A thick-frozen harbor had kept the Waifia locked in place for days. A pool of dark water surrounded the ship itself, thanks to the crew's efforts, but the ice formed and thickened only a few feet away. Water witchery barely worked on ice, so until it thawed, the sea witches were stuck in a frozen northern harbor.
Rasim had come to the parapets above the harbor every day to stare down at the water and wonder how they were going to escape the North before spring. They had to; something dangerous was building, threatening both his southerly home city of Ilyara and the northern town of Hongrunn, where they were currently trapped. Rasim felt certain the threat was actually even bigger than that, reaching across the whole continent, but the adults around him thought he was being dramatic.
They thought he was being dramatic a lot of the time, and the fact that he kept being right didn't seem to make much difference. If he was lucky, someone would listen soon, and they could deal with the spreading threat, but Rasim was increasingly sure that he would end up being that someone. Again.
"Could you thaw it?"
Rasim startled as Kisia, taller and browner than he, stepped out of a palace door. She picked her way across the slippery stone floor to lean against the parapet beside him, her hands dangled over its edge as she peered down. "Well, could you?"
"Guildmaster Isidri barely survived thawing a half-frozen harbor, and she knew what she was doing."
"You're ninety years younger than Isidri."
"And I don't know what I'm doing." Rasim extended a hand toward the thick ice, like he could feel its weight and texture from the distance. He couldn't, though he could feel the dark, patient water beneath. It slopped against the harbor walls, shifting the ice a few feet this way or that. Its edges broke into ragged shards where it stuck to the sheer mountain walls that plummeted straight into the water.
A month ago, he wouldn't have felt that, not from this high up. A month ago, Rasim had been the least of their guild. He'd been given a position on the Ilyaran flagship, the Waifia because he thought quickly and spoke faster, rather than thanks to any special gift of magic. But two weeks ago, he and Kisia had been thrown into the open ocean, and Siliaria, the sea goddess herself, had saved them and granted Rasim the power he'd always dreamed of. Or at least, that's what Rasim thought. Kisia believed the goddess had only acknowledged his power. She thought it had been there all along, and that Siliaria's kiss had just given Rasim the confidence he'd lacked.
Rasim doubted that, but arguing with Kisia never got him anywhere. Besides, whether she was right or he was, after Siliaria had kissed him, the goddess had named Rasim 'Seamaster', the title of greatest power that his guild had. Now he felt the ocean's pull as strongly as any of his guild. Maybe more strongly.
But not enough to thaw ice. The old guildmaster, Isidri, really was at least ninety years older than Rasim, and she was the only Seamaster who could make or thaw ice at will. Ice was made of water, but it wasn't water, and Ilyaran magic was pure and simple stuff. Sea, sky, sun and stone: those were the elements they could wield. Even Milu, a powerful Stonemaster journeyman, couldn't work the dirt, though stone and dirt didn't seem that different to Rasim's water-witch mind.
"I've tried," Rasim admitted morosely. "But I can't make it respond, and I don't know..."
"You don't know if it's you, or the ice, or Northern witches hiding somewhere and keeping it in place." Kisia lifted her chin and gave the whole of the Northern city a fierce look, as if the blocky grey buildings, rising out of the mountains like rough-hewn cliffs, would spill their secrets if she glared hard enough.
Rasim hid a grin. If anybody could glare secrets out of a city, it was Kisia. She had already broken with all tradition by leaving the merchant's life she'd been born to and joining the Seamasters' Guild at age fourteen. She'd risen to the rank of journeyman almost over-night, even though everybody thought only very young children could be taught witchery at all. Then she had left their hot delta homeland with Rasim, and was now thousands of miles from home in the frozen north, wearing a heavy coat and a furry hat that settled over her ears. If she thought she could scare Hongrunn's secrets out of it, Rasim believed her. Still hiding his smile, he leaned forward to study the icy water and the sole Ilyaran ship bobbing in it. "I never felt any witchery being worked to freeze the harbor, though, never mind keep it frozen."
Kisia snapped her attention back to Rasim. "First off, there's no reason to think Northern magic feels like ours. Second, none of us really even looked at the harbor until after we'd finished with the lake and—" Her ferocity faded, and a stab of pain shot through Rasim's chest.
"And the memorials," he finished quietly. The Waifia had come north to cleanse Hongrunn's salt-poisoned water supply. They'd succeeded, but at great cost. Almost twenty of their crew and a handful of others had died when fixing the water supply set off an explosive trap. By the time they'd mourned, the harbor had frozen solid.
