START OF BOOK TWO

Chapter 1: A Sullen Kind of Peace

“You can cheat the world, cheat yourself, but try as you might, death will have its due.”

-The Golden Son, to his father’s corpse (second-hand account), 175 U.E.

Month of Spirit, 190 U.E.

Stephan activated the enchantment with a button press on the control panel and a whispered command word. He took a step back, regarding his work. Yin stood beside him.

A red-skinned demon danced on the facade of the bar, glowing hardlight making jerky movements. The demon held up a glass, swept it, and spat fire, eyes bulging, then repeated the motion. ‘Sweet Devil’ a line read below the creature in cursive lettering.

“Not bad, huh?” Stephan asked, unable to keep a smile off his face.

“Don’t you think the sign’ll keep people away?” Yin retorted. “I mean, poor guy’s literally vomiting fire.”

Stephan clicked his tongue. “It’s a joke. They’ll get it.”

“If you say so.”

They lingered, silent, in awe of what they had accomplished. Just a few months ago, the bar had been a pile of rubble, destroyed by the Concordians. Willby’s family had sold the Sweet Devil to him for a pittance, and he had started fresh, restoring the place from nothing.

It had not been easy, quick, or cheap.

But it was his.

The building had two stories, the first reserved for the bar and the second for his and Yin’s living quarters. It was built from quality wood, clean and symmetrical, with a fresh coat of blue paint, white around the windows. The door was heavy oak with carved ornamentations around the edges, a sturdy lock set into it. The window panes were bullet glass, sure to repel potential thieves while avoiding the need for unsightly metal bars. The roof had a steep slant, ceramic tiles overlapped in perfect unison.

It was enough to make a grown man cry. Almost. Stephan cleared his throat and held back a sniffle.

“We’re ready to open,” Stephan said, ruffling his daughter’s jet-black hair. “How’s that feel, huh?”

Yin batted away his hand and set about fixing her hair. “Pretty good, I guess.”

Stephan gave her a playful shove. “‘I guess’? Nuh-uh. That’s not good enough, young lady.”

She hid a smile behind her hand. “Fine. It feels good. Still don’t know if anyone’s going to show up, though.”

“They will. We just need to get the word out.”

In just a few months, Yin had shot up in height, almost as tall as him now, but still rail-thin. She ate enough for two men, but it seemed that most of that energy went towards maintaining her augmented physique. He’d already had to buy her two new wardrobes to keep up with her growth spurt, and she was on track to outgrowing the latest one, too.

“What now?” Yin asked.

“Let’s do something to celebrate,” Stephan said.

“What about a drink?”

“That’s a hard no. You’re fourteen, sweet pea. Get back to me in four years.”

“Tumba doesn’t have an age limit for drinking.”

“Stephan Lordling does.”

Yin gave a deep sigh and muttered something in True Speech that mentioned Stephan’s supposed fondness for equestrian copulation.

“Language,” Stephan said.

Yin’s cheeks purpled. “Sorry.”

Stephan had brushed up on his True Speech since settling down from piracy for this specific reason. Yin liked her pithy barbs, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to understand what she was saying.

“No, we’re not going to be drinking,” Stephan continued, “but I do have something in mind.”

“What is it?”

Stephan just smiled. He headed inside to fetch his things.

*****

“Fishing?” Yin groaned, staring at the red float that bobbed on the surface of the water. “You couldn’t come up with anything better, really?”

Stephan leaned back in his chair on the end of the docks, sunglasses shielding his eyes, sleeves rolled up, sunscreen liberally applied. He maintained a lazy grip on his fishing rod. “Yup,” he said. “Fishing’s a great bonding activity, you know.”

Yin cupped her chin in her hands, cheeks smushed, fishing rod pinned under her foot. She wore a set of matching sunglasses and a floppy fishing hat that he had forced onto her. “If ‘suicide pact’ counts as bonding, then yeah, sure.”

“You’re being dramatic. Just wait until the fish start biting.”

“We’ve been here half an hour. They’re not biting, Dad.”

“Patience.”

People passed behind them in throngs, a steady murmur of voices making a pleasant backdrop. The sun was still high in the air, just starting to dip, and the waters shone clear as glass.

Yin’s line suddenly went taut. The wooden rod curved. Snapping to attention, Yin gripped the rod and hoisted it up.

“Woah,” Stephan said, lifting his sunglasses a hair. “You’ve got something there.”

The line shivered, jerked back and forth, under great tension. The rod bent, bent, bent, and Yin stood up, planting her feet firmly on the ground. “It’s big,” she grunted.

The line snapped.

Stephan hoisted up his own and knelt over the edge of the dock to see what she’d hooked. A huge, dark shape hugged the sandy bottom, headed for deeper waters. Bigger than a man by far. A shark.

