Page 4

HENRIK

O liver, First Captain of His Glory’s soldats, had been the only father figure Henrik had ever known.

Oliver held a wry sort of affection for most of his soldats, but Henrik had always been a silent favorite. The Captain didn’t say much, but carried a legendary reputation for his grappling ability, for which many soldats gauged strength, professionalism, and power.

New soldats who entered the force always remarked on Oliver’s tight-lipped strain. The fools made bets on when Oliver would smile, if ever. Anyone voting in favor of Oliver showing amusement lost.

Always.

They often disappeared, too.

Any old codger that survived to sixty-eight years of age as a soldat Captain deserved respect, even if his gruff style and obeisance to His Glory was irritating.

Henrik set a paper on top of Oliver's barren desk. Grids, numbers, words cluttered drawn boxes in gray ink. The jord measurements and reported numbers he’d scripted in green, to help them stand out for His Glory.

"As His Glory requested,” he said. "The final shipment of jord is in the harbor and unloading is underway.” He frowned, glancing outside. “Or it will be soon, once the sea settles. A gale’s blowing in.”

Oliver eyed the ledger of facts, weights, currency exchanged, and a few . . . interviews . . . conducted in His Glory's name. Lesser isles had a penchant of quantifying export freight short of promised contracts. The presence of a soldat dramatically decreased fraud in the isles, and thus, bloodshed when His Glory punished the smaller chains for lying.

War was expensive, and so was life.

Life required food.

Food required jord.

The chain of existence in the Isles never wavered.

Oliver barely blinked after surveying the reports. No welcome home or well done soldat or c ongratulations on a productive year in the isles well accomplished. Not that Henrik had expected any.

“Confirmed receipt,” Oliver stated. “You’re dismissed until the morning.” He returned to his paperwork. Hints of stubble darkened his cheeks. The top of his head, clean shaved, had a blunt appearance as the storm whisked sunshine away.

“Sir?” Henrik asked.

Oliver lifted his gaze. “Yes?”

“At my final collection point for the jord in Kapurnick, rumors swirled about a battle between Captain Arvid and Kapurnickkian sailors, near Narpurra.”

“Yes.”

“Did something happen?”

The question was foolish, because Henrik already knew the answer. Kapurnick's infamous General Helsing defended the island nation of Narpurra against His Glory's Stenbergian sailors. Kapurnick stepped in to help Narpurra, of all places, which had gossipers wagging. Why would they bother? Narpurra’s cutthroat and brutal reputation normally put them at odds against straight-laced Kapurnick, particularly General Helsing.

Rumors swirled, as they always did, never quite clear of the results.

Captain Oliver’s nostrils flared slightly, then calmed. “Yes. Captain Arvid went to settle a dispute on Narpurra and Kapurnickkian sailors were there. A battle resulted.”

“Is Captain Arvid okay?”

“Information is pending.”

Henrik attempted to absorb that information without change of expression, but horror sank like a stone in his chest.

Pending meant lost at sea.

Dead.

The Second Captain of His Glory’s soldats—gone. Only two Captains existed to oversee the soldats and overall military strategy. If something happened to Captain Arvid, which seemed unfathomable for such a large, talented man, that left Oliver standing alone in his leadership of thirty-three highly decorated and ambitious men.

Captain Arvid had been dependable. An admirable leader, acting from the frontlines. Obliging, when he could be, but stern with the task of caring for Stenberg and her trade. He had an affable exterior, and was a quiet observer of the world. He lacked Atticus’ staunch reverence for His Glory, but that hadn’t stopped Arvid from gaining the leadership position.

The devastating blow hit Henrik in the chest.

“Sir, I?—”

“Search attempts are ongoing,” Oliver said, speaking over Henrik’s attempt to impart condolences. “I will update you if there is information that pertains to you. As it stands, we must assume that Captain Arvid is dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oliver eyed him. “Convenient that you should have returned from your reefer duty at the same time.”

“Sir?”

Oliver rolled his eyes, a gesture more twitch than drama. “Assuming Captain Arvid isn’t found, which appears most likely at this point, there will be a requirement for the Second Captain of His Glory’s soldats. You and one other have been appointed the responsibility of reefer, which enables you for the position of Second Captain.”

