The merchant’s son searched their faces. He was a wind magician by birth but those were common. He had a second, more valuable skill: a keen eye for details, and with it, a knack for spotting lies. His father appreciated the talent because it came in handy when asking sailors about their inventory, how a crate was lost, why a purchase had fallen through, or vanished en route.
He didn’t know why or how he could so quickly parse a person’s features. The flickering tension between the eyes, the quick clench of teeth, the dozen tiny tugs and twitches that made up their expression. It was its own language. One that the merchant’s son had always been able to read.
He turned his attention back to the book on the table, tried to focus on the words he’d consumed a hundred times, but his mind slipped uselessly across the page.
His knee bounced beneath the table.
He shifted in his chair, and flinched, the skin at the base of his spine still raw from the brand that bound him to his chosen path. If he focused, he could feel the lines of it, the splayed fingers like spokes running out from the palm. That hand was a symbol of progress, of change, of—
Treason.
That was the word the merchant had shouted as he’d followed his son through the house.
“You only call it that,” the younger man countered, “because you do not understand.”
“Oh, I understand,” snapped the merchant, face flushing red. “I understand that my son is a child. I understand that Rhy Maresh was a brave prince, and now he is a valiant king. Seven years he’s ruled, and in that time, he has avoided a war with Vesk, opened new trade channels, channels that help us, and—”
“—and none of that changes the fact that the empire’s magic is failing.”
The merchant threw up his hands. “That is nothing but a rumor.”
“It’s not,” said the son, adjusting the satchel on his shoulder. He had already packed, because a ship to London was leaving that day, and he would be on it. “A new Antari hasn’t emerged since Kell Maresh, a quarter century ago. Fewer magicians are showing an affinity for multiple elements, and more are being born with none at all. My friend’s niece—”
“Oh, your friend’s niece—” sniped the merchant, but his son persisted.
“She’s seven now, born a month after your king was crowned. She has no power. Another friend has a cousin, born within the year. Another, a son.”
The merchant only shook his head. “There have always been those without—”
“Not this many, or this close together. It is a warning. A reckoning. Something is broken in the world. And it’s been broken for a while. There is a sickness spreading through Arnes. A rot at the heart of the empire. If we do not cut it out, we cannot heal. It is a small sacrifice to make for the greater good.”
“A small sacrifice? You want to kill the king!”
The merchant’s son flinched. “No, we’ll motivate the people, and build their voices loud enough, and if the king is so noble as he claims, then he will understand that if he truly wants what is best for his kingdom, he will step aside and—”
“If you believe this will end without blood, then you are a traitor and a fool.”
The merchant’s son turned to go, and for the first time, his father reached out and caught his arm. Held him there. “I should turn you in.”
Anger burned in his father’s eyes, and for a moment, the merchant’s son thought that he would resort to violence. Panic bloomed behind his ribs, but he held the older man’s gaze. “You must follow your heart,” he said. “Just as I follow mine.”
The father looked at his son as if he were a stranger. “Who put this idea into your head?”
“No one.”
But of course that wasn’t true.
After all, most ideas came from somewhere. Or someone.
This one had come from her.
She had hair so dark, it ate the light. That was the first thing the merchant’s son had noticed. Black as midnight, and skin the warm brown that came with life at sea. Eyes the same shade, and shot through with flecks of gold, though he wouldn’t be close enough to see them until later. He’d been on the docks counting inventory when she arrived, cut like a blade through the boredom of his day.
One moment he was holding a bolt of silver lace up to the sun, and the next, there she was, peering at him through the pattern, and soon they were turning through the bolts together, and then the cloth was forgotten and she was leading him up the ramp of her ship, and laughing, not a delicate wind-chime laugh like the girls his age put on, but something raw, and wild, and they climbed down into the warm, dark hold, and he was undoing the buttons of her shirt, and he must have seen it then, the brand, like a shadow on her ribs, as if a lover had grabbed her there, burned their hand into her skin, but it wasn’t until after, when they lay flushed and happy, that he brought his own palm and fingers to the mark and asked her what it was.
And in the darkened hold, she’d told him. About the movement that had started, how fast and strong it had grown. The Hand, she’d said, would take the weakness in the world and make it right.
“The Hand holds the weight that balances the scale,” she said, stroking his bare skin. “The Hand holds the blade that carves the path of change.”
He devoured her words, as if they belonged to a novel, but they didn’t. This was better. This was real. An adventure he could be a part of, a chance to be a hero.
He would have sailed away with her that night, but by the time he returned to the docks, the ship was gone. Not that it mattered, in the end. She hadn’t been Vera to his Olik but she was a catalyst, something to turn the hero toward his purpose.
“I know you do not understand,” he’d said to his father. “But the scales have fallen out of balance, and someone must set them right.”
The merchant was still gripping his son’s arm, searching his face for answers, even though he wasn’t ready to hear them.
“But why must it be you?”
Because, thought the merchant’s son.
Because he had lived twenty-two years, and had yet to do anything of consequence. Because he lay awake at night and longed for an adventure. Because he wanted a chance to matter, to make a difference in the world—and this was it.
But he knew he couldn’t say any of that, not to his father, so he simply met the merchant’s eye and said, “Because I can.”
The merchant pulled him closer, cupped his son’s face in shaking hands. This close, he could see that his father’s eyes were glassy with tears. Something in him slipped and faltered, then. Doubt began creeping in.
But then his father spoke.
“Then you are a fool, and you will die.”
The son staggered, as if struck. He read the lines of the merchant’s face, and knew the man believed the words were true. Knew, then, too, that he’d never be able to convince his father otherwise.
The woman’s voice drifted back to him, then, up from the darkened hold.
Some people cannot see the need for change until it’s done.
His nerves hardened, and so did his resolve.
“You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “And I will show you.”
With that, the merchant’s son pulled free of his father’s hands, and walked out. This time, no one stopped him.
That had been a month ago.
A month, so little time, and yet, so much had changed. He had the brand, and now, he had the mission.
The door to the Gilded Fish swung open, and a man strolled in. His gaze swept over the tables before landing on the merchant’s son.
He broke into a smile, as if they were old friends, and even if the look had been leveled at someone else, the merchant’s son would have known it was a lie.
“There you are,” called the stranger as he strolled over to the table. He had the gait of a sailor, the bearing of a guard. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s all right,” said the merchant’s son, even as a nervous energy rolled through him, half excitement and half fear. The other man carried no satchel, and weren’t there supposed to be two of them? But before he could say more, the stranger cut in.