Page 17

He nodded. ‘Two shakes cap’n,’ he said, then glanced towards Aleda. ‘I mean m’lady. I’ll finish making fast.’

He ran off, and the first mate watched him go, her shades bristling with yellow annoyance. Inara drew her eyes away, back to Lessa. Now they had stilled, the wind had softened, and the near-midday heat came down on them heavy and pressing.

‘Can I come?’

Lessa looked at her, surprised. ‘Of course,’ she said, smiling tentatively. ‘The seawater here is supposed to be healing: it will wash away the last of your seasickness.’

‘No …’ Inara frowned. ‘I mean to see the god.’

Lessa hesitated.

‘She could be useful,’ Kissen offered. ‘I’ve seen her fight before—’

‘We won’t be fighting him,’ Lessa said sharply, irked by Kissen offering her opinion.

She brushed stray ends of her fine black hair out of her face.

‘Inara, I know you have great strength, but I worry that gods when they see you, know exactly what you are. Half theirs. Some will take that as affinity, but others will take it as a challenge.’

‘A challenge?’ said Inara.

‘When I was pregnant with you, I tried to find records of other half-gods. I wanted to understand what it might mean.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘The few I could … spoke of fear.’

The manuscript, the warning song. The child of the god of storm had been hounded to his death. The gods who he had played with had not helped him. His own mother could not.

‘On this ship,’ said Lessa, ‘you are with people I trust … but with strange gods? I fear for you.’

Inara and Skedi shared a look. She’s not wrong, he said.

Aan didn’t hate me. Scian didn’t.

Hestra did.

That’s because I tried to kill her.

Still … She’ll have Kissen with her, and we can sneak behind, keep out of sight. He was trying to find a meeting place between her and her mother. It takes two to make peace, little one.

Inara looked over at Kissen, who looked as if she knew every little thought that was going through Inara’s mind. Every piece of anger, every flicker of rebellion.

Inara sighed. ‘All right,’ she said.

When they were on the skiff that Arlo had prepared, lowering it down to the water, Lessa took the oars without question while Kissen sat loosening the straps of her leather girdle for her leg.

The veiga’s freckles had multiplied in the sun, and her burn scars and the white god’s mark that had crossed her cheek shone starkly against her sun-reddened skin, like ripples in water.

Lessa looked different to every memory Inara had of her. As a courtier, Lessa had been so neat, restrained, but on the sea she had a freeness about her. The sunlight that had burned Kissen raw had nipped the top of her cheeks and nose to a perfect blush of brown.

The silence between them prickled with unease, but soon the noise of the shore bubbled towards them.

There were so many bathers, some covered and some straight naked, sliding into the water or sitting on its edges, and a number of small skiffs just like theirs were tied to ramshackle piers.

Clifftops rose about them, a high shelter from the wind, and Skedi chose to shrink to the size of a sparrow and fly up to wheel and dive with the birds, once more able to enjoy the sky.

They aimed for a long and empty makeshift jetty of barrels and threadbare rugs sticking out from the dark rocks of the shore.

‘Take the rope, Inara,’ said Lessa as they neared. ‘Tie us on.’

Inara did as she was told, jumping off the boat and onto the barrels, and looping the thick hemp in a figure of eight around one of the bollards set into the stones.

Lessa looked across the sparkling waters, smiling to herself.

‘When did you last come here?’ asked Inara.

‘Perhaps six months after you were born,’ said her mother, then pulled off her tunic. ‘There’s nowhere like it.’

They undressed, though Kissen lagged as she looked at the cliffs, the sea, the boat, anything but at Lessa. Inara wondered if she was trying to give them privacy, or if she was annoyed.

Lessa slid into the sea, and Inara followed her, climbing down the hammered wooden slats of the jetty.

It was warm. More than warm. It steamed like a fresh-poured bath.

Lessa showed her the way between the gaps in the stones to a place close to the shore, where it became hotter still.

Green-and-yellow striped fish scattered around their feet where they scraped along the sand, and steely-shelled crabs that looked more bony than full of flesh.

