Maren Goldweaver's Arc

Chapter 20 of 42

The whale slid them into the shallows and left them on wet sand. Maren stood up first. Her coat weighed twice what it should. Her boots were full of water. The cub climbed out of the surf and shook itself, then sat down hard and would not stand again. Miller came up beside her, dripping, one hand pressed to the gash on her forearm from the interrogator’s knife. "Sit," Miller said. He guided her down onto a piece of driftwood. He pulled a strip from the dry inner hem of his shirt and threaded a bent fish hook he'd found in his pocket. His hands were steady. He worked slow through her skin, careful as he could be. Maren watched his jaw more than the needle. Gisela stood at the tideline with her arms wrapped around herself. Her curls hung heavy with salt. Her gold bracelets were still on her wrists, but everything else was gone. "We'll never find that ledger," she said. "It's out there on another ship by now. And he's going to come for me." "Who," Maren said. "The one who sent me for it. I don't know his name. Nobody does. He doesn't forgive people who come back empty." Kato sat further up the beach, wringing out his bandana. He said nothing. His brother had put them on that ship. He had not spoken much since the deck went under. Miller tied off the stitch with his teeth. "I know this coast," he said. He looked at the low hills behind them, at a bent pine leaning south. "We're a week from home. Maybe less on foot." "We can't go home," Maren said. Her voice came out flat. "Council guards took your forge. My name is on every gate between here and there." "And we can't go back to the rebels," Gisela finished. "Not without the ledger." They sat with the sound of the surf. No food. No coin. Maren's coat lining was empty where the file had been. The cub's ribs rose and fell against her ankle. Maren looked down at her wrists. Two thin gold bangles. At her throat, a chain her father had given her. On Gisela, the same. She pulled a bracelet off and held it flat in her palm. "There's a fishing village up the coast," Miller said. "Half a day. They'll trade for gold." "Then we trade," Maren said. She worked the second bangle over her knuckle. Gisela was already unclasping her chain. Kato came over and dropped a single gold hoop into Maren's hand without a word. They walked north along the sand with the cub tucked under Maren's arm. Behind them the tide erased their prints. Ahead was a village that did not know their faces, food they could buy, and no ledger, no file, and no plan yet for how a Goldweaver without gold would win her sister free.