Chapter 8: Without a PaddleThe port of Valienta was an assault on the senses, a chaotic, churning beast of commerce that smelled of fish guts, tar, and unwashed ambition. It was loud, dangerous, and swarming with the kind of desperate souls who would cut a purse for a copper.

  Miz’ri Niranath took a deep breath, the salt air stinging her nose, and smiled. Finally. This was an ecosystem she understood.

  Beside her, Talisa was faltering. The pilgrim, now dressed in her practical brown breeches and canvas tunic, looked less like a walking funeral and more like a lost farmhand. She stood at the edge of the shipping office, clutching her coin purse with white-knuckled desperation as a burly harbor master ughed in her face.

  “Two hundred marks for a passenger skiff?” Talisa squeaked, her voice barely audible over the screaming of seagulls. “Sir, that is extortion! The Ministry pilgrimage travel guidelines state—”

  “The Ministry ain’t here, love,” the man spat, turning back to his ledger. “Take it or swim.”

  Talisa retreated, her shoulders slumped. She walked back to where Miz’ri was leaning against a stack of crates, casually shielding the hunchbacked, heavily bundled form of Herkel from view.

  “It’s impossible,” Talisa whispered, her face pale. “We don’t have enough. Even if I sold the rest of my jewelry, we’d only get halfway upriver. We’re stuck.”

  Miz’ri pushed off the crates, adjusting the vibrant red scarf Talisa had forced upon her. It felt ridiculous, but she had to admit, the way the dockworkers’ eyes lingered on the color and not her obsidian skin was effective.

  “We aren’t stuck, Marshmallow,” Miz’ri drawled. “We’re just done with the boring part.”

  Talisa looked up, arm bells clearly ringing in her blue eyes. “Miz’ri. No. We discussed this. We blend. We pay.”

  “We tried your way. Your way involves begging a fish-man for permission to leave,” Miz’ri countered, stepping past her. She moved with a sudden, predatory fluidity, the swagger of a woman who had spent decades navigating the treacherous underbelly of Dark Elven politics. “Now we do it my way. Stay close, keep your head down, and for the love of the Void, don’t pray at anyone.”

  Miz’ri led them away from the passenger docks and toward the private moorings. This was where the money sat. Sleek pleasure yachts bobbed next to fast courier skiffs. Security was tighter here—guards in actual uniforms patrolled the boardwalks—but Miz’ri navigated the gaps in their patrol patterns with insulting ease.

  “There,” Miz’ri murmured, nodding toward the end of a long, narrow pier.

  It was a small, aggressive-looking craft. Not a lumbering fishing trawler, but a courier skiff—narrow hull, polished wood, and built for speed. It was docked in the shadow of a massive cargo hauler, effectively hidden from the main watchtower.

  “It’s… it’s beautiful,” Talisa admitted, then caught herself. “And it belongs to someone else!”

  “And now it belongs to us, temporarily.” Miz’ri quipped. “Just like how you belong to me temporarily.” Talisa blushed and put her hands on her hips. The dark elf drank in the embarrassed pout on her face.“Pappy, you’re lookout. If anyone comes down this pier that isn’t us, rattle.”

  Herkel, looking like a terrifyingly tall hunchback in his coat and hat, gave a stiff nod and took up a position by a pile of lobster traps.

  Miz’ri dropped onto the deck of the skiff. It wobbled slightly under her weight, riding low in the water. She turned back to the dock, looking up at Talisa. The drop was about four feet—easy for an elf, daunting for a clumsy human. “Jump,” Miz’ri commanded, holding out her arms.

  Talisa hesitated, looking at the dark, oily water swirling between the dock and the boat. “I… I’m not sure I can make that, Miz’ri. ”

  “Jump, or I leave you here to expin Pappy to the Valientan port authority,” Miz’ri hissed, checking the pier over Talisa’s shoulder. Talisa squeezed her eyes shut and stepped off the edge. It wasn’t a jump so much as a controlled fall. She nded hard against Miz’ri, the sudden weight of her impacting the slender woman with force. Miz’ri braced herself, her boots skidding slightly on the damp deck, and caught the girl.

  For a second, the world narrowed to the point of impact. Miz’ri’s hands cmped instinctively onto Talisa’s waist and hips to stabilize them both. The girl was heavy, solid, and soft—a stark contrast to the wiry, hard muscle of the Dark Elf. Talisa gasped, her hands clutching Miz’ri’s shoulders, her chest pressed flush against the leather of Miz’ri’s armor. They stood there, the boat rocking gently beneath them, caught in a breathless tangle of limbs. Miz’ri could feel the heat radiating off the girl, could feel the rapid hammering of her heart.

  “Got you,” Miz’ri whispered, the words coming out softer than she intended. The silence in her head receded, pushed back by the sheer, overwhelming physical presence of the warm human in her arms.

  Talisa blinked open her eyes, looking up. Her face was inches away, flushed and startled. “Oh. Thank you.”

