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High above the churning sea, tucked in the crow’s nest of the Wraith, a small girl clings to the ship’s rigging as she is barraged with pelting stormwater, a solitary figure against the dark sky, a silent sentinel in the tumultuous clutch of night. She’s perched amongst the web of ropes and wooden slats that make up the nest, looking down over wave after endless wave of inky blue, the Wraith’s familiar wooden bones groaning with the rhythm of the waves, the moon piercing through the veil of storm clouds.
She comes up here at night, after a successful ship raid when she has sorted everything out on deck, to revel in her success, lick her wounds, and bury her darkening thoughts with wind and hissing waves.
The night is a living, breathing thing, cloaked in inky shadows that stretch and writhe around her.
The stars have retreated behind the storm's brooding visage, leaving only the erratic flash of lightning to cast fleeting, ghostly illuminations upon the ocean.
Rain lashes her face, stinging like the slash of a knife. Her clothes, thick, warm and Suli-woven, are soaked rags that cling to her skin. The ocean beneath is a black abyss, frothy crests reaching up to embrace the sky, only to be torn apart by the wind's unrelenting kiss. Inej’s heart echoes the tumult, pounding in her chest as she grips the ropes for dear life and tilts her head back to the rain.
The lightning’s fitful, restless flashes of light, bouncing off the ocean and bright as gleaming fish, remind her of Jesper, his lightning flash grin, his fast hands. Bright and unpredictable. It’s constant companion of thunder, bursting and crackling, rolling and exploding, calm in its wake, always remind her of Wylan. The waves, whether they be buoyant and bubbling blue or rowdy and crashing, bring Nina to mind, her warm heart and her recklessness, and when those waves reach up to meet the wide stretch of sky, steady and vast above her, she thinks of Matthias.
The wind is harsh and sharp and biting, it whips and stings. The wind, and its soft phantom touch, its gentle guidance, its jarring lessons. It has an inexhaustible energy, a cruel lash, so close and yet impossible to grasp. Kaz always, always seemed just a breath away from her.
Inej had learnt fast and greedily about everything she could before setting sail from Fifth Harbour for the first time. She’d already been proficient in navigation, having been raised to use the sky as an aid to ascertain her position and follow routes by wagon, and so she’d taken to the principles of marine celestial navigation without trouble.
Specht had taught her a wide range of practical skills in the way of ship handling, anchoring and mooring, steering in different weather conditions.
Wylan had talked her through the different engine room equipment and the emergency procedures to follow in case of a machinery breakdown.
Nina had written to her immediately after hearing of her mission and drilled her about first aid in response to illnesses and injuries caused by the sea.
And Kaz had seen through her determination to the absolute terror beneath it. He’d taught her about command and administration, passed to her methods of how to be loud and seen since this line of work would require her to be visible rather then to hide, to command people’s attention rather then avoid it. For this role, she couldn’t be a ghost any longer, not someone silent and invisible. She needed to have them listen to her, respect her, and fear her. If the way the Dregs looked at Kaz was anything to go by, he was the right person to give instruction on such a thing.
He’d taught her effective means to deal with port authorities, contentious crew members, and the likes. He’d made her learn the maritime laws and regulations, provided her with complete knowledge about international conventions, local port rules and how they differed from place to place, the Merchant Council’s strict guidelines, and how to break every single one of them efficiently and deceptively, should she have to. (She would, countlessly.)
She had stood at the helm of the Wraith for the first time, overwhelmed with anticipation and trepidation, and he’d reached out, slipped his hand into hers.
“I’m scared.” She had whispered.
“What is that thing that your father says?” Kaz had replied. “When fear arrives, something is about to happen. Hmm? Well, it’s going to happen to the slaving network. They have no way to anticipate you and no way to stop you. They aren’t intent like you are, and they’re good as dead already. They’ve gotten lazy and comfortable with their work, and they aren’t being as careful as they should be. But us? We never stop fighting.”
Inej used to always have a quick response to Kaz, but as of late, he’d been leaving her without words.
Specht throws the mooring lines out to the dockworkers who help secure the Wraith to the pier as Inej guides the ship into the bustling port of Eames Harbour, docking the vessel and saluting the dockworkers in acknowledgment.
The harbour’s authorities, two guards who seem to be circling her area of the docks, are already examining the Wraith with curiosity. She hops down from the ship to greet them, and smiles pleasantly as they undergo their bureaucratic procedures, inspecting her vessel and making her sign the nesassary documents. Soon they are content, and move on to the Ravkan schooner in the berth beside hers.
She climbs back up onto the Wraith where both her crew and the Zemeni passengers are getting ready to disembark. They are hurt and frail, their clothes dirty and their faces half starved and battle weary, but they are beautifully, impossibly alive, and there is something like hope burning off every one of them, glowing like dawn.
She dolls a generous stack of kruge to each of them from a heavy case that she drags from below deck, making sure each of them have enough each.
This would not be possible without funding. A large portion of the profits from The Silver Six funds both her mission and her passenger’s way home, alongside a hefty percentage of whatever haul Kaz has pilfered during that month. They steal from those that turn a blind eye to slavery and use that money to free slaves. And if it is ironic that a business once belonging to Pekka Rollins is now funding the rescue of thousands of lives across the True Sea, then that is just the Barrel’s twisted way of retribution.
