These Divided Shores, page 13
“The Council saved us?” The confusion in the old woman’s voice was palpable.
“Nah—that councilmember sided with the raiders,” the man said. “I’m not saying Argrid’s right. But I don’t know if I’m comfortable here. With criminals. With them.”
“They saved your sorry ass” came a snapping reply. “Show some respect.”
Lu jerked forward to see Vex, his gaze murderous.
The old woman huffed and twisted toward the pilothouse’s wall.
Sunrise cut gold and pink columns through the jungle canopy as Vex transferred his gaze to Lu. His face softened, and he motioned behind him to the more open deck. A tremor shook his hand, and he tried to hide it by pushing the sleeves of his black shirt to his elbows.
Lu pushed up the narrow walkway, angling around him. Her shoulder brushed his chest and she caught a startled breath from him—but the terror and guilt in her heart pushed her on.
A stack of crates sat in the middle of the deck. Escapees lounged around it, using it to create something like privacy as they slept and talked. Lu sat on an empty side, facing the passing shore with her arms around her knees.
Vex lowered himself to the deck next to her. “Are you hungry? There were rations—”
“No, I’m fine.” Though she couldn’t remember when last she had eaten. She glanced at him, and softness tapped on her mind. “Thank you, though,” she added.
Vex half smiled, his mouth open as though another question waited beyond his lips. But he shook his head, clearing his throat. “Your mother is on the largest getaway boat, one of Nathaniel Blaise’s paddlewheels. Uh—Blaise is the Emerdian raider Head. They helped us get you out.” His voice came fast and forced, trying to fill the silence. “We’ll meet up with them in Port Mesi-Teab. At least, that’s the plan, unless it’s changed. But I don’t know why it would have. But—wait, that’s where we’re going, did you know that? To Port Mesi-Teab. Teo’s there. He’ll be damn excited to see you. Anyway, we’ll join up with your mother there and make sure everyone’s all right—”
He stopped. Lu didn’t move, and he dropped his eye from her face to her lap, where his focus stayed as he licked his lips and asked, his voice fragile, “Are you? All right, I mean. What the hell am I saying—of course you’re not all right. Damn it. God, Lu, I’m sorry. I—”
“You’re sorry?” Lu gasped the words.
Vex looked up at her. “Well, yeah. I left you on Elazar’s ship to begin with. I thought . . . I thought Milo killed you. I shouldn’t have believed it. I should’ve torn this island apart to—”
“You aren’t furious with me?”
Vex cracked a laugh. “Why in the Pious God’s hell would I be furious with you?”
A million reasons slammed into Lu. She clenched her hands in her lap and before she could speak, Vex covered her fists with his palm, warm and soft.
“You’re part of my crew,” he told her. The urgency with which he spoke, passion vibrant on his face—it stunned her silent. “You’re family. Whatever you have to deal with, whatever happened to you, you won’t go through it alone.”
“You know what I did during the war.” Her voice shook. “And you know—I did those things for Argrid. For my father. I’ve hurt this island. You know what sort of monster I am—”
“I know what sort of person you are. You’re strong and loyal and brave—”
“I killed people!” Lu fought to keep her voice low, not wanting to draw attention, wanting to be as small as possible. “My father made me a traitor to Grace Loray. I’m not—”
“—and reckless and maddening and breathtaking, and I’ve missed you every moment since I thought you were dead.”
Lu stopped. Vex pried one of her fists apart to nestle his fingers beside hers.
She looked at their clasped hands, bearing down on her last shreds of resolve.
“I’ve missed you,” Vex repeated. “Watching Milo stab you and leaving you on that ship—it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I didn’t realize how much pain I was in until I saw you in that prison, and it all vanished.” He bent closer, beseeching. “Being part of someone’s family doesn’t come and go based on behavior. Hell, if it were, Nay, Edda, and I never would’ve lasted. No matter what you do or have done or might think you’re responsible for, we’re in this together now. Forever.”
A sob tore up from Lu’s gut. She covered her eyes with her free hand and hunched over, weeping.
