Black Tide Son

Book 2: The Winter Sea

by H.M. Long

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; Historical Fantasy; General Fiction

Synopsis

The Winter Seas series continues as a prisonbreak to save Benedict leaves him, Sam and Mary trapped in a desparate race for survival in enemy territory. Expect epic adventure, intrigue and espionage, and fleet battles on the high-seas, perfect for fans of Adrienne Young, L. J. Andrews and Naomi Novik.

Samuel and Mary are thriving as privateers on the Winter Seas. As they navigate the complexities of their growing bond, in a world that would see Mary as chattel to be traded, the pair are forging a new, better way to live, under the sails of Hart.


But when their latest prize brings tales of Benedict’s capture by Mereish forces, they must make an impossible choice: to serve their nation or save Sam’s brother.

Thrust into a mission of intrigue and infiltration, they seek to break into the most secure prison on the Mereish Coast. But as they sail deep into enemy territory, they find themselves hunted by a cunning and mysterious new foe—an enemy who seems to know their every secret, and who will kill to keep their own.

As the Black Tide rises, and fleets take to the water, Samuel, Mary and Benedict are on a desperate race for survival—both their own, and the free nations of the Winter Seas.

Release date: July 9, 2024

Publisher: Titan Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

ONEThe DemeteSAMUEL

The hush that followed the wind was portentous and thick with drifting smoke. The guns fell quiet in their cradles and the rush of water against the hull ebbed as Hart slowed, nosing alongside his drifting prize.

No roar of victory came from the dozens of armed men and women crowding the waist of my ship. Neither I nor their former captain had been a miser for discipline, so their mutters were low, their muskets primed but at ease. Nor did I hear defiant or vengeful cries from the pirates on our prize’s deck, though they were slung about with pistols, cutlasses and machetes, and marksmen hung in their rigging. Outnumbered, outgunned and exhausted from two days’ pursuit, the flag flying from their mainmast was white, crosshatched with red—not a flag of surrender, but of parley.

Their captain stood on the quarterdeck with two helmsmen, who cradled muskets and held their posts with resentment in their eyes.

She called in accented Aeadine, “I am flattered you risk so much for my head, Aead,” as she came forward to lean on the rail, her voice easily carrying the dozen yards of docile waves between our ships. Her greying hair was braided, its length tied by a black silk ribbon, and she wore a felted, cocked hat with a blue overcoat faded to spruce. Her eyes were rimmed with black against the usual glare of sun off snow and ice and Winter Sea.

The pirate continued with feigned apprehension, “Bringing the Fleetbreaker’s daughter into Mereish waters?” She gestured to the woman beside me, in her pale-blue calico skirts and oversized wool coat.

Mary Firth, daughter of the infamous Stormsinger known as the Fleetbreaker, had her arms crossed over her chest, but at this she raised one hand a margin and fluttered her fingers in a wave. She was tall and dark haired, her head uncovered to the wind in a way that no mother on the Winter Sea would condone.

“She knows who I am?” Mary squinted at our would-be captive, speaking quietly to me. “We may soon be notorious, Sam.”

“Is that not our intention?” I murmured back. “If you wanted obscurity, you should have gone south with your mother.”

Mary hid a smile and called over the water in her rounded, inland accent. “Mereish waters, you say? I see nothing but fog. Though, we’ve a Letter of Marque from the Usti queen and the right to be wherever we see fit.”

The pirate captain snorted. “The fog that you called yourself, witch. And letters can burn. Captain, let us resolve this before we have a patrol on our heads.”

“Very well. Ophalia Monna.” I drew up to the quarterdeck rail and faced the other captain over the stretch of sea. Mary stayed where she was. “I am Captain Samuel Rosser of Hart, privateer under commission of the Usti Crown. Surrender yourself. You are taking on water, you have no Stormsinger, and falling into the hands of your countrymen will be your death. Come with me back to Hesten and you will face fair trial under the Usti for your crimes against their ships. Or we can wait here, becalmed, until a patrol sets to blowing us both out of the water.”

The pirate replied, “Would you perhaps be related to a Benedict Rosser?”

There was no question

in her voice. She knew who Mary was. She knew who I was. And evidently, she knew something of my brother, too.

A whisper of premonition swept over me, blurring the edges of the world—the lines of the rails and rigging, the masts and lifeless sails, the waves and Monna’s fixed gaze. Then my fingers brushed the long, oval coin in my pocket, and the whisper faded. The world took on clear edges again, and I realized Mary had drawn up to my shoulder.

“Someone is coming,” she murmured. “Ghisten ships.”

I cursed. The fog shrouded us, but it also limited what we could see of the world around us. By natural means, at least.

“Can you delay them?” I asked, equally low.

Mary gave a nod and stepped back. I heard the smooth intake of her breath, then the first notes of a song slipped into the still air. They were low and melancholy, drawing in the hushed solemnity of the sea and returning it in sympathetic kind.

“There is a voice among the trees, that mingles with the groaning oak, that mingles with the stormy breeze…”

The wind stirred and damp air prickled across my cheeks. Monna lifted her chin, sensing the change at the same time as one of her crewmen murmured in her ear.

“We will surrender,” Monna decided. “No more storms, guns or bloodshed. I will peacefully come aboard, then I will tell you how I met your twin in the belly of a Mereish frigate.”

* * *

Monna sat at the small table in my cabin, fishing a pipe and pouch from her pocket. Ice rimmed each small windowpane, further obscuring our foggy view of open sea and pursuing ships beyond. It was cold; the iron-girded woodstove had been smothered for action and not yet rekindled. But at least we were out of the wind.

Distantly, I heard Mary’s song above deck, accompanied by the rumble of footfalls and the piping of the bosun’s whistle. Her witchwind was up and we were well on our way back to safer waters, with Monna’s ship in convoy.

