Where There Be Monsters

By M.A. Lindsay

"You won't hit land," she says, blunt as a hammer to the head and twice as disorienting. "No one leaves Circe's Love. Not permanently. Welcome to the ghost ship."

 

Koray, captain of Circe's Love, a pirate cursed by the witch she crossed years ago.

Ari, wizard, princess, and the witch's next victim.

Years ago, a powerful sorceress swore vengeance on a king. When her machinations strand Ari in hostile seas, trapped on a ship that shouldn't exist, her only allies are a cursed captain, her ghostly crew, and a disgruntled water spirit. With a land-hungry empire looming, her kingdom in danger, and ancient powers stirring, it will take everything Ari, Koray and their allies have to break the curse and avert disaster in this action-packed retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.A. Lindsay
• Release date: Nov 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201419288

M.A. Lindsay

M.A. Lindsay is a writer, grad student and professional theatre technician. After growing up in Alaska, she fled south to warmer weather and subsequently fell in love with air conditioning. She loves coffee, bourbon, and obscure historical trivia.

Book preview

Prologue

THEN

Prison Ship 616, departing Kerberon

The girl was watching him again.

Scrappy, bone-thin, with welts twisting around her ankles and wrists from the shackles, dark, reddish hair shaved to short, greasy bristles, bronze skin gone sallow from weeks at sea, Jocasta Koray should have been just one in a few dozen hollow-eyed hopeless cases crammed into the cells built into Prison Ship 616’s hold. Just another convict, destined for a short, brutal future of hard labor on an unforgiving chunk of rock stranded in the middle of the sea.

Rulf could afford to feel a twinge of sympathy for her. He wasn’t shackled in the belly of Prison Ship 616.

In Rulf’s experience, there were three sorts of prisoners on these transport ships: the defiant, the desperate, and the hopeless. By the end of the journey, they always blended into one homogenous mass of empty resignation. Koray was none of these. Her eyes, fever-bright as her body fought the infection creeping into the sores on her wrists and ankles, flashed like copper coins in the dimness. She didn’t glare. She didn’t plead. She simply watched him, steady, assessing. Like she was considering hiring him for a job.

It made his skin crawl.

What’s keeping you here? Koray asked him one night as he walked the hold, checking that all the prisoners were still in place and breathing before the watch shift changed.

Rulf didn’t owe her any kind of honesty. He didn’t owe her anything at all. He answered anyway. Commuted sentence for service to the Empire.

The corners of her mouth turned up. Hmm.

Rulf looked away, hating the weight of her eyes.

It’s funny, how they’ve left a prisoner guarding prisoners, she said one night, almost like they’re daring you to help us.

I’m not helping you escape.

You would have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

I’d lose my head, he pointed out, not inaccurately.

A crooked grin showing too many sharp teeth, As if you won’t lose that long before your sentence is up.

She wasn’t wrong. Indentured soldiers had a tendency to die fast and hard in the Kerber Navy. Such was the nature of the Imperial beast. Prisoners like him, like the girl in the hold, kept the war machine’s gears churning.

What do you suggest?

Do you know what this ship carries in her hold? Koray asked, eyes never leaving his, hard and bright as always.

You, Rulf observed.

Koray flashed another sharp-toothed grin at the mild reproof.

Let me know your thoughts on risk and reward once you find out, she said with a wicked flash of sharp eyes and sharper teeth.

...

Rulf discovered what the captain had hidden in his cabin.

Risk and reward indeed.

...

One of those is worth a kingdom, he told her the night after.

A small one, maybe, she replied.

It’s a dangerous gamble.

It’s downright stupid, Koray agreed bluntly, But do any of us have anything to lose?

They didn’t. The prisoners in the hold were bound for short, harsh lives of back-breaking labor in a penal colony. The sailors destined for another round as the Kerber military’s chew toys.

What are you in here for?

I’m good with blades, she smirked, but it didn’t touch the sharp edges in her eyes, I took a contract without reading the terms and conditions properly.  

A mercenary, then. A war prisoner no one would pay a ransom for.

