The Reader (25 page)

“Can you see who it is, Aly?”

The steward put the glass to her eye. “Sorry, Cap.”

Sefia ran to the rail. “Is
that
where the woman in black came from?”

Reed nodded. “Maybe.”

She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. The two ships were tilting at each other like jousters with spiked lances, the fog wafting around them as they prepared for battle. If that was the assassin's ship, she could find out where it had come from. Who else was on it. She blinked, and her Vision filled with gold.

She saw cannons. Powder kegs. Chain shot. Then a mirror. Echoing marble corridors and a round vault door of burnished steel. A keyhole like a star, with sharp points and birds in midflight etched around the edges.

Waves of light cascaded across her Vision, tearing at her focus. The fog was closing over the two ships, curling over their sterns and sails. She saw storms, rain, water droplets forming and falling and breaking apart as they struck the surface of the sea. She thrashed in the Vision, searching for the ship, but it was gone. The gold currents washed over her, pushing her deeper into the depths of light and memory. Stretches of blue. Heat. The white disc of the sun. The light spiraled around her, dragging her farther and farther from her own body, until she could feel the edges of her consciousness beginning to unravel, dissolving into the endless sea of light.

And then.

Someone grabbed her. She felt it distantly. Hands dug into her arms. The pain spread to her elbows and up to her shoulders, down to her hands and into her chest. She felt herself being drawn back into her body, slicing through the golden seas until she found herself again.

She blinked, but she saw nothing but thick clots of mist.

And then she was coughing, choking, leaning out over the water with Archer's arms around her, his wounds bleeding through his bandages as he tried to hold her back.

Sefia shook with anger and exhaustion. “No . . . !”

But the ship was gone. They heard the muffled thunder of cannons, saw blossoms of flame in the fog.

She slumped against Archer.

“It was
them
, I know it was!”

The wood bit into her skin as she pounded the rails.

Archer caught her hands and pressed them flat, holding them hot and bruised in his own.

Turning, she buried her head in his chest. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I tried.”

The doc was standing by the stairs at the edge of the quarterdeck. “We heard the cannons,” she said. “He wouldn't listen when I said you were safe with the captain and the mate.”

Behind them, the mate murmured, “The
Crux
couldn't have gotten here so soon. Think it was the
Black Beauty
?”

“She ain't gonna pick a fight with the Blue Navy when she wants that treasure as much as we do,” Reed replied. He tapped his belt buckle. “I ain't gonna wait around to see which one comes outta this alive. Get the men on the yards.”

“Wait!” Sefia pulled out of Archer's grasp as the mate strode toward the main deck, shouting orders. “They might know where Aunt Nin is. She might even be on their ship!”

The captain shook his head. “It ain't worth the risk, kid.”

“They killed my father! They killed Harison!”

“You think I don't know that?” he snapped. “That boy was my responsibility. I'm the one who's gonna have to tell his ma
that her baby is dead. I ain't gonna do the same for anyone else on my crew. Not today.”

He turned his back on her, and Sefia fell silent as sailors began scrambling into the rigging. There was a great creaking of ropes and sails and the
Current
picked up speed. Doc tugged Archer back to the sick bay to re-bandage his injuries, and Aly slipped away so silently Sefia didn't even realize she was gone. And then Sefia was alone with the captain.

The far-off rumble of cannon fire faded into silence, replaced by the hissing of the ship on the waves. They stood at the rail, Sefia fighting the urge to empty her stomach overboard.

“What happened back there?” the captain asked.

Sefia held her throbbing head between her hands. “I thought that was my chance. To get the answers I've been looking for.”

“You looked like you were dyin'.”

She bit her lip. “I think I was.”

“And your boy saved you.”

“He's not . . .” Her voice trailed away. “Yeah. He did.”

The captain's blue eyes flashed in the shadow beneath his hat. “You kids are lucky.”

Sefia traced the
on the rail. “I wouldn't say
lucky
.”

Reed was silent as he studied the steel-gray sea. “You said you were goin' to Jahara,” he said finally.

“That's where Hatchet was going. I thought we could find the symbol again once we got there.”

Reed peered down at her. A piercing blue search. “You ever been to Jahara, kid?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. Aunt Nin always said it was too dangerous.”

