“What ransom should I ask for you?” Gunner asked.
Ah, so he brought me up to talk? And couldn’t help but shoot at my head, though he had a ransom in mind? Maybe the madness wasn’t all for show. “My father believes me dead. Hell, Gunner, I believed me dead.” And like that the memory was back, hot and sharp: Grinwoody crashing into them, two blades and four men, and Gavin had seen that there was no way to save Kip from the tangle of hands and odd angles—except to divert the blade into his own chest.
Whatever possessed me? Oh, Karris, did I do it just to do one thing that might make you proud of me?
But thoughts of Karris were too painful. She was all color in a world gone gray.
And his own father had only wanted the dagger. Musket-sword now, Gavin supposed. The Blinder’s Knife, Andross had called it. It was one thing to wonder if your father cares more about gold or status than he does about you. Every son of every rich and powerful man must fear that, but that his father would kill him for a dagger? His own father?
“The boy,” Gavin said. “Where is he?”
“Threw him overboard for Ceres. As thanks. Ceres and me is square now.” Gunner grinned unpleasantly. “How much, little Guile? Five hells, what do I call you? Dazen? Feels like talking to a ghost.”
“You can call me Gavin. It’s easier. You can ask any ransom you like. The more ridiculous, the better. He’ll stall you until he can get spies to confirm you have me. Truth is, he’ll botch it so that you kill me and he can hunt you down afterward. He’ll make it look like you’re bloodthirsty and he had no blame in making you kill me. He doesn’t want me, Gunner.”
Gunner grinned like he liked a challenge, and the mask was back. “So’s long as he wants you as much as a pants pox, why should Gunner keep you resting tidy next to his own joyful jewels?”
Oops. But Gavin’s golden tongue was already moving. “If you kill me, he can give up his pretense that he wants to ransom me. That means he won’t load up a treasure ship in the first place. He’ll just bring the warships.”
Gunner scowled. He jumped up on the gunwale, squatted, one hand holding on to a rigging line, thinking. “You’re being turrable helpful.” Gunner spat in the ocean again. “Funny thing about the Angari. Feed their galley slaves like they’re freemen. You seen? Treat ’em real good. The best slaves on the crew get taken in to port, fed real food, even taked to a bosom house. They lose a man every so often doing that, but it makes the whole crew work hard. Feeding ’em good makes ’em strong. Cuts what cargo you can carry since ya has to carry so much food. But this little here galley can go two or three times as fast as most anything on the Cerulean Sea. A few galleasses could chase me down if the wind was right, but if I have room, I can cut against the wind and leave ’em behind. They shot the Everdark Gates in this ship. She’s light as a cork and fast as a swallow. Perfect ship for a pirate, if you can snatch up enough cargoes. Beautiful little ship. And only the four swivel guns and one long tom. This is the best galley with the best crew on the whole sea—” Gunner dropped his voice to a whisper. “And I hate her. One cannon! One. I should demand Pash Vecchio’s great ship, what’s her name?”
“The Gargantua?” Gavin asked.
“That’s it!”
“That might be difficult—”
“Your father’s the Red. He’s richer than Orholam. You’re the Prism. They’d revirginize old whores to get you back.”
“I sank the Gargantua. Before the battle at Ru Harbor.”
In a moment, Gunner had drawn a pistol from his belt, cocked it, stuck it over the hollow of Gavin’s right eye. A killing rage lit his eyes. Whatever part of his madness was for show, this part wasn’t that. With difficulty, he uncocked the pistol. “This prisoner is exuberical,” Gunner said. “Put him back on his oar until he works it off.”
Chapter 5
Teia and some of the Blackguards finished their morning calisthenics on the Wanderer’s rear castle as the sun climbed the horizon. She and Cruxer and five of the other top inductees were the only ones from their Blackguard trainee class on this ship. The others were on another ship with the other half of the remaining full Blackguards. Though they were constantly reminded that they hadn’t taken full vows and were thus not full Blackguards yet, that didn’t mean the Blackguards watered down the nunks’ exercises. Cruxer had followed their example manfully, and they had followed Cruxer’s as well as they could, muddling through complicated forms they’d seen but had not yet learned.