Do you know anything about ships?

I know how I’ll steal this one.

That night Rulf stared at his hands, his wrists, at the scars twisting their way around his forearms, pale and jarring against his dark skin. Raiders took him when The Kerber Empire conquered his homeland. He hadn’t even known the capital had fallen when the bone-white ships had appeared on the horizon, when they seized the temple that had sheltered him all his life.

They toppled the statues of the gods and defaced the temple friezes, peeling off the gold plate, chipping out the precious stones one by one.

It was a long time ago.

Rulf’s first rebellion was short-lived.

He wondered if he had it in him to try for a second.

...

Koray’s uprising began and ended the day they docked to resupply. A skinny boy who’d shivered uncontrollably at the tread of Rulf’s heavy feet on the floorboards slipped his fetters first and picked the locks with nimble fingers while the original crew was busy tearing through the port town.

Koray wasn’t stupid. She knew her half-starved skeleton crew wouldn’t be able to overpower a full compliment of even the dregs of the Imperial Navy. But they could overpower a few watchmen. By the time Rulf found her, she was stalking the deck, a pair of stolen swords in hand. Roz, the shivering boy from the hold, trailed after her, armed with a crossbow.

A shadow flickered at the corner of his eye, and Rulf turned just in time to come throat-to-blade with a second woman. She barely came up to his chest, but nothing about her posture or the expression on her round, pale face suggested hesitation as she pressed a knife against his jugular.

Are you with us? Koray asked from Rulf’s other side.

Rulf had the strangest feeling she wouldn’t judge him if he said ‘no’. The smaller woman might still kill him, but there would be no hard feelings.

A hysterical laugh bubbled against the back of his throat, but he only allowed himself a soft exhalation. You do nothing by halves, do you?

Koray’s mouth cut upward at the corners. Her face was as desolate and harsh as the penal colony the Empire was ready to ship her off to. Rulf had the strangest feeling that if they had, the Navy might come back in a few years to find her at the head of an army with blood on their teeth and weapons in their fists.

She looked young.

She looked very young.  

Yes, Rulf said.

Koray nodded, and there might have been relief in her strange copper coin eyes.

They took off with the ship as the light faded from the sky, before any of the crew could come staggering back from shore leave.

Do you regret not having the chance to kill the captain? Koray asked him.

No, Rulf turned to her, Why should I?

Koray shrugged, Isn’t that something people want? Vengeance?

Rulf frowned and stared at the horizon, the dot of the island already fading fast. He wondered if Koray had magic, if she could whisper to the wind and speed them on their way. It didn’t seem practical, he finally said.

She snorted, Practical. Of course.

Uncomfortable with the line of conversation, Rulf changed topics, Have you renamed the ship yet?

Koray ran an absent hand along the rail, back and forth like she was stroking a restless animal.  Rulf wondered if she was the rare kind of magician who could speak with the spirits of things like ships.

Named objects invested with enough human care and energy could gain their own kind of consciousness. Viatrixan mage-scholars called it ‘awakening the spirit of the thing’. Kerbers feared the souls of ships and swords and buildings. Prison Ship 616 was known by its’ function and number alone, lest it become itself in a way that couldn’t be controlled.

"Circe’s Love," Koray announced, a smirk toying with the corners of her mouth.

Rulf raised an eyebrow. Who is Circe?

Koray’s smirk flared into a smile, A character from an old story my father used to tell me. She was capricious demi-goddess known for luring in her enemies and humiliating them.

Rulf smiled back at his young captain, It suits her.

...

The Merchant Kingdom of Viatrice

It’s done, Enyo, King Kassand Rún Phorkys told his mother-in-law as the brazier holding his wife’s ashes smoldered. The room was stifling, the air too heavy and close as the smoke from Queen Alcestra’s pyre climbed up toward the gods. Incense and scented oils hung in the air in cloying clouds. The king’s head spun and his mother-in-law’s eyes burned unnaturally bright as she stared him down through the haze.

You should know better than this by now, the Witch Queen twitted him, You can’t afford to make me your enemy, Kassand.

