Imprison the Sky, page 16
Ibal had pale skin and bright golden curls, and Izar had olive skin that looked far closer to mine—they looked like they were neither related to each other nor to the phaedra.
“Your children?” I asked.
The phaedra gave me a motherly smile. “You seem confused.”
“I would never assume to know Wyverni ways enough to be confused,” I denied.
“We do not believe that royalty should be an accident of birth,” she told me. “I chose my children, just as I was chosen.”
I nodded, unsure if I was supposed to be interacting with the children.
“I was about to ask you a question,” the phaedra said, rubbing the little boy’s hair back from his face. “I’ve had many Elementae in my household over the past few years, but I’ve never met someone who can control earth. I always thought it simply wasn’t possible—we consider the earth to be holy here, and it made sense to me that She could not be moved by mortal hands. But now I hear that people have seen a reemergence of this element.”
I watched her steadily. “I’ve heard the same.”
“I’m hopeful,” she told me. “If I could find people with such gifts, it would change the nature of mining in Zilarra, if not all of the Wyverns.”
A warning streaked through the muscles on my neck and back, but I wasn’t sure if it was the wind or my own fear. “You’re looking for Elementae slaves,” I clarified, keeping my voice even. Mentioning the mines was more of a lead than I hoped for, and I had to keep my emotions in check to follow it. “You think I can help?”
“Not slaves,” she said. “As I said, the earth is a holy thing to me. It follows, then, that anyone who can control such an element—or any element—is a thing worthy of praise. To put such a person in chains would be …” She shuddered instead of finishing the sentence.
All people, I wanted to correct her. All people should not be in chains; all people should be praised.
“No,” she continued. “I’m interested in paying someone very, very well to do this work.”
“I might know someone in Sarocca who would be interested,” I told her. “But I would have to see the mines first. I would like to know what you would have them do before I send them to you.”
Her gaze narrowed a little as she appraised me. I stared back; I knew the power of not blinking first. “Very well,” she told me. “Tomorrow. We will meet you at the docks at first light.”
The Language of Hope
I left Tanta in her cushioned palace without a moment to speak to her alone. The carriage brought me back to the docks well after dark.
“Take you to yer boat for a tithe,” called a voice from beyond the weak light of the dock lanterns.
“No thanks,” I replied, walking to the end of the dock and stretching my power out over the water. I felt my way along the ship until I found the bell near the ship’s wheel, and I shoved it a little. Navya or Bast would hear it and send someone out for me.
I sat at the end of the dock, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Dark was never fully dark, or black—it was layered shades of blue, dark and light, washing together. No matter how far I sailed, once my eyes adjusted to another sky, a new, delicately shaded world was unveiled like there were always things lurking that we couldn’t see until we learned how to see them.
Soon enough I saw a little boat coming through the darkness, and I was amused to see Kairos at the oars, his face twisting with concentration as his body rolled with the motion of rowing.
“Did you piss off Navya?” I asked, swinging my legs over the water as he came closer.
“Volunteered,” he said, easing back to grin up at me as the boat floated closer. I stepped easily into it as it slid beneath my feet, sinking down into the seat in front of him.
“I take it you didn’t make it to shore today,” I said with a smile.
“I did not,” he agreed. “It seems I’m on the low end of your hierarchy.”
“You’re new,” I told him. “You should be.”
“And how was your day, Captain?”
I leaned back, searching the sky and the clouded-over stars. “Exceptionally strange, actually.”
“How so?” he asked, heaving the words out as he hauled the oars back.
“Chased one ghost and found another,” I told him. “And possibly a way into the mines tomorrow.”
“Well, that sounds promising.”
“Confusing,” I told him. “I distrust things that play perfectly into my subversive desires.”
He chuckled at that. “Does this mean I get to come tomorrow?”
He was the best fighter I currently had on my crew. “Yes,” I decided. “I think it does.”
“You could push this boat with nothing but your power, couldn’t you?” he asked on another hard pull.
I grinned. “Absolutely.”
He chuckled. “Thanks for the assistance, then.”
“It will help you build muscle,” I teased.
He grinned. “My muscles are just fine, and you know it.”
I laughed, fighting a smile. “Well, you still can’t swim.”
He huffed. “I have yet to drown; I think that’s in my favor.”
A thought of the two of us, treading water and panting for breath, our faces close enough to feel breath on damp skin, passed through my mind. “You need more practice.”
Maybe mind reading was another power of his, because he looked at me like he knew what I was thinking, and he smiled, and his gaze on me felt warm and interested. “I’ll hold you to it.”
“Have you practiced today? With your visions?”
He nodded. “Trying. It’s easier when you’re around, but it also means that you usually dominate the visions. I could reliably call up a vision of my sister, but it was brief.”
“What do you see?”
“I’m hugging her. On board a ship.”
My eyebrows rose. “Will that happen?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. When it’s something I want to happen, I can’t really tell the difference.”
I considered this. “You said visions, plural. Have you had other visions of me lately?”
He grinned at me, that bright, confident grin, and I knew he had.
“Are you going to tell me about them?” I demanded.