“She was right.” He stared at the waves and tapped his chest. “You'd do better to forget about it. Hatchet's one thing, but Serakeen ain't a man you wanna cross paths with.”

The wind whipped at her hair, stinging her neck and cheeks as they skimmed over the white-capped water. “I need to save Nin.”

“If she's still alive.”

“Yeah.”

“And then?”

“Stop them. For good.” She glanced back toward the main hatchway and the sick bay below. “Or no one I care about will be safe.”

Reed drummed his fingers. “And what if you fail?”

Sefia turned to the crate and dug her fingernail into the letters, pulling up splinters and flicking them into the sea. “I've already failed,” she said.

He traced the blank circle at his wrist. There was a maelstrom at his elbow, followed by a skeleton eating its own bones, trees on the back of a turtle shell: all the stories of how they got to the western edge of the world, but no story about the edge itself.

“Sometimes you get what you want,” he murmured. “And sometimes you wish you hadn't.”

“Maybe.” As she bit off the word, she pricked herself on a sliver of wood. Blood beaded on her fingertip, and she sucked it away, spitting it into the ocean. “But I have to try.”

A
s the lamplight flickered off the portholes, the walls of the tiny cabin seemed to close in about her. In the web of light and shadow, Tanin hunched over the desk, smoothing the edges of the paper over and over until her fingertips were red and raw. She had cried so much in the past few hours that to cry any more seemed impossible.

Her mouth twisted as pain lanced through her face. Tears flooded her vision.

She had one more letter to write.

Tanin dipped her pen in a bottle of ink, and every movement felt heavy, as if her limbs were made of stone, and bits of bone would explode into bursts of powder at the slightest shifting of her joints. Across the top of the page, she wrote,
Dear Erastis,
in crumbling script.

Tanin brushed her fingers across her eyes, spattering black
ink over her blouse. She cursed and dipped the nib again. The words blurred on the page as she wrote:

The Second is dead.

She paused, her gaze straying to the four sealed letters she'd already prepared: one for each of the Masters, to inform them of the events of the previous night, and of her failure. Five times she had written these words now, and still they weren't enough. They didn't describe how the world had been
diminished
, as if the Assassin's absence had snuffed out all the lights in all the cities across Kelanna, and objects that had been sharp and solid moments before were now dim, halfway to disappearing themselves.

She pressed her pen to the page and continued to write, remembering the anger she'd felt when the ship's lieutenant had told her the Assassin was missing. The hurried search of the decks, her frustration ceding to worry and abyssal panic when she realized the Assassin was no longer on board. The creaking of ropes as the crewmen hoisted Tanin in her longboat over the side of the ship.

The night had been black and gray as the fog crept over the rowboat, winding along her arms as she strained at the oars. Blisters formed on her palms.

Then she heard the shot, followed quickly by another, like thunder in the dark.

She froze.

The chill of the night touched the tips of her toes and fingers, creeping up her limbs to her chest. She began to shiver.

Then the splash.

A body striking the water.

Somewhere in the mist, there was the sound of voices murmuring indistinctly, all round shapes and half-formed words. In her little boat, Tanin clutched her stomach, rocking herself back and forth as the tears coursed down her cheeks, past her open mouth, her lips forming the words but not saying them.

No, no, no, no, no . . .

They had killed her.

They had killed her.

And it was Tanin's fault.

If only she'd allowed the Assassin to act sooner . . . If only she hadn't been so harsh with her . . . If only she hadn't allowed herself to be so distracted by that little girl . . .

There was a knock at the door.

Bleary-eyed, Tanin looked up from the page. What had she written? She could barely read her own handwriting. Dashing tears from her eyes, she pulled the carved cylindrical lid over the desk, hiding her writing instruments.

She cleared her throat. “Come in.”

The door swung open, and in strode the ship's lieutenant. Escalia was a formidable woman, broad as a man across the shoulders and chest, with an upright bearing that made every room seem to shrink as soon as she entered.

She flicked Tanin a smart salute. “The Everican ship is gone, ma'am. Limped off into the fog and left no trace.” Her voice was bold and roughened by weather, but it still retained a brassy shine.

Tanin nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Shall we mount a search?” Escalia's gold teeth flashed in the lantern light.