The king scoffed, Enyo, your power is fading. Every year the magic drains out of your lands and when it’s gone, you’ll be queen of nothing. A wasteland. 

So you think you can afford to jilt my daughter –

"Alcestra is dead, Kassand’s voice cracked. He blamed the smoke, Her daughters live, Andronika will be queen, is that not enough?"

No, it isn’t, Enyo snarled, "You’re telling me over the smoking corpse of my only child that you’re jumping into bed with a new-money whore as soon as the mourning period ends."

I must make alliances with powerful friends. It is my duty as a king. If we are to remain independent from the Kerber –

"You may not count me as a powerful friend, Enyo spat, But I will be a deadly enemy. I will reduce you to rubble, Kassand Rún Phorkys."

Enyo, be reasonable –

"She could have lived for centuries, Enyo snarled, face warping into something older and more monstrous for a moment before smoothing out again. She could have stood at my side as generations of you grew and spawned and withered and died and instead she is here, ashes to be gobbled up by the gods. And you would betray her?"

It is not a betrayal, Kassand argued, fists clenching at his sides, knuckles showing white through his olive skin, Andronika will have the throne, Iessica and Astraia will stand at her side, Alcestra’s daughters will have all I have to give them!

And it will not be enough, Enyo snapped, mouth twisting upward in a parody of a smile, strangely smug in her grief.

Enyo –

Keep your eyes open for my vengeance, Kassand, Enyo cut him off.  

"Enyo, you will drain your land’s power dry for this, to no purpose."

But he was shouting into empty air. Between one blink and the next, the Witch Queen was gone.

...

Aboard Circe’s Love, formerly Prison Ship 616

A buyer, Euthalia sharpened her knives with the same clean precision she applied to everything. Even long free of the prison ship, she still kept her dark hair cropped close to her skull. It made the curve of her round cheeks seem strangely soft and vulnerable, at odds with the small armory she carried on her person. Willing to buy all three apples?

Yes, the word hissed out between Koray’s teeth as she paced the deck, tossing one of the precious, worth-a-small-country golden apples back and forth between her hands.

Then what the hell are we waiting for? Go for it, boss, make us rich! Roz jingled where he perched in the rigging. The boy was turning into a magpie. He’d picked up a new good luck charm in every port they visited so far.

You’re not old enough to have a vote yet, kidlet, Koray told him, spinning the apple lazily on one finger just to make Rulf frown.

Why not? Roz demanded, I’m an adult!

If you have to tell people you’re an adult, you aren’t one, Rulf opined, smiling quietly at the teenager’s squawks of protest.

Koray chuckled, but her eyes were far away, The buyer is a witch.

Euthalia made a meditative noise, testing the edge of one of her knives and nodding to herself when it drew blood. Dangerous, she said as she sheathed her blade.

Oh very, Koray agreed, tapping her fingers against the golden fruit’s shining surface, her nails making little tinny ‘tings’ like distant bells against its’ skin. 

Golden apples were powerful, old magic.Very potent, very rare, very difficult to acquire. They absorbed and amplified all kinds of magic. Anyone with a scrap of talent could use one to accomplish nearly anything. Just the sort of thing Kerberon would hoard and just the sort of thing a mage would kill to possess.

But no one else seems willing to put up the capitol for it, Koray pointed out, And even I’m not willing to sail into the heart of Kerberon and offer to ransom their nick-knack back.

Rulf and Euthalia caught each other’s eyes and exchanged a look. Roz made a small sound of approval, fear, or resignation.

I don’t think it’s wise to keep those things on the ship any longer than necessary, Rulf reasoned, The witch is a risk, but a calculated one.

Kerberon’s just suicidal. Right? Everyone agrees with me that going to Kerberon is out? Way out. Completely, utterly, unthinkably out, Roz said a little hysterically.

After a long look from the older members of their company, he nodded to himself, shoved his hands in his pockets and muttered, Just making sure, to the deck.

What does the rest of the crew think? Rulf asked.

They are with her, Euthalia said, gesturing to Koray, She is the captain. 

