Page 3

brITT

A gitated waves, which the Stenbergians called frenzies , rocked the ship as they pulled into port, drawing sailors to the bow and sails.

Wind whistled through Britt’s partially-opened porthole, filling her ears with the sensation of stuffed cotton. She tucked farther into her hood, standing just inside the tiny locker where she hid, and sucked in a salty breath through her nose.

"Denerfen," she whispered, shoulders expanding, "it’s time. Bite me. Go easy, eh? Nothing wild. We just need to get off the ship."

Weight shifted near her spine, preceding the cool caress of pearly teeth and the warm purl of a breath. She lifted her right cheek in an early wince, but the tension didn't prepare her for the sharp sting. Heat gathered in a spiral on her neck and rippled through her skin, down her arms. The languid crawl flowed over her scalp in a tingling cascade.

One breath at a time, her body disappeared. Denerfen plunged into her hood.

The moment her toes vanished, she darted into action. Thanks to a little bit of dragul venom—one of the rarest luxuries in the Isles—she had about fifteen minutes to navigate off the ship, dodge through a market, and run as far from the dock as she could manage before her body became visible again.

The empty hall led to the ascending ladder that climbed onto the deck. Freedom from her salty confines awaited, but it wouldn't be easy. Bangs and whistles and shouts from below meant the sailors planned to unload the jord quickly. Better to beat the storm.

Three steps from the ladder, the door flung open. She hid a gasp, pressed her back to the wall. Sailors poured down the ladder, shouting obscenities, cursing the land, the sky. One of the sailors brushed the edge of her sleeve as he strode away. She held her breath as he passed, blessedly not registering her presence.

Scampering, she raced up the ladder.

Chaos ruled on the main deck, but with orders to keep them occupied, no sailor interrupted her path. Britt scuttled out of the way of a man carrying ropes, another bellowing at a sailor tangled above, and dodged a lowering bag of cargo.

Less than a minute later, she slipped down the dock, barefoot, heart racing, breath thready. Arcane hummed in her veins with the viscous feeling of flowing, hot oil. She had twelve minutes before the chills set in. She'd need to find a place to hide before emerging.

Halfway to freedom, she almost leaped into the water from sheer surprise.

Striding ahead of her, wearing a familiar set of black leather gauntlets and shoulder armor, was the soldat from earlier. His high chin canvassed the area. As she slowed, he stopped in the middle of the dock and glanced back. His low-slung, hooded gaze glittered with questions, and his flared nostrils sent cold terror into her heart like a spike.

He sensed her.

Swallowing, Britt mimicked his frozen stance. Could soldats detect the effects of dragul venom? Wild rumors claimed that even a nescient soldat could smell the venom at work. She, a dragul keeper, never could. It seemed too ludicrous to believe that a soldat could do what a dragul-bonded keeper could not.

From behind her, a shout started, clearly aimed at the soldat.

"Aye! Where are you?—"

Seeing the dangerous glare, the sailor shut up as quickly as he spoke. The foolish man turned and fled. For that moment, a flicker of uncertainty registered in the soldat's gaze. Britt grew roots to the dock as his attention returned to the spot where she stood.

He stared right at her.

Those incandescently blue eyes held onto hers. They must have, because his stare stirred the marrow of every bone in her body. His voice, stunned but soft, replayed in memory. This soldat, already so dangerous, had just become lethal.

Stenberg lingered in the distance. The smoky chimneys, cobblestone hills, splashing wharf, and smell of burnt oil beckoned with the slimmest margin of hope she'd ever encountered. To come this far, and fail because of a soldat?

Not happening.

An open pier led the way to firm ground. To freedom.

The soldat's locked muscles released as he half-spun away, angling his gaze farther to the right. His body twisted with the movement, and all her shock fled. Taking her final chance, Britt dodged around him and raced off.

He shouted, but the reverberations of his following feet didn't chase.

She didn't look back.

* * *

Stenberg.

What a depressing place.

Sealstone occupied most of her view. The strange rock was native to the island, composed of various gray hues speckled with black blotches, like the skin of the fat seals that lived on the southwestern Chain Islands. The tyrant, His Glory, claimed that sealstone prevented the arcane from being used against Stenberg.

No arcane in Stenberg, came the reports. It doesn’t work there.

Walls, roads, towers formed an endless sea of stone buildings with little variation from wood or greenery. Stenberg simply didn’t have much soil, like the rich islands of her home, Kapurnick. What little existed resembled sand instead of mulch, creating the necessity of importing jord.

Britt hurried past linens flapping above tables that lined the port road. Stenberg islanders stood beneath, bedraggled, sunstained, and coarse. They shouted at each other, or nothing, or the sea. As Britt raced away from the soldat, the ship, and all ties to who she used to be, she tried to escape.

Their cries followed at her heels, nipping like dogs.

