Chapter 12

12

Sirsha

Sirsha lay atop a tree branch, gazing at the wide blue sky through the canopy. Her mother stared down, stern as ever. But her face held none of the hatred Sirsha remembered from the day she was cast out of her Kin.

Come back to me, little one , her mother whispered. I miss you.

Sirsha tried to move her mouth. Tried to say I miss you too, Ma. But a rushing filled her ears, like an immense cataract, only distorted somehow. She grasped her head, staring dully as her mother waited for her response. "Sirsha," her mother said. "Wake up."

Sirsha opened her eyes to a sky set aflame. Her ears rang with the screams of injured people, and her clothes were stained with blood—her own, she realized with a wince. A glass shard the size of her thumb was embedded into the soft flesh above her hip. Shaking, she tore off a strip of her cloak and yanked out the glass, not bothering to muffle her scream.

She bound the wound quickly and rolled to her side, growling as the debris that littered the street cut into her arm, gawping at the catastrophe before her.

Navium collapsed before her eyes. The docks were a solid wall of flame. If the wind hadn't warned Sirsha when it did, she'd have been roasting on a mass funeral pyre with hundreds of others.

All those families. Joyful only a minute ago.

Something heavy and dark swooped overhead, illuminated for a moment. A Kegari Sail. She'd seen one before, long ago, when she was still tracking for her Kin. Magic keeps them aloft , her mother had told her. Wind magic.

She'd later puzzle over why the Kegari were dropping bombs on an empire thousands of miles from their homeland. The knowledge of what that thing above her was, of what it could do, brought her staggering to her feet. She stumbled through streets carved in new, deadly ways by Kegari missiles, stepping over dolls and dancing shoes, food that would never be eaten, skin that would never be warm.

She ran until the merchant harbor was well behind her. A telltale whoosh of a Sail flying overhead, the buzz of a missile falling, and Sirsha knew she had to get out of Navium—out of the Empire. Whenever and wherever the Kegari attacked, they left only death in their wake.

Think! An overland path out of here would leave her in a countryside swarming with refugees and Kegari troops within days if not hours. Besides which, the killer's trail led to the sea. Going overland would delay her mission by months if the Kegari seized the nearby ports.

Even considering an impediment to her mission made her oath coin itch. She had to follow the killer.

She needed a ship small and fast enough that it wouldn't be noticed by Kegari air patrols, but strong enough to handle a sea voyage.

Of course, those thieving bastards had bombed the military and merchant docks first. They weren't stupid. Judging from the flames rising in the south, the Kegari had destroyed the docks where the pleasure boats were moored too.

They couldn't have gotten every vessel in the port. There were too many docks. Fishing boats, smuggling ships, a moldering log. There had to be something she could steal.

A memory surfaced: the city of Sadh more than a year ago. Shut down, just like Navium was, because the Martial Empress was visiting. Sirsha had wanted to go to her favorite fishy, but the Masks at the dock sent everyone packing. The ship they were guarding had no flag. No markings at all, other than a screaming bird as its figurehead.

Now that Sirsha considered, she realized what that boat must have been. A safeguard. An exit in case the Empress needed to scarper and couldn't get out by land.

If she had a boat in Sadh, she'd have one here. Probably in an unusual place. A smaller but well-guarded dock.

Like the one she'd seen near her inn, where a couple of Masks had been loitering.

The wind shoved her south, as if to say: Finally, you figured it out. Halfwit.

Of course, she still had to steal the damned thing. From a pair of Masks, no less. And that's if the boat was still there.

Ah well, she'd figure it out as she went. Like usual. At least she'd grabbed her pack.

The pitted cobbles smoothed out, and warehouses gave way to fountains and wide boulevards, still intact.

"Run!" Sirsha shouted as residents tumbled from their homes, bleary-eyed and confused. "Flee the city! It's under attack!"

The fire at the cothon was so enormous that despite the cold, sweat poured down Sirsha's back. Finally, when she thought her lungs would burst, she caught the glimmer of ocean ahead. It glowed like lava, reflecting the massive fire at the pleasure boat docks. The smoke was so thick that Sirsha had to crouch beneath the fug to keep from choking to death.

