Page 77 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“She introduced me,” Karakoa says, glancing at Zarun.

“Can you tell me what he’s like?”

The big warrior purses his lips for a moment. “Not what I expected.”

Someone else is trying to get Karakoa’s attention, so Zarun steers me away. “He’s a good sort, in the end,” he says in a low voice. “A bit … unsubtle, perhaps. But a hell of a fighter.”

“I can imagine,” I murmur. There’s something bothering me, looking out at the crowd, but I can’t put my finger on it.

“Now,” Zarun says. “Where—” His face falls, and he heaves a sigh.

“What’s the problem?”

“The Scholar.” Zarun’s lip twists. “I was hoping he’d stay with his precious books tonight. He usually does.”

“You didn’t seem worried about him the other day.”

“I’m not worried,” Zarun says. “He’s just tedious.” His eyes flick to me. “Incidentally. You didn’t care for the dress?”

I look down at myself with a slight grin. “I thought this was more … me.”

“Do you know, I think I agree with you?” His gaze lingers deliberately. “It’s…”

“Dangerous?”

“Exactly.” He reaches for my midriff and strokes it gently with the backs of his knuckles. “I hadn’t realized these marks went all over. I’d be … interested to examine the rest.”

“Of course you would,” a woman says. “Honestly, Zarun, you call Karakoa unsubtle, but you’re about as delicate as a bull in heat.”

“Shiara.” Zarun turns around, and I turn with him. “How lovely to see you.”

It’s the other person I saw on the platform, the Imperial woman. She’s my age, or maybe even younger, and a spectacular beauty in the classical style: long, slim legs and a narrow waist, delicate features, and night-black hair falling in a torrent nearly to the deck. She’s wearing a dress, not a kizen, and it leaves little to the imagination, baring her shoulders and a deep neckline. Her skin is almost as pale as an iceling’s, and her lips are painted a deep, bloody red.

I may not have Meroe’s facility for learning the lay of the political land, but I’ve heard a bit about Shiara. The other officers won their positions through skill and strength, but she’d taken hers by cunning, beginning as nothing more than a desperate hawker in the market. Careful trading had seen her rise to leader of a scavenger pack, and then beyond. Now her clade included the most successful traders on the ship, not to mention running the only brothel.

Beside her is the Scholar, in his round spectacles. Unlike everyone else, he’s made no effort to dress up for the occasion, and still wears the slightly shabby robe in which I’d last seen him. He nods to me, as though we were old friends, the flickers of the lanterns reflected in his lenses.

“You are a pretty man, Zarun, but somewhat empty-headed,” Shiara says. There’s a playfulness in her tone, unlike the Butcher’s mockery. “Go on. Make your introduction, since it pleases you so.”

“Isoka, this is Shiara,” Zarun says. “She has a wasp’s stinger for a tongue, but she’s not as bad as she seems.”

“Oh, is that how we’re playing?” Shiara steps forward, red lips crooked. “I could tell you stories about him, my dear. But tell me. You were taken from the Empire?”

“Kahnzoka,” I say, cautiously.

“It’s been nearly a year since we left Imperial waters,” she says. “I’m dangerously behind on the latest gossip. Did Princess Ariane ever figure out who the father of her baby was? Is old Barei still alive?”

I can’t tell if she’s putting me on. That sort of story, treating the affairs of the royal family like the twists and turns of street theater, was everywhere in Kahnzoka’s taverns and winesinks, lowborn getting a bit of their own back by gawping at the antics of their betters. I’d never paid much attention, since the tales changed with the teller and had little bearing on anything that mattered.

Zarun, apparently, agreed with me. “Why not just make up your own story, Shiara?” he says. “It’ll have just as much relevance.”

“Knowing it’s real always adds a certain something,” she says. “Come on, Deepwalker. What’s the latest?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” I say. “I never kept track of all that who’s-sleeping-with-whom stuff.”

Shira makes a disappointed pout. “Well. At least you’ve stirred things up a little around here. I’ve been so bored lately.”

Zarun gives her a look I can’t interpret, and Shiara sighs. She’s turning to leave when something catches my eye. She’s wearing a necklace, a long silver chain with a chunk of metal on it. It’s dull and a little rusted, unlike the rest of her jewelry, and it seems to be a piece of something larger. Both ends are a filigree of tiny hairs, hanging loose, like an old, frayed rope.