The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(17)

“Him,” Alon said, stubborn.

I acquiesced. “You named him Mephisolou?” I regarded the animal. He certainly didn’t look like the monstrous sea serpent from folklore, ready to devour an entire city if they did not pluck him some cloud juniper berries. “Mighty name for such a small fellow.”

The boy shrugged, his gaze going to his feet. He traced a circle on the deck with his toe.

Oh, would it truly hurt me to humor him? “Mephi,” I said. “Mephisolou doesn’t quite roll of the tongue.”

“I think it sort of does,” Alon said, a smile returning to his face.

“You call him what you like then. Mephi,” I said, offering a hand to the creature. I expected him to sniff my fingers or to bite them, but he only lifted his paw and placed it on my hand – like we were two old friends greeting one another in the street. A shiver went up my arm, raising the hairs up to my shoulder. I pulled my hand away gently and ventured to stroke the fur on his head. All solemnity vanished. Mephi leaned into my touch so hard that he fell over, his body curling on the deck. He murmured like an old woman digging into an especially satisfying stew.

I laughed – and I’d not expected to laugh for a long time after Deerhead Island. As if my laugh had startled him, Mephi jumped to his feet and scrambled back to Alon, rolling into him and grabbing at his fingers again. The boy giggled. And then, quick as a storm rolling in, he began to sob. “Is it gone? Is it really all gone?”

The people. Trapped. I swallowed, aware of Alon’s eyes on me. “Aye, I think it is.”

He sobbed all the harder. But it would be worse if I’d hidden the truth from him. Reality was a harsh mistress, but it was one that could not be denied.

Mephi curled at the boy’s side, patting him with his paws as he cried. And then the creature stared at me.

Was he expecting me to do something? I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said. The wind whipped my words away. If Alon and I were old friends, and he were a young man, I’d take him to a drinking hall and we’d speak all our happy memories of the dead. I’d offer him a sprig of juniper to burn with the body. But Alon was just a boy and I had no juniper sprigs to burn here, nor a body. “Your auntie might have made it out,” I said. This felt like a lie. He didn’t seem relieved by my words. He might have believed me in the initial shock of the quakes, but now, in the water of the Endless Sea, my words had nothing to hide behind. Mephi still stared at me.

“Your auntie was a fierce woman,” I said, raising my voice above the wind. “When I met her, she made me promise to save you. She was afraid for you. She loved you so, so much.”

He’d stopped sobbing, though his voice was thick. “She said she would make me dumplings for my feast. If I lived through the Festival.”

I nodded. “She was making them when I met her.”

Alon dried his tears on his sleeve. “Was it the Alanga? Are they back?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “The Emperor is supposed to be protecting us from them. That’s his job.” Lies, again. At least they felt that way to me.

Alon’s gaze focused on the horizon. East, where his parents lived. “I want to go home.”

And I wanted to get him home. Other boats had passed us by. First the Imperial caravels, eating up their supplies of witstone, and then the Imperial traders, and then common folk who had perhaps inherited a small store of the stuff. I’d dumped an entire two boxes overboard. If I’d left the boy behind, I might have been able to get away with keeping one. No. I’d done a good deal of terrible things in the name of finding Emahla; even so, there were lines I didn’t cross, even when I’d first been at my most desperate. Otherwise, how could I ever face her again? So I puttered across the ocean with just the wind in my sails to move us along.

I checked my navigational charts. The islands were all migrating north-west and into the wet season, but the ones in the Monkey’s Tail moved closer together this time of year. I made some swift calculations, taking into account the islands’ movements. If we were headed east, the isle would be slowly traveling toward us at the same time we sailed toward it. “Get some rest,” I said. “We’ll be there by nightfall.”

The boy fell asleep almost instantaneously, as though he were a construct and I’d embedded this command in his bones. Mephi curled into his side. I hoped the boy’s parents didn’t mind that I’d foisted a pet onto them.

I was as good as my word, though I always was. We docked at nightfall, just as the sun had slid below the horizon. I waved away the biting bugs that seemed to appear once the sun disappeared and moored my boat. The trade construct at the docks didn’t give me much trouble. Oftentimes they’d look from me to my boat, to me again when I declared no goods. But if a construct could get tired, this one was tired. It accepted my docking fee with a snap of its beak and told me all was in order.

I had to shake Alon awake. “We’re here,” I said. “You’ll have to tell me how to get to your parents’ home.” He nodded at me and pried Mephi loose from his side. “Aren’t you taking him with you?”

Alon yawned and shook his head. “Mephisolou wants to stay with you.”

“Mephi should be with other Mephis,” I said. It was fine by me if the boy wanted to keep him as a pet, though I couldn’t speak on behalf of his parents. I couldn’t keep a pet aboard my ship. Before Alon could protest, I scooped up the creature, strode onto the dock and knelt. I lowered Mephi into the water, making sure he was awake and could swim. He flipped onto his back in the water, watching me. “Go,” I said. “Find others of your kind.” As if he understood, he flipped back over and dove.