How did you learn of this offer? Rulf asked shrewdly. 

She sent a message through the water basin in my cabin, Koray explained, nails skating over the golden apple’s skin in absent patterns.

Old magic, Euthalia observed.

Yes, Koray agreed. There weren’t many witches who still practiced projecting themselves through elements like water and air. It was all very cryptic, Koray observed, thinking back to the witch’s shadowy face rippling up at her, Lots of posturing and vague intimidation attempts.

Successful, of course, Rulf offered dryly.

Koray snorted, eyes still distant, Never. She sighed, looking young and tired, We need this cursed fruit off our ship. It’s making everyone with sense nervous.

Hear that, I have sense, Roz said loftily.

Koray snorted but didn’t comment, simply continued, We take the witch’s offer. She’s our best bet for now.

Bad bet, Euthalia pointed out.

The odds are never going to be in our favor, might as well wring a little bit more luck out of them, Koray declared.

Rulf hated that she was right.

...

The Merchant Kingdom of Viatrice

I see your new cow breeds well, Enyo’s voice slithered through the dark courtyard like seaweed clinging to the side of a ship.

Enyo, I told you to leave, Kassand reminded her wearily.

A prince at last. Congratulations, Kassand. Finally, a son, she cooed, voice sickly sweet.

You’ve been using too much magic, Enyo, Kassand told her, eyes tracing the new wrinkles and creases in her skin, You’re out of step with time. My son was born years ago. He nodded up to the window where a sweet golden light burned. His boy’s bedchamber, where Graith’s governess is even now singing a lullaby to the little prince.

Graith.

A playmate for Astraia, the king said, hoping the mention of her youngest granddaughter would pull Enyo out of her spiteful mood.

She curled her lip, No mortal welp is worth that girl’s time.

Kassand bit down on the urge to say something snide. Alcestra died of plague. It is a common and tragic occurrence.

Enyo scoffs.

She is gone. You cannot dwell on what was not her fate. Kassand’s eyes drifted to that lighted window again.

Don’t be distracted now, Enyo taunted, Keep an eye on your daughters too.

Before Kassand could unleash a biting retort, the wind shifted and she was gone, leaving nothing behind but the scent of rotting seaweed and dying ocean.

...

Aboard Circe’s Love

Koray’s father told her long to never deal with witches, to keep out of that magic business, and here in the dark and the wet with the sea shush-shushing against the hull of her ship and power hanging in the air like a bad smell, she couldn’t find much fault in his argument.

But a deal was a deal. 

The ship cut through the fog like blade; Koray could feel the deck shiver beneath her bare feet as magic crawled across the planks, over her skin, into her hair, she could feel it creeping everywhere, touching everything. It made her eyes water and her nose tingle as she fought back a sneeze. Wind sang through the lines, whistling as it went, a high, faint, almost-sound. Cliffs rose up like broken teeth, hemming them in on all sides like the maw of a great beast. 

She could feel her pulse thrum through her ears, thick and loud. Magic teased at her senses and she resisted glancing around, sure that a thousand eyes peered at her from a thousand vantage points. 

The ship creaked under Koray’s feet; the sound a sharp crack in the stillness and Koray could feel the crew tense around her, everyone freezing in their tracks for a sliver of a second before the ship settled and everyone breathed out. 

Koray rested her palms on the rail, feeling her ship’s spirit rustle beneath her senses.  Circe’s Love was restless, every timber begging for the safety of deep water and open sea.  ‘Sleep’, Koray whispered to her in the darkness of her mind. The ship’s soul rolled and bucked sullenly beneath the surface of her thoughts before settling.

Circe’s Love soothed, Koray craned her neck to Roz’s perch up top, tracking the glint of his cheap trinkets, following the tense line of his body to the milky sky above the cliffs. Dark birds were circling, sending sleepy, distressed gulls up in white waves as the bigger birds dove and rose and dove again. The witch was coming.

Koray snorted under her breath. Witches. Always so melodramatic.

Koray, Rulf’s voice rolled toward her like a tide, soft and inexorable, What should we do?

