Snake Heart (20 page)

“Is that all you had when you fought in the war?” Yanko asked, not sure he believed her. “Five or six skills?”

“I had three skills that I was any good at.” She smirked. “But I was gods-blessed good at them. Because I did them over and over, practicing obsessively. A lot of mages and students get bored and want to explore other aspects of their discipline, but the very fact that most mages only specialize in one discipline for an entire life demonstrates how important it is to practice.”

“What were your three skills?”

“Fireballs, air for defense, and telekinetics for manipulating and lifting matter at a great distance. I got so good at that last one that I could lift an enemy ship and its crew out of the water and dump it on its side.”

Yanko thought of the wrecked ships they had left behind, Sun Dragon’s new fleet, and wondered if she had done that in their battle.

“Something like that leaves an impression on people, enemies and allies,” Pey Lu said. “You get enough of a reputation and people don’t even want to pick a fight with you or your ship. Unless they’re idiots.” Her lip curled. Maybe she was thinking of Sun Dragon too. “You’re young and curious, and you want to be creative and original with your magic, and I understand that, but trust me on this: master three things, maybe the same three that I did, and you’ll find that the best wizards in the world can’t beat you. Eventually, you’ll get good enough to combine your skills and do them at the same time. A lot of pedants say you can’t do that, but you can. Fireballs are an example of that, but it’s possible to attack and defend at the same time too. Some say it isn’t. I’ll show you how it is. It’s still a good idea to have a bodyguard, but you won’t be defenseless if you don’t have one.”

Yanko caught himself nodding every other sentence, excitement starting to build within him. He knew he couldn’t forget about his mission, and that he had to escape if he could, but he wanted to try what she was talking about. He hadn’t realized how badly he had wanted a mentor his whole life, someone who had power and experience and truly knew of what she spoke, not some doddering old mage, wandering the hills and peddling his wares for a few coins here and there.

“Why did you leave?” he whispered.

He hadn’t meant to let the question slip out, nor would he have wished the words to be so soft and full of emotion. It seemed to surprise Pey Lu, too, who had been lecturing in a very matter-of-fact tone.

She leaned back in the chair, stroking her chin as she regarded him. “Does it matter? After all these years?”

He sensed that she did not want to discuss it, but he couldn’t keep from saying, “I’d like to know. Father never spoke of it. Of you. And I don’t remember anything. Falcon remembers a bit, but...” He shrugged helplessly.

Pey Lu looked toward the porthole. “You know I was a warrior mage and an officer in the military long before you were born. I loved the war. You’re not supposed to love war, but I loved the challenge of pitting myself against others. Wizards, warriors, anyone. I liked finding ways to win, even when the odds were against us. And then the war ended. I was in the army, and we still practiced and drilled, but it wasn’t the same. It was a game, not the real thing. There weren’t lives at stake. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And then I got that letter from my father.” Her mouth twisted in an expression of distaste.

“Your father?” Yanko did not know her side of the family as well as his father’s. Many of them had moved out of the province after she had left, dishonored and distrusted, the same as the White Foxes.

“A young man I’d served with in the war approached him and asked to marry me. I barely remembered him. He was one of many officers that I met during those years. I served on many ships, being transferred to the front lines, to wherever they needed me most.”

“My father,” Yanko said quietly.

It had been an arranged marriage? He hadn’t realized that. He shouldn’t be surprised, as it was common among
moksu
families, but Father had never mentioned it, at least not in his hearing.

“Yes. My own father was proud of me but had this notion that women were supposed to settle down and make babies, not hurl fireballs at enemies. With the war over, he agreed to arrange the marriage. He believed we would be a good fit, based largely on the White Fox clan name rather than any real knowledge of your father, I later learned.” There was that twist to her mouth again.

“I think Father adored you,” Yanko said, feeling that should somehow have helped.

“I had a lot of adoring admirers.” She looked away from the porthole and back at him. “That happens when you become a war hero. It might happen if you succeed in wresting that lodestone away from me and dumping it in the Great Chief’s lap.” Her eyes narrowed, a warning in the expression, a warning that she had no intention of letting that happen, and that she was speaking in the hypothetical. “You would have adoring admirers that want to marry
you
too.”

