Storm Siren by Mary Weber
For Peter and my
one,
two,
three precious Muses.
For invading the world with your magic and bringing my soul alive on this beautiful adventure.
You are the most daring dragon hunters I know.
And to Lee Hough, for the enormous honor of storming this bookish castle with you as my agent. Save me a seat in the Kingdom, my friend.
For my shield this day I call:
Heaven’s might,
Sun’s brightness,
Moon’s whiteness,
Fire’s glory,
Lightning’s swiftness,
Wind’s wildness,
Ocean’s depth,
Earth’s solidity,
Rock’s immobility.
—FROM SAINT PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE
CHAPTER 1
FOURTEEN CIRCLES FOR FOURTEEN OWNERS.”
I shade my eyes to block the sun’s reflection off the distant mountains currently doused in snow and smoke and flesh-eating birds. The yellow flags above me snap sharp and loud in the breeze as if to emphasize my owner’s words that yes, she’s quite aware such a high count is utterly ridiculous.
Waiting for it . . .
“Fourteen?” the sweaty merchant says.
Ha! There it is. Eleven years of repeatedly being sold, and it’s sad, really, how familiar I’ve become with this conversation. Today, if Brea has her way, I will meet my fifteenth, which I suppose should actually bother me. But it doesn’t.
Brea nods. “Fourteen.”
I smirk and turn to watch a gimpy minstrel roaming through the marketplace, which is the closest I’ve ever been to Faelen’s High Court. The poor guy is singing so wretchedly off-key, I want to giggle, except he might be newly returned from the war front, so I don’t. Besides, his odd version of the old ballad “The Monster and the Sea of Elisedd’s Sadness” reminds me of my home up in the Fendres. Have you been there? I want to ask him.
Instead, I look over as the enormous merchant grunts his nervousness and retreats from me, giving the ground a superstitious spit. He eyes Brea. “Fourteen owners says either yer lyin’ or she’s got the dark-death disease. Whichever it is, you best get her out of my way. I got a money business to run.” He makes to hurry off toward the selling stand, almost tripping in his fur-trimmed shoes.
I grin. Yes, run away in your too-little boots.
“Wait!” Brea grabs his arm. “Nym doesn’t have the disease. She’s just . . .”
The merchant scowls at her grip on his sleeve.
She releases it, but her roundish face turns stony with determination. “She’s just too uppity for the poorer folk, that’s all. There’s only so much a master can take of a servant who thinks she’s made of better than the rest.”
What in hulls? Is she off her chump? My laugh bubbles up and I choke it back, waiting for her to choke on her lie. He creeps closer and slides a look of dislike down my partially hooded face, my chin, my half-cloaked body. “She don’t look uppity. She don’t even look decent enough for the favor houses.”
Whoa. I bite back a prickly remark about his mum birthing him in one of those dung havens and look away. Neither of them deserves a reaction. Using my practiced haughty pose, I face the lively crowd gathered like giddy children in front of the selling platform. Five, ten, fifty people. They’re all smiling as if the circus with its panther monkeys and manic dwarves were performing instead of a fat guy in little boots exploiting children. Seems even decent women are desperate for extra hands while the men are off fighting a war we’ve no hope of winning.
The merchant chews his puffy lip and studies me, like he expects me to help coerce him. Is he jesting? I raise an eyebrow and glare at him until, finally, he grunts again and pulls up the cuff on my right arm.
I stiffen.
His gloved fingers run over each thread tattooed around my wrist like tiny bracelets. “One. Two. Three . . .” He numbers the circles slowly, fourteen in a row inked into my skin with the juice of the black mugplant. I almost feel like I should clap for him.
Good job, I mouth. You know how to count.
The merchant’s face twists into a snarl. He gives me a vicious pinch below my elbow and pushes my sleeve higher up my arm onto my shoulder. I shiver and, narrowing my eyes, start to pull away, but Brea leans into me.
“You hold yourself together,” she sputters close to my ear. “And for fool’s sake, keep your hair covered, or so help me, Nymia, I’ll break your fingers again.”
I bite my tongue but refuse her the satisfaction of dipping my gaze to my slightly misshapen left hand, which I’m now curling into a fist.
“How old are you?” the dealer growls in my face.
“Seventeen,” I growl back.