Pale Lights

Chapter 162 35

The oil lamp kept flickering.

It would burn fine for a few minutes, then start to cough like dying man. It was driving Maryam mad. She kept the irritation stoked, clutching the burning ember in her hand as a distraction. Fear had gnawed away at her guts the entire way to the port warehouse as she forced herself not to look at the ships in the harbor, the galleon and the merchantman flanking her skimmer. The galleon flew Watch black but not the other ship, and what did that mean?

Her mind spun up one tale after another. Had Bolic been caught smuggling, stealing? Fool her for leaving a pirate at the wheel of her ship, even if he was the finest sailor of the lot. Or perhaps there had been trouble in Kofoni, fighting with the crew of the merchantman – a death, even, some grisly accident that would need to be answered for. Or, some ugly part of her whispered, had the Orels been caught fleeing the Trebian Sea and now they were being dragged back here by the scruff of the neck?

Hooks traced calm against the veil, a reminder to stop spinning up a storm inside her head for what felt like the tenth time this morning. So Maryam forced herself to stop thinking about it, instead focusing on the lamp and the irritation. If she let the fear follow her into this room, it would eat her alive.

Song shuffled slightly to the side, drawing her eye. Even with a cane to lean on, her captain found it hard to stay up for more than an hour at a time. She yet found it difficult to walk without wincing, her bruises purpling but no less painful for it. The most troubling part was Song's sudden turn to the taciturn, the way she kept silent for long spans. Maryam had thought it a black mood over their public humiliation, but Hooks thought it shame over how Song's swollen lip made her pronunciation clumsy.

Maryam gripped her irritation at the lamp even tighter, lest she again think to compare the way she had entirely recovered with Song's limp and black eyes. It was getting harder not to disappear down the rabbit hole with every minute spent in this dimly lit warehouse. After they followed the garrison summons here the soldiers at the door had let them in after checking their brigade plaques, but those they were to meet had yet to arrive and she had no idea how long they'd been in here waiting.

The sole oil lamp hanging from the ceiling flickered again, sizzling and biting at its brass shell, but halfway through the spectacle the door was suddenly wrenched open behind them. Song immediately straightened and out of habit Maryam hid one of her hands in her sleeve as she turned. Hooks, nestled in her dead eye, watched the arrivals with her.

Of the three people that'd just entered, they knew two. One was an increasingly familiar sight: Commander Salimata Bouare, the effective second-in-command of the Tolomontera garrison. A severe dark-skinned woman wearing elaborate earrings that Maryam had learned meant she was not Malani but from faraway Jahamai. The second was one whose presence she had feared.

Orel Bolic did not look to have been harmed, his horseshoe mustache freshly tended to and those dark eyes still nonchalant. They didn't leave him a weapon, Hooks traced. Not even a knife. But neither had they bound his hands, which was something.

The stranger, the third face, was a beardless Tianxi with a patch over his right eye and a face like old leather. Watch, by the black of his coat, but not in a regular's uniform. Ship captain, Maryam guessed, and that guess was soon confirmed when Commander Bouare made brisk introductions.

"Girls, Captain Tianming of the warship Starlit Dove," the commander said, not bothering with greetings. "Captain, here are Warrant Officer Song Ren, captain of the Thirteenth Brigade, and Warrant Officer Maryam Khaimov – the owner of the skimmer."

Bolic's smile grew slightly strained at being left out of the introductions.

"Well met, captain," Song said, the words slow so they would not sound mulched.

Captain Tianming simply nodded back, eyes lingering on the black eyes and beaten face. They would not make for a fine first impression, they all knew, which would be eating away as Song like acid. Maryam cleared her throat.

"Commander, is there a particular reason we are meeting here instead of the gatehouse?" she asked.

"The matter to be discussed is not under the jurisdiction of Colonel Azocar and the Tolomontera garrison," Commander Bouare replied. "I am here to serve as a broker, not to adjudicate. For that same reason Captain Wen has yet to be involved."

Meaning that whatever this was, Colonel Azocar would prefer it stay off the books and involving Wen would make it too official for his tastes.

"It would help," Song carefully enunciated said, "if we were told what this is about."

The commander glanced at the Tianxi ship captain, who shrugged.

"The Dove is part of the sixth squadron of the Western Fleet," Captain Tianming told them. "We patrol the western trade lanes and when feasible we are to engage pirates. When we caught sight of cannons being fired off the coast of Kofoni, we set out to investigate."

Maryam's belly clenched. Cannons. Her skimmer bore none, so the Orels would not have been the ones firing, but there were only so many ships they could have been fired at. The man frowned.

"Your skimmer, Warrant Officer Khaimov, was being pursued by the same merchantman you see in port – the Cusan Haearn."

She swallowed a scream of frustration, because while Maryam might not know what the words meant she recognized what Gwynt sounded like. It had been a Pereduri ship, or at least named in their tongue. She'd known it would be, deep down, from the moment she saw it in port. The Kingdom of Malan was not the only nation to build merchantmen – the large, armed trading ships were a mainstay of the eastern trade through the Sorrows – but it was the only nation that sent them this far west in the Trebian. Morcant, her sister hissed in her ear, and Maryam's teeth clenched in hateful agreement.

"They lowered their flag when I had them hailed, and ceased firing," Captain Tianming continued. "What I did not expect was that the port of Kofoni was shooting at both your skimmer and the merchantman with their own pieces. They refused to stop until the Dove fired a warning shot near their docks."

Her nails bit into her palm, but she let Song talk. She was here as the owner of the skimmer, not the other captain's interlocutor.

"And how did these parties justify their assault on a Watch auxiliary?" Song asked, tone mild.

Maryam almost smiled. Yes, let them remember we're not just Izvoric, she thought. The Orels were contracted auxiliaries, with all the protections that entailed.

"Theft," Captain Tianming replied.

Orel Bolic's sharp face twisted in anger.

