suitor?”

Marjani shook her head.

“That’s the real reason you want to go back, ain’t it?”

Marjani looked away, out toward the desert. “Saida’s family has owned a pair of starstones for several generations. I remember hearing about them from the court storyteller. And the condition of the curse required a princess, if you recall…” She laughed, shook her head. “It’s really quite perfect.”

Almost as perfect as me falling in love with him cause of helping him find his cure.

I was back in that bedroom, Naji kissing me and touching me and looking at me all cause of some manticore sorcery–

“Ana

I scowled.

Marjani tilted her head in a way that reminded me of Mama, bending over to lay cool rags on my forehead whenever I had a fever. “It’s about the boon, isn’t it?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about it!”

“It might help you, though.” Marjani eyes were wide and clear. “It helped me. Talking.”

I stared at her and didn’t say nothing.

“What did they give you, Ana

I hesitated.

“Ana

“Naji!” I shouted. “They gave me Naji.”

That was met with silence, like I figured it would. Then Marjani said, “Not as a meal, I hope–”

“No.” The palm tree was leaking sap, sticky and cool against the skin of my back.

“Then wha… Oh.”

I didn’t say nothing.

“How’d they–”

“I don’t know!” I slammed my fist into the ground. “Poisoned him or something. Magic. I don’t know.”

“Manticores with love spells,” Marjani said. “Well, that’s awfully terrifying.”

“It ain’t fu

“No,” she said. “It’s not.” She leaned forward, put one hand on my knee. “Sweetness, how do you know it was the boon?”

“Because there ain’t no way he could want me on his own!”

Marjani frowned.

“And I asked him to smile and he wouldn’t do it, and then he acted all confused, like he was coming out of a fever. Plus I can just tell, after spending every damn day with him.”

“It might’ve been the boon,” Marjani said. “But that sort of magic always builds upon latent desires–”

“Don’t try to make me feel better!”

“I’m not.” Her hand dropped off my knee. I thought about the way he held me close as he kissed me. All that manticore trickery. “I knew someone back in Jokja who studied magic. She explained how those kind of spells work, and she said you can’t make anything happen if it’s not there to start with it.”

I’d heard that too, but this was manticore magic, and it was probably different.

Marjani and I sat in silence for a few moments longer, and then she said, “Was he at least any good?”

I looked up at her. Then I burst into laughter, relieved that she was here, that I could talk to her about this.

“Why would you ask me that?” I asked, still laughing.

“I’m just curious.” She gri

“He had desires,” I said carefully. “And his magic still works.”

She laughed, her voice breaking against the wind.

“And we didn’t… didn’t do everything,” I finally said. “I figured out what happened before… before we could…”

At that, Marjani stopped laughing. She made this sympathetic clucking sound and stuck her arm around my shoulder, pulled me in close for a hug.

“I mean I’ve done it before. But it was never a big deal. It was always just… weird. And with Naji I thought… thought it might be special.”

“Oh, sweetness.”

“The others were just… boys I met. You know. And I was kind of hoping that I’d get to see what the big deal was.”

“The big deal?”

“You know.” I didn’t know how to put it into words. “How it’s supposed to feel really good, and you just… fall away…”

“Oh, that.” Marjani laughed again. “You know you don’t need Naji for that. Or anyone.”

I frowned.

“Did you really never… Alright, listen.” And then she leaned close to me and told me about my body, stuff nobody’d never told me before, like I was supposed to just know. I felt like some stupid little kid, listening to her, my eyes getting big and wide, but she didn’t sound like she thought any less of me for not knowing.

“That’s what I mean,” she said when she had finished. “I know you think you’re in love with him–”

“I don’t just think!” I said. “The curse–”

“Oh, never mind the curse. You can’t let that dictate your life.” She paused. “You don’t need Naji to give you pleasure, and you don’t need Naji to make you happy.”

Right now, it didn’t feel like that, but I knew better than to say something to her.

“You killed the son of Captain Hariri,” Marjani said, “one of the richest pirates in the Confederation, before he could kill you. You helped win a sea battle against the Hariri clan. You struck a deal with a manticore and lived. Why do you care what Naji thinks of you?”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

She stood up and dusted the sand off her robes. “When we set sail for Jokja tomorrow, I don’t want to see a single misty-eyed glance his way, do you understand? You have a ship to navigate and a crew to help command, and I have neither the patience nor the inclination to put up with a heartsick child.”