14. Maren
14
Maren
W e left the cursed channel before the sun rose.
The first dregs of pale light stroked our faces as we finally entered Vranna, cutting through stout city buildings toward the market which lay directly in front of the shipyard. I’d never seen a market enclosed, but it sat fortified by stone, wood, and guards, the single entrance facing the harbor. Pirates , Kye explained with a single word when I asked him why it’d been developed so strangely.
I tracked Kye’s feet with my head down, avoiding the sight of the ships. Something about their size, their shape, their sails. Like phantoms floating across the water, in and out, back and forth. Skeletal while moored in the harbor, or ghostly with their canvas spread against the wind.
Kye wove me through a barrage of goods. Crates. Barrels. Stacked rugs, freshly varnished furniture. Upended horse carts in a tight row. Sailors dipped out of our way without acknowledging our presence, too occupied with loading their cargo to be bothered by the couple roaming the boardwalk.
We squeezed through narrow gaps of merchandise and Kye reached for my hand, roving through a labyrinth single file, so tall that I couldn’t see anything beyond him. His long fingers wrapped around mine, heating my veins, rousing the thud of my heart as it beat against my ribs.
“There are no Calderian ships here,” I said, realizing a certain blue mountain-and-sun flag was missing from the rows of ships.
Steps slowing, Kye drew me into him, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the horizon. Fog gathered in the corners of the docks, draping the harbor in the illusion of ships flying amongst clouds just beyond the plank boards.
“They’re all Kravan or Rivean,” I observed. “I don’t even see any from Illuskia or Cypria. Does Rivea only trade with Krava?”
He exhaled, his breath warm as it washed over my hair. “Cypria only trades within their own shores. They don’t send ships to international waters. And Illuskia sits on the opposite side of Rivea; they’d send their ships to Rivea’s eastern shores. But there should be Calderian ships here.”
There weren’t.
Rivea’s flag flew crimson red against the sky, a coat of arms with a black scorpion pinching its own shield. The banner claimed the majority of the ship masts. Krava’s signet flapped over only a few of the ships, green and white stripes under two clashing swords.
Kye’s heartbeat increased as he searched. I watched him look for his own flag, for comrades among strangers. Something about it tugged at me. His brows pinched together, his mouth set hard. Not in disappointment, in something more like—
The faint scent of worry tinged the air, sweet and sour. I’d barely had a chance to recognize it before he pulled gently on my hand. “Come on.”
A guard with auburn hair and a hard-set mouth stopped us at the gate to the market entrance. He frowned, rubbing his chin as his eyes trickled over the pair of us, garbed in pirate clothes, worn and filthy.
“ Nechcem ?iadne problémy ,” he said, the warning evident in his words. Behave, or else.
Kye simply nodded at him. The guard let us through, though he watched us with such isolated focus I had to force myself not to turn back to look at him.
A maze of its own, the Vranna market became a motley of open stands and wind-blown curtains. Merchants shouted across the brick streets, the pathways flat and hard from the constant hammering of foot traffic. Dust hovered in the air, settling across my tongue when I opened my mouth, leaving the feeling of dirt under my nails and in my eyes.
It stretched for what felt like miles, grouped by trade. Butcher stands, clothiers, bakers, homewares, furs, weaponry. My heart skipped a beat at an entire table of shield weed among the sea faire, though the townspeople held my attention more than any of the merchants, eyeing the pair of us askance as we fought our way through the tangle, a man and woman, both foreign and pirate. They reminded me of Diara, light-skinned and adorned in freckles, their hair various shades of ginger. Though they seemed more haggard than my palace friend. Hardened. The weight of their stares left a skittering chill down my back, even as I lifted my chin. I’d always hated being watched.
My sense of navigation lost amid the thick masses, I let Kye guide me to the single jewelry stand, his hand pressed against the small of my back. Compared to stands of cookery and farm tools, the lone jeweler boasted a modest table, overlaid with gleaming silk and a locked crystal box. Rings lay inside, each one silver and shining.
The jeweler barely offered us a glance, smiling at a man behind Kye instead. Two dead teeth sat on the side of his mouth, followed by an empty socket, though he dressed in fine velvet. I could hardly blame him for ignoring us. We’d traveled on foot for days, and before then, we’d been on a ship for two weeks. Though we’d boiled our clothes and bathed in the shallow edges of the sea, we were each dirty and rough, my hair an unbound mess, my feet bare.
“Go on, you two,” the man said, waving his hand at us. “This isn’t the shop for pissing vagrants.”