  Miz’ri held her for a second longer than necessary, her thumbs pressing into the soft curve of Talisa’s hip bone, before she shoved the girl gently toward the stern. “Don’t get used to it. You’re heavy.” Miz’ri snapped back into professional mode. “Herkel! Move!”

  The skeleton dropped from the pier with surprising grace, nding with a ctter that sounded suspiciously like loose change. He immediately scrambled under the canvas tarp at the bow, curling his long limbs into a ball until he looked like nothing more than a pile of spare sails.

  Miz’ri moved to the stern, expecting to find a tiller and a sail rope. Instead, she stared down at a baffling array of crystal levers, brass gears, and a hum of tent energy that made her teeth ache.

  “What in the sun scorched hell is this?” Miz’ri growled, staring at the control console.

  This wasn’t a boat. It was a machine. A Valientan Magicraft. There were no oars. No sails. Just a glowing blue crystal set into a brass housing and a series of runes that looked like gibberish.

  “It’s… it’s arcane,” Talisa whispered, creeping up beside her. “Industrial arcana, I’ve read about these. They use trapped elementals for all sorts of things.”

  “I don’t care if they use ensved hamsters, how do I make it go?” Miz’ri hissed, grabbing a lever and yanking it. Nothing happened. The crystal pulsed zily, mocking her. Boots sounded on the wood of the pier above them. Heavy, rhythmic boots.

  “Patrol,” Miz’ri whispered, the ice flooding her veins. She looked at the useless machine, then at the water. Her hand drifted to the hilt of her sword. “This is useless. We’re sitting ducks. I’m going to go up there, cut the guard's throat, and we steal a rowboat. It’s quieter.”

  She turned to climb back up, the lethal intent clear in her eyes.

  “No!” Talisa grabbed her wrist. “No more killing! I can do this!”

  “You?” Miz’ri sneered, trying to pull away. “You knit doilies and pray to bones, Talisa, what can you do that I can't?”

  “I can be patient!” Talisa argued, her voice high and frantic as the footsteps grew louder. She pushed past Miz’ri, her hands hovering over the console. “The runic script is in Dwarven, I know a little. Just, hold on, please, Miz.”

  “Hey! Who’s down there?” a voice shouted from the pier. A guard’s head poked over the edge, squinting into the shadows.

  Miz’ri froze, her hand tightening on her sword. “Do it, Marshmallow,” she breathed, the threat hanging in the air. “Do it now.”

  Talisa didn’t look up. Her fingers danced over the brass housing. She tapped a rune on the left, twisted the central crystal clockwise, and then smmed her palm down on a copper pte.

  VRMMMMMM.

  The boat shuddered violently. A low, throaty hum vibrated through the deck ptes, and the water at the stern began to churn with magical force. The guard’s eyes went wide. “Hey! Stop!”

  “Go!” Miz’ri roared, grabbing the tiller.

  Talisa yanked a lever back, and the skiff surged forward like a bolt from a crossbow. Miz’ri was thrown back against the seat, ughing wildly as the sudden acceleration pinned her there. They shot away from the pier, leaving a confused guard and a spray of white foam in their wake.

  “I did it!” Talisa screamed over the roar of the engine, turning to Miz’ri with a face split by a blinding, triumphant grin. “Look at us go!”

  Miz’ri wrestled the tiller, swinging the boat hard to the left to avoid a lumbering barge. The wind whipped her white hair and the red scarf around her face. She looked at the pilgrim—disheveled, terrified, and vibrating with the thrill of the crime.

  “Not bad, for a doily-knitter,” Miz’ri shouted back. They tore out of the harbor, cutting a white line through the dark water, heading north toward the wild, dangerous freedom of the river.

  The river was a grey, churning artery that cut straight through the heart of the continent, and for the first few hours, it demanded their absolute respect. The Valientan Magicraft skiff was fast—terrifyingly so—and keeping it from smashing into driftwood or sandbars required Miz’ri’s full, white-knuckled attention.

  But as the sun began its slow descent, painting the water in bruised hues of purple and orange, the river widened. The current smoothed out. The frantic escape turned into a steady, rhythmic hum.

  “Pappy, take the stick,” Miz’ri commanded, peeling her fingers off the vibrating tiller. She flexed her hands, the red leather gloves creaking. “I need to stretch a bit.”

  Herkel, who had been sitting under the tarp like a pile of anxious undry, unfolded himself. He took the tiller with a skeletal hand, his empty sockets fixed on the horizon with perfect, unblinking vigince. It turned out the dead made excellent pilots; they never got bored, and they never needed to pee.

  Free from the burden of command, Miz’ri slumped back against the gunwale, stretching her long legs out. She watched Talisa. The girl was sitting near the engine housing, bathed in the soft blue glow of the arcane crystals. She had stopped fidgeting with the levers and was now just staring at Miz’ri, her blue eyes wide and filled with that maddening, naive curiosity.

  The silence stretched, heavy and comfortable only for the dead man driving the boat. “Does it mean ‘Misery’?” Talisa asked suddenly, her voice cutting through the engine’s drone.

