NOMADS OF THE SEA

The Fishgut Guard may be the most formidable fighting force on the continent of Lyssa. In spite of this, their origins are shrouded in fable. One thing is known: the earliest iteration of the guard grew around two men from the Nisi Archipelago, in the Salath Sea.

— Evandrius, Origins of the Fishgut Guard

PROLOGUE

Aethermancy is no more magic than the air in our lungs. It belongs to the far less seductive, but infinitely more fruitful, field of science. Still—there are mysteries in our world that cannot be as easily explained.

— Goss the Elder, Arcana

The distant tolling of the death knell was growing irritating. Madame Genevieve Goss needed little reminder that her queen, patient, friend, and erstwhile lover was dead.

Queen Yseult of Samacia, leader of the Lyssan kingdoms, had succumbed to her illness. At least, that’s what they would have Genevieve believe.

Denied entry to see her queen’s body, Genevieve was left with the unfortunate conclusion that Verdon’s coup had been a success. She expected it was only a matter of time before one of his puppets formally put forward the notion that none were more deserving of kingship than the duke. And if Yseult’s nephew, next in line for the throne, just so happened to suffer a fatal accident? Well, those things happened.

Genevieve had done everything in her power to ensure the boy’s safety. Even now, he was on a ship across the Salath Sea, which was outside the duke’s immediate reach, if not his sphere of influence. It was the least she could do for her queen.

Genevieve let out a long and weary sigh. She sat in her favourite spot, on her comfortable padded chair with the high backrest next to the crackling fire in her solar. The waxing light of dawn poured through tall windows, bathing the opulent décor in its lustre. The room smelled faintly of musty tomes and dried ink.

Genevieve had opted to construct her villa outside the bustling confines of Cavelle, but she’d appreciated being close enough to answer the queen’s beck and call when the need arose. On a clear day, she could make out the spires of Chateau d’Orelle in the distance. It was in one of those far-off towers that Yseult had expired. Alone.

Genevieve’s joints ached. She tried to lift one of her rheumatic hands off the armrest but found herself incapable. Ah, finally.

At last, the nightshade was doing its work.

She glanced at her side table where the remnants of her final meal rested. She’d taken the poison from her hospital. Remaining bits of leaves and roots from the plant were discarded around the empty glass of red wine she’d used to wash the lethal concoction down.

Yseult always joked that Genevieve would only outlive her by hours. Of course, they’d assumed Genevieve’s death would be in retribution for a medical failure; or, more likely, without the queen there to shield her, the Conjoint would finally string her up for heresy.

Though neither of them had anticipated this turn of events, the teasing had a greater truth behind it. They both knew that their lives were intrinsically linked, two halves of a whole. Genevieve had always spurned theology, but there was no rational way to understand it. She’d always known it for the truth. She suspected that Yseult did too.

Together they had risen. Together they fell.

On countless occasions, Genevieve had warned the queen of the duke’s avarice. His dukedom of Aumac had grown fat on the spoils of Yseult’s wars, his vassals grown dependent on Verdon’s charity. The people were wilfully ignorant that it was Yseult, not their duke, that kept up the flow of lands and wealth.

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For her part, Yseult had been blind to the festering insurrection in her court. She refused to believe that the lords and ladies she’d raised to their lofty positions would turn on her—their benefactor—so savagely. The queen was a product of her upbringing. She understood the battlefield better than all others but was ill equipped for the dangers of peace.

And so it was a trifling thing for the most powerful duke in Samacia, a general in the queen’s own standing army, to seize power; that is, once the queen was quietly removed. Yseult’s timely infirmity was delightful happenstance for her enemies. The moment Yseult was too ill to countermand his orders, Duke Verdon had barred Genevieve, the royal physician, from seeing the queen.

Genevieve sighed. Finally, it was over. In a way, she was grateful. She hadn’t the same courage as her queen, who’d always wanted a warrior’s death. Genevieve was happy enough with her nightshade, a final snub against the insurrectionists who surely would’ve loved to capture her alive and prolong her final moments.

Despite being a physician with ample experience around the dead and dying, Genevieve was terrified of death. For all the Conjoint’s flaws, their depiction of the afterlife, of drifting upward into Ilsove’s tender embrace, was appealing. Genevieve, however, had no such surety. She was going into the abyss, a void that she’d combatted for the duration of her five and forty years of life. She’d snatched thousands of lives away from that resounding nothingness, at least temporarily. In the end, it claimed everyone: from the lowest peasant to the queen of Lyssa.

Perhaps it will be pleasant to sink quietly into the beyond, she thought.

In direct confrontation with her thoughts, Genevieve heard the sounds of fists pounding on her door, echoing up from the floor below. Took them long enough.

The knocking ceased and then redoubled, but the sound had lost all interest to her. Genevieve was focused on the fireplace as an image of a girl coalesced in front of it. The girl was slender with fair skin and amber-coloured hair. Her features were delicate and pinched, her eyes a striking cinnamon-brown. Those eyes . . . the only intimation of the girl’s sire. The only suggestion that she was not wholly Genevieve’s.

‘Idalia.’ The name slurred on Genevieve’s lips.

She tried to reach out and touch her daughter’s cheek but couldn’t tell if her hand moved. There was no mistaking the tears she felt streaming down her cheeks.

She’s not here. She’s gone. You sent her away. She’s safe. The litany proved to be no comfort. She could see her daughter standing there, her face softly highlighted by the flickering glow of the fire.

Idalia looked the same as she had the day Genevieve sent her away, months past. There was betrayal in her eyes. And puerile fear. Genevieve knew she’d always been hard on the girl, pushing her to be better, but this was something else entirely. She was sending her off to war.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. Staying was a surer death. Genevieve could stomach the hurt in her daughter’s eyes so long as she was safe. Any moment, the soldiers would be here. Idalia had to be gone by then. Panicking, Genevieve tried to motion for her daughter to run.

As quickly as the image had appeared, it faded. Genevieve sank deeper into her chair, breathing a sigh of relief.

From the ground floor, there was a loud cracking, followed by a metallic clang and then boots thudding on the hardwood. Verdon’s bravos were in her home.

Genevieve had sent all her servants away in an effort to avoid bloodshed. She hoped they’d listened. Peasants sometimes had a propensity for being damnably loyal, even when it wasn’t in their best interest. She hoped she’d provided sufficient incentive by encouraging them to flee with as many of the manor’s valuables as they could carry. Everything except her scholarship.

She’d sent as many of her half-finished manuscripts as she could to a master at the university—a man whom she trusted. He would see them completed and published. Even as her body was interred in the ground, her name would live on. Modestly, Genevieve knew she’d already accrued quite a reputation.

And what else do I leave behind? Idalia, of course. She’s a smart girl, and I’ve done all I can to prepare her for the rigours of the world. It’ll have to be enough.

In all, it was a good life and Genevieve had a slight grin turning the corners of her lips as a man entered her solar. He said something, but Genevieve was far past deciphering the words. He stepped into her dimming view. An ugly man whose face was marred by long shallow scars—hardly a fitting last sight. She let her eyelids fall.

She distantly registered her wine glass crashing to the floor, and the man slapping her cheeks. And then, truly, all sensation vanished.

Madame Genevieve Goss, who had rejected the twin gods of her people, was somewhat perturbed to find out there was more to the afterlife than she’d expected.