Maren
We left the cursed channel before the sun rose.
The first dregs of pale light stroked our faces as we finally entered Vranna, cutting through stout city buildings toward the market which lay directly in front of the shipyard. I’d never seen a market enclosed, but it sat fortified by stone, wood, and guards, the single entrance facing the harbor.Pirates, Kye explained with a single word when I asked him why it’d been developed so strangely.
I tracked Kye’s feet with my head down, avoiding the sight of the ships. Something about their size, their shape, their sails. Like phantoms floating across the water, in and out, back and forth. Skeletal while moored in the harbor, or ghostly with their canvas spread against the wind.
Kye wove me through a barrage of goods. Crates. Barrels. Stacked rugs, freshly varnished furniture. Upended horse carts in a tight row. Sailors dipped out of our way without acknowledging our presence, too occupied with loading their cargo to be bothered by the couple roaming the boardwalk.
We squeezed through narrow gaps of merchandise and Kye reached for my hand, roving through a labyrinth single file, so tall that I couldn’t see anything beyond him. His long fingers wrapped around mine, heating my veins, rousing the thud of my heart as it beat against my ribs.
“There are no Calderian ships here,” I said, realizing a certain blue mountain-and-sun flag was missing from the rows of ships.
Steps slowing, Kye drew me into him, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the horizon. Fog gathered in the corners of the docks, draping the harbor in the illusion of ships flying amongst clouds just beyond the plank boards.
“They’re all Kravan or Rivean,” I observed. “I don’t even see any from Illuskia or Cypria. Does Rivea only trade with Krava?”
He exhaled, his breath warm as it washed over my hair. “Cypria only trades within their own shores. They don’t send ships to international waters. And Illuskia sits on the opposite side of Rivea; they’d send their ships to Rivea’s eastern shores. But there should be Calderian ships here.”
There weren’t.
Rivea’s flag flew crimson red against the sky, a coat of arms with a black scorpion pinching its own shield. The banner claimed the majority of the ship masts. Krava’s signet flapped over only a few of the ships, green and white stripes under two clashing swords.
Kye’s heartbeat increased as he searched. I watched him look for his own flag, for comrades among strangers. Something about it tugged at me. His brows pinched together, his mouth set hard. Not in disappointment, in something more like—
The faint scent of worry tinged the air, sweet and sour. I’d barely had a chance to recognize it before he pulled gently on my hand. “Come on.”
A guard with auburn hair and a hard-set mouth stopped us at the gate to the market entrance. He frowned, rubbing his chin as his eyes trickled over the pair of us, garbed in pirate clothes, worn and filthy.
“Nechcem žiadne problémy,” he said, the warning evident in his words.Behave, or else.
Kye simply nodded at him. The guard let us through, though he watched us with such isolated focus I had to force myself not to turn back to look at him.
A maze of its own, the Vranna market became a motley of open stands and wind-blown curtains. Merchants shouted across the brick streets, the pathways flat and hard from the constant hammering of foot traffic. Dust hovered in the air, settling across my tongue when I opened my mouth, leaving the feeling of dirt under my nails and in my eyes.
It stretched for what felt like miles, grouped by trade. Butcher stands, clothiers, bakers, homewares, furs, weaponry. My heart skipped a beat at an entire table of shield weed among the sea faire, though the townspeople held my attention more than any of the merchants, eyeing the pair of us askance as we fought our way through the tangle, a man and woman, both foreign and pirate. They reminded me of Diara, light-skinned and adorned in freckles, their hair various shades of ginger. Though they seemed more haggard than my palace friend. Hardened. Theweight of their stares left a skittering chill down my back, even as I lifted my chin. I’d always hated being watched.
My sense of navigation lost amid the thick masses, I let Kye guide me to the single jewelry stand, his hand pressed against the small of my back. Compared to stands of cookery and farm tools, the lone jeweler boasted a modest table, overlaid with gleaming silk and a locked crystal box. Rings lay inside, each one silver and shining.
The jeweler barely offered us a glance, smiling at a man behind Kye instead. Two dead teeth sat on the side of his mouth, followed by an empty socket, though he dressed in fine velvet. I could hardly blame him for ignoring us. We’d traveled on foot for days, and before then, we’d been on a ship for two weeks. Though we’d boiled our clothes and bathed in the shallow edges of the sea, we were each dirty and rough, my hair an unbound mess, my feet bare.
“Go on, you two,” the man said, waving his hand at us. “This isn’t the shop for pissing vagrants.”
Kye didn’t move. I suppose there are advantages to being born a prince. To command someone’s attention without a spoken word. I’d probably have stalked away at the insult, internally demoralizing the man, but his insinuation bounced off Kye like wind against a proud mountain. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how the Rivean had guessed that we spoke Calderian. What was it about us that gave it away?
“We came to sell,” Kye replied, holding his gold ring between two fingers for the man to see.
The jeweler frowned at Kye, but at seeing his ring, his brows twitched in curiosity. A soft fist braced on his hip, he reached for the ring with his opposite hand. Kye dropped it in the jeweler’s palm, and the man inspected it carelessly. As though it were worth less than the filth beneath his shoes. But a smallfire flickered in his eyes, a hunger that made me almost want to snatch it away from him.
“Two hundredúcet,” the man offered dully.
Kye pointed calmly at the Calderian royal signet stamped inside the band. “Six hundredúcet.”
Sucking his teeth, the jeweler raised his brows, adopting a look of boredom. He shook his head, though his fingers curled possessively around the ring. “Two-fiftyúcet.”
“Four hundred.”
The jeweler snorted. His eyes slid up my side for the first time, oily with interest. “You must be in desperate need, my friend.”
