The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(107)

He turned to face her then, and though he gave her a forbidding look, she was not afraid. “They said I could have married more advantageously than you.”

Memory-Sand felt her lips curve into a smile. “There’s still time, you know. You can tell everyone you’ve made a mistake. Nullify the marriage. Go marry one of those dull women your advisers put before you.”

He reached out a hand to touch her cheek. “You’re too clever.”

“As are you.” She kissed the base of his throat, took his hands in hers and kissed those too. “You had to know, the way I did, that we would end up this way.”

He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “My knowledge is your knowledge. And I could use the help.”

“The Alanga coming back to haunt your kingdom?”

“It’s not a joke, Nisong. I know people are restless with the rule of the Sukais, but there will come a day when they need us. You see the traces of them all around you and in our cities; how can you mock their existence?”

“Hush,” memory-Sand said. “You know I believe you.” She twined her fingers in his hair.

And then he was leaning down to kiss her, wrapping his arms around her, his warmth suffusing her. Heat and excitement electrified her veins.

A salty breeze gusted across her face, bringing with it the rain. Sand blinked. She wasn’t in her husband’s embrace. She was on Maila, in the forest near the cove, her knees damp from kneeling in the mud.

The blue-sailed ship was near. This close, she could see the dark wood of its deck. A cloaked figure stood near the stern, robes billowing in the wind. They didn’t seem to notice the salty spray of the waves or even take heed of the rolling ocean. They moved with the boat as though they were a part of it. Sand had spoken with all the island occupants of their time at sea. All of them had vague memories of this one master of the boat and no other crew.

Sand glanced at the beach. Her compatriots were still hidden. They’d have only the one chance at this.

She watched as the boat navigated through the reefs, trying to mark its path as best she could. If they were able to commandeer it, they’d still need to breach the reef on their way out. Shell had surveyed the shoreline, and everywhere he’d looked he’d seen the reef. No wonder this was the only ship that came here. As the ship sailed into the cove, Sand quieted her thoughts. She needed to focus on what was happening here and now.

The only person visible on the entire deck was the cloaked figure. When they moved, it was all at once. Flowing from the stern to the bow, pulling on ropes, unwinding them. Sand couldn’t follow the movements. It was as though the person had more than two arms and legs. At last, they heaved an anchor overboard and then disappeared below decks.

Nothing happened for a little while after that. Sand shifted in her spot in the seagrass. Her knees and back ached, but she didn’t dare move too much.

The figure reappeared. This time, with others. Men and women lined up on deck. Sand felt her pulse pounding at her throat. Had that once been her, standing on that deck? Several of them stepped onto the rowboat, and the figure stepped into it after, lowering it with the pulleys into the water. Once they’d rowed to the beach, the men and women stepped out, and the cloaked figure rowed back to the boat.

The men and women stood still as statues on the beach, their gazes blank and straight ahead.

Two more trips, and then there weren’t any more men and women on the deck. Sand waited until the rowboat had beached itself, her breathing shallow. And then she stood and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Now!”

Coral and Frond stood, pulling on their ropes. A net rose from the water. Both of them ran to the trees, wrapping the ropes around sturdy trunks, pulling them taut so that the net blocked the way from the cove. At the same time, two of the others ran toward the cloaked figure with a rope strung between them. The figure drew a knife from their belt, ready for an attack. But the two Maila people threw the rope over the figure and then turned to run back up the beach. The rope caught the figure just below the knees, sending them toppling to the sand. Above, on the cliff, Leaf was pushing a boulder over the side. He had his back to it so he couldn’t see what was happening below.

The boulder fell.

Sand flinched. It didn’t crush the master of the boat as they’d planned. But it pinned an arm to the sand. It was enough.

She rose from her spot in the seagrass and went to meet the others on the beach. The men and women the figure had brought to Maila still stood there, dressed in simple, mismatched clothes. It was downright eerie. They didn’t look at her; they didn’t look at one another. But as she passed them, they started to move. They walked up the beach, single file, heading toward the path.

“Should we try to wake them?” Coral asked.

Sand shook her head. “Let them go. We can try later.” She knew where they would go to. The village. It was the trek they all must have taken at some point. She strode toward the boulder, unease building in her belly.

Leaf ran down from the cliff, breathless. “I meant to crush the person,” he said. “But I couldn’t look or else I wasn’t able to move the boulder at all.”

None of them could directly enact violence. “At least we were right about there being only one,” Sand said. The net at the end of the cove would have stopped any others.

The hood of the cloak had fallen to the sand. The figure beneath looked like a man, though not any man Sand had ever seen. One arm was pinned, but three arms still lay free. They pushed at the boulder, and as she watched, the stone moved a little. “Coral,” she barked out. “Sit on the boulder.”