Three A Tithe to the Sea

THREE

A Tithe to the Sea

MARY

T he ghisting trees of Tithe stood vigil over a quiet churchyard, where rows of graves swept down to the bay. Their leaves, unseasonably green beneath a mantle of late-winter snow, rustled as I made for the largest, oldest tree: an ash, vibrant despite the season. My boots punched through the crust, my cheeks flushed with the cold, and a coin nestled warm in my palm.

At my back, the port spread in a network of homes and yards. Women beat frozen clothes on laundry lines, children played and hens clucked. Smoke rose from chimneys and men loitered in the churned streets, gossiping.

Down towards the docks, the settlement condensed into taller, narrower buildings: warehouses, shops, inns and offices. Samuel would be there, sitting across from the port mistress with a cup of hot coffee, wheedling out the latest news and trying to learn as much as he could about Benedict.

A chorus of bells drew my gaze to the masts in the harbor, anchored beyond the reach of the ice-scaled shores. I could pick out Hart by feel, if not by sight. He and every other ship in harbor had a ghisting in their figureheads, each spectral creature unique and sentient—just like the ones in the trees around me now. Just like the one within me.

I laid an open palm on the trunk of the ash. Instead of raspy bark, I felt coins of every possible make and origin hammered into the wood. Some had been absorbed entirely into the tree, swallowed by time and growth, while others stood out clean and new.

I found a free sliver of bark and, taking a small hammer from an iron hook, gently tapped my own tithe into place.

Mother.

The voice came through the tree, slipping into the tips of my fingers. The answer came from me, but not from my own mind.

Child , the ghisting called Tane whispered.

"Mary Firth?" a man called.

I turned to find a man in his mid-twenties standing in the snow, bedecked with an overflowing blond beard and a thick knitted cap. His oiled brown greatcoat was open to reveal a knee-length waistcoat and loosely tied scarf, as if he'd dressed in a hurry. His eyes were blue, bright and surprised, and a grin chased the nervousness from the corners of his mouth.

I let out a short, startled laugh. "Charles! What are you doing back north?"

Charles Grant, former highwayman, fellow convicted criminal and the man who had once sold me to a Whallish crime lord, beamed at my recognition and rubbed self-consciously at his beard. "I feared you would not recognize me."

I cocked an eyebrow at him. "Well, you may look like a fisherman, but you still stand like a dandy."

He glanced down—at his back foot angled slightly out, front foot straight on—and his smile grew wry. "Olsa cannot take everything from me."

"Is she here?" I glanced behind him, startled. My heart rose. "Is Harpy ? My mother?"

" Harpy , your mum and Demery are still south. I am here with the Uknaras, waiting for a ship back to Hesten. They were due for a trip home, and I was growing bored of watching Demery paint bowls of fruit." Charles's attention flicked to the ghisten ash, and I saw a note of caution in his eyes. "Have you paid your tithe?"

"Yes."

Charles offered me his elbow. "Then come, we've taken up at an inn, and I know two Usti smugglers who will be very pleased to see you."

I hesitated. Much had transpired between he and I, but a summer of recovery together had dulled those edges, and months of separation—since he had sailed for the Mereish South Isles with James Demery and my mother, Anne Firth—had nearly wiped them away. Charles had more than paid the price for his betrayals, and he had the scar at his throat to prove it: a knot of white amid the red of his cold-pinched skin, just visible between the warren of his beard and the weave of his scarf.

Reaching back to the tree, I rested the tips of my fingers on the bark for a few, gentle breaths. I heard voices, but distantly, as though my ears were covered. I saw visions—fragments of the tree's history, of Tithe's. I saw a great flood sweep up over the shoreline, all the way to the roots of this tree. I saw the digging of graves and the forging of marriages, couples joining hands in the ash's shade on a summer's day. I saw longboats with single red sails anchored in a harbor before Tithe as it had been. And, just for a moment, I saw light slip from my fingertips—a second spectral layer, sheathing my skin.

When the voices and memories ceased to flow, I turned back to Charles and slipped my arm through his. He was a little stiffer than I expected, his eyes lingering on the tree.

"Tane was giving her greetings," I explained.

A muscle in Charles's jaw visibly contracted. "I sensed as much."

I let my eyes fall to the scar on his throat again. He kept it mostly covered—recovering from a mortal wound was not a topic he wanted discussed. Our company's return from north of the Stormwall had already garnered far too much attention.

