“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
She turned to him with skeptical eyebrows and downturned lips. “You know I hate surprises and secrets.”
He dodged her doubt. “This is your fault. Or your grandfather’s.” Pirates who tried raiding from the cove perished in the canyon maze, until her grandfather mapped a tunnel route, left over from when this was Lahesh land. Samina inherited Grandfather’s maps and convinced Djola to build a hideaway near the entrance.
“No. Tessa, Bal, and Quint hope to delay you another day.”
“We’ll find them in less than an hour. I can leave after lunch. The light lasts long.”
“Not as long as you think.”
“Warhorses will make the Empire Road before dark.”
* * *
The ancient boneyard was a gently sloping field covered by whistling acacia trees. Poison storms had taken their toll on nearby farms. Grain and fruit rotted; soil blew away; yet whistling acacias held their ground. Temple ruins to forgotten gods poked through prickly branches. Ancestor mounds, stone tombs, and funeral pyres were scattered among the trees. Everyone was buried here: citizens, northlanders, pirates, and people nobody remembered. When the wind blew, ancestors spoke through acacia gourds—fat bulbs along the branches that ended in knife-sharp thorns. The thorns discouraged hungry herds, and wildflowers growing in the thicket drew bees and hummingbirds. A perfect place to speak to the ancestors.
Djola and Samina smudged soil on their foreheads and whispered praises to sacred ground. Warhorses flicked tails at pesky flies. Djola’s guardsmen shuffled their feet and offered sheepish grins as fifteen-year-old Tessa raced to her parents. “We’d have made it back in time, but Quint ran off with the old codex.” She had Samina’s watery eyes, sturdy physique, and flinty nature. “The words had faded. Why give that to you? So he’s hiding.”
Samina peered down the village road. “Hiding? Quint gets lost so easily.”
“Don’t worry.” Bal jabbed at Djola with a fighting staff. “Captain Rano is on his trail.” She had green-flecked dark eyes like Djola’s. “Rano says he’ll teach me to be the best tracker.” Djola groaned when she got him between the ribs. “You say I have a fighting spirit, yet you ride into battle and leave me behind.” Twelve-year-old Bal wanted to go to Council and protect him from scoundrels and haints.
Tessa sucked her teeth. “Quint’s mad you’re leaving, before taking us up the coast to hunt old conjure books.”
“You won’t find ancient Anawanama spells to save us.” Samina shook her head. “That’s all been lost, even old Lahesh wisdom.”
“Not all of it,” Djola insisted. Samina couldn’t argue with that.
“Why go to Council if storms rage and masters ignore you?” Tessa stood in Djola’s face, bold as a pirate captain, speaking for her brother, sister, and Samina. She threw her arms around Djola’s neck. “Please stay. You can do more good here than in the capital.”
Djola stroked his daughter’s weave of braids. “I wish that were true.” His resolve cracked. Was he a fool, banging his head on Azizi’s table, betraying his own people?
Captain Rano stuck his face through a ruin wall. “Quint’s in here. I just can’t reach him.”
A sand demon swirled down the village road, dust from the north, from Nuar’s crops. Ancestors whistled a scratchy tirade as Djola and Samina struggled through thorny branches into the ruin. Trees had reclaimed most of the temple ground. Quint was tucked in a crossroads altar at the top of a tower, eyes filled with tears. He clutched a codex wrapped in metal-mesh. Rano stood under him.
Samina climbed stairs that ended in broken limbs. “How’d you get up there?”
Quint took a breath. The altar listed to one side, snapping a branch. He froze.
“He went up and down before, to get the codex,” Bal said. “I was too heavy.”
Samina shot Djola a desperate glance. He winced. Quint and his sisters had risked everything for an empty book. The altar-tower rattled as the sand demon closed in. “Jump!” Djola shouted.
Quint flew from the altar as the tower collapsed behind him. Samina bounced on a branch, sprang high, and snatched him out of the air. Cradling her son, she slammed butt-first into Rano’s shoulder and chest. They fell against a grassy ancestor mound. Rano was knocked senseless. Samina and Quint rolled away unscathed.
* * *
Quint thought if they couldn’t find him, Djola wouldn’t be able to leave. Nobody scolded him. Rano praised Quint’s courage, although the words came out garbled. Quint gaped at the addled captain then sank in a corner, pouting.
Bal poked him. “The gods of the crossroads smiled on us.”
Tessa kissed the knot on Rano’s head. She and Bal danced up and down the stairs and rolled across the ground until Quint was giggling and prancing around the cottage with them. Samina prepared a feast, for the guardsmen too. Djola let Quint sit in his lap when they sat down to eat: fish in a mango sauce, nut bread, plantains, and cardamom rice.
“This food tastes better than usual.” Quint savored the last morsel and leaned back into Djola’s full belly.
“You need a bath!” Samina wiped mango from Quint’s cheek and brushed sand from his hair. He tugged her toward Djola and the three of them almost spilled onto the table. Djola’s breath caught in his throat. Giving up the old ways, fighting for the Empire, he never expected to raise three children with his pirate love.
“No more climbing through ruins for old books!” Samina tried to scowl and failed, and so avoided Djola’s eyes. Outside a distant wind wailed. She blamed him for sandstorms and high-spirited children. Unreasonable. She indulged the children as much as he did—so they could belong to themselves. Bal sang an ancient Anawanama song to the crossroads gods.
Crossroads tricksters crack you apart
Truth upside down and inside out
Right side wrong and backside front
“You still remember that?” Djola had taught her when she was little. Quint clapped a rhythm and Tess added harmony. Djola glanced around the table, lifted his wineglass, and leaned into Samina. Silver tattoos around her eyes were snowflakes in a midnight sky. “You all are my heart beating.”
Samina pulled away and started clearing up the last of the feast. “You’re losing the light. If you’re going, go now.”
Djola packed Quint’s blank codex with his travel cloak. Tessa gave him spells to avoid danger on the road. He clasped her neatly-written scroll to his chest. Bal offered her fighting staff. “No.” He smiled. “You’ll need it to keep everyone safe, while I’m gone.”
Rano had recovered his wits and protested when Djola sent three guards to the cliffs and three to the village to watch over his family. Only six guards would leave Djola vulnerable at Council. “It’s just for a short while.” Djola hugged the children, then eyed his wife.
“Twenty years. Why does it still have to be you?” Samina slugged him and headed out the back door, fussing over crows in the berries, fussing at Djola really. No hug or good-bye kiss, no fortification for the battles ahead. Pirates made terrible wives.