Get below, Koray ordered, lips coming down in a tight line. 

He stood at her elbow, a reassuringly solid wall of muscle and bone, voice soft enough not to carry, Are you certain?

Koray’s lips twisted, Honestly? Not at all. 

This witch... Rulf paused, thoughtful, ...I do not feel good about this, Captain.

That makes two of us, Koray said bitterly, teeth locked together in a grimace.

She didn’t have to see him to feel her first mate’s nod.  Rulf had the sort of presence that made itself known quietly, almost stealthily. Like a mountain or a sea, he was simply there.  One knew he was present because he simply was. 

And then Rulf was gone; the rest of the crew trickling after him.  The hatch closed with a gentle thump, sealing off the sound of Roz’s jingling bangles and everyone else’s shuffling feet.

And Captain Koray was alone with Circe’s Love.  Well, my love, here we are, she whispered, knowing her words were outside the reach of her ship’s sleepy soul. Koray was no wizard, she had just enough magic to sense it moving around them, clinging like cobwebs and rumors, but actual conversation with her ship was beyond her power. 

Do you have what I asked for? a voice crawled over the side to wrap around her shoulders like a mangy shawl, ragged and unwanted.

Do you have my payment? Koray countered, watching as the witch paced the deck, long-nailed fingers running over every polished surface. Circe’s Love shivered resentfully under her touch.

Koray could smell the salty stink of magic all through her guest. It buzzed across the captain’s skin like static, raising the hairs on her arms. This was a witch who had given a little too much of herself to her art. As the life drained out of her, the magic soaked in, leaving behind this half-human husk. Even her voice had a peculiar tone to it, strangely resonant, but ugly all the same. Like a set of bells not quite in tune with one another. Her age couldn’t be read in her face, the skin both crumpled-in and stretched-out at the same time, like something used and discarded.  Her hair hung to her waist, limp like wet seaweed and tarnished grey all through.  Her eyes shone silvery purple and unnaturally big out of her wasted face.   

Did we agree on a price? the witch mused, I’m not sure I recollect that part of the bargain.

Koray grinned tightly, baring her teeth, I told you. We don’t do charity work.

The witch smiled. It was unsettling, although Koray couldn’t say why. No favors for old women, are there?

Koray stood her ground and waited, silent.

Something in her face or posture must have struck the witch as funny. She laughed, the sound higher and colder than Koray anticipated; piercing, like the cry of a gull. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck and pulled all her muscles tight with tension.

The witch smiled a nasty smile and through all her wariness and caution Koray couldn’t help but feel profoundly exhausted with this whole conversation.

One chance, the witch sang, to give me what I asked for. All of it.

Koray, weary with this witch, this night, this over-magicked place, all of it, extended a canvas bag.

The witch made a strange sound deep in her throat like a dying bird or a sheet of paper being torn slowly in half. "One of the most powerful items in the world and she keeps it in a burlap sack."

Do you want it or not? Koray asked, voice tight with restrained irritation.

Of course, the witch snatched at the bag, only for Koray to draw it back at the last moment, leaving the witch’s nails to scrape uselessly against the material.

Payment. Koray’s voice was steel.

The witch’s crumpled-in face folded and twisted, the lips splitting open into a smile like a fissure in the ground, teeth like tombstones peeking out of dry, cracked lips. Koray could feel magic shiver across her skin like breath from unwelcome lips across the nape of her neck. Koray blinked and somehow, like reality had rippled, the witch went from a healthy distance away to barely a hairsbreadth away from Koray’s face. Her claw-like hands snatched the bag from Koray’s fingers even as the Captain reached for her sword. As Koray’s blade sliced through the air...the witch was gone.

Swearing, spinning, Koray’s eyes raked across the now-empty deck, the fingers of her now-vacant hand clenching and un-clenching against the dead air. The air around her shivered and the witch’s voice crawled across her skin one more time.

A gift, for an over-confident captain.

Koray’s gut clenched. Veins turning to ice as a knife-blade of dread dragged down her spine, she ran to the hold, flinging open the hatch and near-tumbling down the stairs, sure that something had gone terribly, horribly wrong but unable to name it.

