Sterling (6 page)

Fortunately the lighting throughout the Duke’s mansion was dim, and I made it out the servants’ entrance to the street unaccosted.

Only as I fled into the night did Erich’s actions at last strike me as terribly odd. Why had he helped me? Why had he let me go?

O
n my own
in the night-dark city, I hurried toward the docks. I had eagerly studied my map of Engashta before I came, and I knew the street names and landmarks well enough to find my way. Fortunately the city was well-designed, with signs marking street names. Engashta, though a northern port in Lethemia, was situated in a temperate belt fed by warm eastern winds. I did wish I had a shawl, for the servant’s garb Erich had given me was thin wool. The air cut through it and left my skin chilled. Or perhaps that was shock.

Don’t think, Sterling. You must get out of the city.

My steps hastened towards the city’s long harbor. I had only ever traveled as a daughter of House Ricknagel, with servants and guards buffering me from the outside world. Nothing prepared me for the chaos of the Engashta docks at night as stevedores worked after dark.

Gas lamps lit the scene. My face itched where the cosmetic covered my mark. Only the thought of the damage tears would do to my painted face kept them at bay.

I refused to think of Papa. I couldn’t, not yet. Perhaps never.

I stared down at the bustling dock. I’d fled without a single jhass—I had the pearl ear-drops I’d worn to the ball, but would a ship’s captain accept jewelry as payment? Wouldn’t he be suspicious how a serving girl had gotten such items? Erich’s parting question echoed in my head, a taunt more than a kindness. I couldn’t buy passage until I traded my jewelry for jhass, but no pawnshop would be open until morning.

Soon half of Engashta would be hunting me. Gods, half the
country
might be searching if Costas Galatien had a mage and could make and receive aether-sendings—immediate, real-time messages sent by magestone that greatly sped communications among distant parties.

Helpless animal panic thrummed in my veins. I jammed my hand into my purse and found the Emerald Ophira. It warmed me, its internal radiance filling the void of despair in my stomach.
Papa, Papa, Papa.
My footsteps fell in time to the syllables as tears threatened again. Not yet. I could not mourn him yet. I had to get myself safe first.

The Emerald Ophira reminded me that I carried a piece of him with me. It had been Papa’s—he had been its Guardian, though not a mage himself. Tradition decreed that the Head of House Ricknagel held this particular Ophira. My hand tightened around the sphere. That meant I was its Guardian now.
Oh, Papa. I am not ready for this.

If I gave in to such thoughts, I’d be paralyzed.

Finally the morning sun peeked over the horizon. I patted at my face, uncertain whether the cosmetic remained intact. I applied more from the bottle Erich had given me, though I had no means to see how well I blended it.

I inched down the commercial streets close to the docks. A thick fog had rolled in during the night, but it was slowly dissipating.

I found a pawn-shop—a dim booth manned by a short man in a bright green waistcoat made from sateen trying hard to be satin. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked, peering at me from his narrow doorway.

“I’ve items to sell.”

“Early for the likes of you. I usually don’t open my doors for business until the hour of Amassis, but I’ve been keeping special hours due to the festivities. The new King’s going to marry off his daughter, did you hear? And the betrothal ball was last night, right here in Engashta! Well, come on in.”

I’d never been in such a place. My mother had thought entering street shops undignified, and she’d rarely allowed me even to tour the commercial areas of Shankar lest people
see
me.

The proprietor cleared a space on a table in the cluttered shop. “So, the Ricknagel girl, she’s the one with the face—” he gestured around his own cheek “—she’s to marry the heir to House Talata. They say the ugly princess and Lord Erich will be joint heirs to the throne—unprecedented, that. But one can only imagine—who wants a queen, an ugly one at that? Xander Ricknagel had to do something, he had only the one daughter left, eh? Show me what you have to sell, now, missy.”

I scrambled in my reticule for the ear-drops, fighting tears and rage. He might as well have slapped me in the face. Erich and me, joint heirs? No one had mentioned that to me. Not Tirienne, not Erich, not Papa. It couldn’t be true. Rumors twisted everything. Papa would never have made such an agreement.

The pawn shop man went on blathering, “But such nasty rumors about Lord Erich—one wonders what kind of King he’ll make. Xander Ricknagel, now, there’s a man I support. He’s the real deal. Came out himself at the Temple of Amassis and made his speech about his coronation. Not many a Ten Houses lord would speak to the people direct-like.”

