No books. Not a one. Journals, though, and I wondered if thecy fwthilutranslation spell would work on them. No, not if there was a fullSublimatuson the ship.
“I have use for a chimeric spinner.”
By the wide gallery of windows in this great cabin, there was a bird cage swinging from a hook. Inside it, a swift.
“I know you can speak. The entire ship has heard your scream.”
A swift, like the ones Worley sent.
“Are you a privateer like Mr. Oaken-Lankiskjold?” he asked.
“Who?” My first word. I instantly regretted it.
“The dworgh. That is his name, yes?”
I couldn’t pronounce it if I tried, Dev had said.
I said nothing, studied the floor.
“So? Are you a privateer like him?” He leaned across his desk, fingers laced like the braids in his hair. “You look Navy. Can you be bought like Bracebridge?”
“Thanavar is my captain,” I said. “I have sworn an oath.”
“His head on a pike will change that.” He watched me, detached and curious. “How does he inspire such loyalty in people?”
My heart swelled at all the ways I could answer, all the things I could say, but I bit it all back. This man didn’t deserve to know. Thanavar made up his own rules and invited you into the game. Challenged you to figure it out and was waiting for you when you did. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and not one of his crew would ever be the same after a turn on his decks. We were allkel’yia—willing to die for each other, but most of all, willing to live.
His head on a pike would never change that.
“Your ship sinks at twilight,” he said. “You have four hours to decide if you join her.”
“I don’t need four hours.”
“That is unfortunate, then. You will spend your last hours cursing him, and he will never know.”
I didn’t want Thanavar to die. I couldn’t imagine the world without him. It would be empty, quiet, stable, dull. No sweeping tides, no glittering steel. No Forge-damned flash of white.
No, I didn’t think my heart could bear a world without him.
“Let us make an accord,” he said. “I will answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”
I released a breath and nodded. Where Thanavar’s eyes were an ocean of blue and green and gold, this man’s were the shallows, brown as the erthe with flecks of copper, and his hair was not gold but iridescent, with strands reflecting the warmth of the wood and the glint of the suns. Forge, yes. What a beautiful, deadly, dangerous people.
He leaned forward, clasped his elegant fingers across the desk.
“How did you come by these chimeric scars?”
“You gave them to me,” I said. “When you sank theDawn Watch.”
“TheDawn Watch?”
“A Kingship frigate in the southern rim.” I still had nightmares of the day she sank. “You don’t remember her, do you?”
“I sink so many of your unfortunate fleet,” he murmured. “So, I am the one who created you. How poetic that you are here for me, now.”
They made war the way other people made love. Beautiful and lethal and gleaming like a spear. I would fill his mouth with the fury of my chimeric, burn his tongue first, crack his gums, and loose his perfect white teeth.
“So, you have become one with the chimeric,” he said. “What do you know of the source?”
