Kingdom at Sea Read online

  “The new Armanian island is close, is it not?” Ulrik asked.

  “Yes, Your Eminence,” Balat said, “or so they claim. I would like to put together a landing party to be ready to go ashore immediately when we arrive.”

  “I will be part of that,” Jazlyn said.

  “No,” Ulrik said. “No landing party. Not until we know what we’re dealing with. It could be this island suffered the Woes as well. We would be wise to go slowly.”

  “I ask only to prepare a landing party, Your Eminence,” Balat said. “It would not set out until you gave word to do so.”

  “Very well, General,” Ulrik said. “Choose your party, but I will approve every member.”

  “It is right that you should do so, Emperor Ulrik,” Jazlyn said slowly. “But do not forget that I am not yours to command, nor are my people. It is my wish to explore this new island and determine whether or not it is right for Tenma. Do not stand in my way.”

  Silence passed as everyone awaited Ulrik’s reply.

  Concern etched his face. “I would never, Great Lady. I only fear for your safety.”

  Priestess Jazlyn inclined her head, which was the closest she ever came to bowing to Ulrik. She stood then and smoothed out the creases in her white gown. “If there is nothing else, Emperor, my people await my return.”

  Ulrik stood, and everyone else at the table mirrored him. “Good evening, Great Lady.”

  She left without a farewell, Qoatch trailing behind.

  The moment the door closed, Ulrik fell into his chair, slouching low like a lazy boy. “She will never respect me. She hates me!”

  “The priestess takes offense at all of us,” General Balat said. “She does not wish to be aboard the Baretam. She and her people talk of leaving the first chance they get.”

  Ulrik leaned forward and banged his fist on the table. “That is exactly my concern! If I give the priestess a chance to leave this ship, she will never return. So I will not permit her to leave.”

  Silence fell over the table. Inolah could resist no longer. “You seek her respect, yet you would keep her prisoner? To what end?”

  He lifted his goblet, noticed it was empty, and set it back down, frowning. “I seek to make her my bride, Mother. I thought that was plain.”

  Somehow the following silence seemed greater than the one before. Inolah looked around the table and saw that none of Ulrik’s craven advisors would look him in the eye and call him a fool. Again she must do the ugly work.

  “You cannot force a woman to love you, Ulrik, and certainly not by keeping her prisoner.”

  “Going to accuse me of being my father again, I suppose?” he asked.

  “Quite the opposite. Your father would have had her arrested, maybe even whipped, for defying a direct order, but you respected her when you granted her wish to rule her own people. And she bowed her head in thanks. That is the type of behavior you should continue if you wish to win her heart.”

  His dark eyes flashed. “Why do you always do that? Compare me to him? He is dead, and I don’t care to hear about what he would have done.”

  “I only said that to praise how you—”

  “I don’t want your praise!” Somehow Inolah had become the focus of Ulrik’s crushed pride. “You think me too young to be a competent ruler. You think me a fool where the High Queen is concerned. You think Sir Kalenek is smarter than me. You went behind my back and released the prophetess Onika on his order.” He gestured around the table. “I have plenty of wise men to advise me. I am no foolish lamb. I am a ram with horns of fire, and it is well past time you left the hard work of ruling Rurekau to the men. Good night, Mother. You may go.”

  Tears choked her throat, flooded, and overflowed her eyes before she could try to fight them back. The pregnancy had long ago taken control of her emotions, but this time she could not blame them alone. She picked up her handkerchief from the table and dabbed her cheeks, stood, and walked down the length of the table toward the door.

  “Come, Ferro,” she said to her youngest son. “I shall get you put to bed.”

  “No,” Ulrik said. “I am his guardian now. Ferro is old enough to sit up with the men.”

  Inolah swayed and had to grip the back of a chair to keep from stumbling.

  General Balat jumped up and grabbed her arm. “Easy, Empress. Are you well?”

  I am heartbroken. Ulrik, in all his overwhelming insecurities, had lashed out at her. She knew that Jazlyn’s continual rejection was toying with his self-worth. And his mother’s presence and contributions had emasculated him in a place where he sought to have ultimate wisdom. She did not wish to abandon him, but as Master Jhorn had suggested, perhaps that was exactly what she must do.

