Blood Heir (Blood Heir Trilogy, #1)(47)
It had been a nighttime drill during the second year of Ramson’s training. The sky was moonless and the waters were black and cold, stirring uneasily with the growing wind.
The storm set upon them in the early hours of the morning. The winds shrieked and the waves stood higher than walls, tossing the small brig of ten Bregonian trainees like a leaf in the wind. Even years later, Ramson would wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of being flung around in the dark, the taste of blind terror strong on his tongue.
As captain of his little brig, he’d been screaming orders from the ratlines when a wave reared from the black night and slammed into him. He remembered falling, the world a spinning tangle of masts and sails and wood. He’d crashed through the surface of the ocean, and then there had been only darkness and silence.
The first few moments were blind, terrifying disorientation. Ramson thrashed and kicked, not knowing whether he was going up or down or sideways, the world around him tossing and turning as wave after wave bore down on him. Almost all the air had left his lungs upon impact, and as the pressure grew in his chest and his limbs began to burn from oxygen deprivation, he’d sent a prayer to the gods.
An arm had closed around his middle, and he’d felt himself being lifted up and up by the currents and that arm. Ramson had thought he had been dying, until he’d broken through the surface and the world crashed back in a torrent of waves and winds and rain.
“Swim,” said a calm voice by his ear. Coughing and spluttering, he’d turned to see that the orphan had his arm locked around him and was dragging him through the churning waves. The boy had turned, his black hair plastered to his pale face. In that thin, underfed face, Ramson saw true courage for the first time in his life. “Swim,” the boy repeated, “or we both die.”
Ramson swam.
The wrath of the ocean bore them up and down and back again like the small, insignificant lives they were, sputtering flickers of candlelight in a screaming gale. But Ramson held tight to Jonah Fisher and swam, one heavy kick after another, one tired stroke after the other. The cold made his limbs numb and drained him of his energy.
The rhythm of the waves lulled both boys into a stupor. At some point, Ramson must have closed his eyes or fallen asleep swimming. The next thing he knew, there were the unmistakable shouts of men above his head, and splashes in the water. Someone looped a rope around him and he was heaved up, limbs dangling and dripping like a wet sponge, onto the ship.
The sodden wood of the deck felt like heaven, and despite the rocking of the ship and the shouts and footsteps and hands wrapping blankets around him, he could have slept right there and then.
Ramson lifted his head, his vision blurring. “Fisher,” he croaked.
In the darkness, a boy’s face appeared, white against the black night, lips blue-tinged and trembling.
The question had lodged in Ramson’s throat when he first saw Fisher’s face looming like a ghost’s out of the violent black waves. “Why did you save me?”
Fisher shrugged. “Because I could.”
It wasn’t a straight answer, but it was answer enough. Half-frozen, his thoughts muddled, Ramson felt shame heat his cheeks and guilt churn in his stomach. He’d treated Jonah Fisher abhorrently…and Fisher had saved his life.
“Thank you.” The words were so quiet and the storm so loud that he didn’t think Fisher heard him.
Even on the cusp of death, Jonah Fisher looked bored. But then he did something that surprised Ramson for the second time in their brief acquaintance.
Jonah Fisher smiled. It was an unsettling, awkward smile: more of a grimace, setting his peaky face at odds with his long, dripping hair and dark eyes. “Call me Jonah,” he wheezed.
Ramson would soon learn that Jonah was named after the sea god’s disciple, who had been reincarnated as a mystical ghostwhale. From that day on, Jonah was the brother Ramson had never known he wanted. The orphan seemed to know everything, from the politics of Bregon to secret passageways in the Blue Fort to the best ways to cheat on tests. It wasn’t long before he turned his mind to other things—things that regular children learning and training at the Blue Fort did not care for. Jonah seemed especially interested in the politics of the grown-ups, of Bregonian warfare tactics, of what the latest shipments from the Aseatic Isles kingdoms contained, of new Cyrilian laws on Affinite indenturement. He snuck out to town often and would return looking occupied and distant for days.
“You should try harder at school,” Ramson chided him. “How will you ever end up ranking high if you don’t turn in your assignments? The girls like the cleverest and strongest recruits.” He grinned. “Like me.”
“The girls’ll like me for how handsome I am,” Jonah replied lazily.
Ramson burst out laughing. “Handsome? You look like a plucked crow, Jonah Fisher!”
“And you look like a gutted fish, with that constant dumb expression of yours,” Jonah quipped. He grew solemn again, considering Ramson’s question.
“I guess I don’t really see the point of studying such obsolete histories when there are very real tragedies happening on our doorstep.”
“Like what?”
“People are starving, when we have an abundance of food. People are dying from illness, when we have an entire warehouse storage of medicine.”