"Liars," he snarled. "They only-"

"Be silent," Commander Bouare sharply cut him off, "or you will be gagged. You will have your turn to speak, man, after Watch officers have."

He looked entirely unconvinced, not without reason, but Maryam could not afford for them to get on Salimata Bouare's bad side here.

"Bolic," Maryam said in Recnigvor, "let them talk first. You will get your say."

The man searched her eyes then, after a long moment, nodded jerkily.

"To be clear," Captain Tianming testily said, "I did not mean to imply I blindly believe those claims. Only that they were made. As a senior officer of the Watch, I invoked our Blancaflor rights to investigate an attack on our assets. Witnesses in town agree that your crew traded fairly and made no trouble, Warrant Officer Khaimov."

Maryam nodded stiffly at him. He paused.

"An attempt was then made to seize your skimmer," Captain Tianming bluntly said. "The captain of the Cusan Haearn went to the mayor of Kofoni with bounty papers naming your crew as runaway slaves. Greed won out."

Maryam did not trust herself to speak, closing her eyes as she struggled with to handle the surge of incandescent rage. It'd really been Morcant, it must have. Who else would have such papers, would even know who the Orels were? Song let out a short breath.

"Them being runaway slaves would mean the skimmer was stolen property and the mayor could seize it to sell it back to the Watch," she said.

"Exactly so," Captain Tianming told Song, for the first time sounding approving. "Anyhow, they took your crew lightly and sent only five sailors and a town guard to take the ship."

That did not sound like so few men, Maryam thought, though considering a merchantman could bear up to two hundred crew – though that was usually on far journeys - she'd admit he had a point. The captain slid a look at Bolic.

"Your man feigned a surrender and ambushed them inside the hull, the way I hear it," the captain said, no judgment in his tone. "One sailor made it out, and they captured another."

Satisfaction from Hooks against the veil, but also discontent. Should have killed them all, her sister thought. Put them down like dogs.

"This seems a straightforward case of defending themselves against unprovoked attack," Maryam evenly said, ignoring her sister. "Which leads me to wonder why we are having this conversation in a warehouse."

"It was such a thing, until your people tortured the Pereduri sailor for information and learned there were northmen slaves in the hull of the Cusan Haearn," Captain Tianming said.

Maryam breathed in sharply. She'd not bat at an eye at anyone taking a knife to slaver's fingers, she had seen Mother's captains do much worse, but she hoped they'd had the sense to do it somewhere Koval the Younger could not see.

"They mounted a rescue, I take it?" she said, catching Bolic's eye.

He did not shy away from her gaze, standing straight and proud.

"Almost all their crew was out in town," Bolic replied in Antigua. "There were a handful of sailors left on their ship, after we dealt with the others. We just had to be quick and bold to get our people out."

Song swallowed a curse.

"To be clear, Orel Bolic speaks only the hypothetical sense," she hurriedly said. "He is not confessing to anything."

Commander Bouare only looked amused.

"There's a reason we're meeting in a rotting warehouse, Ren," Captain Tianming grunted. "You don't need to play those games, all this is off the books – until it isn't."

"Did you get them out?" Maryam asked Bolic, again in Recnigvor.

"All seven of them," he proudly replied in the same. "Young men, headed for the port of Concordia to serve as laborers."

Good, she thought, fingers clenched. Good.

"As I expect your man just said, they got the slaves out and killed another three Pereduri sailors doing it," Captain Tianming said. "Things got out of hand from there. The mayor ordered your crew should be killed and that the Cusan Haearn's people should be put under arrest, but your lot were already retreating and the Pereduri fought their way back to their ship."

The mayor, Maryam darkly thought, must have panicked. Instead of making a fortune selling back the skimmer to the Watch after having gotten rid of 'escaped slaves' in a way that lay the blame on the Pereduri visitors, he'd instead become accomplice to an attack on Watch auxiliaries while living mere days away from Scholomance – and little more than a week away from Lucierna, a regional seat of the Watch.

That was going to get him killed unless he lied about what had happened on Kofoni, and that'd only work if he silenced everyone else involved. Not only the Orels but the Pereduri as well. On the other hand, she was not surprised he'd failed to detain anyone. Kofoni was a small, sleepy town and their town watch couldn't have been more than a few large folk with clubs only belting them on when there was a pressing need. That they'd somehow had cannons to fire, as in more than one, sounded completely ridiculous.

"Your people got off the docks fast, but the merchantman was close behind trying to catch them and the mayor had two old pieces from the Century of Accord rolled out onto the docks to try and sink both ships."

Maryam let out a low whistle, because the man must have been quite desperate to think that could end well. Her skimmer was unarmed, if heavily armored, but merchantmen could field between ten and twenty cannons. The Cusan Haearn could have razed the town to the ground if its captain wanted to.

"How does a town like Kofoni even have cannons?" Song asked, which was a damn good question.

Commander Bouare cleared her throat, a hint of what would have been embarrassment in less confident a woman showing on her face.

"When Scholomance last closed and the Garrison presence was drawn down, much of the obsolete armaments leftover from the conquest of the port were sold to neighboring islands in an attempt to cover shortages in funds," she said. "I am surprised they still work."

"One of them didn't," Captain Tianming said, sounding almost amused. "They had an E Hu mortar, of all things, and the antique blew up on the first shot. Wounded six and set a house on fire, the most damage done by any of the fighting."

Bouare snorted and seemed about to add something when Maryam cleared her throat before the conversation could dip further away. She was not here for pleasantries.

"At which point you arrived on the scene and put an end to the fighting, captain," she said. "For which you have my thanks. What happened after?"

"I invoked Blancaflor, shut down the port and moved to sort the whole mess," Captain Tianming said. "The mayor of Kofoni is currently in my hold, clapped in irons and awaiting trial."

"And the crew of the Cusan Haearn?" she asked, struggling over the Gwynt.

"No," he said.

