“Return to Staria,” Iason said. “You won’t like what you’ll find in Mislia if you follow me.”
“There you go again.” Sophie propped her hands on her hips. “Trying to protect me.” Iason turned away, and Sophie sighed. “Keep the herbs. You’ll forget who you are again if you don’t do something about it.”
Iason said nothing. After a long, pregnant pause, the door to the cell closed and the lock clicked shut again, leaving Iason and the bundle of herbs in the dark.
He threw the lot of them against the wall. Then, slowly, he found Sophie’s cloth and folded it neatly before slipping it into his pocket. Foolish girl. She could have used the materials for something worthwhile, not to prod the mind of a man who could barely remember his own life.
He let the darkness in the belly of the ship take him, but he could still hear her disapproving tone as she asked about the herbs, the quiet way she saidWhat’s your name? Do you remember?
He shouldn’t have to remember.
Who was Iason? A prisoner, a cursed man, a killer, a son to a woman whose face blurred in his broken memory, brother to a girl who didn’t live to see what he became. Perhaps whoever cursed the Archmage and his allies—whether it was the king or not—was in the right. Maybe some things were best left forgotten.
The ship rolled with the waves, and Iason closed his eyes. The sea was too deep and too dark to fathom, and fishing boats would sometimes drag up strange creatures with pale, wide eyes and too many teeth. The depths held hidden things that no one had a right to see, and it was almost offensive that people went about swimming and sailing anyway.
Iason would much rather stay ashore. There was no point diving into waters that weren’t meant for him.
He let himself drift. Iason faded, his mind a small, weak thing against the current of nothingness, until he was nothing but his body and the small seed of magic at his core. He could vaguely sense stray bits of magic on the ship: bespelled items and water filtration barrels, a few warm patches where raw magic flared in someone’s spirit. There were currents, too—pulsing waves of power that rose and fell like a tide. His mind brushed against them, and he felt them ripple at his touch, bending around him like a river around a stone.
It would be nice, he thought, to exist in this peaceful space for a while. To not be Iason—to not have to remember. To forget Sophie and her misplaced concern, the curse, his past, his knowledge of poison and force, knife and breath. To let the dark places be, and drift above them, empty.
When the door opened again, Iason opened his eyes slowly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Stop asking.”
“We’re not here to ask questions.”
Iason looked up. Two men stood at the door, shifting from foot to foot in the way of people unused to the rock and sway of a ship. One of them held a cloth in his hand, and the other was looking into the corners of the cell, his gaze darting too quickly.
“Ah,” Iason said. He recognized the stance of the man with the cloth. “You’re here to kill me.”
“Get up and let us get those shackles off,” the nervy man said. “They’re too loud.”
Iason stood. There was no use fighting it—even if he tried to use magic, his defeat was inevitable by the time they reached Mislia. He held out his hands and watched the nervy one pick the shackles open deftly, then met the gaze of the quiet one by the door.
He was the killer. He’d done it before, that much Iason knew. He couldn’t say how, but the knowledge was there: two predators acknowledging each other before one ripped out the other’s throat.
“Don’t make a fuss,” the quiet one said, and then he wrapped the cloth around Iason’s eyes. “Won’t be long from here.”
Iason didn’t struggle. It was almost a relief. He felt calm, still, his senses floating outside himself. He was aware of the touch of magic in the man who held him by the shoulder, heard the other’s rough breathing. They led him out of his cell and up some steps, and Iason felt a rush of cool salt air and heard the steady creaking of sails and rigging.
“Quiet, now,” one of the men said.
Iason walked calmly, his breathing slow. He was led into a small boat, and he felt the lurch of it dropping, his captors’ grunts as they lowered the boat into the water. Then came the spray of the waves, and Iason heard the clank of oars and a soft, muffled sound at his feet, like someone trying to speak.
“Take it off him,” the quiet one said. The cloth slithered loose, and Iason blinked in the moonlight, the first glimpse he’d had of the sky in weeks. Stars shone over the nearby beaches of Mislia, and Iason was struck by how close the shore was. Another hour, and he could have been there, standing on the soil of his homeland for the first time in… in…
He didn’t know.
Something thumped against his foot. Iason looked down, and terror clutched him by the throat when the quiet man grabbed a small, wriggling figure from the bottom of the rowboat.
Sophie thrashed in her captor’s hold, teeth gritted around a cloth gag, hands bound. The man shook her, and she spat out the gag and tried to kick him in the leg. “Iason, they’re here tokillyou!”
“Fuck’s sake, this is why I don’t work with kids,” the nervy man said from behind Iason.
Iason moved on instinct alone, his body tight with pain as long-unused muscles responded. He wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and applied just enough pressure to cut off his air. “Let the girl go and we’ll resolve this amicably,” Iason told the other man. “You don’t need her to ensure my cooperation.”
“You’re right,” the quiet one said. “I don’t. You know you’re beaten, even with Jarrett there.”
“I’ll kick your fucking teeth out,” Sophie said. It was a profoundly Starian threat. In Mislia, people threatened each other with magic and cunning. In Staria, they tended to thrash each other. Or the commoners did, and it seemed there truly was more commoner in Sophie than noble, as she managed to elbow her captor’s rib cage at least once.