"Right." Kisia straightened her shoulders. "So we were really busy and using a lot of magic ourselves that week. If someone did use witchery to freeze it, it's no surprise we didn't feel the magic being worked. And once it's in place..." She shrugged. "It's ice. We can't do much with it. Now come on." She pushed off the parapet. "You've been up here brooding all week, when you promised we'd explore the whole city. Let's go."
"I haven't been brooding all week," Rasim replied, stung. "A lot of the time I've been arguing with Inga."
Kisia's laugh bounced bright and sharp off the cold grey walls. Snow slid over a pointed roof and scattered on them as if loosened by the sound of her voice. Rasim, mildly offended, brushed himself clean and stared at Kisia.
"Oh, come on. 'I haven't been brooding, I've been arguing with a princess!'" Snow piled on her hat's upper brim and threatened to fall into her face. Rasim pressed his lips together and watched, wide-eyed, without warning her. Kisia thought he was making fun of her and stomped her foot. The snow cascaded down her face. Rasim laughed too, just as loudly as she had.
Howling with outrage, Kisia snatched up a handful of snow and flung it at him. Rasim ducked, still laughing, and for a few moments they were embroiled in a fight, pelting handsful of snow at one another as they slid precariously across the ice-slick roof. Finally, Kisia's feet went out from under her and she landed in a drift, pink-cheeked with laughter and waving for mercy. "But it was funny," she informed Rasim as he flung himself into the snow beside her.
"So was the snow falling all over you. And I have been arguing with her. She says neither she nor Queen Janna has the power to forbid the other nobles to keep generational debt-slaves. I don't understand how she can think that way. Janna is the ruler of the whole Northlands, right? So if she allows her subjects to run debt slaves for generations, it's no wonder the continental slavers come here for fresh stock."
"They don't come to Ilyara."
"They don't dare." Rasim got up and offered Kisia a hand, pulling her to her feet. "Not as long as we have magic and they don't. Ilyaran witchery is why we don't have slaves."
"So that makes us what, better?" A boy's voice broke between its youthful soprano and its oncoming adult baritone as Desimi came through the door behind them. "You two knocked half the snow off the roofs with all that shrieking."
"And you couldn't stand the idea of us having fun without you." Kisia scooped up another handful of snow and threw it at Desimi, who knocked it away easily. Although only fourteen like Rasim, Desimi was already as big as some men, and had always commanded an impressive talent for seawitchery. He had a foul temper to go along with his size, too, and had taken it out on Rasim, until Rasim's misadventures had dragged Desimi to their king's attention. Desimi had rightfully won royal approval for his heroic efforts in keeping King Taishm safe, and the boys had since come to a bickering peace. Rasim thought the bickering was part of what kept the peace.
As long as it didn't involve him getting kicked or punched, Rasim was happy to argue. He was good at that, but he'd always been small, and better at running away than fighting. He threw a lazy handful of snow at Desimi, too. "I guess it makes us…luckier, or more privileged or something. I guess I don't know if we'd be any better if we didn't have magic to use instead of slaves, but we do, and even if we didn't, slavery is awful. Having your life depend on doing what other people tell you to do isn't right. Being unable to make choices of your own all the time isn't right. Being afraid that if the crops die or you lose your flock you'll end up in chains is wrong. People can't live that way."
Desimi shrugged. "People live that way all the time."
"And look at what being afraid and angry did to Missio," Rasim said unhappily. Missio was another sea witch, a handful of years older than Rasim. She'd despised him for being half-Northern, and had tried killing him before disappearing into Hongrunn. "No one should have to live that way. And I don't understand why Inga can't see that. Maybe it's because she's never even been threatened by it—"
"You were a slave for about five days, Rasim," Desimi said. "It's not like you know very much about it yourself."
Rasim's stomach clenched. "I know that the first thing I heard when I was separated from the fleet was ‘How much is he worth,' and it scared me. I never had to think about slaves before, because I'm lucky to be Ilyaran—"
"And the princess is lucky, too. She doesn't have to think about it either, and she doesn't want you to make her think about it. Know what's worse than being nagged to death about something like that?"