Of course not, she bitterly thought. Why should the slavers ever suffer consequence for what they did? Just another-

"Didn't bother, I hanged them all except for the captain and the first mate," Tianming casually continued, and she choked.

"You did what?" Song got out while Maryam cleared her throat, lost.

"They attacked Watch auxiliaries using fraudulent papers as pretext," Captain Tianming frowned at them. "That fetches only one ending. I could have put them up against a wall, I suppose, but why waste the powder?"

"Hanging sixty-two sailors was something of a stretch of your authority, even if you are a senior officer," Commander Bouare noted.

Captain Tianming spat on the ground, baring his teeth in a hard smile and revealing two silver fillings. He spoke a quick sentence in Cathayan, after, and while Maryam was not fluent in the tongue that was one of the few sentences she knew. All are free under Heaven, he'd replied. She could feel her sister's disbelief but sometimes, just sometimes, the surprises need not be bad ones. Not that Maryam was fool enough to believe this business anywhere close to finished.

"You said earlier that this is not under Tolomontera jurisdiction, commander," Song quietly said. "Under whose would it be, then?"

Captain Tianming spat again.

"There's the rub," he said.

"Kofoni is part of the northwestern Trebian command, under Marshal Camaron," Commander Bouare said.

Camaron would be under a Conclave committee, but within his administrative region he was as a petty king unless a bigger dog took an interest.

"But I'm Western Fleet so I ultimately answer to Admiral Zokufa," Captain Tianming said. "Before Malan throws a fit, we need to agree who we take the prisoners to trial under and what the tale will be – else the High Queen's ambassador on the Rookery may take this straight to the Conclave."

Bypassing the authorities on the ground by making it a diplomatic incident, she thought. From what Maryam knew of the Watch's ruling body, petitioning them directly would have unpredictable results. There was no telling who that mule would end up kicking. She cleared her throat.

"I imagine you'd prefer the admiral," she guess.

The captain grimaced.

"There'll be costs," he warned. "The Cusan Haearn is a prize ship now, so he'll want her for the fleet – though you are entitled to a third of the prize's worth. And Old Stormy will cover for your crew taking the fight to the merchantman by invoking patrol rights, but he'll expect the slaves to go back. They were already paid for in Concordia and never entered Fleet custody, it'd be piracy not to return them same as any other cargo."

Maryam's teeth clenched until they almost bled. She knew it was not truly what he was suggesting, but the way those events were put together sounded a lot like paying her off to betray her countrymen.

"And Marshal Camaron?" Song asked.

"If the northmen set foot on Lucierna, it would be against Watch law to return them to the Malani," Commander Bouare said. "As your Someshwari friend helpfully reminded me at the start of the year. It would, however, mean giving the marshal a full report of the events that unfolded on Kofoni."

"Namely that our contracted crew seized and tortured a sailor, then attacked and legally stole from a Malani ship," Song evenly said. "Crimes with mitigating circumstances but still crimes, for which the Thirteenth Brigade would be responsible under Watch law as the holders of the auxiliary contract."

Which meant, Maryam thought, that Sebastian Camaron's father would have a knife at their throat. Marshal Camaron would have in his possession evidence that could see the Thirteenth dragged in front of a military tribunal if he passed it on, and that wouldn't even be the only leverage. The men Bolic had rescued would be staying on Lucierna: the marshal's very seat of power, at his mercy.

In other words it would mean the Thirteenth Brigade being in his pocket until he'd squeezed enough use out of them to let them go – if he ever did. Fuck.

"How long do we have to decide?" she got out.

"The Cusan Haearn was expected in Concordia in three weeks," Captain Tianming said. "But now that she's here in port there is no keeping a lid on it. On a good ship lucky with the wind, a letter from here to Lucierna would take about a week – and then we get attention we don't want."

The Tianxi captain shrugged.

"I mean to stay here a few days to resupply the Dove and provide my men shore leave," he said. "I'll give you until then to decide. Send a runner for me if you mean to talk."

The captain offered Commander Bouare a careless salute that she waved off – they were both Garrison but he was navy, of lesser rank but not beholden to her in the slightest - and the two of them a nod. Bolic only warranted a glance, and without another word the Tianxi left them behind. Maryam bit at the inside of her cheek.

"Bolic, do you have anything to add?" she said.

"The man spoke true," Bolic grudgingly said. "Though he did not mention that Koval the Elder took a bullet and Poltava almost broke her leg."

He frowned.

"And some of our people took up arms to help us leave the mornaric ship after being freed, wounding several sailors and killing one. If returned to the slavers, they will surely be killed for this."

His lips thinned and no one here needed for him to add the unspoken part – it would not be a slow or gentle death. Maryam sharply nodded. Commander Bouare let out a sigh.

"Your crew is not under arrest," she announced. "But they are grounded. You will not be allowed to leave Port Allazei until a decision has been made and your skimmer is to remain in port."

She closed her eyes, barely paying attention as Song argued that grounding the skimmer should mean docking fees were waived, feeling the weight of all she had just heard crash down on her shoulders. It was... Gods, too much. She struggled to grasp it all, what it all meant. Song's hand on her shoulder shook her out of it.

"Maryam?"

She passed a hand through her hair.

"I'm all right," she lied. "Bolic, see to our freedmen. Do we have supplies enough for them in the ship?"

"We are nearly out of water," he said, "but still have hardtack and salted pork."

"Bring it over to the houses, then," she said. "You won't mind keeping them under your roof?"

She phrased it like a question, but it wasn't. He silently acknowledged as much with a nod.

"Of course, princess," he said. "I'll send a few of us to fetch water from the wells as well. Several could do with a wash."

She nodded.

"Let's get out of here," she told Song. "I've had enough of this place."

--

They did not walk far before Song had to rest for a span, and close to the seawall as they were it was only natural that they ended up drifting towards one of the benches facing the water.

