The Obscene Pirate

  Spring, 401 Anno Astrum

  18

  Wintering in Edessa wasn't nearly as awful as Sabina had expected. It was dry, certainly, and very brown compared to what she was used to back in Italia, but its placement on the border between the foothills of the mountains to the west and the vast plains to the east made wintering there quite pleasant. She would wake up every morning and go out onto the balcony of their rented house to watch the sun rise over the plains. She would pull the fur-lined cloak Edric had gifted her close about her shoulders and watch the light sparkle on the frost below. Some mornings it even snowed.

  Those mornings on the balcony reminded her of home because they were the closest she ever got to leaving the house. Edric would apologize for it almost daily. "I don't know how Lucilius was tracking you," the luminary told her. She loved his accent, a sparkling, northern lilt she recognized as the same as Captain Myrddin's. "The only thing I know to do to stop whatever song he was talking about is to block the ability of the radiance to flow in or out of the house."

  "Can't you just do something like that to me instead of to the house?" Sabina asked.

  "Not without cursing you," Edric said. He was lying backwards on a reclining sofa in the great room wearing just his accustomed crimson scarf and strange, clingy swimming briefs. His head hung over the foot of the sofa to accommodate his fin, and his feet were propped up on the armrest. He kept his non-metallic but still very heavy-looking left arm draped over his eyes. Sabina did her best to focus on his words and not his bulky chest and soft abdominals. "It'd be fine if it were just for a little bit, but this is a permanent shield we're talking about anchoring to you, and you're not a luminary. You'd end up radiance cursed within a month without a symbiote to protect you."

  "Is it safe to be in the house then?" Dalibor asked, his tail bristling.

  "You'll be fine," Edric said, trying to wave away their worries with his gleaming right arm. "Just stay out of the back garden. That's where the shielding relic I'm using is. I can keep us safe from the radiance leaking off of it in here, but it'll still be dangerous to you up close."

  Sabina eyed his Astral arm. "Your arm lets you do that?"

  "It does," Edric said. He flexed his platinum-inlaid fingers. "All symbiotes can interface with relics and manage basic shields, but most specialize in one of two things. Dextral symbiotes like mine work well with wind and lightning, which helps me when I'm treating patients. Sinstrals like Simend are better with fire and heat."

  "Speaking of heat, would you like a blanket?" Sabina asked.

  He lifted his arm off his eyes and smiled at her. She noticed he kept his teeth hidden. "Thank you, but I do not. The fire's plenty warm, and the chill reminds me of home. Though I could do with a nice, long swim. Tub baths are almost more work than they're worth."

  And that was how she ended up as the constant housemate of a mostly naked shark for the winter, waiting for the waves of the Internal Sea to calm with the coming of spring. For Edric was just as much a prisoner as she was. If he were to travel too far from the house, the shield would fall, and the Enforcers would be on all of them once again. She could have had worse company. Edric was polite and accommodating if somewhat awkward. He made sure to give her as much space as she wanted but was always ready to spend time with her if she asked.

  One morning in December when Sabina came down the stairs into the great room, she found Edric lounging on the sofa with his back to her and his right arm raised. Above his slightly curled fingers floated what appeared to be a bust of somebody crafted entirely out of light. "What's that?" she asked, coming up behind him.

  Edric snapped his fingers closed and the bust vanished in a scattering of sparkling lines and fading triangles. "Sorry," he said, looking at her over the back of the sofa. "I didn't hear you come down."

  "What were you doing?" she asked.

  "Practicing my lightcrafting," he said. He opened his fingers again, and a small fish, composed only of a pale cerulean light, swum into the air above his hand. It looked almost alive, its fins and gills fluttering as it swooped in circles up and around Edric's wrist. The next time it swam past his fingers, Edric plucked it from the air and held it out to Sabina. "You can touch it," he told her. "It's quite solid."

  She took it from him gingerly. It was warm to the touch and tingled slightly. She let it rest on her palm, and it lay there, immobile. "Why won't it swim for me?" she asked.

  "I can only animate them when they're in my direct control," Edric said. "Otherwise, they're just solid sculptures, and they only last so long as I focus on them." The crystals on his arm flickered, and the fish's light faded away to be replaced by a storm cloud. It roiled and flashed in her palm with internal lightning, occasionally throwing off a stray bolt that crackled in the cool air.