“You had a bull shark on the hook,” Stephan said. “Not every day you see that.”

“Just when things were getting interesting, too,” Yin said with a sigh. Digging into his bait box, she pulled out a thicker steel wire that she tied to a rusty metal rod found nearby. She stuck a bit of raw, bloody meat on the sturdy hook and threw it over the edge.

“I’ll get him next time,” she said. A competitive glint alighted in her eyes.

Stephan smiled and threw his line back out.

A golden silence followed. Sitting next to his daughter, their eyes locked on the floats, he was at peace. Then he got to worrying. Something he’d been doing a lot lately.

The Concord was besieging the archipelago, closing the noose one island at a time. A whole division, more than ten thousand soldiers. They were led by Ario Merini, the man responsible for the destruction of Sweet Devil. So far, the response from the Free Cities had been disorganized and ineffective.

Not many were talking about it, but there was a heavy pressure in the air. Everyone knew what was happening. Before long, the Free Cities might not be so free.

Stephan pulled up his line to check the bait and found that fish had nibbled it down to a little pale scrap. Sighing, he cleaned the hook and stuck on a fresh piece before throwing it back in.

Being honest with himself, it seemed unlikely that the pirates would repel the Concordians. They didn’t have the numbers, arms, or leadership. He had entertained some brief hope that Elandra might step in to prevent the Concord from gaining a strong foothold so close to their borders, but there had been no word from the dynasties. The God Rulers condoned the occupation through their silence.

Yin rose with a cry. Her rod bent. Metal groaned. The steel wire shuddered.

“Ha!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got you now, fishy cunt!”

“Language,” Stephan said, but she ignored him.

A quick peek confirmed that it was indeed a shark at the end of the line, thrashing and throwing up sprays of water. Yin put her full strength against the beast. She kicked off her shoes, and her toes dug grooves in the crumbling stone. She growled, hands gripping the rod so tight all the color had gone out of her knuckles.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said. “We haven’t got the line or the hook for this.”

“Shut up, old man,” Yin said. “You’ll jinx me.” Just as she said it, the line snapped. She fell on her butt. Her face screwed up with childlike fury. “That’s it. I’m done playing.”

Bouncing back on her feet, she threw off her hat and sunglasses and padded up to the stone lip of the dock’s edge.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Stephan asked.

Yin didn’t respond. She leapt off the edge, soaring several meters towards the streamlined shark as it shot away from the dock. She hit the water arms first and drove into the water like an arrow.

Stephan rose, hand to his forehead.

That child, I swear…

She went in there unarmed, too.

Girl met shark, and the two became a blur of grey and green. Both moved with explosive speed.

Stephan paced on the dock, powerless. His hand drifted to the Rivello pistol in his underarm holster, but he thought better of it. He was just as likely to hit his daughter as the beast.

The shark snapped and lunged, wheeling in circles. Yin clung to its dorsal fin and delivered a barrage of quick jabs to its gills.

“Come on, Yin,” he whispered. “Get out of there.”

Nearly thrown off by a sudden flick of its tail, Yin held on with one hand. She dragged herself onto its back, legs locking around its fat neck, and grabbed its nose with both hands. With a sharp pull, the beast’s jaw snapped back, unnaturally. A cloud of red spilled from its maw. Its tail swung haphazardly, once, twice, three times. Then the bull shark became still, drifting to the sandy bottom.

Yin kicked off and came up for air. She gasped, hair streaked to her cheeks and neck. Stephan shouted for her to come back on land, but she ignored his pleas. Diving back down, she grasped the unmoving shark by its broken jaw and dragged it along the seafloor, stomping her feet deep into the soft sand for purchase.

Arms crossed, foot tapping, Stephan waited while his daughter hauled up her monstrous prize. Stumbling, she came out of the water, shark hoisted over her skinny shoulders like an ant carrying a prey item many times its own size. With a grunt, she hoisted the bull shark onto the dock with a heavy, wet plop. Yin came up after, vaulting onto the stone ledge in a single bound.

“I suppose you’re pleased with yourself,” Stephan said.

“Like father, like daughter, I guess,” she panted, nodding to the shark tooth scars on his arm.

Stephan scoffed. He was about to cook up some nasty punishment, but became distracted as he looked closer at the bull shark.

One of its eyes was foggy and ruined, split down the middle by a yawning gash.

“More than you know,” Stephan said absently. “That’s… That’s the same shark I fought! You killed it!”

Yin gave a sarcastic bow. “You’re welcome.” She began wringing the water from her clothes.

Stephan chuckled despite himself. That was some catch. He gave the dead shark a final kick on the nose for good measure.