Borderlands (17 page)

When we board the
Forgotten
, Clementine shoves ahead in her haste to enter the cabin. I squeeze inside a moment later to see her bending over Maisy's couch. Laverna stands nearby and I hear the gentle murmur of voices from the bunkroom below. Clearly someone has bolted this boat's furniture to the floor, because it's nowhere near as disrupted as the
Nightsong
's splintered chairs.

‘I'm all right,' Maisy says. I jump, startled to realise she's awake, and turn back to her. A little colour has returned to her face, and her eyes look fairly alert. ‘Laverna's had me out on deck all day in the sunlight. Honestly, I'm feeling much better.'

Laverna nods her confirmation. ‘One more day, dearie – maybe two – and I reckon you'll be fine.'

Part of me feels terrible for smiling when the smugglers are in mourning for their friends. Still, this is the best news I've had in days.

‘Any word from the others?' Silver says, settling back into her false accent. ‘Once the storm died off, figured they might make it to the –'

‘Not yet,' Quirin says. ‘But they can't all have drowned – not with their proclivities. So long as they stayed conscious, they'll turn up sooner or later.' He pauses. ‘But our friends aren't the only ones out near the lagoon today.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Our boat was followed.'

We all stare at him. I feel the hair on my forearms prickle.

‘Someone on the shoreline,' Quirin says. ‘I saw glimpses of them through the trees.'

‘Was it –?'

‘I couldn't see his face. Just a single figure.' Quirin's expression is tight. ‘I don't like to stay out here on the lagoon. We're too exposed.'

Silver gestures through a side window, where the hulk of the
Nightsong
lies visible upon the rocks. ‘Till she's fixed, that beauty's not going anywhere.'

‘Do you think it was a hunter?' I try to keep the nerves out of my voice.

Quirin scoffs. ‘A hunter wouldn't follow us here. If they know what's good for them, they leave us alone.'

Not if they know we're with you
, I think. The idea makes my skin crawl. Could Sharr Morrigan have discovered we're travelling with the smugglers? Would she risk an attack upon their boats, just to get at us?

Of course she would. Her life is in ruins. She's on the run, just like us, and she has nothing left to lose. If Sharr knew we were here – if she even suspected we were here – she'd stalk these boats with all the strength she could muster.

But the evening fades with no sign of Sharr. No sign of anyone, actually. The stoves are dead on both our boats, so we build a fire on the beach of the Jaw. Quirin provides a sack of supplies: potatoes, dried beans, strips of salted fish. We cook the food in the coals of the fire, and each mouthful spills warmth and salt across my tongue. Even Maisy joins us on the island; she hobbles through the water, leaning on Clementine's shoulder.

‘Good for the girl to do a bit of walking,' Laverna says.

I'm not so sure at first – I've seen enough infected wounds before, and I doubt that drag­ging her cut through greenish water is the best idea. But Maisy lifts her shirt to reveal the wound is healed. The skin has knitted itself back together with a shining white scar. It seems that bone-shaped charm is worth a hell of a lot more than its weight in silver.

So we sit on the island, and stuff ourselves with fish and potatoes. The moon rises. But as wonderful as it feels to eat a proper meal, the scene doesn't feel quite right. I shouldn't be here. It feels wrong to sit here eating potatoes while Lukas is out there, lost in the dark, and soldiers are burrowing their way beneath the Valley.

While King Morrigan plans another invasion.

War is already raging to the south and west. If I hadn't left Rourton, I'd have been conscripted at age eighteen. Five years of terror on foreign soil, all to expand the Morrigan empire. To bring glory to the throne.

And now, he will attack the east.

We thought we had stopped him. We thought that destroying the airbase would stop him from crossing the Valley – that we'd saved the land beyond from his wrath. But now his officers will comb our cities, forcing more soldiers into his ranks. Perhaps he'll conscript younger kids – how else will he find enough troops for a fresh invasion?

I think of Lukas's words, so many days ago.
‘The way he feels about that country . . . He doesn't just want to conquer it. It's something more. Something deeper.'

Flames crackle in the fire-pit. I stare into them, and try to work up the courage to speak. I rub my hands back and forth, slow and nervous.

Finally, I turn to Quirin. ‘Sir, do you know what's happening with the catacombs?'

Quirin freezes, a lump of fish halfway to his lips. He lowers his hand, then fixes his gaze upon Silver. ‘What have you been telling them?'

‘Just the truth,' Silver says. ‘They rode that bellyacher, Quirin – same as the rest of us. I'd judge they've a right to know what caused it.'

‘We owe your people a debt, sir,' I say. ‘I thought maybe we could repay it by heading over to see if we can do anything, if we can somehow –'

Quirin makes a sound of disbelief. ‘You must think I'm stupid, girl. Last night you proved that you and your friends can't even empty a bilge.' He spits onto the rocks beside him. ‘I told you, Silver: just another gang of failed vigilantes, trying to get us to fight their wars for them.'

‘But –'

Quirin cuts me off. ‘Our people don't concern themselves with kings. If this king of yours wants to invade the Valley, that's your problem. Not ours.' He looks at Silver. ‘If these brats are going to discharge their debt to you, give them a job that might actually make us some money.'

He pulls a little silver tube from his pocket. I think it's a weapon – a strangely shaped pistol, perhaps – and I jerk back in alarm. Then I realise it's just a flute.

‘What's he doing?'

‘He's a smuggler,' Silver says. ‘Music is what we do. He'll play in honour of those taken by the storm.'

I hesitate. I've never thought of smugglers as musicians before – but now that I think of it, why else would they hide their secrets in song?

