A LIFE ERASED

  At sea, the night took many shades.

  Some were pale, infused with moonlight on high clouds. Others were pitch-black, no line between the water and the sky. Tonight was somewhere in between. Cloudless, lit by the faint light of a crescent moon and the blanket of stars, it was enough to see by.

  Or perhaps Maris's eyes had simply grown used to the dark.

  She stood at the prow of the Ferase Stras, old fingers wrapped around the rail. A loose fog coiled around the ship, and she stared at it-through it-and waited. A wolfhound, more bones than dog, was coiled at her side. Baro wasn't an ordinary dog, just as Maris wasn't an ordinary captain-and this wasn't an ordinary ship.

  Footsteps sounded on the deck behind Maris, who recognized her nephew's heavy tread as he drew close, then stopped.

  "Saints help you, Valick," she said, "if you ever have to sneak up on someone."

  Her nephew chuckled. "I would have my enemies know I'm com- ing."

  Spoken like the child you are, she thought. Of course, Valick hadn't really been a child for some time, but time and age were different things, and both were fairly fickle.

  "Forgive me," said Valick, "but are you sure about this?"

  Maris raised a brow. And then, in a moment of rare candor, said, "I am not sure I have a choice."

  Valick grimaced. "Perhaps he started, but Maris cut him off as a light appeared in the fog, not white, or even pale blue, but red. The color of the Isle, of fresh blood, of power.

  "Go," she ordered. "Ready your things."

  The strange light grew, spreading across the fog until at last the prow of a small ship cut through the mist. A merchant's vessel, a crim signal. Two figures, little more than shadows, stood beneath the light. son lantern hanging like a low star from its mast. The agreed-upon One held a hand outstretched, guiding the vessel through the open waters. The other stood, arms folded, head bowed.

  Maris had emptied her own ship already. There were only three aboard.

  Four, counting the dog. Maris, Valick, Baro, and...

  The priest's steps fell, almost silent, on the deck behind her. Unlike her nephew, he did not stop at her heels, but instead stepped forward to join her at the prow.

  Tieren Serense was not young, by any definition, but he was younger than Maris (though most people were). He wore Sanctuary robes, the clean, colorless shade of winter clouds. His hair was gray and going white, his beard trimmed short, a pale shadow that wrapped his face, but it could not hide the sharp bones of his lean features.

  He stared at the approaching ship. "The king will be grateful be yond measure."

  "Oh," said Maris, "we will find a way to measure it."

  She turned away, strode back across the deck as the merchant's vessel came to rest beside the Ferase Stras, and Valick laid the planks for them to dock. They came aboard, a man and a woman, his hair the shade of wheat, his shoulders wide-more than a little Veskan in his blood-but the woman, she was Arnesian through and through. Her skin was warm, her hair dark, threaded with strands of copper. The man wore nothing but a sleeveless tunic and trousers, but she kept her lean arms covered, despite the warmth.

  Laros. That was their family name. Maris would never learn their first. It did not matter. They did not matter. The only thing that mat tered was what they'd come to trade.

  "Well?" asked Maris, and the two parted to reveal their offering. Not a thing, but a child. He was slight, with hair the color of the sun when it brushes the sea. The color of fire at its edges. Maris had lost her eye for those young ages, but she knew the boy couldn't be more than five or six. He kept his head down, concentrating on the

  box in his small hands. It was an element set, scuffed and singed from use. He turned it between his fingers, the bits of stone and bone and beads of ice clattering inside.

  Maris gestured with one hand, a single, silent command, and the man and woman obeyed, drawing apart a little, leaving nothing but deck between Maris and the boy. It was only when she ap proached and cast a shadow over the child that he seemed to notice her. He looked up at Maris, one eye with a pale blue iris, and the other fully black.

  open

  He reached up and rubbed that eye, a little sleepily, and Maris crouched, her bones creaking like brittle wood as she knelt before him.

  "May I?" she asked, holding out her palm.

  The boy obediently surrendered the box. She thumbed the clasp on the side and the set fell open in her hand, revealing the elements, each now nestled in the little wooden grooves. Coal, to be ignited. Ice, to be melted. Stone, to be transmuted. Sand, to be swept up. And bone, to be controlled.

  Every child in Arnes was given a box like this, a simple but effec- tive test of elemental affinity. By this boy's age, few children had the strength or focus to accurately wield an element, but most were able to at least move one of them.

  "Show me," instructed Maris.

  The boy cast a nervous look up at his parents. His father grimaced, mouth pressed into a stony line. But his mother nodded.

  "Go on," she said.

