50
Valine, weak in the knees, assessed the damage. The loss of life was immense. They’d lost sixty percent of the crew and had one surviving aethermancer on board. The captain was trying to delegate basic tasks to new people, previous roles now unfilled. Hanish and his family were still safely ensconced in the hull, the fulgurmancer having been prepared to blast the kraken should it have come near his wife and children. Valine, after assuring herself of their continuation of life, took leave to Malik’s quarters and fell into the bed, head swimming. She kept her eyes closed but stayed awake, casting fingers into the water and seeking any other krakens lurking in the deep.
The rest of the journey continued this way. Valine, listening with her magic, prepared to attack at a moment’s notice as they cut through the waters further north. The air became hotter, more humid as they continued, from lack of hydromancer cooling, and also the northern route. It was a known fact that the climate became hotter the further north they went and nothing was hotter or further north than Cuuevota.
That they knew of.
There were, of course, stories of the distant land further from which the current royals of Talloh had descended, but Valine wondered the merit of it as the route to Cuuevota alone was treacherous. She wondered who would dare sail across the open waters unnecessarily.
Someone shouted that land was approaching, and Valine shot up from the bed. She didn’t know how many days passed in delirious half dreaming, half waking, but the presence of land was salvation on her mind. She relaxed her magic and stepped out into the sun, seeing a large land form from the deck, green as verdant and wild as the eye could see, swaths of fabric on the beaches in tents, revealing a market. The harbor was cut into the beach, five ships at port, men milling about on the docks. The people she could see were every manner of skin and height and build, their dress giving no identity to originating kingdom. Because everyone originated from elsewhere, Cuuevota sprung from the sea.
They moored, and pirates met them on the docks. There were three of them: a tall man with wild mahogany curls and a pleasant smile, a curvaceous woman with skin the color of hickory and braids bright as blood, and another woman, this one petite to the extreme with sand-colored skin and a scar bisecting her brow. All three of them were dressed in a motley assortment of elaborate frock coats, blousy shirts, loud patterned pants, and weapons attached to their persons.
“What brings you to the Black Market, Mor?” the curvy woman asked pointedly as Captain Morgan Yarl stepped from the ship, the rest of them following down the ramp.
“Guests hailing from Adraali,” he answered easily.
The woman craned her neck and took in the entourage before her, raising a brow. “Hardly any of these fuckers look Adraalian. Those two, maybe,” she said, indicating Malik and Sarim.
Captain Yarl laughed. “I would hope he does. That’s the king.”
The woman spit on the dock. “The fuck does a king want here?”
“Ask him yourself, Ylaine.”
“We seek an object we are told is here,” Malik said, stepping around the captain. “Do you know where we may find someone that specializes in mythic relics?”
Ylaine twisted her lips, considering. “Yeah, not a dealer or anything, but our Sovereign, Thiandra can probably help you. But it’s going to cost you.”
“I’m sure I can manage that,” Malik replied.
“I’m sure you can,” Ylaine said disinterestedly. “Just know, they don’t deal in coin.”
“Noted.”
“What’s up with you? You seasick, or something?” Her voice was directed at Valine, who still hadn’t fully recovered from the kraken attack.
“Yeah, something like that,” Valine answered distractedly.
“We require new supplies. We lost a bunch at sea. Attacked by krakens, we were,” the captain began, scratching his beard. “And I’ll need more recruits for the voyage. I lost some.”
Ylaine tsked. “I’ve never known you to suffer a kraken attack, Mor. You goin’ soft, or are these fuckers bad luck?”
“Could be either,” he chortled.
“Yeah, well, you know the drill.” Ylaine waved towards the beach. “Make yourself at home, buy your shit, make your deals.” She turned to the rest of the gathered. “Welcome to Cuuevota, motherfuckers.”
Thiandra’s tent was on the cusp of the jungle, swathed in shades of flame. They sat on a tufted seat behind an orange cloth-draped table, slender and small-chested with dozens of necklaces hanging from their neck. Most were gold, but a silver piece with carved runes hung close to their navel and a bronze choker that looked like a creature wrapped around their throat.
Valine and Malik entered, the scent of incense thick and cloying in the air with the undertones of citrus. The two of them stood before Thiandra, sweating, while the person before them remained at ease, scarlet-painted nails tapping on the table.
“We can do away with the pleasantries,” Thiandra said, their voice lilting and smoky. “I know what you seek. The question is, can you afford it?”
Valine screwed her brows together. “How would you know that?”
Thiandra levelled Valine with an eerie stare, their eyes ice blue and startling against their cocoa skin. “I am a divinamancer, little necro. Save your tedious questions. They really are quite trying.”
Valine started at this revelation and flickered her eyes to Malik. The king was holding himself still, and she could see the discomfiture in his frame, which set Valine ill at ease. He was supposed to be in control. But they were not on the continent, and the rules they played by no longer applied.
She realized that on this black market island, though, he was on equal footing with this ruler, and all bets were off. Cuuevota cared little for the monarchs of Enneive and even less for diplomatic relations. The ways of the island were cut and dry, plain without flippancy or political maneuvering. Everything was for sale, and everything had a price.
“You want the Call, so pay for it,” Thiandra continued. “And do not lie, for I will know it, and you will know my wrath.”
Valine inhaled sharply and met the ice eyes of Cuuevota’s sovereign. “Crown Prince Lukov Varshovski—”
“No,” Thiandra interrupted Valine. “I do not care to hear of the Prince of Melusda’s indiscretions and debts. I want information pertaining to you and yours. I want the difficult truths.”
