‘No barriers.’
The scents of the bathwater are replaced by sea salt, woodsmoke, and petrichor. A sharp stabbing pain in my fingers, like the cut of a blade, and the tart taste of calamansi fruit on my tongue. I hear an animal cry, desperate and shrill. Then the sound of wings beating, the air around me full of the rustle of feathers.
I open my eyes and look to the queen. She is breathing heavily and shaking. Her face is so close to mine I can smell the sweet leaves she chews to clean her mouth. We are cheek to cheek, and I can feel her breath in my ear. Then her head moves down towards the flesh of my neck, until her lips are on the soft skin. Her teeth sink in, and I think of a fruit bursting under a blade. She drinks until the room begins to narrow in my vision. The wound pulses under her lips, and the pain begins sharp until it throbs, and then there’s a deep pleasure that washes over me, making me light-headed. My skin tingles, and enduring the pain becomes one singular point of focus in my mind. It becomes my holy mission. I hear her swallow and she drops my hand as she backs away, wiping a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. She is glowing; there is no other way to describe it. It is as though she is a candle, and the light pours out from her eyes and skin.
‘Thank you, Hanan. You should rest. You may find your strength depleted.’
My eyes grow heavy as she speaks, her voice a lullaby. I feel hollow and empty, as though I had swum the whole way to the Bastion. I look down at my body. High on my left thigh, almost at the hip, is a mark. It glows, the lines a whorl. A wave and a circle: a sun. I paw at it, but it doesn’t come off. It’s ridged and deep, a mark on my skin. I’m so weak my vision swims. What did I just let her do to me? I’m inexorably bound to her as though a tether runs from my being straight to hers.
chapter twenty-nine
finlyr
‘She was a tricksterand a thief,’ one of the Seaguardians sings along with the crowd, his back to us as he taps the side of his tankard in time with the beat.
Behind him on the docks,Saltsweptstands huge and proud. In this light, and at this distance, the prow juts out and the figurehead of a barnacle-encrusted seamaiden greets us.
I take the dagger from my boot and hold it up to the moonlight, close to the Seaguardian’s throat. He stills at the cold of the blade.
‘Take off your jacket. Quickly now.’
The Seaguardian tries to turn to see his attacker, but I push the blade closer. He wobbles on his feet, out of fear or inebriation. Or both. He’s a tangle of limbs as he struggles to take off the white Seaguardian uniform, and I tear it from him. He cries out in pain as I wrench his shoulder. I shrug on the jacket, covered in muck but still the badge of authority we need.
We hoist ourselves up onto the ship’s ladder, one by one. Painfully slowly, the shadows our friends. We can only hope the impishness the women on land are spinning will last. Ris stays with me, uncoiling the tether and hauling the rope up with her as she climbs the ladder. I’m the last one down here, and I take a packet of sleep dust Narra gave me. A hedge witch’s last defence. I’m sorry she didn’t use it when the Seaguardians almost ruined Ligaya and Morna’s wedding,although I suppose unconscious Seaguardians at the inn would have raised a few questions.
I open the packet and blow it in the guard’s face. He staggers on the dock, and I think he’s about to lose his footing when he gives a wild yell, trying to attract attention. I go to grab him when something dark shoots down from the deck above me. The Seaguardian falls into the water with a splash and a yell that is drowned out by the raucous cheering from the town square. Then a mass of wet dark fur is by my feet, and Sinigang is panting. We look at each other and then I pick him up, ignoring the blood on his mouth as I climb the ladder.
‘Oh, look at what they did to her,’ I say, looking around the main deck.
Close up, I can see the parts that have been replaced: that awful royal sigil, the weapons racks with their shiny cutlasses, their piles of white Seaguardian uniforms in trunks.
My hands and eyes rove over the familiar things that remain: the sculpted taffrail by a carpenter, the sturdy masts, crimson cloth-weave sails from a fabric trader, and the woven reeds that line the wooden planks harvested by my own hand.
‘Fin, can we set sail now?’
I look between the taffrail at the hubbub in town. I can’t see them but I hear Ligaya, Morna, and Narra on the edges, weaving their spell as they sing and clap. Then I peer into the dark water. Without his pristine jacket, the Seaguardian’s body can’t be seen.
We scramble up to the quarterdeck, and I grab Ris by the elbow, gesturing at her to cast off. She follows my lead, pushing hard at the helm. Isagani’s up in the crow’s nest, unfurling the sails so we can steer the boat out of the harbour. They can’t catch us now. And by the time they’ve alerted the rest of the Seaguardians, we’ll be out of the bay.
‘I do like this game,’ Sinigang gives me a wicked grin.
‘I can’t believe we pulled it off!’ Isagani yells down to us.
Ris is slumped against the mast, looking at her shaking hands. Her face is pale, and I call to her gently, placing a hand on her arm. She looks at me, as if I’ve woken her from a nightmare.
‘I saw what he did.’
Sinigang, ears burning, pads over to us. ‘Did you think I only had sweet magic, Ris?’
‘We had to,’ I demur. ‘We needed to get out without being seen.’
Ris looks grim and stares at the blood spatter on my shirt from where Sinigang’s muzzle rubbed against me.
‘What’s going on?’ Isagani says, starting to descend from the crow’s nest. ‘Let’s go!’
‘We have to get out of here first,’ I say, and Ris eventually nods. ‘Isagani, get back up there!’
‘Are you sure she’s seaworthy?’ Ris asks, grabbing the tiller.
