My stomach twists, a familiar dread settling in me. I suspect already—but I won’t know for certain until I can look her in the eye.
As with all fat rats, the kind who pay more than they should for what we offer, Big Ean ferries her back alone, without filling the rest of the scurry. I need to assess her, figure out why she’s throwing so much gold away on a few days’ journey. And if she’s worth the risk of transport. If not, I’ll toss her back in the river and leave her to ratting on the shore.
She climbs from the scurry to the keel deck without aid, dripping water everywhere. The coat stinks close up, like sewage. I wrinkle my nose as I approach her, gesturing for Big Ean and my polers, Gill and Riette, to stand aside. She doesn’t drop her hood, so I yank it back for her.
Silver veins her eyes, and her skin is cold bronze. I try not to flinch.
“Half the gold now, half at the Gates” is all she says, her voice softened and slowed by a butter-rich Piedmont accent. Freckles dust her cheeks, a spread of stars beneath her angled, black eyes. “Is that suitable?”
She’s educated, rich, and noble, even with the disgusting coat. And she wants to go all the way to the end of the line, to the Gates of Mizostium, the place where the Great River meets the sea.
I clench my jaw. “What’s your name and what’s your business on the rivers?”
“I’m paying you for transport, not questions,” she responds without hesitation.
Sneering, I wave a hand back to the scurry. “You can find another keel if my terms don’t agree with you.”
Her reply is whipcrack fast. Again no hesitation. No second-guessing herself. I wonder if she even knows how to do so.
“My name is Lyrisa,” she says, chin still high. Her eyes rake over me. I get the feeling she’s looked down on men like me all her life. “I am a blood princess of the Lowcountry, and I need to be at the Gates of Mizostium as soon as possible.”
I almost toss her back into the river then and there. Only the danger of her ability, trained and lethal whatever it may be, stills my hand. Behind her, Gill tightens a grip on his pole. As if he could simply strike her and be done with it. Riette is more intelligent. Her hand goes to the pistol on her hip, unfastening the button keeping it holstered. Even Silvers aren’t immune to bullets. Most of them, anyway.
I wish I could touch my own gun, but she’ll see me do it. “Who, and more importantly how many, of your father’s Silver hunters are following you?”
Finally she wavers, if only for a moment. Her eyes drop to the deck, then blaze back to mine. “My father is dead.”
A corner of my mouth lifts in a cold smirk. “Your father is the ruling prince of Piedmont, currently at war with the Rift. We Rivermen aren’t as stupid as you think we are.”
“Bracken is my uncle, my mother’s brother,” she snaps. Her eyes narrow, and I wonder what her ability could be. How many ways she could kill me or my crew. How someone like her could possibly need us to get downriver—or why. “My father is dead, for six years now. I did not lie and I resent the implication, Red.”
Despite her blood, her Silver-born tendency to lie, cheat, and abuse us, I can’t see a lie in her eyes or hear it in her voice. She doesn’t flinch under my inspection. “How many hunters?” I ask again, leaning toward her, though all my Red instincts cry out in protest.
Lyrisa doesn’t move, neither retreating nor meeting my challenge.
“None. I was journeying north into the Lakelands with a convoy when we were attacked by rebels.” She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the bank. A breeze stirs her hair, blowing a gleaming, thick curtain of black over one shoulder. “I am the only survivor.”
Ah. It clicks in my head. “I suppose you want your uncle to think you died with the rest?”
She nods, her face betraying no emotion. “I do.”
A Silver princess abandoning her kingdom, dead to all who knew her. And wanting to stay that way. I’m intrigued, to say the very least.
Perhaps not all rat days are the same.
The choice is already made in me. The offered gold, ten times the usual rate, will go far on the river and among my crew. I can’t speak for the others, but most of my share will go back to my mother, for safekeeping. I angle my shoulders away from the princess, opening the deck to her. I trail a hand, waving her toward the shallow benches backed by the stocked cargo hold.
“Find a seat and stay out of the way,” I tell her, shifting my focus back to my scurrier still in the river. “Ean, the family in blue cloaks. See what they’re offering.”
Lyrisa doesn’t move, her manner calm. She’s used to getting what she asks for, or demands. “Captain, I’m paying you to take me and me alone downriver. I have need of speed.”
“Very well, Silver,” I reply, turning to lean over the side of the keel. Below me, Ean has one hand on the rope ladder, ready to climb back aboard. I wave him off as Lyrisa takes a seat, arms crossed.
I speak louder than I must.
“Ean, the blue cloaks.”
There is only one captain aboard my keel.
TWO
Ashe
She tosses her rancid coat into the river once we’re moving, not bothering to watch as it floats in the current and tangles in the roots along the bank. It stains the water as it goes, swirling with dirt and worse. I suppose it must be blood or excrement or both. Not that I’ll bother asking. I’ve ferried Silvers before, and the river runs easy when we keep our distance from them.
The Red family we took on knows that too. They’re a pair of mothers, one dark-skinned and one light, who keep their two children angled away from the Piedmont princess, all avoiding her eye line. She doesn’t seem to mind and leans back on her elbows, enjoying the ample room their absence affords her.
Gill throws a glare at her from his place at the side, long pole in hand. He pushes methodically, navigating us around rocks and high riverbed. He has more reason to hate Silvers than most, but he keeps his temper in check. I pass by him on my way to the prow of the keel, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
“Just to the Gates,” I mutter, reminding him of our goal. Two weeks only, if we’re lucky in the current and the patrols. I’ve run the Gates in less time, but I’d rather not push the keel or the crew. Besides, it looks to be an easy river. No use making things more complicated than they need be.
“To the Gates,” he echoes. It isn’t difficult to hear the words unspoken. And not one second longer.
I nod to him. The Piedmont princess will be gone soon enough.
We know the path to the Gates like the back of our scarred hands, like the deck of the keel. Down the Ohius to the confluence, that’s the worst stretch. To our right, north, is the Lakelander bank, the borderline of the Crownlands drawn right up to the water’s edge. To the left, south, stretches the Freelands. This far northeast, it’s woodland and fields, mostly overgrown. Should a Lakelander patrol decide to try us here, we’d have no choice but to flee overland. Keels are fast but not faster than vehicle transports, and are little use if a powerful nymph decides to turn the river against us. I’ve only felt the water push back once, and that was enough. I don’t intend to face it again.
I check our progress against the other keels and captains. Old Toby is already gone from view, lagging behind. Her Scarlet Guard business must require slow movement, or many stops along the border. I certainly don’t envy her such a job. Nor do I have any desire to throw my lot in with those rebels, no matter how sweet their words may sound. They certainly don’t make for an easy job or an easy river.