The Teeth, the people of this city called them. The people of Astic. Her people, looking up at her over cups or across scattered maps and shaking their heads ruefully.
‘When the Teeth spit fire, the sea burns.’
And wasn’t that the truth? She sits, straightens the coarse line of her skirts, half spattered with blood, feather, other darknesses.
As long as the ship remained on the sea, she would never truly have won. Faster than the rest. Stronger. Worse than that, a symbol.
As long as that pair remained aboard the ship, that symbolactually held meaning. The last Shroudweaver. Perhaps the last Shipwright.
Her fingers run over the map before her, digging in.
Patience. She needs patience. Patience and a drink of water. And him, much though she hates to admit it.
As if the shadows hear her, he approaches from behind. Soft-booted in the half-light, announced only by the faint clink of harness and clasp, he steps lightly over tilted flagstones, strewn with the bones of small creatures and wet with the insistent, driving rain.
She steps quietly backwards into his opening arms and he pulls her towards him until she rests on her heels and can flick her eyes up precariously to meet his.
‘Long night, Crowkisser?’ he says, his lips grazing her neck as his fingers tighten against her ribs.
She opens her mouth to reply but her first words are feather and gristle. She coughs and wriggles free self-consciously.
‘Yeah, too long,’ she says, and her fingers flick anxiously at the corners of her lips, brushing away the ghosts of birds.
He steps towards her again, and staggers. Beneath his jacket, under the armour, there’s blood, ragged and spreading.
‘You’re hurt,’ she says, and it’s an accusation.
He shrugs apologetically, lopsidedly. ‘They got lucky.’
Crowkisser shakes her head tersely and walks towards him.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I got lucky. Which means you, you get to stay alive. And be safe.’ Each point punctuated by a prodding finger in the middle of his chest.
He winces and nods, slower than she is, less confident.
‘Fine, fine. I hear, I obey. Help me off with this, will you?’
The rifle over his shoulder is almost as tall as he is. She slips behind him and unclasps buckles that retract back into the weapon with a satisfied hiss. He stands clear, and Crowkisser does something quick and clever with her fingers. The rifle clicks, folds, collapses, until it’s no more than a sullen, wrought, jagged spike in her hands, a foot long, if that. It smells acrid and she sucks at her gums subconsciously.
‘Who was aboard?’
Another shrug. The Slickwalker is full of them tonight.
‘More of Fallon’s diehards,’ he mutters. ‘Change is hard for some people.’
Crowkisser purses her lips. ‘They shouldn’t take it out on you.’
For a second, his face flickers into something sharper, more remorseful.
‘They’re paid to. Besides, who else are they going to take it out on?’ He raises his arms in exasperation, ‘We pulled the trigger. We … we set all this in motion.’
His shoulders slump, the anger flows out of him like water. He holds her at arm’s length, runs a finger along the proud, sharp jaw he’s known since they were kids, remembering her jutting defiance at children twice her size, at anyone who said no.
‘We did this, Crowkisser. We can’t step back from that.’
Her eyes flick up to meet his and he flinches back in shock at their flat hardness.
‘We set them free.’ Crowkisser’s voice is the first stones of the landslide. ‘We set them all free.’ She pitches and cracks, boulders crashing in the mountain heights. ‘Every. Single. One. Of. Them.’ Her eyes are black fire and her voice is the roll of distant thunder.