  "That's amazing," Sabina said. She jerked her hand away when one of the lightning bolts zapped her but was surprised to find the faint tingle from the strike did not hurt at all. "Do you have to sculpt them yourself or does your symbiote just make them?"

  "The symbiote can remember designs once I make them, but I have to create them myself first," the shark explained. "I used to whittle when I was younger, and I always wanted to be a sculptor. So when I got my symbiote a few years back, the very first thing I did was join the College of Lightcraft in Meleko. Now I can sculpt whenever I want."

  "What were you sculpting when I came in?" she asked.

  Edric looked away from her, letting the storm cloud dissipate. Though Sabina didn't know anything about Sior expressions, she'd swear that the darkening of the gray around Edric's cheeks was equivalent to a human blush. "I was working on creating likenesses of people," he said. "I'm not very good at it yet."

  "I see," Sabina said, and left the conversation at that. She wasn't certain who Edric had been using as a model for the bust he'd been crafting earlier, but she knew that the figure had been decidedly human.

  Most of the time, though, the two of them wouldn't interact much. More often than not she'd be waiting in the bedroom for Dalibor to get back from his work as a laborer in town while Edric tinkered with one relic or another in the back garden, trying to get them to sustain his shield on their own. The three of them would share meals and retire to their separate rooms. Simend would join them as well if he were back from whatever work kept him traveling the region. Sabina didn't ask. She knew she didn't want to know.

  She did very much want to know, however, how to convince Dalibor that he was, in fact, good enough for her. He'd been distant ever since the night Lucilius had attacked. "We'd be dead if those two hadn't shown up," he'd said in their shared room that night in Chalcedon. "I couldn't do anything."

  "Hey," Sabina said. She put a hand to his face. The jackal flinched at her touch but let her turn his face back to hers. "You were amazing, and you've been amazing the entire time I've known you. I'm only alive because of you. You left your entire life behind to take me across the length of the entire world. Nobody else would have done anything like that for me, Dalya. If I hadn't met you, I would be dead. And I…"

  Their faces were so close to each other. Both of Sabina's hearts beat wildly. She wanted to kiss him, but how did you kiss a jackal? Just on the nose?

  She hesitated too long. Dalibor slipped free of her hand and turned his face away. "You deserve better," he said.

  "Dalya…" she said.

  "I wasn't enough. I need to be better," he said. It felt as though he had changed the subject. Or perhaps it had been his insistence that she deserved better that hadn't been related to their conversation about his ability to protect her. The jackal cleared his throat and stood up. "It's still a couple hours until sunrise. You should try and get some more sleep."

  He was there the next morning, but even weeks later in Edessa, it felt as though a part of him had never returned. She would watch him go through his Verdant Blade forms every morning after breakfast before he left. She would sing with him while he played his lute after supper and before they went to bed. She would sleep beside him—but never with him—every evening. But they did not discuss their relationship. They were roommates, and everything beside seemed to be caught in the same winter pause as the rest of the world, a freeze that she didn't know enough about to thaw without shattering it entirely.

  Days turned into weeks into months, each one almost identical to the last. Dalibor would bring back news of the calendar and festivals being celebrated in town. Together they celebrated the Calends of January, the first Agonalia, the beginning of the Parentalia, and not long after, Lupercalia.

  "It's my birthday then," Sabina said when Dalibor brought back stories of the half-naked men running through the city. "Happy nineteenth to me."

  He frowned at her. "You celebrate your birthday on Lupercalia?"

  Sabina shrugged. "That's what my father tells me," she said. "Never let me go out to see the festivities, though."

  "That's too bad," Dalibor droned, his tail wagging gently. "I can imagine how much you'd enjoy watching all the young men run through the streets in their underwear. That'd be quite the birthday present for you."

  "Sara!" Edric cried from the sofa. "You should have told us your birthday was coming! We don't have cake to sacrifice!" He rolled off the couch and crawled towards the hearth. "Dalibor, bring me some bread and wine. We have to do something for her, or she'll have bad luck all year!"

  "Edric, it's fine," Sabina said. She bustled over to his side. "We haven't celebrated anybody else's birthdays."

  "We hadn't met yet on my birthday. It's on the Ides of September. I'll be twenty-three this autumn," he said. He accepted her hand and let her pull him to his feet. He quickly sat back down beside the fire, though. "Sorry. I'm a bit dried out."