“I am surprised they came upon us so quickly,” Monna commented as she stuffed the pipe. “But it is a time for surprises. I also did not expect you to chase me beyond Aeadine waters, yet here we are. May I?”

I nodded and the pirate leaned in to steal a taper and flame from the lantern suspended low over the table. Meanwhile, I shed my outer coat and sat across from her, leaving my cutlass and pistols in place.

Her mention of my brother itched the back of my mind, dredging up question after question. I held my tongue for now, sifting through tactics.

Monna was at least thirty years my senior, and, judging by her ease and the weathered condition of her light-brown skin, she had been at sea for longer than that. She had also evaded capture more than a dozen times and showed no sign of fear or tension—save the methodical way she puffed on her pipe, one finger tapping on the table. Dusky, rich smoke drifted up towards the hefty beams above.

“My commission is from the Usti, not Aeadine,” I reminded her. “Neutral in the conflict between our peoples. I have the papers to prove it. You, a hunted brigand, are in far more danger from your people than I am.”

Monna grinned around the pipe bit and relaxed in her chair. “As I said, papers may be burned, young captain. Then we have only our word to protect us: the word of pirates and privateers. And what is that worth to the mighty navies?”

“Very little,” I acknowledged. “Now, you mentioned my brother.”

“Yes. It is uncanny, how you two are alike. Mirror twins?”

I nodded, carefully stowing all emotion. “You saw him aboard a Mereish frigate?”

“His ship was wrecked at Eldona Island. That happens to be my winter harbor, and the locals pay well for my protection. The tides have been rather high; your brother’s ship struck our hidden reef and was dashed to pieces. What was I to do but investigate? Pity the Navy came upon us, and I found myself a prisoner alongside your brother.”

Concealed under the table, I unclenched my fist and stretched it across my thigh. The shock of such loss of life was an old one, dulled with familiarity, but still present. A vessel as large as Benedict’s had nearly a thousand men and women aboard, many of whom I knew from my own naval days before I had resigned my commission in the face of rumors and disgrace.

“How many of his crew survived?” I asked.

“All the boats were gone,” Monna replied, her tone losing a little of its uncaring mildness. She was not impassive to the deaths of fellow seafarers either, regardless of their nationality. “I cannot say what befell them. There were many dead. Some made it to shore and escaped inland, I am sure.”

“Mean comfort.”

She nodded, exhaling twin swirls of smoke through her nostrils.

“Was my brother given parole? Was there any mention of ransom?”

“All I know is where the ship that took him was bound. I am happy to tell you, in return for my freedom.”

“If I believe you.”

“Your brother spoke of a child dependent upon him, playing upon our captor’s sympathies. Josephine, he called her. And he was a Magni, though I assume that is common knowledge. He compelled the guards to release us, though there was an unfortunate mix-up with the keys, and only I managed to escape.”

At the last she smiled, flat and feline, and I had no doubt as to the cause of that confusion.

“In return for my freedom,” the pirate repeated, “I am more than happy to tell you where your brother was headed. Perhaps you can even rescue him before the Mereish shoot him like a mad dog.”

A sea of possibility spread before me, and with it, a new course. I could barter with this pirate, choose not to hand her over to the Usti as I was being paid to do, and try to save my brother. I might even succeed. But my crew expected payment, deserved it, and not every tongue could be trusted not to wag even if I paid them off myself. Furthermore, in my last report I had noted how close I was to capturing the pirate. An Usti ship likely already waited at Tithe to take her home and give me my next task.

Mary was another factor. Her contract was upheld by the Usti Crown and tied to my commission. Without it, Mary would once again be little more than a commodity in the eyes of every captain on the Winter Sea. As it was, we walked a fine line every time we were in port, every time we crossed paths with another ship.

I sat still for a long moment then smiled, small and grim and a little melancholy. “It is a pity, then, that I do not care whether my brother lives or dies. Make peace with your saints, Captain Monna. You have nothing I want."

 

THE MAGNI—One of the three primary varieties of mage, Magni control the mind and actions of others through exertion of their own, greater will. Though commonly perceived as innately hostile and dangerous, use of a Magni’s power need not lead to abuse or degradation. It can also be used to empower, encourage and spur a subject, to calm, alleviate pain and turn the wayward back from destructive acts.

As in other classifications of mage, the intensity of a Magni’s power varies from mage to mage. The degree of their influence will also depend on the wit and will of their intended subject, and any interventions (for good or ill) performed to enhance the Magni’s power beyond natural-born ability.

—FROM A DEFINITIVE STUDY OF THE BLESSED: MAGES AND MAGECRAFT OF THE MEREISH ISLES, TRANSLATED FROM THE MEREISH BY SAMUEL I. ROSSER

 

TWOThe OtherMARY

Islipped into the silent dark of the main cabin. At the stern, a pair of windows diffused evening light, their thick panes hedged with frost. Between them was a door to a long, narrow balcony, which I could see through the foggy glass was crusted with ice and rimed with snow. The stove in its iron cradle was unlit, shedding no light or heat, and the air was painfully cold. Spring might be coming on land, but, out here on the waves, the wind still tasted of deep winter.

Samuel knelt on the floor of the cabin, stripped to his shirt. His coat and waistcoat were neatly folded over the back of a chair, lightly swaying with the roll of the ship. His hands rested on his thighs, knuckles white, and his oval coin was wedged into a crack between the boards in front of him.

He didn’t rouse as I closed the door, looking straight ahead with open, unseeing eyes.

Unease wound through me. This sight was common enough— Samuel was a Sooth, a mage who could send his soul over the invisible border between our world and the Other. On the border between realms, past, present and future coexisted, gifting him visions; deeper into the Other, he could see and interact with monsters and beings found there. And he could track mages—like me and Benedict.