“Have this converted at the port’s office and use it to get home.” She says. “It should cover travel expenses, food, and lodging until you are able to get back to your homes and families. Be aware and stay vigilant, travel in groups if you can. Don’t travel alone at night.” She crouches in front of a girl about twelve, who is clutching the hem of her mother’s shawl. Inej takes a small knife from her pocket, and passes it to the girl, who takes it with a reverent look in her eye. “Be safe.” She says.
Inej is always sure to tell her rescued passengers about the potential scams and abduction techniques to be wary of, ways to keep safe and fight off attackers, what to do if seized by slavers in future. How to not look like an easy target, how to fight off someone bigger then you, how to kill. She has to guarantee they have the freedom, strength, and resources to get back to their homes and to remain somewhat safer then they were before. The rescue is always more than the plundering of ships.
They do not all leave at once; the families go off as one, those who were taken alone group together and catch carriages away. They touch her hands, the fabric of her shawl, make the sign of the Saints. They press their hands to their lips and then her forehead. A mother wraps her arms around Inej, holds her face between her aged hands and thanks her with tears running down her face.
She says, “I will pray for you every day, girl. Blessed child. Daughter of the people.”
A girl Inej’s age grips her hand. “I’ll never forget you, Inej.” She says. “I’ll be brave like you are, some day.”
Slowly, they all leave into the colourful Zemeni harbour. She watches them through the hard beam of sun hitting the water before her, her heart pounding.
Specht salutes her. “Request permission to go ashore, Captain?”
Inej snorts at the formality, but some of his Kerch Navy habits die hard. “Permission granted.”
When her crew have disembarked and gone off into the city, she goes down to the port’s post office and collects a wooden crate that is addressed to her. It is heavy, and she strains with the weight of it back up to the Wraith and down into her cabin, where she sets it down.
It appears like any other ordinary shipping crate a supplier might send a captain; but she knows better. When she opens it, she finds the crate contains some Ravkan books and a pair of winter boots that she’s intolerably grateful for, but this is just the decoy part. She empties the box, presses her fingers down into the splintery wooden base and feels for the groove in the wood where the wooden panel at the base of the crate is set in. Years of watching Kaz smuggle things in and out of Fifth Harbour has taught her what tells to look for. In the wooden layer beneath it is a hidden set of screws. When she finds them, she undoes the caps and pulls away the wooden board to reveal the secret compartment where her real correspondence is.
It’s a thick stack of mail wrapped in a Suli scarf she knows is from her mother. She undoes the stack and looks through the letters, her heart soaring.
She has been written by her parents, Jesper and Wylan, Nina.
At every port, he does this. He has ensured since her first voyage that her family and friends can contact her while keeping them and herself safe. When her family or Nina write, they know to address their letters to an unassuming household in the Zelver district in Kerch, a building that they know the Dregs own, and from there Kaz gets their correspondence unassumingly to her.
And then from him; all written in code, of course, but she’s grateful because the information is heavy. There is never a word of anything personal, never a hint of anything so wretchedly weak as feelings, but instead lists of the names of ships, of captains, of the merchants and private clients who buy their human cargo, trade routes and ports, auction times and locations, names, addresses, family members, anything that is useful.
At the bottom of his letter, a familiar phrase; be safe.
It’s the only thing he will write that isn’t about business, and the way he signs all the letters. Be safe, be safe, be safe. She cannot guarantee it, but perhaps it is his own sort of prayer, one he would not speak otherwise. Be safe, and then he does everything in his power to ensure that she can be. Works exhaustively to prevent her being in danger—she returns the favour.
Be safe, and she repeats it to everyone she rescues, consciously or not. Be safe, and she does her best to make sure that they can be safe. It’s all anyone can do, for those they love.
The sea is desperate and hungry. It turns the slavers into victims, crashing against them, battering their ships, insatiable and greedy. She thinks of Kaz and revenge, and she thinks of laughter touching their lips in the stairwells of the Slat, her hands in his hair, breath making plumes of fog in the cold cold air. The sea is starving, howling, cannibalistic. The sea will eat its fill.
She doesn’t know the next time she will see him. They find each other and lose each other between storms and crashing seas. They’re passing ships, they prey upon the men who preyed on her, carrying on an eternal war, covering the other from miles away. They greet each other with grins like blades, knuckles raw and bleeding, each other’s saviour. Mirrors of each other. There is no where one could go that the other would not follow.
There is always something to do both on the seas and in the city, wars to wage, crisis to tend to, schemes to set into action.
The sea is a wretched dog, clashing teeth, snapping jaws. It’s howl is loud enough to deafen a thousand men. When Inej needs a solution to a problem she bursts into Kaz’s window like nothing has ever changed and he tilts his head to think, something canine about it.
He used to be Haskell’s dog; both he and her know what it is to be unbound now.
Inej’s heart echoes the stories of others just like her, those that came before her and will come after. Her parents pray for her, offering a safe place of rest and recovery should she need it. Her friends look out for her, giving her everything they can to assist her mission. Her Saints protect her from above, casting down light when she cannot see. Kaz taught her to spit blood, bare teeth, and keep fighting. Every moment of their terrible lives was worth it so that they would meet and go on despite the tragedy. They’ve grown up into an unrelenting tandem, a duet of clashing knives and clasped hands. Inej mourns the unguarded child her parents lost and feels lighter.
Daughter of the people, they call her. Protector of the exploited. Girl of the blue haze. Blessed, ghost girl, phantom of the deep.
She stands, unfettered, starving like the sea.