"Goat legs!"

"Pouches."

"Don't forget your ale!”

Britt raced up the filthy hillside street, away from the crowded port and toward an outer ring of the famous Stenbergian market. When space grew between the stalls, and the crush of people faded, she slid into a narrow alley between two buildings, pressed her spine to the wall, and breathed deep.

That was close.

The uncomfortable prickling of venom had ebbed during her sprint, but tremors replaced the feeling. A precursor to the true emergence out of the venom. She shivered in languid waves, teeth rattling. Withdrawal was a harried experience, but it wouldn’t be too difficult this time. Denerfen hadn’t loaded much into his bite.

Britt clutched her arms over her chest and glanced down.

Her sandals appeared.

"Not yet!" she whispered. "Denerfen, it should have lasted longer!"

He grunted. His rough, warm tongue licked the back of her neck. She would have pet his scaly spine, but kept her arms locked against her chest. Soon, trembling would overtake her body and she’d be truly helpless as she re-emerged into sight.

The clack of wooden wheels crossed the paved road outside the alley, loud in her sensitive ears. Everything heightened as the venom faded. Panic threatened to consume her, but she forced it away. Downright dangerous for a Kapurnickkian dragul keeper to emerge from the venom in Stenberg, of all places.

Britt dropped to her bottom, pulled her knees into her chest, and yanked her hood over her face. Emerging was the most vulnerable state. The withdrawal of the invisibility created a short span of time with bone-deep weariness and shivers. The reversal occurred from the feet up. Instead of the warmth, ice slaked her veins. It tumbled through, worsening her chills. She clenched her jaw to keep it from rattling and tucked herself into a tighter ball.

Denerfen rubbed his neck along hers, snagging the snowy hairs curling near her spine. He'd track her changing smells. The nature of his sounds would alert her if danger appeared. Her eyes screwed shut.

"I-i-it's fine," she whispered to Tesserdress, though she couldn't reach down to touch her. "It'll . . . s-s-s-top soon."

The sound of approaching footsteps sent another shiver through her. Too weak to lift her head and check who might be there, and vaguely aware that she might be half visible, she didn't move.

One pair of footsteps passed by . . . and another one. The second stopped.

A shadow fell over her.

Denerfen hissed.

"Those are Kapurnickkian sandals," said a small, astonished voice in native Kapurnickkian.

The islanders who inhabited the hundreds of islands of the Greater and Lesser Isles spoke the same tongue, Elestrian. But the greater islands—Kapurnick, Stenberg, Siloam, and Narpurra—hosted home languages. They were spoken so rarely they’d started to die away.

In general, the population of the Isles possessed few physical similarities. Light hair, dark eyes, pale skin, broad shoulders, none of it held consistently to any tract of land. Only the manner of speaking.

Isle people held their language as an extension of soul and history. Chattering words, singsong flows, and sheer depth gave away heritage far more than visible attributes. Words were as sacred as jord, or blood, or soul. Napurra slew people who used their native words without permission.

Hope flooded her. If someone spoke native Kapurnickkian, they’d know about emerging. Britt wrenched her head to the side. A child peered at her, likely no older than nine or ten. She didn't know children's ages well at first glance. Her knees washed into legs, revealing the lower part of her linen skirt and bare ankles. Though her legs stopped knocking together, her arms rattled against her ribs.

The child hissed, summoning the second pair of feet.

"Philip," the first cried. "It's a Kapurnickkian dragul keeper!"

Britt attempted to speak as another body cast a shadow on her. Beyond them, a commotion rose from the marketplace. Bells tinkled and an angry man brayed like a donkey. Shouting voices gave way to thudding fists.

"It is a Kapurnickkian!" the second child breathed, only slightly taller than the first. Britt’s waist appeared. The swirling cold ebbed from her lower half. "It's dragul venom. She's emerging."

"What's a Kapurnickkian doing here?"

"Don't know, but we gotta keep her safe. Stand there."

Her heart elevated. Sweet boys! As they scrambled to shield her from view, commotion increased. Other people sprinted past, pursued by shouts. The repeating clink of marching sailors came from farther away.

As the seconds ticked away, coolness curled away from her elbows, her arms. The roving release traveled up her neck, trailing warmth in its wake. The oldest boy turned, glancing over his shoulder to check on her, and issued a cry.

“She’s done!”

Their wide eyes stared at her.

"What're you doing here?" the youngest whispered. He had rounded cheeks and a long neck, with a dark complexion. Her teeth stopped chattering as the venom dissipated. The feeling of a wrung rag permeated her body. A needle would be too heavy to lift right now.

"I'll tell you everything." She managed a weak smile. "But not here. Do you have somewhere I can hide?"

