Chapter 11

Ariadne gazed out at the endless ocean, trying to hide her apprehension. She’d never been on any ship larger than a river raft before, and that had only been for long enough to get to the opposite bank. Until the group had arrived in the port city of Nysa, she’d never even seen the ocean, having lived her whole life in Tir Yadar.

The trip from Aencyr had been uneventful, the six weeks of slow riding allowing her to spend her days practicing trade tongue with Treya, Sarette, and Corec. In the evenings, she helped Ellerie and Bobo plan out a book on the history of the Chosar, and sometimes she sparred with Sarette and the men. She found the sparring to be an unusual experience—having to train herself not to use her spells, after spending seven years ensuring they became second nature. As for the book, it was difficult to speak of her people’s past when she wasn’t certain what had become of them, but their story deserved to be told.

The group had parted ways with Josip in Nysa, the guide heading north with a trading caravan on its way to Ankarov Dor—which, if the maps were accurate, seemed to have been built over the remains of Tir Ankara. Ariadne hadn’t spent much time getting to know the man, but he was one of the few people she knew in the world. It was strange to realize she’d likely never see him again.

There was a scrabbling sound from the side of the ship, and then a three-tined spear was tossed up and over the railing, landing on the deck planking with a clatter. A young man soon followed, climbing up a rope ladder that had been left hanging down over the side. He carried a net bag wrapped around a huge, blue- and gray-scaled fish. As he neared the top of the ladder, he hefted the bag up onto the deck, then finished climbing and swung his legs over the railing. The other sailors called out to him, congratulating him in the peculiar mix of languages they used amongst themselves. Three men, working as a team, pulled the fish out of the netting and hung it up on a rack so it could be cleaned and gutted. From tip to tail fin, it had to be six feet long, and was rounder and fatter than the river fish Ariadne was familiar with.

The young man watched them work with a look of satisfaction on his face. He was a few inches shorter than Ariadne, but heavily muscled. Cold didn’t seem to bother him—he was still shirtless from his swim, wearing loose breeches that only covered his upper legs. He ignored the chilly wind blowing against the seawater that still dripped down his bare chest.

When he noticed Ariadne staring at him, he grinned. “Ahh, mysterious Ari,” he said in trade tongue. “Do you see my catch? I defeated the great blue tunny in single combat. A shark smelled the blood and came by to steal it from me, but I whacked it on the snout and chased it away.”

“My name is Ariadne,” she reminded Loofoo yet again. In the few days she’d known him, she hadn’t been able to figure out when he was telling the truth and when he was making up stories. It didn’t help that he regularly used words she wasn’t familiar with—some, perhaps, from the trade tongue, but others obviously from different languages.

“What kind of a name is that?” the seaborn man asked. “Names should flow like water.”

She shook her head but changed the topic. “How do you keep up with the ship?”

“It’s not going all that fast, really. You might be able to keep up with it if I taught you how to swim the right way. Of course, you’re wearing far too much clothing for that. Shall I help you remove some?”

Ariadne sighed. “Will you be serious for once? You promised you’d tell me about Pado.”

“I brought in tonight’s supper so I suppose Captain Valen won’t mind so much if I talk to you, but why the interest in the homeland? You claim to not be seaborn, and you wear metal armor—I saw it the day you came on board. So why all the questions, mysterious Ari?”

“Maybe my parents were seaborn,” she said. It was easier than telling him the truth.

His grin was back. “There’s one way to know for sure. Dunk your head under the waves and take a breath, and see if you swim or drown.”

She hadn’t learned the word drown yet, but given the context, there were only a few possible meanings, none of which were pleasant. She couldn’t stop her shudder. “I don’t think so.”

He laughed. “Pado is Pado. What do you want to know?”

