Tinh Tu did not greet her brother with warmth.
Out on the ocean, the morning’s sun rose and Ayae watched a dinghy push itself through the surf, the ship behind it rising and falling with the swell. Both the ship and the dinghy had once been painted a dark green, but the colour had faded beneath the three suns and the ocean had stripped the paint from the lower hulls away. It looked as if clawed hands had reached up from the water to pull the ship down. Combined with the faded black of its sail, the ship gave the impression of being derelict, a description that, had not the dinghy made its way towards the shore, would have been one Ayae used for it. Yet the dinghy rode the swell and as it drew closer, as the shapes of three people became clearer, Eidan wordlessly waded out into the ocean. By the time he reached the dingy the waves had soaked through the clothes he wore and exposed the dark lines of scar tissue that ran across half his body. He looked like a creature that had risen from Leviathan’s Blood when he took hold of the boat and pulled it ashore.
At the front sat an old woman.
The smell of ink returned suddenly to Ayae. She could see Samuel Orlan’s shop, could see the glass pots he had kept in the workroom. The lids were gummed with dried ink, and when she had to open one, she had to be careful, because the ink would not flow for a few moments, before it rushed out into the small wells she dipped quills and brushes into. As quickly as the memory came to her, it left, the smell evaporating with it as Eidan emerged from the water. With his good hand he dragged the boat onto the sand.
‘Brother,’ the old woman said, a white raven circling down from the sky as she spoke. ‘Your new friend feels many things.’
‘Her name is Ayae,’ he said.
‘Yes, it is.’ Tinh Tu lifted a long, ash-wood staff up and stepped out of the boat. ‘Is Jae’le still looking for him?’ she asked as the raven drifted onto her shoulder.
‘He is.’
‘At least I have not missed that.’ She looked back at the boat, at the two women who had ridden with her, and then turned to Ayae. ‘Look after the witch in the boat,’ she said, the deepness of her voice cracking, as if it were a voice she was not accustomed to using. ‘She has done me a service. It would be a shame if she died.’
‘You seem to think I owe you something,’ Ayae said.
‘You do.’
Ayae was about to ask what, if anything, she owed, when she heard her name spoken in a harsh whisper. The voice was a familiar one, but it was only when Eidan’s sister stepped away from the boat that she saw Olcea. The older woman was struggling to rise. She leant heavily on the third woman and her face was drawn, the black skin around her eyes and cheeks wan and sunken, and the bandages around her hands stained with blood. The stains, Ayae saw, spread to the rest of her clothing, though those on her hands were freshest. Forgetting Eidan’s sister, Ayae rushed towards Olcea. As she did, she heard Tinh Tu tell Eidan that she wanted to see Jae’le—
Then Ayae reached the boat.
‘She piloted the ship.’ The third woman spoke quietly, her white hand taking Olcea’s left arm as Ayae took her right. ‘From the coast of Balana.’
‘Eilona?’ Ayae asked, the name slipping out, despite herself. ‘Eilona Wagan?’
The daughter of Muriel Wagan met her gaze. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know you.’
‘Hien,’ the witch whispered, her gaze directing them to the pack at her feet. ‘Ayae, please, don’t leave him.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘of course not.’ She picked up the solid bag, heavy with the weight of a rotting head, of what remained of Hien, the soldier Olcea had bound to her service years ago. Ayae was careful when she lifted it, careful of the thin blade in the strap that the witch used to cut her palms in times of danger. She slung it over her shoulder before she took hold of Olcea’s arm again.
Eidan and Tinh Tu were ahead, the old woman keeping an easy pace with her injured brother. For a moment, Ayae saw the emotional connection that she had thought absent when Eidan waded out into Leviathan’s Blood to draw the boat out of the water. She did not believe that the bond was as strong as the one between Eidan and Aelyn, or Zaifyr and Jae’le. Those bonds transcended the responsibilities and affections of family. In Tinh Tu, there was instead a cool reserve, a distance Ayae had seen in brothers and sisters whose lives took them in different directions, and whose lives left them with different experiences and mindsets.
‘Do you know her?’ Eilona asked as they began to walk. ‘You spoke to her, as if you did.’
‘No,’ Ayae replied. ‘I don’t know her.’
‘She is a frightening woman.’
‘I imagine she is.’
‘She told me that she had sewn her mouth shut. When I asked her why, she told me not to talk to her for the rest of the trip.’ A tremor entered her voice and she coughed to clear it. ‘And I didn’t. I didn’t say another word until I spoke to you.’
