Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(7)

“Eyes, then?” she asked, challenge in her voice. “I saw you staring.”

Some Teek had eyes the crystal blue of the brightest waters, some the storm gray of gales, but the rarest of Teek had eyes like hers: a kaleidoscope of jewel colors, shifting like sunlight in shallow water. A man in a port she couldn’t remember now once told her the nobles of Tova collected Teek eyes like hers to wear around their fingers like jewels. She had Sung that bastard down to sleep without hesitation. No harm done beyond not waking up in time to make muster on the dock the next day. Which no doubt led to missed work, missed wages. A small harm, then. But deserved.

“No bones, no eyes,” Balam said with a theatrical shudder. “I have a job for you, Captain. I hear you might be in need of one.”

“Lord Pech. That’s how you found me?”

He nodded.

Of course all the lords talked. Which meant her job prospects were shrinking by the second. Not only would she be a dangerous Teek, she’d be a Teek with a temper.

“What kind of cargo?”

“The human kind.”

“Slaves?” She shook her head. She was desperate but not that desperate. “I don’t move people.”

“Not slaves.” He made a face like the idea was distasteful, but she wasn’t convinced. The lords of Cuecola were not above the slave trade.

“Then who?”

He wagged a finger. “The question should be to where.”

He was avoiding an answer, but she let it pass for the moment. “To where, then?” she asked.

“Tova.”

She had never been there, but she knew of it. Everyone did. It was called the Jewel of the Continent and the Holy City and the City of the Sky Made. It was a cliff city high in the clouds, the legendary birthplace of the Sky Made clans and the home of the Sun Priest and the Watchers whose duty it was to keep the calendar and wrestle order from chaos. Tova was the religious heart of the Meridian continent, just as Cuecola was its commercial capital and Hokaia its military center.

She visualized the map of the Meridian in her head. It was a land mass whose populations centered around a crescent-shaped swoop of coastline with Cuecola at the bottom tail of the C, the mouth of the river Tovasheh, the gateway to Tova, at the top left corner of that C, and Hokaia at the far top edge of the C in a parallel line north-south from Cuecola. There were other cities and settlements on the continent, but none as large or as powerful as the three great cities that bordered the Crescent.

“It’s a long way,” she said, “and a dangerous route for this late in the year. The Crescent Sea is known for its late-autumn storms. Shipkillers, they call them. Waves three times as tall as a tall man. Winds to howl down the heavens. And rain. Flood rains.”

Tova could be reached by land, but the fastest way was around the Crescent by ship and then upriver by barge or foot. Most ships had already put into dock for the off-season or were running short voyages that kept them glued to the coast. Her disastrous outing with Lord Pech was supposed to be her last for the year.

“You must be there in twenty days.”

“Twenty days? No. That’s impossible this time of year. More likely thirty to account for bad luck and bad weather, assuming you could even find a captain stupid enough to take you up on it.”

“But it can be done?”

“I just said it was impossible.”

“But if the seas were calm and weather favored you, and my stupid captain was brave enough to take to the open water rather than hugging the coast?”

Bones and pretty eyes were one thing, but this was where her power lay, and now she understood why he’d come for her. “My Song doesn’t work like that. I can’t do anything about the weather.”

“But you can calm the seas, and it is said that your kind do not fear the open water.”

“My kind?” She laced that with the disdain it deserved, but Balam was unbothered.

“Teek, of course.”

She rolled her eyes to the stars. Why try to educate those who cared not to learn?

“It must be twenty days,” he insisted. “Or else there is no deal.”

They had passed the city wall and entered Cuecola proper. This part of town was more familiar. They walked a long wide avenue that Xiala recognized as running between the homes of the House of Seven before dead-ending into the docks and, finally, the sea.

“And what exactly is the deal you’re offering?”

“A ship, with a full commission of cargo and crew,” he said, “provided you continue to work for me. I will give you ten percent of whatever profits are made from the ship trade, in addition to a basic living salary and a room in one of my houses when you are at port in Cuecola. However, if you leave my employment before the term is complete, the ship stays with me and you forfeit anything you have earned as payment.”

“How long is the term?”

“Twelve years.”

Twelve years. Twelve years was a long time under the thumb of any lord. Still, she could amass a tidy bundle in twelve years if his ship and cargo were as fine as she thought they might be. She could retire at thirty-nine, a well-off woman. The idea of not having to scramble for jobs, of not having to grovel to another lord or convince a doubting crew she was worth more than eyeballs and pinkie fingers.

“How do I know you aren’t a bastard like Pech?”