A warden.
Matiu said something in Tovanian that had everyone’s head jerking around, attention landing on Nathaniel. He contained a flinch, lifting his chin in the face of their judging eyes as he slipped into the trade tongue. “Uri’kaAkeheni, I think I know what’s happening.”
Akeheni half turned to look at him, lips pressed into a grim line. “I can’t trust your words.”
She didn’t need to say why. “I know, but you need to. Just this once.”
Caris had sent him here to keep him out of theKlovod’s reach, and still he could not escape that repudiated warden’s grip. Akeheni knew that; it had been part of the terms of the treaty-signed alliance. But if he was a risk, Nathaniel would be the first to take one of the lifeboats and set himself adrift if it would keep the ship-city on course.
“Ksenia unmade what theKlovoddid,” the warden said, her voice cutting through the chaotic noise around them.
“Unmade doesn’t mean gone.” Nathaniel tapped a finger against his chest, never looking away from Akeheni’s eyes. “I can feel him reaching. I don’t think I was the only one out here he found.”
“You said you woke with a headache this morning,” Akeheni said.
“Yes.” He swallowed thickly, well aware of what it meant. “But I am in control of myself.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“I know, but in this moment, you must believe me. Please.”
Akeheni looked over her shoulder at the warden. “What say you, Binh?”
“Ksenia is our master alchemist, and few in any country can match her skill. Her magic and alchemy would hold, especially this far from theKlovod’s reach,” Binh replied after a brief pause. “If Nathaniel can sense theKlovodin his mind, you should believe him.”
“If I was truly arionetkaagain, I would not be able totellyou that I could sense him,” Nathaniel said.
He remembered the agonizing horror of being a prisoner in his own body, the way his hands moved without his permission, the words that were spoken that were not his. But everything he did and said here on the ship-city was of his own volition. TheKlovodmight have left fingerprints on his mind and rebuilt his heart, but the control he’d experienced before was no longer there.
Binh frowned thoughtfully. “He is right. My understanding ofrionetkacontrol is they act like the person they are, and you would not know the difference.”
Akeheni didn’t let what she thought filter onto her face when she looked back at Nathaniel. “Tell me what you think theKlovod’s motive is here?”
“Where are we under attack?” Nathaniel asked.
Akeheni bared her teeth. “Not from without. Our magicians see no Urovan submersibles within range.”
“Matiu said the depth charges went off too close to the hull.”
“We aren’t sinking.”
The derisiveness in her tone made Nathaniel want to laugh, but he choked it back. “Your sailors know their duties.Rionetkaswill take that knowledge and twist it to do harm, and they will have no choice.”
“We have precautions againstrionetkas. Physical checks and spell detectors.”
“They aren’t infallible. TheKlovodhas ways of infiltrating the governments of our allies.”
“We are aware.” Akeheni rested a hand on the navigation table, the map beneath her palm crumpling. “If we haverionetkasaboard, then they are the ones responsible for releasing the depth charges. Clearing my sailors will take time, which we have precious little of since we are scheduled to meet up with theAilanifor an attack on Daijal’s ironsides along the coast. We need?—”
Akeheni’s next words left on a jagged cry as her first mate unexpectedly turned and slammed their knife into her left shoulder. It would have been her heart if Akeheni had been even a shade slower in twisting her body. She jerked back, sliding off the knife as a cry of rage rose from those assembled around her. The noise was disrupted by the crack of a single gunshot from Binh’s pistol.
The first mate—therionetka, Nathaniel’s numb thoughts supplied—went limp and fell to the floor, a gaping hole on the side of their skull where the bullet had exited. In such tight quarters, it was a miracle the bullet hadn’t hit anyone else, though Nathaniel had no clue where it had ended up. All of that musing felt like background noise as he was pushed back by Matiu, Akeheni disappearing beneath a crowd of her people.
Nathaniel couldn’t understand anything being said, the Tovanian washing over him in an unceasing wave of sound. He had no weapons, but considering what he’d been and what had occurred just now, Nathaniel made sure to keep his hands in sight and went where Matiu prodded.
He watched as Akeheni was helped by her sailors, saw the worried, sometimes wary glances the crew gave each other. Therionetkamight have missed the mark in murdering Akeheni, but the seeds of distrust were there in the aftermath.
“You need to clear your ship-city through whatever measures you have for rooting outrionetkas,” Nathaniel said quietly.