  Miz’ri narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “Your name,” Talisa crified, hugging her knees to her chest. “Miz’ri. In the Common Tongue, it sounds like ‘misery.’ Is that… on purpose? Is it a Dark Elven thing? To name your children after suffering?”

  Miz’ri sat up, offended. She looked at the girl—soft, round, smelling of river water and sweat—and felt a spike of irritation. “My mother did not name me after a human emotion, you illiterate turnip,” Miz’ri scoffed. “It’s Miz’ri. The inflection is on the throat, not the tongue.”

  “Oh,” Talisa blinked. “So… what does it mean? Mine means ‘Dew of the Father.’ Which sounds nothing like TAH-LEE-SAH, so it made me wonder what yours means.” She gave a nervous little ugh. “It couldn't possibly be literal!”

  Miz’ri stared at her. Dew of the Father. It suited her. Moist, fleeting, and entirely dependent on the sun.

  “It means ‘Bright Bloom’,” Miz’ri muttered, looking away toward the passing tree line.

  “Bright Bloom?” Talisa repeated, skepticism coloring her tone.

  “In the Reaches Below, there is no sun,” Miz’ri expined, her voice dropping into the lecture tone she usually reserved for expining which knife went where. “It is an endless void. But in the deepest, most crushing depths, there grows a fungus. A small, violent little thing that glows with a piercing white light. It lures prey in with its beauty, then dissolves them for nutrients.” She fshed a sharp-toothed grin at Talisa. “It is the only light in the dark. It is beautiful, and it is fatal. That is Miz’ri.”

  Talisa sat with that information for a long moment. She looked at the lethal woman lounging across from her—the obsidian skin, the white hair in a harsh braid, the deadly sword, the scowl that could curdle milk. And then she looked at the red scarf wrapped jauntily around the woman’s neck. A smile tugged at the corner of Talisa’s mouth. Then another. Until she was beaming with a look that Miz’ri found deeply suspicious. “So,” Talisa started, a dangerous lilt in her voice. “You’re a flower. A little glowing flower.”

  Miz’ri narrowed her eyes. “A fatal flower. A carnivorous beacon of death.”

  “Mmhmm,” Talisa hummed, leaning forward. The fear that usually dictated her interactions with the elf seemed to have melted away in the golden hour light. “You know, that’s actually… really cute. You’re named after a night-light.”

  The word hit Miz’ri like a physical sp. Cute. It rattled around her skull, bouncing off her carefully constructed self-image of terror and seduction. Cute was for puppies and peasant girls. Cute was harmless. Miz’ri Niranath was a storm of bdes and shadow. She was sex and death wrapped in leather. She was not cute. A flush of deep, violet blood rushed to her cheeks, heating her face in a way that felt horrifyingly like embarrassment. The silence in her head roared back to life, screaming at the indignity.

  “I am not cute,” Miz’ri growled, the purr in her voice repced by a jagged edge.

  “You’re blushing,” Talisa pointed out, delighted. “Look at you! You’re all flustered. My little deadly posy.”

  That did it.

  Miz’ri moved before the thought fully formed. She lunged across the small gap between them, a blur of motion that ended with her hand tangling viciously in Talisa’s brown curls.

  “Eep!” Talisa yelped, but the sound was cut short as Miz’ri yanked her head back, exposing the pale, vulnerable arch of her throat to the twilight air. Miz’ri loomed over her, pinning the girl against the engine housing. She brought her face inches from Talisa’s, breathing hard, her red eyes burning with a mix of fury and desperate, confused arousal.

  “Do I look cute now, ste’kol?” Miz’ri hissed, tightening her grip on the curly brown hair just enough to sting, just enough to remind the girl who was the owner and who was the toy. “I am not a flower you press in a book. I am not your light in the darkness. I am the thing that’s going to eat you when you stray off the path.” She expected fear. She wanted the tremble. She needed to see the pupil dite in terror to soothe the itch under her skin.

  “Miz… wait…” Talisa gasped, her hands coming up to grip Miz’ri’s wrist. Her eyes were wide, darting frantically over Miz’ri’s shoulder. “Miz… please…”

  “Begging already?” Miz’ri ughed, a low, cruel sound. She leaned in, her tongue darting out to taste the pulse point on Talisa’s neck. “That’s better. Scream for me.”

  “No! Look!” Talisa shrieked, shoving Miz’ri’s shoulder with panicked strength. “The river! Look at the river!” At the bow, Herkel let out a sudden, violent rattle—a sound like stones in a tin can being thrown down stairs.

  Miz’ri whipped her head around, her hand still tangled in Talisa’s hair.

  Ahead of them, the wide, smooth river had vanished. In its pce was a graveyard of timber. A massive, artificial dam made of smashed hulls, driftwood, and cargo crates blocked the entire width of the water. And standing on top of the wreckage, silhouetted against the dying sun, were silhouettes. Dozens of them holding eborate looking bows.

  “Ambush!” Miz’ri roared, releasing Talisa and scrambling for her sword.

  But before her fingers could touch the hilt, the air filled with the whistling song of a hundred elven arrows arcing into the sky.