Oh, Markos.
The Emparchy of Akhaia was inherited through the male line. As a cousin, Konto Theucinian’s claim to the throne hadn’t been legitimate before, but it was now. What Markos had done, exchanging his own life for his sister’s, was so infuriatingly noble and stupid.
My throat ached, but it felt more like sickness than grief, like I should be in bed with my neck wrapped in a flannel and smeared with liniment. I wanted to cough and faint and throw up all at once.
The weather didn’t help any. Victorianos plowed through the whitecaps, heeling far over to starboard. Sailing Victorianos was not like sailing Cormorant. She fought me for control, as I wrestled with the tiller, trying to keep us on course. I almost imagined she was being fussy because she couldn’t believe someone as small and insignificant as me had been bold enough to steal her.
“All right, Vix,” I said out loud, because “Victorianos” was a mouthful. It seemed much too formal for an outlaw ship like this. “You aren’t going to get the better of me. You got to get used to that fact right now. I’m taking you down the Neck and out to sea. And you can’t stop me.”
The clouds broke apart, displaying faint stars, as if the sky winked at me. In that moment, I swear I felt the sea grow calmer and the wind slacken. But it was just wishful thinking.
The next two hours proved it. A bank of dark clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up. Rain battered the deck, as my hand grew numb on the tiller. The oilskins from the cutter’s lockers were meant to fit grown men, so they were far too big for me. Water ran down the gaping collar and into my sleeves, plastering my clothes to my upper body.
Eventually we passed the lighthouse at the end of the Neck. We were in the open ocean. I came about for the last time and slackened the sails. At this angle, I didn’t have to fight the wind and the water so much. Finally the slant of the deck lessened, and I felt like Vix wasn’t straining against me anymore.
To look upon the sea and try to understand it is to try to know the unknowable. It can’t be done. Gazing out into the sea’s vastness, I felt a hole at the bottom of my heart. And yet I thought the sea understood that. It knew emptiness. It knew despair. It echoed mine, throwing it back at me with the splash of the waves. Everything was rolling and lashing and gray, gray, gray.
I felt gray. I was shivering and soaked. Fee was dead and Cormorant was gone. I wished Pa was here, but I’d messed that up too—the Margravina’s soldiers would lock him up in darkness and squalor on a prison ship, and it was all my fault. Why hadn’t I told Ma the truth? Why had I been so foolish to think I could do this alone? The salt spray on my cheeks blended with my tears, erasing them like they were never there.
I’d been given one simple task—deliver the stupid crate to Valonikos. Now the true Emparch of Akhaia was dead, and I was tangled up in it. They should’ve sent someone the gods actually cared about. Any wherryman would have been better than me.
I screamed into the night. The sea swallowed my scream, taking my rage and grief into itself. I screamed so hard, my voice cracked and my eyes felt like they might explode.
Then I heard it—a rumble from the depths.
We weren’t alone. Something was out there.
An enormous head burst through the roiling waves, sending gallons of spray flying. It was tufted with what looked like wet feathers, and clumps of barnacles clung to its long, scaled neck. With it wafted a strong, snaky smell.
So great was my shock, I let go of the tiller.
It was a drakon. At least, I thought it was. I’d never even seen a picture of one, for the people who write the natural history books say they are only legends. But it couldn’t possibly be anything else.
Vix’s sails clapped and groaned in warning. I quickly corrected our course, pulse racing.
The drakon opened its giant mouth and roared at me, its head streaming water and its teeth like swords. I was mesmerized by the purple sheen on its scales. It shook its spiny mane, foam and droplets flying everywhere. There was something wild and beautiful about it.
Suddenly I didn’t care if I made it mad. I didn’t care if it ate me, if it wrapped its great tail around us and dragged us to the bottom of the sea like the ship Nikanor.
Let it come.
I screamed back, a roar of defiance to match the drakon’s.
“Caro!” Kenté jumped in front of me, aiming a pistol at it.
I seized her arm. “Wait! Don’t.”
“Have you lost your mind?” she demanded. “That’s a drakon.”
She struggled with me, but I was stronger. I held her back. “And you’re going to take it on with a pistol?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the monster kept pace alongside Vix. I couldn’t remember whether or not you were supposed to make eye contact with a drakon. Far astern I could dimly pick out three lumps that looked like islands—the loops of its tail sticking out of the water.
“It’ll wrap itself around us and sink us.” Kenté’s voice rose. “It wants to eat us.”
“No,” I said, surprising myself. I didn’t know how I knew. “It’s not bothering us. The last thing we should do is provoke it. If we pay it no mind, maybe it’ll go away.”
“All right,” she said doubtfully, lowering the pistol.
The drakon gave a mournful roar, diving headlong into the surf. Its long body swished there under the water, kicking up bubbles. I couldn’t say why I’d stopped Kenté from shooting it, only that it had felt important.
I had stared a sea drakon in the face and lived. How many people had ever seen a drakon? Not just in a fish story, told by some old wherryman about his brother’s aunt’s cousin. Really seen one. I wondered what it meant—that the drakon had chosen to surface for me. Did such a creature have intelligence, or was it merely a wild animal, like a fish or a snake or some unholy combination thereof?
“I figure we should take it in turns.” Kenté stared uneasily over the rail. “I’m going to get some sleep now, and then later I’ll come relieve you.” Tearing her gaze away from the sea, she shuddered. “Though I can’t say as I’ll be able to sleep. Not with that thing out here.”
“I think it’s gone,” I lied.
After Kenté disappeared belowdecks, the hours blended together. I couldn’t see the drakon anymore, but I sensed it was still there, undulating just under the surface. Its presence was strangely comforting. Almost, it seemed like it was keeping me company. I knew from the constellations which way was north, but it was unnerving to steer blindly into black sky and black sea.
“Tychon Hypatos,” I whispered through chattering teeth. “Iphis Street. Valonikos.”
A light appeared, off the port bow. It was a dim yellow pinpoint, flickering on and off. I squinted hard at it. There was nothing there. I was so tired and cold, I was hallucinating a speck of lamplight in the dark of night.