Chapter Nine #3
stiff material as widely as possible. After scraping through the dry blood on
her side, he found signs of pus. He grabbed his essence of peppermint.
“Never a good idea to show pain to anyone,” she said. “Only
ever gets you trouble. Always gotta be fierce.”
“That’s a hard way to live.”
“I suppose. Don’t know any better.”
Isaac thought of his uncle and the cane. There had been
several times where he had crumpled under the force of
a blow, crying and begging for mercy, and the next strike had only come harder
in response.
“Hey,” he said. “Do you . . . regret what you did? On the Saber?”
“What’s this?” she responded. “Do my ears deceive me?”
“What?”
“Is my squire leading the conversation for a change?”
He grimaced. “It already feels like a mistake.”
She chuckled into the crook of her arm. “You take yourself
too serious, love.” She lay in silence while he continued to dress her wounds,
long enough that he began to think she wasn’t going to answer. Eventually, she
heaved a sigh, saying: “No. I don’t. Not for a second.”
“It’s caused a lot of grief and pain.”
“Are you suggesting I should’ve turned a blind eye?”
“I was just curious.”
She opened her eyes, staring into brick and mortar. “My one
regret is that I didn’t do more. Still a lotta faces in them crates.”
“I’m merely—” He chose his words. “The way you told the
story, it seemed you were exceptionally furious about the slaves being
children.”
“As anyone should be.”
“I think you know what I’m getting at.”
“Aye. I do.” She sighed again. Isaac became aware that she
was just as beaten and exhausted as he was. “When I saw them staring up at me,
I thought of my father. Hadn’t done that in years.”
“Your father?”
“Long story.”
“I’m listening.”
She gave him a side glance, her eye slitted and bright. He
pretended to inspect a bruise.
There was a silence.
“Right,” Zaria said. “Well, he owned a tinker shop back in
the home country, Valrynn. It was a squat little hovel on the edge of the docks
that always smelled like fish and guts. He were a handyman sort. Could fix
anything you put in his paws. Made a living patching carts, shoring up
buildings, fixin’ toys. I was one of nine other
siblings, one of the few that was his only real kin—the rest were urchins he’d
let in off the streets. He never could say no.” She seemed to drift away for a
moment. “Got the picture?”
“Consider it painted.”
“Well, he was always pinching coppers. Refused to charge
full price. Said he’d feel too bad taking half a farmer’s coin just for
patching a wagon. Of course, he was a father himself—he needed bread on the
table. So he dabbled in fencing. Middleman sort. He took stolen goods, he fixed
them up, and he sent them off. We kids, we were the soldiers. His pinching
army. We scoured the districts for any pocket swinging with coin. Never the
merchants, never the craftsmen. That was his one rule. Never steal from those
in need.”
She grunted.
“I was always his best. Quickest finger in the crew. I ran the shop while he was out, kept the youngest safe and
managed. He’d never say so, always go on about doing hard things for survival,
but I could tell, one way or another, he had pride for me.”
She stared at the bricks, her eyes slightly distant.
“Well, you know about the Scorch. Valrynn got the brunt end.
When the farms were cursed, prices soared. After the docks were frozen, there
weren’t a single crumb of work. Everyone tightened their belts. His real
business ran dry, and even the fencing took a hit when the smugglers got hung.
I’d hear him crying, sometimes, going mad from the stress. We starved. Two of
the youngest died of illness. He cried even more.”
She paused for several moments.
“One day, I come home, same as always, and he’s staring out the
window, watching the frozen sea. He looks at me like I’m the most horrible
thing that’s ever graced his shop. I try to walk passed, thinking he’s just
embarrassed to be crying again, but he stops me, and he looks me in the eye,
and he gives me the tightest hug of my life, and tells me he loves me. I nod
along, say something stupid about keeping strong, and he looks at me with pain
in his face, and goes back to staring out the window. I leave him be.
“That night, I’m headin’ home
along my same route, avoiding the patrols, and four men came out the shadows.
Daggers and claws. They’d waited for me. I stand no chance. I’m dragged off
through the alleys, and I’m fightin’ back, but it’s useless. I’m weak and
hungry. They’re not. It’s over ‘fore it started.
“I’m led to a warehouse. I’m tossed into a room full of
other kids. We’re all filthy and scared. There’s crates off in the corner, and
I don’t need to know what the label says to figure things out. We’re being
bought and sold. After a scuffle, we’re all loaded into the crates and sealed
in tight. I thrash until I got splinters in every knuckle. Nothing works. I
settle for my fate.”
She stared at the brick again.