As the boys conferred, their heads bent together. Britt’s spastic fits and spurts slowed, indicating a near completion. Only her arms trembled. Within a minute or two, the exhaustion would sweep out of her, and she'd recover entirely.

The taller one nodded.

"We know a place."

A minute later, Britt stole through the shadows in their wake. The nimble boys dodged past structures made of bamboo poles, thick white canvas, and doused fires. Behind the manicured market stalls hid an entire city of people. Shadowlands, they called it. Prior slaves, set free, but unable to afford passage home. Orphans. Hidden criminals. Not just Stenbergians, but Kapurnickkians, Caledonians, Narpurrans, and Calsicans.

A blur of languages wove a distinct tapestry she pretended not to notice. Realistically, she shouldn't be able to separate the individual words, nuance, and tone, but General Helsing taught her sacred and forbidden languages since she was a little girl.

Britt kept her hood on, attempting to track where she followed the two boys. By whose grace did she stumble on these helpers?

Not the Stenbergian god of the sea, Norr.

Surely not.

His Glory, supposedly the direct son of Norr and leader of the Stenberg islands, would as soon string her up by the end of a whip as send her aid. She could use Norr’s temple to orient herself, however. It loomed higher than all buildings, set on the tallest hill, where it jutted into the air with impressive girth and height. The black-and-gray sealstone sprinkled the sides with shadow.

If the Stenbergians had perfected anything, stonework was it. Their bulwark structures dominated landscape and sky and impressed isles folk and mainlanders alike.

Glimmering gold paint created tiny sunbursts around open windows, dazzling in the sunshine. Servants risked their life to paint the exterior wall in criminal detail. Ivory drapes fluttered in the breeze brought by the storm, a symbol of His Glory’s purity.

She turned her study away from the Temple. A crash of incoming thunder foretold greater surges, and her concern for shelter intensified. Stalls clattered under the bursts, and islanders called out as they pulled goods to higher, safer ground. Such a close sea would wreak mighty havoc on the market, even built around steep hills.

Within minutes of following the scampering boys, understanding her location proved to be futile. She kept track of His Glory's Temple, and that alone. The maze of tents, abandoned fire pits, and piles of discarded coal proved useless. The Shadowlands lived up to their prestige. When the boys veered left and set the Temple at their backs, she breathed more freely.

The trodden footpaths gave way to stone roads. Stenberg had so little growable soil on its rocky face that mud didn't slick the space between cracks. No growing things here. The Stenbergians would steal the jord in which a weed sprouted and slap it into their own planters, where they coaxed lackluster vegetables and fruits to grow. What little dirt existed beneath the hills of stonework was pale, bleached, and sandy.

"Where are we going?" she whispered.

"Somewhere safe," the youngest said over his shoulder.

Wind whipped past, nearly removing her hood. She bit back a retort of, do you know what you're doing ? and kept a hand over her pocket instead. Tesserdress shuddered under her touch, sighing a pocket of sultry air onto Britt's thigh. In her hood, Denerfen would be fine. She felt him burrow deeper, underneath the safety of the fabric.

She wouldn't tell the boys about her bounty, though her emergence indicated at least one dragul. Kapurnickkian or not, if they knew she carried two venom-biters, the draguls’ lives would be in danger. The boys scampered wordlessly, winding through a hidden world locked behind industry.

Miniature pig bones littered the ground as fat raindrops splatted the stone earth. Beyond the carefully-trod paths, the sound of wooden wagons and shouting merchants faded as Stenbergians scrambled for shelter.

Against a blast of wind, the older boy pointed to a structure at the edge of an enclosure. They stood just outside a stone fence, peering through a small hole. Wind blasted his loose shirt, but he didn't seem to notice. The dilapidated building had gaps between wooden boards and a questionable, sagging roof. Beyond it, through a rocky landscape, was another cottage, dark and abandoned.

"The cottage is empty, but I wouldn’t recommend hiding in there, just in case." The oldest smiled with pride. "You'll be fine in the shed. I slept in it last night!"

Britt called over the gale, "Who lives here?"

He shrugged. "Don't go in the cottage," he shouted, "Stay in the garden. You'll be safe out there until morning."

She eyed the shed, the broiling sky, and the boy. With his eager brow raised, she managed a grateful smile.

"Thank you!"

She didn't have the heart to show her terror. The arrival of the rain escorted her inside. A shed would be preferable to the stinging raindrops assaulting her arms. They waved her through the hole, around a rock-strewn yard, and to the shed. The tall fence provided shelter from the road and surrounding houses. Not that anyone here would be outside in a building tempest of this magnitude.

The door to the shack groaned open. Surprisingly, a dry spot of ground existed in the exact middle, though rain collected around the edges. The younger boy scratched the side of his head where a clump of dirt tied up his nappy curls.

"Might get wet," he called over the thrumming rain, "but it's better than being in the street."

Oh, how true.