It was choppy out there today, at least as choppy as it ever got around Tolomontera. The wind whipped at the waves, tearing white streaks, and the endless back and forth of the tide crashed against the shore. It would have been soothing, if just to the right of Maryam's field of sight she did not know three ships were waiting. Even when she forced herself not to look, she could feel them there like a specter dogging her footsteps.

Song let out a small sigh of relief now that she was no longer leaning on her bruised legs, making herself comfortable on the stone. Hooks traced against the veil and Maryam shrugged in answer. A heartbeat later her sister slipped out of her shadow, coming to stand by the wall with her arms crossed – in Watch black, in case anyone saw them, but with blue embroidery and copious lace that were all Izvoric.

The moment passed into silence, none of them quite ready to talk. But it was not a comfortable kind of quiet, more akin to a boiling kettle, and eventually someone gave in.

"They did the right thing," Hooks said. "Saving those people."

Song said nothing, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and even as Hook's face grew mutinous Maryam grimaced.

"But they did it in a way we might end up paying for," she acknowledged.

"We will not," Song said.

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Maryam blinked at her and Hooks straightened.

"You have a plan in mind?" she asked.

But when she saw the look on Song's face, that quick ember of hope snuffed out.

"It is a difficult thing for me to say," the captain got out, "but it must be said nonetheless."

She found Hook's gaze and held it then met Maryam's eyes, silver to blue.

"We will not be going to Marshal Camaron with this matter," Song Reng said, voice steely. "I will not sell the Thirteenth Brigade to such a man."

"I didn't ask," Maryam said.

"No," Song said, inclining her head, "but I will not leave it unsaid. It is a virtuous act, to free slaves. As it was to protect your countrymen through the making of the auxiliary contract. A principle embraced only when it is easy is no such thing."

"But," Hooks scornfully added.

"That rope goes both ways, Hooks," Song flatly said. "Did Orel Bolic give so much as a moment's thought as to what would happen to the Thirteenth should he raid that ship?"

"I expect he might have been more concerned with the literal slaves in the hull," Maryam cooly replied.

It wasn't entirely fair, she knew. And she didn't entirely agree with her sister. But neither was it fair to compare their current troubles to the horror that had been awaiting the men Bolic had saved.

"I agree," Song evenly said. "They, you and the other Orels were his sole concern."

Her tone was rigidly calm, but in a way that betrayed anger more surely than screaming.

"Which is a difficult state of affairs to tolerate, when his actions are paid for by all of us," she said. "I am willing to aid the cause, Maryam. To act and pay and lend, because slavery is a fundamental evil and it must be ripped out root and stem. But I have a right to offer this aid on my own terms, and not those of a former pirate I neither know nor trust."

Her jaw clenched. That was always the way it went, wasn't it? If you couldn't question the act you tarred the name of the man who'd done it.

"And if I agree with that former pirate?" Maryam said.

"Hear hear," Hooks smiled.

"Do you?" Song softly asked. "Do the two of you agree not only with what he did but how he went about it, what it might yet cost us? Knowing what you do about your friends who have trusted and aided you, do you genuinely agree?"

Maryam seethed, her sister echoing it across the veil. Of course she didn't want the Unluckies out on the street. Half of them had enemies that would be out to kill them. But Song was echoing every polite, scholarly soul who'd 'gently' told her that there was a right way to do things, that the Izvoric must be patient and amiable and not so unruly as to lose the sympathy of those who felt for them, lest their support for abolition fray. Like sympathy was worth a single copper.

"If it's done only when it's convenient, it'll never be done," Maryam bit out. "You know that, you just said as much."

"I also know that this is reckless flailing, and it being done in the name of a good cause does not make it any less reckless or flailing," Song snapped. "What was the plan, Maryam? For the aftermath. The fundamental principle that all dignities are equal is not charity. It demands as much care be shown to ours as to theirs, and what I see here is a man who assumed he would have his ass wiped by us after running headlong into trouble."

"You think he shouldn't have done it," Maryam quietly realized, fingers clenching.

"And here I thought the Watch was supposed to be against slavery," Hooks darkly said. "And you, for that matter."

"Abolition is not the reason the Watch was founded," Song flatly replied. "And when that cause gets in the way of the war it truly was, it will always be set aside. You've known that from the start."

"What's the point of gaining authority if you never do anything good with it?" Maryam hissed.

"Then do good with it," Song said. "Without using your friends as fuel for the furnace."

She rose to her feet, pushing down her cane.

"I do not want to go to Admiral Zokufa," Song said. "I find the notion of returning free men to bondage repellent. But if the only alternative is becoming the creatures of Marshal Camaron, then that is what will be done."

She shook her head.

"My duty is to the Thirteenth Brigade first, and you two are not the only people in it."

Maryam swallowed the answer on the tip of her tongue, because if she spoke it there would be no undoing that. Song's cool silver eyes found hers, and it felt like they were seeing right through her. Dissecting her thoughts and find them wanting.

"I failed you on our first year, when it came to Angharad," Song acknowledged. "I let you down. And I have been trying to repay that debt, however I can. But enough is enough, Maryam. The only plan I have heard of you is to spend us and that is not a plan, it is following your guilt off a cliff."

Song's face tightened.

"One last thing. Allow me to be perfectly clear, as I will be with the man himself: if Orel Bolic ever again commits crimes on our behalf, I will put a bullet between his eyes as is my right and duty. He is officially out of chances."

And without another word, Song Ren walked away. Maryam watched her, feeling too exhausted to weep, and wondered how many times she was going to watch the back of the Unluckies as they left behind.

Her sister slunk back into her shadow, the two of them feeling like beaten dogs.

--

Maryam stayed on the bench for a long time, looking at the sea.

Only when the cold wind had seeped into her bones, slipping past the cloak and the uniform, did she muster the will to move at Hooks' prodding. She did not get far, barely ambling past the edge of the row of warehouses before stopping by a broken fountain like a lost child. Close to the Triangle, she recalled, but not quite there. There wasn't a soul around at this time of the day – the students were in Scholomance, the soldiers on assignment – so she stayed there staring blankly crumbling houses of Port Allazei.