But Samuel was no common Sooth, and his ability to manipulate the Other was faulty. If he was too deep in to have noticed me come in, he might not be able to come back.

“Samuel,” I called, loud enough to be heard, low enough not to startle.

A shiver passed over his broad shoulders. After another cold breath, steaming in the air, he twisted to look at me through deep-brown, sightless eyes.

“Can you come back to me?” I asked, still in that low, steady voice.

Samuel continued to stare for a timeless moment, his handsome face inscrutable. The sky outside the windows grew darker, the shadows in the cabin closer.

Abandoning my caution, I strode forward, reaching for the coin wedged between the boards.

He beat me to it. His cold fingers brushed my warmer ones as he pried the coin free and tucked it into his palm. His eyes cleared and he finally, truly saw me—the flesh and blood me—crouched before him.

“Was it difficult to return?” I asked.

“Only a little. It is always easier with you near.”

The corner of my mouth quirked, but the expression did not last. “Did you find Benedict?”

I dreaded his answer but forced myself to ask it. To me, Benedict Rosser was little more than a villain: manipulative, remorseless and cruel. But he had not always been that way, just as Samuel had not always had to keep an ensorcelled coin in his pocket to anchor him in the human world. They had been corrupted, the pair of them.

And Benedict was Samuel’s brother. His twin. His blood. His responsibility since childhood.

For Samuel’s sake, I had to care whether Benedict lived or died.

“Find, no. But I sensed him.” Samuel knuckled his forehead, squinting as if his head ached. He still held the coin. “He is south. That could mean Mere, as Monna said. Or it could be the Aeadine Anchorage. He is oddly 

hard to see. But he is alive.”

“If he’s in port, there could be ghistings obscuring him,” I pointed out. Any places where Otherborn beings gathered acted like veils, making it harder for Sooths to seek out their quarries. “Maybe we can learn more in Tithe.”

Samuel made a sound of agreement and, slipping the coin back into his pocket, eased himself upright. He offered his hands and pulled me to my feet. For a moment we stood close—close enough for me to smell the salt and wool scent of him. Close enough to embrace or kiss.

We stepped apart, and I didn’t allow myself to feel disappointment. The lines of our relationship were carefully drawn as Captain and Stormsinger—a relationship traditionally fraught with abuse. I was the first contracted Stormsinger in centuries. We had to be different, he and I, to set an example to the world.

Or so he insisted. I found myself less inclined to think of the good of all when we stood together in the privacy of his cabin with little more than notions of honor and decency between us.

Samuel moved to the chair where his outer clothing hung and I went to the stove. I added wood and kindling, lighting it with a taper as Samuel dressed behind me. I carefully did not watch him.

“What do we do?” I asked once he was dressed and the fire burned again, spreading light and skin-prickling warmth through the cold room. It lent color to Samuel’s pale face and drew out threads of copper in his dark hair and short beard.

“We make for Tithe and hand her over to Star of the Sea, as planned.” Sam came to stand next to me, adjusting his cravat. “They are likely cruising, so we will have to wait a few days. We rest and recuperate, hand off Monna’s ship, and look to our next commission from the governor. If no word from Hesten has arrived to supersede it.”

I eyed the stove, waiting for the flames to be hot enough to add a fresh log. “So we forget about Benedict?”

“No, no,” he said, too off-handed to be casual. His coat was still open, marking his distraction. “I will make inquiries. Word of a ship like Harbringer wrecking, if indeed it has, will spread. And Benedict is a captain now. The Admiralty will be bound to recover him. I have always done what I could for my brother, but I will not risk your freedom and what we have made of ourselves.”

I shoved one final log into the stove and closed the door, then fastened it and turned back to him. “Is there no third option?”

He seemed to remember his coat was open, his appearance as respectful, redeemed Captain Samuel Rosser incomplete. He began to work the buttons. “What are you suggesting?”

I rose, looking up the inches between us—I was tall, but so was he. “We lie to Monna. 

Tell her she has her deal, then give her to the Usti anyway.”

My suggestion was met with an unimpressed squint from my captain. “Mary. Please.”

I tempered myself. “Or, instead of letting her go, we offer her a chance to escape so that our hands remain clean.”

“We would look like fools.”

“Fools who know where Benedict is.”

“What of our next commission? We cannot ignore it.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t have time to receive it. We would have to hare off after Monna, who’s fleeing to Mere. And if we vanish for a week or two… well, I’m sure we can come up with a fine story.”

Samuel paused at his last button and stared at me. “You are a brigand,” he accused, disapproval and fondness edging his tone.

“One of us needs to be.”

His expression grew heavier. “Mary, I know you hate Benedict and I appreciate that you are… trying. But all that we know right now is Monna is a desperate woman, willing to say anything to escape. And Ben is alive.”

“How could she know about him if she hadn’t met him?” I pressed. “She knew about Josephine.”

“Monna is known for peddling secrets.” Samuel fetched his hat from the table, wedging it onto his head and casting a glance out the gallery windows, where night had almost completely fallen. “We wait until Tithe. I will make my inquiries. As I said, Star of the Sea is not likely to be in port—we will have a few days before they claim her.”

“And if not? If they seize her right away and our choice is gone?”

Samuel reached out to cup the side of my face, the barest brush of cool skin. I resisted the urge to lean into his touch, even just a little, savoring the rare contact—here, alone, in the dark. Where the crew and the world could not see.

“Then all is as it should be,” he said, dropping his hand. “I cannot fight the tide.”