Such a realization wasn’t new. Henrik went into his year-long reefer duties knowing it enabled a greater promotion. The reefer slot consisted of a one-year rotation on the seas, gathering the export bounty, delivering imports, and returning with jord. He hadn’t dreamed such an opportunity would open this quickly.

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s between you and Harald.” He shuffled through the paperwork, glancing idly at it. “The two of you will be up for consideration as soon as we confirm Captain Arvid is lost and have his memorial.”

“But what about Hampus, sir?”

“Hampus died three months ago.”

“Shite,” he muttered. “Sir, I had no idea.”

With the cold precision of a soldat Captain, he said, “I know. I'll relay your report to His Glory in the morning. You're dismissed. Report at first light." Oliver cast a wary eye to the window. "Or after the storm clears."

Henrik froze.

“At first light, sir?"

Oliver, sensing his undertone, lifted an eyebrow.

"Is there a problem, soldat?"

"At the beginning of the contract, His Glory promised a two week leave after the final jord delivery."

A muscle at the bend of Oliver' square jaw flexed, though his thin lips gave no hint of emotion. He lifted his chin ever-so-slightly, and lamplight cast a glow on the few shaven gray hairs. The five Captains in His Glory’s service distinguished themselves by cropping their hair close. Henrik, in keeping with regular soldats, skimmed the sides short, and left the top long.

“You want two weeks of vacation?” Oliver asked with a carefully controlled tone.

Henrik hid a surge of annoyance. The careful wording was a game designed to trap. Desire shouldn’t enter the heart of a soldat, unless it revolved around bettering Stenberg’s presence in the Isles.

“It was promised, Captain.”

Oliver’s lashes tightened around a locked and intense gaze. "The jord is in port on a ship.”

"Yes, sir."

"There's a storm." Oliver tilted his head to the window. "A bad one. They'll be lucky to get the sailors off of the ship in time, never mind the hundreds of pounds of jord in the hulls."

"Sir?"

"Your jord isn't delivered until it's in His Glory's hands, and approved of for quality,” Oliver snapped. “If that ship doesn't survive the swells and the jord isn't delivered, your mission isn't complete. If the foolish sailors managed to secure it in time, you might be in luck. If that's the case, you may have a two-day leave to get your cottage back in order. As far as I'm aware, your residence on the soldat grounds has not been disturbed. You should need only an hour, but I will give you two days.”

Disbelief swelled, thick as the building storm. The five Captains that worked directly with His Glory every day, of which only two were soldats, should expect such a twist of terms. But not the soldats themselves. Promises were ironclad contracts. The Oliver of a year ago had supported the soldats directly. He wouldn’t have changed meanings to deprive a soldat of something he’d earned. It spoke to turbulent waters.

Unable to help it, Henrik said, "Sir?—"

"I know you aren't questioning me, soldat."

The hard words curved with implication and warning.

Henrik licked his bottom lip, fighting a surge of rage and helplessness. His life had never been his own to live. Not once. He grew up an asset of His Glory and that is how he would die. Trembling in the exposed cold as a child taught him the power of acceptance in the face of unfairness.

But sometimes, injustice rankled.

"Of course not, Captain. I would never question you.”

Oliver tossed his eyes to the door. Understanding the implied command, Henrik lowered his chin and turned to leave.

Two days.

He had two days to dive into the Archives and search for Selma without drawing attention to his search, which was all but impossible.

Captain Oliver called after him.

"Soldat?"

Henrik paused in the doorway.

"His Glory has declared the start of a cleansing. Last night, he did an induction ceremony in the Temple and called the storm to begin the ritual. This will be a twenty day run of ritualistic cleansing in preparation for potential hostilities from the mainland. You know what that means."

Henrik closed his eyes in disbelief.

This had to be a joke.

A terrible, dirty prank.

Perhaps he’d overestimated the sea god. Norr didn’t care about justice. Or Henrik had underestimated the troubles in Stenberg. Having been gone for a year, he felt blind. Their struggles might be great, indeed, for His Glory to call for a cleansing.

"Understood, Captain." Henrik paused, considered the wisdom in his surfacing question, and decided to ask despite the risk of irritating Oliver further. "Is something wrong, sir?"

Oliver blew a steady breath through his nose. One might call it a stabilizer, but it was thoughtful.