That was a good question. What she really wanted to know was whether the Chosar had somehow become seaborn. The seaborn on the ship did look something like her people, yet there was something not quite right about them. She wasn’t certain she could even put it into words, but she’d known at a glance they weren’t Chosar. She wasn’t going to mention any of that, though. She had no intention of telling her life’s story to every person she came across.

“How long have the seaborn lived there?” she asked instead.

Loofoo crinkled his brow. “Since time before time, when Irisis first created the seas, and then us, the children of the seas.”

“But Irisis is one of the new gods,” Ariadne pointed out.

“Ahh, but newer than what? Bear and Raven and Fox may have come first, creating the land, but Irisis came soon after, bringing the sea to all the world.”

Loofoo, apparently, didn’t have a firm enough grasp on history to be a reliable source of information about the origins of his own people.

“Why did you leave?” Ariadne asked.

Loofoo scowled and spat on the deck. “I was hunting a giant sunfish, and followed it into The People’s fishing grounds without realizing.” When he said The People, he meant his own people. It had caused some confusion the first time Ariadne had spoken with him. “I sold the meat rather than giving it over. Emperor Kono’s agents found out and called it poaching, and banished me for ten years. I can’t return to Pado and no seaborn ship is allowed to take me on, so here I am, stuck working for humans on their miserable ships.” He tilted his head and shrugged. “Though Peregrine isn’t so bad. She could almost be a seaborn vessel.”

“Are all the seaborn here criminals?”

“I’m no criminal!” he protested, wearing the same look of questionable innocence he used when telling his more outlandish stories. “How was I to know I was in the wrong area?”

“Fine, not you, but what about the others?” Ariadne said.

“Them?” he said, glancing at the other seaborn sailors, who made up a quarter of the crew. “They’re not banished, they’re just lost. They’ve lived among the humans for so long, they’ve forgotten who they are. Some left Pado to see the world, some were born in our foreign enclaves, some were born to banished parents and have always lived in human cities. They could return if they wanted to. They choose to remain lost.”

Ariadne nodded. “What’s it like on Pado? It’s an island, right?” Loofoo had told her before that the seaborn lived on land much of the time. They could sleep underwater, but when they did so, they couldn’t protect themselves from predators. Plus, if they didn’t tie themselves to something, they would float with the current.

“If you want to call it that. What’s to tell? Cities on the coast, with canals that the druids keep clean and full regardless of the tide. Farming inland—we do just as much farming on land as we do in the sea. Pado is just like anywhere else. I’m more interested in you. Where do you hail from, mysterious Ari? Your friends are from Aravor, but you obviously aren’t. And you don’t speak Nysan or Doravi, so you can’t be from Cordaea.”

“Oh?” Ariadne said. “And you’ve spent so much time time traveling inland that you think you know everything?”

“Then tell me.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, hiding a smile. “But if you guess correctly, maybe I’ll let you take me swimming.”

That should be a safe enough bet. And if not, well, he wasn’t unattractive.

The group had sold all of their horses and mules when they’d finally reached Nysa, so Nedley didn’t have any animals to take care of on board the Peregrine. That meant he was back on dishwashing duty. When they were on the road, everyone washed their own dishes, but the galley on the ship was too small for that many people to be going in and out. Washing dishes was easier than being a groom, but Nedley thought he might leave that part out of the story when he told his brother about his adventures.

He finished drying the last pan from the midday meal, ignoring the swaying motion—the sea had been rough all morning. Done with his work, he headed for the passenger cabins at the other end of the Peregrine. Miss Ellerie had been surprised to find the familiar ship waiting for them in port. Apparently, after Leena had informed the investors of their expected arrival in Nysa, Burton Senshall had told Captain Valen to wait for them there. The ship had been in port for over a week by the time they arrived. The sailors hadn’t minded the extra shore leave, but Marco had said the Senshall agents were mad about having to sell a load of perishable fruits locally, at a loss, and then search for another cargo to take its place.