“That would be... unprecedented.”

She snorted. “Give it time. You’re a handsome boy.”

Yanko resisted the urge to rub his chin, with a few nascent hairs poking through after a couple of days without shaving. He wished it would happen with Arayevo, but he didn’t know if honor and fame would be enough to make her want to choose him over the sea.

“So you never wanted to be there?” he asked.

“No. For my parents’ sake, I gave it a try, but I was restless, and I was—let’s be frank—a horrible mother. Patience isn’t one of my virtues, and back then, my temper was even shorter. Babies are rather fragile, you know. You’re not supposed to get frustrated when they’re crying all night and lash out at them.”

Yanko stared, not knowing what to say. As with the lecture on magic, she spoke matter-of-factly, and he couldn’t tell if any old pain or regret lay beneath the words.

She did lower her voice when she continued. “Trust me, whatever you think, you were better off without me around. You would have hated me, and I’d already come to resent—” She shrugged and spread a hand, palm up.

“Me?”

“You boys, your father.
My
father. I figured it was better to leave before something happened—before I
did
something that would be even more inexcusable than becoming a pirate.” The wry twist to her lips suggested she knew exactly how inexcusable their people found that. “I doubt many would have even cared about that if I hadn’t ended up being rather good at it.”

“
Good
?” He almost choked on the word. “You’ve killed hundreds. Thousands? How many ships have you sunk?”

“Many. As many Turgonian craft as Nurian. Our people should thank me for that. It’s always been the challenge that’s appealed, not the booty, and Turgonians field cleverer strategists on their military vessels. Our people rely too much on magic. We idolize powerful mages rather than the handful of brilliant strategists we’ve had over the years. The ways of Shri Nah Strong Bear and Kahlee Black Badger should be studied in schools. Instead, our military academy teaches that your ship is powerless if it doesn’t have a Sun Dragon or a Water Wolf on board, standing at the bow with magic ready to unleash.”

She herself had come from the Water Wolf line, Yanko recalled, a clan with a history of powerful magic users, even if it hadn’t been quite so close to the Great Chief’s family as the White Foxes.

“Why kill them at all, though?” Yanko asked. “Turgonians, Nurians, anyone. When the war was over...” He groped for a way to ask why she couldn’t control her urges and be happy with the training exercises and practices. To pursue violence needlessly—at the least, it was selfish. In her case, it was homicidal. If not genocidal.

“The tools created to thrive in that war remain. Yanko, you don’t teach a dog to hunt rabbits, then condemn him when he brings home a kill, just because the stewpot is already full.”

“But you’re not a
dog
. You’re a human being.”

Another wry twist to her lips. “I shall thank you for such a magnanimous compliment.”

“Those villagers on the island, and the Kyattese in the cave,” Yanko said slowly. “They weren’t strategists who could challenge you. Why kill them?”

“I did not. Some of the men did.” She waved vaguely toward the deck. “These aren’t soldiers. Denying them their sadistic pleasures ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. And if they slaughter a village or two now and then, it adds to the Midnight Fleet’s gruesome reputation. Makes it less likely for unworthy foes to waste my time and their lives by challenging us.”

He swallowed. She spoke so casually. Honestly, he supposed, but it chilled him. He would rather have had an excuse. A suggestion that events sometimes got out of control and that she regretted it. Instead, he didn’t think she regretted much of anything. She had no conscience whatsoever. Had she been born that way? Or had the army inoculated it in her? Would the army have done that to him after five years at Stargrind and years more serving?

Yanko rubbed his face, afraid of the answer, of the idea that he could become a cold-hearted killer, someone who stopped caring about the rabbit that went in the stewpot.

Pey Lu stood up and gestured to the door. “Do you want to work on fireballs? We only have a few days until we reach our destination.”