Vex’s hand untangled from hers, but only so he could pull her into his chest. When he’d touched her before, he had been hesitant, as though he feared breaking her—but now, his arms clamped around her, a resolute hold on the boat’s deck.
“We’re going to be okay,” he told her, his hair brushing her cheek. “Lu, I swear to you—we’re going to be okay. We’ve both survived too much to be destroyed.”
Lu wasn’t sure she believed him, but the comfort he offered was seductive. She allowed herself to feel it, the curve of his body around her, the tremor of the taut muscles in his forearm.
She had missed him, too. She had missed what they might have been. She had missed how he saw her, all those words he said—strong, loyal, brave, reckless, breathtaking—and she had missed the way she thought she might be those things when she was around him.
Vex held her and whispered promises in her ear, and she memorized the warmth of his breath on her skin.
Dirty faces and gaunt eyes crowded Ben’s steamboat. An escape he owed to the Emerdian and Tuncian raider syndicates—as well as Kari Andreu. A councilmember, and Lu’s mother.
The raiders were reluctant to tell Ben even that much. He and Gunnar helped in any way they could—escorting people who struggled to find seating, passing out canteens of fresh water, taking quick breaks for themselves in the cramped washroom. Ben was careful to speak in the Grace Lorayan dialect and mask his accent, but the raiders recognized him as Argridian regardless. Had they recognized him as the Crown Prince, too? Pierce had attacked him in the prison for being Argridian—what would they do to Benat Gallego?
Hours out of Port Camden, the raiders finally gave in to Ben’s questions about their plan. But they spoke while swinging blades, twirling the steel with wickedness in their eyes.
They were heading for Tuncian syndicate territory—the raider group that had started, hundreds of years ago, with the purpose of defending Tuncian immigrants from Argrid’s cleansing of the island. And deep in Port Mesi-Teab sat a sanctuary that hid people who otherwise might have been imprisoned, or who needed help.
“Port Mesi-Teab?” Ben asked.
“Our main city. I’m surprised the prince doesn’t know that,” one of the raiders said. Ben jolted. They had recognized him after all. “Though I guess the cleansing of Tuncian whores isn’t considered worthy news to Argrid’s upper reaches.”
Ben’s eyes widened at the word whores. The raider grinned and tapped a tattoo on his cheek, two vertical dots above two horizontal. “Four gods. Four true gods—Order, Chaos, Rebirth, and Death—who could destroy your one flimsy god of piety with a flick of their hands.”
“Why don’t they destroy him, then?” the other raider sneered.
The first raider stabbed his knife into the wall of the pilothouse. “They don’t need to. The Pious God doesn’t exist.”
When he was younger, Ben would have argued. Monxes had ingrained devotion and loyalty into him above anything else. “Those whose souls are corrupt will spew falsehoods. The Devil lies, in whatever form.”
Now Ben’s disagreement didn’t come from devotion. It came from knowing the truth.
“You’re wrong,” he said, and the raiders faced him, eager for a fight. But Ben didn’t speak maliciously. He was tired. “My father is the Pious God. If your gods can destroy him, tell them to do so.”
Ben left, moving to join Gunnar on the edge of the cramped deck.
As morning crested, the scenery changed from open lake to dense jungle. On the horizon, a river branched around a towering fort with a curved ivory V on the outward-facing wall.
People around Ben whispered, “Fort Chastity.”
He had known the Church had imprisoned people on Grace Loray during the war, either executing them or branding them with an R for “redeemed” and releasing them. But for the Church to target a group here in such a personal way . . . it was cruel.
It was Elazar.
The midday hour meant boats were out, though not many. Those other boats kept a steady pace, their crews staying tucked inside the pilothouse, not wanting Argridian defensors or Council soldiers to cry, Magic! They’re seeking magic!
Everyone on the deck of Ben’s steamboat shifted uncomfortably, realizing their inability to hide from patrols. And as they drew closer, angling down the branching river that ran along the southern part of the city, Ben saw docks around Fort Chastity buzzing with activity. Defensors unloaded cargo from steamboats in various sizes and shapes—all flying Argrid’s navy flag with the white curved V cut through by crossed swords.
