Bones and pretty eyes were one thing, but this was where her power lay, and now she understood why he’d come for her. “My Song doesn’t work like that. I can’t do anything about the weather.”
“But you can calm the seas, and it is said that your kind do not fear the open water.”
“My kind?” She laced that with the disdain it deserved, but Balam was unbothered.
“Teek, of course.”
She rolled her eyes to the stars. Why try to educate those who cared not to learn?
“It must be twenty days,” he insisted. “Or else there is no deal.”
They had passed the city wall and entered Cuecola proper. This part of town was more familiar. They walked a long wide avenue that Xiala recognized as running between the homes of the House of Seven before dead-ending into the docks and, finally, the sea.
“And what exactly is the deal you’re offering?”
“A ship, with a full commission of cargo and crew,” he said, “provided you continue to work for me. I will give you ten percent of whatever profits are made from the ship trade, in addition to a basic living salary and a room in one of my houses when you are at port in Cuecola. However, if you leave my employment before the term is complete, the ship stays with me and you forfeit anything you have earned as payment.”
“How long is the term?”
“Twelve years.”
Twelve years. Twelve years was a long time under the thumb of any lord. Still, she could amass a tidy bundle in twelve years if his ship and cargo were as fine as she thought they might be. She could retire at thirty-nine, a well-off woman. The idea of not having to scramble for jobs, of not having to grovel to another lord or convince a doubting crew she was worth more than eyeballs and pinkie fingers.
“How do I know you aren’t a bastard like Pech?”
He smiled. “Oh, I am a bastard, but I am a fair one. You will not regret your employment.”
“So I work for you, and after twelve years you give me a fortune.”
“Your earned payment,” he acknowledged.
“And if I leave before the term is up?”
“You get nothing.”
She chewed at her chapped bottom lip. “Can I be fired?”
“Only for a breach of morals.”
She barked a laugh. A faint smile, a genuine smile, tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Twenty percent,” she challenged.
He came to a stop, forcing her to stand still with him. The street was busy enough the foot traffic had to veer around them like water around an isle, but no one dared question a lord of the House of Seven. If he wished to stand in the middle of the street and have a conversation with a woman in pants who reeked faintly of alcohol and piss, that was his prerogative.
“I would think, Captain,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, “that you would be glad for any employment right now that might remove you from Cuecola for a while. Time away may help a certain tupile forget about your capital crimes. Do not think it will be easy to hire on to another ship, after what you did to Pech. He was livid, you know. That alone would have you thrown in jail, never mind all the rest.”
“Fifteen.”
“Twelve, but if you continue to challenge me, it will be eight.”
He waited for her reply, and when none came, he said, “Then we have a deal.”
“One more thing.”
His mouth tightened, and she said quickly, “A bath. I smell.”
He relaxed. “There’s a bathhouse near the docks. It can be arranged, but you must be quick.”
Quick was fine, as long as it happened. “And fresh clothing.”
“Captain, do I look like a laundress?”
She eyed the stalls around them. Most clothing was sewn to order and took weeks to deliver. “I’ll launder my own clothes at the bathhouse, then,” she conceded. They wouldn’t have time to dry, but spending time on ships had accustomed her to being at the very least damp most of the time.
“Now, tell me who I’m taking to Tova,” she said.
“A single Obregi man,” he said lightly. “Blinded. Scarred. Some kind of religious affliction, as I understand it. Harmless.” The last he said too quickly, as if he was hiding something.
“Usually,” Xiala said carefully, “when someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.”
Balam turned his focus to her, the sudden intensity in his dark eyes making her breath catch in her throat. She instinctively reached for her Song the way another woman would reach for a weapon. She no longer had a dagger at her waist, but even if she had, her Song would have come first.
Balam narrowed his eyes, considering. As if he knew she had armed herself. As if he approved. After a moment he turned from her and continued down to the docks.
“Let us hope you are wrong, Captain,” he said over his shoulder, “for both our sakes.”
CHAPTER 3
CITY OF TOVA (COYOTE’S MAW)
YEAR 325 OF THE SUN
(THE DAY OF CONVERGENCE)
It is declared that each of the great peoples who had entered into agreement here shall once a year send four children of the age of twelve from within their territory to serve under the Sun Priest in the city of Tova and reside in the celestial tower for a period of no less than sixteen years upon which they may return home should they choose; the exception being that the child be designated the head of their society whereby they shall serve another sixteen years; the exception being the child be designated the Sun Priest, whereby they shall serve unto death.
—“On the Replenishment of the Watchers,” from the signing of the Treaty of Hokaia and the investiture of the Sun Priest, Year 1 of the Sun
Naranpa was not dead, even though the witch Zataya thought her so. She could not move her limbs or open her eyes, and her breath came out in an almost imperceptible wheeze, but she could hear and more so feel everything that was happening to her.
She felt the apprentices’ hands, two girls who strained and heaved as they dragged her from the river. She heard Zataya order them to build up the fire, and then she breathed in the smoke the witch fanned from the flames. She screamed without sound at the hot, thick drip of blood against her naked chest, and then at Zataya’s command to her apprentices to spread the blood evenly over Naranpa’s supine form. And as the witch covered her with a blanket, pausing only to pry her mouth open and place a salt rock under her tongue, Naranpa wept unnoticed tears.
Naranpa had been a child once. Long before she joined the priesthood, before she learned to read the course of the sun and command Sky Made queens, she had been a beggar in the poor district of Tova called Coyote’s Maw. Often when the streets were quiet before the evening crowd of gamblers, tourists, and pleasure seekers arrived in the Maw, Naranpa had sat on the westernmost ledge of the top level of the district and peered out over the dizzying distance that separated her home from the wealthier neighborhoods. Looking out over the city, she had dreamed. Of crossing the woven suspension bridges that swayed like spidersilk in the gentle canyon breezes and allowed free travel among all the districts but hers. Of exploring the wide roads and stately adobe brick homes, some four and five stories high, not as a servant like her mother but as someone who belonged there. And brashest of all, of being a scholar in the celestial tower in the district of Otsa.