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  February passed into March, and Simend stopped taking new jobs. By the time the Ides of March came, the group of them had packed up their belongings and headed back out onto the road. Edric traveled at the rear, the relic he'd modified to suppress the radiance around them stowed safely in his pack.

  "Did you finally get it working on its own?" she asked.

  "Oh, it's been operating without my help for about a month now," he told her. "It should be safe for you to be around it, too. I managed to close up all of the containment leaks, so it's not bleeding loose radiance anymore."

  She gaped up at him. "It's been safe and independent for a month now and you never once left to go swimming?"

  He rubbed at the scarf around his neck. "I would have felt bad leaving you all alone in the house," he stammered.

  She stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. "You made yourself ill because you thought it would make me feel better?"

  He shuffled his feet and thrashed his tail. "Well, it sounds bad when you say it like that," he muttered.

  "You are going swimming in the first body of water we find that is big enough, do you hear me?" she scolded. She could see Simend smirking at her, but she didn't care. "I'd rather you were healthy than nearby. And I can take care of myself."

  "Okay, okay, I'll take a swim as soon as I can," Edric said. "I can take care of myself too, you know."

  "You obviously cannot," Sabina huffed. She adjusted her pack and continued down the road ahead of them.

  They walked for days before they reached a river large enough for Edric to consent to swim in. Sabina crossed her arms and watched as he stripped down to his shiny subligar. She struggled to get over how tall the shark was. She knew that she was short even among human women, but Edric had to be tall even by Sior standards. He couldn't be an inch less than six and a half feet tall. He was solid too. After being around furry men for so long, it was striking to be able to see the muscles on a man for a change, even if those muscles were padded beneath layers of pleasant flesh and silvery sharkskin. She continued to watch as he stepped into the water with an immense sigh. He unwrapped his scarf from his neck for the first time Sabina could remember, and she was surprised, though she didn't know why, to see that it had been covering a set of gills on either side of his neck. He hopped several lunges deeper into the river then flopped below the waves with a splash. He did not come back up to the surface, so Sabina presumed he could breathe underwater as well.

  Simend sighed beside her. "He's amazing, isn't he?" the jackal asked. Sabina knew that he was talking to her even though his eyes were still locked on the water where Edric had gone under, a somehow sad smile stretched across his muzzle.

  "She has always enjoyed a man in his underwear," Dalibor said.

  She glanced over at where Dalibor was kneeling over a smoking mound of tinder. He smirked at her while he tended the growing fire. "You noticed," she said.

  "I noticed the day we met," he chuckled.

  "She doesn't look at me like that," Simend said. "And I'm almost always in just my shendyt. Well, now that it's not literally freezing out."

  "Sure, but you almost always act like a pervert too," Dalibor said.

  "Wow," Simend said. "Rude."

  "Yes, you're that too," Sabina confirmed.

  "Wow!" Simend repeated. "Some friends!"

  Sabina ignored him and addressed Dalibor instead. "So you know that I enjoy this, but I don't think I've seen you without your tunic more than a handful of times since we met."

  "Which is a Star-cursed shame," Simend chimed in. "You have a coat and coloration to rival the pharaohs!"

  Dalibor snarled softly, which caused his lip to get stuck on his crooked fang. Sabina's heart fluttered. "And this is why," he said. "I don't like people looking at me like that."

  "That is a waste of that fur and physique," Simend grumbled.

  "Yes, that sort of behavior exactly, Simend," Sabina said.

  "I said he was rude, not wrong," the dancer retorted.

  "Speaking of underwear, though," Sabina said, changing the subject, "what is Edric's made of? I've never seen material like that."

  "He calls it rubber cotton," Simend told her. "He won't tell me where it comes from, though. Says it's a 'Sior secret.' I've seen a few other Sior traders with samples of the cloth, but they won't say either."

  Sabina didn't respond since Edric had reappeared. She watched him splash back to the surface and wipe the water from his face. He'd gone without his tunic nearly the entirety of the winter, but seeing him topless and wet like that did something unfamiliar to her. She was accustomed to feeling butterflies from Dalibor's crooked sneers, but Edric's water-streaked chest ignited a tingle somewhat lower. "Does he ever swim without it?" she heard herself ask, much to her own horror.