 

THE GHISEAU—A ghiseau consists of the united soul of a human and a ghisting inhabiting one body and mind. Though rarely successful, the union benefits both parties in various ways. For the spectral ghisting, they are given physical form and a root in the human world. For the human host, even those without the benefit of magecraft may be gifted with uncanny ability, long life, vitality, and insight into that Other world from which ghistings derive their life and power. Mages will be subject to a vast increase in power, as the ghisting within them acts as an open conduit between themselves and the power of the Other.

—FROM A HISTORY OF GHISTLORE AND THE BLESSED: THOSE BOUND TO THE SECOND WORLD AND THE POWER THEREIN, TRANSLATED FROM THE MEREISH BY SAMUEL I. ROSSER

 

THREEA Tithe to the SeaMARY

The ghisting trees of Tithe stood vigil over a quiet churchyard, where rows of graves swept down to the bay. Their leaves, unseasonably green beneath a mantle of late-winter snow, rustled as I made for the largest, oldest tree: an ash, vibrant despite the season. My boots punched through the crust, my cheeks flushed with the cold, and a coin nestled warm in my palm.

At my back, the port spread in a network of homes and yards. Women beat frozen clothes on laundry lines, children played and hens clucked. Smoke rose from chimneys and men loitered in the churned streets, gossiping.

Down towards the docks, the settlement condensed into taller, narrower buildings: warehouses, shops, inns and offices. Samuel would be there, sitting across from the port mistress with a cup of hot coffee, wheedling out the latest news and trying to learn as much as he could about Benedict.

A chorus of bells drew my gaze to the masts in the harbor, anchored beyond the reach of the ice-scaled shores. I could pick out Hart by feel, if not by sight. He and every other ship in harbor had a ghisting in their figureheads, each spectral creature unique and sentient—just like the ones in the trees around me now. Just like the one within me.

I laid an open palm on the trunk of the ash. Instead of raspy bark, I felt coins of every possible make and origin hammered into the wood. Some had been absorbed entirely into the tree, swallowed by time and growth, while others stood out clean and new.

I found a free sliver of bark and, taking a small hammer from an iron hook, gently tapped my own tithe into place.

Mother.

The voice came through the tree, slipping into the tips of my fingers. The answer came from me, but not from my own mind.

Child, the ghisting called Tane whispered.

“Mary Firth?” a man called.

I turned to find a man in his mid-twenties standing in the snow, bedecked with an overflowing blond beard and a thick knitted cap. His oiled brown greatcoat was open to reveal a knee-length waistcoat and loosely tied scarf, as if he’d dressed in a hurry. His eyes were blue, bright and surprised, and a grin chased the nervousness from the corners of his mouth.

I let out a short, startled laugh. “Charles! What are you doing back north?”

Charles Grant, former highwayman, fellow convicted criminal and the man who had once sold me to a Whallish crime lord, beamed at my recognition and rubbed self-consciously at his beard. “I feared you would not recognize me.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Well, you may look like a fisherman, but you still stand like a dandy.”

He glanced down—at his back foot angled slightly out, front foot straight on—and his smile grew wry. “Olsa cannot take everything from me.”

“Is she here?” I glanced behind him, startled. My heart rose. “Is Harpy? My mother?”

“Harpy, your mum 

and Demery are still south. I am here with the Uknaras, waiting for a ship back to Hesten. They were due for a trip home, and I was growing bored of watching Demery paint bowls of fruit.” Charles’s attention flicked to the ghisten ash, and I saw a note of caution in his eyes. “Have you paid your tithe?”

“Yes.”

Charles offered me his elbow. “Then come, we’ve taken up at an inn, and I know two Usti smugglers who will be very pleased to see you.”

I hesitated. Much had transpired between he and I, but a summer of recovery together had dulled those edges, and months of separation—since he had sailed for the Mereish South Isles with James Demery and my mother, Anne Firth—had nearly wiped them away. Charles had more than paid the price for his betrayals, and he had the scar at his throat to prove it: a knot of white amid the red of his cold-pinched skin, just visible between the warren of his beard and the weave of his scarf.

Reaching back to the tree, I rested the tips of my fingers on the bark for a few, gentle breaths. I heard voices, but distantly, as though my ears were covered. I saw visions—fragments of the tree’s history, of Tithe’s. I saw a great flood sweep up over the shoreline, all the way to the roots of this tree. I saw the digging of graves and the forging of marriages, couples joining hands in the ash’s shade on a summer’s day. I saw longboats with single red sails anchored in a harbor before Tithe as it had been. And, just for a moment, I saw light slip from my fingertips—a second spectral layer, sheathing my skin.

When the voices and memories ceased to flow, I turned back to Charles and slipped my arm through his. He was a little stiffer than I expected, his eyes lingering on the tree.

“Tane was giving her greetings,” I explained.

A muscle in Charles’s jaw visibly contracted. “I sensed as much.”

I let my eyes fall to the scar on his throat again. He kept it mostly covered—recovering from a mortal wound was not a topic he wanted discussed. Our company’s return from north of the Stormwall had already garnered far too much attention.

“What of you?” I tested. “Has the ghisting manifested?”

Charles cleared his throat and patted my arm with his opposite hand. “Let’s speak of these things next to a warm hearth with hot wine.”

I gave a soft murmur of acceptance and together we returned to Tithe and spoke of simpler things.

“Captain Demery is well established on the South Isles now,” Charles explained as we circumvented manure and tried not to break our ankles in deep-wrought sleigh tracks. “He bought his title and has barely left land since autumn. But your mother is mostly at sea, with Harpy under her command and Old Crow serving as ghisting. They run goods between the islands. Demery paints and plays at being lord. Very dull if you ask me. Oh, I brought several letters for you—Anne expected we would run into one another sooner or later.”

