Chapter 2
The night after my exam found me cross-legged on my bed, having abandoned the first few scribbled lines of an essay. It was due in two days, but I couldn’t concentrate. My head felt foggy, bogged down by uncertainty.
The near disaster of my test that morning—and the question of what, or who, had eventually saved me—had left me reeling all through our remaining lessons.
There was a tedious history lecture on some battle or other between the constantly quarrelling Hundred Houses, then a tutorial on emotional control.
Finally, we were put through another grueling practical.
Caerig, perhaps as punishment for the whispering in the exam, had us run extra laps of the yard while splitting the flow of water from its fountain.
I did poorly, of course, and sensed Caerig watching me; I flattened my features, but my thoughts were fizzing.
Awful possibilities flitted through my head, each one more disturbing than the last. Would I end up in one of the Hundred’s private navies, be blown apart by ships’ cannons in another pointless skirmish?
Or succumb to the monstrous tides that ravaged the coastlines as I helped build harbors or drain marshes in the Quaglands?
Getting into Arbenhaw should have meant a good placement, but failures ended up no better off than the Orha who hadn’t passed the test for entry.
As tough as our schooling here was, it wasn’t as though there were many alternatives.
Drudgery, danger…or no work at all. The last was the worst: a life lived in laconite.
At some point in my fretting, I must have lain down on the bed, as I woke an hour later to an insistent knocking at my door.
I heaved myself up, bleary-eyed and confused. We were never disturbed or summoned after curfew. It had to be something important—or something bad.
A nervous-looking boy poked his head around the doorframe.
One of the younger Floodmouths—they often ran errands.
“Instructor Caerig’s sent for you,” he whispered, brandishing a note of permission to walk the halls.
He dropped the note into my damp, outstretched palm and hurried off, leaving me to grab a night rushlight.
Fingers of fear clawed at my stomach as I left my room and headed down the walkway.
I could think of only one explanation for this summons: The Instructors had decided I deserved some punishment for my lackluster performance in the tank that morning.
Sixty-eight seconds…slower than nearly all the others.
I had to show my permission slip, which trembled as I clutched it, five times as I made my way across the complex.
Arbenhaw was shadowed and silent at this hour, and the Instructors’ Wing was no exception.
There, I stopped at a tall, forbidding door, its brass plaque—engraved with Instructor Marin Caerig—glowing a dull orange in the light from my candle.
I paused for a moment to use Zennia’s trick. My nerves were a shivering ball in my mind’s eye, and I mentally cradled it, compressed it. My hold felt precarious, but it would have to do. I knocked.
“Enter.”
As I stepped through the door and nudged it closed behind me, I glanced around fleetingly at Instructor Caerig’s suite. There were neat bookshelves, piles of paper on a desk, a painting on the wall, and a practice aid in the corner, made up of glass tubes and vials of water.
“Corith,” came Caerig’s clipped tone. “Do sit.”
A large round table stood in front of the fire, and I was shocked to see not just Caerig sitting there but Rhama, too. I caught his gaze as I sidled over to a chair, but the Instructor remained as expressionless as ever.
It felt wrong, oddly intimate, to be sitting in this suite. The Instructors were usually so remote, so draconian. To see Caerig’s personal items, her bric-a-brac, was discordant, and I twisted my fingers in my lap.
Neither of them said anything for a few long moments. Rhama’s eyes were fixed on some parchment on the table, but Caerig, leaning back in her chair, studied me thoughtfully. It was unnerving, being the sole object of her attention. I wondered what punishment they’d see fit to hand down.
“You disappointed us in your examination this morning,” she said, watching me closely for a reaction.
I fought to keep my features neutral. “But,” she continued, face creasing into a chilly smile, “Instructor Rhama has just been reminding me of the fact that your performance has been, in general, very impressive, for the better part of your time here at Arbenhaw.”
I looked at Rhama, unable to hide my surprise. He’d been watching me, his gaze weighing, almost assessing, but now he glanced back at the parchment beneath his fingertips.
