Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(101)

“Wonderful,” Tara said.





50

“I never thought I could have so little fun after dark with ropes, knots, and a partner,” Cat said as they sailed into the bay.

Raz adjusted his grip on the lines. “You don’t like this? Sea spray in your face, good moon overhead?” The wind changed. “Duck, please.”

She did; the boom swung quarterstaff-swift overhead. Wind bellied the sail and swept them east. “I’m barely happy on a ship that doesn’t try to kill me whenever the breeze changes.”

“A small boat’s more personal,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Bounty. You can’t haul cargo in a dinghy like this, or fight, and a tall ship has its own soul. But sailing a small boat’s like juggling knives. Your every action’s magnified, and so are its consequences.”

“Did you just say, in this thing’s defense, that it reminds you of knife juggling?”

Moonlight glinted off his teeth.

Cat leaned back. “What’s this big secret, anyway? Or do you plan to kidnap me and save me from the battle?”

“Why not both?”

“My duty’s back on shore. And I’m pretty sure I can beat you up.”

“Who would sail you home?”

“I’d fly. Or use your breastbone for a paddle.”

“I’ll scratch kidnapping off the agenda.” The sail’s lower edge flapped like a flag in a breeze. He let out line, and it filled again.

She turned back to the glow ashore. City towers shrank to needles of light.

“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?”

“A bit,” she said. She trailed one hand in the waves. The V’s that trailed her fingers caught moonlight. She thought about time and water.

“We’ll soon pass the continental shelf.”

“I shouldn’t be out here,” she said.

“That makes two of us.”

She flicked salt water toward his face. “I should be on patrol. That song at sunset—Justice needs everyone on the streets.”

“Fair.”

“You said two of us, though. Why shouldn’t you be here? Isn’t the ocean your thing?”

The sounding weight made a small splash. They watched each other as the line unspooled. She touched the back of his hand. It felt as cool as the water.

The reel clicked.

“I’m about to tell you something we don’t talk about much,” he said. “Did you ever study history?”

“What, you mean in high school?”

“Do you remember what happened to High Telomere, to the Empire?”

Those schoolbook words sounded silly out here at night. She stifled a laugh with her knuckle against her lips.

He was not laughing.

“Cult, or something,” she said at last. History was a stuffy schoolroom a decade gone—more than that, gods—with big Mrs. Askel pacing through pillars of sunlit dust. “Took over the Empire. Expanded. Fought Schwarzwald tribes. They allied, invaded back, broke Telomere to pieces.”

“Burned the topless towers,” Raz said, “tore temples stone from stone and sank the stones into the Midgard Sea. You can still find them, if you dive.”

“We’re two thousand miles from the Midgard. I don’t think there were any Telomeri temples here to sink.”

“Do you remember anything else about the cult?” he asked.

“If we’re playing Questions, I think your turn’s over.”

“Humor me.”

Chalk screeched blackboard in memory; the back of her hand stung with a ruler’s impact. She’d drifted off, forehead on crossed arms, pigtails against her ears (didn’t cut her hair short ’til tenth grade, and she dropped out soon after), tired from fighting with Mom the night before. Mrs. Askel wore heavy powder on her face. Miss Elle, recite the next section of the text. “Usual sort of accusations people level against folk they don’t like. Eating flesh. Drinking blood. Raising the dead.” She blinked. “No.”

“The sucker’s deal,” Raz said, “shows up on its own every few centuries. Elayne says it’s baked into our species, though that sounds like what Crafty folk say when they don’t want to admit they don’t know the answer. The point is, you don’t see as many, ah, people like me around, not anywhere near as many as you’d expect given how easily kid leeches lose control.”

“We kill them when they slip up.” Them, not you. She wasn’t sure how she felt about making that distinction.

“You don’t kill everyone,” he replied. “And the Iskari and Schwarzwaldens and the angels of Alikand didn’t kill the Imperials—not all of them. What’s good for the temple’s good for the cultist. You remember back in your apartment, when I mentioned walking into the ocean?”

The night grew brighter as her eyes widened.

“It’s a good life down there, if you don’t need this one. Dark and cool, with like-minded company. And there’s plenty in the sea that bleeds. I stay clear; to them I’m the one that got away. I should have been a fresh father for a new line. The way they tell it, I should join their congregation, settle down, start a colony of my own. Stop rambling. A life for which, as you can imagine, I have little taste.” He unbuttoned his shirt. Age-paled scars hatched skin the color of rosewood. “But you need help, Seril needs allies, and desperation makes strange bedfellows. They want me. If I can use that to help you, I will.”