The lanterns on the Pursuit were extinguished. The ship was so tall that Tané had little fear of the lookouts. They would never see two heads in the dark water. After all, these nine-masted treasure galleons were larger than any other ship in the world. More than large enough to hold a dragon.
Movement was difficult. The cold stiffened her joints. Tané sucked in a breath and went below the waves again. When she came up beside the Pursuit, Loth was close behind, shivering uncontrollably. She had meant to crawl in through the gun ports, but they were closed, and there were no obvious handholds.
The anchor. It was the only link between the water and the deck. She swam beside the hull until she reached the stern.
Salt water mingled with sweat as she lifted herself from the sea and climbed. She could hear Loth struggling up behind her. Every inch of progress felt hard-won. Each limb was fighting to remember its strength.
Close to the top, she lost her grip.
It happened too fast for her to so much as take a breath, let alone scream. One moment she was rising; the next, falling—then she hit something warm and solid. She looked down to see Loth below her. Her foot had landed on his shoulder.
She could tell he was straining to hold them both up, but he smiled. Tané looked away and kept climbing.
Her arms were trembling by the time she reached the defaced carving of the great Imperial Dragon at the stern of the ship. She climbed around it, pulled herself over the side, and landed, light-footed, on the deck. The Golden Empress would be on the island, but she would have left guards behind.
Keeping low, Tané wrung the icy water from her tunic. Loth fell into a crouch beside her. She could just make out the silhouettes of the hundreds of pirates left on board.
The Pursuit was a lawless city on the sea. Like all pirate ships, it absorbed miscreants from many parts of the world. In this darkness, provided no one stopped them, they might be able to blend in. Three flights of steps would take them to the lowest deck on the ship.
She straightened and walked out from their hiding place. Loth followed her, keeping his head down.
Pirates surrounded them. Tané could hardly see any of their faces. She heard strains of their conversations.
“—gut the old man if he’s betrayed us.”
“He’s no fool. What purpose would there be in—?”
“He’s Mentish. The Seiikinese would have kept him cooped up like a songbird in Orisima,” a woman said. “Perhaps he would take death over imprisonment. Like the rest of us.”
Roos.
There was no other Ment they could be talking about.
Her fingertips grew hot. She itched to wrap her hands around his throat.
It was not Roos’s fault that she had been sent to Feather Island. She alone was to blame for that. Yet he had blackmailed her. He had dared to ask her to hurt Nayimathun. Now he was abetting the pirates who took and slaughtered dragons. For all those things, he deserved death.
She tried to quash the desire for it. There could be no distractions here.
They slipped into the stairway that would take them to the hull. At the bottom, one lantern flickered. Its flame revealed two scarred pirates, both armed with pistols and swords. Tané walked toward them.
“Who goes there?” one of them asked roughly.
One shout would draw a throng of pirates from above. She would have to kill them, and in silence.
Like water.
Her knife slid through the shadows, straight into a beating heart. Before the other guard could react, she had slit his throat. The look in his eyes was like nothing Tané had ever seen. The shock. The realization of his mortality. The reduction of his being to the wetness at his neck. A wordless sound came bubbling from his lips, and he crumpled at her feet.
The taste of iron filled her mouth. She watched the blood throb out of him, black in the lanternlight.
“Tané,” Loth said.
Her skin was as chill as the sword in her hand.
“Tané.” His voice was hoarse. “Please. We must hurry.”
Two corpses lay before her. Her stomach roiled, and blackness hit her like a cloud of flies.
She had killed. Not the way she had killed Susa. This time, she had taken life with her own hand.
Dizzy, she raised her head. Loth removed the lantern that hung above the bodies and held it out to her. She took it, hand unsteady, and walked into the innards of the ship.
She could ask forgiveness from the great Kwiriki in good time. For now, she must find Nayimathun.
At first, all she could see were supplies. Barrels of water. Sacks of rice and millet. Chests that must be filled with plunder. When she caught a glimpse of green, she let out a breath.
Nayimathun.
She was still breathing. Chains held her down, and a wound had festered where scale had been torn from her flesh, but she was breathing.
Loth drew a sign on his chest. He looked as if he had seen his own doom.
Tané sank to her knees before the god who had once been her kin, abandoning her sword and lantern.
“Nayimathun.”
No answer. Tané tried to swallow the thickness in her throat. Her eyes brimmed as she took in the damage the chains had wreaked.
A tear ran to her jaw. She boiled with loathing. No one with a soul could do this to a living thing. No one with a shred of shame could treat a god this way. Dragons had sacrificed so much to protect the mortals who shared their world. In return, mortals gave only malice and greed.
Nayimathun kept breathing. Tané stroked a hand down her snout, where the scales were dry as cuttlebone. It was unspeakably cruel of them to have kept her out of water for this long.
“Great Nayimathun.” She whispered it. “Please. It’s me. It’s Tané. Let me take you home.”
One eye peeled open. The blue in it was dim, like the last glow of a long-dead star.
“Tané.”
She had never truly believed she would hear that voice again.
“Yes.” Another tear dribbled down her cheek. “Yes, great Nayimathun. I am here.”
“You came,” Nayimathun said. Her breaths were labored. “You should not have come.”
“I should have come sooner.” Tané lowered her head. “Forgive me. For letting them take you.”
“Someone took you first,” the dragon growled. A tooth was missing from her lower jaw. “You are hurt.”
“This is not my blood.” With unsteady hands, Tané opened the case at her hip and fumbled out the jewel. “I found one of the jewels you spoke about, Nayimathun. It was sewn into my side.” She held it out so the dragon could see it. “This Westerner claims he knows the one who has its twin.”
Nayimathun looked for a long time at the jewel, then at Loth, who was shaking in his boots.
“We can speak of this when we are in a safe place,” she said, “but by finding these jewels, you have given us a way to fight the Nameless One. For this, Tané, every dragon that draws breath is in your debt.” A faint light rippled through her scales. “I am still strong enough to break through the hull, but I must be free. You will need the key to my chains.”
“Tell me who has it.”
The dragon closed her eyes again.
“The Golden Empress,” she said.
62
East
The scholar was surrounded by flaming torches. It seemed to Niclays as if he had been circling the mulberry tree for hours, reading by firelight. During that time, hardly a word had passed between any of the pirates.
When the scholar finally straightened, every head flicked up. The Golden Empress was sitting nearby, sharpening her sword with one hand while her wooden arm weighted it in place. Each rasp of the whetstone down the blade cut Niclays to the quick.
“I am finished,” the scholar said.
“Good.” The Golden Empress did not deign to look up. “Tell us what you have learned.”
Trying not to breathe too hard, Niclays reached into his cloak for his handkerchief and mopped his brow.
“This is written in an ancient script of Seiiki,” the scholar said. “It tells the story of a woman named Neporo. She lived over a thousand years ago on this island. Komoridu.”
“We are all eager to hear it,” the Golden Empress said.
The scholar glanced up at the mulberry tree. Something about his expression still did not sit well with Niclays.
“Neporo lived in the fishing village of Ampiki. She made a paltry living as a pearl-diver, but despite her work, and that of her parents, her family had so little to live on that on some days, they had no choice but to eat leaves and soil from the forest floor.”
This was why Niclays had never understood Jannart’s obsession. History was miserable.