When Nedley reached the cabin he shared with Marco, he was relieved to find it empty. It wasn’t that he disliked Marco, but half the things the man said didn’t make any sense. Conversations with him were always awkward, but Nedley made sure to listen politely, in part because he planned to ask for a letter of recommendation once they reached Tyrsall. A recommendation from Marco could secure long-term work with Senshall, as well as with other trading companies. It was the same sort of work Corec had done for years, so Nedley thought it might suit him too.

Since he had the cabin to himself, he retrieved the coin pouch he kept hidden in the bottom of one of his saddlebags. He poured the coins out onto his cot, separating them by type, then counted them once again.

He’d been saving his wages—the seven silver pieces Marco paid him each week. Even after the boots and new socks he’d had to buy in Nysa, Nedley still had one hundred seventy-two of those silver coins left. That was worth more than four gold.

And that didn’t include the tiny bit of silver he’d earned for his part in the ambush outside Tir Shar, or the seventeen gold and thirty silver he’d received after the big battle at Tir Yadar. After visiting a moneychanger in Aencyr, most of that was actually in gold. Nedley had never thought he’d own one gold coin, must less seventeen of them. He’d felt guilty about taking money for the fight in Tir Yadar since he hadn’t actually done anything, but Boktar had explained that just being ready to fight still counted. Miss Katrin, Miss Shavala, and Marco had all gotten paid too, and they hadn’t done much either, so Nedley figured Boktar must know what he was talking about.

More money would be coming after they reached Tyrsall, which was only a day or two away. Miss Ellerie had told Nedley that his eighth of a share would be worth somewhere around thirty-five gold, though it might not all be available right away. She’d also offered him another six and a half gold for something he hadn’t entirely understood—something related to to an offer she’d made to the Senshall people. He didn’t need to understand it to accept it. Marco thought it was a good deal, and Marco knew more about money than Nedley ever would.

The end result was that Nedley would have ... he would have...

He chewed the inside of his cheek as he tried to add the figures in his head. Whatever it was, it was a lot. Enough to convince his brother, Bertram, to leave Larso and come home. The only problem was that Nedley would have to do the convincing via a letter. He’d learned enough writing that he thought he could manage that part, but Bertram couldn’t read. Someone else would have to read it to him, which meant Nedley had to be careful about what he put down on paper. He couldn’t mention what had happened to him in the mercenary army, and he’d have to be discreet about the money too.

That meant the letter alone might not be enough to convince Bert, but Nedley couldn’t go get his brother himself. Miss Treya wouldn’t allow him to go to Larso. She was worried the voice would take him again if he got too close to Telfort. The thought of the voice made Nedley cringe, as did the splatter of blood and gore as he raised his sword and—

He screwed his eyes tightly shut, chanting, “It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. It can’t get me!”

He managed to push the vision away and bring his mind back to the present. Shaking off a shiver, he gathered up the coins and put them back in the coin pouch, then dropped the pouch into his saddlebag.

On his way up to the deck, he noticed Corec and Katrin’s door slightly ajar, which meant whoever was in there wouldn’t mind being interrupted. He knocked.

“Yes?” It was Corec’s voice.

Nedley opened the door to find Corec and Miss Katrin both in the cabin. Corec was sitting on one of the cots with the maul across his legs, while Katrin stood near the entrance.

“Oh, hey, Ned,” Corec said.

“Are you busy?” Nedley asked him.

“No, come on in. We were just—”

The bottom seemed to drop out of Nedley’s stomach as the ship hit a swell.

Corec grimaced and clenched his hands around the maul’s shaft, his knuckles going white. “What’s going on up there?” he asked. “I haven’t been sick in two weeks, and now it’s all coming back.” Corec was a real-life baron’s son, and almost a knight, but he didn’t handle sailing very well. Sometimes Nedley allowed himself to feel just a bit smug about that.

“There’s a storm on the horizon,” Katrin said. “The captain’s trying to go around it. You should come up on deck with me. Treya says it helps.”