The Shattered Islands: Part One: The Rakam by Karpov Kinrade Read Free Book Online

1
AT SEA
 
     

     
     
    The evening sun sets low in the sky as the maiden moon begins her slow crawl into the impending twilight. Her sisters, the matron moon and crone moon, won't join her for some hours yet, the matron peaking at full dusk and the crone not showing her face until the night is at its blackest. It is my favorite time of the day, when light and dark dance in the starlit sky, wooing and flirting, the sun giving way to the sister moons each night, waiting for his time to shine again come morning.
    I breathe in deeply the scent of the sea, of the salt and wind, of the brackish waves that crash against the underbelly of the great kiasheen who glides effortlessly through it all, as if the giant shells packed with humans on its back matter little. I stand at the rostrum, peering over the great whale's head as it moves us toward our next port two days north, where jewels will trade hands for spices and cloths and the rich will get richer.
    But I am not here for riches. For wealth. For the temporary haze of half-felt happiness those earthly pleasures offer.
    My gloved hand clutches the ridge of the shell as the sea sends a splash of itself against the heat of my face. Dark locks of hair fall over my eyes and I close them, listening. Praying. Wondering. Searching for all that is lost.
    "Sev!" A stern voice calls to me with a name that is not my given, and I turn to see Captain Kanen eyeing me with distrust. "Do ye not sleep, lad?"
    "The moons keep me awake," I tell him truthfully. It might be the only true thing I've said in my entire time with his crew.
    "The moons, the sun, the waves. Ye be drowning in ye own haze if ye don't lay yer head soon," he says, crossing heavily muscled arms over his broad chest. He is a man of the sea, hailing from one of the lesser families of the Shattered Islands. Hints of blue and turquoise in his hair, eyes and nails show his meager abilities to wield the island water stones, but he doesn't need them to captain. He was a man born to make love to the sea; you can see it in the way they peer at each other at night, when he thinks no one is looking. His face is weathered, lined with the sun and salt of a life on water, his body hardened from years of labor on the kiasheen whale-ships. His crew trusts him, that I've seen clearly. It is not just the scars that occupy half his face and neck… the scars he earned at the sharp end of a rakam. His survival is a thing of legends in itself, and makes a man such as him a god in the eyes of his crew. And they do not follow him out of greed or fear, though that would certainly be enough motivation for some. They follow him because they see in him the sea-song that anyone drawn to this life craves.
    It is why I chose him, chose his whale-ship, for this journey. "Whether I drown in my haze or not, you've gotten your pay."
    He nods gruffly. "Aye, that I have. Not many men willingly part with that many stones for a trip like this. Makes my men nervous, it does. Yer secrets. Yer skulking."
    He peers at me with dark eyes streaked with light blue.
    My own eyes have none of their original darkness left. It is the one trait I cannot change, the startling blue of my eyes. I am a dark-haired man with too-blue eyes and too many secrets for his liking, but wealth often trumps suspicion, I've found, at least for a time.
    "We will part ways at the next dock," I assure him. Barring any delays, I think, but I don't put that thought to words. No need to make him more restless.
    His head jerks forward once, like a spasm at his neck. "See that we do, and all is well."
    Sea folk are a superstitious lot, more so than most of the Shattered Islands. They spend their lives out here on the waters and they forget how to live within normal society. They are too much surrounded by monsters and waves and a world beyond their control.
    The captain whistles and shouts commands at someone above me. I look up to the shell that rides atop ropes of kelp, its small passenger staring