We paused to let a stream of schoolgirls run past, braids bouncing down the backs of their

fur-trimmed capes. As weighty as the mention of my mother was, and as eager as I was for more news of Demery and Harpy’s crew, my mind strayed after the children. Their happiness and freedom reminded me of my own childhood in a small village between the Ghistwold and the slate hills of Aeadine. Tithe felt similar to that Wold, with its ghisten trees in the graveyard and ghisten wood built into ancient houses.

But more than that, the children made me think—just for the briefest, weakest moment—of the future and of possibilities best left unspoken.

“I did wonder if you would be Mary Rosser by now,” Charles murmured, following my gaze.

I looked at him, perhaps too sharply. “I’m the first commissioned Stormsinger in hundreds of years, Charles.”

“And?” He looked confused.

“If Samuel and I were to take up…” I eased my arm from his as we stopped in front of an inn, The Captain’s Cut, where I could already hear busy chatter through the murky bottle-bottom windowpanes.

“Assumptions would be made. We have to set an example. Show the Winter Sea that Stormsingers should be willing allies, not traded goods.”

Charles snorted. “When did you become an altruist? Ouch!”

I flicked him in the forehead and prayed the chill of the wind concealed the flush in my cheeks. I felt insulted, exposed, embarrassed and convicted in the same breath. “Is this your inn?”

Charles rubbed at his forehead, nodding. “Yes, yes. Come in.”

* * *

Charles slipped into an elaborately wallpapered common room and led me past a series of tables girded by comfortable chairs. At the back, just past a blonde woman immersed in a stack of letters, sat a curtained alcove. A man and a woman were tucked within, she with one foot drawn up onto the bench, and he with a broadsheet in his overlarge hands—one of which was missing the ring and pinky fingers from the first knuckle.

“Mary!” Illya Uknara smiled broadly and exchanged his broadsheet for an ornate brass coffee pot, which he held over an empty mug. His Aeadine was heavily accented, sticky like toffee. “I have seen Hart offshore.

Coffee?”

“Thank you.” I sank down on the opposite side of the round table, smiling at the woman as I did so. “Olsa.”

Olsa kept her foot on the bench, leaning forward to pat my cheek fondly. “Ms. Firth. Or is it—”

Charles not-so-subtly waved his hand to catch her attention, following the gesture with a finger across his throat and a mimed pinch of the lips. When I glared at him, he unfurled an innocent smile and waved down a serving maid. “Spiced wine, please.”

The woman eyed the lot of us, eclectic as we were, then sauntered away.

Olsa crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against Illya. She wore belted trousers under a traditional Usti kaftan with an embroidered collar topped with fur. Her blonde hair was loosely braided back from her practical features. Illya’s kaftan was open to reveal an undyed linen shirt tucked into breeches and unbuttoned at the neck, giving me a healthy glimpse of muscled, hairy chest. He wore his pale, reddish beard long and vaguely square, like Charles’s. But unlike Charles, who had the pale skin of the Southern Aeadines, prone to flushing at the slightest provocation, Olsa’s and Illya’s mild brown skin marked them as far northern. Northern Aeadine, Mereish, and Usti all shared common ancestry, however arbitrarily wars and borders had divided the Winter Sea over the centuries.

Despite our varied origins, we were intrinsically bound together by two things: history and ghistings.

A flicker of light passed over my hand again as I reached for the coffee. Illya noted it with a secret smile and murmured, “Tane.”

He, Olsa, myself and, reluctantly, Charles made contact with the wood of the tabletop—one of the only substances that ghistings could interact with in our human world. I felt a jolt of familiarity as unseen presences surged and whispered through the wood, their light hidden beneath the table. Images came with them as the ghistings that lived within us exchanged, within a few heartbeats, months of experience and information, pleasantries and reflections.

The conversation took far longer to order itself in my mind, but a few images leapt out. I saw—remembered—an expanse of water and rock and ice, blurred by blowing snow and the half-light of another sun. Shipwrecks cast across the horizon by a god’s careless hand, and a sleeping forest of ghisten trees. Shards of wood stabbed into flesh by vicious hands, a fire and a black-haired man, bleeding out into a bed of moss.

Silvanus Lirr. The man who had made us. The man we had, together, killed one year and four months ago.

Olsa sat up straight and grabbed her half-empty mug of coffee. “To the death of our common enemy,” she said, and we all drank—save Charles, whose mug was empty. He looked forlornly for the serving maid and waved.

away Illya’s offer of coffee.

“We took a Mereish pirate a few days ago,” I told the three after a moment of silence. “Ophalia Monna. She claims to have seen Benedict Rosser in the hands of the Mereish Navy. Have you heard anything about that? Harbringer wrecking off Eldona Island?”

“Yes,” Illya said immediately. He waved the broadsheet he’d been reading, topped with a heading in Usti.

“What does it say?” I asked, not wanting to distract Tane from the other ghistings by requesting a translation. Their exchange ran through the back of my mind like whispers and half-forgotten dreams—still jarring, but a sensation I was becoming more accustomed to. “My Usti is still not good.”

“Bah, mine’s shit too.” Charles flapped a dismissive hand. “Honestly, how many words do you need to say the?”

Olsa gave him a quelling look.

Ignoring Charles, Illya explained: “Harbringer wrecked four weeks ago. The Navy tried to keep this from the public, but boats full of survivors came into many ports. Hundreds died at sea. A great tragedy.”

A great tragedy indeed. I tried not to dwell on the deaths as I took another sip of coffee. It was thick, dark, and laced with honey, but the warmth failed to soothe my anxiety. Until now I could still, with effort, mark Monna’s words up to desperation, a bargaining chip cobbled together from half-heard information. But no longer.

My heart ached for Samuel. He was no doubt hearing this same news from the harbor mistress as we spoke.

