But the sailor printed Niren’s name in bold black letters and handed the ticket to Eda across the counter. “Board quick, Miss Erris-Dahril. The ship won’t wait for you.”
Back outside, Eda squinted in the sunlight, clutching the ticket so tightly the sweat from her hand made the ink smear. She walked out to the steamer and quickly climbed the gangplank.
A handsome steward in a smart cap looked at her ticket and escorted her across the main deck of the ship, down a set of stairs and through a narrow doorway into an even narrower corridor. It was carpeted in bright red, and the doors that marched in an orderly fashion on either side of the corridor were painted with gaudy gold embellishments. The steward led her to the door with the number 302 emblazoned on the front of it, and waved her in.
“Meals are served in the galley twice per day. You’re responsible for washing your own clothes and linens—one of the girls will show you where. Daily water rations are brought to your room every morning, and lamp oil is available if yours runs out, just ask. Is there anything else you need?”
Eda gaped at him, her mind still snagging on the fact he expected her to wash her own clothes.
The steward tipped his cap. “I hope you have a pleasant voyage, Miss Erris-Dahril. Welcome aboard theEmpress of Enduena.”
And then he was off down the corridor again, leaving Eda to gape after him, belatedly realizing he was talking about the name of the ship and not her.
She snapped her mouth shut, tight with the knowledge that the gods were mocking her, even here.
She stepped into her cabin. It was shockingly small: to her right was a narrow bunk with a single thin sheet; to her left, the tiniest closet she had ever seen in her life. A porthole looked out of the back wall, a washbasin on a stand just beneath, with a chamber pot tucked discreetly in the corner.
There was nowhere for her to sit unless she wanted to clamber up onto the bunk, so she collapsed onto the floor.
Somewhere overhead a bell clanged, and the vessel rumbled beneath her. The horizon through the porthole tilted left and right and left again, and Eda was suddenly aware that the steamer was moving, her body helpless to its subtle rocking. She took another look through the porthole, which turned out to be a mistake.
She barely made it to the chamber pot before she was suddenly, violently sick.
She didn’t notice that the ship had pulled out from the dock, that Enduena was shrinking fast and far away from her.
Everything was awful, inescapable motion.
The rock of the steamer beneath her hollowed-out body, the sway of the overhead lantern.
The air smelled of sickness, and the sheets balled up in both hands were slick with her own sweat.
She didn’t know how long she had been lying there—she didn’t even remember crawling up into the bunk like a half-dead slug.
She was sick again, and then lay back on her pillow, shuddering. Her lips moved in a soundless prayer to Aigir, the sea god, to have mercy on her.
She slipped into dark dreams; she saw bodies twisted on the ballroom floor, Niren dead between pale sheets, Ileem’s cruel smile, Tuer’s bloody sword. Even in her nightmares she couldn’t escape the motion of the wretched sea.
She woke in the dead of night to the face of the steward glowering at her in the lantern light, the silhouette of another man hovering just behind him. “I’m afraid there’s been some mistake,” said the steward.
Her body felt too heavy, her head like it was filled with sand. Still the ship rocked and rocked and rocked. She writhed with the agony of the nausea that wouldn’t go away. “What’s … wrong?” she managed.
“This cabin belongs to this gentleman.” The steward waved at the man behind him. “You were shown here by mistake.”
“I have aticket,” Eda hissed through gritted teeth. She tumbled headlong from the bunk and scrabbled in her pocket, pulling out the crumpled piece of paper. She held it out to him. Another wave of nausea hit her and she clutched her stomach, trying desperately not to be sick again.
He gave an exasperated sigh, as if she were being very tiresome. “You were a last-minute passenger, and the dock steward should never have promised you a cabin. I’m here to move you down to steerage where you belong.”
“Ipaidfor this ticket! Please.Please.” She was sobbing. She was begging. The Empress of half the world, and she wasbegging on the floor like a dog.
The steward wasn’t moved. He grabbed her under the armpit and hauled her upright. Her knees buckled beneath her; she couldn’t walk unassisted.
She could barely keep her eyes open as she attempted to walk with the steward. He half dragged her from the cabin and through the narrow hallway, then across the upper deck, swathed in moonlit silver. It made her feel as if she were caught in a dream, the kind that makes your body heavy, your legs sluggish. She blinked and was on the rooftops, staring into Ileem’s gleaming eyes.
The steward nudged her ahead of him, down a set of cramped iron stairs. She tripped on the last few, landing in a heap on the lower deck, lit by a lantern affixed to the wall between a row of metal rivets. The motion of the ship was worse down here; her stomach cramped, and she was sick in the corner.
The steward cinched open a heavy metal door and brought her into the dark space beyond. It smelled of vomit in here, of sweat and sour milk. She had the dim impression of rows of pallet beds, of the hundred-odd people lying on them. Some were sleeping. More were moaning and hunched over buckets.
Toward the back of this awful place was an empty pallet. Eda collapsed onto it, the nausea and exhaustion blurring the edges of her vision.