Until someone came to find her, anyway. Part of her had been hoping for Song's return, or that the rest of the Thirteenth would somehow leave their morning class to find her, but that was not who came. It was Orel Bolic instead, humming at the sight of her. He did not wear black, but with loose grey trousers tucked into boots and dark green waistcoat over a white shirt he did not seem out of place in Allazei. He even had a small toque in a green almost matching his waistcoat's and a sword at his hip.

"There you are, princess," he smiled. "I looked for you at the Rainsparrow, but was told you had yet to return."

He really was handsome, Maryam thought, with that sharp face and those dark eyes. And he was in a way that reminder her of home – the clothes were all local, but put together in a way that reminder her of Volcesta. Or at least Dubrik.

"I needed to have a conversation with Song first," she said.

A shiver of anger and betrayal on the veil, Hooks' finger clawing across it.

"The captain did seem none too pleased," Bolic said. "I hope she did not give you too much trouble on our behalf."

Maryam had no intention of discussing that with him, so she cleared her throat.

"The newcomers, they are settled?"

"Making themselves comfortable already," he assured her. "Steady lads, they are. They'll be eager and ready in a few days, once the shock of freedom has entirely worn off."

"Good," Maryam mumbled.

Freedom should never come as a shock.

"Most of them are debtors from Dubrik," Bolic told her, "but there's two floodlanders as well and they have some experience with river barges. It will be easy to make proper sailors out of them."

He cleared his throat.

"If you mean them for the crew, that is. I suppose we've the numbers for Poltava to run a shop now if you would prefer."

Her lips thinned. Getting permission for a shop had never gone anywhere even now that they were auxiliaries, the garrison simply dismissing the request. It would have been possible to do business without permission, but Captain Wen had told her that while it was allowed for Poltava to have a smithy for the purpose of making parts for the skimmer if there was ever a complaint about her selling goods the garrison would be bound to investigate – and if there was even a gain of truth to it, they would shut down the whole forge. With Morcant waiting in the wings, it had seemed a fool's bet.

The slaver was dug in like a tick and no one seemed to be willing to do anything about it.

There was no way Colonel Azocar would let the newly freed Izvoric stay in Allazei, not even if Maryam tried to squeeze them into the auxiliary contract with the Thirteenth. Which she couldn't petition the colonel to do, anyway, without the agreement of Song and the two witnesses – Colonel Cao and Captain Yue. She was not sure she could get even one of those signatures, much less all three.

"No," Maryam tiredly said, passing a hand through her hair. "But truth be told I'm not sure how much I can do for them, Bolic. I have already burned most of the favors I have to burn and I cannot see an easy way for them to stay on the isle."

Or anywhere, for that matter. If this whole mess wasn't brought to Marshal Camaron, what was left?

"Then must they?"

She blinked.

"Pardon?"

"Must they stay on this isle?" Bolic asked her.

"Where else would they go?" she frowned.

Bolic looked pained, for a moment, if a little too smoothly.

"Forgive me, princess, but what I have seen of your time in this port has seemed... difficult."

"It's been a year," she acknowledged. "What's your point?"

Only she knew his point. She just wanted to hear him say it, so it was finally echoing somewhere but the deepest recesses of her own mind.

"What do mornaric papers mean to me?" Orel Bolic shrugged. "The Malani, they had just such a thing saying they owned me. Now the Watch does, but so what? I am a vitez, and it is your service I have entered. No other's."

He gestured at the sea.

"Say the word, and your ship will sail whatever these blackclads say," Bolic said. "We have a proper crew for it now. Five including an old man and a child would have been too little, but now we are twelve – most of them young and fighting fit. With you to protect us from the dark storms, there is no sea we could not sail to."

He lowered his voice.

"Concordia, I am told, is where many Izvoric slaves are being gathered for public works. We could begin there."

He's saying what you want to hear, Hooks whispered against the veil.

"That would be desertion," Maryam said, throat tight. "The Watch would hunt us."

"It is a large sea and your ship is very fast," he shrugged. "And if you do not want to risk it, we can always disappear into the Riven Coast until we have supplies enough to cross the ocean."

The Aetolian Ocean, he meant. Back to Juska, to the lowlands. Maryam had always meant to go back, it was why she had sought a skimmer in the first place. Would it truly be such a terrible thing, to return now instead of putting herself through another three years of brutality at Scholomance? Her sister kept silent. Bolic, with the easy grace of a man who had spent most his life on the deck of ships, took a sweeping knee before her. She was surprised enough not to resist when he took her hand, pressing warm lips on her fingers before withdrawing.

Having him there, looking up at her with those dark eyes, it would have been a lie to say it did not cause a thrill.

"I have sworn to be your man, Princess Maryam," Bolic said. "In any way you care to have of me. Say the word and I will begin preparing your crew to depart."

And Maryam, she saw his game. He needed her for all that she knew of Aurager and her Signs and the way those who would not follow him might follow her name instead, but out there he would be her captain. The commander of her ship, of her men. And she would need to rely on him as much as he needed her. Maryam looked at him, at that patient gleam in his eyes, and knew that even refusing him now would not convince him. She'd hesitated for too long.

Maryam dismissed him without giving an answer and they both knew he would ask again.

--

The thought of returning to the Rainsparrow room after that was unpleasant, but it would have been outright obscene to head to the cottage when she'd not even declined the offer to leave every single one of her friends behind.

They'd find her if she hung around the Triangle or if she went to the Orels, so Maryam instead tried to disappear into the town. Not so far out that her maudlin would get her mauled, but on the outskirts at least. First into the Old Playhouse, until she found out that the garden saw use from couples come evening, then towards Misery Square and its ruins instead.

