Shadowmarch

what he said before the pair of guards had fallen too far behind her. “But even if she cared for him sail, she couldn’t do him any good now. Nothing between the seas can help him . .”

Jeddin? Were they talking about Jeddin?

Qinnitan felt hollowed, scorched, as though all her feelings had been burned away. The world had seemed mad enough, but today it had spun into realms of lunacy she could not have dreamed existed.

It was a warm evening and the streets were crowded. Outside the Seclusion the thoroughfare was full of expensive shops and teahouses—proximity to the great palace was almost infinitely desirable, no matter what the trade—and Qinnitan felt such a sense of relief and joy to be free among the loud and cheerful throng that it almost overcame the horror that still gripped her, but the feeling did not last long. Not only had she seen someone close to her murdered, she had now flouted one of the autarch’s gravest laws. Even if by some strange chance she might have been allowed to live despite Jeddin’s and Luian’s crimes and her connection to them, the moment she had passed that door she had sullied herself. The autarch would have no use whatsoever for a sullied bride of unimportant parents.

I might as well be dead, she thought. A ghost on the desert wind. It was a curious feeling, both empty and exhilarating.

As they wound their way down through the hanging lamps of the market district and closer to the dark waterfront, the crowds became less friendly, the criminal element less cautious, and the menace increasingly tangible. As they passed down an alleyway between two long buildings, the only light that leaked in from a shabby teahouse at one end with its shutters half raised, she realized fatal misfortune was almost as likely to take them here as in the very heart of the autarch’s palace. She would never have come to such a place in her woman’s clothes, but there were many unpleasant folk who would be just as happy with a pair of comely boys— especially those who presumably could not scream for help.

Little Pigeon also sensed the danger—it would have taken someone not just mute but blind and deaf to miss it—and he allowed Qinnitan to hurry him along toward the docks. As they stepped out of yet another narrow, dimly lit alley into Sailmakers’ Row, a wide road whose other end touched the shipyards and the nearest part of the docks, they found a tall shape standing in the road as if waiting for them.

“Hello, wee ones.” The stranger wore sailor’s garb, the pants barely below his knee and a mariner’s cloth wrapped around his head, but his clothes were ragged and his voice shook like a sick man’s. “And what brings you wandering down here at this time of the night? Are you lost?” He took a step toward them. “Let a friendly hand help.”

Qinnitan hesitated for only a moment—he stood between them and their destination, but the autarch’s wrath was behind them and they could not turn back—then she grabbed Pigeon’s hand and started toward the stranger at speed. The boy hesitated only enough to make a slight drag on her hand, then he leaped forward and ran beside her. The man stood, his arms spread but his dark-sunken eyes wide with surprise. When they hit him, he was knocked onto his back. He rolled there for a moment cursing before scrambling to his feet.

“You peasecods, you puppies, I’ll have your innards out!” he shrieked. “I’ll spike you and gut you!” He was up and after them now, and although he was at least a dozen steps behind, when Qinnitan looked back over her shoulder he seemed to be closing the distance rapidly.

“Where are we going?” she gasped, but Pigeon did not know any better than she did, and could only run beside her. The boy was faster than her, she realized, but he paced her, still holding her hand. What did Jeddin’s letter say —a temple, was it? The boat moored across from a temple? But what temple?

They came down out of Sailmakers’ Row and onto the quay, their pursuer’s steps banging on the boards not far behind them. Qinnitan slowed and almost stopped, daunted by the horrible sight of hundreds upon hundreds of masts, of boats lined in their slips for what looked like a mile, all bobbing in turn as gentle waves from the mild night sea ran down the length of the quay. The footsteps grew louder and she began to sprint again.

“Little scallops!” the man panted. He seemed almost at their shoulders and Qinnitan reached for her last strength to stay ahead of him. “I eat little scallops!”

In desperation she began to shout as loud as she could, “Hoy, the Morning Star! Morning Star! Where are you?” until she ran out of breath. There was no reply, although she thought she saw movement on some of the dark ships.

Now they all ran in silence for a moment, the man behind them wheezing but not slowing. “Morning Star!” Qinnitan screamed. “Where are you?'

“Just up a few slips,” someone shouted from one of the boats as they passed.

Qinnitan stumbled but Pigeon held her up. “Morning Star!” she shouted again, or tried, but her voice seemed quiet and strengthless, her legs soft as cushions. She could barely summon breath. “Morning Star!”

“Here!” a voice shouted from a short way ahead. “Who’s there?”

Qinnitan yanked Pigeon up what she hoped was the correct gangplank. The man who had been chasing them stopped, hesitated for a moment, then turned away and took a few staggering steps into the shadows and was gone from sight. Qinnitan leaned on the ship’s rail, gasping as the stars in the sky seemed to drift down and swirl around her like sparks. The masts and rigging were all around her, too, like some kind of forest draped in spiderwebs, but she was able to take in nothing else except burning air.

A rough hand grabbed her arm and straightened her up, thrusting a lantern into her face. “Who are you? You shout as if you want to wake the dead.”

“Is… this… the Morning Star of Kirous?” she gasped.

“It is. Who or what are you?” She thought she could see squinting eyes and a dark beard behind the lantern, but it was hard to face the light.

“We come… from Jeddin.” Then her knees unlocked and the world spun around, the masts whirling like merrymaking dancers as she fell into first gray, then black emptiness.

* * *

“We were told to expect you—although dressed as a woman, not as a boy slave,” said Axamis Dorza, captain of the Morning Star. He had brought her to the small ship’s tiny cabin. The boy named Pigeon crouched at Qinni-tan’s feet, silent and wide-eyed. “We were even told that we might need to take you with us on short notice.” Now he waved the forged letter she’d written in Luian’s chamber and closed with Jeddin’s seal. “We were not told we would leave without Lord Jeddin himself on board. What do you know about this?”

She breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Hive and the sacred protection of her beloved bees: apparently the sailors had not heard of Jeddin’s arrest. Now it was time to use the skills of deceit she had been forced to learn in the Seclusion. “I don’t know, Captain. I only know that Jeddin told me to disguise myself and bring this slave here, and to give you this message.” It was important, she reminded herself, not to know what Jeddin’s purported letter said. “I know nothing else, I’m afraid. I am only glad we found you before that man who was chasing us did whatever he planned to do.” She did her best to sound like a queen, regal and sure of herself.

But I am a queen, aren’t I, at least of a sort? Or I was. But it had never felt that way, not for a moment.

The captain waved away the unimportant detail of their pursuer. “The docks are full of unnatural scum like that, and others even worse, believe me. No, what I do not understand is why we should leave without Lord Jeddin. I ask you again, do you know anything of this?”

She shook her head. “Only that Lordjeddin told me to come to you and go where you carried me, that you and your men would protect me from his enemies.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, glad that she had every excuse for anxiousness. “Please, Captain, tell me what my lord says.”

Axanus Dorza picked up the letter in his thick fingers and squinted. His eyes were so netted in wrinkles that from the nose up he looked to be a great-grandfather’s age, but she guessed he was considerably younger. “It says only,’Take Lady Qinnitan to Hierosol. All other plans must wait. Take her there tonight and I will meet you there.” But meet us where, my lady? Hierosol is only a little smaller than Great Xis! And why cross the ocean to Eion instead of merely shipping to another port down the coast and waiting for him there?”

“I do not know, Captain.” She suddenly felt as if she might tumble to the floor again in exhaustion. “You must do as you see fit. I put myself and my servant in your hands, as my lord Jeddin wished.”

The captain frowned and stared at the seal ring that he held in his other hand. “You have his seal as well as