Grayson sat on his knees, scratching the heavy stone over the main deck, rubbing off brackish grime until the creamy wood beneath shone through. If he missed a spot, Nuel would tell that Roya woman, and she liked to punish anyone who made mistakes.
As Grayson worked, he daydreamed. Over and over, he relived his past. This usually made him feel good, especially when he pretended things had gone differently. His favorite was to imagine that he had gotten out of the dinghy before the thieves had cut the lines. Now he was living on the Seffynaw with Onika, Sir Kalenek, Prince Wilek, and the king of Armania, whose name he could never remember.
Other times he dreamed he had taken the first thief’s knife, pushed both thieves overboard, and saved the boat. In that dream Sir Kalenek had been so impressed with Grayson’s bravery that he told the prince, who knightened Grayson for his heroism.
But neither of those things had happened. Instead Grayson had first been taken to The Wanderer, a dirty, fat ship that normally carried grain—so said one of the young sailors. Grayson didn’t like being on The Wanderer. It had been very crowded, and no one shared their food with him, so he’d sneaked around eating crumbs and crusts and fruit cores, and sometimes stealing food and water.
Jhorn wouldn’t have liked that, which made Grayson feel guilty. So when the ship anchored with the fleet at a place called Odarka, and a man called Nuel came aboard offering jobs on a great ship called the Vespara, Grayson had happily volunteered. A great ship must have better food. Plus he felt it might even provide a way back to the Seffynaw or even Emperor Ulrik’s Baretam.
He had been wrong.
The man Nuel had lied about the jobs. Those in power on the Vespara were Magonian. And the Magonians had wanted slaves, not workers. The new men and boys had been forced to empty and clean chamber pots and slop buckets, to scrub blood and entrails from the deck after animal sacrifices, to do whatever they were told. Any who moved too slowly would be struck. Any who made mistakes or disobeyed had to face Roya, who tattooed a rune on their necks that forced them to obey by magic.
Grayson had managed to avoid this so far by using his abilities. Jhorn had always told him not to, but Grayson figured this was an emergency. He had obscured the color of his dappled skin so that his masters would think him filthy rather than special. And he sometimes walked in the Veil where no one could see him. At first he’d been scared to, knowing that a Magonian ship would have lots of shadir on board. But when he finally gave in and tried it, he saw only one black spirit. This confused him. Where were all the shadir? Even though he didn’t see them, he took care to only enter the Veil when he had no other choice. He did not want these people or the black spirits to know what he could do.
These worries brought Grayson to his daydreams of getting off the Vespara. He had hoped Sir Kalenek might come rescue him. But day after day passed, and the Vespara sailed so far back from the rest of the fleet that no one would ever pay attention to them.
No one came for Grayson. He had been forgotten.
So he set his mind on escape. He had been brought aboard on the boat fall and figured he might be able to use it to get away. There were two problems with this plan. First, he couldn’t lower the dinghy by himself. That took at least two men. Second, the ship traveled too far from the rest of the fleet. So even if Grayson did manage to launch the dinghy, he wasn’t certain he could ever row as far as he would need to.
Yelling near the boat fall caused him to look up from his work. Some men were hoisting a dinghy. One man shouted at another, who hollered at a group of sailors. All of them sprinted away but came right back with more men. Nuel arrived, ordering them all to carry things like a big chair made of woven branches, a rolled red rug, and lots of dried palm leafs. The rug got rolled out beside the boat fall. The chair put on top. Men lined up on both sides, each holding a palm leaf.
Grayson thought all this very strange. He went back to scrubbing but kept an eye on all those men, wondering who was coming and why this person had sparked such a fuss. When the dinghy reached the top, a woman sat inside all by herself. She wore a green dress that made her look like a rich man’s housemaid. Grayson thought she was about twenty or so years old.
“Help me out, you oaf!” The woman all but threw herself into the arms of the men, who dropped their palms to lift her out of the boat and sit her in the chair of branches. Then all the men kneeled in a hurry and bowed with their heads touching the deck.
Bowing to a servant? That was strange.
Sir Kalenek had once dubbed Grayson a spy. In that moment, that was what Grayson decided to be. Surely Sir Kalenek would want to know about what was happening here. He set aside the sandstone and pushed into the Veil to conceal himself. Then he got up and walked toward the people crowded around the strange woman.
“Oh!” she cried, pressing her hands against her cheeks. “It’s happening already. I thought I had more time.”
Grayson gaped as her skin began to bubble and stretch. Her straight black hair turned copper brown and curled into wispy strands.
As her body changed, she continued barking orders. “Two, see that my room is prepared. I’ll need a bath. Where is my First? I must petition Magon for cleansing.”
“Here, Chieftess.” A woman holding a mat shoved between the men.
This was the Chieftess? What happened next reminded Grayson of what Priestess Jazlyn did to purge evenroot poison from her body. Grayson bet it did the same thing. The Chieftess prayed to the shadir she had bonded with, asking it to heal her of the poison she had taken to do her magic spells.
Grayson knew her shadir would be coming now, but he still couldn’t see it. The group of people around the Chieftess remained still, watching her pray. Suddenly a young woman stepped out from the crowd. She had reddish-brown skin, gray eyes, and long coils of copper-brown hair. Was she another mantic? Or maybe another one of the women with numbers for names?
She reached down to the Chieftess, who looked up and took hold of her hand.
“I have healed you,” the young woman said.
A chill ran over Grayson at the spiritual sound of that voice. That was no woman. It was the shadir! The other people seemed not to see or hear it. Only the Chieftess responded. Grayson watched, shocked. He had never seen a shadir pretend to look human before. They usually looked like monsters or two animals squished together.
The Chieftess’s body continued to change, stretching as colors faded from one into another, all while she held the hand of her shadir.
When the change ended, Grayson gasped. Couldn’t help it. The Chieftess now looked exactly like her shadir, as if they were twins.
The shadir vanished, and the Chieftess stood and walked away from her throne, stepping over the kneeling people. “Is my bath ready?” she said to no one in particular.
“Yes, Chieftess,” a man said, jumping up and chasing after her.
“Chieftess?” asked another man who stood up from the crowd. “What happened to Charlon? Is she dead?”
The Chieftess glanced back at the man. “Not yet. But she will be soon enough. She is a fool and a failure. Oh . . .” She chuckled, frowning at the man. “Don’t look so glum, Torol. I know you liked her company. But trust in me and you will forget her soon enough.”
The man bowed his head. “Yes, Chieftess.”
Once the Chieftess and her cluster of followers had moved out of earshot, Grayson slipped away to the bow and gazed out at the other ships on the horizon. The Vespara followed the fleet at a distance—never came close to any other ship. Grayson could not tell which, if any, of the tiny specks out there might be the Seffynaw.
Why hadn’t Sir Kalenek come to rescue him?
Grayson did not want to be on this ship. He wanted to be with Onika and Jhorn. Missed them very much. He did not like Magonians. Shadir frightened him. Mantics frightened him too. That a powerful bonded pair had come aboard the Vespara terrified him. If one of them were to notice his skin, to really look at it, or if they saw him in the Veil, they might learn what he was. And then, just as Jhorn had always warned, they would use Grayson for their evil purposes.
He had no idea what that meant, but it sounded bad. Now more than ever, Grayson needed a way to escape. But how?