Isle of Blood and Stone by Makiia Lucier

Author:Makiia Lucier
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The morning had not gone as Elias had intended. There was some delay and screaming as fresh water was located to flush out the captain’s eyes, which had taken on a grisly appearance. The whites had gone red with inflammation, much like Judge Piri’s robes. William the Spicer had been hustled from the Flying Stag by the harbor guards and thrown into a cell in the lower reaches of the Court of Sea Affairs. The judge might have overlooked the merchant flinging pepper at the sea captain in a fit of rage, but if Elias had not acted quickly, Judge Piri would have suffered the same fate. And for that, he was far less forgiving.

“Well, Elias,” the judge said now, “what is this about?”

They were in the thick of the harbor, waiting for a food seller to prepare their lunch. The woman made a living selling baby molluscs. The sea creature resembled a miniature octopus, roughly twelve inches in length from the top of its head to the tips of its sixteen tentacles. Its color rivaled that of a pure stone emerald, and while the mollusc was firmly impaled on a sharpened stick, it was so fresh as to be not quite dead. The eyes had drifted shut, but the tentacles rose and fell in a slow, lazy motion, as if it believed itself to be under the water still.

Elias exchanged payment for three molluscs on skewers, offered two to the judge, and said, “I wanted to ask about Felip of Mondrago.”

The judge leveled a sharp glance at the food seller, but she had already turned away to help the next customer. He studied Elias, frowning, then said, “Let’s walk.”

They wound their way past numerous languages and dialects; past Lunesian shipmen disembarking from a ship, trunks carried on their shoulders; past an old gypsy woman sitting on a crate, smoking a pipe with her face tilted upward, basking in the warmth of the sun.

Judge Piri was in no hurry to speak. He bit off the end of a tentacle. The mollusc emitted a short, sharp squeal, then fell abruptly silent, every tentacle falling limp. The judge swallowed, made a satisfied sound, and finally said, “The infamous Felip of Mondrago. A curious topic. An old one. What is your interest?”

Elias thought of Lady Esma: Mondragans? Those men weren’t from Mondrago. They were del Marian. He knew he would not endear himself to Judge Piri with a lie. How many did a judge have to listen to in a single day? No, an outright lie would not do. But a half-truth was not the same thing.

“I never knew my father,” Elias said. “I suppose I’d like to know as much about him as I can. Including how he died. It’s not something I can ask my mother.”

“No. But there’s not much I can tell you.”

Elias said, “I’ve spoken to the king. I’m to say you may speak freely here.”

The judge was silent for a time, concentrating on his mollusc, never a simple creature to chew.

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