Chapter Twelve
MILA
Krackalack island broke the horizon like a skin of fuzzy mold.
Trees jutted from soil, rock, and sandy shore.
They towered so high Mila couldn’t stop staring.
Their thin, needle-like trunks speared the sky.
Fluttering, brilliant, sapphire-and-magenta leaves flapped in the stirring winds, clattering like coins.
Their sound delighted her almost as much as the birds fluttering from branch to branch with tender, tiny legs.
Magenta feathers formed the edge of their wings, which had a pink interior.
Their tiny beaks probed the ground, the trees.
She giggled at their fluttering noise. Until this moment, she’d only seen these birds in paintings.
Underneath the protective canopy of island forest, humans moved.
While Pedr brought the ship into the dock without once touching the wheel, Mila stood at the gunwale, chin resting on her propped arm, and drank in the sight.
Women in dresses, men in pants. Half-naked children and pigs no longer than her foot.
Utterly charming.
“I didn’t know,” she breathed, straightening.
“What?”
Pedr asked the question from behind her.
He stood at the wheel, arms twitching at his side.
Every now and then he frowned, reached for a rope, then twisted to the other side for a different rope.
Bolts of light shot into the masts, altering the sails to slow the ship.
He tilted his head, tracking the individual movements carefully, as if puzzling them out.
“I didn’t know that birds were so small, so delicate.”
“Those birds are small and delicate.”
“Some aren’t?”
“Sea eagles are large and particularly ruthless. Pigeons in coastal cities are annoying, and are big and fat. Drakes are dragons, but fly like birds, and they are definitely not small and delicate. And on my home island of Kapurnick, small draguls the size of butterflies flit about.”
“The tiny dragons whose breath can set your hair on fire?”
He smiled. “That’s a dragul. My sister loves them.”
She pondered, wondering how they all compared in size and ferocity. No birds fluttered around the Westlands. Every now and then, Venna reported seeing a bird called an Ashwing, named for their fading white and gray plumage that looked like ash, but Mila had never seen one herself.
The urge to find a bird, pluck it from the sky, cradle it, and feel its feathers was a heady temptation. Maybe she could call one of them to her. She was a siren, after all. The dark thought didn’t bear much of her time. She shuddered it off. No. There was no reason to use her song.
Never.
“What is Krackalack island?” she asked to distract herself.
“It’s an island.”
Mila burst out laughing at his wry tone. She sent him a laughing glare. “Yes, yes. An island. You know what I meant! What is it known for? Don’t most islands have a reputation for something?”
He laughed in an easy, rolling way that turned her stomach to fire. Thessa warned her about this once. Men would manipulate women by telling a woman what she wanted to hear, and he’d change later. She observed Thessa’s caution, but saw no parallels between that type of man and Pedr.
Pedr was different. Whatever men her aunts formerly knew, they weren’t like Pedr.
He touched two ropes, one after the other, as he said, “Krackalack island is most known for its dervishes.”
She whirled around to face him, nose wrinkled.
“Dervishes? Those awful?—”
“No, no. There are other types of dervish. The ones that reside here—and only here—produce dervish tears, an opaque, shining substance that local islanders claim will heal anything.”
“Does it?”
He laughed. “No. At least, last time I tried it, it tasted awful and healed nothing. Could have been a counterfeit, black market product. True dervish tears are extremely difficult to gain. Someone has to care for these specific kinds of dervishes, earn their trust, and collect the tears in vials made of diamond and glass during a moonless night. They mourn the moon’s withdrawal, you see? ”
“Truly?”
“I don’t know if that’s actually true,” he amended with a quick wink that set her heart pattering, “but it sounds romantic.”
“Very romantic,” she murmured, captured by the idea despite herself.
“If you ask me, the rosenvatten they sell here is far more potent.”
“Rosenvatten?”
“It’s an ancient island language word for rosewater.”
“What’s a rose?”
“You’ve never seen a rose?”
Lips pressed, she shook her head. Surprise flitted through his light eyes, but she forced herself to hold his confused stare. Roses must be commonplace. She’d just revealed far too much. Fortunately, he shifted his attention to the water ahead.
“A rose,” he said with little change in inflection, “is a very beautiful and fragrant flower.”
“Does it produce water?”
He smiled. “No. But, when you take rose petals and soak them in water, the water takes on a very lovely smell.”
“And arcane properties?”
“No.”