Rasim cast a look at Kisia, who pulled her mouth into an admission of ignorance. When they both looked back at Desimi, a triumphant light gleamed in his eyes. "What's worse is knowing somebody's right and having them stop nagging you about it. It gets under your skin and it bothers you until you have to do something. So shut up about it for a while, Sunburn, and your princess will come around with the tide."
"She's not my princess."
"No," Kisia said under her breath, grinning. "She's Hassin's princess, and I just can't wait to see if they choose the sea or the throne."
For a few seconds both boys stopped to gawk at Kisia, whose eyebrows rose. "What?"
"Hassin's going to captain the Waifia someday," Rasim said. "He can't—he couldn't—he wouldn't!"
"Give it up for a throne? Why not? Would you expect a princess to give her throne up for a common sailor?"
"Well, no, but—"
"She's joking," Desimi growled. "Hassin would never give up the sea." Even he sounded like his ship had hit a sudden trough and dropped his stomach through his feet.
"People do all kinds of strange things for the people they love," Kisia said. "What about that Islands girl of yours, Rasim?"
"What? Who? Adele?" Heat scored Rasim's cheeks, scalding against the cold winter air. "She's not mine any more than Inga is. And besides, I hardly know her. And..." She was very pretty, he had to admit that. But so was Kisia, or Sesin, the journeyman who had just begun studying healing with Seamaster Usia. Still hot-faced, Rasim struggled for a change of topic, and remembered what had started the conversation. "You really think if I leave Inga alone about slavery she'll start to think about it my way?"
Desimi, sourly, said, "Trust me. I should know."
"How—oh." The answer presented itself just fast enough to save Desimi having to respond. As it was, he scowled and stomped to look over the roof's edge at the Waifia while Rasim rearranged his thoughts. He'd argued with Desimi a lot over the years. It had never occurred to him that he'd ever changed Desimi's mind, much less by letting him sit and think on a topic for a while. He knew Desimi wasn't dumb. The bigger boy just didn't think as fast as Rasim did. But then, mostly, neither did anybody else. It had been Rasim's only advantage, growing up small and not very magical in a guild full of witches, but it had landed him in hot water as often as it got him out.
"Where did you sneak in?" Desimi leaned over the edge, searching the shoreline. "The first time you came to Hongrunn, you snuck in through the sewers. Where'd you come in?"
"Um." Rasim joined the other two at the parapet, wishing Kisia wouldn't lean quite so far over it. After a moment he located the divot of land where the underwater spillage tunnel was carved, and pointed. "Down there, between the streets—the house with the yellow wood door, do you see it? Just under there. Why?"
Desimi shifted his shoulders slyly, and Rasim snorted. "You want to see if you can get through it more easily than I did? Of course you can. You've got a lot more magic than I do. Did. But if you're going to try, somebody should go warn Gontor that there's going to be a big splash in there when you blow the drop-hole cover off."
A slow grin started over Desimi's face. "Let's see who can get there first. Me through the tunnels or you through the palace."
"You have to start by getting to the tunn—Desimi! Desimi, no, what are you—you can't just jump in, the harbor's frozen over!"
"Not right next to the Waifia, it's not." Desimi was already halfway up the parapets. He grinned down at Rasim and began shedding his winter clothes.
Kisia curled her fingers against her mouth, her eyes wild and laughing above them. "Desimi, it's only a few feet around the ship. What if you miss? You'll be killed. Or broken to bits and the healers will kill you!"
Desimi moved forward until his toes were at the parapet's edge and extended his hands. "I can't thaw it, but I can break up the thin stuff around the ship."
The weight of seawitchery pounded the air as water slopped, then burst, upward, shattering ice around the ship below them. The Waifia rocked dramatically, sending its skeleton crew to the railings. Their shouts rose toward Desimi as Kisia shrieked and scrambled up on the parapet with him. "Can you do that for the whole harbor?"
"Nah. It gets too thick away from shore. Coming with me?" Desimi's grin lit even brighter as Rasim saw the thrill of challenge awaken in Kisia's eyes.
"Kees—you can't—you'll—it's—you can't!"
"Of course I can." Kisia wiggled out of her own winter coat and boots, then, shivering and grinning hugely, pointed at Desimi. "You better keep me dry when we hit the water. I don't know if I can do it myself, and I don't want to freeze before we hit the tunnels!"
"You two—you can't—you—oh, you did." Rasim clapped his hands over his face, then leaned forward to peer through his fingers as Kisia and Desimi, howling with glee, plummeted toward the icy harbor.