Commander Ironfist, leading them, took no notice of the stragglers. The legendary warrior had always been a cipher, but for the past week he’d been even more intense than usual. Teia didn’t know if the exercises (and their horrible butchery of them) was another pedagogical technique, or if the leader of the Blackguard simply didn’t see them. Regardless, the commander scrubbed his scalp with a wet cloth, cooling off. He had a stubble of wiry hair on his head now. He’d stopped shaving it bald and anointing it with oil after the Battle of Ru, more specifically, after the Miracle Shot—a prayer and six thousand paces and a direct hit on a newborn god. He glanced at the rising sun, its disk not yet fully clear of the horizon, glowered, and wrapped his ghotra around his head and headed down the steep steps to midships.
Working the soreness out of an ankle she’d twisted when she’d stumbled on a rope—er, line, on a ship, apparently—during an unfamiliar form, Teia walked over to the gunwale where Kip and Gavin Guile had plunged into the sea a week ago.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Cruxer asked, coming up beside her at the railing. Little Daelos, the shade to Cruxer’s sunshine, came with him.
Cruxer could have been talking about a hundred things. Hard to believe that they’d fought in a battle? That they’d lost? That they’d fought a real god? Hard to believe that Gavin Guile was dead? But he wasn’t talking about any of those, and Teia knew it. “Impossible,” she said flatly.
“How are you doing with it?” he asked.
Her elbows resting on the railing, she turned and looked at him, disbelieving. Sometimes Cruxer could be the most excellent human being she’d ever met. Other times, he was a moron. “It’s a lie, Cruxer. It’s all lies.”
“But the Red wouldn’t lie,” Cruxer said weakly. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Cruxer had grown up with good people in authority over him, and he was scrupulously moral himself, so he didn’t have the reflexive disrespect and suspicion toward those in power a slave girl did.
“Go on, Teia,” Daelos said. “You know that Breaker blamed Andross Guile for trying to block him from joining the Blackguard. And we know Breaker got drunk that night. With how rash he always was, I don’t see what’s so hard—”
“Is,” Teia interjected.
“What?” Daelos asked.
“How dare you give up on Kip. Go away, the both of you. I’m sick of you.”
Daelos rolled his eyes like she was being an unreasonable woman. It made her want to show him what she would do if she were actually unreasonable. On the other hand, Cruxer simply paled. He pushed back from the railing. Teia knew he’d only come over to check up on her, like a good commander does. But good intentions don’t cover everything. They left without saying a word.
You’re being rude and unfair and you should apologize, T.
But she didn’t.
Andross Guile said he’d mocked Kip that night, as he always did. He had no love for the boy, he’d admitted. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything in the aftermath of a battle. But how was he to know Kip was drunk? He’d never imagined Kip would attack him.
Gavin Guile and Andross’s slave had tried to intervene. Kip had stabbed Gavin accidentally, and when Gavin Guile fell overboard, Kip had been so distraught, he jumped in after him.
And there the matter rested. Watch Captain Karris White Oak—or was it Watch Captain Guile now that she’d married Gavin?—had gone insane, shouting that they must be wrong, that Andross was lying. Teia thought the woman was going to attack Andross physically until Commander Ironfist
had intervened and literally carried Karris off the deck. She’d not emerged since.
No one else contradicted the Red. There had been more than a few tense conversations between Commander Ironfist and the Blackguards who had been assigned to protect Gavin that night. The Prism had ordered the men to bed, and who would have thought he would be in danger on the very night he’d proven his heroism once again? He’d killed a god!
No, Teia had tried to say, Kip did that.
It seemed somehow small to set the record straight with the Prism lost, and they looked at her like she was spitting on his grave. The man had been adored, and everyone remaining in the fleet had proven their loyalty to him that very day by fighting at his side.
That didn’t lessen the burden of guilt on the Blackguards. They’d failed. They were coming home, while their charge was dead. It was a blot they would never erase.
