Page 66 of The Isles of the Gods
“So we know who we’re watching out for, but she doesn’t,” Selly concludes. “Or even that sheshouldwatch out for us.”
“Exactly. There’s no reason anybody should expect to see the prince in Port Naranda, or recognize him out of context. We can sell the boat, and use the money to get a change of clothes and somewhere to stay tonight. Something to eat. We…” He trails off—Selly’s staring at him.
“Sell the boat?” she echoes, almost inaudible. The sun hasslipped below the horizon, and the moons are rising close together, casting pale light across the water, outlining every wave and ripple in silver. I can pick out her lashes in the moonlight, the firm line of her mouth.
“You said yourself she cannot be sailed to Alinor,” Keegan points out. “Possessions can be replaced, and we need the money now.”
“Is that what you said when my crew threw your books overboard?” she asks, close to a snap. “Possessions can be replaced?”
Keegan just blinks at her, processing this idea, and I ease into the gap.
“Of course not,” I say. “Because neither the boat nor the books are justthings.They’re who you are, both of you. But if it’s anyone’s fault you’re losing them, it’s mine. I’m sorry.”
Selly glances across at me. “It’s fine,” she replies immediately, batting away the offering. “I can manage losing a boat if you can both manage losing your luggage. Have you ever been without a change of clothes in your life?”
“Not really,” I reply cheerfully, more than willing to take the hit if it’ll help, though I wonder if a fight would settle her nerves better. “I’m spoiled rotten, haven’t you noticed?”
“I have another necklace,” Keegan says suddenly, before she can reply. “We should sell it. The boat is all you have, Selly.”
Slowly, regretfully, she shakes her head. “An abandoned boat will draw attention in a day or two,” she says quietly. “And we have no use for it. Wherever I go from here, I can’t take theLittle Lizabettawith me.”
I add another boulder of guilt to the pile already sitting on my chest. This has cost her everything.
“So we’ll sell the boat, find a room at an inn to hole up in, and try for the ambassador in the morning,” I say. “She’ll be able to get me on a ship home, and she’ll arrange for both of you to go wherever you choose—to the Bibliotek, to another boat from your father’s fleet, Selly.”
She shakes her head, and something strange takes hold in my chest.
“You don’t want to go back to your father’s fleet?”
“No, of course I do,” she replies, and I push away…disappointment? Surely not. “I was just trying to imagine what I can possibly tell them about what happened.”
I’m left searching for something,anything,to say to that.
Keegan rescues me. “We will find a suitable explanation,” hesays.
“All we have to do first is survive this city that wants to kill His Princeliness,” she agrees.
“Have you been to Port Naranda before?”
“Barely.” She turns her attention to checking on the sail, then glances ahead at the looming city. “I’ve crewed on ships that have put in here, but I’ve never left the docks. It’s a big city, different from Kirkpool. Louder, taller. Kirkpool’s all golden stone, and the city folds in around the hills like a blanket on a bunk. Port Naranda, it’s like they smoothed out the ground and plunked a city on top of it.”
“You’re a poet,” I murmur, reaching for a smile for her. “You know that’s more or less what they did, to make Port Naranda.”
“How do you mean?”
“The land’s no good for farming—it’s rocky, and mostly steep, all along the peninsula. Alinor’s been a nation for overa thousand years, but Mellacea only showed up about six hundred years ago. There were little fishing villages before that, made up of hardy souls from all over.”
“What changed? What made them build a city here?”
“Depends who you ask. They say a Messenger created by Macean was powerful enough to flatten out the site of Port Naranda just enough that if they built tall, they could fit in the people it takes to make a city.”
“A Messenger like King Anselm?” she asks, glancing toward Keegan, who inclines his head.
“If King Anselm was transformed into one at all, then yes,” he says. “The records from the time of the gods are vague on the subject—presumably it was well enough understood that it didn’t require much detail when they were recording it. The Messengers tend to vanish from history after only a few mentions, which casts some doubt on whether they really existed.”
“It could just have been a group of talented earth magicians,” I add. “One way or another, the land was flattened out, and Mellacea, a new nation, was born.”
“Huh. I guess you do learn something in those fancy schools.”
