The Last of the Wilds

you to rooms where you can rest, if you wish.”

Niril inclined his head. “We would be grateful for that. First I have news that the Speakers are anxious for me to deliver. Ten days ago a black ship was seen off the coast of southern Si. The Siyee who investigated sighted several groups of Pentadrian men and women disembark and travel inland. They saw the star pendant on some of the Pentadrians’ chests, and they saw birds.”

Auraya felt a chill run down her back. The Siyee had lost too many fighters in the war. Did the Pentadrians know this? Did they think the Siyee vulnerable?

“That is bad news,” she acknowledged. “But it is fortunate your people saw them arrive. That gives us time.” She glanced at Juran and the other White. “We will decide what can be done about it.”

“Yes,” Juran agreed. “We will meet at the Altar. Auraya will take you to your rooms first. We will discuss our conclusions with you when you are rested.”

Niril nodded, his shoulders dropping with weariness. Auraya smiled in sympathy and beckoned.

“Come with me.”

17

Imi floated in a forest of sea-bell trees. They swayed softly, stirred by a current. Glowing, tiny bells moved in dizzying patterns around her. She reached out to touch one. The delicate cup swayed closer, as if eager to be plucked.

Then rows of teeth appeared, and the bell lunged toward her hand.

She snatched her hand away, horrified. A shadow slid over her, smothering all but the glowing bells in darkness. Dread gripped her. She looked up.

The hulk of an enormous ship loomed overhead. Ropes descended like snakes, seeking her out. She wanted to flee, but could not move. Only when the ropes had tangled about her did she regain control, but by then it was too late. The ropes drew her upward, and her struggles made no difference.

Still she fought them, knowing what awaited her on the surface. Raiders were there. Cruel, cold men. In comparison to these landwalkers, the fishermen who had caught her taking the sea bells had been kind and generous. The fishermen would have let her go once she had finished harvesting the bells for them.

Once free she would have swum to the sea floor to retrieve the bells she had collected for her father before heading home. She wouldn’t have given them to him straight away. He would be too angry at her to enjoy them. No, she would have accepted his punishment for slipping away and been thankful that she had escaped.

That wasn’t what had happened. As the ropes drew her to the surface she braced herself for the memory of what had come next, but before she broke free of the water, something hard rammed into her ribs. The pain jolted her awake. She gasped and opened her eyes.

Light filtered down through a wooden roof. From the cool sensation around her legs she knew there was more water sloshing around her than there had been when she had fallen asleep. Her nose caught the smell of fresh fish. As always, the crew moved about at their tasks, visible through the open section of the deck. One stood in the hull, facing her. Her ears registered a rough male voice barking at her. The words were strange, but she knew their meaning well.

Back to work.

Her hands found the bucket and she stooped to fill it. The man stopped barking. She poured the contents into another bucket hanging from a rope through the hole in the deck. Something dropped from the man’s hands into the water at her feet. He climbed up onto the deck to bark at the crew instead.

Imi looked down. Two small fish floated in the seawater. She managed to grab and eat them without pausing in her task.

Raw fish had been served to her many times before in the palace, but it had always been sliced up into delicate pieces and accompanied by salted seaweed or pickled kwee bulbs. Nobody had ever shown her how to scale a fish and she had no sharp object to help her. She had learned to strip off the scales with her teeth and spit them out again.

It wasn’t healthy to live on raw fish alone, just as Teiti had told her she couldn’t live on just sweets. Teiti had always said a healthy diet was one with many different kinds of foods, including many Imi didn’t like. Thinking of her aunt make her heart ache. She missed Teiti so much. Her heart ached more whenever she thought of her father. How she wished she hadn’t left the city. She should have bought her father something from the market. She should have listened to Teiti.

Imi worked steadily. The hull of the ship let in water slowly and the raiders didn’t seem to mind how fast she scooped it out, so long as she, and whoever hauled the other bucket up out of the hull to empty it, kept at it. They didn’t care that she splashed herself from time to time, or slept in a pool of it at night. Without the constant immersion in water her skin would have dried out and she would have suffered a slow and painful death.

After the raiders had pulled her out of the sea they had tied her up in the open at first. The hot sun had been unbearable. Her skin had dried out and she had suffered from a terrible thirst despite the water they had given to her to drink. Pain had begun in her head and spread to the rest of her body until she could only lie slumped on the wooden floor.

The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hull, water swirling around her body as the ship rocked back and forth. Terrifyingly loud sounds came from outside the ship, deafening her. Rain, which she had seen only twice before, and the occasional wave cresting the deck, had begun to fill the hull at an alarming rate. Several of the raiders had begun bailing out the water, and when one pressed a bucket into her hands she had joined them, terrified the ship would sink and she would drown, tied to it by the rope around her ankle.

Later a raider came and tossed fish at her. She had been so hungry, she had eaten the scales, bones and flesh.

Slowly she had recovered some of her strength. The raiders’ leader had made it clear he wanted her to keep bailing out the water. She had refused at first. She was a princess. She didn’t do menial work.

So he had beaten her.

Shocked and frightened, she had given in. He had watched her work for a time, menacing her if she slowed. Finally, satisfied she was cowed enough, he had left her to it.

It was endless, tiring work and she was always hungry. They gave her so little food. Her body was thin. Her arms looked like muscle, skin and bone, and nothing more. Her shift hung from her, dirty and torn. She didn’t know how long she could keep doing this. So many days had passed. She clung to the hope that her father or one of the young fighters of her home would rescue her. It was better not to think too much about it, however. If she did, she could see too many reasons why rescue was unlikely.

Something will happen, she told herself. I’m a princess. Princesses don’t die in the hulls of ships. When my rescuer comes, I’ll be alive and ready.

The five walls of the Altar met above the White. Juran spoke the ritual words to begin the meeting and Auraya joined the others to speak the short phrase that was their part. When all were silent, Juran looked at each of them, his expression troubled.

“We are here to discuss what to do about these Pentadrians in Si,” he began.

“Does this mean we are at war again?” Mairae asked.

Juran shook his head. “No.”

“But the Pentadrians have invaded one of our allies.”

“They have trespassed,” Juran corrected. “As far as we know, they have not harmed anyone within Si.”

“Because the Siyee aren’t foolish enough to approach them,” Auraya pointed out. “We must find out why they are there.”

“Yes,” Juran agreed. “That will take time. I will send the priests who have recently arrived at the Open to meet them.”

“Priests?” Auraya repeated, surprised. “Why risk their lives and subject the Siyee to such a delay? I can reach Si in a day.”

Juran exchanged a glance with Dyara before meeting Auraya’s eyes.