Her crew was a smear of faces as she raced past, probably looking feral and half-mad.

Rulf’s voice boomed against her ears, but her brain couldn’t settle enough to decode the words.

She slipped past bunks and barrels and miscellaneous stored goods into the small nook they’d carved out for Rulf’s tiny shrine to the goddess of his homeland, her statuette holding court over the crew’s meager offerings.

Circe’s Love creaked a warning but Koray had already heeded it. She just thought it might be too late.

My love, I fear you and Rulf are more right than I’d like you to be.

A cold hand wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed as Koray bowed before the shrine, slowly raising her head to behold the offerings on the makeshift altar. Dried flowers, little carvings...and one of those damned golden apples. One of the most powerful magic items in the natural world and it was taunting her where it should not be.

Carved into the apple’s flesh were two words: Appropriate payment.

Eyes tracing the message, heartbeat thundering in her ears, Koray felt the curse take hold in a sudden, sickening rush.

Appropriate payment, the witch’s words whispered through her blood and bones.

And it was a long while before Koray knew anything more. 

...

Chapter 1

NOW

The Merchant Kingdom of Viatrice

Princess Astraia Rún Phorkys flings open the doors to her sister’s inner sanctum and glowers down at the heir to the throne. You missed the funeral.

Iessica Rún Phorkys, Rising Sun and Guiding Star of the Viatrixan Fleet, heir presumptive to her father, King Kassand Rún Phorkys, raises a manicured brow and takes another bite of cheese. "It was not a funeral, Ari."

Astraia sighs heavily and begins reorganizing her sister’s desk with vicious efficiency, dumping a stack of ledgers on the empty lounging couch across from her before taking on the heaps of paper cluttering every surface.

You’re not even doing anything important, she growls, flicking a wrist, twisting a bit of magic out of the air and directing it towards the least stable piles.

"I am making a point, Iessica returns steadily, Andronika has been dead for over a decade, continuing to mourn her every year like this is a farce."

Callous, even for you, her sister points out with a raised eyebrow, papers fluttering around her as she ties and twists eddies of magic, directing pages into the proper piles.

Iessica sighs but does not slump. Our sister’s solemn memorial has turned into a street festival for everyone but our father, who’s too blind to see it. It’s a bloody comedy for everyone else and I can’t watch it another year.

Ari shakes her head, neither confirming nor denying her words. It looks bad when you don’t attend.

As if anyone out there would notice my absence, Iessica’s says in a voice like the broken edge of a seashell cutting into a bare, unsuspecting foot.

Ari gestures and a selection of finished letters fold and seal themselves, coming to rest in a neat stack on Iessica’s desk. Graith slept through most of it, she admits after a long moment.

Iessica actually chuckles at that, the taut lines of her face relaxing slightly. Not for the first time, Ari reflects that she looks older than she should these days. Iessica has the sort of face that always carries a hard-edged beauty to it, age and maturity underling the strength in her high cheekbones and firm chin, giving her the mien of a granite statue come to life.

Ari, on the other hand, always manages to look too young for whatever she attempts. Even after reaching age of majority, the senate and their father’s ministers look at her with the kind of fond indulgence or thinly veiled distaste one might extend to a puppy at the dinner table. There is a resemblance between the sisters, but it remains vague. Broad-shouldered, curvaceous, with waves of dark sable hair, flawless olive skin, and dark grey eyes, Iessica reminds all who behold her of an ancient goddess. Ari, scrawny, angular with her mop of black curls and uncannily pale grey-blue eyes, is content to simply not be remembered at all.

As if sensing the gloom hanging over the sisters, a slim, jovial figure flings open the same door Ari herself flung moments before, marching over and tossing himself bodily onto the lounging couch across from Iessica, triggering an avalanche of paperwork. Ari has to fling a fast bit of spell work that way to catch the pile of ledgers before they fall to the floor.