“Just as I hear the order to load, there’s a commotion.
Eventually, I hear the voice of my father screaming himself hoarse. I yell
back, and he comes and breaks the lid off and he makes just an awful sound when
he sees me. Scoops me in his arms and says he’s sorry, over and over, until
it’s not even a word, just moans and tears.
“An arrow hits his back. I’m ripped from his arms. The same
thugs descend on him, and he hardly has a chance to swing his sword before he’s
cut to pieces. As he’s dying on the floor, the meanest one spits on him, tells
him all sales are final, and shoves me back in the crate. Last thing I hear is
him choking my name.”
Isaac noticed that he’d stopped treating her wounds.
“I don’t get sent to a plantation,” Zaria said. “I’m unboxed
on a pirate ship and told to get to work. I learn how to sail at the edge of a
dagger. Life goes on. I apply myself to the task until they don’t keep a watch
on me. Before I know it, I’m just like all the rest. Just another pirate.”
She glanced over her shoulder. He applied more poultice.
“For years,” she said, “I hated him. Cursed his name. After
a while, I just decided to never think of him again. Never gave consideration.
But the years kept coming, and I kept thinkin’, and I started to understand. I
started thinkin’ how desperate he must’ve been. It was a simple
choice—sacrifice one, or starve the rest. It might’ve meant survival. That was
our creed. Survival. He always told me the risks.”
She shook her head.
“In the end, he . . . tried to make it right. And that
weren’t enough, but it was honest, and I try to love him for it. So, when I saw
the same thing, I followed his example. I don’t regret that.”
Isaac considered his response. “Would you say he was a good
man?”
“Aye. I would now.”
“Do you know what happened to your siblings, after he was
gone?”
“I can guess.”
He nodded, even though she wasn’t looking. “I, uh . . . I’m
done on this side. Could you roll over?”
She flipped onto her back. The cuts and shanks on her
abdomen were not quite as bad, though there were more signs of infection. He
bent over to the side, realized he was running low on Soldier’s Rest, and
decided to grind an extra liniment with his pestle.
“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“I mean, thank you for telling me.”
“Oh, aye. Sure.”
There was a silence. He rolled the liniment across his palm
and began to apply it across a pair of bruises, just at the side of her breast.
He kept his eyes firmly glued to the task.
“You know,” Zaria said, stretching herself like a cat, “I
gotta say, Isaac, your massage is lovely. You got me babblin’ like a
drunk to a whore.”
“Am I the whore, then?”
She winked.
Isaac plucked a bone chip from deep in her armpit. “I could
still kill you, you know.”
She broke into laughter. It quickly rose to a whooping
cackle, something so rough and unrestrained that it echoed down the streets and
avenues below.
“I’m going to take that,” Isaac said, “as confidence in my
good nature.”
“Sure, love. Whatever you wish.”
“I could’ve mixed poison into this poultice, for all you
know.”
“Oh, such a marvelous killer, my squire.”
Isaac gave a small roll of his eyes, bending down to hunt
for more chips of bone. “Well, I’m . . . sorry that happened to you.”
“Yeah, well, so’s everyone I tell the story to. Doesn’t
change nothing.”
“No, but, regardless, I’m sorry.”
For a moment, the furred edge of her tail brushed against
his leg, as if giving thanks. It brought the same fluttery feeling back to his
chest. Isaac found himself simultaneously hating and hungering for the
sensation. He rushed his way through the rest of the treatment, hoping that she
didn’t notice the shaking in his hand.
They spent the next few minutes in silence, which was broken
only by her sighs of relief.
“Right,” he said, sitting up. He focused on repacking his
alchemy kit. “I’ve done the best I can, given the circumstance. Don’t fall on a
sword and you’ll probably avoid death.”
He made to stand. She grabbed his arm.
The fluttering exploded.
“Isaac,” she said, sitting up herself. “I’m sorry for
fucking you.”
He blinked several times, completely startled.
“I am,” Zaria said, insisting. “I can’t help but joke around
it, but I am. I am sorry. I wanna make that clear.”
“It’s—it’s fine.”
“Don’t you be polite on me. It ain’t fine. I took advantage,
and I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat. “Your first time—you know, with a
woman—it should’ve been something nice, and I’m sorry for taking that from
you.”
A warm blush spread across his face. “You gave me a choice.
I didn’t say no.”
“Well, you got the grace of a saint, then. I was mean about
it. I wanted you to squirm. Got that in spades, was really cute, but still—”
“Zaria,” he said, more firmly. “It wasn’t bad. In fact, it
was—” He paused, searched his feelings, and the words came out before he could