“Our destination?” He unfurled his legs and slid off the bunk. No matter what he thought of her choices, he would be a fool to pass up a chance to learn magic from her.

“I looked over the Mausoleum Bandit’s journal before your friends stole it. He kept his valuables on Stone Key Island.”

Had that been the name of the place with the village? He hadn’t even known.

“The lodestone, however, was something he intended to use soon. And he would have done so if his ship hadn’t been caught and sunk. According to his journal, it and some other tools that would prove useful for the quest are on another island.”

She did not name it. She had been more open with him than he expected—perhaps than he wished—but she still saw him as a competitor in this matter. Not unwisely so. He shuddered to think of some future in which they led opposing fleets and had to fight each other. That might have happened if he had gone into Stargrind and become an officer in the army. And would she have seen him as one of those foolish Nurian officers who studied magic instead of naval tactics and military strategy? Likely so.

Yanko followed her out of the cabin. Today, he would learn from her, but for the sake of his people—and his family’s honor—he would have to find a way to escape and complete his mission. If he truly wanted to redeem his clan’s honor, and his own, he should find a way to kill her and end her reign on the high seas. At the least, he should deliver her to the authorities at home and let them figure out a way to incarcerate her.

“One mission at a time, Yanko,” he muttered under his breath as she led him up to the top deck. “One mission at a time.”

Chapter 15

T
he fireball struck the waves, briefly highlighting the piece of driftwood floating behind the ship before extinguishing itself, smothered in the dampness. The log wasn’t so much as charred. Yanko sighed at it. He had been somewhat impressed with the size of his fireball, but flinging one through the air did not do much good if it failed to affect the target. Granted, a target soaked from years floating around in the ocean tended to repel fire.

“You believed it would go out as soon as it struck the water, so it did,” Pey Lu said from behind his shoulder.

Yanko grimaced.

She had been chatting with her Turgonian lover, who spent more time on this ship— the
Prey Stalker
, as Yanko had learned—than on the one he supposedly captained. He had been hoping she hadn’t seen his failures. At least her voice remained calm and instructional; she did not sound irritated or impatient. After she had confessed to having a temper, he’d been worried she would find his abilities disappointingly substandard. He kept telling himself that her opinion did not matter, but it was hard not to want to impress a parent, even a parent he’d had no memory of before meeting her on the island. He wished there were some rocks so he could cause an earthquake—surely as impressive a feat as lighting a log on fire—but the floor of the ocean and the nearest rock lay a mile below. Even if he could affect earth that far away, he doubted anything would be felt up here.

Now and then, a whale or another large sea creature swam past. He could have communicated with them, but to what end? Sending a kraken to crush the ship he was on wouldn’t be a good idea. Besides, four other ships sailed to the side of this one, the two that had been at the battle and two more that had joined Pey Lu en route.

“Should I not have believed that?” he asked. “Wasn’t it inevitable?”

“You burn hydrogen molecules floating in the air to create fire. You have even more fuel down there.” She gestured at the ocean, and a wave in the distance caught on fire, the flames dancing on the surface.

Yanko shifted uncomfortably, sensing fish being burned alive. Whether intentionally or not, she had caught a school floating near the surface. At least in the air, one rarely had to worry about more than the occasional insect being caught by flame.

“Don’t think,” she reminded him. “Just do what you’ve already trained your body to do.” She pointed at the driftwood log, which she had left for him to practice on.

Feeling frustrated, and annoyed by the needless killing, even if only fish had died, Yanko scowled as he concentrated. First, he warned nearby creatures away from that log, then he did his best to create a fireball, one that wouldn’t be doused by the water. He gripped the railing with both hands and launched it with his mind.

A startlingly large fireball formed in the air and hurtled toward the log. It lost its spherical shape when it struck the water, but it was as if oil lay atop the waves. It spread out, burning with great enthusiasm, flames leaping ten feet and more into the air. A surge of alarm went through Yanko as he imagined a chain reaction spreading across the ocean. The thought of losing control made his concentration lapse, and the flames died out. Not oil, he told himself. Something that would only burn with the help of magic.