Frowning, she asked, “Then why do humans buy it?”
He cracked another smile, chuckling as he stepped away from the wheel. “A canny and fantastic question. Some islanders believe it induces true love when worn as a perfume. There’s a big market for it.”
She blushed, and tried to hide it. His rolling laughter confirmed that she’d failed catastrophically, but she didn’t mind.
Something in the warmth, the cadence, and the way he touched the small of her back as he slid by, spoke to affection, not derision.
Nothing so dark lived in Pedr. Not like Stinna or Amalia or Drotta.
Mila watched him when he stood with his back to her.
No shirt, no shoes, pants rolled to reveal strong calves.
His freckled skin had bronzed a little, but not much for so many hours in the sun.
He straightened, a coiled rope in hand, as the ship slowed to a crawl.
A dock lay not far away. He rested a hand on the wheel as the ship listed slightly to the side, then withdrew it, as if it burned him. His face became too still.
Mila dropped her scrutiny and turned her attention to the island, thinking about rosenvatten and dervish tears and scheming islanders. Drifting sounds from the island interior floated onto the water. Calling voices, distant chirping that she wondered if it came from birds.
She pulled in a breath through her nose with a firm reminder to enjoy herself.
With Stinna on the warpath . . . somewhere .
. . her time in this vast treasure of escape could be limited.
Eventually, her aunt would scent her out.
Once Stinna located Mila, she’d also smell Mila’s rising interest, the affection for and friendship with Pedr.
The idea made Mila’s throat thicken and clench. She did Pedr no favors by allowing a relationship to swell between them, platonic and friendly as it might be now. Yet she doubted the fire in her veins when he smiled had anything to do with simply being friendly.
Pedr drew her back to the moment by touching the back of her arm.
“Mila?”
“Yes? Sorry.”
“We’ve docked. Do you want to go inland?”
Blinking, she realized that she stood there in a daze, thinking of the border between affection and terror. Mila fixed a smile on her face, ejecting Stinna, the Westlands, and the desperation that told her this couldn’t last forever.
It wasn’t supposed to last forever.
“I’m ready.”
Mila daintily jumped onto the pier, deftly avoiding the arm-length gap between ship and sea, with her lip between her teeth. When firm ground stood beneath her feet, she released it. For at least a few hours, she could forget the ever-present threat of the sea and be on land.
She padded down the warmed boards, drawn by a promise of humans, vaguely aware of Pedr twisting a rope around a post behind her. Within a minute, she stood ankle deep in sandy soil. Caution recalled her previous experience, warning her to wait.
A child scampered past her, half naked, his shoulders baked brown from the island sun.
He trailed a string with a toy on the end.
The half-destroyed wooden thing bounced at his feet.
A small pig grunted as it ran in his wake, attempting to keep up.
The stubby legs struggled for speed. Mila clamped her lips together so the little boy didn’t hear her giggle.
Pedr’s smell arrived before she felt a softest touch on her back.
“Ready?”
Her hesitation unlocked. “So ready.”
“Good. Before we speak to the dervish keepers, there’s a waterfall I want you to see. It’s fresh water, so we can refill the canteens. They charge a lot of monies for barrel filling, but I know a woman here who would be willing. Have you run out of water in your cabin?”
Water.
Right.
“Oh, no. I have enough, thank you.”
Mila breathed through her surprise. First, she’d forgotten that humans hydrated all the time.
Second, she still had some thirst, and had asked for a cup of water just once.
He gave her a small barrel in response. Pedr hadn’t yet noticed that she didn’t require food, but the act of navigating his new ship occupied him completely.
Then again, Pedr hadn’t sipped water or eaten food in her sight either, which might mean he was the Arcanist of the Sea?
Based on his reluctance around arcane discussions, she doubted it. Humans stealing or using arcane could explain the arcane in the sails, and perhaps how he steered the ship. But an Arcanist would have far more understanding and presence of their own power and the arcane itself.
Mad creatures, Arcanists, Stulla always said with grave resonance. They’re half-crazed by the arcane.
At some point, when Mila wasn’t so distracted by all these wonders, she’d ask him.
Pedr held out a hand, an open question appeared in his eyes.
Smiling, she placed her palm against his.
One at a time, his fingers curled around hers, and they molded with perfect synchronicity.
Her stomach plunged in a storm. Head twirling, sleepy heart fluttering, Mila followed as he tugged her with him.