“What’s happening there?” another escapee whispered behind Ben.
But the Tuncian raiders didn’t respond. Ben looked back, seeking an answer, only to find their faces gray and twisted in confusion.
“Fort Chastity was empty when we left,” one raider finally said. “The Council wasn’t even there. Thought they’d all moved out to join up with Elazar.”
Another raider shot Ben a glare. “What do your people need in Fort Chastity?”
Ben swallowed his helplessness, bitter and vile. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
Elazar had listed Port Mesi-Teab in his proclamation—that the coming light would start in Grace Loray’s outlying cities, such as this one. Whatever the light was, defensors were preparing for it. And Ben still had no idea how to stop his father or what solace to offer his victims. Or even what Elazar was truly planning to do. He didn’t have permanent magic yet, so why was he still moving forward with preparations for his coming light in Port Mesi-Teab? What had Ben missed?
The raiders huffed. Next to Ben, Gunnar shifted closer. Or maybe Ben just wished he had.
Beyond the fort, a city of stone and wood rippled in the distance: Port Mesi-Teab.
Over the years, Ben had visited two cities in Tuncay with Elazar’s retinue for various social engagements. The empire was a sometimes-hostile unification of five different peoples. Tuncian stewards had told Ben that he would need to visit the outlying villages to truly experience the cultural differentiations between the five groups, but each major city had become a hub of integration. From the architecture—buildings with spiraling narrow towers cozied next to squat structures with ballooning onion-shaped roofs; to the cuisine—some storefronts proclaimed that eating only food grown from the earth pleased the God of Rebirth while others peddled freshly slaughtered goats, but all adhered to a love of spices.
Port Mesi-Teab was a testament to Tuncay’s diverse peoples, fused with Grace Loray’s climate and resources. The architecture showed more practicality than design, with only two twisting towers poking the sky. The rest of the buildings were multistoried and looming, built of the island’s lumber in stages of additions—new, old, decrepit—and reminded Ben too much of the areas in Deza his father had forbidden him to go to for fear of kidnappers and thieves.
The Tuncian raiders turned the boat down one of the narrow, meandering rivers that cut into the port. The streets held an aura of silence and fear, with those who shuffled down the cobblestones huddling in protective groups. The only noise came from the patrols at every major intersection: a mix of defensors and Council soldiers around a bellowing monxe or priest.
“The light is coming!” these evangelists cried. “In a matter of days, the Eminence King’s light will bathe this city! Prepare your souls; cleanse yourselves of—”
The raiders on Ben’s boat glared at him. His body ran ice cold.
Elazar had chosen Port Mesi-Teab as the first port to receive his light. Coincidence, that it was also the port of the raiders who had overthrown the Port Camden prison?
Ben felt ill.
Getting the boat to the sanctuary required backtracking, gliding through shadows, sending scouts ahead, and heavy silence. The moment Ben’s boat docked, barely avoiding Council soldiers ransacking a storefront, he and Gunnar were swept into the madness of escorting people into the sanctuary. They wove through the port, into a building, down a dark staircase, and emerged back outside in a burst of sunlight and campfire smoke and conversations in Tuncian dialects, Grace Lorayan, and now Emerdian. Various food smells blended together too, zesty spices and syrupy sugars and something acidic that might have been ale.
The sensations overwhelmed Ben in a welcome shock.
He didn’t know what he had expected. But it hadn’t been this.
Buildings loomed over three sides with the wall of the city on the fourth, all towering high to block the sanctuary from view. The campfires were few so as not to draw attention with smoke, and all conversation was soft. Families spilled out of shacks like produce bursting from a too-small crate; thin faces sipped bowls of water; a baby cried somewhere to Ben’s left.
The delayed arrival schedule meant everyone showed up in shifts, and chaotic shifts at that—other boats had arrived before Ben’s, by the look of it.
Gunnar nudged him. There, moving toward them in the crowd, were Nayeli and Edda.
Edda nodded toward the door Ben had come through. “Was Vex on your boat?”
“Or Cansu?” Nayeli added.
Ben’s throat was dry. Did Vex’s crew know who he really was? “No—I’m sorry.”
