I stared down at my knees, heat rising in my cheeks. “You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“So now what?” I asked. “You go back to… to wherever, to your castle in…” I didn’t know where the Order was located. Lisirra? Or the capital city? Who gave a shit?
“It’s not a castle,” Naji said.
“Whatever! I won’t ever get to see you again.”
“That’s not true,” he said, and he pulled me close to him. “You’re a pirate, Ananna, you can sail to wherever I am, and I can come to wherever you are.”
I was hot with anger and I thought about how he wouldn’t once smile for me and then I thought about how he kissed me like I was the only person in the whole world. I thought about the light in his eyes whenever he was happy. I thought about how he shied away whenever I touched his scar and the way his hands traced the tattoos on my stomach.
“I love you,” I said.
He blinked.
I don’t know why I said it. It was true, but I was also furious with him. I guess I just wanted him to know what he was leaving behind.
“I love you, too,” he said.
My face got real hot, then, and it wasn’t just the anger.
“Then don’t leave me!”
“I’m not,” he said. “I just can’t… I just can’t stay.”
“What!” I shoved him away. “That’s what not staying means, you idiot. Leaving.”
“Ananna, I’m bound to the Order. If I try to leave, permanently, they’ll kill me. A permanent death.”
“As opposed to an impermanent one?”
“Yes,” Naji said, his eyes serious. “I work blood-magic, remember?”
He reached out to touch me, but I jerked away from him. He said my name again, and it was full of all this sadness and longing, but I refused to look at him. I gathered up the maps and the divider and carried them outside, up to the helm. The air was calm and I could weigh the maps down with some bottles of rum if need be.
Anything to get away from Naji. At least for a little while.
Marjani glanced at me but didn’t say nothing when I stretched my maps out on the deck of the ship. The wind blew my hair into my eyes, and I cursed, trying to get the divider to slide across the map.
“I got Jeric to cast the fortune,” Marjani said. “Looks like the air’ll be clear from here to Arkuz. How long are you thinking it’ll take? We had that storm on the way out…”
I was grateful to her for giving me the ship to talk about so I wouldn’t have to think about Naji. “About a week and a half, looks like.” I smoothed my hand over the paper. “We should have enough supplies. I haven’t checked the stores in a while. Have you?”
Marjani didn’t answer. And I realized with a start that the entire ship had gone silent: there was no creaking of the masts, no thwap of water against the boat’s side.
For a moment, my heart froze.
“Marjani?” I whispered, and I twisted around to face her.
A man was standing at her side, one hand grabbing her arm and the other holding a knife under her chin.
The knife looked like it was made out of starlight.
The man’s feet ended in mist.
“No!” I jumped to my feet and drew out my sword.
“Ah, that got your attention.” The way he talked reminded me of Echo, cold and empty. He kept his knife at Marjani’s throat and she stared at me, shivering, although her hand was creeping up to her pistol. “And you know what I want.”
He grabbed Marjani’s hand and twisted it around behind her back. Marjani let out a muffled scream.
“Let her go!” I shouted. “She don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Of course she does,” the man said. “She denied my offers as well.” But then he shoved her away from him so that she stumbled up to my side. I didn’t waste a second: I swung my sword at him. It sliced through his shoulder and came out at his waist. All he did was laugh.
Marjani pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him. He laughed again.
“The ship is mine,” he said. He jerked his head toward the crew, who were doing their work all neat and orderly with faces as blank as masks. “They aren’t as protected as you–” he jerked his head at me. “Or as knowledgeable as you–” At Marjani. “But I can’t captain her to the assassin until you tell me where he is.”
My heart jolted. He doesn’t know. Naji’s charm was still working. He doesn’t know Naji’s on the boat.
“We don’t know where he is,” I said. Marjani stayed quiet, just kept her gun trained at his chest.
“Lies.” And he reached back his hand and slapped me hard across the face, hard enough that I stumbled back and slammed against the railing. I was stunned that he could touch me. My fingers grasped for the charm. It still hung around my neck. He laughed. “I’m not Echo, child. Echo is only a piece of me.” He leaned closed. “I can smell him all over you. His magic. His filthy little dirt-charm.” He sneered at me. “You don’t protect him as well as he thinks.”
“Shut your mouth.” I darted forward and grabbed Marjani and pulled her close to me. She gripped her hand in mine.
The man slid toward us. His mist curled around my bare legs. One of the maps had blown over beside us and the mist smeared the ink into long unreadable streaks.
“I’ve sent Echo to you so many times,” he whispered. “Both of you.” He grazed his fingers against my cheek and his touch burned with cold. When he touched Marjani she flinched away. “Did you not believe her? All those things she offered?”
I spat on him.
He laughed and wiped the spit away. “That’s no way to treat a lord, my dear.”
“You ain’t no lord.”
“But I am. Of course you know that. He told you.” He smiled again, only this time there was something strange in his smile, like part of his face didn’t work. The left side. Like it was scarred–
I knew what he was doing. Giving me what I wanted. Showing me Naji’s smile.
“Ananna, be careful,” Marjani whispered. I barely heard her.
“Stop it!” I screamed, and I sliced my sword through his belly this time, and all that came out of him was mist.
Where’s Naji? I thought, and then I remembered. He wasn’t cursed any more; he wouldn’t know I was in danger–
Our blood-bond. He knew Marjani gave me the ship, he should know about this.
Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he wanted me to die, then he could go back to the Order and never think about me again–
I didn’t really believe that.
The man reappeared right close to me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my skin. “Couldn’t tempt you with ships and lovers and power,” he whispered. “Couldn’t even tempt you with a smile. But there are other ways, of course.” And his mist crawled in through my nose and my mouth, crowding into my brain.
“Don’t listen to him,” Marjani said. Her voice sounded far away even though she was still pressed up against me, her hand in mine. “He’s doing something to you. Don’t listen–”
The man turned to Marjani. She gazed up at him. I gripped my sword tighter. The mist was still in my head, turning my thoughts cold and hard. She was going to betray Naji. She didn’t love him the way I did. It wouldn’t even take much. One sentence. He’s on the ship. In the captain’s quarters.
“Don’t even try,” Marjani said, gritting her teeth.
The man laughed. “Don’t you want to see what I can offer you?” And he pressed his hand on Marjani’s forehead. She screamed and jerked away.
“I know what you can offer me,” she said. “Slavery and imprisonment.”
“You’re not as easy to fool as your first mate,” he said. “She at least let me show her what I had to offer. I believe she even considered it, one bright day.”