The crisp cold turned her breath to fog. The wind caressed her face. The stars shone down, lighting her path across the wooden planks.
Eris followed Kor into the galley. An oil lamp glowed on the table while he pushed aside pots and pans, then pulled something down from the shelf next to the hatch.
It was a crude pewter box. Big enough to hold her spindle.
Eris crept toward him, silent as a shadow. As he turned the key in its lock, she readied her knife. When he lifted the lid, Eris struck, stabbing him in the back, just below the ribs. She shoved the blade in and twisted.Hard.
Kor screamed.
The box fell, taking the spindle with it. Eris pulled out the knife just as Kor turned to face her. He touched the wound, then stared down at the blood coating his fingers as he stumbled back against the shelf.
“How did you... ?”
Eris didn’t hear him as she picked up her spindle. She turned to leave, but at the sight of the oil lamp burning on the table, she stopped, considering it.
Behind her, Kor was screaming again. Screaming at her this time. She felt the heat of his rage. Heard him push away from the shelf, coming toward her.
Before he got within reach, Eris swung out her arm,knocking the oil lamp to the floor.
The glass broke.
The oil spilled out.
The galley floor went up in flames.
At the sight of it, a memory flickered within her. Of another time and place. Of flames that raged, eating away at a place she’d once called home.
Kor stumbled back, away from the fire, and the movement pulled Eris out of the memory. He stared—first in bewilderment, then in fear.
Eris left him there. She stepped out onto the deck gripping the bloody blade in one hand, her spindle in the other. She could have crossed right then. She probably should have. But there was another lamp burning just above the galley. And there was something so soothing about chaos. Something almost beautiful.
Alerted by Kor’s screams, the crew began to stagger up out of their cabins.
But not before Eris unhooked the lantern and threw it across the deck.
It shattered. Fire spluttered up, released from its confinement. As if in a rage, it devoured the wooden planks, moving toward the sails.
But Eris still didn’t step across.
Instead, as the crew panicked around her, she stepped up to the side of the ship, cut the only rowboat free of its ropes, then pushed it into the waters below. From across the deck, her gaze caught Rain’s. The first mate’s hair was a red, tangled mess as she screamed for everyone to get topside and put out flames. Atthe sight of Eris escaping, Rain’s eyes went black.You are dead,she mouthed.
Not tonight,thought Eris as she swung herself over the side and dropped, landing on one of the rowboat’s benches. Sitting down, she secured the oars in the oarlocks, then started to row, taking the only means of escape with her.
And there she watched theSea Mistressburn.
The red flames gorged themselves. The smoke curled through the sky, leaving a trail that blotted out the stars above. And all the while, Eris rowed.
She would make her way to Darmoor. And if Jemsin wanted to kill her when she got there... well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Five
Three days later, in the darkest corner of a rowdy inn called the Thirsty Craw, Safire sat at a table alone. Her ink-black hair was hidden beneath a sandskarf, she wore no uniform, and her weapons were concealed beneath her clothes. She frowned at the scarp thistle pinched between her fingers, careful not to prick herself on its poisonous thorns as she thought about her last encounter with the one who’d left it beside her bed.
One moment, the thief was right there in her room, caught in Safire’s trap. The next moment, she was... gone.
Safire had tugged on the rope—fastened out of her own bedsheets—to find it cut. She reached into the space where the thief had disappeared, but there was nothing there.
She’d considered afterward whether her thief was a ghost. But a ghost couldn’t steal a knife. And there was that strange scent, just before she disappeared. Like the salt sea in a storm. Powerful. Charged.
