“You get up there, too,” she told Nova. “If there’s a hole in Cutter’s formation, I’m the one that has to overhear his cursing you out for it the rest of the day.”
Nova made a show of bowing deeply as she backed away toward the door. “Of course, Your Lugubrious Excellency. Little Wind of the West, My Light, My Dark, My Moon and Stars—”
“Nova.”
“Going, going.”
Alone again, Yemi stood and stretched. She rolled her sleeves back down and donned her storm-gray uniform jacket, then swept dust from the gold brocade hem at her knees. She inspected herself in her father’s silver mirror. Her mother’s wide eyes, too tired for someone so young. Full lips. Her father’s chin. A latticework of thin braids pinned in an intricate hive to the back of her head. The royal ring on her right hand glinted in the sunlight as she adjusted her tie.
Only a few merfolk remained outside the window. They tended to avoid the harbor and instead watched her from its edge. One of them, a female with pale orca markings along her neck and back, raised a long arm into the air and held it there as if waving. But her face was blank. Joyless. It could have meant anything.
The ship halted, and the scuffling of boots overhead ceased while they stared at one another. She waited until the call of the soldiers to attention rang throughout the metal hull of the ship before she huffed, squared her shoulders, kissed her fingers and touched them to the boots of her father’s portrait and strode from the room.
Yemi felt no kinship with the sea. This was a remarkable thing for an Ixian royal, as the entire nation was devoted to it. Most of the people had at some point earned their livelihoods from these waters. The country was dotted with impractically massive monuments to it. The prayers of the faithful and priests of the Kept were whisked away on its winds. She was the third generation of a part-Mer line. But to her, it felt like a void.
The air on deck was balmy and damp as if the morning’s dew had decided to linger. Her ship’s crew and the crews of every vessel in the flotilla stood at attention in neat lines until their sergeants at arms called for parade rest at the sight of her. Then there was a loud ripple of parted feet, of spears slanted outward and tall shield points slamming into metal floors at their sides.
Yemi made her way down the aisle they’d created for her to where Nova waited alongside Commander Hurand, Brother Lain, and General Cutter, the captain of the queensguard.
Yemi called over the breeze, “My father’s navy remains the swiftest and most disciplined Ixia’s ever seen. Hurand, I expect you’ll relay my thanks to the commanders and see that our crews are well rested and celebrated before any more grueling training commences. Ever forward.”
“Ever forward!” The soldiers chanted their agreement, a resounding bark timed with the sharp tap of their staffs against the deck. She liked seeing the crews happy. Her father had taught her that if treatedwith love, they would fight for it. It seemed to work. Ixia hadn’t been conquered yet.
She stepped closer to Hurand and lowered her voice. “I also expect your collective discretion concerning yesterday’s events. Any fearmongering about who is suspected of what, and I will hold everyone who was in that room directly responsible.”
“Not a word, My Light,” Hurand agreed.
“My Light,” Cutter said gruffly, pride twinkling in his eyes. He was a dark-skinned giant of a man, with brown eyes and an assaulting military bearing. The flecks of silver-white hair in his beard mimicked the blinding, impossible shine of his spear and the metal accents of his uniform. He’d been her father’s personal guard and best friend, and reminded her very much of him whenever he managed to smile. He trailed behind her, Nova, and Brother Lain in a neat little procession down the gangplank.
Lord Irin Cerro, high priest of the Kept, stood at its base, his white robes stained in shades of gray from years of spending hours a day holding communion waist-deep in the surf. He was spindly and copper-skinned, crisp from too much time in the sun. His forehead crinkled with the effort it took to raise the heavy hood over his brooding eyes and created furrows deep enough to bury a pencil in. He had a long head but a pinched face like he’d been sucking on lemons his whole life.
“Qorrea,” he said in a singsong voice, bowing a full ninety degrees at the waist as she stood before him. His page quickly placed a violet pillow on the ground between them, and Cerro took to it on his knees, praying in mumbles at her feet for the miracle of her legs as he did every time she returned to land.
It never ceased to make Yemi uncomfortable. She fidgeted and searched for a visual distraction somewhere over his head until he stood again.
“I trust your journey was a fruitful one. Your presence was missed at the sunrise offerings.”
“Quite. No sign of theClodion, I’m afraid. Or any of the others, for that matter. I’m hoping Brother Lain will fill you in on certain events.”
“Which events?”
“A lost soul was discovered washed ashore a ways south. We sent him off properly last night,” Lain explained.
“You didn’t bring him home?” Cerro said, hand over his heart in shock and confusion.
“No,” Yemi said flatly. “And when I said Brother Lain would inform you, I meant preferably while I was elsewhere.”
Brother Lain gave her another disapproving stare while Cerro’s deep frown cast shadows over them all.
She sighed. “Transporting him would have been untenable. Truth be told, there was very little of him left. We did what we could at the time, and it was all done with the utmost respect and fanfare and all that, I promise you.”
Cerro nodded solemnly. “Well, allyoucould do is a great deal more than any one ofuscould have done. The gods will receive him with honor. I do wonder, though, what more we could do here to prevent the lost souls of the futu—”
Yemi cut him off. “My Lord, if you don’t mind tabling this discussion for when I’ve had a moment to rest.”
“Oh yes, yes, of course. Forgive me. Your peace is our peace,” he blustered, bowing so deeply again that he nearly headbutted her.
“Good man,” she said, shooting a side-eyed glance at Nova, who was giving her ayikeslook. They moved past him to where a deep-blue packard awaited. Her driver, Moss, stood beside it with the passenger door open, waiting to whisk her away up the lush green mountain to the palace at its peak. Beyond him, the capital city of Chairre stretched over the lowlands to her right. Ixians milled about the docks and disappeared between tall, ivy-skirted buildings of white brick and stucco roofed with terra-cotta tiles in shades from orange to violet. Somewhere within the walls echoed layers of lilting guitar and pops of percussion she could feel more than hear.