  Simend grunted. "Don't I wish," he moaned. "But no. The big guy's sensitive about his size below the belt. Which is nonsense, because he's fine, but he's touchy about it regardless."

  "Can we not talk about your boyfriend's penis, please?" Dalibor whined, rubbing his eyes.

  Simend's tail drooped, but his eyes stayed locked on Edric. "We're not in a relationship," he said.

  Dalibor uncovered his eyes and gazed at Simend, his head cocked to the side. "I see," he said after a long pause.

  That was when Edric at last looked over at them. Sabina's breath caught when his silvery eyes caught hers because she was violently reminded that she was not staring at a man. She was staring at a shark, one who had shown her in graphic detail back in Byzantium that his teeth were not just for show. She forced her father's admonitions against the beast people back, since she knew Edric was very sweet and would never hurt her, but… She could hear her father anyway, and Edric did have a lot of teeth.

  When they finally crested a foothill and came into sight of Antiochia two weeks later, Sabina could tell immediately that she was not going to like the place. The buildings were squat, packed far too close to each other, and shrouded in some sort of smoky haze. The city looked as though a single stray spark would wipe it from existence.

  They made their way through the dirty town and down to the harbor. Sabina felt like every single beast they passed was leering at her, and she couldn't tell if it was because she was a woman or because she was human. It could have been either because they passed neither on their way. Edric and Dalibor both walked close beside her. She had never been the only human in a city before, and she did not like the feeling. Even in Edessa, she had seen other humans from her balcony. But in Antiochia, she was alone, and it was awful. She couldn't imagine how Dalibor must have felt in New Rome. All her father's warnings about how the beast people only wanted her to bear their beastly children flooded back into her mind. She wanted to be anywhere but there. Anything but female.

  When they finally reached the harbor at the bottom, Edric sat the pack with the shielding relic down beside a gap in the cliff wall. "Are you two okay staying put?" he asked. "Simend and I are going to go look for a ship and an inn, and… Well, I'm sorry, Sara, but I think that'll be easier if we don't have to deal with the crowds trying to wrap their heads around an attractive Homin woman in Antiochia. You can probably hide from the worst of it in the shadows there."

  "That's fine," Sabina said, hurrying out of sight into the cleft in the rock.

  Dalibor leaned against the wall of the cliff just outside the gap, one hand on the hilt of his sword. "The two of us will be fine here," he said. "Good luck."

  The two luminaries headed off in opposite directions, and Sabina sat down in the darkness of the gap. She could still see the street and the sea well enough, though she expected it would be difficult for anybody passing by to see her if they didn't know she was there. Which was excellent. She leaned her head against the cliff wall and sighed. The sooner they were out of this pit, the better.

  It was not long, though, before Dalibor lifted his nose to the air and began to sniff. Sabina scowled in the darkness. "I don't know what you smell, but it's not me this time," she grumbled.

  "No, I know it's not you," Dalibor said between sniffs. "I know exactly who smells like this but…" His voice trailed off, and Sabina peeked out at him. He was frozen, mouth agape and eyes fixed on somebody. "It can't be," he breathed.

  Sabina followed his gaze and found herself looking at a lioness with a very regal bearing and an outfit whose intertwined red ribbons were more the suggestion of clothing than actual apparel. She was speaking with a young bear whose gaze was fixed noticeably below the lioness's face as they walked through the harbor. Sabina rolled her eyes. "Really, Dalibor?" she asked from the shadows.

  Dalibor didn't answer her. Instead, he took a few steps towards the lioness. "Volusa?" he called.

  The lioness turned and fixed Dalibor with a withering glare. The bear too looked ready to murder Dalibor for the interruption. But the lioness's glare soon shifted into a broad grin. "By the Lady of Love! I'd recognize that snaggletooth anywhere!" she called back. Dalibor fixed his lip, and Sabina felt herself grow irritated on his behalf. Volusa strode across the distance between herself and Dalibor and locked the jackal in a tight hug. "How are you, Garai? It has been too long!"

  Sabina blinked. Garai? "Uh…" Dalibor stammered, trying to wriggle out of the hug. "My name is Dalibor, actually."