She really did pick the most skies-forsaken jobs.

When she broke free of Navium's buildings, she headed for the small dock she'd seen earlier. Both Masks guarding it were dead, their faces torn to shreds. The air around felt strange and warped, but Sirsha ignored it; she hadn't been hired to avenge the Masks. She raced up the dock, heedless of anything but getting to the vessel, cursing in relief when the two-sailed shabka came into view. EF II was emblazoned on the side.

The captain appeared too, a broad-shouldered man who looked like he could knock Sirsha over with one swipe of his massive paw. He lumbered to the edge of the gangplank, eyes wild, a scim in one hand and a wet handkerchief in the other to protect him from the billowing smoke.

"Who the bleeding hells are you?"

"Ah," Sirsha rasped, coughing. "I've come from—from the palace." Guilt nibbled at her, but she needed out of here. The Empress probably had a million paths to escape. Besides, if she was running from the Empire at the first sign of trouble, she wasn't much of a ruler. "I've an—urgent mission. The Empress said you must take me."

As far as lies went, it wasn't one of her stronger ones. Still, the captain nodded. "Show me the order and we'll be on our way." He put out his hand expectantly.

"You think she had time to write me an order in this chaos? Just take me on the fastest route out of here or else—or else all is lost."

The captain peered at her. "You don't even know where we're going?"

Sirsha scoffed. "I couldn't possibly tell you until after we left, in case there are spies among your crew."

"Crew?" The captain narrowed his eyes and nodded to the aft of the shabka. "This ship is powered by a Mehbahnese ore engine. It doesn't need a crew. Who—"

He went suddenly, deathly quiet. A second later, blood poured from his mouth. Sirsha saw the thin blade embedded in his throat just in time to duck as another passed over her shoulder and into the captain's heart. He toppled forward off the gangplank and dropped like a stone into the shallow waters of the Southern Sea.

"Dilitali unsiva va tuus!"

Kegari. When Sirsha's mother had her track a Kegari magicsmither years ago, she'd spent weeks in the mountains at the arse-end of the Southern Continent. Sirsha recognized the language, though she couldn't decipher the meaning.

But as both raiders were running at her in full armor with teeth bared and swords flashing, she didn't exactly need a translation.

"Va tuus, beh!"

Sirsha ducked below the ship's rail and crab-walked toward one of the masts. She could take on a Martial soldier or three, and Roost rats were nothing. But she knew little about Kegari fighting tactics. Judging by the skin-curdling screams coming from the city, she'd rather not find out.

"Rue la ba Tel Ilessi!"

She flattened herself against the mast, just wide enough to cover her lean frame. Then blades flashed on either side of her like murderous falling stars, and she drew her daggers.

Some people, like Sirsha's sister, could never get enough blood. But Sirsha didn't much like killing people. She'd had her fill of it long ago.

Still, she'd deal with a bit of gore on her boots if it meant her life.

They were almost on top of her. From her hiding spot, she tried to suss out weaknesses in their armor.

When their boots hit the deck, Sirsha emerged and let three of her blades fly. Two of them bounced harmlessly off the bigger raider's armor, but the third sank into his chest.

The smaller raider surged forward with uncanny speed. Sirsha yelped, barely ducking the silver whip that flashed toward her face.

"Rue la ba Tel Ilessi!" The woman leaped for Sirsha, teeth bared. She knocked Sirsha to the ground and the knives from her hand, closing her fist around Sirsha's neck.

The woman's wrist glinted with a crawling white substance that dripped down her skin like paint. It oozed toward Sirsha and wrapped around her throat with the cold slide of metal.

The woman smiled and released Sirsha, holding her down by her shoulders as the band grew tighter.