“Benedict Rosser is better off dead,” Illya added with more regret than vengeance. “He would have killed us all if the wind had changed.”

“Monna’s offered us Benedict’s location in exchange for her freedom.”

“That would mean you breaking contract with the Usti,” Charles pointed out. “And risking antagonizing the Mereish. Winter has cooled the war, but not by much.”

I shrugged. “I know. Samuel won’t give in, anyway.”

“He intends to leave his brother to die?” Charles frowned then conjured a bright smile as his wine finally arrived. He took a sip and waited for the waitress to leave before he continued, “That doesn’t seem like Sam. I mean… my brothers are a pack of lobcocks and halfwits but I would still… Well, I cannot say what I’d do for them. As of yet, none of them have had the misfortune of becoming a prisoner of war. But Sam’s a better fellow than I.”

“It is for the best,” Illya repeated. “Better to put down a rabid dog before it bites you. Again."

“Is there any hope for Benedict?” I asked Olsa. “You trained Samuel to manage his corruption.”

“Manage, yes. But Samuel is a Sooth,” the Usti woman reminded me. She too was a Sooth, and during her mentorship with Samuel last year we had all come to appreciate the depth of her knowledge of all magecrafts and the Other. “What the Black Tide did to them as boys was a crime, but Samuel has the strength of will— and morals—to wield his power. I understand that Benedict was always self-serving and violent. And he is a Magnus. Every time he manipulates others, his conscience, his awareness of his actions, is a little more lost. He is too far gone for me to train. Perhaps the Mereish have some magics, some way of helping him. I know Samuel has wondered about that too. But it’s beyond my knowing and, given the war, beyond our reach.”

We were quiet for a moment. The chatter of the other patrons swelled into the lull, interspersed with the clink of utensils and the muffled thuds of footsteps upstairs. At the table nearby, the blonde woman I’d noted earlier cast Charles a lingering glance then went back to her writing. She was plain, I noticed, other than an enviable dusting of freckles.

“Well, the decision is already made, regardless,” I said, picking up my mug again. “Samuel refused to bargain with Monna, and I can’t see him changing his mind. But you must come to Hart tomorrow and breakfast with us. We can speak more, and I’m sure Samuel would be glad to see all of you. I should go now, before it grows too dark.”

“Of course,” Olsa said with a nod. “We will be there. I must check on my apprentice, anyways.”

 

THE TALISMAN ENSORCELL—Talismans and charms, imbued with various magics, have long been a practice in Mere. Created with various ingredients—their nature kept staunchly secret—and the blood of a living mage, they may grant their bearer anything from luck to premonitions to the regulation and control of a mage’s power, though this field has long been a source of conflict and remains, in the opinion of this commentator, under-researched.

The potential of such charms and their promises have naturally led to a great deal of forgery and false talismans, particularly to be found in foreign markets. It must be noted that a true Talisman Ensorcell is made through great effort and skill, and is worth far more than its weight in gold.

—FROM A DEFINITIVE STUDY OF THE BLESSED: MAGES AND MAGECRAFT OF THE MEREISH, TRANSLATED FROM THE MEREISH BY SAMUEL I. ROSSER

 

FOURHesten, Usti ChainTen Months AgoSAMUEL

Itasted ash and smoke on the breeze, calling up memories and emotions that tugged my mind away from Hesten’s busy streets.

Hesten’s inhabitants were lively and loud under the summer sun, at the climax of the Sweet Moons. Ladies in cotton gowns with loosely veiled hair ambled by on fine mounts, old men fanned themselves with their hats in the shade and an innkeeper rolled a barrel from an archway to the common catacombs, where great slabs of winter-harvested ice kept ale and perishables fresh through the warm months. I glimpsed clothing and faces from every nation and heard a myriad of languages united under the pristine blue sky.

But the smell of smoke lingered. I squinted from under the brim of my hat to the flat-fronted, gilded buildings overhead, guided by a dreamer’s rootless certainty.

I saw it: a great, charred space between rooflines. The gap was so large, so obvious, my eyes had slipped over it entirely.

My destination was gone. My shock was sudden and visceral, edged with panic. In my pocket, I clutched my coin and fought to keep my expression calm.

Still, a nearby man noticed my dismay. He had the long eyes of the Ismani, his embroidered cap at odds with the light Usti kaftan he wore. When he spoke, his Usti was unaccented.

“There was a fire, night before last.” The man nodded over his pipe, languid smoke seeping from between his lips. He sat on a low windowsill, a cup of tea at his knee. “A pity. Maren was the best jeweler in this port. Very bad luck.”

My stomach dropped. “Maren, the Mereish jeweler? The charm maker?”

The Ismani man tilted his head to one side, not accusatory but curious. “Yes. You are Aead?”

I gave him a smile that would have been more genuine had my skin not been crawling. “I fear you are mistaken. Pardon me.”

I moved north along the canal until I sensed the Ismani no longer watching me then cut over towards the burned buildings. The crowd kept well back, though no guards enforced the boundary. The locals simply went about their business, casting me glances as I separated from the throng, stepped onto ashy cobbles—the tread of my boots oddly muffled—and approached the rubble.

Charred, skeletal timbers reached their fingers into the breach. Heat still radiated from the piles of rubble beneath and sun glinted off melted glass. Smoke eddied, thin and eerie, and the scent of burning became overpowering. Only the canals and a few stone walls had saved the entire area from destruction.

I stared at the ruin. Not long ago, families had lived here. I remembered the smell of spices and cooking food, and a Mereish jeweler who had plied me with coffee and given me three immeasurable gifts—an ensorcelled talisman, a book, and hope. Then, after our return from beyond the Stormwall, he had given me one more.

A promise.

