“By a peasant girl,” she corrected.
“I could have you locked up here until the royal fleet comes to take you. I could execute you myself!”
“Then do it!” she shouted, and for one sweeping, breathless moment, she meant it. Do it do it do it. Her mind echoed the words. Kesia Kesia Kesia.
Darius opened the door; Amuel still stood outside.
Miren slipped past the guard, her fury already dulled.
“Davri,” Darius shouted. “Come here. I must write a letter to the king.”
Further down the hall, Davri stood in the doorway of his own study.
His eyes were blue—a stunning blue, like the sky. And swollen red. They caught her gaze.
He looked just like his father, with the same full cheeks and sharp nose. Miren set her jaw and glared, willing him to read her mind, to flinch. He stared back, his gaze too open, his shoulders slumped forward in defeat.
He didn’t look away until she passed.
Four
Kesia
Kesia opened her eyes, her head pounding.
Pirates taking Cari, Kesia herself Singing—Singing—and running, Miren screaming. Miren—crumpled and unmoving on the ground, pirates shoving Kesia up the loading dock onto their ship, stuffing her mouth with a gag until she could hardly breathe, choking on her sobs.
She bolted upright and gasped in pain. Her hands were tied behind her, the rough rope cutting into her wrists. The rancid gag was still in her mouth.
The floor was hard and filthy. The only light came from a slatted door above her. A chorus of men’s voices, shouting, laughing, and boots stomping, hovered over the opening. The stench was so strong that her eyes watered.
Kesia fought the urge to vomit. She leaned back and kicked against the walls of her small prison. Voices shouted warnings.
She pulled against her restraints, but they were tied so tightly that she felt the heat of scraped skin, the tingle of restricted blood flow in her fingers. Every movement stretched and twisted her muscles the wrong way.
It had finally happened.
The pirates would turn her in to the army, and she was going to fight in the war.
Nightmares of what military service would demand of her had haunted her for years—images of burning, dying men and women, the charred wreckage of a ship. Such thoughts were easy to ignore with Miren, with Davri, in the market or the lighthouse in Crescent Bay, but they always lurked in some corner of her mind.
She knew most of the war was fought on the water, toward the northern end of the Tehum Sea. She had never been able to imagine what combat itself would look like, though, or how the Songs she had learned as a child would be useful as a weapon—yet that was exactly how she had used one today. She had aimed a Song normally meant to start a small cooking fire at a man’s arm. It was jarringly simple.
And Miren—
Kesia cringed at the memory of her sister falling onto the rough ground. The strike must have been hard—what if it had killed her? No, Miren had to be all right. She was strong; she could withstand a blow to the head. But Kesia ached with uncertainty.
And Davri. Had he heard her Singing? Even if he hadn’t, surely he knew by now that she hadn’t lost her Voice. She pressed her forehead to her knees. This wasn’t how she had wanted him to find out.
Her fear soured to resentment. Why hadn’t he come? How could he not have heard Miren’s shouting when he had been standing by the gate just a few minutes before? Had he gone indoors? Did he even know she was gone? Perhaps it was better this way. He might have tried to defend her with his own Song, and then they both would’ve been taken. No, it was better he hadn’t been there.
A shadow fell over her. She craned her neck to look up the shaft.
Captain Edom.
“Good afternoon, Lady Singer,” he greeted her. “Welcome to my ship. I hope you enjoy the accommodations.”
A few men chuckled, though Kesia could not see them. It took her a moment to understand his words; his speech pattern had changed. He pronounced certain consonants with an unfamiliar mix of harshness and subtlety, and some of the vowels were drawn out or flattened.
He had an accent.
An Avi’ori accent.
A new wave of fear set her heart hammering, though she didn’t know what his nationality meant for her. What would the Avi’ori want with a Kaleon Singer? Did the Kaleon Crown offer bounty to anyone who brought in a Singer, even Avi’ori pirates?
“Before you attempt escape,” the captain continued, “you should note that while the ship is made of wood, your prison is made of iron.”
She realized the surrounding cage was indeed slick, brown grime over coarse metal. Kesia saw dried fluids, including blood, and she heaved again.
“So,” the captain said, “if you attempt to Sing at all during our voyage, we will kill you. If you harm any of my crew, we will kill you. And if, miraculously, you set this whole ship on fire—” he grinned, “you drown with us.”
Kesia shivered, imagining the churning waters beneath the ship, ready to swallow her.
Captain Edom raised his arms in a grand gesture of welcome. “Enjoy your time on Darkcrest, Lady Singer!”
Five
Miren
Time skipped and compressed around Miren; it warped and shredded and pulled.
She had fled from Darius’s estate, through the town, and all the way to the cabin, blinded by unshed tears and the pain splitting her skull. A few people called out to her, but she didn’t stop.
She must have unlocked the cabin and stumbled inside. She sank to the floor and stayed there, a pool of misery.
When she looked up again, night had fallen like a heavy curtain. Her stomach knotted with a dull, nauseous hunger, and her throat was ragged. Her skin felt hot and dry.
Miren blinked, wondering why the world was suddenly so there. And then she heard it again: a knock at the door. She had always made it a point to answer the door. Another stupid, useless habit formed to shield Kesia.
Perhaps it was someone with pity for her, with condolences or a pie to convince her that they really did care, that they hadn’t watched idly while—
Another knock, more insistent.
Miren pulled herself slowly to her feet. Her hand seemed to open the door of its own volition.
A young blond man stood before her.
“You,” Miren said.
He winced, his gaze flitting to her and away. She imagined slamming the door, but she didn’t move.
Are you all right? Davri signed.
A stupid question from a stupid boy. “Why are you here?”
He flinched again, as if he expected her to strike him. Perhaps she would.
I understand, Davri signed rapidly. I understand why you lied to everyone. I would have done the same thing for Kesia. I’m not angry.
His sympathy made her hands curl into fists. “Why are you here?” she asked again.
Davri reached into his bag and handed her a sealed envelope. Absently, Miren took it, the paper rough and foreign in her hands.
“What is this?” she said.
Davri signed, The report my father wrote to the capital. He thinks I sent it with a messenger.
Miren stared blankly at him.
The report.
The report.
Miren gripped it in both hands and tore it down the center. The wax seal snapped off and fell to the ground between them.