“I won’t let that happen, Dmitri. I will defend you until my last breath.” Rising, Zaethan collected his boots. “Now, the crown needs his beauty rest. Let me walk you.”

“I would like to stay just a little longer.”

The phrase was a familiar one, a subtle request for privacy. Zaethan hitched a bare foot over the bench and stood behind Dmitri, preparing to leave him in peace.

“I know what I ask of you,” Dmitri stated as Zaethan took a step toward the gate. “But I am not asking it as…” His back shuddered as he swallowed, “as your sovereign. I am asking it of you as my friend.”

Boots dangled from his fingertips, tucked beneath the sling. Zaethan’s free hand came down and held onto his friend’s lean shoulder. He did not let go.

“I will see it’s taken care of.”

“You have my gratitude,” Dmitri whispered. His head dipped slightly. “I need you, my brother.”

Dmitri’s right hand stretched over and fell atop Zaethan’s on his shoulder, revealing an old, faded band of crimson encircling his narrow wrist. Zaethan tightened his hold on his friend, staring at the fraying thread Dmitri had tied so long ago, simply to make a point. A point he’d never retracted.

Brothers by choice, stronger than blood.

“I am with you, brother,” Zaethan assured him. “Always.”

Splashes of coral and cerise blushed the horizon. Bittersweetly, the colors of Àla’maia’s approach painted the skies as her lover, Owàa, descended into the sorrow of night. Zaethan felt the sun’s misery like his own.

In a stalwart sway, the waters of the Yachel Channel lapped against the hull of the Esafit Ramali. True to her naming, the ship navigated the vast river like a sandstorm, intrepid and commanding. Abandoning the shores of the Wastes, she embodied the precision expected of an executioner. It was the voyage she knew best, after all.

On the main deck, Zaethan turned starboard to watch the barren, cracked sands pass by. He could taste the salt in the air as the breeze licked the dust from the coast. It numbed his tongue, flooding his mouth with the hopelessness of the land, rather than the sea. Desolate and deadly, nothing could survive these endless miles of nothingness. Not even his friend Salma Nabhu, if she lived to see the morning.

“Shàla’maiamo, my favorite yaya,” he said softly to the wind.

Zaethan gripped the ratlines and watched the weeping woman disappear in the distance, forcing himself to accept what he had done. And, because of his action, what could not be undone.

“Eh, full speed ahead, yeye qondai?” he heard Dhalili yell from the crow’s nest, high above the decking. With a triplet of yips, his small scout swung from the basket, landing in a skip across the planks. Clutching onto the railing, Dhalili smiled beside him, grinning into the breeze. Shorter than the rest of the minimal crew—as the ship was manned by the essential members and no more—Dhalili set her hands on her boyish hips. Her billowing gunja pants caught the wind like a mast, almost sweeping her away.

“I’ll keep this yancy crew in order, Alpha Zà,” she declared, crossing her petite but muscular arms. “Move like sludge-runners, yeah? Even the mudmen have more grit than this kakka-shtàka band of Unitarian slummies, ano?”

Dhalili looped one of the tiny twists dotting her head, wrapping it tightly around one finger. Her youthful eyes rolled when she grimaced at a crewman gathering the line, apparently too slow for her liking.

“Ah, ano, ano. I show him, Alpha Zà.”

As she climbed to the quarter deck, Zaethan leaned over the taffrail and peered into the wake forming over the darkening waters. Soon the Esafit Ramali would meet the Drystan, sealing Salma’s fate under Àla’maia’s eye.

A heavy hand clapped the back of his jacket. Kumo bent down next to Zaethan, resting against the railing. His sleeves creaked as his massive arms crooked forward and he gazed out across the waves.

“You are restless.”

“Which is why you call me Ahoté,” Zaethan cited his cousin drily.

“Ano. I call you Ahoté because when you killed that rabid cat, you took on his spirit.” Kumo palmed the buttons down the front of his jacket. “Just a young, fearless cub, you set into the wilderness and came back with its head, proving your father wrong. But ever since, you roam like the restless bobcat. Always unsettled. Always pacing, rabid for more.”

“How can I be settled in this? Depths.” Zaethan chucked Salma’s empty shackles over the edge of the ship. “How do I know this night doesn’t prove him right?”

“We are doing what you believe to be just, Ahoté.”

“Uni zà,” Zaethan agreed, but he shifted his face away. “I stand behind my decision.”

Kumo nudged him with an elbow, pivoting on his side. “Then why torture yourself, Ahoté? You gave the command, and I arranged it, yeah? It is done.”

Zaethan rubbed his wrist in the sling, envisioning the red thread encompassing Dmitri’s. “When we act on what is right, a line is drawn. But that line…” He scowled at Àla’maia’s emerging glow, capping the waters. “That line has consequences, cousin. Kwihila rapiki mu Jwona. No victory will be able to unwrite this night.”

“Meme qondai.” His beta nodded grimly. “But there is no regret in victory.”

“I’m not regretting my decision, or the order.” Zaethan’s eyes narrowed intently. “I’m preparing for the day that choice will be staring me in the face.”

“Then on that day, Ahoté,” Kumo reached out and grabbed the base of Zeathan’s neck, “we face it together.”

Overhead, the moon took to her throne in the skies. Her glory bathed the sea as she held court in the clouds. Zaethan made for the stern of the ship, toward the magnificent ripples trailing their exodus. The Esafit Ramali surged forward, full mast, fleeing the shadow of the Wastes and leaving her sins behind.

Clasping the helm, Zaethan focused on the journey ahead, wishing his own could be so easily forgotten.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Luscia

   Weary and spent, Luscia waited outside her aunt’s door.

Moments ticked by, unbearably slow. Her healing arm itched as irritably as her mind, swirling with conflicting thoughts and unrecognizable emotions. They’d eliminated a killer, only to uncover another.

The door creaked, admitting the captaen of Alora’s guard, Emiere, into her aunt’s great room. During the past months, the middle-aged Najjan had operated at a distance, likely at Alora’s bidding. Made famous by his valor during the late Shield Wars, Luscia noted the versatile manner in which her aunt entrusted the elder captaen. It would be wise, she considered, to task Marek to do the same in the trying days ahead.