Losing Heart Among the Tall by A.M. Dellamonica

Author:A.M. Dellamonica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: 2017-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Gale and Parrish circled back their way in the dead of night, trying to slip in silently and instead making all those noises that make it comical and pointless: dropped shoes, bumping into each other in the dark, whispered, conspiratorial chuckling. Royl and Matille lay abed and listened as Beatrice confronted them, scolding her sister at length in their birth tongue, growing ever more frustrated by the unrepentant tone of Gale’s replies.

Royl slid out of bed and found Parrish in the garden, cleaning muck off his boots. He had a black eye and seemed cheery enough; he’d been troubled when Royl first took him on, but he’d found his peace on Nightjar. It was one of those things that made Royl immensely proud, that anchored him when he doubted his course. The boy had had his heart broke, but he’d mended him, he and Gale.

“The merman—Bertran—had the heart when he was speared,” Parrish said. “We’re pretty sure the Furies don’t have it now.”

“Think he dropped it in the deeps?”

Parrish shook his head. “He had a pet of some kind . . . a fish, maybe? It’s swimming around with it.”

“Might take a while then, to find it.”

“The Piracy is patient,” Parrish said. “The Tallon government’s problem is twofold. They get Yacoura back, honor demands they lock it up. Then it gets stolen again. It’s apparent the Piracy has been able to bribe someone with access.”

“Aye. So someone has to find the pet. One fish in all the ocean . . . how hard can that be?”

“They must have had some way of finding it.” Parrish said.

“And once it’s found, ye need to lose it.”

The boy gathered up the curls of mud he’d cut off his soles and broke them up, vanishing the clods into the garden beds rather than leaving Royl a messy pile. “Major Gasparin wants someone to do just that—they have a scribe who can cast some kind of Legend on it, to make it impossible to find. But it can’t be a Tallman who loses it.”

“You find out why he objects to Gale doing the job?”

“She’s out and about too much; the Furies might grab and torture her.”

That marrow-deep fear for Gale that had been so much a part of his life speared through Royl. “Same goes for you, I suppose.”

“More so, since I’m not inconspicuous. It is,” Parrish conceded, “a not unreasonable concern.”

“Lady Beatrice lives in seclusion. Get her back to her home on Erstwhile and everything’s golden. They’ll never find her there. It’ll even enhance the legend, won’t it? A mysterious Verdanii princess, hidden in a far-off land.”

Parrish nodded; obviously, he’d already thought of that. “If Gale asks her to do it, as a favor, she’ll insist on you staying as master of Nightjar. She doesn’t think much of me.”

“We’ll have to bring her ’round,” Royl said, but his heart sank. Easier to talk the wind out of blowin’.

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