Authors: Laura Resnick
He stared at the goddess in bewildered astonishment for a moment.
No, you're wrong.
You are not Sorin and Palomar's son.
Of course I am!
No.
Sorin and Palomar are—
They lied to you,
she told him gently.
Your whole life.
No!
His father a drylander? Absolutely not! No.
You're wrong.
I am Sharifar. I know.
I don't believe you!
You—
You're lying!
—
must
—
No, I won't listen! I am Lascari
!
Zarien....
She warned him against such disrespect by releasing one of his hands. The current tossed him around violently. Sharifar's cool grip on his other hand was his only anchor, his only link to survival. The gods only knew where this current would take him if she let go.
Darkness surrounded him. Cold filled him. He needed air. He needed to breathe. He would die any moment if he couldn't get air! Panic seized him. Pain consumed him. The deep wounds of the dragonfish's teeth began bleeding again. He'd be dead in moments, whether he drowned, bled to death, or was scented and attacked by another dragonfish.
He had always believed he would die at sea, perhaps just this way—wounded and drowning... But now he would die not knowing the truth about himself, consumed by this terrible doubt, poisoned by Sharifar's humiliating claim.
I am Lascari!
And he would prove it.
He would die soon enough. Perhaps even from another dragonfish attack. But he would die knowing who he was, knowing the pride of the Lascari was his by birth. He didn't want to die now, like this, in doubt and shame.
I will listen
, he conceded at last.
A strong, cool hand grasped his flailing one and brought him face to face with the goddess again. His pain faded, his blood stopped flowing, and his lungs stopped burning. Angry and resentful, Zarien regarded Sharifar stonily and resisted the lure of her exquisite beauty. She smiled sympathetically.
It's time for you to seek your true father
, she told him,
just as it is time for me to embrace my consort.
My true father
, he repeated without belief or enthusiasm.
You will bring my consort to me
.
As you wish
, he replied obediently, burning with outrage.
You will make your own choices about your father
.
He couldn't stop himself, for thoughts flowed with far less control than words:
Sorin is my father
.
Sorin raised you, but he is not your father
.
Then why didn't he tell me that himself
?
Because you were only a child.
Suddenly, despite the goddess's protection, he felt the full
weight and chill of the sea's depths again. Could Sharifar's claims possibly be true? Was this appalling discovery something Sorin would have revealed to him once he truly became a man?
The affectionate name by which he had always known Sorin came unbidden to his thoughts:
Papa...
Sorin cannot be your father any longer.
But when he knows I'm alive—
You're going to walk the dryland
, she said.
You can never be Lascari again. Your sea-bound life is over.
But I...
His mind went blank as her words ripened in his heart. She was right. No matter who was really his father, and no matter how glad the Lascari would be to learn he was alive, setting foot upon land would ensure banishment from the clan for the rest of his life.
This was the price of his life. He could never be Lascari again.
He would have preferred death, except that he could not let Sharifar send him incomplete to that shore which had no other shore. He had to know the truth about his birth, about his blood, before he sailed into death.
I... I will be an outcast
. If he weren't hovering beyond life, somewhere in the domain of the gods, he would have had to fight tears.
You will find your own life ashore
, she promised.
The sea is my life
.
The world is changing, Zarien. You must change with it.
I want to see my—I want to see Sorin
, he said suddenly.
I want him to tell me. To my face.
In time, perhaps. Now you must go in search of my consort.
On land?
Yes.
Your consort is...
No, surely not.
Your consort is a drylander?
Yes.
You can't take a drylander as your consort! How can the sea-born accept him as their king?
He is chosen by Dar.
Dar is... She is not...
The volcano rules even the sea-born.
But the sea-born do not worship—
The sea-born will accept my consort, as I will accept Dar's choice for my mate.
Then I... I will bring him
, Zarien said with far more resignation than hope.
To earn my life, I will bring him to you
.
Perhaps sensing all the doubts he tried to hide from her, Sharifar added,
It will be no small thing, Zarien, to bring back the first king of the sea-born in a thousand years
.
That, at least, was true.
How will I know him?
She smiled again.
It's enough that I will know him
.
But I—
He gasped when she released both his hands, abandoning him to the fierce current.
Sharifar!
She spread her graceful fins through the water and moved forward, following him. The shimmering veils grew larger and larger, covering Zarien, spreading around him like the open sky on a clear day. From this veiled covering emerged a long slender object, slowly floating toward him. He recognized what it was only moments before colliding with it—a
stahra
, the weapon of a man. Sharifar's gift to him, he supposed.