“Your control and concentration has waned, these past weeks,” Caerig continued, “but, as Rhama has pointed out, it has been a period of…some upheaval. I understand you were very close to…” She seemed to search for Zennia’s name and, unable to recall it, shot me a tight smile.
“Well, in any case, I am willing to concede that this morning may have been an…unfortunate lapse.”
Before I could say anything, Rhama leaned forward and spun the parchment, showing me the wax seal at its base. A letter, inked in a deep, regal violet.
“House Shearwater,” he said. “You’ll remember them from your lessons.”
I didn’t, but I gave no indication of the oversight.
We’d had countless hours of classes on the Hundred Houses, the dynasties who’d ruled Nenamor for the past few centuries after leading their Great Revolt against our kind.
Endless history lessons on how, with the help of laconite, they’d grappled back control from Orha who’d let power go to their heads.
And long lectures, too, on how we Orha now had a duty to use our gifts productively—furthering prosperity, bettering the Queendom—or else refrain from using them at all.
I was sure House Shearwater would have been mentioned at some point, but by now the Houses, and their skirmishes and rivalries, had all muddled together in my mind.
“Of course,” I said, hoping there were no follow-up questions.
“Given the capabilities you’ve demonstrated thus far, we’ve decided to assign you a placement with the Shearwaters. A placement that has, as of very recently, become…available.”
I blinked. The red spark in my mind’s eye sputtered, flaring into brilliance. I grappled with it, my breath coming faster.
“A placement?” I couldn’t help repeating. “Already?”
“Congratulations,” Caerig intoned. That frosty smile again.
Zennia was sent out straight after her exam, but that was unusual, almost unheard of. It was normally a few weeks, sometimes months, before a role was assigned and a transfer arranged.
I’d been of age for not even a day.
And I’d never expected to be placed with the Hundred. A chill crept over me as Rhama’s words sank in.
Such placements came up only rarely. Normally, only a couple of us per year would get the “honor,” reserved for the very best of us, the Zennias.
With her talent, I always suspected she’d end up back in that world, much as she muttered mulishly that she’d rather take her chances with “lesser” work than serve the Hundred Houses—at least the contemptible ones her mother had done business with.
But me? I never quite reached her heights.
Caerig must have seen my features sagging, because her smile rapidly disappeared. “It’s a prestigious position any Orha would be grateful for. Rhama assures me you’re the right trainee for the job. You will not disappoint us, as you did this morning.”
She was right. Serving the Hundred as a member of their prized “sets” was touted as the highest position one could reach as Orha.
It meant a life spent in luxurious surroundings, even if we didn’t get to sleep in the four-poster beds ourselves.
But it was tedious, too. I’d seen Floodmouths in town made to keep the rain off noblewomen’s heads, shrink puddles so their hems stayed dry, part streams so they didn’t have to ride to the next bridge.
Some nobles paraded their sets like voguish accessories.
And there were worse stories. Zennia was a merchantwoman’s daughter.
She’d told me what she’d seen in the Hundred’s parlors: one of Regent Shrike’s Sparkmouths beaten black and blue for not lighting a visitor’s pipe fast enough; a set forced to perform ridiculous, demeaning tricks to entertain guests at one of House Blackcap’s soirées.
It was why Zennia had always said she’d refuse a placement with the Hundred.
But when that day had come, she hadn’t. I wondered why.
Swallowing, I tried to keep the disquiet from my face.
“Shearwater, as you know, is one of the Coastal Dozen,” said Rhama, pushing another document toward me.
It was larger than the letter and faintly creased, covered in snaking lines and carefully inked labels.
A map of Nemestra, the easternmost province of Nenamor.
“They hold Port Rhorstin and all the lands around Bower Bay.”
Bower Bay.
Why did that name set bells jangling in my head?
“One of the wealthiest Houses on the coast,” said Caerig, “along with House Crake, of course.” She and Rhama exchanged glances.
