Page 38 of The Space Between Stars

Dent-Chin wrestled Mitek into a headlock. The boy beat at him uselessly.

“I say we tie them up and throw them below deck to burn.”

She couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she move?

“Just this one—” Dent-Chin cocked his head at Mitek. “We need one to ransom the ship back.”

Mitek’s foot collided with Dent-Chin’s groin. Like a trick of the light, a dagger slid into his hand.

The invisible bindings around Fankalo’s limbs snapped. If that idiot, coward deckhand could defend himself, she certainly could. She wrenched free using a swivel Zeb had taught her. Fingers swiped at the back of her kaftan as she bolted away, but judging her the lesser threat, Hawk-Nose rushed to his comrade’s aid.

Fankalo made for a storage crate beside the center mast. Her father had hidden a tanka for Mitek on both the mess deck and main, should things fall awry—and awry they had plummeted. She threw the lid, latched the too-loose weapon to her forearm, and tried not to think about how hot the boards beneath her feet had become. When she turned, the men had pinned Mitek by his arms and legs. He writhed until Dent-Chin had the dagger at his neck.

Fankalo crouched, breathed deeply, and aimed. The now familiar state of focus that guided her Luck fell into place. She looked at the uniformed man and moved the circular guide over his head.

No. Maybe a shot to the foot? Just enough to scare him away. Her Luck steadied her arm as she pulled the tanka’s lever.

Dent-Chin screamed and crumpled. Hawk-Nose released Mitek, hands shooting into the air. He cursed and scrambled away from the range of fire. Then he too leapt overboard. Fankalo didn’t shoot again; she waited, forearm raised, to ensure the remaining officer wouldn’t do any more harm to her idiot. The man’s head swiveled. When his eyes found her he glared, but crawled for the rail, leaving a bloody trail on the deck behind him, and rolled himself over it.

She and Mitek were alone on the burning ship. She ran to him.

“Ay!” he screamed over the building roar. “You might have hit me! I would have had them all on my own.”

“Is it so difficult to say thank you?” she shot back, looking for the knot on his bindings.

“There’s another knife in my boot, brat!”

How many did he keep on him, anyhow? She found the sheath and pulled out the tiny blade. After twenty seconds of sawing with the useless thing, she realized how futile the motion was. Back to the first plan. Cam had taught her to untie this sort of knot. She worked at it with her fingers and teeth until it broke free.

Mitek scrambled away. “C’mon.” He had moved to the rail and leapt over it before she could think to respond. A splash sounded below, followed by the sloshing of the boy’s strokes.

Fankalo looked over the ledge to see Mitek swimming away from the Blue Wing officers and towards the far part of the cove, where they had hidden the skiff for Zeb. Zeb, still out of sight, was supposed to come to them. He was supposed to…

The disbelief settled in, feather-quiet, like a bird returning to its nest. She and Mitek had been gambled as potential losses from the start. She backed away, alone again.

Alone with flames, with bad smoke, with bad Luck, just as she had been on the day the Tera’thians came. At least, until she’d felt Calver. Her brother had always been like a candle flame at the back of her mind.

Until the light went out.

He’d appeared in Kaidech that day, for a little while. She’d felt him—right there. She thought he’d come to rescue her, until he disappeared all over again.

At that moment, he appeared in Fankalo’s mind for the first time since the scourge. Despite the heat, her arms grew cold.

“Calver?”

But this time, he wasn’t close. Her father had taught her basic navigation: north. Calver was north, and farther away than she’d ever felt him before. North? With the Tera’thians?

She sank to her knees. This time his name tore from her throat. “Calver?!”

With the same suddenness with which it had appeared, the spark of her brother flickered out. Gone.

A red glow rose around the base of the mass, blending with the smoke that now poured freely into the sky. Fankalo collapsed on the deck, now hotter than was comfortable against her skin. Loss and longing overwhelmed her, and she closed her eyes. She’d forgotten how much she missed him—her sun and moon. Forgotten how much it had hurt when he broke his promise.

A scream rang out from somewhere below her. “Brat?” Then it came again. “Brat? Can’t you swim?”

Her eyes blinked open. Though she didn’t respond, Mitek kept shouting, an edge of panic in his voice. “Jump! I’ll—I’ll try to pull you to the skiff!”

As she found her feet, a falcon swooped sideways, avoiding the plume of smoke. Killari. Her eyes followed the creature to the horizon, where the stolen ship’s sails flapped at a strange angle. Her chest swelled. Captain Keane had turned back for them.