Sadness warred with unease in my chest. Buildings burned. It happened. But…

I came a little closer to the rubble, half searching for any sign of… what? Ill intent? A body? Surely any remains would have already been salvaged.

“What are you doing? You should not be here.”

I looked up to see a woman standing in the mouth of an alleyway, out of sight of the square. She wore a long, embroidered coat and no padding beneath her skirts, giving her a smooth silhouette in the Mereish style. Her hair was blonde and her skin just touched with a northern brown, freckled across the cheeks—pretty, but not distractingly so. Indeed, other than the freckles and her pale hair, there was nothing noteworthy about her. Even her age was hard to discern. A jaded twenty? A youthful thirty?

“I apologize for any intrusion. I knew a man who lived here. The jeweler, Maren.” I gestured to the rubble. “Is he alive?”

The woman eyed me, sticking to the shadows of the alley. “No,” she replied. Her Mereish accent—soft, gentling consonants and blurring vowels—became stronger. “Three died, including Maren.”

I let out a long breath. “My deepest condolences,” I said. I should not linger, not when there were people in this city—including this woman, it seemed—who had much more right to grieve than I. Besides, if Maren was gone, I needed to find a quiet place to think and come up with a new plan.

I turned to leave, touching my hat and offering what I hoped was a sympathetic look.

“Why were you looking for him?” she asked before I could step away.

“I hoped for his expertise,” I hedged. I had no intention of telling this stranger the truth—that I was a broken mage looking for a cure, and Maren had been helping me.

The woman kept talking: “Well, it would be best if you forget Mr. Maren.” She nodded over her shoulder, down the alley. At first all I saw was char on the brick wall, then I noticed the letters that had also been smeared there.

Against my better judgement, I stepped closer. The woman moved aside and I craned to see down the alley.

A Mereish word was painted on the pale red brick in soot and something thicker—my dreamer’s sense, coiling, warned it was blood.

“It translates best to ‘oathbreaker,’” the woman said, standing just two paces from me now. “But it means much more. It means to break the trust of kin. Of blood. It means to break faith and tradition. It means final, irrevocable exile. Maren was a traitor to my people, and they do not forgive such things lightly. If you knew Maren, it is best to pretend you did not.”

The bitter taste of smoke was thick on my tongue now. Maren had shared Mereish secrets with me. He had promised to help me track down a Mereish healer-mage and find a cure for Ben’s and my corruption.

Had that

kindness—had I—contributed to his death?

The woman watched me, her eyes softened with sadness, but there was a shadow beneath them that made my fingers twitch towards the buttons of my jacket and the pistol beneath.

“I knew him very little, regardless,” I told her, slipping my fingers through the buttons of my coat to rest them over my stomach, as any gentleman might. “I will intrude no longer. Again, my deepest condolences.”

I hastened back to the crowd, the street and ship where Mary, I prayed, was still safe. But I glanced back as I reached the square. The woman had turned to stare at the rubble, the wind blowing the ends of her fringe into her eyes.

She did not look at me again.

 

THE NATURE OF GHISTEN WOOD—Ghisten wood is harvested from a ghisten tree and possessed of that tree’s vital spirit, which has grown through the boundary between worlds. Commonly used in the making of figureheads, doors and religious icons, ghisten wood is immensely valuable and highly prized by all nations of the world.

—FROM A HISTORY OF THE WINTER SEA AND THE PEOPLES THEREIN, TRANSLATED FROM THE MEREISH BY SAMUEL I. ROSSER

 

FIVEThe Woman from HestenSAMUEL

Istepped into the dark street outside the port mistress’s high-fronted offices without feeling the cold. I hardly saw the dwindling crowds or smelled the pungent array of fish, brine and smoke. My eyes glazed over the names on the envelopes in my hands without care, noting only that none of them came from the Admiralty.

The port mistress’s words, confirming Monna’s assertions about Harbringer’s destruction, lingered in my ears. My thoughts were entrenched a hundred leagues away, in the hold of a Mereish ship where my brother languished—or the prison where he was chained, or, if my Sight had been wrong, the pit where his charred bones had been tossed.

Maybe he never made it to any of those ends. Maybe his body had been dashed to pieces on the rocks along with his crew, and his bruised, frozen flesh was long devoured by crabs.

My spirit began to drift, out from the security of my bones and into that Other realm. I ducked into the mouth of an alley, where the shadows were deep and only too happy to shield me.

I leaned against the wall and bowed my head, eyes closed, body braced as dark water began to slosh around my feet.

There. I saw Benedict’s light again, dim but present. Still not dead. Not yet.

I closed my hand around the coin in my pocket. The spectral water retreated. The world sharpened once again, but for once I resented that retreat. Because here, in the human world, there was no distraction from the reality of my brother’s doom.

“Captain Rosser?”

A short man peered at me from the mouth of the alley. He wore a fine blue frock coat with black cuffs and a bicorn hat—a naval captain. His demeanor was oddly amiable, even curious, with a laden satchel under one arm and a paper cone of roasted nuts in the opposite hand.

“Captain Archer.” I straightened, a lifetime of etiquette moving my lips and limbs without regard for my inner turmoil. Archer was an old acquaintance from my naval days which I had, with some reluctance on his part, managed to rekindle since my part in bringing the notorious pirate Silvanus Lirr to justice. Archer captained a courier vessel, the appropriately named Swift, and I had no doubt the satchel under his arm was packed with correspondence to be left with the port mistress for Aeadine ships.

“Forgive me.” I gave a shallow, polite nod. “I did not see you.”

“Hardly saw you there in the dark myself.” He waved his cone and I caught the scent of cinnamon, sugar and warm almonds. “No matter. I’m on my way to see the mistress, but you look… terrible. Nut?”

