Chapter Six
MILA
The sun was a warm, persuasive burst when Mila followed a well-worn path in the sand away from the beach and deeper into the island.
How wonderful to explore without fear. No aunts chiding her, no recrimination nor warning. No spectrals haunting every step. The rush of stepping onto an island all by herself, on which absolutely nothing belonged to her, was a force far more powerful than prudence.
She sent a quick, sidelong glance to the western horizon. No storm clouds for the moment.
“Arcanist?” she whispered. “Can you bring me wind from the west?”
A steady, unbroken wind swept by. Verdant trees arced overhead, the leaves dancing under the steady stream. Someone shouted, chasing after pieces of paper that wheeled away. Closing her eyes, she breathed deep for several minutes. The long flows of breath swirled in and out.
No smell of vengeance, which resembled burning sap from the brambles bushes in the Westlands, nor the thick, heady scent of rage.
Stinna hadn’t found Mila yet, or Mila would also see the proof in the distance.
Mounting black clouds would build over the Westlands, then overtake this landmass that hid Mila, but the skies were a clear reminder that she couldn’t stay long.
Mila spun on her heels and set the past behind her.
Entranced by the sights and sounds, she gave herself one hour before she left.
An hour to observe humans, find fresh water, and learn what she could.
Her throat ached with thirst, but she could now endure several days without water.
Longer, if she must, but not yet forever.
Multiple wooden signs dotted the pathway, several of them arrows. All of them pointed her on with words she hadn’t read before.
Tikkikan Erevast!
Kaldrin!
Mizparran. Kickkan. Nonoan!
Arcane-infused objects, fifth table on the left.
The last one she understood. Mila snorted. Stulla had often spoken about the foolishness that led humans to chase after arcane and the power it yielded, and how it often the hunger for arcane led to their demise. She couldn’t blame humans for that one desire.
She wasn’t all that different.
The powerful wind surges from before became a hushed, trickling breeze here. If she could have assigned an emotion, she would have said the wind lent her caution. Not entirely surprising. Everyone cautioned her at home.
Don’t venture out. Don’t touch the sea. Be careful around the spectrals. Don’t dream too big. Don’t die.
Constantly.
“Balance,” she reminded herself, righting her shoulders as she advanced down the empty trail.
This raw world couldn’t be riddled with only pestilence and pain.
Not the way Stinna described. Nor Stulla.
Amalia, of all her aunts, surely held the greatest insistence that Mila would forever be too good for the world.
There is good, Amalia said, and there are the rest of us. You are not in the latter, but the former.
Balance must exist, though. Good and evil. Joy and pain. Light and dark. As much terror as the world held, it should contain equal amounts of wonder. She’d find out.
Finally.
Not far ahead, a plethora of sound twisted through the trees.
Children laughing. A low, barking command.
Smells, too. She caught a hint of simmering meat, spices.
The gnaw of hunger grew in her stomach. She’d never been this long without food.
Never had to ration her water, nor fear scraping the bottom of a barrel.
Novel, this life.
She loved it.
In between breaths, she smelled the tang of human sweat.
At home, she only caught whiffs of it every now and then, after Stinna or Amalia lured unsuspecting sailors to the Westlands and claimed their souls as spectrals.
Mila most often smelled human fear moments before their death, because who wouldn’t fear the sirens rearing up to wrench their souls?
But she’d rarely smelled fear in a human’s daily life, simply because no human lived long enough on the Westlands.
Without the overwhelming terror staining their smell, humans weren’t unpleasant.
Just . . . different.
Unique, each one. Unlike gorgons, who all smelled like rot, each human surprised Mila. She never knew what they’d resemble.
She strode onto sun-warmed boards lined with benches and sea shells, heading toward a crowd of milling humans. Tables lined the wooden walkway. This must be a market. The place where humans gathered to exchange resources. Plentiful books mentioned them, and she’d always longed to stroll the isles.
She trod the wooden path carefully, avoiding broken boards and tattered edges promising to pinch her toes and insert a splinter.
Children raced past. A woman called from a rectangular table, fingers wiggling in greeting.
Mila replied with a similar hand motion and a wide smile, but didn’t speak. She’d give herself away.
