Across the Darkling Sea Read online

  She didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. It was sheer madness. But there was no denying she was exactly where the book said she was.

  Find a boat. Get to the Colli Terra. You must find a way to be unmade.

  She’d written those words to herself. Unmade. Ling—as she now knew she called herself—was not entirely sure she wanted to be unmade at all. She didn’t want to die. But if the story were true, she was a monster. She was something that didn’t belong in the world. According to what she’d written, there had been plenty of people along the way who had stressed that point to her.

  She was living on time that she’d stolen from the real Evelyn. She was an imposter. A changeling. Something that shouldn’t exist, even in the world of warlocks and Mari.

  She wanted to throw the book into the pink water in front of her. She wanted to see the small bubbles that would form and hear the steady blub-blub-blub that would result from the water saturating the pages. She wanted that book to sink below the surface, into the thick, soppy mud, and never be seen again.

  She wanted to take back the name Evelyn, to find a place to call her own. She could hide what she really was. No one would ever know the truth. She could find a job, have a normal life. Have a family of her own.

  She climbed to her feet and stretched one arm out as far over the water as she could without getting her toes in it. She held the book by its spine, pinching it between two fingers as if it would burn her to touch it more fully. And, of course, it did burn her. Not her flesh, but the intangible something that made up her soul.

  You have no soul.

  “I do have a soul. I share Evelyn’s soul.”

  You are real in the same way magic is real. But only people have souls, and you are not a person.

  Water dripped all around her, the tiny droplets declaring themselves with small exclamations of sound as they burst on root or flesh or water. She felt them when they hit her, felt their coolness, felt the resulting smaller drops as they burst and exploded outward again. It felt exactly as she remembered it had, thought it would.

  Birds mumbled and shuffled in the trees above her. She could hear an occasional ripple as a fish broke the surface of water nearby, the sudden intake of air as it sucked at some insect struggling on the surface. But the voice in her mind was right.

  “I’m not human.” The words were barely louder than an exhale. “I have no soul.”

  Above her, an unseen bird let loose an unbridled song, the pure notes piercing the grayness of the day with a brilliant trill of exuberance. Ling thought for certain those notes would drive back the clouds that loomed over her. The notes were so clear and so perfect, how could they not? But the clouds lingered, indifferent to the joyfulness or the despair of the creatures moving through them. Undaunted, the bird took wing. Thirst, hunger, the need to shit—the compulsion to live simply does not wait on a rainy day.

  It was all true. She knew it the way she knew the sun would set tonight and rise again in the morning. She was as certain of it as she was that a touch of sunlight would warm her skin on a summer day. It was as undeniable and unavoidable as the pink water in front of her and the towering tree at her back. She had a life of sorts, but she was not alive in the way that all the things around her were. She had not been born, she’d been made. She could not die in the usual sense of the word, but she could be unmade. And that would make everything right in the world.

  She felt light and heavy at the same time. She was gutted and empty with no more substance than a ghost. Everything she thought she’d known when her eyes had opened had disappeared in the amount of time it had taken her to read that book. But she was also as heavy as a blacksmith’s forge. Regret and longing felt empty, but were so heavy to carry.

  The desire to experience her family again, to hear her mother’s voice as she settled an argument as chancellor or the gruff shout of her father aboard one of his boats, was overwhelming. But that opportunity was lost to her now. Had been for five long years, though she hadn’t known it.

  She would cease to exist without ever hearing her father’s voice again. Without ever again seeing the way her mother’s nose wrinkled up when she laughed.

  She climbed over several large ribs of tree root, tripping and stumbling as she went. The ache of her insides left her unbalanced and clumsy. The plain gray walkway was deserted, the houses around her as ruined and empty as she felt. She kept her eyes averted from the statuary along the walk, unable to come to terms with the idea that such things existed in the world.

  The book bounced against her hip as she moved through the early morning light. She reached the main walkway in minutes and paused, watching the people there as they went about their business.

  There were plenty of warlocks about in their robes of stark black, bright yellow, brilliant green, and rich purple, the flash of jewels in similar tones glinting from ears and chins. There were many more acolytes than full warlocks.

  She moved out onto the walkway and headed toward the docks. She lingered here and there, marveling at the beauty of this place. There was not a trace of decay along the main thoroughfare, and everything shone as if it were newly built, newly washed, newly painted.

  It was clear magic sustained this place. Such sprawling structures and shiny newness would be impossible to maintain otherwise. No tree branch or narrow stone spire could ever support something so big without magical enhancement.

  As the sun climbed higher into the sky, more and more people began joining her as she walked. She began to worry she would run into Fariss, a thought that made her stomach roil. She had to get to the Colli Terra, but she had no idea how to do it. She wished Rudy were with her. His cheerful nature would have made all of this so much easier. Maybe even fun.

  But he had watched while her mother had tortured her. He had wept, but done nothing. She couldn’t believe her dearest friend would do such a thing. They’d gotten into so much trouble together over the years, and he had always stood by her side. The pain of his defection was worse than any of the rest of it. Perhaps because the rest of it, as terrible as it was, was still remote. She knew it had happened to her, but she didn’t remember it. It wasn’t a part of her the way Rudy was a part of her.