"Many things are wrong. Pressure comes from the mainland.”

“Over what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he barked. “We need more jord—more than Kapurnick is sending. Their shipments have been less and less year over year. Either they’re holding back, the draguls are dying, or they’ve formed an alliance with the mainland, who is taking our jord. His Glory . . ."

Commotion outside the office stalled his response. Oliver’s gaze narrowed. He cut short the conversation with a slice of his hand.

"Report in the morning, soldat, or at first storm clearing. Leave."

Three men strode past two soldat guards and into Oliver’s office. The other Captains of His Glory. Two of them were sailors. The final one, Ingemar, was a voted islander representative and reputed to be the right hand of His Glory. Serious lines creased his expression.

Henrik studied them as they jostled by with careless regard, all of them grim-faced and hollow-cheeked. They stood like three giant cranes about to do battle, all beady eyes and pecking beaks as they clustered around Oliver’s desk. One of them, the Third Captain of His Glory, appeared pale as he clutched a letter.

An update on Captain Arvid, no doubt.

Understanding when it was time to be invisible, Henrik slipped into the hallway without another word. He carried his frustration with him, the way all soldats had been trained for since capture.

You take that emotion.

You bury it deep.

You open it on the battlefield.

The door shut as he departed.

* * *

Henrik bent his head to the wind, welcoming the fighting elements. Pushing against something helped ease the urge to shout. He was soldat. He maintained control at all times.

Life had deserted the previously bustling market by the time he headed to his boarded up home in the soldat’s quarters, along the north edge of what locals called the Quarter, where sailors and soldats lived. Sailors resided in the blue-ceilinged barracks that were little more than cobbled together rooms. Soldats, thanks to their higher rank and lifelong service, received private cottages with stone fences in a separately maintained portion of the Quarter. Modest, but quiet, which is what most of them desired.

His would be cold, dusty, and filled with miniature pig carcasses after a year, but he wouldn't be on a rolling, pitching ship filled with heavy jord and stinking sailors.

A cleansing, he thought, shaking his head.

What were the odds?

During a cleansing, any islander with a history of spilled blood or political resistance was not allowed to approach any building in which His Glory might be found. The Temple, the Armory, the Library, and the Archives.

Not only had Henrik lost his two weeks of downtime, but also the ability to search for his lost mother. The Sisters of Stenberg, women sworn to a lifetime of internal purity and service to His Glory, ran the Library and the Archives. During a cleansing, they refused male entrants, allowing only women and scholars to enter. He’d never pass as a scholar, though the idea had merit.

Shite luck.

Lightning streaked the sky as Henrik wound through the low court of the Quarter, held in by a perimeter of stone, and watched over by a constant guard. Henrik nodded to the old man in the wings, a building with a wide window and a floor that dropped out beneath the guard to allow quick access to a descending ladder.

Old Man, they called him. No one knew his real name, and no soldat cared enough to find out.

Seeing Henrik, Old Man looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. Grateful to avoid conversation, Henrik nodded in return and pushed on. After not seeing Old Man for a year, he was surprised to find he hadn’t changed. Same scraggly white beard and splotchy cheeks. He wore a linen vest and a kerchief tied around his neck, which he sneezed into constantly.

By the time Henrik reached his cottage on the very edge of the soldat section of the Quarter, rain saturated him. The driving force prickled against his skin like descending needles. After two thuds of his fist and a firm jolt of his shoulder, he shoved against his cottage door. The amalgamation of wooden boards opened into exactly what he expected.

Silence.

Dust.

Darkness.

All his candles and lanterns had been packed away in case of storm or fire. He dropped his sopping wet pack and headed to the shed. He wanted warmth, dry clothes, a full meal, and a long sleep. After that, he'd figure out what to do next. Or how to let go of his old plan in order to develop a new one.

After twenty-seven years of dreaming he’d find Selma, this might be a sign from the gods to release her. To forget her, though her rampaging scream forbade it. Your mama’s name is Selma!

The thought disappeared as quickly as it came. It wouldn’t be the first time he questioned his allegiance to the woman in the last several decades. Often, the temptation to ignore Selma overwhelmed him, but it fizzled out.

Midstep toward the top crate in his shed, Henrik stopped.