  “Your wish, my son, is granted,” she said. “I bid you good night. And when we arrive at the new island, I will leave you and Ferro to your very wise council.” She swept from the room before allowing Ulrik a chance to reply, though Ferro’s cries of “Mama!” made it very hard to keep going.

  Grayson

  Grayson sat on his knees, scratching the heavy stone over the main deck, rubbing off brackish grime until the creamy wood beneath shone through. If he missed a spot, Nuel would tell that Roya woman, and she liked to punish anyone who made mistakes.

  As Grayson worked, he daydreamed. Over and over, he relived his past. This usually made him feel good, especially when he pretended things had gone differently. His favorite was to imagine that he had gotten out of the dinghy before the thieves had cut the lines. Now he was living on the Seffynaw with Onika, Sir Kalenek, Prince Wilek, and the king of Armania, whose name he could never remember.

  Other times he dreamed he had taken the first thief’s knife, pushed both thieves overboard, and saved the boat. In that dream Sir Kalenek had been so impressed with Grayson’s bravery that he told the prince, who knightened Grayson for his heroism.

  But neither of those things had happened. Instead Grayson had first been taken to The Wanderer, a dirty, fat ship that normally carried grain—so said one of the young sailors. Grayson didn’t like being on The Wanderer. It had been very crowded, and no one shared their food with him, so he’d sneaked around eating crumbs and crusts and fruit cores, and sometimes stealing food and water.

  Jhorn wouldn’t have liked that, which made Grayson feel guilty. So when the ship anchored with the fleet at a place called Odarka, and a man called Nuel came aboard offering jobs on a great ship called the Vespara, Grayson had happily volunteered. A great ship must have better food. Plus he felt it might even provide a way back to the Seffynaw or even Emperor Ulrik’s Baretam.

  He had been wrong.

  The man Nuel had lied about the jobs. Those in power on the Vespara were Magonian. And the Magonians had wanted slaves, not workers. The new men and boys had been forced to empty and clean chamber pots and slop buckets, to scrub blood and entrails from the deck after animal sacrifices, to do whatever they were told. Any who moved too slowly would be struck. Any who made mistakes or disobeyed had to face Roya, who tattooed a rune on their necks that forced them to obey by magic.

  Grayson had managed to avoid this so far by using his abilities. Jhorn had always told him not to, but Grayson figured this was an emergency. He had obscured the color of his dappled skin so that his masters would think him filthy rather than special. And he sometimes walked in the Veil where no one could see him. At first he’d been scared to, knowing that a Magonian ship would have lots of shadir on board. But when he finally gave in and tried it, he saw only one black spirit. This confused him. Where were all the shadir? Even though he didn’t see them, he took care to only enter the Veil when he had no other choice. He did not want these people or the black spirits to know what he could do.

  These worries brought Grayson to his daydreams of getting off the Vespara. He had hoped Sir Kalenek might come rescue him. But day after day passed, and the Vespara sailed so far back from the rest of the fleet that no one would ever pay attention to them.

  No one came for Gray
son. He had been forgotten.

  So he set his mind on escape. He had been brought aboard on the boat fall and figured he might be able to use it to get away. There were two problems with this plan. First, he couldn’t lower the dinghy by himself. That took at least two men. Second, the ship traveled too far from the rest of the fleet. So even if Grayson did manage to launch the dinghy, he wasn’t certain he could ever row as far as he would need to.

  Yelling near the boat fall caused him to look up from his work. Some men were hoisting a dinghy. One man shouted at another, who hollered at a group of sailors. All of them sprinted away but came right back with more men. Nuel arrived, ordering them all to carry things like a big chair made of woven branches, a rolled red rug, and lots of dried palm leafs. The rug got rolled out beside the boat fall. The chair put on top. Men lined up on both sides, each holding a palm leaf.

  Grayson thought all this very strange. He went back to scrubbing but kept an eye on all those men, wondering who was coming and why this person had sparked such a fuss. When the dinghy reached the top, a woman sat inside all by herself. She wore a green dress that made her look like a rich man’s housemaid. Grayson thought she was about twenty or so years old.