“If I may, the knowledge about Melusda pays handsomely. You could buy a ransom for it.”
“That is not what I seek. I seek the things you do not wish to speak. I want to see you pull the darkest secrets of your hearts by the skin of your teeth. I want to know how much of yourself you’re willing to betray for this.” Thiandra grinned menacingly. “That is my price. That is the power I seek.”
Valine took in Thiandra. The soft oval-shaped face, the wide mouth, the high and proud cheekbones, the dark corkscrew curls. They were stunning, and power burned from their very core. Valine could see the knowledge of wisdom and dreams in their eyes. They operated on a higher plane of existence than Valine. They did not care for the simple whims of men and their slavery to coin. They thrived on emotional turmoil and the severity of human nature. On greed and lust and desire.
“I watched my father kill my younger sister the day she was born. Simply because she was born with the wrong parts. And my mother let him.” Valine shook her head, still at a loss all these years later. Refusing to picture it. “I never understood how she let him. After carrying the babe for nearly a year, laboring for seventeen hours, only to let him do that.
“I swore that day that I would never let it happen again. So, I researched, and at eight years old, I went to the market and stole mugwort, baneberry, and wombsbane and made a tincture. I meant to give it to my father, but my mother took it instead, and she collapsed within the hour.” Valine swallowed down the emotion. “She bled. I remember seeing the red on her legs, and I remember that she never bled again. And she never bore my father another child.”
Thiandra watched Valine’s admission with a blank stare. “It is not enough.”
“What?” Valine asked aghast.
“Your truth. It is not enough. You tried to make your father sterile, and you failed. It is not enough.”
Valine gritted her teeth and stared at the sovereign. So many of her misdeeds and dark truths pertained to death, and she couldn’t just outright admit to murder, could she? “The first time I used my magic, I killed the stable hand that tried to rape me.”
“It’s not enough.”
“What do you want from me?” Valine demanded angrily.
“I want something you struggle to admit to,” Thiandra said leaning forward, necklaces swinging. “I want something that you have to force out of your soul and drag it out, kicking and screaming. An accident and self-defense do not suffice.”
Valine ground her teeth together. “You want to know who I’ve killed?”
Thiandra shrugged. “Only if it’s painful to tell me so. Otherwise, no.” Thiandra lowered their lids. “You immediately gravitate towards death and heinous deeds when vulnerability can be just as effective.” Thiandra paused. “Is there anything you feel that you don’t want the world to know?”
Valine would rather reveal deaths by her hand than confessions from the heart. She would pull whatever deplorable acts she’d done from the depths of her black soul before she admitted to any feelings.
“I am the blood daughter of Mrithun.”
Thiandra raised a brow, surprised. “Well, that is interesting. Continue.”
“My necromancy is more potent than anyone else I’ve encountered. I have killed sand serpents and kraken, I have survived a judgment from the arachne, I have been visited by Nylantia herself, Patroness of Night and Stars, and lived to tell the tale.”
“Why?” Thiandra asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would Nylantia deign to visit you?”
Valine drew in a breath, eyes betraying her emotions to Malik’s presence. “Mrithun has blocked the saints and daemons from moving against me. She believes that I will be a queen. She claims she has seen it in the stars.”
“Do you believe this?”
Valine hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“This makes you uncomfortable.”
“It does,” Valine admitted.
“Good, tell me why.”
“It won’t make a difference.”
“I assure you, it will make all the difference in the world,” Thiandra told her, fingering the bronze necklace.
Valine looked at it more closely and realized that it was more than it appeared. It was a choker wrapped around their throat, a sleeping bird, head resting on their collarbones, long tail draping down their chest. There was a proud crown of feathers on the bird’s head depicted in the metal, eyes closed, onyx-tipped beak hooked, claws of the same black stone curled beneath in slumber.
That bronze necklace was the Call of the Phoenix.
“Tell me your deepest secret.”
Closing her eyes, Valine plunged inside of herself with a vicious hand and dragged the inescapable truth to the surface. The admission thickened her throat, the words dragging obsidian claws through her lungs. She felt her heart hammer, a blacksmith’s anvil making home in her chest, fire burned inside her, a conflagration threatening to swallow her whole. She opened her dark eyes and stared Thiandra down. A darkly delighted smile was on their lips.
“I am in love with the King of Adraali.”
The truth was out, and she refused to look at Malik. She kept her gaze resolute and trained on the black market sovereign. She felt and heard Malik’s intake of breath beside her. She felt him gravitate towards her, a hand raising, disturbing the air.
“Valine…” he whispered.
Valine set her jaw. “Is it enough?” she bit out.
Thiandra giggled. “It is.”
And with that Thiandra reached for the Call of the Phoenix draped around their neck. They removed the choker and held it out on smooth palms, the necklace laying like a tiny beast on their fingertips.
Valine plunged the object into her satchel, the metal warm, so warm that Valine wondered if prolonged contact would burn her.
Thiandra turned to Malik, face falling, losing its charmed malice. Their lids dropped, their mouth thinned. “In regards to the proposal you will no doubt exalt to me, I will spare you the breath. I am not interested, and Cuuevota will ally with no one. We are an independent nation, and I seek no alliance with kings or queens, star-chosen as they are.”
“Your Majesty,” Malik began, prepared to barter.
“No,” Thiandra said flatly, raising a hand. “My only and final answer is no.”
Malik stiffened and nodded once. “I understand.” He drew in a breath. “If it wouldn’t be too much to ask, is there a possibility we may acquire rooms for the night?”
Thiandra smiled warmly. “Of course. But it will cost you.”