Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(77)

“There’s a carriage waiting for you at the front, my lord,” Narin said as Cayo came downstairs. “It’s a bit battered, but it was the closest one I could find at such short notice.”

“That’s fine. Thank you, Narin.” Then he stopped, looking at the footman who had been a part of this household ever since Cayo could remember. What would happen to him? Guilt tightening his throat, Cayo put a hand on the man’s shoulder, squeezing. “Thank you.”

Narin still wore his confused frown. “You’re quite welcome, my lord.”

Cayo gave the driver his instructions and then ducked into the carriage. It bumped and rattled its way into the heart of the city. Cayo hugged the chest the entire time, staring numbly down at its stained lid, enveloped in the smell of wood grain and vinegar.

When the carriage rolled to a stop, Cayo barely paused to pay the driver with the little spending money he had left before storming his way into the offices of the Port’s Authority.

“I need to speak with Petty Officer Nawarak,” Cayo demanded of the person at the front desk. “Now.”

The doors opened, and Cayo strode straight to Nawarak’s desk toward the back. She was standing with a hip leaning against the side of the desk, her arms crossed as she spoke with another officer, laughing at some joke.

When she noticed him, her eyes widened in surprise. Before she could say anything, he slammed the chest down onto her desk.

The sound it made was like a door slamming shut. Final. Decisive.

He met Nawarak’s gaze, his own burning.

“I have the evidence you need,” he said.





As I lay upon my father’s grave, the map of my bones above his, I felt what it was to love and hate at once.

—FROM PATHWAY OF STARS, THE MEMOIR OF CHAIRAK BOUGHN, CELEBRATED REHANESE ADVENTURER



In Viariche, Amaya had been miserable. Her feet were constantly sore from high-heeled shoes, her ribs crisscrossed with the impressions of corsets, and her scalp always stung from having to pull her hair up all the time.

At first she had borne it in silence, conditioned from the Brackish to keep her head down and say nothing lest Captain Zharo find an excuse to throw her overboard. But as the weeks went by, her frustration grew, her useless rage sitting like boiling water under a lid.

One night, she had come home from an art gallery showing in near tears. Her feet had been throbbing, her toes almost entirely numb. As soon as she’d entered the apartment, she had thrown her shoes at the wall with a loud bang.

“Gods above, it’s like the siege of Gravaen in here,” a familiar voice had rumbled from the depths of the apartment.

Amaya had frozen. Boon rarely came to the apartment, choosing instead to prowl the waterfront. She’d limped into the main sitting area and found him lounging by a small fire he’d built in the hearth, nursing a bottle of wine. He looked ragged and torn, like he’d just escaped a street brawl.

“What are you doing here?” she had demanded.

“Relax,” he’d muttered, taking a swig from his bottle. “No one’s seen me. ’Sides, not like I’ve got broadsheets up with my face on ’em in a place like this.” He’d appraised her then, dark eyes scrutinizing even when glazed with drink. “You’re home early.”

Amaya had sunk into one of the chairs and pulled her right foot toward her lap, hissing as she began to massage it. “I had to. I was going to fall over otherwise.”

Boon lifted an eyebrow at her stockinged feet. “Thought you’d be used to the shoes by now.”

“Well, I’m not.” Suddenly, inexplicably, tears had begun to prick her eyes. Amaya drew in a sharp breath and scowled, disappointed in herself for acting this way over something so trivial. “They hurt. Everything hurts, and I have no idea if I can even pull this off, and…” She’d stopped, knowing if she kept going, then the dam would break.

Boon was silent a moment, drinking and staring into the fire. She’d thought he would reprimand her like he usually did, but when he spoke, his voice was quiet.

“The siege of Gravaen,” he had said. “Have you heard of it?” She had shaken her head. “A years-long campaign against a city fortified with an impenetrable wall. They held all the world’s knowledge—a library so big it could likely block the sun. Even the gods were jealous of it. The demon Arjar, though, he wanted all that knowledge for himself. So he set his hordes of minions upon the city to break down the wall.”

Amaya had stopped kneading her foot as she listened, caught within the simple cadence his voice had taken. She had heard of Arjar before, once or twice, in the Kharian myths her father used to tell her: a demon king in constant opposition to the gods.

“Arjar called on all he had at his disposal,” Boon went on, still staring at the fire as if hypnotized. “Shadow beasts, ifrits, the ghosts of murderers. They launched themselves at that wall, but it still stood firm. At night, wraiths would sneak into the city and take children from their beds, and Arjar held them hostage in exchange for the library. But the city refused, and every day they refused, Arjar ate another child.”

Amaya had shivered. The stories her father had told were fanciful, mysterious, and full of magic. This story was darker, stranger, but nonetheless held her in its thrall.

“This went on for so long that nearly all the children in the city had been eaten, and the wailing of their mothers could be heard all over the world. Finally, the gods saw fit to intervene. They met with Arjar and his demonic hordes on the field outside the city and battled. The demon king was defeated, and withdrew.