“Absolutely not,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to measure the distance to the boat.
“That hardly seems fair,” I protested.
“My power, not yours,” he told me, guiding us against the boat.
“Coming aboard!” I shouted, and a moment later two ropes were tossed down. We tied them to the ends of the boat and climbed up the ladder while the others pulled the boat out of the water, just by a few feet to keep it available but prevent it from drifting off.
“Navya and Bast, my cabin for reports,” I told them. “And someone tell Sophy I want to see her too!” I started heading below and noticed Kairos was not behind me. “Do I have to order you to follow me?” I snapped. “Come on!”
He shook his head with a smile, but obeyed.
Navya and Bast accompanied us down, and once I lit a candle in my cabin, I noticed Bast, his arms crossed over his chest, giving Kairos a glare out of the side of his eye.
“So,” I said, pulling out an old map of the Wyverns and spreading it on my desk. “We’ve been invited to tour the mines tomorrow.”
Bast whistled. “How on earth did you manage that?”
I sighed. “An old crewmate made an introduction to the phaedra,” I told him.
He looked to Navya. “What’s that?” he asked her.
“A Wyverni princess,” Kairos volunteered.
Bast glared at him full on. “How would you know that?”
Because his sister’s a queen, I wanted to answer. “More specifically, the phaedrae each rule an island,” I told them, pointing to Zilarra. “So this phaedra runs all the mines here. She says she wants to hire an earth element to streamline the mining process for her.”
“You’re selling Linnea?” Sophy growled, opening the door without knocking.
“Welcome,” I drawled. “No, Sophy, I’m not selling Linnea. I told the phaedra I would make a connection to someone I knew in Sarocca—if I approved of the conditions of the mine. She does not and will never know of Linnea or her powers.”
Sophy came farther into the room, scowling. “Well, that makes more sense,” she grumbled.
“Yes,” I told her. “And we should be able to figure out if it’s even possible for us to fly the ship to the mine, and if so, how to steal slaves.”
“Didn’t you say this is a friend of your friend?” Kairos asked.
I rubbed my forehead, then sharply put my hand down because I hardly wanted them to see me worry. “Yes.”
“So you’re going to steal from her? Royalty, no less.”
I looked at the map. “I haven’t completely decided yet. There are a lot of things to be considered.”
“Why don’t you just buy them? You don’t steal jewels and whatever else you sell to Cyrus,” Kairos protested.
“Do we really have to waste time with landlegs’s questions?” Bast grunted.
“Landlegs?” Kairos repeated, then looked at his own legs. “How is that even an insult?” He squinted. “How is that even a word?”
“It means you’re not used to the sea,” Navya told him. “And buying slaves just puts more money in the pockets of slavers, which Asp won’t do.”
“Except Cyrus,” Kairos clarified. “You’ll put plenty of money in her hand.”
That had a surprising sting to it, considering I had told him how our arrangement worked, how little choice I had. I shot him a look that, judging from his slightly fallen face in reaction, was probably more full of hurt than I meant.
“What’s the plan?” Bast snapped, glaring at Kairos again.
“She comes to get us at the dock at dawn,” I told them. “Navya, I need you to make sure the ship is secure tomorrow. I don’t want any Elementae going ashore in case this is some kind of a trick to steal our people. Bast, I want you to take those without powers to shore to finish up as much of our business as you can. Hopefully we’ll have another day here, but if this goes poorly and we need to move fast, I don’t want to be forced to stop in the Wyverns again before we head back home. I want you to coordinate with Sophy to make sure we’re covered for supplies. Understood?”
Sophy and Navya nodded firmly, but Bast’s brows drew tight together. “You can’t go alone,” he told me. “If you suspect any kind of a trick, it’s not a good idea.”
“I’m aware,” I said, meeting his eyes coolly.
His eyes shifted from me to Kairos, and instead of the burst of anger I expected, he just shook his head with a chuckle that sounded like a sneer. “Of course. You’re taking him with you.”
“I am pretty handy in a fight,” Kairos said lightly.
“You’ve lost your damn mind,” Bast told me, leaning forward like this was a private talk between us and not in front of three other people. “You’re trusting the wrong people, Asp. And it’s going to get you killed.”
I didn’t flinch away from him. “Navya knows what to do if that happens,” I told him.
“Get out,” he said, and for a moment I thought he was talking to me. But then he swung his head around and shouted it again at the others. “Get out!”
I could feel more than see Kairos coiling like a snake as Bast’s voice rose, but it was Navya who called Kai’s name, nudging him toward the door. Kairos went, and I didn’t need to look at him to know that just like with Skiver, he’d be right outside my door.
“Bast,” I said with a sigh, shaking my head.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Bast asked.
“Yes,” I lied. Bast choked on his own words, nearly turning purple as rage filled him. “There,” I told him. “Does that feel better? Is that what you want, to obsess over whatever I’m doing with another crew member?”
“Does that mean you’re not?” he demanded.
I crossed my arms, leaning against the wall. “Bast, stop acting like this is about him. It’s not. It’s about you and me.”
