Page 65 of Saint
The bottle slipped from Nash’s fingers. “You’re welcome,” he answered between gulps of air.
I took the trader by the collar and I hadn’t made it more than a foot from the bar before the other man was being hauled to the door by several sets of hands. I followed them, towing the bastard behind me. I could taste blood in my mouth and smell it in the air. A streak of it was smeared across the floor, beneath my boots.
I dragged him with both hands over it until we were outside, and then I dropped him on the wet cobblestones. When I looked up, Clove was beside me.
“Get on before these fools decide to have fun with you.” Griff’s voice was at my back. “These boys got a crest today. Don’t think the Trade Council will take it lightly if they show up dead the next morning.”
Through the doors, the whole of the tavern was still watching.
The traders looked to one another in a silent exchange before the man at my feet stood. He looked me square in the eye before he spit on the ground. Now I was the one smiling, my heart still racing in my chest in a way that made the blood rush through my veins. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t like it as much as Clove did. The difference now was that we had the protection of the Trade Council between us and Saltbloods.
They disappeared around the corner and I gazed up at the window of our room that looked out over the street. A hand clutched the curtain, but Isolde was draped in the dark.
“Come on.” Griff stepped aside, waiting for us to go in before he followed and closed the doors.
The crowd in the tavern parted, making way for us, and Griff appeared at the counter uncorking that bottle of rye he’d had waiting. Daya brushed off the shoulders of Nash’s jacket as he sat before signaling to the two men on the stools beside him to move. They obeyed, picking up their glasses and pressing against the wall.
“Today has just been full of surprises,” Clove said, giving Nash an appraising look.
The apprentice blinked a few times, looking a little shaken. “Can’t exactly get home if you two end up gutted in an alley somewhere.”
Clove’s eyebrows raised. “Didn’t know you had it in you. Hard to believe you’ve ever gotten blood on that pretty jacket of yours.”
“First time for everything.”
Griff surveyed the three of us as I wiped the blood from my lip, both hands perched on the bar in front of him. He shook his head in silence as he reached for the stack of green glasses, plucking three from the top.
The tavern went back to its business, conversations picking up where they left off, pitchers of ale being poured. Griff filled the glasses with rye before securing the cork and moving to the next person standing at the counter. No one even bothered to wipe the blood from the floor.
Nash returned to his table in front of the fire after one drink and I set the gold-hilted knife in front of me, picking up my own glass. “You’re a stupid bastard,” I said, shooting Clove a look before I took it in one swallow.
He shrugged. His arm was bleeding through his shirt where the tip of a knife blade had grazed his skin. He reached into his pocket, pulling a fist of gold chain and two brass buttons free. All items he’d had the wherewithal to pickpocket in the fight. He dropped them beside the knife.
“They started it.”
“Pretty sure you did.”
Clove tipped his head back, pouring the rye into his mouth and then victoriously slamming the glass down. “No.” He exhaled. “It started the first time those bastards dropped anchor in our waters.” He lifted his glass to mine, clinking the rims. “And we, my friend, are going to finish it.”
24ISOLDE
It took only minutes for the commotion down in the tavern to return to a calm hum after the traders were hauled out. It was a sight that would have made the hair stand up on the back of my mother’s neck, a bunch of Narrows-born urchins throwing traders from the Unnamed Sea out into the muddy street like the contents of a slop bucket.
It was what she’d feared. What the guilds and the entire Trade Council in Bastian had feared. That one day, the Narrows would stand on its own. And when that day came, there would be a war for the waters that had once been ripe for the taking.
Saint was right in his suspicion that things were changing. But which direction the wind would blow remained to be seen. I’d never felt truly beaten by my mother until that moment in the Gem Guild master’s post when my eyes landedon that quill. I’d never felt the full weight of her power before. The only thing I could compare it to was that night of the storm on theRiven.How small I’d felt. How insignificant.
I knew firsthand what kind of power the coin of the Unnamed Sea produced. I suspected that the Narrows had only seen a glimpse of it. But when helmsmen started losing contracts to Narrows-born traders and had to break that news to the merchants in Bastian, there would be hell to pay. And behind every door there were traces of Holland. There always would be.
The room Saint had let from the barkeeper wasn’t unlike his cabin on theRiven.It was plain, with no embellishments to be seen. Two small cots were draped with mismatched quilts and what looked to be another makeshift bed on the floor was wedged against one wall.
Hanging over one of the cot posts was the map case from theRiven,its cap still tightly in place. The only thing in Saint’s quarters that he hadn’t been willing to let go down with the ship. The only thing he took when he left it at port. That single map held a vision for the Narrows that was real. Heart-achingly real. He could see it—bustling ports and thriving merchant’s houses. Trading ships with cargo holds filled to the brim and guilds that had something to negotiate with.
I’d thought when I left Bastian with the midnight that I had leverage against my mother that no one else had. But I’d been wrong. Her influence didn’t just reside in her gem trade or the single piece of midnight I’d put into her hands. It was in her dream of conquering the shores beyond her own. Her teeth-bared hunger for control. All my life I’d seen the ill-fortuned adversaries that rose against her, the schemes and plotting in hopes of taking her down. But she’d never met her match. Not like she would when the dream Saint had encased in the ink of that map came to life.
And it would. I’d see to that myself.
This myth-born trader from nowhere was an enemy she didn’t even know existed. And he probably could not care less about Holland, the great gem merchant of the Unnamed Sea. He wasn’t trying to take anything from anyone or play tricks. He was just trying to make something he could keep.