My stomach rebelled and I could hardly stay on my feet. None of it mattered. Papa was dead.

The man was oblivious to my distress. “Xander Ricknagel defeating the Galatiens has been right good for business, I tell you—”

“I have earrings to sell.” I slammed down the jewels on his table. Though I attempted to alter my Ten Houses accent, I did not succeed.

“Well, let me have a look.” The man’s eyes glowed with avarice as he prodded my ear-drops. “These are nothing much. I’ll give you eight green jhass, but the sale is final, not a loan.”

“Nothing much!” The earrings were worth at least ten
gold
jhass.

“What did you expect? Did your sweetheart tell you they were real? I’m sorry to tell you, they ain’t. Nine green jhass, and that’s my final offer, and only ’cause I been feeling generous on account of the war being over and business picking up.”

“They’re worth more,” I said stiffly.

He shook his head. “You been mislead if you think so. Look here.” He pointed. “See that edge? Means its been shaped. They make them out of a white stone in Vhimsantyr and soak them in a special liquid to give ’em luster.”

He lied through his teeth! I knew about pearls. Papa owned one of the largest pearl diving operations in the Parting Sea. I opened my mouth to lambaste him, until I recalled myself. He thought I was a serving girl, and no serving girl would know the first detail about pearl quality.

I chewed on my bottom lip. I needed jhass, and I needed it quickly. I had to disappear before Tirienne Talata or Costas Galatien found me. No doubt they already had agents scouring Engashta. Erich might even have told them about the cosmetic.

My mind whirred like the gears in a timepiece. I should not reveal that I knew anything about jewels. It would tag me as an educated lady, and that would get back to anyone searching for Sterling Ricknagel. Erich knew I had jewelry. Why had he let me go so easily? What was his game?

I sighed. “I must take your offer. I had no idea such things could be faked.” I glared at the man as he gathered up my gems and pushed nine green jhasstones across the table.

For a real serving girl, nine green would have seemed a fortune. To me it was a pittance, and I swallowed all kinds of fury as I tucked the money in my bag and headed back towards the docks.

The line for passenger tickets already stretched halfway down the pier. Many people were leaving Engashta. Were they leaving because the war was “over” or because Xander Ricknagel was dead? Tirienne would not have let the information out so quickly, would she? I kept my ears open as I waited in line, but I heard only about the coronation Papa had planned in Galantia and speculations about how he had defeated Costas. No one knew Papa was dead.

I stared out at the harbor as I waited my turn. Where would I go? Not Shankar—if I went home, I might as well turn myself over to Costas Galatien. I had seen Costas the morning before, wound up in magical restraints, held at Papa’s whim, enchanted into a mageglass cage. He was a proud man. He’d not forgive such a total loss of power. He would have no mercy upon me. I’d seen hatred in his eyes when I’d left that room.

I studied the variety of vessels waiting in port. There was a new, aetherlight-powered luxury liner, the kind Papa had wanted to start building for House Ricknagel. He’d said that magical advances in aetherlight engines would eventually take over shipping. Papa believed that King Mydon Galatien, Costas’s father who had died just before the war began, had not properly fostered magic technology. Papa, as King, would have improved it. That dream would never be realized.

Oh Papa. No man could ever be as good as you.

“Where are you headed?” the man in the ticket booth asked when my turn arrived.

“I’ll take the first ship that is leaving. Wherever it is going.” The world beyond the docks felt enormous. I was but a tiny caterpillar struggling along its surface.

The ticket agent snorted. “The first ship with any room is headed to Lysandra, and a berth will cost you fifteen green.”

“I’m on an economy. Fifteen green is exorbitant.” As the words left my mouth, I knew they sounded too stilted and formal.

“Well,” the man said, “there aren’t many ships running these days because of the war. Most were called to action, and many were destroyed in the fighting in the Parting Sea. Prices have been driven up by the scarcity of berths and the high demand.” He gestured to the growing line beyond the office door. “So? You want to go to Lysandra? I also have a berth for Orioneport, same price.”

I had to shake my head. I didn’t have fifteen green. Even if I could talk him down to eight or nine, what would I do for money when I arrived?