"It's exactly what I wanted. Thank you! What are your names?"

"Philip." The taller jabbed a thumb at the other. "Mace."

"How long have you been in Stenberg?"

"Always."

"But—"

"Mum is Kapurnickkian," Philip said. “She was enslaved, now she works, but they don’t pay her much. The Stenbergians don't know about us. We can’t afford to sail home, so we’re stuck."

Her mouth dropped. Years ago, the slave trade had been active between Kapurnick, Stenberg, Siloam, Narpurra, and other islands, but agreements initiated by General Helsing from Kapurnick had stopped the selling of human life. Except for Narpurra, who seemed to leave no trace and boasted an underground market for slaves to this day.

With the treaty agreement between islands, enslaved people had become employed servants, but wages were poor. Too low to survive and save resources to cross the ocean and return home, though General Helsing had tried to help the native Kapurnickkians return.

A crescendo of thunder swelled over the island. Despite the thrumming rain, Britt thought she heard breakers on the ocean, crashing into Stenberg with the vengeance of a livid god. Perhaps she brought her own deities with requital and water.

Philip eyed the door. "Gotta go!"

He dashed into the maelstrom. Britt started after them, but they disappeared into the gray blur of rain sheets.

Shocked by the speed of their departure, Britt could only blink at first. Water sprayed onto her cheeks. The pants she wore beneath her dress clung to her ankles. A reverberating loneliness replaced her momentary friends. Twenty minutes on the island, and all her preconceptions had disappeared.

"I'm sorry, Tess,” she whispered, though Tesserdress wouldn't hear her over the sky racket. "I thought . . ."

She didn't finish that.

She didn't know what she thought.

Britt spun on the spot. There wasn't room to step, anyway. Crates lined the back wall, as well as pickaxes for prying up stones, a giant basin for cement mixing, and a stack of warped boards. Stenbergians prized wood almost as much as jord.

Almost.

Despite the warmth of the Stenbergian isles, the chilly rain swamped her from the shoulders to toes. Her fingers felt cool when she reached into her hood. Denerfen hissed and recoiled from her touch.

Quickly, Britt withdrew them.

"Sorry. My hands are cold.”

Denerfen huffed.

Tesserdress shuffled around Britt’s pocket, scooted into a ball, then settled.

Britt set her hands on her hips as she studied her surroundings. As General Helsing’s adopted daughter, luxury was a rarity. The General had Britt camping in the sand, forming her own huts, drinking rainwater she collected with woven fronds, and cutting fruit off high-reaching trees since she’d turned five. Not to mention her two rambunctious, stubborn older brothers, Pedr and Malcolm. She'd expected not to sleep at all her first night at Stenberg, but to roam until she had a general lay of the island. People always roamed at night, if you could find shadows to hide in.

The storm wiped the wisdom of that possibility out.

She settled her back against a crate, adjusted her cape and skirt and the pants underneath her skirt in such a manner that Denerfen, Tesserdress, and she could rest. From her bag, she withdrew a handful of thin glass flutes, stoppered with small bits of cork at the top. Three of the vials were supremely precious. A Kapurnickkian potion more legend than reality.

Tollybryck.

Each potion flute was a shade of orange, starting with a hue so pale it more closely resembled yellow. It progressed to marmalade and burnt sunshine. The infamous pirate Burning Beard had gifted them to her before departing Kapurnickkian shores a few months prior. Those vials she would use only in case of extreme life or death. They were healing potions.

The other?

Life for Tess.

A rag wrapped the first flute, as thick as her thumb and long as her hand. Inside, a rose-colored potion sloshed around. Helandalenda. The dragul-only fortifying potion would extend Tesserdress’ miserable existence without Malcolm until Britt could find him. The trip to Stenberg had taken entirely too much time. Captain Ossian had a reputation for quick sailing, but with a load of jord on board, that meant plenty of precaution had been taken for safety.

The soldat proved that.

Britt settled Tesserdress on her tented skirt. While the dragul shifted around, purring and squeaking at Denerfen, who mosied down Britt’s arm, Britt uncorked the Helandalenda. She touched the tip of her finger to the top, and withdrew it. A drop clung to her skin. Tesserdress hurried over, hastening with an eager chirp, and licked the potion free. Britt corked it, wrapped it, and set it carefully inside her bag.

“We have a few weeks, Tess.” She traced the tip of her fingers down Tesserdress’ neck and past her tiny wings. “We’ll find him.”

Britt slumped against the wall. Damp clothes, unknown island, rampaging storm, and no dinner in sight. Not ideal, but might have been worse. With her head leaning against a crate, and her draguls safely curled together on her lap, tussling lightly, she closed her eyes. The draguls settled. Tesserdress in her cozy pocket, Denerfen coiled around Britt’s neck.

Sleep claimed her.