Quirin presses the flute to his lips, and blows a few test notes. I don't know what to expect – a jaunty folk song, perhaps, or some kind of ditty. But I'm wrong. The song is beautiful. Quiet notes spill from the end of his pipe, then roll up gently into the night. Despite myself, I close my eyes and listen. The notes melt together, echoing across the lagoon.

‘Gee,' Teddy whispers. ‘I wasn't expecting that.'

I glance at him, struck by his wistful tone. Tonight, with the crackle of a camp fire and star-shine above, it's not hard to see why a smuggler's life might tempt him. I haven't heard music like this in such a long time. Not since my father brought home his precious radio. Those nights when my mother dressed us in our finest clothes, and we danced like royalty across our bare apartment floor . . .

But this time there is no static, nor stumbling or laughter as I trip around the room. There's just the music, soft and haunting.

Quirin begins to sing.
‘Oh mighty yo, how the star-shine must go . . .'

My eyes snap open. This is our song – the smuggler's song that led us across Taladia – but I've never heard it like this before. Quirin doesn't choose the jaunty tune of a scruffer's folk song. His arrangement is quiet. Yearning. Almost like a funeral song:
‘. . . to those deserts of green and beyond.'

He finishes the second verse, and I lift my hands in preparation to clap. But to my surprise, Quirin doesn't look up. He blows a few soft notes on his flute, then opens his mouth. And this time, new words spill from his lips – another verse, a collection of lines I've never heard before.

Oh Valley's vein,

How we swim through your pain,

From the prisoner's pit to the sky.

With mine hand on the left,

I shall not spill my breath

From a tomb to a desert I rise.

Silence. I stare at my friends, slightly stunned. When it becomes clear that Quirin has finished, we break into hesitant applause.

‘What was that about?' I ask Silver, as chatter resumes around the fire. ‘The third verse, I mean.'

‘Story of the prisoner.'

‘The prisoner?'

‘A smuggler legend,' Silver says, shrugging. ‘Greatest smuggler of all, they say – a man who sold the king's own battle plans to his enemies. Turned a tidy profit, too. The king locked him up in Midnight Crest, but he broke free and burned that prison to the ground.

‘So when they caught him, they locked him in the bowels of the earth. Down in the Pit, in the heart of the catacombs. He was supposed to die down there when the water came through.' Silver pauses. ‘Meant to be symbolic, see? The king's greatest enemy, killed by the king's greatest triumph.'

‘But he escaped?'

‘Course he did,' Silver says. ‘Our people ain't afraid of kings.'

We sit in silence for a while. I still don't know what to feel about Silver. Those hands shaped the first alchemy bomb. That mind selected the lethal combination that would someday kill my family. And yet . . . those fingers also wove the bone charm. The rose charm. The silver star.

I finish my potatoes and wipe the remaining grease upon the rocks. When I look up, I realise that Quirin is watching me. He rolls the flute between his fingers, letting it wink in the firelight. ‘See that scarf you're wearing, girl?'

My fingers fly to my neck. ‘Yes, sir.'

‘Why do you wear it?'

‘Because of the taboo,' I say. ‘Because it's disgraceful to –'

‘Yes, but why?' Quirin says.

I frown. He might as well ask why it's disgraceful to run about naked. ‘Because we're not mature enough to use our proclivities. That's the law. We have to hide our powers, wait until we're old enough to –'

‘But why not just teach you to
control
your powers?' Quirin says. ‘Why not help you to learn and grow and refine it while you're young?'

I glance at my crewmates, uncertain. ‘Because that's how society runs, sir. It's always been like that.'

‘Oh? You think it's like that everywhere? Have you seen so much of the world that you know how all societies run?'

‘I . . . Well, no, but –'

‘I have.' Quirin's voice is low, but vehement. ‘I've seen other societies. I've seen other lands. And I can tell you now, girl, that the taboo is not a universal law.'

He leans across, his face shadowed oddly in the firelight. ‘It's a law of the king. A law of the Morrigans.'

‘Why?'

Quirin raises an eyebrow. ‘You're the one who wants to fight the king. You're the one who thinks you can stop him. Why don't you tell me?'

No one speaks.

‘Know your enemy, girl,' Quirin says. ‘If you're arrogant enough to fight him, you should find out what you're fighting.'

He settles back, a look of contempt on his face. ‘Look at you.' He gestures at my crew. ‘Look at all of you. All fired up. All ready to fight him. All so . . . young.'

I wet my lips. ‘What do you mean?'

‘The Morrigans aren't fools. The young are the most likely to rebel. That's what they do. Every generation goes through it.' He pauses. ‘So imagine you're a king. You have thousands of young subjects, their powers blossoming, their hearts alight with teenage rebellion. Would you encourage those youths to use their powers? Would you teach them how to fight against you?'

‘No,' I admit.

‘Know what I'd do?' Quirin gives a cold smile. ‘I'd teach them that their power is disgraceful. That their magical development is something to be ashamed of. Something to hide. I'd teach their own peers to shame them if they dared to flaunt their strength.

‘And as soon as they were adults, I'd ship them off to war. Make them fight for their lives. Give them five long years of blood and death and horror. And when they came back – broken, traumatised, fragile – do you think they'd still have the strength to rise against me?'

Silence.

‘You say you want to fight the Morrigans,' Quirin says. ‘But you have no idea what you're fighting. You have no idea how far their control reaches. And even now, you wear their influence around your throat.'

‘But sir, I –'

‘No use fighting kings,' Quirin says. ‘What you've got to do is understand them. Use them. Work around them.' He pulls out a coin and holds it up to the firelight. ‘Learn the way they do things – and use that knowledge to turn a profit.'

Quirin flicks his coin into the air and catches it. Then, with a mocking smile, he slips it back into his pocket.