The Pirate's Wish (5 page)

“Do you need something?”

“May I see your new rock-nest?”

I sighed. “It’s just a cave.”

“It is larger than your old nest.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

The manticore trotted past the fire and into the cave’s main room, her footsteps silent on the moss. Naji’s tattoos turned everything pale blue.

For a minute the manticore stared at him, tongue running over the edges of her teeth. I edged toward the sword.

But the manticore didn’t lunge for him or shoot a spine. Instead, she turned around on the moss a few times, like a dog, and then settled in.

Well. Looked like she found a new home.

“Brush my mane, girl-human,” the manticore said. “In exchange for catching the caribou.”

“I thought the caribou was in exchange for pulling out the pine cone.”

She shook her head and I didn’t feel much like arguing with her.

“What do you want me to use?” I asked. “My fingers?”

“Don’t be silly. A brush will suffice.”

“A brush?” I laughed. “I don’t have no brush.” I pointed at my own hair, which was a tangled, knotted mess from the rainwater and the woods and the wind – even if Naji had been halfway interested in me at some point, he sure as curses wouldn’t be now. I’d hacked some of it off with Naji’s knife, but it was hair. It grew back. “You think I’d look like this if I owned a brush?”

The manticore frowned. “I thought that was merely the humans’ way. You will not tend to your grooming unless commanded by a manticore.”

“The hell did you get that idea from?”

The manticore looked genuinely confused.

“You know what?” I said. “Forget it. I don’t have a brush, but I’ll work it through my fingers, alright? Best I can do.”

The manticore heaved a sigh like this was the biggest burden to her, worse than getting trapped on a deserted island in the north, worse than having to eat animals instead of people. Not that she shut up about either of those things.

I sat down beside her and started working through her mane, a few pieces at a time. It was pretty tangled – not as bad as my hair, but bad enough that I could see how someone as prissy as her would want it fixed.

It was boring work, but calming. Once I got the tangles out her mane was soft as spun silk, and it reminded me of the scarfs and dresses we’d pull from Empire trading ships, the ones I used to sleep on as a little girl.

And there, in the darkness of that cave, in the cold damp of that island, I started missing Papa’s ship real bad. I combed through the manticore’s mane and I thought about the open ocean, the hot breezes blowing across the water and the warmth of the sun. I didn’t think I’d ever feel warm again.

I moved to the other side of the manticore’s head. I could see Naji, curled up on his side. Seeing him made me sadder still, remembering how miserable he’d been on the
Ayel’s Revenge
, how comfortable he’d been in the desert.

Even if he loved me back, we were tied to different parts of the world.

“You should kiss him, girl-human.”

I yelped in surprise at the sound of her voice, and my fingers caught on a snag in the manticore’s mane. She hissed and yanked her head back.

“What?” I said. “Kiss who?”

“Who else is here?” she said. She rubbed against her scalp with the back of her paw. “The Jadorr’a.”

“What would I do that for?”

The manticore giggled. It sounded like a wind chime. “To complete the first impossible task, of course.”

I froze, my hand hovering near her mane. Ain’t no way she could know that I was in love with him. Did manticores even know what love was? I doubted it.

“I ain’t his true love,” I said gruffly, shoving my fingers back into her fur.

“Aye, but he’s yours,” she said. “I can feel it when you’re close to him, like a lightning storm.”

My face turned hot. “That’s the island talking,” I muttered. “Don’t mean nothing.”

“Go on,” she said. “While he’s sleeping. Don’t you want to help him? Your friend?” She smiled, teeth sparkling in the firelight. “Your
true love
?”

“Course I want to help…
my friend
.” I pushed away from her and crossed my arms over my chest. “But you’re just telling me to do it so as you can eat him.”

“In time,” she said. “All tasks must still be completed.” Her eyes glimmered. “Just one little kiss. He won’t even know it was you.”

I looked at her and then I looked at Naji, handsome and disfigured all at once. Maybe she was right. If I kissed him softly enough, maybe he wouldn’t even know it was me: it had never, in the past month, occurred to me to kiss him while he was asleep. In the soft, velvety haze of the open air, this seemed like the most perfect idea I’d ever heard.

One kiss, just enough to help him on his way. To give him hope again.

“Go on,” she said, speaking into my ear, close enough I could smell the carrion on her breath.

I pushed away from her. Naji kept on sleeping. He lay on his side, one arm slung across the pallet of moss. His hair curled around his neck. The lines of his scar looked like the paths a lover’s hand would take as she ran her fingers down his face. They were beautiful.

I knelt down beside him. His breath was slow and even. I could feel the manticore staring at us, waiting.

I leaned forward, holding my breath. He didn’t move.

I closed my eyes.

I pressed my mouth against his, and his face against mine was rough and soft like falling leaves.

My whole body swelled with light. I felt a crack, like lightning cleaving a tree in two, like a wine glass shattering on a stone floor.

Something breaking

And then I was flat on my back, and Naji’s knife was at my throat, his knee digging into my stomach.

“Ananna?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shrieked. My face was hot and I could feel this weight behind my eyes and I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, not over this. The memory of the kiss was sweet as spun sugar on my tongue, but the rest of me burned with humiliation.

He slid back, dropping the knife away. “What did
you
do? I felt someone attack me–”

The manticore started to laugh.

“I was just walking by!” I shouted. “And you jumped out at me.”

“Jadorr’a,” the manticore said. “The girl-human
kissed
you.”

Apparently manticores knew as much about keeping a secret as they did about humans –not a damn thing.

