“Captain’s on the way.”
I take that as my own cue to get up, since I need to get back before the others start trickling in and return to Zakir’s from their daily duties. If I’m gone, they’ll rat me out in an instant and be rewarded generously for it.
With my hood drawn up, I crawl out from my wedge and slog through the deep sand, stepping on bits of broken shells and dried seaweed.
I crest the slope and head for the sand-drenched boardwalk that’s attached to the dock. It leads to the cobbled street just beyond, the start of the market dividing beach from buildings.
The last of the merchants and workers who stay out on the dock all day to sell wares or shine shoes or braid nets are leaving too. They walk along with slumped backs and chapped fingers, some rolling their carts behind them, causing constant thumps of uneven wheels over the rickety planks.
I stay to the edge, making sure to give them plenty of room to go around me, while avoiding the eyes of the sailors heading back to the boats. Walking with my head down while being aware of everything around me is a necessary skill I’ve learned.
Which is why it’s so jarring when someone suddenly shoves into me from behind, nearly making me topple over. I jolt to a stop, an apology already stuttering past my lips. I’ve learned the hard way to always apologize, whether it’s your fault or not. People have been stabbed here for less.
“I’m sorry—”
A smooth voice cuts me off. “The painted girl of Derfort Harbor.”
My head wrenches up, and I look up at an unfamiliar face. Tawny skin, long black hair secured at the nape of his neck, a smooth face with plump cheeks. I’d think the man was friendly if it weren’t for the pin secured to his loose blue tunic. A pin of a sundial pointing due East.
He grins, showing a few missing teeth. “Hello, pet. Barden wants you to come see him so you two can talk,” the man says, and despite the smoothness of his voice, his words scrape down my spine.
I don’t care what he says. Barden East does not want to talk.
He wants me in his employ. To take me from Zakir and work me for himself. Barden doesn’t appreciate the customers I’ve been pulling in. I’m competition.
My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth as the man moves like he’s going to grab my arm, only to stop when he looks over my shoulder. I follow his gaze with a hasty glance, finding two of Zakir’s goons cutting their way toward me from the street.
Oh no.
Barden’s man curses under his breath and then pins me with a look. “Come find him, girl. Trust me, you don’t want him to come find you.” With those parting words, he turns and walks away.
I’m frozen in place, my eyes flying back and forth between the man’s retreating form as he heads back to East’s territory, and Zakir’s goons as they stalk toward me.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts, and my heart pounds. The pouch of coins beneath my skirt weighs my choices.
How long? How long can I keep living like this, sold for a coin day after day? It’s just a matter of time before Barden snatches me up, either with a deal struck by Zakir...or something more sinister.
Zakir certainly won’t believe me that I had nothing to do with being approached by Barden’s man. I’ll be punished, since he’s grown increasingly paranoid about losing me.
But does it really matter who owns me? Am I really any better off than those bodies swaying on their ropes?
It feels like I stand stuck at a mental crossroads for hours, when really, it’s just a second.
I’m afraid. Dreadfully so. My heart is pounding a drumbeat against my muscles, pumped blood shoving at me to move. To try.
Shove down weakness and strength will rise.
The innkeeper’s voice rises up in me, but this time, I hear it in my own voice, feel it in the pinching of my back.
I could let Zakir West’s men take me. I could give in to Barden East.
East and West.
Two directions, both of which will leave me to drift in hopelessness.
Or...
My head turns, gaze latching onto the people walking along the dock, at the boats floating on the water. At the sun on the cerulean sail shining against the sky like my own personal lodestar.