“Make up your mind, missy. I haven’t got all day.”

“Is there nothing less expensive?”

“If you haven’t got the blunt, move along. You’re holding up the line.”

Trembling, I turned away. Though exhausted, I could think of no other plan but to walk out of the city on my own two feet.

Envisioning my map of Engashta, I recalled a winding boulevard that ran along the eastern shore of the River Talash and then angled south.

My feet hurt terribly. Erich’s costume hadn’t included shoes, so I still wore my silk slippers from the masquerade. The straps chafed as I walked. I could follow my boulevard all the way to the city border and then beyond, to Shiree’s provincial capital, Lyssus, which stood at a bend in the Talash River about midway between Engashta and Tashriga Lake.

The buildings changed as I moved into the outskirts of the city. The houses were plain, unpainted, sided only with wood shingles. The street needed new cobbles. Soon the sidewalks disappeared entirely, and I had to walk in the road.

The only foot traffic were people dressed in rags. Most of them moved about with their heads down, never making eye contact. I hated to see people living in such poverty. Papa would have led the entire country to prosperity, as he had Ricknagel Province, where we did not have such beggars in the streets.

My slippers felt like lead on my feet. The sharp sound of hooves on loose cobbles broke into my fatigue.

“You there!”

I whipped my head around in dread, but the mounted men were calling to the hunched woman I’d just passed at the corner. The riders wore the Talatan sigil—a grey coursing hound on a sky-blue field.

One of the Talatans said, “We’re searching for a young woman, blonde hair, blue eyes. May have a red mark on the right side of her face.”

I ducked around the nearest corner, into a narrow alley between ramshackle houses. There, I flung myself into a doorway and cowered, praying to Amassis they had not seen me.

The riders proceeded past my alley, but at a slower pace. I waited until they had completely faded.

House Talata was looking for me, then. But why? To use as a prize to appease Costas Galatien? To kill me? To protect me? The last two options were both unlikely. If Tirienne Talata were behind Papa’s murder, she would have waited until he’d been crowned and Erich and I had married. With the Talatan son married to the Ricknagel heir—or declared the joint-heir?—the Talatan position would have been much stronger. If Tirienne or Erich had ambitions for a Talatan King, they’d not have killed Papa so soon.

No, I was almost certain Galatien loyalists had killed Papa. Whoever had done the deed had freed Costas and his son. That meant Tirienne Talata could want me only as a bargaining piece to help re-align House Talata with House Galatien.

I slipped from the alley, running back to the boulevard. The sooner I left Engashta, the better. My only advantage was that they could have no idea which direction I had fled.

I walked all day, as fast as my feet could carry me, constantly checking my shoulder. My stomach growled and tears pricked my eyes. I dabbed more cosmetic on my mark, constantly panicked it might show.

Any sensible person would have given up, stopped to rest and hide when her feet felt as mine did. But if I stopped walking, I wouldn’t be able to start again. The road transformed into a narrower route with fewer buildings dotting it. By darkfall, I moved along a dirt carriage track through a barren landscape.

My toes were blistered, but I walked on into the dark, fearing the Talatan riders, anticipating the thunder of hooves.

I was terribly thirsty.

My feet stopped moving.
Sterling Ricknagel
, I thought,
you are an idiot. The Talash River runs no more than a league southwest of you!

Even with the lure of water, I was reluctant to leave the road. To go out on my own frightened me. I loved maps, and I’d spent hours of my life pouring over them in the comfort of my father’s library. But to be out in the landscape itself was an entirely different experience. No handy compass rose pointed north.
Would I know how to get back to the road if I left it?
The surrounding land was distressingly nondescript, open steppes dotted with rocks.

“I can’t do it,” I said aloud. “I’d get lost.” Only the moon lit the road; darkness swallowed most of the landscape. Perhaps it would feel safer in the morning.

On I walked. I thought my eyes deceived me when a soft yellow light appeared ahead. Had I finally grown so thirsty my senses no longer functioned properly?

But fear drove me on to the light. Soon I could see a building in its glow.

A lamp lit a swinging sign on the rustic, barn-like building:
Lone Line Stagecoaches.
A posting station!

How could I have been such a ninny? Of course there were public stagecoaches that ran out of Engashta, with fares much cheaper than ships’ berths. I’d simply never thought about a
public
coach.