  “Help me out, you oaf!” The woman all but threw herself into the arms of the men, who dropped their palms to lift her out of the boat and sit her in the chair of branches. Then all the men kneeled in a hurry and bowed with their heads touching the deck.

  Bowing to a servant? That was strange.

  Sir Kalenek had once dubbed Grayson a spy. In that moment, that was what Grayson decided to be. Surely Sir Kalenek would want to know about what was happening here. He set aside the sandstone and pushed into the Veil to conceal himself. Then he got up and walked toward the people crowded around the strange woman.

  “Oh!” she cried, pressing her hands against her cheeks. “It’s happening already. I thought I had more time.”

  Grayson gaped as her skin began to bubble and stretch. Her straight black hair turned copper brown and curled into wispy strands.

  As her body changed, she continued barking orders. “Two, see that my room is prepared. I’ll need a bath. Where is my First? I must petition Magon for cleansing.”

  “Here, Chieftess.” A woman holding a mat shoved between the men.

  This was the Chieftess? What happened next reminded Grayson of what Priestess Jazlyn did to purge evenroot poison from her body. Grayson bet it did the same thing. The Chieftess prayed to the shadir she had bonded with, asking it to heal her of the poison she had taken to do her magic spells.

  Grayson knew her shadir would be coming now, but he still couldn’t see it. The group of people around the Chieftess remained still, watching her pray. Suddenly a young woman stepped out from the crowd. She had reddish-brown skin, gray eyes, and long coils of copper-brown hair. Was she another mantic? Or maybe another one of the women with numbers for names?

  She reached down to the Chieftess, who looked up and took hold of her hand.

  “I have healed you,” the young woman said.

  A chill ran over Grayson at the spiritual sound of that voice. That was no woman. It was the shadir! The other people seemed not to see or hear it. Only the Chieftess responded. Grayson watched, shocked. He had never seen a shadir pretend to look human before. They usually looked like monsters or two animals squished together.

  The Chieftess’s body continued to change, stretching as colors faded from one into another, all while she held the hand of her shadir.

  When the change ended, Grayson gasped. Couldn’t help it. The Chieftess now looked exactly like her shadir, as if they were twins.

  The shadir vanished, and the Chieftess stood and walked away from her throne, stepping over the kneeling people. “Is my bath ready?” she said to no one in particular.

  “Yes, Chieftess,” a man said, jumping up and chasing after her.

  “Chieftess?” asked another man who stood up from the crowd. “What happened to Charlon? Is she dead?”

  The Chieftess glanced back at the man. “Not yet. But she will be soon enough. She is a fool and a failure. Oh . . .” She chuckled, frowning at the man. “Don’t look so glum, Torol. I know you liked her company. But trust in me and you will forget her soon enough.”

  The man bowed his head. “Yes, Chieftess.”

  Once the Chieftess and her cluster of followers had moved out of earshot, Grayson slipped away to the bow and gazed out at the other ships on the horizon. The Vespara followed the fleet at a distance—never came close to any other ship. Grayson could not tell which, if any, of the tiny specks out there might be the Seffynaw.

  Why hadn’t Sir Kalenek come to rescue him?

  Grayson did not want to be on this ship. He wanted to be with Onika and Jhorn. Missed them very much. He did not like Magonians. Shadir frightened him. Mantics frightened him too. That a powerful bonded pair had come aboard the Vespara terrified him. If one of them were to notice his skin, to really look at it, or if they saw him in the Veil, they might learn what he was. And then, just as Jhorn had always warned, they would use Grayson for their evil purposes.

  He had no idea what that meant, but it sounded bad. Now more than ever, Grayson needed a way to escape. But how?

  Kalenek

  Kal stood behind Wilek’s chair, watching a sailor move in the rigging above. The king had ordered a midday meal served at his round table on the stern deck. His rollchair had been secured, facing the back of the ship and the fleet. Wilek said this gave his father pride to see so many ships at their back, following his lead.

  Though it was truly Admiral Vendal’s lead.

