Break the Chains

Chapter Twenty-One

The combined talents of all the deviants aboard did a splendid job of making the Larkspur look like a standard Fleet cruiser once more. And they’d been polite enough not to comment on the amount of sel they were missing due to Detan’s outburst. Despite the resource’s depletion, the remaining selium wrapped around the ship made Detan’s skin itch, and not only because it was a fortune’s worth of the material.

If he were to lose his temper again, he’d take half of Petrastad with him. The thought froze him to the spot, arrested his steps as he marched down the gangplank toward the grand double-doors of the watchtower. The Larkspur loomed behind him, its presence oppressive. So high above the city, the sea winds bit beneath the shelter of his stolen coat, but the chill wasn’t near enough to shake the fear from him.

Tibs gave him a gentle nudge in the shoulder. Right. Tibs was here. He’d never let Detan lose control like that. It was their deal – the cornerstone of their relationship. They balanced one another with jokes and barbs, skirted around the short-leashed tempers in both their hearts.

Detan dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re going to save a damsel in distress from a tower, just like in fairy tales.”

“Don’t let Pelkaia hear you say that, she’ll pop your eyes out and throw ’em in a stew.”

“Oh, have a little fun. Has it occurred to you that we’re breaking a woman out of jail, to break a woman out of jail?”

“Thought had crossed my mind.”

“Once this is through, I don’t want to see another set of bars for a year. Not so much as a sharpening rod.”

“Rather thought you were enjoying yourself.”

Detan stifled a grin. “Shut up, Tibs.”

“As you say, sirra.”

A few long strides ahead of them Laella paused, sized them up with a wary eye, and snapped her fingers. “Hurry up, louts. We have two prisoners to take custody of. Prisoners you idiots let go.”

She spun on her heel, the long commodore’s coat flying out behind her like a standard of arms, and strode toward the unsuspecting lobby of the watchtower. Detan suppressed a whistle of appreciation. Essi’d been right, picking Laella for this job. The girl had her uppercrust act down pat. Probably because she’d grown up as one, just as Detan had.

The watchers’ dock was a two-tier affair, and as they ambled along Detan peered down to get a better look at their neighbors. Only one of the watcher ships was currently manned. A short-bodied barge with a three large buoyancy sacks netted above it, the craft was packed with a handful of watchers. At least three, Detan realized with a start, were sensitives. They appeared to be doing maintenance on the ship – holding sel in place while workers patched the buoyancy sacks. Their presence made him nervous. If they were strong enough to sense the sel hiding the Larkspur’s shape, this whole plan might come apart at the seams.

One of the watchtower doors lurched open, the tall pane of lantern light from within casting Laella in silhouette. In flat black outline, her chin high and her stride certain, coat making her figure mast pole-straight, she looked disturbingly like a whitecoat. Detan suppressed a shudder.

“It is the middle of the sands-cursed night,” a watcher, in a much fancier coat than the ones who’d come to cart Pelkaia away, said. It was a style of coat he’d come to think of as Ripka’s coat. Seeing it on another watcher’s shoulders made him scowl. The sturdy man strode out to meet Laella, his back near as straight as hers despite the grey in his beard. “Can you not wait until morning, commodore? At this hour my staff is thin enough. We cannot spare the distraction.”

Laella paused, letting the watch-captain close the remaining distance between them. A power move, that. Detan couldn’t help but wonder how far the girl had advanced in her courtly etiquette training before Pelkaia had whisked her away to the safety of the sky.

Detan and Tibs stood at ease, flanking Laella a half-step behind her on either side, their hands laid over the grips of cutlasses neither of them knew how to use. The blades had been loaners from Pelkaia’s costume trunk, just like Laella’s coat.

“I have come to relieve your staff of some of their burden.” She modulated her voice downward to lend it carrying power and propped one hand on her hip, admiring the nailbeds of her other hand. The watch-captain frowned at this. Poor move. The staunch old man wasn’t likely to take kindly to a bored, disaffected noble. Even if she was in a commodore’s coat.

“If it’s prisoners you’re after, come back in the morning. They’ll keep in their cells until the light.”

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the clouds, switching from bored to controlled anger so fast it made Detan’s head spin. “Do you not see the storm approaching? A half-mark ago the sky was filled with the strangest lightning I’ve ever seen. Monsoon season comes. I’ll have my prisoners back now so that I can see them securely to the Remnant.”