The murmur of voices below her chased out any further thoughts. Teia glanced around at the sailors. Mostly men, the sailors were careful to be discreet about their ogling of the female Blackguards—or had grown careful since Essel had broken one’s nose—but they still did it. But they didn’t ogle Teia. Hipless, breastless, short, and with short hair, when she wasn’t invisible, the most Teia could aspire to was being a mascot taken under the rough men’s wings. Nine out of ten of whom she could beat to a pulp, but they didn’t know that. Right now, though, she was thankful to be ignored.
The cabin right below her was Andross Guile’s. She’d been eavesdropping here every chance she got for the past week. She interspersed her spying with clambering up the rigging and taking pointers from the sailors, learning a bit of their work. She’d also pretended to pray here, sitting very still. She’d pretended to mourn, too. This was where Kip had jumped or been pushed into the sea. The pretense at tears had turned to real tears, once. She’d liked Kip more than she’d thought.
As she was sitting on deck, Commander Ironfist approached her. She moved to get up, but he motioned for her to stay in place.
He stood with her for a long minute, and she would have appreciated his silent companionship if she hadn’t been worried that he would figure out exactly why she’d chosen this spot.
Finally, he said, “Kip—Breaker—asked me to make sure your manumission papers go through. And I will. You know you’re one of the best inductees. You know the Blackguard is hurting for good people. But it’s your choice. When I was your age, I took an oath because I was expected to, not because I wanted to or thought it was right. I won’t do that to you, Teia.”
And then he left.
She folded her legs and thought about taking her manumission—and what? Going home? Getting married to a shopkeeper? Learning a trade? What trade? It was too strange, too much of a leap after what she’d been experiencing in the last months. She put it off to think about later, and strained to hear Andross Guile’s voice. At first, he’d never had his window open, but in the last few days it had been open every time. In the mornings were her best chances to hear anything at all. Once the wind kicked up, it was impossible. But so far she’d heard nothing in seven days. Mostly it had been innocuous orders to his room slave, Grinwoody, the old Parian whom it seemed Andross Guile trusted deeply.
But it was another wasted day. Teia heard little. Andross and Grinwoody had worked together so long that their speech was lacunic, full of understood ellipses.
“Any evidence he’s not deluding himself?”
“None. Of course, when we get evidence, it will be too late for one of us.”
“And too late for us, either way. Damn,” Andross said. His voice was louder. He was standing at the porthole. “It was that close, Grinwoody. Its hilt almost in my hands.”
“It was my failure, my lord.”
“No, you saved my life, again.”
“My strength is not that which once it was, my lord. I allowed myself to be surprised.”
Teia scowled and drew her gray inductee’s cloak close about her for warmth. Grinwoody allowed himself to be surprised? By Kip? So Kip had attacked them? Was it possible? Kip wouldn’t have done something so foolish, would he?
Yes, of course he would. But attempt murder? No, not Kip. He might lash out to hurt, but not to cripple, not to kill, and she’d seen him furious.
“Look on the bright side, my lord. You won’t be Freed this year.” Grinwoody’s tone was whimsical, but it chilled Teia. Was Andross Guile planning on breaking the halo? Why would Grinwoody announce it so blithely?
A hand emerged from the porthole and a homing pigeon sprang into the air in a rush of feathers, startling Teia, but no one appeared to pay attention either to her surprise or to the bird—there had been many of the latter sent in the last few days.
Then the voices faded as Andross closed the porthole. Teia wanted to get up and leave immediately, but she was well aware that she was sitting on the deck immediately above Andross’s room. Even with her slight weight, the wood might groan from her weight shifting. She waited a few more minutes, pretending to meditate. Kip had been her training partner. He’d gambled something—she still didn’t know what—to win her papers from Andross Guile. And then he’d promptly tried to free her. He’d listened to her when they’d talked about strategy, made her feel like she, a slave, might have something smart to contribute for the first time in her life.
Teia realized her fist was closed over the little vial of olive oil she wore, squeezing it in a death grip. She loosened her fingers from the symbol of her slavery. The gift had been a threat and a reminder from Aglaia Crassos: olive oil, ostensibly to ease her work in the slave brothels. Olive oil, to keep her alive through thirty to fifty men a day. Whenever Teia thought she didn’t have any strength left, she touched that little reminder of slavery. Of what could be. Of what Kip had promised to put behind her, forever.
