Gavin hadn’t watched the shot, though. He was studying the musket. There appeared to be knobs and small dials in the space revealed by the extended stock, marked with tiny runes. That Gunner didn’t call attention to them made Gavin believe that the pirate hadn’t yet figured out what they did.

“May I?” Gavin said.

Gunner looked at him. He laughed. “Former Prism though you be, Gunner’s no fool enough to put magic in your hands.” He spat into the sea, then took a rag and began cleaning the black powder residue off the blade. “Have to hold her real careful. Dangerous as Ceres, this one.” He sank into thought, and Gavin wondered if he’d been brought onto deck simply for Gunner to show off.

Not that he minded. Any rest from the oars was rest. Of course, he’d rather not have muskets discharged in his general direction while he was resting, but beggars and choosers and all that.

“What ransom should I ask for you?” Gunner asked.

Ah, so he brought me up to talk? And couldn’t help but shoot at my head, though he had a ransom in mind? Maybe the madness wasn’t all for show. “My father believes me dead. Hell, Gunner, I believed me dead.” And like that the memory was back, hot and sharp: Grinwoody crashing into them, two blades and four men, and Gavin had seen that there was no way to save Kip from the tangle of hands and odd angles—except to divert the blade into his own chest.

Whatever possessed me? Oh, Karris, did I do it just to do one thing that might make you proud of me?

But thoughts of Karris were too painful. She was all color in a world gone gray.

And his own father had only wanted the dagger. Musket-sword now, Gavin supposed. The Blinder’s Knife, Andross had called it. It was one thing to wonder if your father cares more about gold or status than he does about you. Every son of every rich and powerful man must fear that, but that his father would kill him for a dagger? His own father?

“The boy,” Gavin said. “Where is he?”

“Threw him overboard for Ceres. As thanks. Ceres and me is square now.” Gunner grinned unpleasantly. “How much, little Guile? Five hells, what do I call you? Dazen? Feels like talking to a ghost.”

“You can call me Gavin. It’s easier. You can ask any ransom you like. The more ridiculous, the better. He’ll stall you until he can get spies to confirm you have me. Truth is, he’ll botch it so that you kill me and he can hunt you down afterward. He’ll make it look like you’re bloodthirsty and he had no blame in making you kill me. He doesn’t want me, Gunner.”

Gunner grinned like he liked a challenge, and the mask was back. “So’s long as he wants you as much as a pants pox, why should Gunner keep you resting tidy next to his own joyful jewels?”

Oops. But Gavin’s golden tongue was already moving. “If you kill me, he can give up his pretense that he wants to ransom me. That means he won’t load up a treasure ship in the first place. He’ll just bring the warships.”

Gunner scowled. He jumped up on the gunwale, squatted, one hand holding on to a rigging line, thinking. “You’re being turrable helpful.” Gunner spat in the ocean again. “Funny thing about the Angari. Feed their galley slaves like they’re freemen. You seen? Treat ’em real good. The best slaves on the crew get taken in to port, fed real food, even taked to a bosom house. They lose a man every so often doing that, but it makes the whole crew work hard. Feeding ’em good makes ’em strong. Cuts what cargo you can carry since ya has to carry so much food. But this little here galley can go two or three times as fast as most anything on the Cerulean Sea. A few galleasses could chase me down if the wind was right, but if I have room, I can cut against the wind and leave ’em behind. They shot the Everdark Gates in this ship. She’s light as a cork and fast as a swallow. Perfect ship for a pirate, if you can snatch up enough cargoes. Beautiful little ship. And only the four swivel guns and one long tom. This is the best galley with the best crew on the whole sea—” Gunner dropped his voice to a whisper. “And I hate her. One cannon! One. I should demand Pash Vecchio’s great ship, what’s her name?”

“The Gargantua?” Gavin asked.

“That’s it!”

“That might be difficult—”

“Your father’s the Red. He’s richer than Orholam. You’re the Prism. They’d revirginize old whores to get you back.”

“I sank the Gargantua. Before the battle at Ru Harbor.”

In a moment, Gunner had drawn a pistol from his belt, cocked it, stuck it over the hollow of Gavin’s right eye. A killing rage lit his eyes. Whatever part of his madness was for show, this part wasn’t that. With difficulty, he uncocked the pistol. “This prisoner is exuberical,” Gunner said. “Put him back on his oar until he works it off.”

Chapter 5

Teia and some of the Blackguards finished their morning calisthenics on the Wanderer’s rear castle as the sun climbed the horizon. She and Cruxer and five of the other top inductees were the only ones from their Blackguard trainee class on this ship. The others were on another ship with the other half of the remaining full Blackguards. Though they were constantly reminded that they hadn’t taken full vows and were thus not full Blackguards yet, that didn’t mean the Blackguards watered down the nunks’ exercises. Cruxer had followed their example manfully, and they had followed Cruxer’s as well as they could, muddling through complicated forms they’d seen but had not yet learned.

Commander Ironfist, leading them, took no notice of the stragglers. The legendary warrior had always been a cipher, but for the past week he’d been even more intense than usual. Teia didn’t know if the exercises (and their horrible butchery of them) was another pedagogical technique, or if the leader of the Blackguard simply didn’t see them. Regardless, the commander scrubbed his scalp with a wet cloth, cooling off. He had a stubble of wiry hair on his head now. He’d stopped shaving it bald and anointing it with oil after the Battle of Ru, more specifically, after the Miracle Shot—a prayer and six thousand paces and a direct hit on a newborn god. He glanced at the rising sun, its disk not yet fully clear of the horizon, glowered, and wrapped his ghotra around his head and headed down the steep steps to midships.

Working the soreness out of an ankle she’d twisted when she’d stumbled on a rope—er, line, on a ship, apparently—during an unfamiliar form, Teia walked over to the gunwale where Kip and Gavin Guile had plunged into the sea a week ago.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Cruxer asked, coming up beside her at the railing. Little Daelos, the shade to Cruxer’s sunshine, came with him.

Cruxer could have been talking about a hundred things. Hard to believe that they’d fought in a battle? That they’d lost? That they’d fought a real god? Hard to believe that Gavin Guile was dead? But he wasn’t talking about any of those, and Teia knew it. “Impossible,” she said flatly.

“How are you doing with it?” he asked.

Her elbows resting on the railing, she turned and looked at him, disbelieving. Sometimes Cruxer could be the most excellent human being she’d ever met. Other times, he was a moron. “It’s a lie, Cruxer. It’s all lies.”

“But the Red wouldn’t lie,” Cruxer said weakly. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Cruxer had grown up with good people in authority over him, and he was scrupulously moral himself, so he didn’t have the reflexive disrespect and suspicion toward those in power a slave girl did.