Armand rippled in the water like he was impatient. “I don’t wish to be rude, your Grace,” he said, “but if the water-breath were to wear out here in the open, the effects would be disastrous.”
“Ah yes, of course, Armand.” The King bowed one last time.
We swam out of the garden and through the city to the big empty hall where that hissing glass box sat waiting for us. The potion kept working all through the trip, and for about five minutes or so after we arrived in the big empty hall. When it did wear off, though, it wore off quick as it had come on. One minute my breath was churning through my head and the next I had that tightness in my lungs that meant I was drowning. I pushed myself out of the water, onto the platform. Naji shot up a few seconds later, gasping. It felt weird to breathe air again. It was so thin and insubstantial, like spun sugar. I felt like I couldn’t get enough of it.
Naji and me didn’t really talk on the ride up, though he held me close like he was afraid I would disappear. I didn’t feel all that different now that the curse was broken, but Naji was filled up with light, like the glow of the algae down there in the depths of the ocean.
Part of me was afraid he’d leave, now that he wasn’t bound to me, but I told myself over and over that he was bound to me in other ways. I told myself he didn’t have to be bound to me at all in order to love me. And the way he held me on the way up, his face pressing into my hair, water pooling at our feet, it helped convince me that I was right.
The Nadir was waiting for us when we surfaced. Thank Kaol.
Naji watched us load up the treasure, crewmen carrying it down to the holding bay – we were gonna split it proper, on account of how little actual pirating we’d been doing. Me and Marjani’s idea. Naji didn’t seem to care at all, and he watched us load up the cargo in happy silence. The only time he spoke was when he leaned over the railing and thanked the shark sentry.
“No,” said the shark. “Thank you, Naji of the Jadorr’a.” Then he turned to me and said, “And you, Ananna of the Nadir.”
The shark and the glass box disappeared beneath the waves. You’d never know there was this whole city down there, full of talking fish and a king like an underwater manticore. Naji slipped off into the captain’s quarters, and I moved to chase after him, but Marjani stopped me.
“What happened down there?” she asked. “Naji seems–”
“Cured?” I asked.
Her eyes widened.
“Yeah,” I said. “The last part of the curse, remember? Create life out of an act of violence?”
She nodded, and I told her about the city and its inhabitants, the overflow of his magic. I told her how my blood, with its little trickle of ocean-magic, had mixed with his, and that’s how everything came together.
“So we’re done,” she said. “We don’t have to sail around chasing after his curse anymore.”
I nodded.
“Now what?”
“You’re captain,” I said. “What do you want to do?”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “You know what I want to do,” she said softly.
I got a heavy weight in my chest. A realization. “Yeah.”
We stood in silence for a few moments. Then Marjani broke off from me and stood next to the railing. The Nadir bobbed in the water, held in place by sea-magic. She was waiting to be set free. I could feel it thrumming through her planks and her sails.
“I had a thought,” Marjani said. “A few days ago, actually, sitting in the garden room with Saida.”
“Well, I’d hope you’d had more than one thought the last few days.”
Marjani laughed. “Saida was playing an old Jokja song on the reed, and I was sitting there listening – I never did care for sitting around listening to palace music, but with her it’s different. Anyway, I was listening to this song and thinking. Thinking about the Nadir and her crew. And you.”
The wind blew across the water, slammed against the frozen sails. Everything tasted like salt. I didn’t want to go back to Jokja, I didn’t want to live in the palace and smell the flowers blooming in the jungle. I didn’t want to watch the rains fall every afternoon. Most things are only nice for a little while. Jokja was one of ’em. The sea wasn’t.
“It’s your boat,” I said, voice small enough that the wind swallowed it whole.
“Not anymore,” Marjani said. “It’s yours.”
I didn’t speak, didn’t move, I just kept staring out at the ocean.
“That was my thought,” Marjani said. “When I was listening to that music from my childhood. The thing is, I became a pirate to run away from Jokja. But I don’t have to run away from it anymore. And if anyone deserves her own boat, it’s you.”
“The crew’ll never–”
“The crew’ll listen to anyone who takes them up to the Lisirran merchant channels and pays them fair. And they’ve listened to you before.” She smiled at me. “They’re as tired of Arkuz as you are.”
I didn’t bother to correct her; she was right.
Another wind-blown pause.
“Don’t let some Confederation scummy blow a hole in her side,” Marjani said, “that’s all I ask.”
I nodded out at the sea, a nervous happiness churning up inside me. “I’ll try my best, Captain.”
She laughed.
“Lady Anaja-tu,” I said, correctly myself.
“More accurate.” She paused. “Go plot the course back to Jokja. We’ll tell the crew about the trade-off once we make port in Arkuz.” Then she pushed back away from the railing and hopped up on the helm and shouted, “Get your asses back to work! We make sail for Jokja and then Lisirra!” She gazed across the deck. “You can all quit your bitching, cause it seems we’re pirates again.”
That got a roar out of ’em.
As they readied the boat to turn back toward civilization, I slipped into the captain’s quarters to draw up our route. When I walked in, though, Naji sat up on the bed and said, “Come here.”
“Don’t have time for that now.” I nodded at the navigation maps. “Gotta chart us a new course. We’re heading for Jokja and then…” I couldn’t help myself; I broke out into a grin. “Marjani gave me the ship! So we won’t be staying in Jokja no more. I figured we’d make sail for the Empire merchant channels and then head to Qilar. Ain’t been that way in a long time, and–”
I stopped. He doesn’t have a lot of expressions, sure, but I can tell happy from sad. And he wasn’t happy right now.
“I know,” he said quietly.
“You know? How the hell… Oh.” I frowned. “You were in my head, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” No apology, no explanation. “Ananna, I won’t be able to sail with you to Qilar.”
“Why not?” I could feel his thoughts pressing against mine, but I shoved them away.
“Because I will have to stay behind in Lisirra.”
The room got drawn and quiet. The curtains hanging over the port holes shimmered in the sunlight as the Nadir made her way east.
“Ananna,” Naji said, “one cannot just leave the Order.”
I stared at him. My heart felt the way it had when he didn’t smile at me. Like it was frozen.
“But you did,” I said. “You ain’t been a part of the Order–”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
He didn’t answer right away, and I lunged across the room and made to hit him, though he caught me by the wrist and sat me down on the bed. “I don’t understand!” I shouted again. “You haven’t been part of the Order for going close to a year now! I ain’t seen you take no commissions or meet with any of them–”
“That’s not true,” he said softly. “You saw me in my trances. I didn’t take any commissions, no, because I was cursed. It was a… hindrance.”
I went limp. All the anger just collapsed out of me and turned to sorrow.
“I’m so sorry.” He reached to touch my hair, but I slapped his hand away. He didn’t try to touch me again. “I didn’t think we’d break the curse, and in truth, some days I didn’t… I didn’t want it broken, despite the pain, because I didn’t–”