Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(19)

“Now, now,” Balam said in alarm, his eyes on her. “No need for that.”

She glanced at him, again surprised that he seemed to sense when she called her magic. He gave her that same smile. Lord Balam was more than he appeared, too. She wasn’t sure what, a sorcerer or a diviner, perhaps. Someone sensitive to magic.

Callo was not, and did not seem to notice how close he was to catching her wrath. “It’s no insult,” he said with an indifferent shrug. “Just a fact. I sailed with you before, didn’t I? Maybe a fishwoman is better on the sea than a human woman. Don’t take it so bad.”

“Ah, there you have it!” Balam beamed. “Not an insult. A compliment… in its own way. So…”

“But your friend…?” She had forgotten his name, had only called him Huecha because of the town he hailed from. “He sabotaged Pech’s ship, you know he did. Cost me wages and reputation.”

“Ah.” Callo sighed. “He was no good. Cost me wages, too. That’s on my honor. We and the others took care of him.”

Xiala hadn’t expected an admission of guilt. It was enough to slow her anger. She let her Song slip back down her throat unused, but she kept it close and ready, just in case.

“And there you have it,” Balam said, clapping his hands together merrily. “All is well, lost wages are recompensed on a new adventure, and this voyage can continue as we planned.”

“Maybe not yet,” Callo said, his flat-pan voice raised slightly. “Looks like we have company.” He motioned with his chin back toward the docks, over Xiala’s shoulder.

She and Balam turned. Striding toward them, looking righteously furious, was Lord Pech. He was accompanied by a dozen soldiers with shields and spears, and by his side, wringing his hands, was the tupile from Xiala’s jail. Pech wore a loincloth and hip skirt with matching shoulder cape like Balam’s, but Pech’s skirt and cape were notched at the hem and dyed red, decorated with elaborate circles of gold. He wore a feathered headdress, the kind that sat low across his forehead and covered his ears with flaps. Feathers plumed from the top in rare reds and yellows. Jewels glittered on his neck and arms and even his ankles. It was an ostentatious display of wealth, and it made Xiala convinced the man was definitely compensating for some other lack.

“Seven hells,” Balam murmured, the first expletive Xiala had heard from his cultured lips. “He must have had me followed to Kuharan.” He chuckled, amused. “That sly dog.” He turned back to Xiala and Callo. “I suggest you board the ship and make ready to sail. And quickly, too.”

Callo nodded sharply and hurried back to the men, shouting orders.

“And you?” Xiala asked.

Balam raised a well-groomed eyebrow and gave her a dubious look. “Me? Are you concerned about me?”

“Only that you stay alive long enough to pay me.”

His face relaxed as if her concern had made him uncomfortable and her retort was more familiar territory. “You live a much more tenuous life than I, Xiala of the Teek. I can handle Pech.”

She started to protest that Pech had shown up with armed men and Balam might not be able to talk his way out of that, especially considering the bribe he’d paid the tupile, but she remembered that feeling she’d had that her new lord was more than he seemed. In her brief time spent with Pech, she knew he was exactly and only what he appeared to be. Pech’s banality was no match for Balam, despite the tupile and the small household army that came following at his heels.

“Good luck, then,” she said, and when Balam said nothing more, she turned and climbed across the plank that linked the dock to the ship and dropped down into the dugout canoe.

“Take that, too,” Balam called over his shoulder, indicating the plank she had crossed. “If Pech and his men want to reach you, they’ll have to swim.”

She did as he instructed and pulled the walkway aboard the ship after her.

“Now then.” Balam squared his handsome shoulders. “Get that Obregi to Tova, Captain Xiala. I am relying on you. It is an old obligation I have, a promise made that must be fulfilled, and I am counting on you to be my agent in this.”

“And the goods?” She glanced at the stores already stacked under the reed overhang in the center of the ship. “The salt and feathers, the cacao beans and jade?”

“Make me wealth, of course, but it is the Obregi that concerns me most.”

“Why?” she asked, but Balam was already striding away, going forward to meet Pech before he made it onto the pier.

She would not have felt the bird watching her if she hadn’t been holding her Song low in her throat. The creature was too prescient, too focused. It was unnatural. She whistled sharply, her Song threaded through her breath to create a pitch too high for humans to hear, to send it on its way.

Instead, a vision flashed in front of her. A face. That of a young man, smiling. Teeth stained red and something like a bird skull carved into his skin at the base of his throat. His hair as black as a crow’s wings, curling back from a handsome face. He wore a cloth tied around his eyes, but he raised his head as if he had seen her, too. And then he was gone.

Strange. Visions were not one of her gifts, and she knew no men who looked like that. But she would think about that later. She had more pressing worries on her mind.

Callo had whipped the men into movement, and already they were falling into place, ten on each side picking up their paddles, Callo at the bow as watch to guide them out. She strode down the middle of the ship past the reed-covered cabin in the center and between the rows of men with paddles raised. She silenced conversation as she passed. She could feel the eyes on her, the murmurs of “captain,” and she realized she had a reputation among the sailors and not all of it was bad. By the time she took her place at the stern of the ship, hands on the tiller, she was smiling.