Detan flinched as the watch-captain eyed the blackened sky, wary. Either he’d seen Detan’s little firestorm, or he’d heard rumors of it already. To Detan’s senses, the very air held the soft, charred aroma of ash.

One of the watchers who had taken Pelkaia away in the goat-cart appeared over the watch-captain’s shoulder, a sheaf of papers tucked under one arm and a sour expression on his drooping, exhausted face. Before the watch-captain could give his answer, Detan pointed at the young watcher.

“There! That’s the man who took our prisoners.” The watcher’s head jerked up as he looked for his accuser. Upon sighting Tibs and Detan, his shoulders heaved with a tired sigh.

“You!” Laella approached the man, shouldering the watch-captain aside. Detan followed, giving the captain an apologetic pat on the shoulder as he passed. “You are the man who commandeered Fleet prisoners from my men?”

“Uh,” the watcher muttered, glancing from the advancing gale that was Laella to his captain and back again. “They were our prisoners, commodore.”

“Really.” She stopped an arm’s length away from the poor sod and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Was that before, or after, they shot a Fleetman in the leg with an arrow?”

“Crossbow,” Detan whispered.

“Even worse!” Laella threw her hands toward the skies in frustration.

“They may have shot a Fleetie,” the watcher said.

“A what?”

“A, uh, Fleetman, but they did it in Petrastad. Means they’re ours.”

“He’s right.” The watch-captain crossed the lobby and stood beside his watcher, thumbs hooked in his belt loops and back slouched with ease. Detan silently cursed himself. He shouldn’t have let them retreat to the safety of their tower walls. They should have stayed out on the dock, where the shadow of the so-called commodore’s cruiser could loom over them.

“Those two did their crime on Petrastad’s soil. They’re ours,” the captain continued, jutting his chin out as if punctuating his point.

Laella drew her head back, squared off her shoulders, and curled her lip in the most vicious snarl Detan’d ever seen. He was suddenly quite happy she was on their side. If it weren’t for her deviant abilities, she’d have been the perfect cog in Valathea’s imperial machine.

“Do you think the Fleet cares about your petty soil? We guard the skies, captain, and everything below them. I will take those prisoners now. Bring me to them.”

The captain shared a look with the watcher, weighing the value of winning this argument against getting to bed at a decent hour. “All right, commodore. You can have your shooter, but I’m keeping the other.”

“I think not. The other is an accomplice. They are both guilty of violations against the very sky we of the Fleet patrol. I’ll have them both, or I’ll have you both.”

Detan stiffened as he and Tibs became the subject of the watch-captain’s scrutiny. He wanted to twist Laella’s ear for putting them on display. They were no fighting men, they couldn’t hold the old watch-captain and the watcher if they’d wanted to. He forced himself to stand straight, yet easy, forced his fingertips to play over the grip of his cutlass as if he knew what to do with it. He could only hope it looked good enough.

The watch-captain sighed. “Two lousy thieves are not worth all this bickering. I assume you two are capable of overseeing the transport?”

“Aye, sir,” Tibs said.

“Good, follow me.”

The captain waved the other watcher back to his business and led their motley party across the lobby. He paused at a large desk, a horseshoe of a thing taking up half the room, and rifled through a stack of folders until he found the one he wanted.

“Your name please, commodore?” He blotted a pen and poised it above a sheet of paper.

“Laella Eradin.”

Detan blanched. Her real name. Unless the family name was faked, but he had no reason to doubt that the impervious girl was a member of the Mercer Eradin family. His stomach churned in panic as the captain’s hoary brows rose. Throwing out a heavily Valathean name like that would work in any backwater town, like Cracked Thorn, but here? In the largest port on the southern coast? Detan held his breath.

“I see. And your ship?”

“The Mirror,” Laella said, not the slightest hitch of hesitation in her voice. At least she hadn’t said Larkspur.

“Never heard of it,” the captain said, eyeing her. He had yet to write any of this information down.

“I do not see how your ignorance is my problem. Hurry up, I do not wish to lose the wind.”

Detan cringed. Never sound impatient when you’ve roused a mark’s suspicions, he thought, but it was far too late to teach the girl that now.