The ancient palace of the once-kings of Sologuer loomed tall, and she climbed up the side as she had once seen Angharad do – though without a furious dantesvara about. It was harder than it looked, and she was panting by the time she dragged herself up to the edge, where the mirror-dancer had leapt onto the back of the beast. She sat there, legs dangling in the open, and nibbled at the day-old pastries she'd bought on the cheap. The bottle at her side she kept for when she would begin to feel cold.

It was a deserted place, save for the occasional garrison patrol going through, so it was hard to miss when company arrived. Even from a distance he had a distinctive enough appearance there was no mistaking him: few Izcalli at Scholomance shaved their head, and no other had Izel Coyac's build. He did not seem surprised at her presence, heading straight her way. She watched him hesitate at the bottom of the collapsed palace, then sigh and begin climbing when it became clear she had no intention of acknowledging his presence any further.

He only fell once, and not from high, so it was amusing enough the sharpest edges of her mood had dulled by the time he reached her.

"I might need to do the Warfare training courses again," Izel groaned, dropping down besides her. "This thing is taller than it looks."

"Good evening, Izel," she replied, ignoring the small talk.

He eyed her warily.

"And you," Izel replied. "Your sister has absented herself?"

"She went for a walk," Maryam replied.

Neither of the Khaimovs had felt like stewing in each other's misery would achieve anything but snapping when they got irritated, so they'd made distance.

"I don't suppose that telling you everyone has been out looking for you would convince you to head back to the Rainsparrow?"

The thought was almost sickening, which must have shown on her face because he winced.

"Well, maybe later," he said with forced cheer. "What are you doing here, anyhow?"

She ignored that without missing a beat.

"How did you find me?" Maryam asked.

"Tell you what," Izel agreeably said. "Answer my question and I'll answer yours."

How unpleasantly even-handed of him.

"You first," she said, purely out of spite.

It didn't even crack his cheer, which was well-armored as any skimmer.

"I asked around about you, and I'm friends with half of a couple that saw you in the Playhouse," he said. "They saw you headed north, I guessed from there."

A beat passed.

"Now is your turn," he encouraged.

"Pondering something," Maryam casually said. "Notice how there's no trace of red on the stone anymore? Do you think it was someone's job to scrub the stone clean? That some poor garrison bastard was assigned a broom and a bucket and told to put his back into it, careful not to step on someone's eye."

Izel eyed her for a moment, then leaned closer to take the bottle she'd finally opened out of her hand. He took a sniff, then long pull before handing it back.

"My family once visited my half-brother's kin in Tamayauitl," Izel Coyac said. "House Olin is old, older than the Acatl, and they keep to old ways. They put on a living augury for us as a gesture - it's what they call it when you throw prisoners into a pit to fight with the beast that is the symbol of the god whose blessing you seek."

He paused.

"It was the Night King, for us," Izel said. "I saw three drugged men get ripped up by a starved jaguar, watched it plunge its head into the guts of a prisoner and pull it out drenched red with intestines held in its teeth. I was six years old."

Maryam swallowed.

"Why tell me this?"

"So you can know that grisly words aren't going to chase me off," Izel gently said. "No matter how ghoulish you get."

I wasn't, Maryam almost began, but couldn't quite get it out. It was too obvious a lie even for her thick skin to suffer.

"What are you doing here, Izel?" she asked instead. "You found me, but you could have handed this off to another."

"I am chasing after the night I failed to be here," he honestly replied. "Yet another reason you won't be rid of me easily."

"I don't want to talk about it," she said.

"Then don't," Izel replied. "But do pass the bottle; that is surprisingly decent agave wine. Where did you even get it?"

"Little shop in town," Maryam admitted. "I think they're pawning stolen goods as part of a Krypteia game."

He snorted.

"Arguably that only makes it more authentic a drink," Izel said. "My people are rarely above a spot of raiding. The way I hear it the Izvoric were much the same, back before..."

He gestured vaguely, encompassing a hundred thousand tragedies in a heartbeat. It should have felt flippant, but his face was too grave for that. It was the gesture of someone who thought a concept too large for them to spell out, and Maryam felt there was more respect in that than flowery talk.

"Some kingdoms more than others," Maryam hedged. "But cattle-raids out in the hills were fairly common."

The hill kings, her father included, had preferred to avoid open war. They'd been all too aware that their numbers were small compared to those of the coastland and that a hard fight with each other might see some southern king move to make a tributary of the loser – or even the victor, if the war was close-run enough. She cleared her throat.

"The way you hear it?" she repeated, adding a questioning lilt.

"The Ossuary has three books on Juska and its peoples," Izel said. "Restricted access, but I know someone. Two are from Malani sources, the third is an Arthashastra handbook."

She licked her lips.

"You've read these books?"

He shook his head.

"They don't leave the Laurel section of the stacks," Izel said.

Maryam blew out a breath, not sure if it was relieved or disappointed.

"But my friend copied a few sections for me after I asked," he quietly added. "I know about Izolda's Rebellion, if that's what you were wondering."

Her stomach clenched.

"You never said anything," she accused.

"I don't ask Tristan why he never talks about his father, either," Izel said, then grimaced. "And your wounds hit a little closer to home, I'll admit. An empire across the table while standing in the shadow of a famous parent? Not my recipe, perhaps, but the ingredients are not unfamiliar."

"It's not the same thing," Maryam bit out.

Izel cocked his head at her.

"No?"

"They didn't impale your father," she hissed. "He didn't lose."

"So she really was your mother, Izolda Cernik," he murmured. "The last High Queen of Trecikrov, the leader of the Wintersworn. The handbook never even mentioned she had children."

"If it really calls her High Queen then it's barely worth the paper it's pressed on," Maryam scorned. "She never had anywhere that much support, only flatterers and exiles called her that."

Even if Mother had won, she would not have been made High Queen. It would have required two thirds of the crowns of the Izvoric to yield to her, which would have been unlikely even if Mother weren't born of a lineage common as dirt and a craftwoman besides. It was forbidden by ancient law for a practitioner of the Craft to rule, and in time of war her captains might be pleased to give Mother all sorts of titles but peace time would have been a different beast.

