Chapter 8: First Port — Keraven

Keraven greeted the Gray Current with the smell of fish, tar, and too many people crammed into too little space — a port town of all three kingdoms, where merchants, smugglers, fishermen, and every sort of person who found it easier to disappear into a crowd than explain themselves to any of the three crowns all washed up together. The streets climbed the hillside from the docks in narrow, crooked staircases, and over it all hung a smell of the sea far thicker and sharper than in open water — as if the whole port were a wound the sea itself kept seeping through into the land.

Captain Darnveil went ashore first to settle formalities with the harbor officials, leaving Mira, Tobb, and Hasso a different task: to ask the town about things one didn't ask about in polite company.

"We'll start at the market," Hasso decided, leading them confidently through the tangle of alleys with the air of a man who'd been here more often than he was ready to admit. "If anyone in this town knows anything about singers, it's the ones trading on the edge of the law. Smugglers hear more rumors than any harbor clerk."

Keraven's market turned out to be a loud, colorful maze of stalls selling everything — fresh fish, dubious "protection from the sea curse" charms. Mira stayed close to Tobb, trying not to draw attention, though every nerve in her body drew taut at the sight of anyone in a uniform cloak, reminding her of Inquisitor Renhart's polite smile.

The captain had given them only a few hours before departure — he had no wish to linger in port longer than necessary, remembering Renhart's warning that he'd be patrolling these waters a good while yet. Mira kept catching herself glancing over her shoulder, scanning the crowd for a gray cloak and colorless eyes, though her mind knew perfectly well that even if the inquisitor really was prowling nearby, he was unlikely to be wandering a fish market in person.

"Relax," Tobb advised quietly, noticing her tension. "You'll wear yourself into a fit before we've even learned anything."

"Easy for you to say. It's not you the entire Royal Service is hunting."

"Technically," Tobb attempted a smile, "if they catch you on the ship I'm also sailing on, they'll technically be hunting me too. So I've got full rights to be nervous right along with you."

Despite the awkward joke, Mira felt a flicker of gratitude that he'd even tried to distract her.

One fishmonger, gutting his catch by the water's edge, dropped his knife at the word "singers" and went so pale Mira feared he might faint on the spot.

"Not here," he hissed, glancing around as if the mere spoken word might draw disaster down on them. "Are you mad, asking that out in the open market? Half these stalls have the Inquisition's eyes and ears at them. Get out of here before you bring trouble down on all of us."

Another vendor, selling "protection from the sea curse" charms, brightened almost greedily at the question, immediately trying to sell them a vial of "genuine singer's blood," which even she clearly didn't believe in herself, judging by how quickly she dropped the price the moment Tobb made as if to walk away. An hour of asking around turned up nothing but evasive looks and hasty "I don't know what you mean, girl" — most of the traders either genuinely knew nothing or knew just enough to fear the question itself. Mira had nearly given up hope when Hasso suddenly stopped at an unassuming stall at the very edge of the market, where an old woman with a cloth tied tight over her eyes was selling dried seaweed and jars of cloudy tinctures.

"Come on," Hasso said quietly. "I think we've found it."

The old woman was, evidently, blind — her eyes didn't move behind the cloth when she turned her head toward the sound of footsteps — but her fingers moved over the wares spread before her with the precision of someone for whom sight had never been the primary sense.

"Fresh seaweed, young ones? Or something stronger, for aching bones?" Her voice was creaky, but surprisingly resonant for such a frail-looking body.

"We don't need seaweed, grandmother," Hasso said gently, crouching to bring himself level with her face. "We need to talk about old writing. About marks on the water."

The old woman went still — not theatrically, but genuinely, as if the words had struck her like a real blow. Her fingers froze over a bundle of dried weeds, and for a moment the whole noise of the market around them seemed to hush.

"Who sent you?" she asked at last, dropping her voice to barely a whisper.

"No one. We found our own way here." Hasso nodded toward Mira, though the old woman couldn't see it. "I've got a girl with me who hears the sea the way no one should. Three nights ago, the water around our ship wrote: 'She has returned.' I don't know what it means. But I think you do."

For a long moment the old woman said nothing, feeling the air before her, as if trying through touch alone to decide whether these strangers could be trusted.

"My name is Veyra," she said at last. "And yes. I know what it means. Knew it once, long before the whole world decided it was better not to know at all." She reached a hand out into the space before her. "Give me your hand, girl. I want to be sure I'm not mistaken."

Mira, hesitating only a moment, extended her hand. The old woman's fingers, dry and wrinkled but surprisingly strong, closed around her wrist, and Mira felt a faint, almost imperceptible tingle — not pain, but something like recognition, as if the old woman's very skin could read in her what eyes could not see.

"Yes," Veyra whispered, releasing her hand as abruptly as if burned. "Yes, it's you. At last. How many years I've waited for someone to come asking this question again."

Meanwhile Tobb kept glancing around nervously, evidently remembering the terrified fishmonger's warning about the Inquisition's eyes and ears everywhere.

"Maybe we shouldn't linger here," he said quietly. "Bit too many people around for this kind of talk."

Veyra, hearing this, gave a mirthless little laugh, though her fingers had already begun anxiously gathering up her wares on their own.

"The boy's right. Even a blind old woman can count the footsteps of strangers lingering around her stall, and these last few days there's been suspiciously more of them than the trading season calls for."

She rose, groaning, and began hastily packing her wares back into their box, as if she'd suddenly decided to close the stall early.

"Not here," she said, answering Hasso's unspoken question. "Too many ears, too many eyes, even sightless ones like mine. Come to my home. What I have to tell you isn't for the marketplace crowd."