In the short months they’d trained together, Kip had become more than just her partner, he’d become her best friend.
And she hadn’t realized it until now. She hadn’t been there when he needed her. He couldn’t really be dead. If he hadn’t panicked, he could have floated until morning. Teia hadn’t heard any stories of sharks—not that that meant much. The survivors didn’t want to dwell on what could have so easily happened to them, too.
If he’d made it until dawn, he’d probably been picked up by a slaver. After how much Kip had drafted the day before, he’d be lightsick even if he wasn’t otherwise injured. He’d even left his spectacles case in his bunk. He’d be helpless.
If Kip was even alive, he was probably chained to an oar, right now.
And there was nothing Teia or anyone else could do for him.
Chapter 6
Zymun was standing, shading his eyes with one hand, the heavy pistol pointed straight down at the deck. Kip launched himself forward, popping the oars up through the open oarlocks. The sudden slap of an oar against the water attracted Zymun’s attention first. He looked toward the sound instead of toward Kip.
Kip’s arms were too weak to throw in front of him with the full weight of the oars in them. But he didn’t care about making it pretty. His hands dropped and he threw his shoulder into Zymun’s side. He caught the smaller young man at elbow level, crushing his gun hand back down, and as both of them were rising at the moment of impact, Kip’s big frame said, ‘Here’s all my momentum, brother. A gift.’
Zymun popped up into the air. His ankles hit the gunwale and he flipped upside down in a most gratifying manner. As the splash resounded, some distance from the boat, Kip fell. He smacked his cheek on the deck. With his arms behind him, anchored by the weight of the oars, there was no catching himself.
But he fell into the boat, and that was all that mattered.
With strength he didn’t know he had, Kip levered himself upright. He was already drawing in blue luxin, and in the rush of pleasure at drafting and at seeing his tormentor splashing in the water, he almost missed it: the boat was ringed with luxin. Red luxin and yellow. There was a long leash to all that luxin att
ached to Zymun.
Zymun surfaced and Kip saw the mouth of the pistol in his hand loom large. It was pointed straight at Kip. The hammer snapped down on the frizzen as Zymun pulled the trigger. And nothing happened. The gun was waterlogged. Zymun disappeared behind a wave.
Hurriedly drafting blue blades in each hand, Kip slashed through the green luxin manacles holding his wrists onto the oars.
Zymun swept a hand in a big, splashing circle. Kip knew he was reaching for the leash.
Kip dove off the opposite side of the rowboat.
Even as he hit the waves, he knew he’d done the wrong thing. Instead of drafting to cut himself free of the boat, why hadn’t he drafted to cut Zymun’s leash?
Stupid, Kip, stupid.
He was still underwater, kicking and putting as much room as possible between himself and Zymun, when it felt like a sea demon slapped the sea. Kip surfaced and saw a rising tower of black smoke and red-orange flames where the boat had been. He couldn’t see Zymun; the boat was between them.
Zymun would be the better swimmer, even if Kip had been hale and whole. There would be no vengeance for Kip today. If Zymun saw him, Zymun would come after him. If Zymun came after him, Zymun would drown him.
Kip bobbed in the water for a few more moments. He couldn’t swim. His arms were lead weights, and though his legs weren’t yet dead, they would be soon. His fat would make him float if he didn’t panic, but floating wasn’t going to get him away from Zymun, much less the pirate galley. Kip looked around for it, but from the water, he couldn’t see the ship.
And it wasn’t going to have any problem finding them, not with the bonfire Zymun had made of their boat.
Oh. Simple.
Kip drew in as much blue as he could hold and drafted reeds around his hands. The reeds let water stream past his fingers, then he shot luxin through the reeds, pushing the water out. Like the kick of a musket, by pushing water back, it pushed you forward. Kip drafted the reeds to brace under his armpits, took a deep gulp of air, and pointed his head for shore.