  The boy turned his focus back on the set, and Maris held her breath, waiting to see what he would pick. But instead of reaching for any one element, he reached for all of them. His small hand splayed over the set, and the elements rose in concert. The coal burst into flame. The ice melted into water, and rose skyward. The pebble crumbled into earth that stacked itself. The sand twisted in a small cyclone. And the knuckle bone rolled upward, turning slowly as it did.

  And the boy?

  The boy only frowned, a small crease between his eyes.

  "Enough," said Maris. The boy blinked and withdrew his hand, and all the pieces fell at once back into the box.

  "Very good," she said. But the test was not yet done. From the folds of her captain's garb, Maris produced a knife. Out of the comer of her eye, Maris saw the boy's mother twitch and start forward, saw the father catch her by the shoulder.

  Maris brought the knife to her own palm and slashed, swift and deep. Blood bloomed instantly, heat flushing through her skin. She looked at the child. "Will you help me?"

  The boy frowned again, the expression strange on one so young. "How?" he asked.

  It was the first word he'd spoken, his voice barely a whisper.

  He had drawn back a little at the sight of the knife. "Come here," Maris said, and when he hesitated, she flicked the knife, the tip slicing his thumb. He gave a little yelp and drew back, as if surprised by her sudden betrayal, but before he could put the bleeding thumb in his mouth, she caught his wrist and pressed his hand to hers.

  "Repeat after me," she said. "As Hasari."

  The words sounded empty in her mouth. A hollow spell. She always wondered what they would taste like, if she had the power to use them. The boy looked from her face to their hands.

  "As Hasari?" he said, the words more question than spell. It did not matter. The air vibrated, the world bending around the sounds as they left his mouth, and Maris felt the wound in her hand zip shut, the skin stitch closed.

  Maris stiffened, despite herself.

  Tieren's gaze darkened.

  Everyone on the ship went very still with the knowledge of what the boy had done. Of what it meant. No one breathed-except for the child, who let out a tired sigh and began turning away, reaching for his mother.

  But Maris gripped his wrist. "Stay with me a moment, boy," she said, rising to her feet. "Your parents and I have business. Why don't you say hello to my dog, Baro."

  The child peered into the dark, noticing the wolfhound for the first

  time. He shuffled toward it, forgetting his injured thumb as he ran his fingers through Baro's wiry coat.

  Or perhaps he didn't forget. She heard him whisper, "As Hasari," to the dog's bony form. But age wasn't a wound to be healed. No, time took a different toll, and it required a different kind of magic.

  She drew her attention back to the man and woman as Valick set a chest down on the deck between them.

  Laros stepped forward and knelt to open it, his features grim by the light of the coin inside. As he studied the bounty--the ransom, thought Maris his wife began to unwind the wrappings on her arms. The sleeves fell away to reveal tan, tan forearms circled by black tat- toos, thick as manacles around her wrists.

  Limiters-the highest punishment in Arnes. The severing of a per- son from their power. Maris didn't know the woman's past, or which crimes had earned her such a strict sentence. It did not matter. The king had made himself clear-when it came to the Antari child, there was no price too high.

  Still, removing a limiter was no small feat.

  Men had flayed the skin from their arms, only to discover that the spell ran down to muscle, bone, life itself. Entire black markets had been erected to deal in magic strong enough to undo the markings, and they ended up burying far more than they freed. Needless to say, removing a limiter was not only difficult, but strictly forbidden.

  Lucky for Madame Laros, the Ferase Stras dealt strictly in forbid- den magic.

  Valick slipped a series of gold rings onto each of his ten fingers, their surfaces etched with spellwork. As he flexed his hands, the gold seemed to spread in threads across his palms, tracing sigils.

  "Hold out your arms," Valick instructed, and as she did, he circled the air around her wrists. The gold glowed brighter, and the ink man- acles shuddered, and then the horrible tattoos began to peel away like ash on burning bark. They drifted to the deck, faded and gray. And Tieren spoke for the first time.

&nb

sp; "On behalf of the Maresh crown," he said, "you have been par- doned."

  The woman shuddered, chest heaving, drawing deep breath after years of slowly suffocating. She held up her hands, and a moment

  later fire blossomed and rolled across her skin.

  "Mind my ship," warned Maris as the flames curled around the woman, violent and bright, reflecting the copper in her hair and the metal tracing of her clothes. Light danced in her eyes, and she smiled, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  "Mama," said a small voice.

  The boy had been drawn back to her side like a night moth, mar- veling at the sight of his mother in flames. "Mama, you're magic," he said, surging toward her with outstretched hands, but then Maris caught his arm.