“Ah, no, thank you, Captain Archer.” My eyes flicked to his bundle of letters. My lips moved of their own accord again, but this time in desperation. “Have you any word of Harbringer?”

Captain Archer’s expression stilled momentarily, then he let out a short sigh. “Yes, yes. You’ve my deepest condolences.”

“What happened?”

“A storm and a reef, I heard. The surviving crew reported that Captain Rosser ordered them closer to land, something to do with a few abandoned villages and locals building breakwaters in winter, strange actions. I will not dally with you—the wreck was a bloody nightmare. Did all we could to keep it from

The Mereish are touting it as the greatest victory of the year, never mind the ship ran aground. Not much leaks out of that country, but this did.”

All I could see were the ships in the harbor over Archer’s shoulder, and memory after memory filled my mind’s eye: Ben and I at sea as boys, learning to navigate, to chart, to identify morgories and huden and read the weather in the clouds; Ben sharing a cup of spiced chocolate with me at Festus in an unidentified port, back when he still, occasionally, manifested the ability to give and share.

I cleared my throat. “But there were survivors.”

Archer nodded. “To your brother’s credit. His Sooth foresaw the danger in enough time for Captain Rosser to dispatch much of the crew.”

That felt like a kick in the ribs. Most ships were equipped with a Sooth for just such reasons, but the notion that someone else had foreseen a danger to my brother while I had remained ignorant was not easy to swallow.

“Will the Admiralty arrange for his release?” I asked. “I believe him to be alive.”

Archer shrugged one shoulder noncommittally, but I saw the truth in his grave eyes. “Even if he did survive, Mr Rosser… The Admiralty will make no allowances for him, not in the light of… his… indiscretion.”

I felt the last traces of color leave my cheeks, never mind the burn of the cold. “What has he done?”

Archer cleared his throat, looking suddenly awkward. The change in his demeanor sparked a realization—he had been remarkably kind to me these past few moments. No one from my former life treated me with kindness, even if my actions with Lirr had won their respect.

“I am loath to cite rumor.” He avoided my eyes. “But it has become known that you, good fellow, may have been blamed for his indiscretion with a certain lady. Again, rumors. However, they are prevalent enough that the certain lady’s husband has—discreetly— marked him for disfavor. Outside of clear, indisputable evidence of his survival presented in a public way, I fear Captain Benedict Rosser is beyond aid.”

The Dark Water once again lapped at my heels and I grasped the coin in my pocket. Vindication and horror warred within me, livid in the sudden, strangled stillness of my thoughts.

For all I strove to keep my expression composed, Archer must have seen something slip through.

“My very deepest

condolences,” he said again. He studied the street, as if searching for someone to take his place, then forced a smile. “Let me buy you a stiff drink. I’ll be but a moment with the mistress?”

I broke my gaze over the harbor, blinked back an unwelcome wetness in my eyes, and shook my head. “No, no. Thank you, Captain, for your kindness and your honesty. Until next time.”

“Next time.” He nodded with a relieved smile and strode away.

I watched him turn the corner, against the backdrop of snowy street and many-masted harbor. No sooner was he gone than a woman passed by. She was small, the bottom third of her face hidden by a thick scarf and the upper third by a windblown sweep of blonde hair and the fur brim of her cap.

My Sooth’s senses jangled. I recognized her. She wore an Aeadine coat now, double-breasted and bronze-buttoned, but there was no mistaking the Mereish woman from Hesten.

I retreated farther into the shadows. My movement snagged her attention and she glanced towards me, but evidently decided a man skulking in an alley was not someone she wanted to be caught staring at. She picked up her pace and carried on.

Curious, I waited a few heartbeats then inched to the mouth of the alley. A dark-haired man bumped into me, the cold skin of his hand brushing mine as he muttered an apology.

My attention fractured. I glanced after him then quickly searched for the woman once more.

She had vanished, and I stood alone with Archer’s words drifting through my beleaguered mind.

The lady’s husband has marked him for disfavor.

I fear Captain Benedict Rosser is truly beyond aid.

USTI—The Usti are widely considered to be the most powerful nation upon the Winter Sea. Staunchly neutral in the wars between Aeadine and Mere, the Usti are mediators and peacemakers, focusing on trade and the pursuit of knowledge, though the latter may be questioned in regards to their religious pursuits. Formed from an amalgamation of peoples, various influences from across the known world can still be seen in their religion, which, at odds with the enlightened mind, continues the worship of many saints, ancestors, and even gods. See also KALSANK, TITHE, USTI CHAIN, USTI HOLDINGS.

—FROM THE WORDBOOK ALPHABETICA: A NEW WORDBOOK OF THE AEADINES

SIXThe Ess NotiMARY

Ifound Samuel standing at the end of the dock where Hart was moored, staring out across the quiet harbor. He had his coat open and his hands shoved into his pockets, his attention somewhere beyond what I could see.

“Samuel,” I said from a few paces away.

He glanced over his shoulder. The corners of his mouth moved as if he intended to conjure me a smile but lacked the will. “Hello.”

“I heard about Benedict,” I said, coming to stand just close enough that he could hear me without our voices carrying. I would tell him of Charles and the Uknaras later. “Monna was telling the truth.”

“She was,” he agreed, glancing over the waiting height of Hart to our left, then back out to sea. “I will write to the Admiralty to advise them Benedict has survived and any efforts to recover him will not be in vain.”

I stepped closer, but stopped as his back stiffened. I took a second to measure my words.

“Monna was telling the truth,” I repeated. The thought of the pirate, still languishing in our hold, made my stomach clench with thoughtless, irrational impulse. “Can we at least consider—”

“The Admiralty will take care of Ben. The Mereish may be our enemies, but they will offer a captain his parole,” Samuel stated. “My uncle is Admiral of the North Fleet, ...