He seized the metal-tipped oar in bitter resignation and let it take him where it would. The shimmering veils of the goddess drifted away, leaving him alone in the endless sea. The current shifted and pulled him in a new direction. Free of pain or the need to breathe, he let it carry him according to Sharifar's will, away from her and away from his own death.
He couldn't believe the sea-born would accept a drylander as their first king in centuries. He couldn't understand why a sea goddess was bowing to Dar's will. How much could the world possibly be changing? How much more would it need to change for Sharifar to be satisfied and for Dar's will to be done?
And he... he would never sail as a Lascari again. If Sharifar was to be believed, he had never been one in the first place...
He must return to Sorin and Palomar, must make them tell him the truth!
The sea soothed his desperate thoughts, carrying him safely through this strange realm between life and death. He supposed Sharifar would protect him until he reached the shore, so he had no fear of reefs, rocks, nets, or dragonfish.
Once he reached shore, though... The fear of
that
threatened to consume him. He knew nothing about life on land. He would be as helpless as a baby among the landfolk. How would he survive?
His musings ended when, contrary to his previous expectations, the current hurled him against a rock. He gasped—and immediately began coughing as he inhaled saltwater. The goddess's protection was evidently withdrawn, he reflected sourly, now that he had reached land. He was on his own from now on.
Zarien braced himself as the waves broke against the rocks again, then he grappled for purchase with one hand while holding onto the
stahra
with the other. His seeking hand slipped on slime at first, but then he got firm hold of a rough surface and hauled himself out of the water. Breathing hard, he sat down on a rock and looked around. It was still nighttime, and now thick clouds obscured even the faint light of the first new moon. He couldn't see far and or make out any details beyond observing some rocky shoreline. He wouldn't know much more until morning.
However, assuming he was on the Adalian coast—since he'd fallen overboard in Adalian's coastal waters—he tried to come up with a plan. He wanted most of all to return to the open sea, to find his parents... to find Sorin and Palomar, that was, and confront them with the goddess's tale of his dead mother and drylander father. But he looked longingly out at the dark sea, listening to its familiar roar, and knew it was hopeless. He had no boat. No sea-born folk would be in port right now, even if he could find a port in the morning. All sea-born clans were at sea for
Bharata Ma-al
. There were usually foreign ships in any sizeable port, but he had no money and so couldn't pay them to take him back to his family. And certainly no
toren
's yacht would escort him to the Lascari; the aristocratic
toreni
did not make a habit of exerting themselves for commoners.
By the time any sea-born folk returned to port, the
bharata
would be over and the Lascari would be sailing for Shaljir. Zarien's presumed death wouldn't change those plans.
So perhaps he should go overland to Shaljir, searching for Sharifar's consort along the way. And whether or not he found him by the time he reached Shaljir, he could try to contact the Lascari once he reached Sileria's greatest port.
As for finding Sharifar's consort... It occurred to Zarien that there was already a likely candidate. Who better to embrace Sharifar than the man who had already survived the embrace of Dar? Who better to become the sea king than the Firebringer himself? Who better to unite the volcano and the sea than Josarian, who had already united the landfolk and the sea-born against the Valdani?
He must find Josarian. He must take the Firebringer to Sharifar. Who else could Dar have chosen for her consort?
Of course, finding Josarian would be no easy task. Even Zarien knew that Josarian's movements were a closely guarded secret. Not only did the Valdani keep increasing the reward offered for his death, but now Kiloran, the great waterlord, was his enemy and sought to slay him, too—which meant many assassins, as well as many other waterlords of the Honored Society, were after the Firebringer.
Although the sea-born folk remained Josarian's loyal allies, Zarien knew enough about landfolk to realize that asking them to tell him where Josarian was would be useless. The
shallaheen
wouldn't trust a sea-born boy any more than the lowlanders would trust a city-dweller or a
toren
would trust an assassin. Josarian's unique gift was that he had somehow made Sileria's feuding and disparate peoples work together towards a common goal: freedom from the Valdani. For a time, at least. Now that Kiloran was his enemy, who knew how much longer the Firebringer's day of glory would last? The rebel alliance was crumbling even with victory against the Valdani in sight. Life in Sileria never really changed.
I must find Josarian before Kiloran or the Society do, before the Valdani do.
Zarien shivered as the coastal breeze swept over his wet skin and clothing. He shivered with loneliness and fear, too. He had not yet become a man according to the customs of the sea-born, and now he faced a task that he believed would make most men tremble. But, he reminded himself, he bore the tattoos of a man and his
stahra
had been given to him by a sea goddess. Manhood was upon him, whether or not this was the way he had expected to earn it. Surrounded by darkness and comforted only by the never-silent sea, he wondered where to start his search for the Firebringer.