The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(25)

I watched the sick realization travel across her face. Was that what I’d looked like when I couldn’t find my witstone? And then, before I could think any of this through, I tossed both her and the spear into the water – just before the breakers. It was as easy as tossing a fish back into the ocean.

Just as quickly, the strength left me. I collapsed onto the deck, my breath ragged in my throat, my gaze on the sails as we left the harbor and headed out into the Endless Sea.

Mephi crept over to me. He placed both paws on my knee, his whiskered face solemn, blood marring the fur beneath his mouth. “Not good,” he said in a squeaky, guttural voice. He patted my leg. “Not.”

A beating at the hands of the Ioph Carn I could handle. Being chased out of the harbor and losing the last of my witstone – that too it appeared was not beyond my abilities. But this?

My brain promptly gave up.

I woke to the sound of the ocean lapping at the hull. Colors and detail filled in like paint soaking into paper. First the sun, high and bright in the sky. And then the wind whipping at the sails. I squinted.

Mephi stood at the prow of the ship, his whiskered face into the wind, fur ruffling. As soon as he heard me stir, he scampered over and chittered, his paws combing through my hair as though he were searching for a meal.

I waved him off and sat up. My whole body felt stiff and sore, like I’d been tumbled and buffeted by waves before being rudely tossed ashore. That was the thing about beatings – they got worse before they got better.

The Ioph Carn.

I jolted up, pain lancing through my body sharp as a knife. The isle was still in view, though getting rapidly smaller. I didn’t see any boats following me – not yet. It would have taken them time to fish a sodden Philine from the ocean, and time to ready their boat. Their ship wouldn’t be as quick as mine, and I wasn’t sure how much precious witstone they’d want to expend in capturing me.

The wind ruffled my hair, sending it into my eyes. I tucked it back behind my ears and made a quick round, checking the lines and the sails. I looked through my charts again, just to be sure. We were headed in the right direction and the wind was good, so there wasn’t much to do except sit and wait. The Navigators’ Academy always liked to say that patience was the first thing they taught their students, though that hadn’t been my first lesson there. My parents had known what I’d be confronted with. They’d tried to tell me as I’d packed my bags for Imperial.

“They won’t accept you,” my father said, his voice soft. “They won’t see you as one of them.”

“I know,” I said, rolling my eyes as I pulled books from my shelves. “They’ll ask me if I’ve spoken with the ancients, or if my name means ‘snowy mountain’ in Poyer.”

My mother wedged herself between me and my bags, her brows low. “We’re trying to tell you something important! Anau is small; everyone knows us here. They don’t know you in Imperial. They’ll think they know you, and that’s very different.”

I’d sighed, a youth who thought he knew more of life than his parents did. “I’m half-Poyer and half-Empirean – is that what you wanted to remind me of?”

They’d exchanged a glance, my mother’s face exhausted and exasperated, entreating my father to explain. If I’d not been fool enough to deny it, I’d have seen I’d missed their point entirely. “Jovis,” my father said, “we wanted to remind you that you are both Poyer and Empirean. And no matter what they say, that doesn’t make you any less than them.”

I’d nodded and thanked them, though I still hadn’t quite understood. I’d passed the entry test, hadn’t I? But when I’d arrived at the Academy, the instructors had put me in my place as a half-breed spectacle, and the first thing I’d learned was that a life as an Imperial navigator would be a lonely one.

I sat at the tiller and regarded my new companion. He seemed determined to ensure I was in no danger of loneliness. Maybe I could have ducked Philine’s knife-throw. Maybe not. It seemed I’d plucked him from the water and he’d plucked me from a messy death.

“So what are you?”

Mephi only sat on his haunches and scratched at one small ear with a foreleg. His lips drew back into a grimace as he searched for the right spot. He did look something like an otter. The digits on his paws were longer, his ears pointed instead of curved. His face was more angular than round, which is why I must have mistaken him for a cat at first. Despite his kitten size, his body was longer so he could stretch easily up to my knee.

After watching him struggle for a moment, I sighed and reached out to help him scratch. He leaned into my touch. Though his fur was coarse, his undercoat was soft as downy feathers. It felt the way clouds looked – decadently fluffy.

I rubbed a thumb over his head and paused. There were two bony knobs next to his ears. The beginnings of horns? I couldn’t think of any sea-dwelling creatures with both horns and fur. Feeling very foolish, I said, “I don’t suppose you could tell me who and what you are?”

Mephi only opened his mouth and let out a satisfied chirrup.

Had I imagined him speaking before? I’d been overwrought, having been beaten, narrowly escaped and then narrowly escaped again. But despite the lies I told others, and the lies I sometimes told myself, I didn’t think this was something my mind had made up.