Nayeli released a string of curses in several languages. “I’m going to see if she’s shown up anywhere else yet,” she grumbled and spun off.
But a woman came up one of the roads, anger written in the creases on her face, and Nayeli stopped with another curse. Long gray hair trailed behind the woman, and when she hit the clearing, she whipped her head from side to side, eyes lapping up everything.
There was movement in the crowd, and another woman emerged, wiping her hands on the already soiled fabric of her skirt.
“You must be Fatemah Nagi. I am Kari Andreu—”
Ben’s eyebrows shot up. This was Kari. She looked like Lu—the same face shape and eyes, the same ferocity in her bearing.
“I know who you are,” Fatemah snapped. “The Senior Councilmember who will save the island. Again.” Fatemah switched to Thuti, the main language of Tuncay, as she glared at Nayeli. “Was she worth it?”
Did she mean for only Nayeli and the nearby Tuncians to understand her? Ben almost told her that he spoke Thuti, or at least enough to pass in diplomatic meetings.
“Was a Grace Lorayan councilmember worth losing Cansu?” Fatemah repeated. She shifted, the slightest movement, and her glare fell back farther, on Ben.
No. It had been a glare before. Now it was wrath embodied, fire and loathing.
“Was this,” Fatemah started, back in Grace Lorayan again, waving at the weeping children and bodies packed together, “worth bringing the Crown Prince of Argrid into the place we created to remain safe from Argrid’s reach?”
The people standing closest might’ve been acting like they couldn’t hear them, but at Fatemah’s words, they gasped.
“The Crown Prince is here?”
“How? He’ll lead Elazar to us!”
“The councilmember did this. They’ve betrayed us again!”
Fatemah didn’t try to soothe the panic. She stood there, staring at Ben, then at Kari.
“Lock ’em up!” someone shouted. “Don’t trust Argridian rats! Don’t trust the Council!”
Kari lifted her chin, hands raised to show her surrender.
“My name is Kari Andreu,” she started. “We come to you seeking asylum. I am here first as a victim of Argrid, second as a councilmember. And Benat—” Kari looked at him, but he was already facing the crowd.
“My father imprisoned me,” Ben said, raising his voice as high as he dared. “I have no loyalty to him. I swear to you, I will not betray this place or these people. I—”
“Your words mean nothing.” Fatemah batted her hands in the air as though she could will the situation to comply. “I must take care of this mess you have made, bringing these people here. This is a Tuncian sanctuary. You have sullied our peace.”
She turned and marched away. Kari hurried after her, Nayeli too, and the crowd moved again, trying to arrange themselves or settle in or avoid Ben.
He almost followed Kari and Fatemah. They were the leaders here; he was too, in his own way. He needed to assert himself in their favor, make sure they knew he was on their side.
The people on Ben’s steamboat had kept away from him, scowling at him only when they thought he couldn’t see. Now the former prisoners trickling into the sanctuary whispered to each other and gave him tight glowers.
Ben fought the urge to shrink. What could he do to convince these people he was sincere?
Edda remained, standing between Ben, Gunnar, and the people firing glares at him. She actually snarled at someone, who cowered and shot off.
“You don’t have to do that,” Ben said.
Edda’s eyes went to Gunnar and dropped to his chest. Though Lu’s Cleanse Root had healed him, three crisscrossing bandages remained from the prison, but his chest was bare otherwise. His clan mark peeked through the wrappings, the curve of the sun’s center here, a twisted sun ray there.
An odd expression passed over Edda’s face. She said something Ben didn’t understand, but by the way Gunnar’s blue eyes widened, he did. He responded, seemingly awed. She shrugged off whatever it was.
“Fatemah always puts the needs of this sanctuary over anything else,” Edda said to Ben in Grace Lorayan. “Don’t take it personally. She fancies herself the queen of Port Mesi-Teab, though she’d never say it out loud. Anyone gives you trouble, find me.”
She left, and Gunnar gaped at her retreating back.
“What did she say to you?” Ben asked.
A dimple sliced through the stubble on Gunnar’s cheek. “She speaks Pratua.”
“What?”