In terms of hand-to-hand combat techniques, Sirsha hated strangulation. It took so damned long—a few minutes, at least, and you had to be in your enemy's face the entire time, watching the blood vessels burst in their eyes. But this woman appeared to enjoy it, grinning as the murderous metal she wore pulled with inhuman tightness. Lights popped at the edge of Sirsha's vision. Every sound narrowed to a strange gurgling—her own desperate struggle for air.

She should have left the Empire long ago, money or not. Ankana was beautiful. Warm water, good food, handsome men. She'd always liked it, even if it was too close to—

A sound—a squelch, really—and Sirsha's attacker stiffened and was yanked away, taking the accursed strangler with her. Sirsha gasped for air as a big hand grabbed hers and pulled her to her feet. She stared up into the face of a tall, broad-shouldered Martial wearing a fancy tunic and holding a fancier scim. His dark hair fell across his cheekbones, almost obscuring the yellow of his eyes, the thick black lashes.

"Are you all right?"

Sirsha responded by yanking him down to the deck as a hail of Kegari knives came flying through the space where his head had been. He nearly landed atop her, stopping himself inches away, forearms on either side of her head on the deck, muscles taut as the knives passed over them. Sirsha stared at his pulse racing in his throat and then glanced up to find his pale eyes on hers. Her heartbeat quickened and she felt oddly flustered. Probably because you're about to die. She wrenched her gaze over his shoulder; a half dozen more Kegari surged toward the dock, chasing two other people.

"Bleeding hells," she said to her erstwhile savior. "Did you bring the entire damned army with you?"

"You're welcome." He leaped up to meet the attackers with all the subtlety of a rabid bear.

"Are you stupid?" Sirsha shouted, certain he'd get himself skewered. "What are you—oh—"

The Martial tore the Kegari apart, cutting through them so fast that she struggled to follow his blade strokes. Another fighter whirled toward him, movements similarly graceful—a boy who was younger and leaner than the Martial, but as deadly.

The younger man—a Tribesman from the looks of his clothing—sheathed his blade and drew his bow, seemingly in the same motion, and a volley of arrows sliced through the air. He threw himself into the fight with seemingly no care for his own body.

"You're going to get yourself killed, Sufiyan!"

A curly-haired girl in a shredded green dress shouted at the archer as she dashed past, though he didn't appear to hear. She leaped onto the shabka, panting. When she spotted Sirsha, her relief was palpable.

"Sailor, thank the skies," Green Dress said in a rasp, her throat damaged from the smoke. "We feared that they killed everyone. Where are the ropes? The anchor?"

"How the bleeding hells—" would I know , Sirsha nearly said, before realizing that if the girl thought she was a sailor, she and her brawny friends wouldn't throw Sirsha off the shabka. Not yet, anyway.

"There." Sirsha pointed to a rope that appeared to be tethering them to the dock. "And that's the crank for the anchor, which, since it's the anchor, probably needs to be, um, on the ship—"

Luckily, Green Dress didn't notice that the supposed sailor was babbling like a chatty drunk. The girl lunged for the rope, while, on the docks, the tall Martial battled two Kegari.

"Sufiyan, help Arelia!" the Martial called to the archer. "Sailor! Engine!"

Skies, the man was bossy as a general. Though he wasn't wrong. The problem was, Sirsha had no bleeding clue how to start a Mehbahnese ore engine. She'd never heard of one until about seven minutes ago.

Sufiyan leaped onto the boat and hauled up the anchor. Upon closer glance, Sirsha realized that he was only dressed like a Tribesman. He had the sharp features and height of a Martial, but the dark eyes of a Scholar. She realized she was staring at him but couldn't stop because there was something familiar about his face.

"Quil," Arelia shouted at the bossy Martial, who was still locked in a scim battle. "Hurry up!" She turned to Sirsha. "Sailor, where's the engine room? What happened to Captain Tanlius?"

"Ah—he—he died," Sirsha said. "Kegari got him. I'm…I was second mate." Or was it first?

