The clans most prone to attacking the Free Countries.
“That at least narrows it down,” I said. “Thanks.”
The guard kinda squinted at me then, like he wanted to say something about me recognizing all those pirate clans. But he didn’t. He just turned to Queen Saida and bowed and then pressed back against the wall.
“Well,” said Queen Saida. “I’m truly sorry that wasn’t more helpful.” She looked at Naji while she spoke. “I’ll see if I can find out more information for you, and when you make sail, I’ll lend you some ships and crew from my own fleet.”
“Saida, you don’t have to–” Marjani leaned forward over the table and pressed her hand against Queen Saida’s arm.
Queen Saida held up her own hand. “Of course I don’t have to,” she said. “It’s not a matter of what I have to do; it’s a matter of what I want to do.”
“Thank you, my Light,” murmured Naji. He dipped his head, and emotion flickered through me – despair, creeping in like the cold northern sea, and anger like the fury of the Empire sun. Not my emotions at all.
He was in my head or I was in his: it didn’t matter. I saw past his blank assassin’s face, and I knew his hopelessness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For the next few days, I hardly saw Marjani at all; she spent all her time with the queen, or shunted off in the queen’s apartments on the edge of the garden, doing Kaol knows what. I realized pretty quick that I was the one who was gonna have to check on the boat.
Naji went with me, dressed like a Jokja nobleman save for the scarf wrapped around his face. I hadn’t told him I was planning on going; he just showed up at my room and said, “You know how much it hurts me for you to wander off on your own.”
“Only if I’m in danger.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that, but there was no point in fighting with him. I didn’t say a word to him as we walked through the city.
The Nadir was still docked at port, Kaol be praised, and she didn’t look too worse for wear, neither. A handful of men were sitting around on the deck playing dice when me and Naji came on board. Fewer than I would’ve liked.
“Where’s the rest of you?” I asked.
“Whoring,” one of the men said. It was Jeric yi Niru. He squinted up at me. “Have you found the starstones yet? Given both of your life’s light is intact, I would assume no.”
I scowled at him. “She don’t got ’em. Got nicked by some Confederation pirates a while back. We’ll be setting after the stones once we know more.”
“Ah,” said Jeric yi Niru, giving me that smug nobleman’s smile of his. “What is it with pirates? Does the threat of death engender an item with more value?”
“You’re the one that joined up with the Empire navy. You tell me about threat of death.”
The rest of the men laughed. Jeric frowned at me and then nodded at Naji. “The captain’s look never suited you,” he said. “I like this better.”
“So do I.” Naji’s voice was cold and mean, an assassin’s voice, and it shut up Jeric yi Niru fast. The other men stopped smirking, too.
I made a quick check of the boat and her stores – some of the rum was missing, and half the bottles of ahiial had been drained and piled up in a corner of the galley. The crew worked fast. But all the weapons were in the hold, and the chest of pressed copper and silver that’d been on board when we took the ship was locked away in the captain’s quarters, protected not just with steel chains but with a bit of Naji’s magic as well.
I slumped down on the captain’s bed so I could listen to the waves slapping up against the ship’s side. There’s something about a boat that ain’t moving. It feels empty. Hollow. Almost better to be on land.
Naji appeared in the doorway. He slid the mask away from his face but didn’t bother to come any closer.
I got flashes of things in my head as he stared at me – worry about the starstones, some dull ache I now understood was part of the curse – and I rubbed at my eyes until they went away.
“Cut it out,” I said.
“Cut what out?”
“Letting me see your thoughts.”
“I’m not letting you. You just can. I explained this–”
“Well, stop it!” I scowled. “Is it gonna be like this for the rest of my life?”
“I told you it would. Don’t you ever listen?”
He sounded like Mama for a minute there, scolding me for not being able to work magic proper.
“Apparently not,” I said, which is what I always told Mama when she asked me. Then: “You’re scared about the starstones.”
I wanted to see if it would bother him, me knowing what he was thinking. The way it bothered me. But he just gazed at me across the captain’s quarters and said, “Yes. The task’s impossible for a reason.”
There was this silence after he spoke, a place where I should’ve said, “The other one wasn’t.” But I kept my mouth shut.
“It has occurred to me,” Naji said, “and to the members of the Order I’ve spoken to, that the only way to escape the curse may be to die.” He shrugged. “And if that’s what I have to do–”
A coldness struck me in my heart, a hand come out to squeeze the life away from me. Naji felt it too. I could see it in on his face, the way his expression softened as he looked at me. It pissed me off. I didn’t want to care if he lived or died.
“We should get back,” I muttered, and I pushed past him and made my way back on deck.
We stayed in Arkuz for near a month, waiting for Queen Saida’s messengers to bring word of the starstones. One day I finally went to see her in her sun room, surrounded by guards and nobles and Marjani.
“Not yet,” she said, courteous and smiling. Marjani gazed at me apologetically. She looked different in a noblewoman’s clothes, her hair woven with ribbons and shells, her eyes lined with pale green powder. Like a right princess.
“You’ll be the first to know as soon as I hear something,” Queen Saida said. She took one of my hands in her own. Her skin was soft as silk. “I have twenty of my best men out looking for those stones.”
“You know I can captain the ship myself,” I said. “And leave Marjani here.”
Marjani jerked her head up toward me but didn’t say nothing. Queen Saida gave me a long, appraising look.
“I don’t lie,” she said. “My best men are looking for the stones.”
That made me blush. She didn’t even sound angry or nothing. Just a little disappointed in me, like I’d reminded her I wasn’t a noble after all. And it actually made me feel kinda bad.
Afterward, I wandered around the gardens, sneaking past the guards and servants and ladies sitting in the sun. I could hear birds singing to one another out in the jungle. You wouldn’t think you were in the city, there in the palace gardens.
I found a shady spot beneath some flowering bushes to sit and think. I was tired of hanging around Arkuz, waiting for something to happen. We were losing crewmen, too. You stay in a place long enough, they start thinking they like that place better. Especially a place like Arkuz. I couldn’t much blame them.
The thing was, I didn’t know if I wanted to find the starstones, not if it meant Naji would die. And the third task, the one about life coming out of violence – that didn’t even make any sense. Knowing magicians, it was probably just some roundabout way of saying he had to kill himself on the starstones.
Ananna, you think too much about things that don’t concern you.
I yelped and scrambled out from under the bushes, my knees and hands covered in dirt. Nobody was about but a sleepy-looking guard leaning up against his spear.
Stop worrying about me.
It was Naji’s voice, and it was coming from inside my head.
“Naji!” I whispered. “I told you to stay out of my head!”
He didn’t answer. I clenched my eyes shut and concentrated real hard, and I saw a window looking out over the jungle, and a bed draped with sheer curtains. He was in his room.