  Wilek sat on the king’s right, sârahs Hrettah and Rashah on his left, and Miss Onika, as the king’s new prophet, sat directly opposite. Sârs Janek and Trevn had been summoned, but neither had shown up.

  Kal risked a glance at Onika then, stunned afresh by her beauty. She had, again, removed her straw hat, which was sitting on the table before her. The sun made her hair and skin look white and soft like freshly picked cotton, though the burns she had suffered from the sun over the past month had darkened her skin some and brought out several freckles on the bridge of her nose. The only one not eating, she sat with her hands in her lap, her glassy gaze focused on the center of the table. A bowl of pino melons sat there, but Kal knew she did not see them.

  Her dune cat Rustian lay under her chair. Every so often his tail reached up, touched Onika’s arm, then curled back down around his feet.

  A shadow shifted, catching Kal’s attention. The sailor had moved back to the mizzenmast and was climbing down. Good. Kal relaxed a bit until Harton’s bark of laughter pulled his gaze to where he and the guards were blocking the stairs from the quarterdeck, talking with Onika’s newly appointed honor maidens, Tulay and Yoana. Kal glared at the group. No one took their jobs as seriously as he did his.

  Yet few had failed so horribly, inspiring such hypervigilance.

  Kal had only ever wanted to do his job well, but good intentions had never been enough. He had lost his men back in the Centenary War. He had lost his wife and child. And now he had lost young Grayson. His frantic search of The Wanderer, where he’d hoped to find the boy, had led only to the knowledge that Grayson had taken a job aboard another ship. Apparently several employers had come looking for able-bodied sailors. And while Grayson was truly only eight or nine years old, his being a root child had given him the body of a young man.

  Six subsequent ships had been thoroughly searched, and three claimed never to have hired workers from The Wanderer. Wilek believed the captain of The Wanderer had lied about the ships he’d done business with, and further questioning of the crew and passengers revealed as much. Several remembered Grayson’s dappled skin, but not one person could recall the name of the mystery ship, as if someone had erased it from their memories.

  This convinced Wilek that the Magonians were to blame. While anchored in the Port of Odarka, they had learned from Prince Loran that Magonians had stolen the Sarikar
ian flagship Vespara and likely kidnapped King Jorger as well. But no sign of the Vespara had been found among the fleet. Wilek surmised they were somehow hiding themselves with magic. After all that Kal had seen of mantics in his day, he had no doubt it was possible.

  “Come now, True Prophet,” the king said, his voice winded and raspy. “Tell me what will be served for dessert.”

  “Miss Onika does not prophesy on demand, Father,” Wilek said. Rosâr Echad had been told this over and over, yet he continued to ask Onika to perform parlor tricks like a jester.

  “A child should obey her elders,” the king said, rapping his ringed knuckles on the tabletop. “Should obey her king. Tell her so, Wilek. Tell her to obey me!”

  When Rosâr Echad became angry these days, his sunken eyes reminded Kal of a shadir he’d seen during the war. He concentrated to keep his mind from drifting to that place as it was wont to do.

  Onika chuckled. “Prophecy is a gift from Arman, Your Highness, not a way of fortune-telling.”

  The king growled. “Arman, Arman. He is all you talk about!”

  “Where is Janek?” Wilek asked. “You did invite him, did you not?”

  “Indeed I did,” the king said. “He had better not spurn my goodwill after I pardoned him. I can understand his anger. Having been locked up for more than a fortnight would make anyone upset, but he has yet to meet Miss Onika. Normally an exotic woman like her would bring him running to have a look. Perhaps he isn’t feeling well. Tell me something about Janek, prophetess. Why isn’t he here? Is he ill?”

  “Father, she does not prophesy on command.”

  “Yes, yes, so you’ve told me,” the king said. “And where is Trevn?”

  “Perhaps the messenger could not find him,” Wilek said. “He does tend to wander.”

  “Always exploring.” The king slammed his palms on the table. “Everyone rejects me. Even you, prophetess, ignored my summons last night.”

  “Arman allowed you to bring destruction upon yourselves once,” Onika said. “Yet you test his patience a second time by sacrificing to other gods?”