They passed over a deeper patch of water, and Inara clung to the rocks.

‘Careful,’ said Lessa. ‘They’re sharp. Best to swim.’

‘I can’t swim,’ said Inara, though she could feel the bite of the rocks beneath her hands.

Her mother looked at her. ‘Of course you can swim. Erman taught you.’

Inara hadn’t heard her tutor’s name in a while. ‘Erman was afraid of water,’ she said. ‘A flood killed his sisters, remember? Kissen taught me to float, but I can’t swim.’

Lessa’s mouth tightened, and for a moment she looked lost, almost pitiful. But then they both were startled, as with a yelp and a splash, Kissen made her entrance.

‘Are you all right?’ Inara called back.

‘Fine, yes, just let the one-legged woman throw herself into the water.’ Kissen dragged herself onto the rocks before Inara could warn her, and hissed in pain as they sliced easily through her skin, drawing a bright red ribbon of red from her forearm. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered.

‘Sorry,’ said Inara, and Lessa muttered something that could have been an apology if she tried harder.

Kissen made her way to them, swimming mainly with her arms between the rocks.

They mingled with the other bathers, and Inara caught snippets of different languages, and even saw a trio signing to each other in a kind of handspeak, their gestures too unfamiliar to Inara to understand what they were saying.

The water washed through them in waves, sometimes too hot, so people would hop, wincing, away from the scalding heat until a cooler wave came in from offshore to soothe them.

Kissen pulled a face, one hand going defensively to the burns along her chest and neck that mingled like water-ripples with her skin and freckles. Over her heart, the circle of sea-script from Osidisen’s promise had turned white. Above it, still black, her tattoo curled like an untied rope.

‘My lady!’ cried the first mate, Aleda, swimming past with a few others of the crew, including Captain Lertes. His glass-green eyes were even brighter than the water, and he had undone his plaits so that his hair washed about his shoulders. ‘Enjoying your hot bath?’

Lessa laughed. ‘Mock me all you want, Leda,’ she said. ‘You always feel and smell better after a swim in these waters.’

‘I know some of your enemies that felt a lot worse,’ said Lertes. ‘They said it took weeks for all the blood to wash away from old Lughorn’s crew.’

He spat in the water, and Inara looked at her mother in surprise.

‘Another pirate ship,’ Lessa explained, trying to be reassuring. ‘They were already planning a double-cross.’

‘So you double-crossed them first?’ said Kissen, though she usually kept quiet when crew were nearby.

‘Yes.’

‘And you knew about it how?’

‘Your father,’ said Lessa to Inara, ignoring Kissen though she answered her question. Ina felt her heart beat harder, strumming against her ribs. Yusef, god of safe haven. ‘We caught a tailwind, got here early, and hoisted them, their captain, half the crew. We needed to prove we were strong.’

‘Murdering innocent people isn’t strength,’ said Kissen. The crew had already passed, but it seemed Sallath heard them, because he spat in the water and made a rude gesture.

‘You murder innocent gods, don’t you?’ he said. Kissen declined to answer, but it was Lessa who spoke instead.

‘Innocence is a luxury,’ she said. ‘One we do not all share.’

Kissen’s jaw clenched. Even naked, up to her neck in warm water, her curly auburn hair plastered around her ears, she looked intimidating.

She and Lessa regarded each other, and Inara saw for a moment the slightest shine of both of their colours, vivid sea-greens from Kissen, and rich purple and blue from Lessa, both sharp, domineering, aggressive.

They both quickly withdrew, clamping down again on their emotions and drawing them inwards, but for a moment it was as if their brightness was drawn to each other.

‘Is fighting back really the worst thing?’ said Inara, surprising herself by coming to her mother’s defence.

Kissen dragged her grey gaze away from Lessa and looked back at Inara. ‘Violence breeds violence, liln. I’ve never known a cruel act that did not seed three more. That’s how gods turn bad, and people too.’

