She slowly shifted so that her arms were facing him. She heard the whisper of a knife being drawn and felt cool metal press against the skin of her wrist.
The rope fell away, and her shoulders cried out in painful relief as she brought her arms forward. She hissed a sigh through her gag, and the boy fell back, flinching away from her.
Stiffly, she signed, I won’t hurt you—
The boy screamed and scrambled away, pressing himself against the far side of the cage. His keys clattered to the ground as he held out his hands in an odd symbol that she didn’t recognize. “Witchcraft! Witchcraft!”
A shadow fell over her again. She looked up at the barrel of a gun pointing down on her.
“No tricks, girl!” the pirate snarled. “What’s wrong?”
The boy was shaking so badly that his elbow smacked the wall of the cell. “She—she did something with her hands—”
The pirate groaned. “Ah, that’s just the way they talk, boy. She don’t even have the gag off yet.”
Kesia nodded, suddenly desperate to win the boy’s trust. Slowly, she slipped off the cloth and spit out the gag, the muscles in her jaw throbbing. She carefully reached for the canteen and drank, water streaming off her chin.
The boy handed her the loaf, and she tore into it. He remained rigid and silent until she was finished, then flinched again as soon as she looked at him. “Captain says I don’t have to bind your hands, but you have to keep the gag on.”
Kesia grimaced, then gave him a reassuring smile and tied the cloth around her mouth.
The boy snatched the keys from the floor and vaulted out of the cage. “I’ll pick up your chamber pot later,” he called back.
She curled up and buried her head in her hands, but the tears didn’t come this time.
Seven
Miren
The chilly sea air snatched at Davri’s Voice. In the bow, Miren could feel the gurgling water shoving them forward, could sense the boat angling over a wave or tilting to skirt a current. Davri had steered them north and was now running parallel to the coast, always keeping the black ridge of land in sight. Crescent Bay was far behind them now.
Miren was almost convinced that she wasn’t awake. The day would seem like a bad dream, if it weren’t for the painful pounding in her head where the pirate had struck her. It felt impossible that Kesia was really gone, and Miren found herself glancing around for her, as though to ask if she had fed the chickens or heated water for tea.
It was too dark for Davri to sign, so Miren stayed tucked in the bow, angling herself as far from him as possible, even as her hip started to ache from the effort.
The sea bobbed and splashed, but Davri’s Song caught most of the current. Singing did not use words, but Miren felt she could almost understand the Song. She heard the rumbling bass melody that pushed the boat up and forward. An occasional rise in tone caught the edge of a wave or halted a splash. At one point, a wave took Davri by surprise, and he had to switch to another Song to keep them from capsizing.
How long had it been since she had heard someone Sing? Four years, at least, since the Singers were drafted. She thought of the village fishermen bringing in the morning catch, the time her father’s friend once trapped a seagull on the beach by Singing ice around its feet. She thought of the Air Singers clearing the bay of fog on chilly mornings, or her mother lighting a fire to boil tea. She thought of Jonath, hammering in his father’s forge, his clumsy Song trying to shape molten metal into a horseshoe.
Would she have left if Davri hadn’t come to her?
She couldn’t picture it. She would likely have gotten up the next morning. Maybe she would have eaten, maybe she wouldn’t. She would have stepped out of the cabin and heard the chickens squawk and thought of Kesia. She would have looked to the lighthouse, cold and lightless for the first night of her life, and thought of Kesia. She would have cleaned the cabin, the bowl Kesia always left on the table, the mess she made cutting carrots, the spark rocks tossed carelessly by the fireplace.
Miren turned her face into her coat and cried.
* * *
Mercifully, she fell asleep. She hadn’t meant to, but she opened her eyes to a lilac sky.
Davri’s Water Song still carried the boat forward, but his Voice was ragged and breathy. Miren sat upright, her back aching and her arm nearly numb. The cold sea air clung to her, but the wind that brushed past promised a warm morning.
Miren stared out at the passing water until her eyes hurt. Her back pressed to the boat’s side, she watched the Kaleon coast drift past on the right, jagged precipices giving way to smooth beaches and towns with wooden buildings and roads and horses and people.
She had never left Crescent Bay before, but she had always had the notion that they were farther removed from the rest of the world than this.
Davri sat hunched in the stern, his arm on the rudder, his mouth still moving in Song. His eyes caught hers only briefly before an oncoming wave demanded his attention. He shoved against it so it lapped harmlessly against the hull.
He had Sung through the night.
Miren almost cried out in surprise but caught herself. She had never heard of such a thing. Singing took much from the Singer; even those who served as fishermen worked no longer than a few hours, and no Singer was expected to use his Voice continuously for that time. Perhaps Davri had taken breaks, although she didn’t think so. His tone was low and hoarse with fatigue.
Her memory flew back to that fateful Skyflame, when Davri had first managed to Sing ice.
She did not want to be impressed.
“You can stop,” she said, her voice harsh against his Song. “I can sail from here.”
Davri shook his head, but the Song faltered anyway. The churning water stilled underneath them, and the boat began to drift.
Give me a moment, Davri signed.
“Fine. I’ll get us to shore.” She scooted to the next bench and reached to untie the sail.
But Davri was still shaking his head.
“I can get us there,” she insisted. “We can stay at an inn or something, right?”
She had to make it a question because she wasn’t sure how exactly inns worked, or, more important, how much they cost. The people of Crescent Bay had currency, but they rarely used it among themselves.
Davri held up a hand.
“Why don’t we stop?” She gestured at the shore, where there was a town in sight. “We’re not going to get all the way to the capital in one day.”
He shook his head. Need to find a lord of Fourth Circle.
Miren didn’t know what that meant. “Where will we find one?”
Davri spelled out a name.
“Isakio,” she said aloud.
He nodded.
“I don’t know where that is.”
Davri pushed himself upright and reached for one of his packs. She noticed that he had brought several, all of them stuffed to the brim and tied shut. She felt unprepared in comparison, but there had been nothing else in the cabin for her to bring.
He pulled out a long scroll of parchment and unrolled it.
It was a map of Kaleo and Avi’or. She only knew because her father had once shown her something similar, but it had been made of crinkled paper and smeared ink. This was artwork: countries and towns were labeled in complex calligraphy, with watery paints casting different areas in greens and browns and grays. It even included the cliffs that surrounded both countries. The Tehum Sea, the long body of water that split the two countries from north to south, featured a caricature of a Kaleon ship sailing across deep blue paint. Faint gold circles were drawn over Kaleo, starting at the capital to the north and spreading from there, each labeled in turn from first to fifth.