  Volusa let Dalibor loose but held him by the shoulders at arm's length. She flicked her tail and stared into his eyes for a moment, then turned her gaze to Sabina. Sabina shrank back. How had the lioness seen her? She quickly regained her composure, though. Refusing to be cowed by this woman, the princess stood and pulled herself up into her most imperial posture. But when she looked into Volusa's eyes, she faltered, because Volusa's eyes were the deepest, most piercing blue Sabina had ever seen. Those were human eyes, and their presence in a leonine face shook her. "I'm so sorry," Volusa said, still staring at Sabina. Her voice was flat. "Of course it is. How could I forget?" She returned her gaze to Dalibor. Sabina wasn't certain what was happening, but it felt dangerous. "Have you heard from Rasha lately?"

  "You mean Papa?" Dalibor asked. Volusa tilted her head, and her tail went rigid. "He's doing good. He's good. He's real good." Dalibor cleared his throat. "He decided to stay behind in Cibalae after we sold our ranch up in Aquitania."

  Volusa's brows rose precipitously, and her face soon split into a smile that showed far too many teeth. "Oh, Dalya. It has been too long. We have so much catching up to do," she said, taking the jackal by the arm. Sabina's jaw dropped. How dare this woman think she was close enough to Dalibor to already be using his pet name? Sabina knew the jackal was sensitive about it. She snapped her mouth shut and clenched her teeth. So why wasn't he correcting her? The lioness looked again at Sabina. "And is this… Jadia, was it?"

  Dalibor barked an uncomfortable laugh. "No," he said. "This is Sara. I'm working as her bodyguard at the moment. We're actually trying to find passage into Aegyptus."

  "Are you?" Volusa asked. "Well you are in luck, dear friend, because it just so happens that I own my own ship now and am headed that way myself. I would be thrilled to take you. Free of charge. For old time's sake."

  Sabina thought that sounded like a horrible idea, but Dalibor apparently disagreed. "Really?" he asked. "There's four of us total, but it'd be amazing if you have space for us all."

  "Of course," Volusa said. "You'll have to tell me everything you've been up to the past decade, though. And I do mean everything." Then she turned to the bear and pointed at him. "I must tend to my clients, Gleb, but I am not done with you. Find the Sanguine Siren and report to my officer, a Behia named Marcos. Tell him that Captain Cornelia sent you and that you're to be prepared for a full evaluation. You will do exactly what he says, or you will not have a spot on my crew. Is that clear?"

  "Aye, Captain!" Gleb shouted.

  They watched him run off, barreling his way through the crowds. Dalibor sighed. "Please tell me your evaluation isn't what I think it is," he said.

  Volusa patted him on the arm. "Oh, it is exactly what you think it is," she said. Dalibor closed his eyes and whined as if he knew what she was about to say. The lioness did not disappoint him. "That bear will be naked, hard, and tied to my bed when I get back." Sabina's eyes grew very wide, and she felt the blood rush out of her cheeks when the lioness, licking her lips, turned to face her. "It's good to be captain."

  "I'm still not going to sleep with you, Volusa," said Dalibor, and Sabina barely suppressed a relieved sigh.

  "Honestly?" Volusa said. "At this point, I'd be disappointed in you if you did."

  "Besides," Dalibor added. "Papa still talks about you. It'd be super weird."

  Volusa giggled, and Sabina found herself furious that the sound was light and joyous and beautiful in all the ways her handlers told her that her own giggle was not. "Well when you see him again, let dear old Rasha know that I think fondly of him from time to time as well," she said. "That bear was good."

  Dalibor shuddered. "Please don't," he said.

  "We'll see," said Volusa. "Depends on how good your stories are." She cast another glance into the shadows at Sabina. Sabina scowled back at her, furious. Why did this vile lioness get to know Dalibor's history but she didn't? What power did Volusa have over Sabina's jackal? Dalibor and Volusa continued talking to each other, but Sabina was no longer listening. All she knew was that she had to learn all she could about this Captain Volusa Cornelia so that she could break whatever enchantment she…

  Sabina's thoughts trailed away, replaced by Volusa's name on repeat. Volusa Cornelia. She knew that name. Why did she know that name? She'd heard it before, but she couldn't place it. The lioness couldn't actually be one of the Cornelii. Sabina knew that family, and they hated the beast people even more than her father did. She settled back to the ground in the darkness to wait for Simend and Edric's return, trying to remember why she knew the name Volusa Cornelia and trying to ignore the ease with which Dalibor spoke to the woman. An ease which he almost never had with Sabina.

  That she had no success at either endeavor just made her hate the beast more with each passing minute.