“You’re damn right it is,” he snapped. “I hate him, and I hate that I hate him. When was the last time we had someone on board that I could actually stand to learn something from? I see how you are with him, and he hasn’t earned your trust. And I hate that he has it. I hate that you’re giving it away to him when I had to earn it.” He shook his head. “No. I hate that you’re giving it to him when I’ve lost it somehow.”
“You didn’t lose my trust,” I told him softly. Though keep this up and we’ll see. “Or my friendship.”
He looked up at me and his face wasn’t angry. It was hurt and raw and fighting something back that was so close to the surface he was shaking a little. “You’re the only one I trust, Asp. You know that. You’re the only one.”
I swallowed. Bast’s past was dark, I knew that. His own mother, the person who was supposed to love him most, sold him into this life. He had his reasons not to trust people, but it wasn’t fair of him to ask me not to trust.
His hand was a fist on the table, and I covered it with my fingers. “I know, Bast. We’re in this together. We always have been.”
He gave a ragged sigh. “I’m frustrated, Asp. We lost something and I don’t even know how it happened, and I went from feeling like your partner to feeling like just another crewmate, and I need more for my life than this.”
My chest felt tight. “You’re thinking about leaving,” I realized, and Charly’s warnings rushed through my mind again.
“I don’t want to,” he said. Then he shook his head. “Maybe I do.”
I had said half good-byes to everyone in my mind except Bast. He liked this life, and he didn’t have ties anywhere. It wasn’t that I thought we would sail together for life, but I just hadn’t been prepared for him to leave. For being the only one tied to this ship like an anchor.
“Don’t say that just to say it,” I told him, my voice hushed. “If you mean it, say it. If you don’t, don’t you dare manipulate me.”
“I want to have more control,” he said.
I watched him. “That makes sense.”
“You say you trust me, but I’m not even your second in command,” he reminded me. That had always bothered him, and I didn’t have the stones to look at his face when he said it. “Cyrus offered me a ship. I’m thinking about it.”
My stomach tightened and twisted. He would choose this life? He owed Cyrus nothing, and though I’m sure she promised him everything, he would choose this life.
“Well,” I said, my voice coming out rough and gravelly. “Let me know when you make a decision.”
“There could be two of us,” he said. “Think of the protection you’d have with another boat at your stern. Think of the people who we could free from this life.”
But Bast was too easily tempted. It was a nice idea, but too soon he would want to fill Cyrus’s orders as she demanded, let her fill his palm with gold. He would become like all the others, and forget the life he had come from to buy the ability to never be vulnerable again.
In his eyes, a captain didn’t have to trust. A captain need only command, and trust became a thing that was given to you, laid at your feet like a gift.
I shook my head. “I can’t help you with that decision, Bast.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I just want you to be careful with this guy.”
“Noted,” I told him. I bit my lip and looked up, trying to acknowledge that at least he thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe it was the right thing—for him. “Thank you for telling me about the ship.”
He stepped nearer to me, kissing my cheek over my crossed arms, and I resented it, like he was using our past closeness to force me to see things his way now.
He left the cabin without another word, leaving the door open. I knew Kairos, if not Navya as well, was in the passageway.
I didn’t care. From the drawer I had hidden it in, I pulled out the carved box and opened it up. These were my treasures, and even looking at them made me feel better. More human.
“What’s that?” I heard softly from behind me.
Kairos came into the room; I heard his steps creaking ever so slightly on the floor. I brought the box to the cot, needing suddenly to share this with someone. It helped a little that it was someone like him, who felt slavery like a glancing blow; unlike Bast, it had never sunk its dark claws into him. Kairos, at his heart, was still good.
Folding my legs under me, I pulled my treasures out of the box slowly. First there was a doll, made from gathered-up lengths of discarded thread, bound together and shaped, with buttons sewn on for eyes. He laughed as I handed it to him and sat on the bed, the box and its contents between us. “Catryn had something like this,” he told me. “It was torn tent cloth instead of thread, but it looked much the same.”
I touched the ragged edge of the cloth. “The girl who owned this was from a cloth-making commune in Liatos, in the Trifectate,” I told him. “Is Catryn—?”
“My baby sister,” he said, his voice rough and low.
He ran his finger over the eyes gently, but I picked up another of my treasures, a broken piece of tile with an incredibly detailed, tiny painting on it. It was of a house and a blue sky and green grass with white flowers.
“That was from a little boy,” I explained. “His mother made that for him. He hadn’t seen her in a long while.”
There was a folded, worn piece of paper, and I handed it to him. He opened it, reading, “There’s a day that comes when all the gray stops looking the same, and I find beauty in the tiny variations of sky to stone to salt. I don’t know whether that is salvation, or damnation.”
He looked up at me, confused, his throat bobbing. “Who was this from?”
My shoulders lifted. “I’m not sure. It was left in the hold after we off-loaded people.”
“All of this …,” he realized. “It’s from slaves.”
I nodded, my throat feeling tight.
“Why do you keep it?”
“Because,” I told him, “it’s hope. And freedom.”
He flipped the paper over cautiously. “How so?” he asked.
