Page 47 of Heir

“The Kegari are using Jibaut for their reserve troops.” Sufiyan was calmer now, though still cautious of the girl. “We can’t go straight into the maw of the beast.”

“No one will expect anyone fleeing Navium to head west,” the girl said, and Quil wondered if he was imagining the slight desperation in her voice. “I have friends in Jibaut. Kade, a rare books dealer. He knows everything that goes on in that city—he’ll know how to avoid the Kegari.”

“That’s not worth our lives.” Sufiyan turned to Quil and Arelia. “If we go east, we can get a proper ship, clothing, weaponry.” He looked down at his finery in disgust. “We don’t even have armor.”

The tracker groaned. “You can get those things in Jibaut! I could—”

“Jibaut is too dangerous.” Quil spoke firmly, lest the tracker think she had a say in where they went. “The Tribal Lands aren’t safe. If the Kegari attack—”

“We should be there,” Sufiyan said. “Tribe Saif is wintering in Sadh. We must warn them.”

“Musa will have done it already.” Arelia lowered her voice. “With the wights. Quil’s right.”

“You should untie me,” the tracker called out. “Whichever way you’re going, we need to move faster. I can help.”

Quil met her gaze, trying to read the intention behind it, trying to glean any information at all. She spoke Serran with a slight lilt, but Quil couldn’t place where she was from. One might say she had the long lashes of a Scholar, or the high cheekbones and square jaw of a Martial, and yet on closer inspection, she looked like neither. She wore tight-fitting leathers and deep red boots, and though she was tall, Quil was taller. She was striking, and from the smirk on her face, Quil suspected she knew it.

“Like what you see, Martial?”

Quil flushed and looked away.

“What do we do with her?” Arelia lowered her voice. “We can’t keep her tied up all the way to Ankana.”

“If Aba hired her,” Sufiyan said, “I want to know why. He’s been traveling for months looking for…”

The murderer.Sufiyan didn’t say it, but they all knew.

“But Ama asked him to come home,” Sufiyan said. “You know he can’t say no to her. Maybe he hired this tracker to continue the hunt.”

If that was the case, Elias wouldn’t want the girl anywhere near Sufiyan. He’d wanted to join his father and hunt his younger brother’s murderer—had fought for days with his mother and sisters about itbefore acquiescing to their wishes and staying behind in the Tribal Lands.

Quil put a hand to his head. Skies, he needed time to think, to consider all the implications of keeping this tracker on the ship.

Far ahead, the land curved and Quil could make out a thin white band of beach. In the sun, the water would be pale blue.

Aunt Helene taught him to swim in those shoals as a boy. He’d feared the deeper water, the way the ocean dropped away and he couldn’t feel anything beneath his feet.You must learn, his aunt insisted.You can’t trust someone else to save you. You must do the saving. Do it enough and you’ll develop a knack for it. An instinct you’ll learn to trust.

He wouldn’t throw this tracker in the sea. That instinct his aunt had tried to drill into him now told him that he needed to give her a chance to prove herself.

“She’ll stay on board,” Quil said.

“Oi. Martial,” the tracker called out beside the shabka’s rail. “As much as I enjoy being tied up by you, Ireallythink you should unbind me.”

“Quil!” Sufiyan grabbed his arm. At first, the prince couldn’t make out what he was pointing to, but then he caught a flash of movement in the distant skies behind them.

Kegari Sails. Heading straight for them.

“They can’t possibly see us from that far away,” Arelia said, but she didn’t sound particularly sure of herself.

“They’re coming right at us.” The blood drained from Sufiyan’s face. “There’s nothing else out here.”

Quil’s stomach lurched, the way it used to when he had to face a room of courtiers. But with Sufiyan and Arelia staring at the Sails in stark terror, he forced himself to speak calmly.

“Can you make this thing go any faster, Arelia?” he asked.

“Maybe if I had a few days to tinker with the engine. But I’ve only ever seen schematics.”

“You can’t outrun them,” the tracker said, staring at the Sails. “Even if you had ten engines. Untie me. I can help.”

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