“Your Highness, if I might have a word...” Volin’s voice trailed off delicately as he placed a heavy hand on the Prince’s shoulder and towed him inexorably away. I wasn’t sure if the lurch in my stomach was relief or disappointment. The Prince glanced back once, but his expression was hard to read. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was even looking at me.
Several of the rowers now pulled out instruments – spike fiddles, drums, bone flutes. Plopping down unceremoniously to sit cross-legged on the deck, one or two leaning on the rail, they began to play. It was light, lively music. Dancing music.
Two of the Prince’s attendants bowed to each other and began weaving around each other in a complex pattern, slapping each other’s shoulders, stamping and kicking up their heels. The movements of their arms made me wonder if it was a war dance, and normally performed holding spears or swords. Beside me, Elo was rocking and bouncing in place, responding to the rhythm.
Ane presented me with a plate of sliced fruit and cheese, and a pleading expression that forced me to take it, although my stomach was still far from settled. Another one of the attendants approached Elo tentatively, holding out his hands in a universal appeal. Elo turned a glowing face to me, clasping her own hands under her chin.
I nodded before she had time to say anything. “Go on then. See if you can teach him the dance of seven hawks.”
She let out a trill of laughter and darted forward to take the blushing young man’s hands. Ane and Sereh were soon swept after her, surrounded by a crowd of eager would-be partners. The vivid colours of their Yamarri dresses swished and swirled among the subdued colours and sleek silhouettes of the men, making both groups seem exotic and beautiful. The difference in language seemed to cause surprisingly little difficulty. The sailors were almost drowning out everyone’s voices with their clapping and whistles anyway.
No one approached me, of course. And that was good. It was. The only person whom I could have agreed to partner without breaking etiquette was the Prince. The Prince who was still with the Captain, on the bridge by the ship’s wheel. The two were engaged in what seemed to be a lively argument.
I tried to suppress my annoyance and curiosity. But surely... Was now really the time for Volin to be occupying the Prince’s attention in this way?
As I lifted a fragrant slice of green-skinned, yellow-fleshed fruit to my mouth I drifted, casually, in that direction, keeping to the edge of the ship. The man that Sereh and I had guessed was the – what had Volin said? The Ice Breaker? – stood beside Prince Uldarana and Volin, not participating in their discussion, eyes fixed on the clouds above. One of his hands was wrapped around the brass rail, his bare fingers flexing.
Licking the tart juice from my lips I nibbled on a piece of cheese as I moved closer. My sight was not good, but my hearing was excellent.
“...to linger here any longer,” Volin seemed to be saying. His gritted teeth flashed between tight lips. “We must weigh anchor immediately!”
The Prince patted Volin’s arm absently, his eyes fixed on the party. Was he looking for me among the dancers? “You worry too much. I’ve already told you, Nikaj can easily protect us.”
The Ice Breaker nodded silently.
The Captain’s face suffused with the same ugly purple flush I had seen earlier as he turned away from the Prince, rounding on the Ice Breaker. “You! I hope he’s paying you well for this piece of idiocy – because you’ll get no more work from the Palace once the Queen hears you’ve endangered the prince!”
The Ice Breaker didn’t react, but the Prince made a sudden, jerky movement, as if the Captain’s words had pressed on a bruise. His handsome face turned sullen, like a child’s, and he snapped, “That’s enough, Volin!”
I turned away, placing my still-full plate down on a nearby barrel. Disgust had turned the fresh flavours sour between my teeth.
I tried to remind myself that I did not agree with every aspect of my people’s traditions, either. How many times had I argued with my Mother, questioning the ancient law that stated Blessed children must be forced to renounce their families as soon as their powers were discovered? Sometimes Blessings manifested in children as young as three or four, and the children had to be forcibly removed. This was why we still occasionally had tragic ‘purgings’: families who were so loath to lose their little ones that they were willing to feed them poisonous remedies to destroy their Blessings.
But ultimately our methods, though imperfect, were rational. Respectful of the Gods. No Blessed child, regardless of their background, was left to struggle through the emergence of their abilities alone. Nor were they forced to sell their abilities to the highest bidder, to work for money and pervert their sacred connection with the divine for money.
That man was hurting himself to keep the storm at bay, and for what?
For gold, and the whim of a silly, spoiled, Prince.
My spoiled Prince.
What have I done, coming here?
What I must, I told myself, fiercely. The only thing I could do. And it’s too late to go back now.
The sailors were lighting spirit lamps, placing the flickering glass globes haphazardly on the wine and beer casks and on the empty food crates. Their warm light created tall, narrow shadows that danced their own strange dances between the relaxed, laughing shapes of rowers, musicians, royal attendants, sailors and ladies-in-waiting.
I turned away to stare out at the sea. The ships drifted in an early twilight, tinted purple-blue by the clouds. The sky was almost as dark as night, and the water was flat, without glimmer or glint, as if it had all been transformed into solid marble by the Ice Breaker’s will. My hair, restrained by oil and tight braids under my smoothing palm, felt full of sparks.
The Silingans spoke a different language, and looked very different. But for all that, it was easy to forget sometimes that they were truly different to my people, beneath the skin. That they held values and beliefs which every part of me rejected as wicked. Heretical.
A soft, diffident cough brought me around in an awkward movement. Prince Uldarana stood at my side.
“Crown Prince. My apologies – ” I began stiffly, too aware of my unfavourable thoughts.
“Please,” he interrupted, also in Silingan, lips pulling into a grimace. He seemed chastened. Perhaps the Captain’s annoyance had upset him. “I came here to meet you, and yet I abandoned you before I had even greeted you properly. Barely scraped up the courage to look you in the eye, if I’m honest.” He made a coughing noise that I thought was meant for a laugh.
The frank admission was unexpected – and disarming. I felt myself unbending as if a taut steel thread had been gently pulled free of my spine. “It’s all right,” I said gently, and when he still didn’t look at me, impulsively: “What do your friends call you, here?”
That brought his miserable gaze up from the planks of the deck. “My friends?”
“Surely they don’t always address you as Your Royal Highness the Crown Prince Uldarana? What about your parents? Surely you have a nickname? My friends call me Theo.”
That was a lie. I had never had a friend. Only allies and enemies, tutors and advisors, ladies-in-waiting, servants, and family. Of those, only my family – the three of them, Mother, Father and sister – had ever called me Theo.