Arelia gave her a skeptical look, but Sirsha pointed to the aft of the ship, as poor, dead Tanlius had when he was speaking of his special engine. "Do you mind…turning it on?" Sirsha said, hoping to the skies the girl knew something about the engine. "I'm going to— bleeding hells, Martial, on your left! "

As a Kegari raider lunged from the boulders along the dock, the Martial called Quil spun his scim, knocking his attacker's metal whip away. A moment later, he'd ripped a knife across the raider's throat.

Quil then leaped onto the deck, kicking away the gangplank and finding Sirsha with that singular, cat-eye gaze.

"Well?" he said impatiently. "Let's go!"

"Yes!" Sirsha said. "Because I'm a sailor." The metal around her throat must have addled her brains. She felt a sudden thrum—the engine—and hurried up a set of stairs to the quarterdeck, having traveled on enough ships to know that she needed to find the damned helm.

She'd just gotten her hands on the big wheel when her spine prickled. She caught the scent of death—old death—and bones.

She's here.

The sea, which rarely spoke at all to Sirsha, whispered so quietly that she froze, uncertain if she'd heard it at all. The air changed, going still and noxious. Distantly, Sirsha heard Quil calling to her. She saw more Kegari approaching, their whips snaking out from their wrists like living white chains.

It all faded beneath the choking blanket of malevolence that settled over Sirsha's mind. The killer is here.

But no—Sirsha realized almost instantaneously that this wasn't true.

To the elements, the past, present, and future can blend together. You must learn how to tell them apart. It was one of the first lessons her mother taught her about tracking and was burned into her mind.

Sometimes, a person left an imprint so powerful that it felt fresh, even if it was months old. Sirsha had a knack for sussing out when she was looking at an old trail versus a fresh one. It's why she'd been so valuable to her Kin.

This trail was old. And yet the flavor of death that Sirsha had been hunting for a week now was close. Slowly, Sirsha swung her gaze to Sufiyan and Quil. A boy with dark eyes and a laughing mouth that reminded her of someone, and a young man with cut-glass features and clothes spattered with Kegari blood who was saying something she couldn't hear.

The killer had been near these two men—marked them somehow with sorrow or violence. Sirsha felt dizzy and reached out a hand to the Martial, grabbing his taut shoulder. Images flashed through her. A woman with short, dark hair currying a horse; a child who looked like Sufiyan, his features soft and round. And then…then—

—a shadow with teeth and claws—

—a killer, drenched in blood—

—compressing and contracting—

—exploding and snaking its way through the countryside in a way no human was capable of—

Sirsha finally understood how the murderer had cloaked herself. Why the trail had split outside Navium. She wasn't some especially cunning killer. She had magic.

It was strange, skillfully concealed, and unlike anything Sirsha had ever tracked. But it was still magic.

And Sirsha was not allowed to hunt magic. Not unless she wanted to die a violent death at the hands of the people she used to call family.

She wondered why she hadn't sensed the killer's power from the beginning of this accursed hunt. Magic was difficult to hide, let alone from as skilled an Inashi as Sirsha. But then, it had been years since she hunted a magical entity. She must be getting rusty.

The ocean—which rarely showed interest in Sirsha—surged, and the boat lurched away from the dock. Sirsha caught the trail now, clear as if it was illuminated in starlight. It led west, toward the Southern Continent. The place Sirsha had spent the last eight years trying to avoid.

Now she'd have to head straight for it. To hunt a magic-wielding murderer, of all the bleeding luck. The exact thing she was forbidden to hunt, and of course, being an utter fool, she'd made a blood vow to catch it, if not kill it. She couldn't even take the money and run. The damn vow wouldn't let her.

She thought of her silver-eyed client—of his response when she'd asked if the killer was unnatural. Of course he's unnatural. He kills young people for sport. Curse him, he must have suspected the nature of this killer. And he had known about her magic. Only an Inashi had the skill to track a magical entity. More importantly, only an Inashi could bind a magical entity.

If they could identify it, anyway. Sirsha had no idea what she was hunting. Normally it would be fellow Inashi who would work that out. But as she didn't have that, she'd need help…

"Sailor!" Quil shook her, and Sirsha realized she was on her knees, body trembling. The Martial knelt before her, his visage dark, as if he was ready to thrash whoever had done this to her. Behind him, Sufiyan had taken the helm, his face soot-streaked and dull-eyed.