"So not every Izvoric rose in rebellion," Izel said.

Maryam snorted.

"Not even all the hill kings, and they were supposed to be a sworn brotherhood," she said. "The eastern coastlands, the Floodlands and the forest princes, they never answered our envoys. For all the good it did them, in the end. Malan took everything anyway."

"The occupation is complete?" he asked.

"The Orels tell me Malan rules everything below the Broken Gates," she bitterly said. "My people might not all be slaves, but there are no longer free Izvoric."

"Except for you," Izel said.

Her fingers clenched.

"Am I, Izel?" she softly asked. "Am I truly free?"

She spat on the ground, down below in the weeds.

"I am grateful that Captain Totec took me in when he did," Maryam said. "I truly am. I was moments away from the Malani hunting parties grabbing me and what they would have done to me was..."

She swallowed, shook her head.

"But from the moment he saved me, I belonged to the Watch."

Maryam laughed harshly.

"And the Watch kept me safe," she said. "Spirited me away from the reach of Malan, taught and clothed and fed me. But it wasn't ever really a choice whether or not I'd be an Akelarre. It was the reason they protected me, that I was one of them. If I wasn't..."

"You were no longer protected," Izel finished.

"And it wasn't enough to just put on the black, either," Maryam bitterly said. "You think that stopped the stares? Even some Navigators went silent when I entered rooms, when Captain Totec first brought me. Which is still a fucking sight better than watchmen trying to 'test' me with Glare lights to prove I was a hollow, or assuming I'd stolen my cloak. And sometimes I tried to tell myself that was the old guard, that it'd pass, but none of it stopped with Scholomance."

They still stared at her in the streets when her hood was down. Not the Akelarre, not anymore, and many of the second years had become used to her presence. But now that there'd been a fresh batch of students the stares had started again in earnest – and they'd never really stopped with the garrison in the first place. Wearing a regular's uniform marked her as someone most people couldn't be rude to without consequence, but it wasn't a fucking magic shield.

The guards still made her show her brigade plaque every time she went to the hospital alone, but when she went with Song they waved the both of them in instead. It was a small thing, but there were so many of those that together they stacked tall as a mountain.

"And it's exhausting, Izel," she bit out. "Always watching out for that glare, that insult, that stone. The latest reminder that even when I'm Watch I'm not really Watch. And if that's true, what am I even doing here?"

If she wasn't even betraying her people for a new home, then what the fuck was she even doing it for? Song wasn't wrong that the Watch wasn't an abolition outfit and neither was the Thirteenth, that the brigade was ill-equipped to support that burden and already had dogs nipping at its heel. But was she really willing to spend years sitting across a Morcant who'd ordered her beaten and pretend she was smiling, to swallow the bile in her mouth every time she saw a bevy of her people lined up for sale in a slave market and just... keep walking?

She thought of what it would feel like, years of drinking that poison with a fake smile on her face, and she thought it might be worse than death.

"You're thinking of leaving."

Maryam's blood ran cold. She turned to deny it, to lie, but Izel was looking ahead into Misery Square. There were no eyes to fool.

"So am I," he admitted, stopping her in her tracks.

"You want to desert?" she croaked.

She did not know where she was more surprised by that or that he'd admit it to her in the first place. He shook his head.

"I may have discovered something through my lenslight," Izel told her. "If it is proved – and I think I can – then Professor Achari has assured me it would be trivially easy to transfer out of Scholomance."

She blinked.

"To where?"

"The frontierworks on the Rookery," he said, open longing in his voice. "A workshop, Maryam, that is dedicated to advancing the knowledge of Vesper. And prominent, too, well-funded and connected. It would be everything I've wanted since I was a boy, and all I need to get it is to leave."

"You want to," Maryam said, and it was not a question.

"I want it so much I haven't been able to sleep," Izel confessed. "It feels like a betrayal of our cabal, but then I fear that if I stay I will end up betraying myself."

She eyed him curiously.

"This is about weapons," Maryam hazarded.

It had stood out to her as odd, since Izel joined the Unluckies, that he'd never offered to so much as spruce up Angharad's saber. He was capable of making weapons – he'd made some sort of gunpowder arrow-thrower for the Battle of the Barrels – and he seemed to have no compunction with using them in a fight but Maryam couldn't even recall him offering to make the brigade some grenades.

His lips thinned and he looked reluctant to speak but, to his honor, after picking at her scabs he did not flinch away from baring his own.

"My father wanted me to make him weapons," Izel said.

Not exactly surprising. Doghead Coyac was a famous general, and what warlord wouldn't want his own tinker?

"His own city-breaking engine?" Maryam asked.

"Gods," Izel darkly said, "it would have been easier if he asked me for some sort of doomsday machine. He didn't. What he wanted from me was a workshop that would mold-cast iron cannons of three different sizes and matching wrought iron balls for each caliber. Quickly, reliably and at a stable cost. Sounds like nothing, doesn't it?"

Maryam narrowed her eyes at him.

"Yes," she hesitatingly agreed. "So why are you horrified?"

"Do you know anything about the Fields of Diecai," Izel suddenly asked, "besides what we learned in class?"

She nodded.

"I met someone who fought in the battle," Maryam said, thinking of Yong.

The unkempt beard and the smell of liquor, the way the moment he saw her skin he had been ready to put her down like a rabid dog.

"Caishen militia. He was haunted by that day still."

"Good, then you'll know enough," Izel muttered. "When the Caishen militia charged across the field, Maryam, they took brutal losses to cannon fire."

She nodded again, a little lost. Everyone who knew of the battle knew that.

"But they did not break," she said. "Though it was not that bravery that won the battle."

It had been mercenary cavalry catching the Kuril flank utterly by surprise.

"That they didn't break hid the lesson, along with it ending up a Tianxi victory," Izel said. "There were twelve cannons arrayed on the Someshwari side, at Diecai, facing four thousand militia. They butchered two thousand men in less than an hour's span."

