The second afternoon, Naji came out on deck and called my name. I was up in the rigging – not working or nothing, just sitting up there watching the walls of the canyon slide by. I hung onto the rope and leaned over and watched him clomp around, swinging his head this way and that.
"Look up!" I called out.
He stopped and then tilted his head toward the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. "How'd you get up there?"
I shrugged and then swung down on the rope, crisscrossing through the rigging, until I landed on deck, a few feet away from him.
"I owe you an explanation," he said.
"I thought you forgot. I was looking forward to ditching you once we made port."
He shook his head. His expression was soft, almost kind, and I wondered what he would look like if he smiled properly. Even with the scar, I bet it was nice.
"Alright," I said. "Let's hear it."
"You remember the woman from the desert? The one who gave you the spell to banish me to the Otherworld?"
"I thought she was dead."
"No. I sent her back where she came from."
"But she bled all over–"
"They don't die," Naji said. "It's not something I can explain – just know that they aren't human."
I crossed my arms over my chest. This was a lot to work through in my head. I'd seen sirens before, and the merfolk too, but you can kill 'em easy as you can kill a man. No wonder I got cold thinking about the Mists.
"So what'd you do to her?" I asked. "That got her so pissed?"
"I didn't do anything to her," he said. "She serves someone in the Otherworld, one of the thousands of lords constantly clamoring for power. I severed some of her master's ties to our world."
"What?"
"I killed some of the children he planted here. They weren't children when I killed them," he added, since I must have looked appalled. There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. "They were attempting to rub bare the walls between worlds, in a move to gain power in the Mists. It's complicated, but…" His voice trailed off. "He was willing to sacrifice our world to gain power in his."
The air was real still. The only movement came from the boat as it sliced through the river water.
"Oh," I said. "You saved everybody. The entire world." I gave him a little half-smile, even though it was weird to think of him as a hero. "I gotta admit, I'm impressed."
"Don't be." Naji frowned. "I was hired to do it. I didn't know who the targets were. In fact, I didn't understand the implications of what I did until much later, when she first attacked me."
I leaned up against the rigging and thought about everything that happened these last few weeks, everything that happened before Naji went from my would-be killer to my protector.
"You don't need to worry about it," Naji said, looking all earnest. "But that's why Leila offered us her protection against the Otherworld. Because–"
"Just as long as we're on the river."
"What?"
"She only offered her protection as long as we're on the river." I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "And don't lie to me. You said yourself you were putting my protection ahead of your own."
Naji sighed. "Fine. I'm worried the Otherworld will use you – the curse – to get to me."
"Put me in danger, you mean? So you'd have to come and save me?"
"More or less. Although really, you don't need to worry." Naji shrugged. "I've seen you fight. You could hold your own against any monster of the Mists."
I turned away from him, embarrassed. The water glittered around us like a million slant-cut diamonds. The sky pressed down, heavy and bleached white with heat.
"Thanks for telling me all that," I said. My words came out kinda slurred like I was drunk. "I appreciate you treating me like a partner."
"You're welcome."
I nodded out at the river, and that was that.
We sailed into Port Iskassaya at dawn, the air crisp from the night before. I was up at the bow of the ship, watching the city emerge out of the pink haze of the morning and thinking on how I didn't much want to leave the river for the sea, for the Isles of the Sky.
Naji came up from down below all decked out in his assassin robes and his carved armor, with a new desert mask pulled across the lower half of his face.
"That don't look dodgy at all," I said.
Naji sighed. "Ananna, these are my clothes. I feel comfortable in them–"
"I was talking more about your mask."
His eyes darkened. "I'm not taking it off."
"I know. I'm just saying."
I sweet-talked the bureaucrat at the river-docks into letting me and Naji set the boat for free. "We'll only be here half an hour," I said. "Won't be no trouble to you."
The bureaucrat gave me this long hard look. "I'm giving you twenty minutes. You ain't back by then, I'm letting her loose."
I smiled at him and gave a little salute and me and Naji went on our way. I figured he might cut the boat free or he might not, but whether or not Leila got her boat back wasn't something I was gonna concern myself with.
Naji got real quiet, quieter than normal, as we made our way through the port town, which wasn't nothing more than some drinkhouses and brothels and a few illegal armories tucked away in the back alleys. He stuck close to the buildings, weaving in and out of shadow. Soon enough we were getting stink-eyes from busted-up old crewmen who ain't got nothing better to do than sit out drinking that early in the morning.
I'd been to the Port Iskassaya sea-docks only once before, when I was a little girl. It ain't a major port, as it's surrounded by desert and the river don't go nowhere of interest, but somebody built it two hundred years back and since the merchants didn't want it, the pirates claimed it instead. Mostly folks use it as a place to stop off and refresh supplies before they head out to the open sea.