  She walked on, hoping she was headed in the right direction. She passed the lift that had carried her down from the Courser only yesterday and kept walking. There had to be a marina here. A place for boats used inside of Marique.

  Twenty minutes later she found what she was looking for.

  The canal she’d been paralleling all morning broadened out into a large, open expanse of that strange pink water, brimming with every sort of small boat you could imagine. Lengths of floating dock branched across the water like veins radiating out from a monstrous heart, and she moved out onto it timidly.

  In Meuse the docks were often guarded. Sailors stood beside their boats, watching as people strode by, tasked with protecting the valuable cargo in their holds or the vessel itself. But here there seemed to be no such concern. In fact, the docks were completely deserted. No one kept her from wandering from boat to boat, and she wondered what arcane arts gave the owners of these boats such confidence. Or perhaps there simply wasn’t any theft here, making such measures unnecessary. Then again, she supposed mundane things such as guards could do little against the magic of a warlock.

  She walked the docks, looking over each vessel as she passed. There was an impressive variety of boats here. Some were flat bottomed, some looked more like normal sailing boats, and some were so narrow they looked like they’d tip over at a sneeze. They were all covered with the same sort of colored glyphs as the Courser, and they all showed the effects of disuse and disregard. Many had been wrapped tightly with some sort of fabric, but they had been left that way for so long, the hulls themselves had begun rotting away underneath the protective coating.

  She had wandered for more than an hour when she finally stumbled upon a gentleman working aboard a little boat that was in somewhat better shape than mos
t of the others. It was very small, with a strange three-hull design and a very shallow draw.

  The man hadn’t seen her approach, so she watched him work for a bit. He wore typical fishing attire and had no stain on his chin or glinting stones anywhere she could see. His movements were efficient and capable and reminded her painfully of her father.

  His hands were roughened from working with coarse rope day after day. A grizzled beard, more gray than black, covered his cheeks. His shoulders curved from a lifetime spent hunched over while hauling in nets filled with wriggling fish. But most importantly, his pale blue eyes seemed kind when he glanced up at her, so she smiled and approached.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said. “Can you tell me where I might hire a boat to the Colli Terra?” She didn’t flinch as she asked the question, though she wondered what her father would think; laying all her cards out on the table wasn’t a tactic he’d likely approve of.

  The man studied her as he leaned to the side to expel a wad of dark spit over the side of the boat. It floated there for a moment, an irregularly shaped glob of black against the bright pink, before it sank beneath the surface. “What do you want with the Colli Terra, girl? Nothin’ but trouble up there.”

  “I’ve got no choice, I’m afraid. I’m looking for someone, and that’s where he is.” She decided not to share the fact that Grag’s current location was unknown.

  “If he’s up the Colli Terra, you’re better off leaving him to himself.” He turned his eyes back to the rope at his feet, dismissing her.

  “I’ll not be swayed, sir. You can help me or not, but I’m going to the Colli Terra.”

  The man ignored her, coiling the rope with impressive focus. She stood watching him for a moment before turning to leave.

  “You’ll be going upstream for that trip. You’ll want somethin’ with paddles.”

  Ling stopped and turned back to the man. His voice had been soft, and his eyes were liquid, as if he were sorry he hadn’t been able to change her mind.

  “Not many’ll go to the Colli Terra, and those who will...” He frowned and shook his head. “Those who will, you’ll want to watch closely. Only trouble heads that-a-way.”

  He was the second person to use that sort of phrasing when talking about the Colli Terra. Ling again wondered what sort of trouble they meant.

  “You know anyone who might be a bit more...?” She trailed off, at a loss for words, and shrugged her shoulders.

  “I’ve heard the Mincon makes the run. Her cap’n was a good man once. Family fell on hard times, and the run up Colli Terra pays well.” He leaned over and spit another wad into the water. “Don’t trust him, though. Hard times make hard people.”

  Indeed. Ling had been shocked when she’d read through the section of the grimoire where she’d watched—helped—Fraser bleed out. According to the book, she also hadn’t blinked when she’d stumbled upon detached pieces of the crew scattered along the beach. It was difficult to imagine she could have been unmoved by such a sight, but reading about what had happened on the Scarlet Float before the wreck...Well, hard times indeed. She tightened her hands into fists at her side, a sudden anger at what had befallen her flooding through her.

  She refocused as she realized the man had been watching her, and he must have seen something flash in her eyes, because his eyes hardened, too. She could practically see the wall the man threw up between them.

  “I guess it does,” he muttered. “Mincon is up the docks.” The man returned to work without another glance in her direction.

  Ling felt a pang of sorrow at the man’s abrupt dismissal. The first dismissal had been that of a busy man not wanting to waste time on a child. This time it felt more like a good man dismissing a person of lesser character. She considered perhaps the man wasn’t wrong in his assessment. What was she capable of if it meant the difference between success and failure in her unmaking?