Graith wrinkles his nose as Ari’s magic tugs at his clothes, ruffling his dark curls. His cheeks, the same warm olive-brown as his sisters, are flushed with wine and sun, a hint of a pink burn beginning to show on the bridge of his nose. He must have been out since dawn. Don’t magic me, Ari.

How was the ceremony? Iessica asks as Graith crumples and tosses a loose sheet notepaper at Ari’s head. Ari catches it midair without looking. When Graith waggles his eyebrows at her, daring her to throw it back, she rolls her eyes at him, un-crumpling and reading it instead. 

Graith sighs, turning his attention back to Iessica, There were food vendors this year. And jugglers.

Did they perform while Father was giving his speech? Ari asks absently, frowning at the paper in her hand.

They only stopped for the priests’ benediction, Graith admits.

Iessica massages the bridge of her nose wearily, This is getting ridiculous.

Graith shrugs, It’s not hurting anyone.

It’s destabilizing the crown, Iessica points out.

Graith shrugs and steals a bit of cheese, yawning, Governments are inherently unstable. They’re just like that.

Forgive me if I don’t trust a teenager’s opinion on politics, Iessica says.

I’m the one on the streets, talking to people, Graith huffs, But sure, ignore me.

What’s this about a diplomatic trip to Aldon? Ari interjects, holding up the crumpled note, And what do I have to do with it?

Ah, yes, I meant to discuss that with you, Iessica says with the blithe confidence of someone caught flat-footed who has decided to brazen a conversation out come what may, I have a job for you, Ari.

Really? Ari says dryly, Seems unlikely. I’m the designated family disappointment. It would upset the balance of the universe if I weren’t here to consistently underachieve. 

I object to that assessment, Graith drawls, rearranging his limbs so his legs hang over the back of the lounging sofa and his inky curls brush the floor. Long fingers page absently through one of Iessica’s ledgers. "I should be the family disappointment. I actually put effort into my underachieving."

Be that as it may, Iessica says, I need you to sail out in three days.

Iss, Ari raises skeptical eyebrows, you haven’t said who I’m meeting or what I’m doing, and this is the first I’ve heard about anyone sailing to Aldon. She crumples the note again, glaring at her sister, What’s going on?

Iessica sighs, hints of her earlier weariness tugging at her features. A ship is coming in with dignitaries from Kerberon. I want you to meet them at Aldon, be pleasant, be charming, be the delightful creature I know you can be, and then escort their ship here.

Ari frowns, If they’re coming here anyway, why meet at Aldon?

And why is Ari learning this from scrap paper instead of you telling her directly? Graith interrupts.

Iessica answers Ari’s questions first, Aldon is neutral territory, meeting them there is a good faith gesture. It’s welcoming, it’s, she gestures vaguely, It’s politics, Ari. Anyway, it looks good, considering what they’re here to do. She shoots a glance at Graith, And I was going to bring it up tomorrow, when we were all in better tempers. Father’s mourning ceremonies tend to bring out the worst in us.

Graith makes a noncommittal noise and turns another page.

Aldon isn’t really neutral territory, Viatrice annexed the island generations ago and the then-king hadn’t bothered to fully assimilate it, leaving the land primarily to self-rule. But Ari supposes it is the closest thing they have in the area. What are they here to do?

Iessica grins a wry, catlike grin and Ari tries not to feel like a canary, Treat with us, of course. A treaty with Kerberon would allow us to expand our reach, take our products to farther-flung markets, give us protection in alien waters –

Avoid getting absorbed the next time the Empire decides to expand again, Graith mutters.

A treaty with Kerberon would be very, very good, Iessica concludes.  

Why me? Ari asks shrewdly, Why not you, or Graith?

Iessica smiles that closed-lip cat smile again. If I send a royal and a sorceress, it looks like we’re taking them seriously, but aren’t overeager. It’s politically advantageous.

And if they try to assassinate you and start a war you’ve got a better chance of surviving than me, Graith points out, softening the words with a crooked smile.

You sail in three days, Iessica says without further explanation or comment.

Excellent manners, Iss, you even remembered to ask me first, Ari snipes, temper beginning to fray.

Iessica frowns, But I know you’re going to say yes.