“There’s a…rivalry there. Things are a little tense at present.
Suffice it to say, this is a very important posting.
Rexim Shearwater is particularly influential, and he finds himself in need of a new Floodmouth. Right away.”
“What happened to the old one?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. The unexpected news had made me careless, blundering.
Caerig stared at me for a long, drawn-out moment, while Rhama’s dark eyes flicked down and away.
And then, with a sharp slap of shock, I remembered.
“Somewhere out east. One of the noble Houses. A place called Bower Island, I think.”
I gripped the table to steady myself.
Zennia had been assigned the Shearwater placement. So why was I being sent out there, too? I knew enough about the Hundred to know that their sets included one each of the four types of Orha. House Shearwater wouldn’t keep two Floodmouths.
The realization settled over me like a shroud: Something had happened. I was Zennia’s replacement.
Caerig’s lips thinned at my impertinence.
“We wouldn’t normally share such information, but given your predecessor was a particular friend…
” She glanced at Rhama. “It seems she had an unfortunate accident. Out in the bay. Got caught in the tides. Brigant Shearwater”—Caerig’s fingertips tapped the letter—“writes that this was caused by her foolhardiness. Her ineptitude.” She held my gaze in the wavering lamplight.
“Not something you’ll allow to happen, I am confident. ”
I opened my lips, but nothing came out.
“An unfortunate accident.”
Zennia. My Zennia.
At last, I managed to find my voice, but it came out as a whisper: “I won’t, Instructor.”
Silence descended, heavy and grave, and after a few seconds, Rhama added, “I’m sorry.”
His words only deepened the chill in my core. It was what people said after someone had died.
“Shearwater wants our very best,” Caerig said curtly. “He’d prefer a more experienced Floodmouth, but with the nature of the placement system…well, all our past graduates are already employed. And time is of the essence.” She looked at Rhama.
“They have an island,” he said. “Nearly nine miles off the coast. Accessible via causeway when the tides are right.”
I glanced at the map, dazed, and saw it there: a little coat of arms nestled in the half-moon of the bay.
A clever defense from hostile Houses, but no doubt a hindrance without a competent Floodmouth.
I’d heard that the shape of the coast out there meant the tides moved faster than a person could run.
As though from far off, I heard Rhama say, “You’ll want to go and get some rest. We’re organizing an escort to the island for you, but everything should be arranged by dawn. Leave a pile of the belongings you wish to take with you in your room. I’ll ensure they’re loaded onto the coach at sunrise.”
Sunrise.
I couldn’t believe it had come about this suddenly—this stark setting-out of the rest of my life. And it seemed like a particularly cruel twist of fate that I was heading to the same place my friend had disappeared to, only for her not to be there when I arrived.
I thought of Zennia, of the last time I’d seen her—the glint in her eyes, that meaningful look, her words: “You have to know, you’re like a sister to me”—but I only felt numb, like the truth of it hadn’t hit me, like my grief was waiting in the wings for later.
And there was something else, too. A niggle of doubt. “Her ineptitude.” That just didn’t sound like Zennia.
With a dark, weighty dread, I rose to my feet, the prospect of tomorrow hanging over me like a death sentence.
Caerig flashed me a tight, pursed-lipped smile.
She held out her hand. “Your permission slip, please. And you’ll understand if we post a guard outside your room.
Now that we’ve told Brigant Shearwater to expect you, we wouldn’t want anything to befall his new Floodmouth. ”
I stared at her. Running off would be virtually impossible, but clearly Caerig was taking no chances. Eventually, my shoulders dropped, and I handed over the crumpled permission slip. “Yes, Instructor.”
“Good. I’ll see you back to your quarters.”
I threw one last, wretched glance at Rhama: a final plea for some sort of reprieve. But he avoided my eyes, leaning back in his chair, his gaze still on the parchment in front of him.
With Caerig as my shadow, I shuffled from the suite.