Kye didn’t move. I suppose there are advantages to being born a prince. To command someone’s attention without a spoken word. I’d probably have stalked away at the insult, internally demoralizing the man, but his insinuation bounced off Kye like wind against a proud mountain. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how the Rivean had guessed that we spoke Calderian. What was it about us that gave it away?
“We came to sell,” Kye replied, holding his gold ring between two fingers for the man to see.
The jeweler frowned at Kye, but at seeing his ring, his brows twitched in curiosity. A soft fist braced on his hip, he reached for the ring with his opposite hand. Kye dropped it in the jeweler’s palm, and the man inspected it carelessly. As though it were worth less than the filth beneath his shoes. But a small fire flickered in his eyes, a hunger that made me almost want to snatch it away from him.
“Two hundred ú?et, ” the man offered dully.
Kye pointed calmly at the Calderian royal signet stamped inside the band. “Six hundred ú?et. ”
Sucking his teeth, the jeweler raised his brows, adopting a look of boredom. He shook his head, though his fingers curled possessively around the ring. “Two-fifty ú?et. ”
“Four hundred.”
The jeweler snorted. His eyes slid up my side for the first time, oily with interest. “You must be in desperate need, my friend.”
Kye’s arm tightened a fraction, drawing me an inch closer. “Yes, or no?”
The merchant smirked, his gaze lingering over me. “Where is she from?”
Kye answered in Rivean, a single word spat across the table. The man laughed softly, though his smile remained shallow, his eyes dark. “She clearly isn’t from here. ” He grinned into his table, a lazy finger pointed in the blacksmiths’ direction. “Two-fifty ú?et. You will not get that from a stand that doesn’t specialize in precious metals.”
I dared a glance at Kye. He wore his mask, the one he reserved for deep thought, as he sized the jeweler. With a soft click of his tongue, he pulled a second ring from his pocket.
I watched as he dropped it onto the satin cloth, an antiqued silver band inlaid with a stunning blue stone. I opened my mouth to tell him no , but he plunged his hand back into his pocket, withdrawing a gold timepiece, the Calderian royal insignia embossed over the outer casing.
The jeweler opened it, staring at a lapis lazuli interior, golden face inside flush with the edges. Tiny, faceted diamonds lay in place of each number. His disinterested act fell away, and he lifted the sapphire ring in his other hand, weighing it gently, tilting the stone back and forth in the sunlight.
His eyes drifted back to Kye. “What did you say your name was, my friend?”
Kye didn’t answer. Stepping fully in front of the table, he lowered his voice. “Three thousand for all three.”
I bit my lip, my breath tight as my eyes burned into the sight of the sapphire ring in the jeweler’s hand, horrified Kye was willing to sell it.
The man set the three objects on his table, tapping his fingers in thought. “I don’t have that amount with me today. If you were to come back tomo—wait. Wait, my friend.” He scrambled around the table as Kye scooped up his jewelry and turned to leave. “What do you need? You came to sell, because you need to buy, is that right?” He glanced us over, taking in our bedraggled clothes, the answer plain. “Two of my brothers are merchants in this market. What do you need—clothes, shoes, horses? I can give you one thousand ú?et and you can shop their wares on credit.”
“Which ones are they?” I asked. The man snapped his attention to me.
He held an open hand in Kye’s direction for the rings and pocket watch, but his eyes drank me in, the corners of his mouth curling.
Kye shifted between us, his shoulder cutting off my view. “Which ones are they?”
The merchant pointed across the square to a man behind a table laden with textiles. “My name is Veles. Jarek is there,” he said, swinging his finger to the other side, toward the stables. “And Reija is the red-haired man by the paddock gate.”
“You’re all fucking red-haired,” Kye snapped, thrusting his jewelry into his pocket. “We’ll see.”
Veles inclined his head politely as we turned to leave. Behind us, I listened to the bump and shuffle as the jeweler hurriedly packed his table into his horse cart.
He ran ahead, stopping at Jerek’s stand first, animatedly speaking to the clothing merchant. Jerek flashed us a grin as we neared, but his smile fell when Kye passed.
“Horses first,” Kye murmured. I glanced at him, but his eyes followed Veles, charging through the middle of the field to reach his other brother. Kye scoffed, the noise in his throat between annoyance and amusement.
“You don’t have to sell it,” I said, calling his attention back to me.
“We need supplies.” Kye paused for a wagon to pass.
I pressed my lips together. I’d been in Rivea for days now, foraging for food and sleeping under stars. Somehow, I’d rather another month of the same if it meant he kept his mother’s ring.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe because I owned nothing of my mother except a tattered book on an island far away. But Kye likely owned many things. She’d been a queen—she’d probably left her children chests full of precious stones and heirlooms.