Tanin had known it would happen eventually, this conflict between Darion's Blue Navy and herself, with his Stone Kingdom at war with Oxscini, and her ship caught out in the open like any other outlaw. But that didn't make it less of a nuisance. She didn't have time to fight off the Blue Navy when she was chasing the
Current of Faith
. “No,” she said. “Continue on course to Jahara.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Tanin eyed her for a moment. “Is that it?”

The lieutenant cocked her head. “Is what it, ma'am?”

“You're not going to argue with me?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Well that's refreshing,” Tanin said wearily.

Escalia shrugged. “I follow orders. I don't question.”

“What about your own opinions?”

“I'm a simple woman, ma'am. I leave the opinion-having to minds greater than my own.” The lieutenant paused, thumbing one of the metal bands she wore on her upper arms. “I know there's always a reason you do what you do. Things always turn out.”

Tanin pressed the pads of her fingers to her paper cuts. “Do they?”

“Yes, ma'am, I believe they do. Even a tragedy such as this.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. You're dismissed.”

Snapping Tanin another salute, Escalia squeezed out of the cabin and shut the door behind her with a
click
.

Tanin stared at the back of the door. The entire thing was
a mirror with a silver frame of pages and waves—the letters spraying upward into frothy whitecaps, with riptides and whirlpools of words below—details so exquisite it seemed as if the frame were made of liquid metal.

She had always believed that coincidences didn't exist, that everything that happened, happened for a reason. But what reason was there for the Assassin's death?

They could have retrieved the Book at the cabin in Kambali. The Assassin had wanted to do it, but Tanin had stopped her. Because of the girl.

Sliding back the top of the desk, Tanin skimmed the letter, her gaze hovering on the words:

The Second is dead.

But now she felt numb, as if by the fifth time repeating it, throwing herself against the rocks of her grief, they had finally eroded, leaving nothing but smooth cold emptiness behind. Grimly, she folded the paper with crisp movements and ironed the creases.

It all came back to the girl. She had the Book. She knew Illumination. She had somehow freed a candidate, and together they had discovered that the final test lay in Jahara.

And she was a killer.

With a match, Tanin heated a stick of wax until molten pearls began to drop one by one onto the paper, creating an inky black pool. She flicked her tongue over a brass seal to moisten it and pressed the stamp firmly into the wax.

A reader
and
a killer.

The idea spread through her as the wax cooled and hardened beneath the pressure of the seal.

Was
this
why the Assassin had died?

So they would have an opening in their ranks?

The seal had left an impression in the wax, and Tanin traced it with raw fingertips. A circle inscribed with four lines, as familiar to her now as the shape of her own face.

It fit. It was almost perfect. The girl was a little old to be inducted, but exceptions could be made. After all, she already had no one. No family. No existing ties.

She'd make an excellent Assassin.

Everything under the sun came full circle—the seasons, the stars, the cycles of life itself. It was like poetry.

Carefully, Tanin gathered up the five letters, shuffling them into place between her hands, and approached the mirror. Her face, normally pale and smooth as chalk, was pink and bloated with crying. She studied her own reflection with disgust.

She was the Director—the leader of their order, the one to whom all the Masters and their Apprentices looked for protection and guidance—and the Director did not show weakness.

Edmon had been weak. And his weakness had cost them all.

She stared into her gray eyes and tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear, summoning the words of her oath as if they were an incantation.

“Once I lived in darkness, but now I bear the flame,” she whispered. “It is mine to carry until darkness comes for me again . . .”

She straightened the collar of her ivory blouse, redid the buttons of her vest, regaining her resolve as she recited the words.

“It shall be my duty to protect the Book from discovery and
misuse, and establish stability and peace for all the citizens of Kelanna.”

Running the blade of her finger beneath her eyes to remove the last of her tears, she sniffed a few times and raised her chin.

“I shall fear no challenge. I shall fear no sacrifice. In all my actions, I shall be beyond reproach.”

Tanin's gaze roved over her reflection. “I am the shade in the desert,” she murmured. “I am the beacon on the rock. I am the wheel that drives the firmament.” With every sentence her voice grew stronger, until it rang like steel and glittered like ice, and anyone who heard it would know in their bones that she was as hard and impenetrable as armor, and she would not be moved from her course.