Tamri waved a greeting. “Everything all right, Master Saul?”
“The sun’s still rising.”
Tamri smiled at the familiar saying. Saul had many. “Have you talked to her today?”
“Aye. She’s as feisty as ever,” the fisherman called. “And she’s having one of her better days. Remembered my name and asked about my son’s health.”
“Which son?”
“Well, it was Siln, may he rest, but she knew he’d been ill as a youth.”
Tamri winced. Saul’s eldest son had died in a Watermight struggle years ago. Siln had been the primary provider for his parents and siblings, and his death was the reason the old fisherman still had to go to sea. Gramma Teall must have been remembering an earlier, better time.
“Thanks for looking in on her, anyway,” Tamri said.
“Happy to.” Saul gave a phlegmy cough. “You look as though you’ve been fighting in the canals again, girl,” he said. “Try not to upset her.”
Tamri grimaced at the mud caked to her legs. Angry red lines stood out on her skin from Khrillin’s Watermight net. She used a water bucket on the porch to wash up as well as she could and combed her shoulder-length black hair with her fingers before entering the house.
The space was sparsely furnished, with a driftwood table, a few cupboards, and a thin door leading to the only bedroom. Gramma Teall sat in her usual chair by the far window, picking the stitches out of an insignia sewn on a dark-orange coat. Like Tamri, Gramma Teall was small and scrappy, dressed in threadbare clothes. A pewter clasp shaped like a dragonfly held her steel-gray hair back from her wrinkled face.
“There you are,” she said, her voice sharp and reedy. “Come in, then. You’ll let in the flies.”
“How are you feeling?”
Gramma Teall tapped a finger on the shattered hip that kept her housebound. “Spry. You?”
“I had an adventure today.”
“Adventures are for rich people, girl. Did you join that fool boy Pel on another scheme?”
“Yes.” Tamri sighed. “It was a bad idea.”
Gramma Teall chortled. “I’m shocked. Go on, then. Pour us some tea and tell me about it.”
Tamri fetched the tea and settled at her grandmother’s feet to share what had happened since she left the hut before dawn. While she talked, she pulled another dark-orange garment from the basket at Gramma Teall’s side and helped take out stitches with a blunt knife. The Waterlord who favored the shade had recently been murdered—probably by the Red Lady of the Market District or the up-and-comer who controlled half the Boundary District—and the uniforms his people had worn needed to be shorn of his insignia and resold.
Tamri rustled up work like this whenever she could, mostly to give Gramma Teall something to do during her long hours at home. Tamri didn’t want her venturing out on her own in case she couldn’t find her way back. Even without her troublesome hip, she needed care.
Tamri’s greatest and only dream was to make enough money gathering Watermight to take Gramma Teall out of the city one day. She would buy a little cottage overlooking the sea, where she could take care of her grandmother full-time instead of risking death and dismemberment to put food on their driftwood table.
As Tamri described the dragon, the king, and the foreign princess’s offer, she wondered if the Fire Queen could teach her skills that would free her family from poverty. Not that she would ever find out. She didn’t plan to go near the Vertigonians or the King’s Tower ever again.
“That’s a tale if I ever heard one,” Gramma Teall said when Tamri finished her story.
“It’s all true.”
“Aye, and would I remember you lying to me if it wasn’t, girl?”
Tamri dropped the orange garment into her lap. “I wouldn’t do that to you!”
“Mm-hmm. I didn’t get to be a hundred and four by being gullible.”
Tamri barked a laugh. She was pretty sure Gramma Teall wasn’t a day over seventy. “No, you’re just too stubborn to die.”
“True.” Gramma Teall gave a satisfied nod and returned to her work, her hands moving nimbly along the seams. The dwindling light beyond the window caught on her dragonfly clasp. Tamri felt a burst of affection for the old woman, who had cared for her until Tamri was old enough to return the favor.
“I can’t go, anyway,” Tamri said. “I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Nonsense.” Gramma Teall took another bundle of orange fabric from the basket. “Your momma will look after me. You must go to Vertigon.”
Tamri’s smile faded. Her mother had died when she was five, before she was even old enough to draw on the Watermight for the first time. As feisty as Gramma Teall seemed, she wasn’t well. And as much as Tamri liked the idea of setting off across the continent to learn from a legendary sorceress, it wasn’t an option.
She stood, brushing a flake of drying mud off her tunic. “Are you hungry, Gramma?”
“Always.”
“Let me see if there’s any of that dried—”
The thud of boots on the porch was her only warning. Then the door flew open in a cascade of silver-white power. The hut shook on its stilts as several tall figures stomped inside, already slinging Watermight.
Tamri dove in front of Gramma Teall, reaching for the knife she’d been using to pick out the stiches. But as her fingers closed around the blunt blade, a loop of Watermight lashed around her waist, hoisted her up, and slammed her against the wall. Her head rang from the impact, sparks dancing before her eyes, and the blade dropped from her grasp.
Pinned flat to the wall, she had a good view of the intruders. Brik, a woman with her head shaved bald, and King Khrillin himself were advancing across the hut. Their Watermight-glazed eyes lit the room with an icy glow.
Gramma Teall gave a fierce cry and rose from her chair, her knobby hands reaching like claws. She only managed one step toward Khrillin before the bald female Waterworker flicked her fingers, and a cord of silver power forced Gramma Teall back into her chair. Her skull cracked against the wood.
“Let her go, you slime-eating gutterslug!” Tamri bellowed.
“Silence.” Khrillin’s whip-crack voice made the whole house shudder. “You exhausted any chance of leniency after that shameful display this afternoon.”
“You can’t hurt—”
A fist of Watermight punched Tamri in the face before she could finish the sentence, splitting her lip open. A second fist formed directly in front of Gramma Teall, who glared at it as if her gaze alone could destroy the ball of magic.
“You were saying?”
Tamri clamped her jaws shut, shaking with fury and fear. She was plastered against the wall two feet off the ground, rough splinters poking into her skin, completely immobilized.
“That’s better.” Khrillin went on in an almost conversational tone. “Now, you put me in an uncomfortable position today. Very uncomfortable indeed.” He looked around the little hut, with its ramshackle driftwood furniture, and his lips twisted in a sneer. “I couldn’t very well deny Princess Selivia’s request. The girl is sister to the King of Vertigon and the Queen of Trure, and she is betrothed to a powerful Soolen nobleman. No, I most certainly couldn’t tell the little brat no.”