‘You’re lucky,’ Maris says with a shudder. ‘Our waters are tainted, deadly if we don’t purify them.’ She leans towards the river too, wrinkling her nose. ‘Stinks something horrible, though.’
‘It should be odourless.’ Then it hits me. The stench of smoke, mixed with something riper: unwashed bodies and waste. It curdles my stomach even more than the confounded rock of the boat, but it’s not coming from the river.
Tansy’s sharp eyes search out the Gaspings before mine. ‘It’s some kind of settlement.’
A strangled gasp escapes me. The enclosure is where my father has been sequestering air-refugees for sunrings.
It’s vast. Decrepit. As we draw closer, I’m confronted by row upon row of slumped, threadbare tents jutting from the frosted ground like rotted teeth. The encampment swarms with tattered, wind-chapped people, huddling around meagre campfires.
Astrophel looks away. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s his answer to everything. My father would be proud. The others are quiet, but they don’t turn from the horrors of this place, and there’s no mistaking the judgement in their eyes.
How could my father have sanctioned this? He claimed the camps were necessary to prevent overcrowding and infection in the capital. Said we couldn’t trust the Highlanders, that it was safer to house them outside the city walls. He promised their needs were being met.
He lied.
As we sidle past the camp, the reek of excrement and ash grows thicker. I cover my nose and mouth with my mantle. Meissa’s walls were never designed to keep us in; they were intended to keep these horrors out.
I’ve always known I’m a monster, but fear’s not only driven my father mad, it’s made a monster of him too.
And I’m complicit in the suffering he’s forced on his own people. I didn’t know the ugly truth of the camps, but I also never made it my business to find out. Too wrapped up in my own struggles, I blindly accepted my father was acting in the best interests of the realm.
I reach for the starstone, but deep inside my chest, something starts to unravel.
It’s then I realise the winds have abandoned us. Our sail hangs limp, the Stellarion sigil it bears as shrivelled as my present faith in my family’s right to rule.
*
THEMOONSAREwaning, but there’s light enough to see the ship’s sails still sag like wilted flowers.
Half a sunring. Every moonsrising matters, and we’ve lost two already, waiting for the winds to pick up.
My gaze drifts up the arcing neck of the snow-stork that forms the ship’s prow. A flash of crimson streaks overhead. It’s Serafine hunting, an eerie twin to the comet bloodying the sky. I shiver and make the sign of the Star.
Perhaps Izarius was right. It’s hard not to consider the fiery slash an ill portent. We’re behind schedule and provisions are already dwindling. I can only pray lack of food isn’t the spark that ignites already smouldering tempers.
I thought the lack of breeze might grant some respite from the water-sickness, but my gut aches from constant retching. I edge past Astrophel, careful not to wake him, and creep down the deck, past the other slumbering members of the Quaternity. We stacked our packs, tents, and climbing equipment towards the stern, creating a screen. The small area behind them is the only privacy this ship affords. It’s also where we stashed the privy pot, and it reeks back here. But if I have to throw up, I’m not doing it in front of everyone again.
I clamber over the tents, only to find Maris sitting on the deck, knees tucked tight against her chest.
Her head snaps up. Her eyes are puffy, her cheeks tear-streaked. She dashes a sleeve across her face.
Before I can ask what’s wrong, my stomach lurches.
I rush past her, grip the edge of the ship and heave. Over and over, till my sides throb, my throat burns, and the wet slap of vomit hitting the river rings in my ears.
Maris is at my side, holding out a waterskin. ‘Still haven’t found your water-legs, then?’
I snatch the skin and gulp.
Maris snorts. ‘Wonder how you’d fare in the squall of the Wind-Whipped Isles.’ Her mouth edges into a sneer, but then crumples, as if she might cry again.
‘I didn’t mean to intrude.’
Maris waves my platitudes away. ‘Delphine and I had a disagreement, that’s all.’
Winding my cloak closer to ward off the night chill, I squint at the moonslit waters, searching for the pearlsprite.
‘She’s got it into her head to use spritesong to tide-twist and weather-weave. Thinks she can speed our progress upriver.’
