This book is dedicated to my parents,
for all their years of love and support.
CHAPTER ONE
I ain't never been one to trust beautiful people, and Tarrin of the Hariri was the most beautiful man I ever saw. You know how in the temples they got those paintings of all the gods and goddesses hanging on the wall above the row of prayer-candles? And you're supposed to meditate on them so as the gods can hear your request better? Tarrin of the Hariri looked just like one of those paintings. Golden skin and huge black eyes and this smile that probably worked on every girl from here to the ice-islands. I hated him on sight.
We were standing in the Hariris' garden, Mama and Papa flanking me on either side like a couple of armed guards. The sea crashed against the big marble wall, spray misting soft and salty across my face. I licked it away and Mama jabbed me in the side with the butt of her sword.
"So I take it all the arrangements are in order?" asked Captain Hariri, Tarrin's father. "You're ready to finalize our agreement?"
"Soon as we make the trade," Papa said.
I glowered at the word trade and squirmed around in my too-tight silk dress. My breasts squeezed out the top of it, not on purpose. I know that sort of thing is supposed to be appealing to men but you wouldn't know it talking to me. At least the dress was a real pretty one, the color of cinnamon and draped the way the court ladies wore 'em a couple of seasons ago. We'd nicked it off a merchant ship a few months back. Mama had said it suited me when we were on board Papa's boat and she was lining my eyes with kohl and pinning my hair on top of my head, trying to turn me into a beauty. I could tell by the expression on Mistress Hariri's face that it hadn't worked.
"Tarrin!" Captain Hariri lifted his hand and Tarrin slunk out of the shadow of the gazebo where he'd been standing alongside his mother. The air was full up with these tiny white flowers from the trees nearby, and a couple of blossoms caught in Tarrin's hair. He was dressed like his father, in dusty old aristocratic clothes, and that was the only sign either of 'em were pirates like me and my parents.
"It's nice to meet you, Ananna of the Tanarau." He bowed, hinging at the waist. He said my name wrong.
Mama shoved me forward, and I stumbled over the hem of my dress, stained first with seawater from clomping around on the boat and then with sand from walking through Lisirra to get to this stupid garden. The Hariris were the only clan in the whole Confederation that spent more time on land than they did at sea.
Tarrin and I stared at each other for a few seconds, until Mama jabbed me in the back again, and I spat out one of the questions she made me memorize: "Have you got a ship yet?"
Tarrin beamed. "A sleek little frigate, plucked out of the Emperor's own fleet. Fastest ship on the water."
"Yeah?" I said. "You got a crew for that ship or we just gonna look at her from the wall over there?"
"Ananna," Mama hissed, even as Papa tried to stifle a laugh.
Tarrin's face crumpled up and he looked at me like a little kid that knows you're teasing him but doesn't get the joke. "Finest crew out of the western islands." It sounded rehearsed. "I got great plans for her, Mistress Tanarau." He opened his eyes up real wide and his face glowed. "I want to take her out to the Isles of the Sky."
I about choked on my own spit. "You sure that's a good idea?"
"Surely a girl raised on the Tanarau doesn't fear the Isles of the Sky."
I glared at him. The air in the garden was hot and still, like pure sunlight, and even though the horrors I'd heard about the Isles of the Sky seemed distant and made-up here, Tarrin's little plan set my nerves on edge. Even if he probably wasn't talking truth: nobody makes a path for the Isles of the Sky, on account of folks going mad from visiting that little chain of islands. They'll change you and change you until you ain't even human no more. They're pure magic, that's what Mama told me. They're the place where magic comes from.
"I know the difference between bravery and stupidity," I said. Tarrin laughed, but he looked uncomfortable, and his father was glowering and squinting into the sunlight.
"She's joking," Mama said.
"No, I ain't."
Mama cuffed me hard on the back of the head. I stumbled forward and bumped right up against Tarrin. Under the gazebo, his mother scowled in her fancy silks.
"It does sound like a nice ship, though," I muttered, rubbing at my head.
Captain Hariri puffed out his chest and coughed. "Why don't you show Mistress Tanarau your ship, boy?"
Tarrin gave him this real withering look, with enough nastiness in it to poison Lisirra's main water-well, then turned back to me and flashed me one of his ladyslaying smiles. I sighed, but my head still stung from where Mama'd smacked me, and I figured anything was better than fidgeting around in my dress while Papa and Captain Hariri yammered about the best way for the Tanarau clan to sack along the Jokja coast, now that the Tanarau had all the power of the Hariri and her richman's armada behind them. Thanks to me, Papa would've said, even though I ain't had no say in it.
Tarrin led me down this narrow staircase that took us away from the garden and up to the water's edge. Sure enough, a frigate bobbed in the ocean, the wood polished and waxed, the sails dyed pale blue wedding sails.
"You ain't flying colors yet," I said.
Tarrin's face got dark and stormy. "Father hasn't given me the right. Said I have to prove myself first."
"So if we get married, we gotta sail colorless?" I frowned.
"If we get married?" Tarrin turned to me. "I thought it was a done deal! Father and Captain Tanarau have been discussing it for months." He paused. "This better not be some Tanarau trick."
"Trust me, it ain't."
"Cause I'll tell you now, my father isn't afraid to send the assassins after his enemies."
"Oh, how old do you think I am? Five?" I walked up to the edge of the pier and thumped the boat's side with my palm. The wood was sturdy beneath my touch and smooth as silk. "I ain't afraid of assassin stories no more." I glanced over my shoulder at him. "But the Isles of the Sky, that's another matter." I paused. "That's why you want to go north, ain't it? Cause of your father?"
Tarrin didn't answer at first. Then he pushed his hair back away from his forehead and kind of smiled at me and said, "How did you know?"
"Any fool could see it."
Tarrin looked at me, his eyes big and dark. "Do you really think it's stupid?"
"Yeah."
He smiled. "I like how honest you are with me."
I almost felt sorry for him then, cause I figured, with a face like that, ain't no girl ever been honest to him in his whole life.
"We could always fly Tanarau colors," I suggested. "Stead of Hariri ones. That way you don't have to wor"
Tarrin laughed. "Please. That would be even worse."
The wrong answer. I spun away from him, tripped on my damn dress hem again, and followed the path around the side of the cliff that headed back to the front of the Hariris' manor. Tarrin trailed behind me, spitting out apologies as if it mattered. We were getting married whether or not I hated him, whether or not Mistress Hariri thought I was too ugly to join in with her clan. See, Captain Hariri was low-ranked among the loose assortment of cutthroats and thieves that formed the Confederation. Papa wasn't.