The most glorious treasures burdened these tables. Bottles filled with crystals, etched stone pendants, ships cleverly carved from fish bones. Varnished dried flower petals pressed into designs on paper, long vials of different colors—were they ink?—and fruit.
Oh, so much fruit.
Above all, the humans enraptured her attention. She grinned along with their fickle smiles, changing hair, billowing clothes. Men wore nightgowns, women wore rings in their nostrils. Jewelry glinted from every wrist, lobe, finger.
Mila kept her distance, treading carefully.
Everyone spoke at her, but no one spoke to her.
Their language was discernible. Stulla taught her twenty languages over the past five decades, and each aunt conversed with Mila in a different one.
Hearing familiar words stated differently, the accents too thick to be discerning, was a new challenge.
The human world relies on monies, Stulla had once said. Humans are very strange and require coins or paper exchanges for everything. Odd, but not of concern to you. You have no reason to ever be around humans.
The dismissal of all Mila’s following questions had been painful, at best. She ignored the memory for now. What did it matter? She was here, and here was glorious.
While Mila ran her fingers along a velvety bolt of fabric, an errant elbow scraped across her back. Startled, she leaped upright and whirled. A hoarse chuckle preceded the sight of a wretched smile filled with holes, gray teeth, and dirty lips.
A man held up grubby hands through a leer. “Sorry, didn’t mean to getcha. You all right?”
His pockmarked nose gave way to breath so hideous she smelled him while attempting not to. Not understanding what getcha meant, Mila simply nodded.
He jerked a thumb to the side. “Busy today, huh? Lotsa people.”
People, she noted. He didn’t say humans. She’d remember that. Humans might be a word only her aunts used.
This unknown man presented her with a real problem.
If she spoke, she’d reveal her naivete, and he’d probably ask more questions.
The spectrals gave up trying to communicate with her if she didn’t speak to them, and these people seemed to have a similar intelligence level. Maybe he would do the same.
She continued to mosey along, keeping a wary side-eye on him.
Undaunted, he asked, “So . . . where ya from?”
Ya from?
His words echoed in her mind. She tried not to think about his nose, as if someone had taken the tip of a knife to it and flicked their wrist over and over. Nor his ruddy cheeks, leering grin. The nauseating feeling returned.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about him smelled .
. . off. A malodorous wave rolled from him as he stared at her.
Garlicky? A hint of it, but more sulfurous than that.
Lust, Durella once told her, smells a little like a lie.
Strongly of sulfur, but closer to affection. Not quite either one.
Having never smelled affection, Mila wasn’t sure she smelled lust, but couldn’t fathom what else it might be. Her aunts lied to her all the time, though she never knew how to unbraid the lies from the truth. She knew the smell of deceit. Rotten eggs. Bold sulfur. Everything horrific.
The idea that this stranger was experiencing lust set her instincts on end.
Realizing her opportunity, she focused inside herself, on what her arcane power might be doing at this moment.
She’d never been in a position like this before.
Would her birthright arcane abilities rise to defend her?
She tried to find a swelling power, a surge of heat, a movement.
Nothing responded.
Mila sidled to another table, still ignoring the following man.
Broad sculptures populated the top. Women, mostly, in various poses.
All of them clutched a round white ball the size of Mila’s fist. Each ball flickered with weak light.
She felt a muted arcane signature from within. A decorative lamp of sorts?
“Strong tonight!” the man behind the table insisted, waving his hand at the sculpture Mila studied. “Strong light! You eat dinner by it, yes?”
She waved and walked on.
The first man continued to prowl behind her.
Mila forced herself to remain calm and present.
The horrid man would smell her fear if she let it be known.
No, that wasn’t right. Stulla said human senses weren’t nearly as powerful as sirens’.
The most he might smell was the scorched fruit rings sizzling on a nearby fire.
“Say,” he drawled, so close he almost trod on her shoes, “what’s your name? You walked up here alone, didn’t you? I saw you leave your boat—sweet little vessel. Did you pay the dock fee?”
Dock fee?
Walking faster, she tried to get away. He followed. Mila cast a frantic look to a woman selling shell strings, but the woman stared down the wooden ramp, hands folded behind her back. The set of her jaw made it clear that she intentionally ignored Mila’s silent plea.