The Shattered Vine Read Free Page A

gray by the sun or worn to stiffness by the salted sea air. Despite that, all four still looked like rootless vagabonds, and certainly not a prince of note or the daughter of a lord-maiar.
    Jerzy sobered. They were, in fact, vagabonds, as much as any brigand or beggar. If the Washers had taken him, he would never have seen his vineyard again, and the others . . . for their crime of associating with him? Ao would have died, his limbs infected without healspells. Mahl, disowned by her father, without protection beyond Kaïnam’s claim to a distant Principality? Mahault had chafed even at her father’s guardianship. She would have fought her way out—and died—rather than submit to any sort of imprisonment, much less becoming the property of any man who claimed her.
    “You there!” Kaïnam abandoned playfulness and strode past Jerzy, vaulting over the railing and onto the wooden plank that had been extended from the shoreline and tied to the
Heart
’s side for easy access. “Careful with those casks!”
    The warning was not necessary: the men unloading the ship were Berengian docksmen who knew full well what a wine cask looked like. They would no sooner drop it than they would a crate of silks from Ao’s people or silver beaten from the mountains. Less, perhaps, for fear of what the Vineart might do to them if his wares were damaged.
    Although Jerzy, his skin finally weathered to a pale gold from the sun, his hair past his shoulders in a ragged fall of fox-red, and his clothing an odd mismatch of trou and tunic, low boots jammed over feet re-accustomed to going bare, his belt empty of the signs of his rank, would not strike caution or care into any man’s heart.
    Inside him, though, the magic pulsed strongly, almost overriding the calls of the dockworkers, the occasional scream of black-winged seadivers overhead, and the ever-present creak-and-slap noises ofthe
Heart
herself. The slave called Foxfur had not known magic, and even as a student the quiet-magic had hidden within him, waiting to be summoned. No longer. Since tasting the unblooded fruit of Esoba’s yard and drawing on them to set fire to the sands so they could escape the Washers; since healing Ao and keeping him alive, using Kaïnam’s supply of spellwines like tonics to maintain his strength and keep the others awake, alert, and healthy as well . . . Jerzy could barely remember what it felt like to not hear the hum and thrum of the quiet-magic in his bones.
    But even over that, he heard Ao’s quiet “uh,” a sound not of pain but worry. Jerzy moved to where the other sat, his hand now fisting the fabric of the blanket in agitation, and tilted his head, about to ask what was wrong.
    “Washers,” Ao said, indicating the men gathering on the docks, clearly heading for them. The word had the sound of a curse.
    Jerzy’s gaze tracked the movement of the red-clad figures through the dockside crowd. Using Ao’s trader-knowledge of port towns, they had chosen the town of Reoudoc, north of the border between The Berengia and Iaja, because it was large enough to hide their arrival but not so large that it would have a chapterhouse, one of the Washers’ meeting places, of its own.
    Washers, who had chased them from Aleppan to the coast of Irfan, and would have caught them were it not for the sea serpent whose attack had created enough confusion for the
Vine’s Heart
to escape.
    The same attack that had so injured Ao that they had no choice but to abandon any plan to chase down their enemy, and return here.
    “Bad luck, or were they alerted to us?” Ao asked, his gaze never leaving the approaching men, all amusement gone from his voice now.
    “Don’t know,” Jerzy said. “Bad luck would be better.”
    Ao laughed, the sound shorter and more tense than it used to be, even as one hand reached down to rub at the stub of his thigh, wincing at the touch. “Bad luck, we’ve got.”
    Ao had not meant it to sting, but Jerzy flinched nonetheless.
    “A day