"Sorry." The Martial took his warm hands off her shoulders. The cold gripped her in his place. "Are you all right? Your eyes…"

"Quil, get back." Arelia pulled him away from Sirsha, and she knew that for the moment, the killer was the least of her problems.

"Your eyes," Arelia said, "went completely white. An unusual and rarely seen phenomenon known to occur when one is possessed by a ghost. You are not a sailor. Where is Captain Tanlius and who are you?"

"A traveler." Sirsha raised her hands, wishing she'd kept a blade in her sleeve. "Desperate to get out of that hellscape, same as you."

Quil put his scim to Sirsha's throat, his mouth thinning to a forbidding line. "Did you kill Tanlius?"

"No!" Sirsha said as he dug the scim in deeper. "I swear, it was a Kegari!"

Quil peered at Sirsha's face, searching for signs of perfidy. "Are you one of them?"

"I was fighting them!" Sirsha said. "And in any case, have you ever seen a Kegari? Sickly and sallow as corpses, most of them. Wouldn't know a hot day if it burned them to a crisp." Sirsha held out one strong brown arm. "I'm not Kegari. I'm a traveler and I happened to see the ship."

"No one happens to see this ship." Quil drew himself up. "It belongs to m—"

"The Empress of the Martials." Arelia cut off Quil with a look Sirsha couldn't read.

"If it belongs to her," Sirsha said, "then you have as much right to it as I do. Unless one of you is the Empress in disguise?"

"Suf, search her things," Quil said. "I'll bind her up."

He tried to truss her up quickly, but Sirsha shoved him away, wincing as the wound above her hip reopened. Eventually, he was forced to wrap one muscled arm around her shoulders while Arelia tied her hands.

"Bet you enjoyed that." Sirsha grinned at Quil, because she suspected he was the exact type of righteous prig who would find enjoyment of such a thing repulsive.

As predicted, he seethed and turned away. And because Sirsha wasn't above petty joys, she found his outrage deeply gratifying.

Arelia took the helm as Sufiyan silently rifled through Sirsha's pack. Though Sirsha tossed her head, seemingly unconcerned, she grew increasingly uneasy.

"Stop worrying about me and get us away from the coastline," Sirsha said. "We're too close to the city. If the Kegari spot us, we're done for."

Quil ignored her and behind them, Sufiyan cursed in surprise. Sirsha sighed, expecting him to have found the stash of gold that her client gave her for supplies. She'd have to part with it, but at least she'd had the sense to keep the rest of her gold on her body. She'd fight to the death before anyone took that away.

But Sufiyan wasn't paying attention to the gold. Instead, he held up her client's ring.

"Where did you get this?" She heard his voice for the first time. " How did you get this?"

"That's none of your—"

Sufiyan leaped faster than Sirsha thought possible, knocking her back, putting a dagger to her throat. He wasn't blank-faced any longer, but shaking in rage, as if the sight of the ring had yanked him out of his shock.

"Answer me." He dug the knife into her skin, and she could barely swallow. "Or I'll cut your throat. How did you get this?"

"Get him off her!" Arelia called from the helm in alarm. "Quil, he's going to—"

"Sufiyan!" Quil attempted to pry him away. "Sufiyan Veturius, stop—"

"A client gave it to me!" Sirsha said as Quil finally pulled Sufiyan back. "I'm a tracker."

"A tracker," Sufiyan said. "But why would my father—"

Sirsha saw it then. The wide shoulders, the laughing mouth, the dark hair and symmetric features. No wonder he'd looked familiar. This was her client's son.

Whose name was Sufiyan Veturius.

Veturius.

"Bleeding, burning hells," Sirsha said. "Your father is Elias Veturius? Hero of the Empire? That's who hired me?"

And at the bewildered expressions on their faces, at the utter, ridiculous unlikelihood of the situation, Sirsha began to laugh.