"What of you?" I tested. "Has the ghisting manifested?"

Charles cleared his throat and patted my arm with his opposite hand. "Let's speak of these things next to a warm hearth with hot wine."

I gave a soft murmur of acceptance and together we returned to Tithe and spoke of simpler things.

"Captain Demery is well established on the South Isles now," Charles explained as we circumvented manure and tried not to break our ankles in deep-wrought sleigh tracks. "He bought his title and has barely left land since autumn. But your mother is mostly at sea, with Harpy under her command and Old Crow serving as ghisting. They run goods between the islands. Demery paints and plays at being lord. Very dull if you ask me. Oh, I brought several letters for you—Anne expected we would run into one another sooner or later."

We paused to let a stream of schoolgirls run past, braids bouncing down the backs of their fur-trimmed capes. As weighty as the mention of my mother was, and as eager as I was for more news of Demery and Harpy 's crew, my mind strayed after the children. Their happiness and freedom reminded me of my own childhood in a small village between the Ghistwold and the slate hills of Aeadine. Tithe felt similar to that Wold, with its ghisten trees in the graveyard and ghisten wood built into ancient houses.

But more than that, the children made me think—just for the briefest, weakest moment—of the future and of possibilities best left unspoken.

"I did wonder if you would be Mary Rosser by now," Charles murmured, following my gaze.

I looked at him, perhaps too sharply. "I'm the first commissioned Stormsinger in hundreds of years, Charles."

"And?" He looked confused.

"If Samuel and I were to take up…" I eased my arm from his as we stopped in front of an inn, The Captain's Cut, where I could already hear busy chatter through the murky bottle-bottom windowpanes.

"Assumptions would be made. We have to set an example. Show the Winter Sea that Stormsingers should be willing allies, not traded goods."

Charles snorted. "When did you become an altruist? Ouch!"

I flicked him in the forehead and prayed the chill of the wind concealed the flush in my cheeks. I felt insulted, exposed, embarrassed and convicted in the same breath. "Is this your inn?"

Charles rubbed at his forehead, nodding. "Yes, yes. Come in."

* * *

Charles slipped into an elaborately wallpapered common room and led me past a series of tables girded by comfortable chairs. At the back, just past a blonde woman immersed in a stack of letters, sat a curtained alcove. A man and a woman were tucked within, she with one foot drawn up onto the bench, and he with a broadsheet in his overlarge hands—one of which was missing the ring and pinky fingers from the first knuckle.

"Mary!" Illya Uknara smiled broadly and exchanged his broadsheet for an ornate brass coffee pot, which he held over an empty mug. His Aeadine was heavily accented, sticky like toffee. "I have seen Hart offshore. Coffee?"

"Thank you." I sank down on the opposite side of the round table, smiling at the woman as I did so. "Olsa."

Olsa kept her foot on the bench, leaning forward to pat my cheek fondly. "Ms. Firth. Or is it—"

Charles not-so-subtly waved his hand to catch her attention, following the gesture with a finger across his throat and a mimed pinch of the lips. When I glared at him, he unfurled an innocent smile and waved down a serving maid. "Spiced wine, please."

The woman eyed the lot of us, eclectic as we were, then sauntered away.

Olsa crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against Illya. She wore belted trousers under a traditional Usti kaftan with an embroidered collar topped with fur. Her blonde hair was loosely braided back from her practical features. Illya's kaftan was open to reveal an undyed linen shirt tucked into breeches and unbuttoned at the neck, giving me a healthy glimpse of muscled, hairy chest. He wore his pale, reddish beard long and vaguely square, like Charles's. But unlike Charles, who had the pale skin of the Southern Aeadines, prone to flushing at the slightest provocation, Olsa's and Illya's mild brown skin marked them as far northern. Northern Aeadine, Mereish, and Usti all shared common ancestry, however arbitrarily wars and borders had divided the Winter Sea over the centuries.

Despite our varied origins, we were intrinsically bound together by two things: history and ghistings.

A flicker of light passed over my hand again as I reached for the coffee. Illya noted it with a secret smile and murmured, "Tane."

He, Olsa, myself and, reluctantly, Charles made contact with the wood of the tabletop—one of the only substances that ghistings could interact with in our human world. I felt a jolt of familiarity as unseen presences surged and whispered through the wood, their light hidden beneath the table. Images came with them as the ghistings that lived within us exchanged, within a few heartbeats, months of experience and information, pleasantries and reflections.