If the storm hadn't bellowed overhead so loudly, the woman sleeping on the floor might have heard him approach. As it stood, he had a breath of a pause to comprehend the strange sight before her eyes fluttered open.

A woman.

In his shed.

That might not be totally unusual. The formerly enslaved had an entire city hidden in the catacomb streets behind the stone walls of the Quarter, except this woman wasn’t a Shadowland local.

It was her .

The woman from the ship.

Two seconds passed between her eyes fluttering open and Henrik registering his familiarity. In that span of time, which passed like an eternity, he formed one wild conclusion: the woman stalked him.

Instinct kicked in.

By the time he saw the whites of her eyes, he recalled his earlier suspicions. Her casual wandering on the ship, despite her lack of an official servant’s outfit. Not to mention the odd noise that issued from her—or was it her clothing?—and the equally surreal understanding that someone he couldn’t see sprinted past him on the dock. He’d felt their presence.

Their previous stop had been Kapurnick’s main island for the final load of jord, and only Kapurnickkian dragul keepers could entirely disappear.

Circumstances painted a clear picture.

Henrik locked a hand around her wrist, yanked her off the wet floor, tossed her onto his shoulder, and strode halfway across his gravel-filled yard before her shock fully formed. He’d set her down in the house, calmly ask her what in the?—

An elbow to his jaw waylaid the budding plan.

Henrik absorbed the blow, but not the shock. He stumbled to the left, momentarily disoriented, and gripped harder. The wildcat didn't shriek, but grunted. Instead of throwing her cape off and slithering out of his hands the way any self-respecting woman might attempt to do, she drove an elbow into the other side of his neck.

He shouted.

Before she could make another move, he whirled her spine to his chest and attempted to gain control by wrapping his arms around her. She lifted a foot to stomp on his toes, but a hiss and a flash of steam caught his attention.

Dazed, he stared at the base of her neck.

Was that a . . .

. . . dragul?

He sucked in a breath as an elbow found his sternum. A petite, but frenzied, roar bellowed from beneath her wet layer of hair. So, she had been suspicious. Not a servant, but a high Kapurnickkian. Kapurnickkians loved their dragul keepers.

Elation that his instincts had proven correct, and curiosity over this discovery, cost him another point of pride. Her heel slammed into his toes. He would have shouted, but his irritation was too powerful. If other soldats found out that this slip of a woman caused him pain, he'd be packed onto a ship, his throat slit, and dropped into the sea.

Instead of squeezing an arm around her neck and forcing compliance, Henrik plucked the writhing dragul off her neck and shoved her forward. The woman whirled around, one hand flying to her hood. Her eyes widened as she found it empty. She comprehended the writhing bounty pinched between his fingers with a livid gasp.

An emerald dragul.

She stilled.

Henrik held the dragul by its wing base to avoid stressing the little creature. Interesting thing, with its bitty talons and snarling mouth. The tiny muscles strained for freedom against Henrik’s grip, and sharp teeth threatened to bite his wrist. No matter how it struggled, the dragul made no progress.

"Let him go," she insisted through the sheets of pouring rain. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

Her powerful voice, resonant in ways it hadn't been before, carried equal parts passion and terror. Bold woman. A bundle of questions, this one.

She didn't bother looking at Henrik. Her studious gaze locked on the dragul with maternal anxiety. Definitely bonded, then. He couldn’t imagine any other reason for her to have a dragul off the main Kapurnickkian island. Sensing his failure to free himself, the dragul, almost too petite to comprehend, hung limp in Henrik’s grip. Rain sluiced down the wings.

"If you want him to live, you won't move unless I tell you to,” Henrik called over the rain.

Rage flashed in her eyes.

“Agreed. Release him."

He chortled. "Nice try. A dragul is no good without his bonded. If you want the dragul to survive the night, you'll turn around, walk inside my cottage, and sit down on the floor. If you give me any problems, he’ll die.”

Her eyes flashed with fire.

She said nothing.

“I have questions,” he continued. “You'll answer them."

Her chin lifted. "Then what?"

Henrik eyed the dragul, her, and the dragul again. A deep-seated knowing stirred within. The premonition before deeper intuition. His gut told him something significant happened here. Perhaps Norr smiled on him when His Glory did not.

Henrik drawled, "We'll see how I feel. Impress me with your answers, and I'm inclined to think you'll live."