‘Are you calling me bad, veiga?’ said Lessa, settling further into the water and unwinding her hair from its tie. Kissen frowned.

‘Why did you leave Middren?’ Inara cut in, heading off whatever insult Kissen might concoct. Lessa blinked with surprise; she looked hopeful.

‘We were journeying,’ she said, ‘your grandmother and I, to her parents’ lands in Lakaii.

’ In the Craier manor, there had hung great painted banners from that land to the far east, ancestral memories of a place she had only seen in maps.

‘It was an ambassadorial ship, carrying many dignitaries. Pirates took their chance, and took hostages in a night raid.’

‘You were a hostage?’ This from Kissen.

‘Yes. They kept me for ransom, but my parents were in debt, and Queen Aletta kept all her wealth for the gods.’ Lessa sighed ‘My parents tried. I know that. But I also knew that if I didn’t make myself useful I would be sold or slaughtered.

I was literate, trained in sword and bowcraft, strategic.

Captain Samin recognised talent and worked me from ship’s rag to crew. ’

Inara could no longer see her mother’s colours, but she could see the shine of her eyes.

‘You loved it,’ said Inara. ‘Didn’t you?’

Lessa put her head into the water, then wrung out her long hair, twisting it thoroughly.

The gossip of the folk around them twittered like birds in spring bushes, gentle and overlapping.

Kissen stretched out. There were some old rugs and thick pieces of hemp thrown over and tied on the sharper rocks, and she leaned back against them.

Without her prosthesis, she looked comfortable, relaxed.

Her sparring with Lessa, physical and verbal, dissolved in this moment of light and warm water.

‘I did love it,’ said Lessa at last. ‘I learned I preferred the taste of salt to the taste of honey, and I let them think I was dead. I felt … free.’

Discomfort brewed in Inara’s gut, sharp and aching. The tangle tightened, ready to choke her.

‘You left it all for me,’ she whispered.

Her mother leaned over and touched her head. ‘I left for you,’ she conceded. ‘I feared my pregnancy, and our family deserved to know you. But in truth I meant to bring you back to the seas.’

‘Make her a little pirate scrap like you?’ said Kissen.

‘Give her the freedom I had found,’ corrected Lessa.

‘But when I returned, our House was in chaos, worse than when I left. Your aunt Miria had taken ill, and the strain of holding the title was burning her from the inside out. My brother Larihan had taken up a life of study and faith in Lakaii. When they found I had survived, all their hopes took root in me. In us. Not just our family, but the other lower Houses, our tenants, our people. I …’ She sighed.

‘On the sea loyalty is what binds us, keeps us safe. I couldn’t abandon them. ’

A flutter of dark green colour drifted over Lessa’s shoulders, betraying some depth of feeling.

Despite how well she hid her shades, they were there, contained within her.

‘Tarin was the only one who knew how much I wanted to go back to the sea,’ she said softly.

‘In another world I would have. I’d have left her as our cousin-steward, given you the choice of the life you wanted.

’ Her eyes were drawn inexorably back to the Silverswift , the home she had hoped for both of them.

‘I’m sorry those choices were taken from us, Inara,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sorry I was so busy fighting for you that I never got to know you. I hope that can change.’

Inara looked at her mother with new eyes.

She saw both the holy of holies she once had been: the lady, the archer, the politician who could do no wrong.

Then, the pirate youth, lost at sea and finding herself there, wild and free and vicious.

And the commander, the rebel, the avenger for a daughter she didn’t really know.

There was so much pain between them, so many hidden hurts.

She looked to Kissen, who, despite her dislike of Lessa, gave her a faint, encouraging smile.

Inara remembered what she had said when she taught her to hunt: Pain is part of life.

She swallowed and reached out to take her mother’s hand.

Lessa was surprised, but she returned the gesture, closing her fingers around Inara’s. Their hands were nearly the same size now, and in the water looked so similar. The tangle loosened a little further, and light broke through, soft and sweet.

‘I hope so too, Mama.’