Ayae had not met Eilona before, but she knew of Muriel Wagan’s daughter. When Eilona left, Ayae had been no more than an orphan girl who worked occasionally for a witch, but even she had heard of the things she had done, of the trade deals she had ruined, the people she had insulted. It had seemed to Ayae that each week there had been a new story about Eilona where her stepfather or her mother had to make amends for her behaviour. The last, she recalled, had been in relation to a dead guard, and another guard’s family, but Ayae had been in Yeflam when it happened. When she returned, the news had mostly been about Eilona Wagan leaving Mireea.
She had returned when her stepfather was injured in Leera. Eilona arrived with her partner, and it was said, by the few who met her, that Lady Wagan’s daughter had changed. She was more measured, more thoughtful, more like her mother. That did not stop people from accusing her of being callous and cold because she had not stayed to care for her stepfather, however.
At Muriel Wagan’s tent, the three of them were met by Caeli, who greeted the daughter of the woman she protected coldly. Caeli wore a mix of dark leather and chain, and the long, straight sword on her hip moved with her body as if it were a limb. After she let the flap of the tent close, she cast a glance at Ayae, asking a question to which the other woman, holding more of Olcea’s weight than she had done when she left the shore, could only offer a slight shake of her head. No, the movement said, she did not know why Eilona was here.
The inside of the tent was a busy mess and in the centre of it stood the Lady of the Ghosts. Her right boot was on a wooden chair and her hands were pulling the laces that held the leather together when they entered. The boot and its companion would be hidden beneath a fraying gown of dark brown and red. As Muriel lifted her head from her task, Ayae was surprised to see how much likeness she had with her daughter, even after the months of living in tents. It was impossible to deny the mirrored squareness of their features, of the thickness of their bodies. The biggest difference between Lady Wagan and her daughter was that the former dyed her hair a dark brown, while the latter’s was red.
The lines around Muriel’s eyes and mouth deepened as she smiled at her daughter. Eilona, for her part, frowned at the sight of her mother. What the look signified was lost to Ayae as the silver-haired healer, Reila, came quickly over to see the witch she supported.
‘Olcea.’ Her careworn, white face mirrored the concern her murmur showed. ‘What have you done to yourself?’
‘She piloted a ship,’ Eilona said, again. ‘From Balana. She painted the deck with blood she collected from Zalhan.’
‘That’s a pirate town.’ Kal Essa spoke, then. He stood on the other side of the tent, beyond the wooden chairs and the frayed rug with the piles of parchment on it. A short man, the left side of his face was scarred like a thick spider web. ‘They sell flesh, if they sell anything.’
‘They don’t sell anything now.’
Essa began to speak again, but Lady Wagan lifted her hand slightly, stopping him. ‘It doesn’t matter right now,’ she said. ‘Reila?’
‘I’ll take care of her,’ the healer said.
‘Use this tent.’ She turned, then, and spoke to her daughter. ‘I’m pleased that you’re here,’ she said, a hint of warmth in her voice. ‘I really am. But I have a meeting over breakfast with the Lord of the Saan that I have to attend.’ She indicated the grey-haired, middle-aged white woman who stood beside Kal Essa. ‘Captain Mills and Caeli are accompanying me. Would you like to join us?’
Eilona looked down at her dirt- and blood stained clothes. ‘I am not dressed for that,’ she said. ‘But I could accompany you for some of the way. I have to ask you about some things – and tell you about others.’
After they had left, Ayae helped Reila move Olcea to the back of the tent. There she laid the exhausted woman down on a makeshift mattress. As she did, she was aware of Kal Essa coming up beside her. He stared down at the witch who, in getting comfortable, had drawn her pack to her and wrapped her arms around the solidness of Hien. ‘I can send a couple of my boys round,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t say that they do pretty things, but if need be, they’ll shed a bit of blood for her.’
‘You know her?’ Ayae asked.
‘She was a war witch, once,’ he said. ‘Most of what she did was before my time, but I have heard a thing or two.’
‘She needs rest, mostly,’ Reila said, rising. ‘Maybe a little more, but not yet. If she does need anything, I’ll let you know.’
The cue to leave was not subtle, and both Ayae and the mercenary took it. Outside the tent, the camp bustled. With half a wave to Essa, Ayae took her leave from him and made her way towards the small camp Jae’le and Eidan kept.
Their camp was defined by its single small tent and empty campfire circle. Further past it, she could see Eidan and Tinh Tu standing on the shoreline, but it was not to them that her gaze immediately fell. Rather it was to the lean black figure who was emerging from the water.
And the body he held in his arms.