Ari exhales through her nose, resisting the urge to throw the squashed ball of paper at her sister. I know. Never mind. There’s no point to arguing with Iessica. There never has been. Ari is going to Aldon, just like Ari did whatever her sister demanded of her when they were children, just like she’ll spend her entire life doing whatever Iessica demands of her. Such is the way of things.

Iessica’s mouth gives a little twitch, almost like her lips are shrugging. I’ll send Iona to help you pack.

I’m a sorceress, Iss, I’ll be packed before she sets foot in my rooms.

Yes, but you’ll pack all wrong, Iessica says with finality, ignoring Ari’s flash of temper.

Why do you keep her on? Graith asks, moving in to defuse the simmering tension, Iona, I mean. You have to know she’s sleeping with your husband.

Iessica snorts, The whole palace knows he’s philandering his way through my staff.

He’s not philandering with me, Ari says, laying hands on Iessica’s decorative palms and nudging a bit of vitality into their wilted fronds, "too frightened by my sinister magics."

You did threaten to curse his dick off, Graith snorts.

I only regret I didn’t do it, Ari says over Iessica’s tired sigh.

Try to remember that’s my husband you’re mocking, their elder sister says.

It’s hardly our fault he’ll chase any tail that crosses his field of vision, Graith protests.

If he’s making too much of a menace of himself, I’ll deal with him, Iessica promises, face suddenly sharp and serious, I won’t have my household harassed.

Ari waves an absent hand, the potted palms plants rustling, eager to please her, "Never fear, his relationship with Iona is heartily consensual."

It all comes clear, Graith says with false gravity, Iessica retains Iona for the sole purpose of distracting her gangrenous lump of a spouse.

Iessica glowers, This is my personal life you’re dissecting, dear.

Graith shrugs and goes back to looking young, wilted, and dissolute. Iessica huffs and opens one of her ledgers and begins making tiny, distinct marks in columns, charting the success or failure of their nation in sketchy dabs of ink. Ari is left standing half-behind a plant, remembering she sets sail in three days, and feeling like she missed a step somewhere. Like always.

Graith turns his head and meets Ari’s eyes and gives her an inscrutable look of pure commiseration and hidden meaning.

Ari sighs and flicks an irritable gust of wind in Graith’s direction, mussing his dark hair, nudging his feet off the back of the silk sofa, and smacking him between the eyes with the balled-up note.

With a yelp and a tumble, Graith crashes to the floor. Iessica doesn’t even twitch.

...

Chapter 2

Ari hadn’t expected to be seasick her first night out on the water. But here she is, barely twelve hours away from land, dizzy and ill and not interested in going anywhere not within lurching distance of the side. The magic jumbled up and rattling in her head isn’t helping. Sharp breezes jerk and slap at the canvas sails, sending eddies, tides, and currents of power tumbling around, tangling themselves up in her, tugging at the edges of her awareness until she thinks she might fly apart. The waves grow larger, darker, and heavier as light falls from the sky and darkness edges in around them; sending their own watery rivulets of magic up at her face every time she leans over the side.

The crew laughed at her a bit when the ship first left port, and Ari’s breakfast abruptly left her stomach, but they’ve since quieted, one by one, as strange tension hums through the air. A feeling begins to creep beneath Ari’s skin; some quiet, insistent whisper telling her there’s more going on than they’ve let her know. She watches the crew watch the sky and wonders what it’s telling them that she can’t see. 

Storm’s coming. 

No one is sure who says it first but they’re all vaguely glad when someone finally says it.

The captain, a broad-shouldered, hard-edged woman simply nods. Best prepare then, she declares, words falling like weights in the chill, wet air. Her order spreads across the deck like a stain as the crew jumps to batten everything down. Get below, Your Highness, she says, pinning Ari with the weight of her gaze.

Captain, Ari begins lowly, standing her ground, You won’t last this out without a mage working the weather.

And you aren’t going to be that mage, princess. I’m not going to be the poor bastard that tells Her Royal Highness her sister got herself killed trying to magic the heart of a storm.

Ari’s face twitches. The