But that ring was the one he wore.
My thoughts halted as we neared the paddock.
Five horses stood posted for sale, their leads tied to heavy stakes in the ground, prices chalked in white numbers on their hides. My eyes swept past all of them to the single creature in the paddock.
She wasn’t the largest horse I’d ever seen. She probably wasn’t the most beautiful either, though she was a thing of beauty. Her black coat shined like liquid, as though she’d been painted and hadn’t yet dried, the sunlight almost blue between the curves of her muscles. Her mane fell in streaming waves, fluid and wild.
She pawed the dirt, tail swishing with impatience. As we neared the paddock, she lifted her head at us, pulling back her lips. When we didn’t stop, she charged. An arrow released from a bowstring, she bolted to the side of the paddock, pulling up short to avoid colliding with the fence. The blast of her wind teased strands of hair from my forehead, ruffling the loose fabric of my shirt.
The mare flattened her ears, hind legs kicking absently behind her. An experienced horseman, Kye darted out of the proximity of an outstretched hoof.
But I stood rooted to the ground, transfixed by the creature. Caged and angry. Isolated from the others. Desperate to be free. A cool shiver ran down my spine, not unlike my spiculae when I laid eyes on another Naiad, the sudden urge to sing to the creature thrumming in my chest.
The mare swung her head in my direction, nostrils flared. She gave a solid huff, sending warmth across my face. Lifting a hoof to stamp the dirt, she froze, eyes locked into mine. Her heaving chest slowed; her tail stilled. She gazed at me, calmly rigid, her eyes wide.
A motion blurred at my side, and the horse gave a squeal. She lunged forward, snapping her flat teeth in my direction, and peeled away. A rust-haired man leaned against the paddock beside me.
A friendlier-looking version of his brother, Reija’s teeth sat bright and clean in his mouth, his russet locks tamed in thick curls over the dome of his head. He stared at the horse’s receding back and chuckled, the sound like a soft crack in my ear. “Every decade or so, I get one wild as the sea. All good horses give a fight, but some can never be mastered.” His accent vibrated in my ears, thicker than Veles’s, his cadence almost too heavy to follow. Kye slid in between us, casually leaning his forearms on the paddock’s edge, and Reija’s attention shifted to him. “I hear you're in need of a mount.”
“Two,” Kye answered. My gaze returned to the black mare. Across the paddock, she’d stopped under a patch of thick sunshine to watch us, her hide glistening like ripples of cool water.
Reija motioned for us to follow.
Five horses seemed a poor variety for a market this large, but Kye favored the temperament of a dust-colored mare for me. The dun horse gazed at me with eyes that seemed wise and old, a patient, thoughtful energy flowing from her. The natural choice for a novice rider.
But I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder at the black horse with hair like streaming water. Kye caught my stares. Standing beside me as we inspected Kye’s choice—a youthful gray fellow with hair just beginning to dapple in white spots—he leaned into my ear. “We can’t break a wild horse on the road, Leihani.”
I nodded, though I couldn’t tear my eyes away. His gaze remained on me a moment longer, soft and considering, but he turned to Reija. “I’d like to ride them first. Do you have saddles we could use?”
Reija nodded, motioning for Kye to follow him to the nearby stables. Veles trailed behind, joining the two of them at the door, a smugness between his brows. The brothers disappeared just inside, Kye remained in the open doorway, one eye loosely trained on me.
I stroked the neck of Kye’s gray horse. Sero was his name, Reija had said. He nipped playfully at my sleeve, his head drooped low over my shoulder. I scratched him absently with the pads of my fingers.
Across the paddock, the wild horse faced me at an angle. Long legs slanted, neck outstretched, her narrow muzzle tilted toward the ground as she stared from under her lashes. I felt that shiver once more, trickling down my back. Something about the horse called to me, like the whisper of a voice I once knew.
Before I could stop myself, my legs slipped through the boards of the fence. Sero whinnied at my back, dismayed I’d stopped stroking him. Blades of grass slid past my ankles, hardened soil shifting beneath my toes.
The horse was suddenly a Naiad, and I was a vacous , caught in a lure that broke away time and sense. My feet glided forward, my body no longer mine. The horse didn’t move, but a lure pulled at my middle, guiding me to the center of the paddock.
Somewhere in the distance, Kye’s voice called for me. I heard it, even as everything else fell away. Heard the demand in his tone, the sudden urgency. But I didn’t look back.
I had the strangest desire to sing.
So, I did.