Page 60 of Saint
“No, thanks.” I buttoned my jacket up to my chin, answering for both of us.
My stomach was already in knots and a pot of black tea would have me vomiting before I even made it to the Trade Council. I hadn’t even been able to eat the bread Griff’s wife, Daya, sent up at daybreak.
“Suit yourself.” He went back to work, but there was a smile on his lips as he stacked the next glass. It looked a lot like pride. “Better get going, then.”
It had been at least an hour since the harbor bell had rung, and the Trade Council would be in session. The last time I’d been there I was emptying my pockets of every coin we had to pay the fee for the license petition. Coin we’d never have been able to save without Griff.
He was the one who’d helped us find theRiven,which at times I’d questioned was a favor at all. Some unfortunate soul had won it gambling in the tavern, with no idea that it wouldn’t pass muster as a real ship. They’d been only too happy to sell it to us for next to nothing, probably guilt-ridden that they were sending us to our deaths. But here we were, about to claim our own trade license.
I’d never thanked Griff for what he’d done for us. Notdirectly. But that look in his eye as we pushed out onto the street made me think that maybe I didn’t have to.
Clove fell into step beside me, making me feel more grounded. The city was awake, the shopfronts open and carts headed to market. The smell of spice and bread and drying herbs was in the air, bleeding into the sea winds under the maze of bridges suspended overhead.
The sunlight flitted over us as we passed beneath them, painting shapes on the dirt beneath our feet. I didn’t know what our fathers would think if they could see us now. Walking the streets of Ceros alone. Headed to the Trade Council to accept a license that granted us the freedom to sail port to port and build our own trade.
My father had dreamed it for me. So had Clove’s. But I wondered if they ever really believed it. I hadn’t. Not for a long time.
Clove caught my eyes, as if he was thinking the same thing, a nervous grin changing his face. We’d waited for this moment for the last three years. And now it was here.
The home of the new Trade Council was one of the oldest buildings in Ceros, marked by four towers that had once been set with telescopes to watch every inch of the horizon for ships and storms. Its stone walls were bleached by the sun and though it had looked like a giant when I stood before it as a boy, it felt significantly smaller now.
It had been dressed up with newly cast windows and polished hinges and handles on the arched, stained doors. At their center, the port seal of Ceros was burned into the resurfaced wood. That was new too.
We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, with the bustle of one of the city’s markets at our backs. We’d walk in as urchins. We’d walk out as traders. I tried to wrap my mind around that.
“You did it,” Clove said, his smile growing wider.
There was no protest in him now like there had been the other night, when he tried to convince me to forfeit the license for the petition fee. I was grateful for that.
“I told you I would.”
I had. I’d promised him. It wouldn’t absolve me of my sins, but it was something.
The door opened and the air chilled by the shadowed marble inside cooled my skin. I hesitated before I stepped over the threshold, one calloused hand dragging along the fine papered wall. A shimmer of gold rippled in its veins as the door shut slowly, snuffing out the sunlight.
Silver candlesticks were fixed overhead in an even line every few paces and the wicks were lit, giving the hall an eerie glow. It was as if, all of a sudden, we weren’t in the Narrows anymore. I didn’t like that feeling.
I followed the walkway to its end, stopping before the long dais that served as a partition between us and the hall behind it. Its face was covered in a mosaic tile that depicted rolling waves. The woman who stood on the other side looked up from her spectacles with disinterest. Her red velvet jacket was rimmed in a brilliant purple, her fingers covered in gold rings.
She cleared her throat as her gaze raked over us. “May I help you, sirs?”
Sirs.I half expected Clove to start laughing, but he managed to keep quiet.
I pulled the message from my jacket, handing it over, and the woman set down her quill. Her scrutinizing gaze didn’t leave us until she had the parchment opened before her.
“Mm.” Her eyes snapped up. “It seems congratulations are in order.” She gave us a genuine smile and pulled off her spectacles, folding them carefully in her hands. “Wait here.”
She stepped down from the dais and her polished shoes clapped on the floor as she made her way into the narrow hall. Beneath the soaring windows on the opposite wall, two men and two women sat at a carved wooden table the length of the room.
The sound of voices echoed and Clove looked to me again before his eyes lifted to the crystal chandelier hanging over us. “Guess they decided to play the part,” he muttered.
“Looks like it,” I said.
There was humor in it, but not the kind I found entertaining. The Narrows resented the Unnamed Sea not only because of what they’d done in our waters, but also because of their way of life. It had taken years to build the guilds into something that could one day be the seeds of the Trade Council, and now that we were here, they were just trying to turn Ceros into Bastian.
“This way.” The woman reappeared, waving us forward, and we followed her through the opening and into the long rectangular room. At one end, a grand fireplace was stacked with a roaring fire, the seals of the guilds pressed into the hearth by the expert hand of a smith.
The four guild masters sat behind the table, glittering in their fine coats and frocks. The backs of their chairs reached up far past their heads, making them look like miniature thrones. They were, in a way.
