“There’s got to be a reason he’s stuck around. Maybe he fears the empire’s reach – or Thratia’s. Nouli served the empress a long time, and often on Thratia’s ships. Thratia knows he’s got an inside peek at her methods. Could be she wants him for herself, or wants him dead. This is Thratia Ganal we’re talking about. The woman they call General Throatslitter, and she smiles about it. The woman who the empire exiled for being too power-hungry. The woman who… Who killed an innocent woman, let her bleed out at our feet, just to make a point. Who sold deviant sensitives into slavery, not because she didn’t think it was wrong, but because she found doing so expedient to her plans. If I were Nouli, I’d hide behind the Remnant’s walls too.
“But no matter his reasons, it’s got to be tried. Hond Steading has always relied on its legacy and its size to keep itself safe. The monsoon season will slow Thratia’s troops, but it won’t be long now. She wants Hond Steading. Valathea wants it, too. And my dear old auntie’s going to get caught in the crossfire. We need a strategist with inside knowledge.”
“Putting a lot of faith in this man, considering who we’re up against. Putting a whole city in his hands, and you haven’t even said hello yet.”
“Auntie Honding’s got a lot of things at her fingertips. Got watchers, sel-sensitives, loyalists, and every old thing you’d need to hold a city being besieged. But what she needs to win – to push back those forces and not just waste away until she’s rolled over by hunger – is a trump card.” He flicked out a card. Tibs snatched it up. “An upper hand Thratia won’t see coming. Nouli’s that. Even just knowing we have him will give her pause. Maybe make her be a little too slow, a little too cautious.”
“Know what else might slow her down?”
“Getting a look at your mug?”
“Discovering the Lord Honding has returned home, trained, and is ready for her.”
The cards in his hand rustled as he stifled a tremble. “We’re asking a lot of miracles of the world already. Wouldn’t want to push our luck.”
“There’s no luck in asking for help.”
“Depends on who you’re asking.”
Tibs’s wizened little eyes swiveled to the door.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Ask Pelkaia to train me? Black skies, Tibs, she nearly pitched me off the cliff the moment she saw me. We’re already asking her to help us get the gang out of the clink. Talk about pushing our luck – she’ll push back.”
“Doesn’t have to be her. Could be your ownself.”
Detan froze with a card held halfway out. “I don’t have the temperament for it.”
“Yet you’ve refused to give up the possibility.”
“What in the pits is that supposed to mean?”
Tibs closed the fan of his cards and pressed them facedown against his thigh. “I get why you won’t go back to Hond Steading. I do. But for all your running away from that city – you still bear its brand. You still count yourself its heir. What do you think’s going to happen when Dame Honding dies, and you’re the only sack of flesh drifting around the Scorched with a proper heir brand on his neck? Think the city’s just going to sit quietly and wait for you to get yourself together? Think your abandonment won’t cause upheaval? Won’t hurt people?
“You could relinquish it. Could cross it out and demand Dame Honding burn some other sod with the burden. But you don’t. You’re still responsible for that city in your heart – so you’re going to have to take control of yourself real quick. Nouli can’t do that for you.”
“Five,” Detan said.
“Excuse me?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, where his family’s crest had been branded into his skin at the age of twelve. He’d wanted it, then. He’d never really stopped wanting it. Never stopped knowing what it meant. It wasn’t the power, not really, though most would see it that way. It was stewardship, his mother had told him while her jaw creaked from the bonewither eating her alive. It was a promise from Detan to Hond Steading. A promise that he’d do his best to care for the city for the rest of his life. A chance to do something right.
“Five lives. Last time I was there. Last time I took responsibility for the city. I stood with a group of five miners moving sel and lost control. That little demonstration landed me in the Bone Tower, guest of Callia’s bastard colleagues, and I’ll be damned if I ever get myself anywhere near a situation like that again. I do what I can for Hond Steading. I just do it from a distance.”
“And is it the whitecoats that keep you up at night, or fear of failing your responsibility to Hond Steading?”
“That was three years ago. You think I wouldn’t do worse now, pushed just right? Staying away is the best thing I can do for them. Finding Nouli and sending him there is the second best.”
Tibs pressed his lips together and laid out a pair of cards. The ship slalomed sideways. Detan nearly lost his balance as it bumped up against something firm and unforgiving. A soft squeal reached his ears, the complaint of wood and metal rubbing shoulders. He was grateful for the distraction. Detan popped back to his feet and slipped his cards into his pocket.
“Are we under attack?” he asked the air, staring at the iron-bound door and wishing he could see what was happening.
Tibs chuckled. “Under attack by a dock? Sure.”
Before he could muster a response the huge door swung open. Coss leaned against the doorframe, brows raised in amusement. Detan flicked his collar to straighten it and tried to look confident, unconcerned. Coss smirked.
“Pack your things, lads, you’ve arrived.”
“I’ll have you know, I arrived ages ago,” Detan said.
Coss rolled his eyes. “Cute. Now heave-to-it.” He stepped aside, leaving the doorway wide open for them to pass through. Detan peered at that sliver of freedom, suspicious.
“I’d hoped to bend your captain’s ear a little while longer,” he ventured.
“Hope all you want, Honding, she ain’t interested. Am I going to have to grab some boys to help you on your way out?”
“No need for that,” Tibs said. He levered himself out of his sprawl over the bunks.
“And may I ask which lovely establishment of the Scorched you’re dumping our sorry hides in?” Detan asked.
“See for yourself.” Coss gestured toward the side of the ship with one arm.
Detan peered over the ship’s rail. A city of brownstone and twisted wood splayed below him, the square buildings tall and wide, their roofs peppered with airship moorings and outdoor sleeping quarters. The city was tucked into the curve of a frothing bay, the angry splash of the Endless Sea adding some rare greenery to the shoreline. Beyond the sprawl of buildings and streets, cactus and pricklegrain farms sprouted, their plots mirroring the city’s square towers.
In the far distance, little more than a black smudge on the sea against the horizon, he could make out the first of the Remnant Isles. Somewhere beyond that blurred dot, Ripka and New Chum awaited. Hopefully with Nouli in hand. Detan swallowed.
“Petrastad,” he said.
“Very good!” Coss clapped him on the back. “I see you paid attention in geography.”
“Does this mean Pelkaia intends to help us?” he asked, sharing a sideways glance with Tibs as the lanky man slipped up to the rail alongside him.
“Haven’t a clue what you’re on about. Captain wants us to put in here for her own reasons. Said to see you off, nice and quick, so if you don’t mind…?”
Coss pointed toward the gangplank that sloped down to the roof of one of the large, square, brownstone buildings. The rest of the crew jostled back and forth across the ship, seeing to their tasks. Pelkaia had vanished.