  "No, little one. That is not your mother anymore."

  "Wait," pleaded the man. "Let us say anoshe."

  "Anoshe?" echoed the child, confused. "Where are you going?" He strained against Maris's grip, voice rising. "Why are you going?" His face contorted, all the sleepy distance gone, replaced by heat and fury. The wind rose around them.

  The fire went out along the woman's skin as she rushed forward, crouching before the boy who had been hers. "My son," she said, cup- ping his cheek.

  "My sweet Kast-" But Maris cut her off.

  "He is not your son anymore. You traded him for power, and for coin."

  Maris could not keep the disdain from her voice. "Now go."

  The other woman did not move. The man came forward, and tried to draw her up and away, but before she'd let herself be led, she pulled a small dagger from her clothes. For a moment Maris feared she meant to do herself or the child harm-but the blade stayed safely in its sheath as she pressed it into the boy's small hands.

  "Forgive us," she pleaded.

  The child tried to twist free as the man pulled the woman across the deck.

  Valick followed them, carrying the chest of coins.

  "No!" shouted the boy with sudden force as the wind whipped higher and the water began to churn beneath the Ferase Stras. "No!" The ship boards groaned.

  "Young mage," said Maris, twisting the boy around to face her.

  "Look at me." When he didn't, she caught his chin, and forced those two-toned eyes up toward hers. "Your old life was brief, and shallow as a stream. Your new one will be vast, and deep as the sea." Tears spilled down his cheeks, and she brushed one away with her thumb. Her other hand slid from his shoulder to his elbow. He did not look down, did not see the ring that had appeared on her thumb, the spellwork glowing against the gold band. He did not see the pirate press the metal against the inside of his arm as she spoke of lives past and future.

  But his eyelids fluttered, and his legs folded, and the boy slumped toward the deck.

  Tieren was there to catch him.

  Maris removed the ring from her thumb and slipped it into her pocket, careful not to touch the burning sigil. Like everything on the Ferase Stras, the ring was dangerous magic. But not the most danger- ous, she thought, looking down at the boy. Not anymore.

  Tieren helped the dazed child to his feet. The tears were still damp on his cheeks, but the fear and anger were gone from his face, wiped away with all his memories. His element set lay open and discarded on the deck nearby, and Maris bent her old bones to fetch it, returning it to the child. He took the box, confused.

  "What does it do?" he asked.

  "I will show you on the way," said Tieren, taking his free hand, and leading him toward the back of the ship. Away from the prow, and the other vessel, its crimson light fading in the fog.

  "Send my regards to Maxim," called Maris. "I know how long he sought this prize."

  Tieren nodded once, but kept his attention on the child.

  "Do you see that boat?" he said, nodding at a small ship anchored off the back of the Ferase Stras, bare sails waving. "It was sent for you by the king himself."

  The boy's brow furrowed. "That does not look like a king's vessel." Tieren laughed, a soft, hollow sound. "Ah, right you are. But the most valuable things are often carried in the simplest boxes, so that they won't be stolen. Come now." He glanced back at Maris in parting. "We have a long way to go."

  "Where are we going?" asked the boy, yawning sleepily. "Well, young prince," said the priest, "we are going home." Maris watched them go, and wondered if she'd made a mistake. The Ferase Stras was meant to be a vault of dangerous magic, a place to store weapons too powerful for men to use.

  Maris wondered. then, if she should have kept the boy where he belonged, aboard the ship. Or sunk him to the bottom of the sea.

  Perhaps. But it was done.

  Maxim Maresh would have his bounty.

  She stood on the deck of the Ferase Stras until they were gone, the ship's inhabitants reduced again to three. Valick at the prow, and Baro, as ever a shadow at her heels. Maris watched the fog lift, and the sea lay bare, and then at last, she took her weary bones to her cabin.

  Her fingers trailed absently over the desk, and along the crown of the metal sphere beside it, before she rounded the table and sank into her chair, the dog heaving a dusty sigh and sliding to the ground before her.

  Maris opened a hidden cupboard in the back of the desk and drew out a notebook. It was a ledger of sorts, filled with entries, transac- tions, notes, some detailed, and others in code, and all, in one form or another, reminders, her memory not being what it once was.

  She took up a pen, and wrote along the bottom of the page, in ink the same color as the child's eye. No date. No details. Only one word. A name.

  Laros.

  And then the captain of the Ferase Stras shut the ledger, slipped it back into the hidden drawer, and decided that, despite the hour, or perhaps because of it, she very much deserved a drink.

 

 

  V.E. Schwab, Book 0.6: A Life Erased

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