"That sounds about right," Maryam agreed. "And?"

It was many men, but then it was many cannons. As far as she could tell the fine field artillery and large cavalry contingent had been how the Raj of Kuril was able to stay in the war for so long even after the rest of the republics began supporting Caishen.

"And that's a lie," Izel told her. "Because two thirds of those cannons fired only twice during that hour span. Half the rest were falconets, which only started firing at closer range, and then there were two modern field pieces from Ingalapur."

Maryam's eyes narrowed at the implication.

"You can't be serious."

"Two cannons are responsible for at least half of those two thousand casualties," Izel flatly confirmed. "That is what my father noticed that he believes no one else has. Two iron cannons, cast in the modern way with standardized iron ammunition and trained artillerymen fielding them, reaped through a veteran infantry force like it was made of wheat. I don't know how the militia stood in the face of that, Maryam, but almost no army would. Most forces run after a tenth of them die, not half."

He clenched his fingers.

"He's been preparing for years, almost since before I was born. So when the next war comes – and it will come – the Grasshopper King will send my father after his enemies and it won't be two cannons the Coyac Banner fields. It will be twenty, and my father will smash through fortresses and armies like they are made of paper."

There was genuine fear in his voice, she could almost taste it.

"And I won't be part of that, I refuse," Izel said. "It's half the reason I left Izcalli, that I didn't want to make butcher's tools for butchers to use. And I won't do it here either."

"The Thirteenth isn't your father," Maryam gently said.

His face hardened.

"Exceptions are how it starts," Izel said, tone fervent. "Excuses. Then the Dialectic of Night gets a foot past the door and every exception justifies another until I might as well have stayed in Kukoya, working his damn foundries."

It wasn't really about the Thirteenth, Maryam realized, though perhaps Tristan's slip had not helped in that regard. But that fervor, she felt it was almost as much a religion as the Dialectic it opposed. It wasn't really a rule so much as a tenet of his faith – that Izel Coyac would never, ever embrace the means that so disgusted him. And if he stayed here in Scholomance he would be forced to make a peace between his life and that tenet, to make them fit, but that would be a hard road. A bitter one.

And why should he walk down it, when instead he could join these frontierworks and get everything he had ever wanted instead?

Why should Maryam stick out the stares and the murderous games when her friendships were all in ruin and she could sail to free her people instead? It was a shining, tempting thought. To be among her own kind again, without snares and petty slights, to pledge herself to the fight she owed instead of the fights the world allowed her. To set out at sea on her own skimmer, it sounded almost like an adventure. And that was the part that had her afraid, because she'd been down this road before.

It had sounded like an adventure too, leading an army to drive out the Malani. Raising the old banners and swearing to see the Izvoric free!

But it hadn't stayed that way.

Because a story was just a story. Rebellion against Malan had been sleeping on the ground, it had been killing soldier while they slept and burning colonists in their homes. It had been living in the woods and forcing farmers to give food to the warbands at sword point if they did not freely offer it, it had been taking in even the worst of the Izvoric – murderers, rapists, thieves and oathbreakers – because every spear counted and the Malani killed warriors even when they lost.

It had been her brilliant, heroic mother slowly going fucking mad as the spirits of the Ninefold Nine bled into her soul like a sickness.

The rebellion became a story again, at the end. A tragedy. And Maryam could see the shape of a tragedy too, in walking out of Scholomance. How easily it could all fall apart. And the right thing being hard wasn't a reason not to do it, but would it really be the right thing or just what she wanted to do? Maryam admitted to herself in the gloom of the night, looking at Misery Square besides a silent Izel, that she did not have a plan to save the Izvoric. Maybe she had a notion or two of how it might be done – crossing the Broken Gates to reach the Toranjic and convince them to sweep down from the heights – but those were children's scribbles.

She knew barely anything of the Toranjic, hadn't even known that Malan had conquered the entire lowlands until a few months ago and what did she even have to move the highlanders to war should she reach them?

It was a dream, and it had stayed one because the crushing enormity of the task, her utter smallness in the face of it, had been too much for her to ever want to begin sketching out a real plan. Because then she would be forced to look in the eye the fact that she was one person against the greatest naval empire in the world, and that even if she struggled bitterly her entirely life there was every chance it would not so much as scratch the paint on the High Queen's throne.

Gods, she could free every Izvoric in Concordia and it'd barely be a line in Malan's ledger. It was western colonies where her people were being sent by the thousands and the only people who knew how to reach that continent were the fucking Malani! And maybe it was worth doing anyway, sailing to free those she could even if it was only ever a fraction of them. But taking a skimmer to the Trebian Sea to start a one-crew war against the Kingdom of Malan wouldn't lead anywhere, because she had not prepared for that war.

She did not have an island to hide and stash freedmen on, a tinker for her skimmer, allies to sail with. She didn't even have a map of the waters and winds around Concordia.

And Maryam didn't have any of those things because she didn't know what she wanted. She'd not thought about it in years, there'd never been a point because she'd not had options. It had been the Watch or the grave. But now she had a ship, some wealth and some footing in the world. She could make decisions, instead of letting circumstance make them for her.

So what did she want?

Gods, what did she want?

They sat there a long time, in silence, as Maryam looked up at the distant Orrery lights.

"How did you know," she softly asked, "that you needed to leave?"

Izel breathed out, the sound like a finger running down a scar.

"Because I saw where on the floor of the Calendar Court I would stand in ten years," he said. "And it was not any closer to what I wanted from where I was standing then."

Blue eyes followed the trajectory of the colors in the sky, the orbits and rotations, and she thought of where she would be standing in ten years if she kept wearing the black. Of whether she'd be any closer to where she wanted to be. She didn't have an answer, she eventually realized. Because she'd not really tried, not yet. All she had was a question.

Maryam looked down at her hand, closing the fist of flesh and wood.

It wasn't much, a question. But it was a start.