To Detan’s immense relief, the captain shrugged, scribbled in his notes, and left the folder open on the counter to dry. Spinning a ring of keys around his finger, he bade them follow him down a wide corridor, growing narrower with every step. The labeled doors of watcher offices gave way to blank wooden planks and then, after a short jaunt up a flight of steps, row upon row of heavily iron-banded doors. There was far too much wood being used for construction in this city. He missed the old stone methods of the Scorched’s interior, where trees were rarer than a woman willing to smile at him.

Lanterns hung between each door, but still the hall felt dark, oppressive. Just like every other jail cell he’d ever had the misfortune of visiting. Even if he never planned on staying long, something about that gloom always clung to him, weighed him down. Detan fidgeted with the handle of the cutlass he didn’t know how to use, anxious to be back out under the sky.

Midway down the hall a guard sat astride a tall stool, his coat unbuttoned and crumpled at a sloppy angle. Detan smirked a little. Ripka would never allow one of her watchers to nap while on guard, let alone dress so poorly. Aransa had lost itself one blasted fine watch-captain when Thratia had made Ripka walk the Black Wash.

“Pedar!” The captain sped his stride. “Wake up, you oaf. We have Fleet visitors!”

He grabbed the man’s skewed lapels, and the guard’s head lolled to the side. A trickle of blood rolled down from the corner of his lips. “Pits below!” He pressed his fingers against the guard’s neck to check his pulse.

“Is he all right?” Detan blurted, taking a half step forward. Laella threw a sharp eye on him – a Fleetie would never take excess action without direct orders from their commodore.

“I don’t blasted know! Go call for a cursed apothik.”

They hesitated, not wanting to break up their group without a plan in place. “How should I know where to get an apothik?” Detan asked. “I’ve never been in your tower before.”

“Go,” Laella said to the captain. She stepped forward and slipped her hand beneath the injured guard’s neck to support his head. “I’ll look after the man – we’d take too long finding our way.”

The captain nodded and eased the guard’s weight into Laella’s hold. For a man easily twice Detan’s age, he certainly hustled as he ran down the hall the way they’d come, calling a name Detan couldn’t quite make out. When he disappeared down the steps, Detan rushed over to the guard and claimed his keyring.

“If Pelkaia started the party without me, I swear to the pits…” he muttered, keeping his voice low in case Pedar could overhear.

“What do you mean?” Laella asked, poking at the man’s sallow cheeks.

“Whose handiwork do you think that is?” Tibs waved a hand toward the guard.

Laella paled. “Oh…”

“Which one?” Detan asked Tibs.

“Third to your left for Pelkaia, then two down again for Coss.”

“How in the clear skies do you know that?” Laella demanded.

“Got a look at the release forms.” Tibs shrugged.

“We’ve been doing…” Detan waved a hand through the air as if to encompass the whole world as he strode off toward the first cell Tibs indicated “…this for a while. You get used to it. You learn where to look.”

He jammed the skeleton key in its slot and twisted, then flung the door open. Empty. Swearing himself blue, he hustled down to Coss’s supposed cell and flung it open, too.

Empty.

“Thrice-cursed woman.” He slapped the wall with an open palm and winced. His anger hadn’t all boiled off yet. He needed to calm down, and chasing Pelly through a damp city wasn’t helping matters much.

“Hurry on now,” Tibs urged. Detan glanced his way – Tibs was busy pulling Laella away from the injured man. “He’ll be fine, help’s on the way, and Pelkaia’ll be making her way back to the ship – we gotta beat her back before–”

“What in the pits are you doing?” the watch-captain yelled down the hall, his wizened face red with anger and exertion, and probably a touch of fear. Two apothiks trailed him, the women’s white aprons threatening to bring up some mighty uncomfortable memories.

Detan swallowed his past, abandoned his plans, and strode toward the captain, shaking the keys to distract the man from Laella’s stunned expression.

“You idiot watchers! The prisoners have escaped!”

“What?” The captain stopped mid-stride, aghast.

“Bloody empty!” Tibs jerked his thumb at the opened cells. One of the apothiks gasped.

The captain recovered his composure with admirable speed. Pointing at the apothik who had gasped, he said, “You, go ring the alarm.”

“Y-yes, sir!” She whirled and sprinted down the stairs while her compatriot advanced upon the injured guard.

Detan turned to make eye contact with Tibs, hoping the wiry old bastard would have something in mind. Tibs raised his brows at him in question.

The great brass bells of the watchtower began to ring, the boom of them thundering straight through to his heart.