Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(86)

Startled, Cayo couldn’t even muster the words to reply. He only slipped it into the pocket of his borrowed trousers and grabbed his coat on his way to the door, heart racing.

Had Yamaa managed to get caught in the counterfeit scheme, too? Was she one of the many victims of his father’s ploy? He could barely think as he weaved through the city streets, head down, eyes on the ground. Everything hurt. He had to stop to throw up again, battling the urge to just lie down until his body felt substantial.

Climbing the hill to Mercado Manor was torture. He finished it on hands and knees, doused in sweat and shaking with exhaustion. Pushing himself to his feet, he stumbled toward the doors, his need for water and a bed just barely eclipsing his fear of his father.

But when he walked into the manor, the back of his neck prickled. He stood there a moment, wondering at this odd feeling, until he realized that Narin wasn’t there to greet him like he normally was.

The footman was likely taking care of Soria. Cayo slowly climbed the stairs, the air around him unnervingly still, his skin gone taut from apprehension. Any moment, Kamon would round the corner and spot him. He just had to make it to his room first. He had to send a message to Yamaa that he had to see her, to warn her about the counterfeit before it was too late.

He smelled him before he saw him—the scent of seawater and an unwashed body. Pushing open the door to his bedroom, Cayo walked in and froze, unable to make sense of the man waiting there for him.

The man was Kharian, his skin brown and weathered from a life on the sea. He was stocky and middle-aged, his black hair shaggy and unkempt, his clothes torn and ragged for all they looked like they had cost a bit of coin. Upon seeing him, the man nodded in solemn greeting.

“Cayo Mercado,” he said, his voice gruff. He made a series of clicking noises with his tongue.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to settle a debt.”

A scream echoed down the hall from Soria’s room. As Cayo turned to run to her, figures hiding in the shadows jumped forward and knocked him to the ground. He yelled and tried to fight back, but his body was weak and his head was spinning. The masked figures yanked his arms behind his back and lashed his wrists together, then stuffed a gag in his mouth when he kept calling Soria’s name.

He was yanked up onto his knees, swaying woozily. The Kharian man stood before him, hands behind his back. The man’s head twitched once, twice.

“Don’t worry, we won’t hurt her,” he said, but in that rough, gravelly voice, it was difficult to believe. “Or you, for that matter. We’re only using the two of you as leverage, see? Mercado’ll want his precious heirs back.”

Cayo tried to scowl at him around the gag. Little did this man know that his father was already willing to let one of them die.

But the Kharian man interpreted his look a different way. “It’s simple,” he said, spreading his callused hands. One of them held a tremor. “As soon as he reinstates my good name, you’ll be free to go. I’ll no longer be Landless, and he gets his darlin’ children back.”

Cayo breathed heavily around the gag. There had to be a way to warn someone—Yamaa, Romara, someone—but the man only grinned at him with stained teeth, as if he knew as well as Cayo did that there was no escaping this.

“Let’s go check on your sister, huh?” The man walked by and patted his head like a dog. “This’ll all be over soon.”





SOLAS: A crow’s caw. Either the gods laugh at us, or they warn of ruin.

—THE MERCHANT’S WORTH, a play from the Rain Empire



You might want to double-check with whoever told you that was true, Mercado had said, because they’re lying. In fact, they probably know how your father truly died. They’re probably the one who killed him.

Amaya had to stop and rest against the rough bark of a palm, barely able to take a full breath. Avi and Deadshot lingered behind her. They had been stopped from going down to the Vaults by Mercado’s men, but when Amaya had burst out of the building, they had followed and tried to get her to tell them what had happened.

But she couldn’t. The implication, the consequences…

Was Mercado right? Was Boon’s money all counterfeit?

Did he know how her father truly died?

Wiping a sleeve against her eyes, she turned to the Landless. They regarded her warily, unsure if she would bite.

“We need to talk to Liesl,” she said.

The estate loomed against the dark backdrop of the sky, the evening made of somber clouds. Although it had stopped storming, the air was still charged, raising the hairs along her arms and legs. She was a lightning rod prepared for the strike.

Or at least, she thought she was. She stopped before the double doors, staring at the lock that had been broken, the scratches and splinters surrounding it. The way the right door was open a crack, revealing a line of inky dark beyond.

The tension from Avi and Deadshot at her back made her shoulders tighten. She turned to look at them, to gauge if they had had anything to do with this. But Avi was ashen, and Deadshot already had two of her pistols out.

Amaya unsheathed her knife and pushed inside. The entryway was dark with shadow, the window on the left wall smashed open, gauzy curtains fanning out in the breeze. It was the only movement in a room full of destruction.

She inhaled a sharp breath. Pottery lay smashed on the marble floor, houseplants overturned and spilling dirt, the walls peppered with bullet holes.