Naji’s face didn’t change. I wanted to throw up.

“You can feel it, can’t you? I know you can. I can smell it, the change in the curse–” whispered the manticore.

“Shut up!” I scrambled away from Naji. He was still staring at me, but now something had changed in his expression. I couldn’t read it, didn’t want to read it.

He didn’t move except to let his knife drop to the floor. The weight in my eyes built and built, and I jumped to my feet and turned and ran out of the entrance of the cave, into the dark rattling woods. It was cold as the ice-islands, but I was so hot with humiliation – I gave him a kiss and he thought it was an
attack
– that I didn’t feel it except in my lungs, burning ’em like fire as I ran into the chiming forest.

I tripped on a fallen tree trunk and went sprawling into the ground, wet from the recent rain. The gossamer dust of the leaves coated my palms, and when I sat back and pushed my hair out of my eyes I could feel it sticking to my skin.

The forest was chiming like crazy, as though a storm was on its way, and I let out this scream cause it was the only thing I could do. I screamed and slammed my fists into the ground. The dampness crept in through my clothes and I didn’t care. I just screamed.

“Ananna?”

Naji’s voice was soft and hesitant, blending in with the forest’s chiming.

“Go away.”

He materialized beside me.

“Go. The. Hell.
Away
.”

“No.”

I wiped at my face, smearing mud across my cheeks. The powder from the leaves came off on the back of my hand. “Fine,” I said, and tried to stand up. He grabbed my arm.

“Look at me,” he said.

“Let go.”

He didn’t, and his grip was stronger than I expected. I tried to wriggle away from him but he held me tight.

“Will you stop it?” he said. “I’m trying to thank you.”

That stilled me, the kindness in his voice. I slumped against the ground, and he dropped his hand to his side. My arm burned from where he touched me, and not cause it hurt, neither.

“It worked,” Naji said. “Your ki… what you did. It worked.”

I didn’t say nothing, just drew my legs into my body and curled up tight like I could disappear into the shadow.

“It wasn’t impossible,” Naji said.

“Course it wasn’t,” I snapped. “What’s impossible is somebody loving
me
.”

He didn’t answer. Part of me had been hoping he’d tell me I was wrong, that he’d at least try and comfort me, but when he didn’t my chest got tight and painful. I turned away from him and my skin prickled the way it did when the air was full of magic. But there was no magic here Just another reminder that Naji didn’t love me back.

“Thank you,” he said after a few moments had passed.

“Whatever.” I stood up. He didn’t stop me this time. I couldn’t stand the closeness to him. I kept thinking about the way his mouth had felt. “I have to go.”

“Thank you,” he said again, like those were the only words he knew.

I walked away from him, away from the forest and the cave, toward the sea.

I woke up the next morning covered in sand, my head pounding like I’d spent the night tossing back rum in some Bone Island drinkhouse. The sunlight, weak as it was, hurt my eyes, and I rolled over onto my stomach and pressed my face against the cold beach.

I thought about Naji. Jackass.

I thought about myself. Idiot.

It took me awhile to work up the willpower to sit up, and longer still to get myself to standing. I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t see the smoke from the bonfire, which was a bad sign, but one I chose not to dwell on for the time being.

Somebody said my name.

At first I thought it was Naji, that he’d been lurking in the shadows waiting for me to wake up so he could humiliate me again with his thank yous, but then whoever it was said my name again, and I recognized the ice in the voice.

The Mists lady. Echo.

“Hello again,” she said, curling into existence beside me. “I heard you experienced a bit of a disappointment last night.”

I couldn’t speak. I was too blindsided by her sudden appearance. She slid closer to me, the edges of her body blurred and translucent, as if she wasn’t completely in our world, and I skittered backwards a little, not daring to take my eyes off of her. She was after Naji at the behest of her lord, who Naji’d stopped from taking over our world a few years ago. The lord wanted revenge for it, wanted to see Naji dead or enslaved or worse. Naji had hidden himself from the Mists, though, so she always came to me instead.

Except Naji had cast new magic when we came here, magic that was supposed to keep me blocked from the Mists, too. It was supposed to keep me safe–

Unless he’d dismantled it while I slept last night. Like the thought of me loving him was enough to leave me soft and vulnerable out there on the beach. Like it was worth the pain it caused him.

“What do you want?” I asked, pushing myself up to standing. My legs wobbled and the world spun around me like I was drunk. I didn’t want to let on that I was supposed to be hidden from her sight.

“My lord would be willing to extend his offer to you a second time. Power. Wealth.
Magic.
” She leered. “All you have to do is hand over the Jadorr’a. It’s an excellent arrangement, if you’re so inclined.”

“I ain’t.”

I took a few steps backwards across the beach, hoping I was headed in the right direction, hoping that my running away would discourage her somehow. But of course it didn’t. Echo followed, sliding up close enough that I could feel the cold dampness from her body. I stopped, paralyzed by fear. Echo curled around me, one hand tracing the outline of my profile. But she didn’t touch me. I was still wearing the charm around my neck. I wasn’t hidden, but I was protected.

“I know what it’s like,” she whispered in my ear. “To be hurt by a man. It must be hard for you. It’s not the kind of hurt you can heal with violence.”

A starburst of anger exploded in my chest, and for a moment my thoughts were filled with an irrational white-hot blaze.

And then I whirled around and punched her square in the face, right at that point where her eyes met her nose.

Pain erupted through my hand like I’d punched bone, but then my fist slid straight on through her head, and she dissolved into smoke, disappearing completely