  She moved off in the direction he’d pointed, but soon became lost in the maze that was the docks. The docks at Meuse were always bustling with activity—even in the earliest hours of the morning there was business to be done and people about doing it. But here the ships rested at anchor as silent and still as graves.

  When she finally set eyes on the Mincon, she was more than a little surprised the thing could even float. Flecks of color were still visible here and there on its sides, but the ship was largely the color of weather-roughened wood. Several of the planks along its hull were broken and poorly patched, and the railing looked so rotted that a careless lean would send a person plummeting into the water below. The boat sat so low she was certain it held water in its belly.

  A man was seated on the deck, chair tilted back, feet resting on the railing. She could hear his snoring from the dock, and she wondered if he was napping or still asleep from the night before. Either way, Ling wondered if the “hard times” the man had mentioned earlier actually referred to liquor. The Mincon’s captain had the look of a drunk about him. She moved closer and called out to him. “Mincon, you open for hire?”

  The man opened his eyes a slit and studied her without moving.

  “Headed up to the Colli Terra,” she finished.

  “Where in the Colli Terra?” he asked. “It’s a big place.”

  “Salt caves,” Ling said with more confidence than she felt. The man at the Registrary had uttered those words as if anyone would know exactly where they were, so she said them the same way.

  “Such a trip ain’t cheap.”

  Ling suppressed a sigh of relief. He seemed to know the place. She crossed her arms over her chest, settled her weight onto her right foot, and said nothing. She’d watched her father negotiate often enough to know how this would go.

  “One-fifty,” the man said.

  “Fifty,” Ling countered. She had no idea what was customary for this trip, but felt confident fifty was quite low. The man dropped his feet from the wall, the legs of his chair clunking heavily onto the deck. He leaned forward in his chair, eyes glinting dangerously.

  “That a joke?”

  “No joke. For your price I could travel in considerable comfort.” She didn’t say anything further, but eyed his boat quite clearly. A tight smile quirked his mouth. He’s enjoying this, she thought and felt a small bit of tension drain away. This game was played the same no matter where in the world you were.

  “Straight hundred.”

  “Seventy.”

  “You got everything you need for the trip?”

  Ling almost swore out loud at the question. She had nothing with her, and he’d noticed. Of course she didn’t actually need anything, either, but he’d expect food and water and other equipment normal people required for a multi-day journey, and she’d have to go along with that lest he start to ask questions she didn’t want to answer.

  “Seventy-five, including supplies. I don’t need much.” She looked at him calmly and waited. The silence stretched on for several minutes. She thought of her father and how he’d negotiated. Silence is your friend, he’d always say. She waited.

  “Payment up front.”

  “Quarter now, the rest when we get back,” Ling said, wondering if she’d even be coming back.

  “Half now. I need it to supply up,” the man said.

  “Fine. We leave in two hours.”

  She could tell he didn’t like the tight time frame, and for a couple breaths he looked like he might protest. But he shrugged his shoulders instead. “Come aboard. I’ll pick up some supplies, and we’ll leave once it’s loaded.”

  She considered pushing the point, but shrugged it off as she stepped on the boat. “Your room’s in the rear,” he said, pointing. “It’s the only one back there.”

  She nodded and dropped the coins into his waiting palm as she wove her way aft. It was more of a closet than a room, but it had a door and it was hers. She closed the door tightly behind her and lay back on the bed.

  It smelled as if a good number of years and an untold number of passengers had passed since
the last time the bedding had been washed, but she didn’t care. She’d done it. She was on her way to the Colli Terra.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A couple of hours later, Ling felt the Mincon push off from the dock. She could hear the sails as they fluffed and caught in the wind, and their flapping reminded her of laundry-day mornings back home, her mother snapping her wrists as she settled a fresh sheet perfectly on the bed, laughing and chiding as Evelyn leapt beneath it. In Ling’s memory, the sheets always smelled like sunshine and wildflowers and happiness. She rolled onto her stomach, burying her head in the pillow, smelling nothing but sweat and urine and sex beneath the more recent scent of disuse. She was a long way from home.

  She wanted to cry. To release the fear and the heartbreak held tightly inside. She wanted to feel all the things she’d hidden away since she’d spoken with Witch and learned what she was. She needed to feel it, but it was all too big. If she permitted herself to feel any of it at all it would crack her in two. Or drive her mad.

  Her parents didn’t love her. They had cast her out like a frayed bit of rope. Worse than that, a frayed bit of rope could be repurposed and rewoven. They’d just wanted her gone. Rudy and Shera, too. Everyone she met would fear her or hate her. They’d flee from her if she were lucky, try to destroy her if she wasn’t. There was no place in this world for her.

  She curled up into a ball and clenched her eyes shut, trying keep the world out. She held her teeth so tightly together her jaw ached, her entire body vibrated, and explosions of light and color went off behind her eyelids—stars arcing across the sky in a final exhilarating flash as their lives snuffed out. She willed these explosions to materialize in the world around her, to become reality for the Mincon, for the entire port, for all of Malach and Marique. She wished the entire world would just stop. All life extinguished in one glorious moment. She narrowed her full consciousness into that pinpoint of focus.