The conversation took far longer to order itself in my mind, but a few images leapt out. I saw—remembered—an expanse of water and rock and ice, blurred by blowing snow and the half-light of another sun. Shipwrecks cast across the horizon by a god's careless hand, and a sleeping forest of ghisten trees. Shards of wood stabbed into flesh by vicious hands, a fire and a black-haired man, bleeding out into a bed of moss.

Silvanus Lirr. The man who had made us. The man we had, together, killed one year and four months ago.

Olsa sat up straight and grabbed her half-empty mug of coffee. "To the death of our common enemy," she said, and we all drank—save Charles, whose mug was empty. He looked forlornly for the serving maid and waved away Illya's offer of coffee.

"We took a Mereish pirate a few days ago," I told the three after a moment of silence. "Ophalia Monna. She claims to have seen Benedict Rosser in the hands of the Mereish Navy. Have you heard anything about that? Harbringer wrecking off Eldona Island?"

"Yes," Illya said immediately. He waved the broadsheet he'd been reading, topped with a heading in Usti.

"What does it say?" I asked, not wanting to distract Tane from the other ghistings by requesting a translation. Their exchange ran through the back of my mind like whispers and half-forgotten dreams—still jarring, but a sensation I was becoming more accustomed to. "My Usti is still not good."

"Bah, mine's shit too." Charles flapped a dismissive hand. "Honestly, how many words do you need to say the ?"

Olsa gave him a quelling look.

Ignoring Charles, Illya explained: " Harbringer wrecked four weeks ago. The Navy tried to keep this from the public, but boats full of survivors came into many ports. Hundreds died at sea. A great tragedy."

A great tragedy indeed. I tried not to dwell on the deaths as I took another sip of coffee. It was thick, dark, and laced with honey, but the warmth failed to soothe my anxiety. Until now I could still, with effort, mark Monna's words up to desperation, a bargaining chip cobbled together from half-heard information. But no longer.

My heart ached for Samuel. He was no doubt hearing this same news from the harbor mistress as we spoke.

"Benedict Rosser is better off dead," Illya added with more regret than vengeance. "He would have killed us all if the wind had changed."

"Monna's offered us Benedict's location in exchange for her freedom."

"That would mean you breaking contract with the Usti," Charles pointed out. "And risking antagonizing the Mereish. Winter has cooled the war, but not by much."

I shrugged. "I know. Samuel won't give in, anyway."

"He intends to leave his brother to die?" Charles frowned then conjured a bright smile as his wine finally arrived. He took a sip and waited for the waitress to leave before he continued, "That doesn't seem like Sam. I mean… my brothers are a pack of lobcocks and halfwits but I would still… Well, I cannot say what I'd do for them. As of yet, none of them have had the misfortune of becoming a prisoner of war. But Sam's a better fellow than I."

"It is for the best," Illya repeated. "Better to put down a rabid dog before it bites you. Again."

"Is there any hope for Benedict?" I asked Olsa. "You trained Samuel to manage his corruption."

"Manage, yes. But Samuel is a Sooth," the Usti woman reminded me. She too was a Sooth, and during her mentorship with Samuel last year we had all come to appreciate the depth of her knowledge of all magecrafts and the Other. "What the Black Tide did to them as boys was a crime, but Samuel has the strength of will— and morals—to wield his power. I understand that Benedict was always self-serving and violent. And he is a Magnus. Every time he manipulates others, his conscience, his awareness of his actions, is a little more lost. He is too far gone for me to train. Perhaps the Mereish have some magics, some way of helping him. I know Samuel has wondered about that too. But it's beyond my knowing and, given the war, beyond our reach."

We were quiet for a moment. The chatter of the other patrons swelled into the lull, interspersed with the clink of utensils and the muffled thuds of footsteps upstairs. At the table nearby, the blonde woman I'd noted earlier cast Charles a lingering glance then went back to her writing. She was plain, I noticed, other than an enviable dusting of freckles.

"Well, the decision is already made, regardless," I said, picking up my mug again. "Samuel refused to bargain with Monna, and I can't see him changing his mind. But you must come to Hart tomorrow and breakfast with us. We can speak more, and I'm sure Samuel would be glad to see all of you. I should go now, before it grows too dark."

"Of course," Olsa said with a nod. "We will be there. I must check on my apprentice, anyways."