Page 46 of Heir

“You would come with me?”

But Cero shook his head. “I wanted you to have a friendly face. Treg always liked you better.”

He handed her the pack. “Some supplies and enough Ankanese silver talas to start you on your journey. I put Tiral’s book in here too. Tried to destroy it, but the damned thing won’t burn. Maybe you can reason out why he was so obsessed with it.”

A splash sounded from the sea. A rowboat with a lone figure drapedin green approached. The boat moved slowly—slower than it should in the rough surf. It stopped near an outcropping of rock jutting from the right side of the cave, a natural dock. Aiz caught a glimpse of pale skin within the green hood. The figure watched her, unmoving.

The reality of what Aiz was facing suddenly hit her. Tiral would be searching for her. She’d be adrift in foreign lands. She couldn’t speak Kegari because it would be a dead giveaway. She’d have to only speak in Ankanese.

“Tiral might hire a Jaduna to hunt you,” Cero said. “Don’t windsmith; they can sense magic. You’ll know them by—”

“I saw one, once.” Aiz remembered the shine of her coins, and the fact that the woman spent so much time with the orphans at Dafra. “I will return, Cero.” Her surety was thunder in her blood. “I will defeat Tiral.”

“Aiz, there are things I’m supposed to say.” Cero took a deep breath, cracks showing on his usually composed face. “But I can’t bring myself to say them. You don’t owe Kegar anything. No matter what you saw. You have a chance to make another life, a better one far away. One day, I’ll get out too, and I’ll find you. All of this”—he nodded to the distant hovels of Dafra slum, a dark smudge in the sleet—“will be a bad memory.”

He slipped something onto her hand—her aaj. “Keep it,” he said. “Don’t use it unless you’re dying—the Jaduna can track this magic. If you truly need me, I’ll be listening.”

They’d reached the boat, for Cero had walked her toward it, ever so slowly. Now he pushed her into the arms of the green-robed seer, who held Aiz with a vise grip. The boat lurched away from the rocky dock.

“Wait— Cero—”

Sudden fear gripped her. The farthest she’d gone from Kegar was a pilgrimage to Mother Div’s cloister at the base of the Spires. Suddenly,the days ahead felt vast and unknowable. She wanted to dive into the water and swim back to Cero, to her people, to Div and the holy labor she’d entrusted to Aiz.

But the rowboat reached the dhow and hands pulled her onto the deck. The ship moved away from the shore impossibly fast. By the time Aiz ran back to the rail to look for Cero, the cave, her friend, all of Kegar, had faded into the rain.

14

Quil

Quil composed his face as he wiped his hands and scim—wet from the blood of so many dead Kegari—on the scarf Musa had placed earlier. The prince was skilled at walling off his emotions. He’d learned through the gauntlet of court life, his every expression dissected and analyzed.

So, even as Navium burned and the roar of fire marked the destruction of the world he knew, he forced himself to focus on what was before him: A girl with bitter laughter. A friend so terrified of losing the people he loved that he was willing to kill her. And the very real possibility that the Kegari would swoop down and blow this shabka to pieces if they didn’t get the hells away from Navium.

“Quil.” Arelia scanned the ocean and skies. “We need to pick a direction.”

The tracker stopped laughing. “The next time you talk to dear Da”—she glared at Sufiyan—“tell him I don’t appreciate him chaining me to a mission he wasn’t honest about. When my family finds me and subjects me to a brutal death, tell him my ghost will follow him around wailing and tormenting him until the end of his days!”

Sufiyan hadn’t released his knife, and Quil stepped between him and the tracker. More death wasn’t going to solve anything.

“What did you do to him?” Sufiyan demanded.

“Nothing! As if anyone could take that ring off your father.” The girl rolled her brown eyes and shimmied back to put distance between herself and Sufiyan. Despite her bindings she moved with grace. “Do you even know the man? He could crush my skull with his bare hand. I told you, hegaveit to me.”

Quil eased the dagger from Sufiyan’s hand and pulled him a few steps away, toward Arelia. “I don’t think she’s lying, Suf.” The prince glanced at the shoreline, where Sails patrolled. “We’ll get more answers later. Right now, we need to get the hells out of here. I’m thinking we head south.”

He didn’t elaborate. He’d told Suf and Arelia about Aunt Hel’s orders as soon as they left the palace. If they were to find Tas, then they needed to get to the Ankanese capital, Burku.

Arelia understood Quil’s intent and spun the shabka’s wheel. The tracker shook her head.

“You understand geography, yes? The Kegari are coming from the south.”

While Quil didn’t think the girl was a spy, he didn’t trust her enough to tell her anything significant.

“We have friends there,” Sufiyan spoke up. “Though—maybe we should head to the Tribal Lands. Take shelter. Or ask the jinn for help.”

Arelia spoke up from the helm. “They won’t help,” she said. “The palace engineers wished to visit their capital. Their ruling council told us to get stuffed. They want nothing to do with humans.”

“Head west.” The tracker fidgeted, not-so-surreptitiously pulling at her bonds. “To Jibaut.”

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