Page 55 of Saint
I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing myself to put it out of my mind. The question I’d asked. The answer she’d given. In the end, it would have been better to wake and find her gone than to imagine that she’d stay. But nothing was worse than admitting I wanted her to.
The sprawling hills and bridges of the city came into view, stretching along the shore in a congested maze. The harbor reflected its chaos. Almost every slip was filled with ships of every kind, most of them from the Unnamed Sea. They’d make their stops to do business with the city’s merchants and the new Trade Council before they headed back to Bastian or Nimsmire or Sagsay Holm.
The first time I’d seen this city, I was perched at the top of the mast on my father’s fishing boat. But this was the last time I’d stand on these docks without any power in my hands. In truth, he’d been the one to put it there. Long before he died.
I remembered the light in his eyes as the boat floated past those ships, their trading crests flying proudly over the bows. When I’d asked him if one day he’d have a ship like that, he said,Ah, that’s not a future for me, son. It’s for you.
And it wasn’t just the dream of it or the grandness of the idea. It was what the idea meant. That one day, when Narrows-born traders were sailing with crests, there wouldn’t just be a new horizon. There would be a new world.
Clove jumped down from the ladder of theRivento land beside me on the dock. The last time we’d stood here was three weeks ago, and everything had been different.
“You take care of the docking fee?” He pulled on his cap.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Harbor master said the price is going up for anyone with a license.”
Clove scoffed. I wouldn’t expect any less from the harbor master, finding a way to use the Trade Council’s business to squeeze more coin into his purse. He wouldn’t be the only one.
“Word must be getting around,” Clove said.
I nodded.
There’d been talk about the Trade Council issuing licenses from the moment they were instated, but they’d gone about granting them to every trader from the Unnamed Sea with established business first. They claimed it was part of their plan to legitimize the Narrows, while also not letting the business of the merchants in Ceros suffer. But in the process, they’d kept the Narrows-born crews from doing legal trade, and anyone with eyes could see the guilds just wanted to keep their copper intact.
Now, almost a year after they first took their seats, the Trade Council was finally getting to the job they’d been commissioned for.
Nash came down the ladder next, nearly strangling himself in the ropes before he slipped from the last rung. When he finally had his feet under him, he wobbled, catching himself on the dock post.
Clove laughed, along with a couple of dockworkers in the next slip who were watching Nash struggle to stand up straight.
It was a dead giveaway that he didn’t sail. Losing your sense of gravity was a common reaction to solid ground forsomeone who wasn’t used to being on a ship for an extended period of time. The bastard hadn’t been at sea for even a week.
“You pull anything, and you’ll lose your passage back to Dern,” I reminded him.
“Got it,” he answered, clearing his throat.
With the deckhands gone, we weren’t going to leave him behind on the ship. If he had any sense, he’d behave and get a free ride home. We both knew he didn’t have anything to trade with another helmsman.
“That’s not all you’ll lose,” Clove warned.
“I said, I got it.” Nash glared at him, trying to comb his unruly hair back with his hand. I’d never seen him so disheveled. Even after a full day’s work in Rosamund’s pier he’d always looked like he was about to go to tea with a guild member. There were more and more people in the Narrows just like him, trying to put on the airs they thought would eventually carry them into high society. What they didn’t understand was that there was no high society in the Narrows. There never would be.
The sunlight flickered overhead and I looked up to see Isolde peering over the side of theRiven.Her face was hidden in the shadow, but her hands curled around the railing before she lifted herself onto the ladder. It wasn’t until she was climbing down that I saw the belt of dredging tools draped over her shoulder.
I met her eyes when she dropped to the dock. She’d have no need of that belt in the city. No reason to take it off theship if she planned to return. That was all the answer she needed to give me.
There was a look on her face that almost resembled guilt. Almost. But she had nothing to be sorry for. I knew firsthand what it meant to carve your own path. I wasn’t going to stand in the way of anyone else doing the same.
“You’re just going to leave the ship?” she asked, glancing up to theRiven.There was almost something protective in her voice and that made me bristle.
“No one wants it,” I said, the words more revealing than I meant them to be.
Her eyes searched my face, making it clear that she’d caught my meaning. What I was really saying was thatshedidn’t want it. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
I started up the dock, pressing into the crowd that was headed for the city. Clove wove in and out of the bodies behind me, glancing back to keep an eye on Isolde and Nash. Again, Isolde had her jacket pulled up, one shoulder turned away from the ships as she passed. Her face was cast toward the ground.
I wasn’t imagining it. She was trying not to be seen. The question was why, this far from home, she had reason to fear being recognized.
The very little I’d learned about Isolde didn’t add up. Why was she so comfortable on the ship if she’d been grown in a glasshouse, as Emilia put it? The dredging didn’t seem to be an act. She wasn’t playing a part, but how had she taken up such a brutal job if was highborn? Even if she had fallen fromgrace, there were other cities in the Unnamed Sea to disappear into. Ones bigger than Ceros. So, why had she come to the Narrows at all?
