Zulimaya awoke with a fierce ache in her leg and a thirst that could kill. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady, listening hard for anything that could tell her about her situation. She was in a quiet space, though she could hear muffled voices in the distance. There was a gentle creaking that might have been someone nearby or just the settling of whatever place they’d put her. She could feel cloth restraints on her wrists and ankles. She shifted carefully, as if twitching in her sleep. There was some slack in her tethers, but not much. Two handsbreadth, perhaps. Those men attacked us. They must have captured me. Why use cloth, though? I’d have used rope. Either they’re stupid or they’re lazy. She lay still, gathering her thoughts and her courage. I’ll have to rescue Bachi once I’m free. And Kanga, perhaps. He did try to fight.

A gentle laugh from nearby froze her. “You I see wakeful,” a woman said. “Fool me not you will.”

Setting her jaw, Zulimaya opened her eyes. I’ll have a harder time escaping than I thought. Women watch better. Perhaps these foreigners aren’t such fools after all.

When she saw the woman, though, all her plans fell to tatters in her mind and swirled about her like chaff in the wind. She was tall and willowy even as she lounged at her ease on brightly colored pillows. A waterfall of bright red curls framed a pale face with sharp blue eyes. It was like looking into a clear pool of water.

“What –” Zulimaya said weakly. Her mouth worked, but nothing else came out.

“Welcome be, sister,” the woman said, smiling.

Her heart clenched in her chest. “You… you’re my sister? How can that be? Who is my mother?” She gripped at her cloth restraints, wanting to spring up and grab the woman, but her body was too weak and tired to obey her.

A furrow marred the woman’s perfectly smooth brow. “Forgiveness I ask,” she said, rising smoothly to kneel at her side. “You and your fore-kin know I not, truth be. Only in, ah…” She flapped her hands in frustration, searching for the right words. “…wide meaning speak I. A face of the Aenidae have you.” She touched her own curls, only a shade or two lighter than Zulimaya’s own. “Kin you be. Sister of the knife and coin.”

Zulimaya let her head fall back, her mind spinning, incredulity warring with sharp disappointment. She hadn’t dreamed of a mother in many years, but to have the possibility held forth only to be yanked away opened a wound in her she’d thought long sealed. Enough of that. Focus. “If I’m your kin, why do you hold me captive?” she asked, trying to inject some heat into her voice as she raised her wrists to show her bands.

“Captive be you not,” the woman said, smiling. “Attack us you did in your slumber. To clean your damage tied we you only. For your healing… and our protection. In this know we you as a sister of the knife and coin. When the hair saw we I pondered, but when your battling spied I, then was the knowing of it.”

Zulimaya let her hands drop, mollified and slightly embarrassed. She’d lashed out in her sleep before. “Can I have some water?”

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The woman fetched a cup from somewhere nearby. They were in a tent of heavy brown fabric held up with stout timbers. Zulimaya herself was on a low bed of soft leathers and pillows. The woman held the cup for her and let her drink her fill. It was all Zulimaya could do to hold her head up and gulp. The water was sweet and cold, and the world looked more cheerful once she’d finished the cup.

“Where are my friends?” she asked, letting her head loll back to the softness of her bed. Sleep tugged at her, but there was too much to ask to allow herself to give into that urge just yet.

“Friends,” the woman said, setting the cup aside, an intent look on her face. “Of your friends tell me.”

“What do you mean, tell you? They’re my friends. The two men, one short and round with a bad mustache, the other tall and strong. Bachi and Kanga. I can’t say that one’s my friend, exactly, but he’s with us even so.”

“Not friend?” the woman asked carefully. “Remove him, shall we?”

“Are they all right?”

“Guests they are,” she assured Zulimaya, “but waiting on your word were we. Many are there in this land – men of fear, men of harm – who hate the sisters of knife and coin.”

“Bachi is my friend,” Zulimaya said. “The kind one, with the mustache.”

She nodded wisely. “Seen this have I. Asks for you he does, and sings much.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Zulimaya’s mouth before she could stop it. “He does. It is a good magic.”

“But the other,” insisted the woman. “Much anger he has. All sound and murmuring. Wish him you gone from us?”

“I…” Zulimaya bit her lip. “He has done much harm to my friends, but he has helped as well, lately. He fought with us. For us.”

“Hmmm.” The woman pursed her lips, considering. “Pondanerix.”

“You speak so strangely,” Zulimaya said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand you.”

She shrugged, her curls a bouncing forest of flame and sunlight. “Old Tongue speak you, but oddly and bent, and know it not full well do I. But pondanerix is a word of the Aenidae, our people. It means…” she waffled her hands, indicating imprecision. “…an uneasy friend, or a useful foe, both together.”

“That sounds like Kanga. He does some small bit of good at times, even if I’d like to tear his face off and feed it to him.”

She threw back her head and pealed out laughter. “Indeed a sister. Even lost long, true is the blood of the kin.”

Zulimaya tried to sit up and failed. I’m so tired. The wound in her thigh throbbed with her heartbeat, and a glance downward showed a well-wrapped bandage stained with blood.

“Sleep must you,” the woman said, deftly untying the cords from her wrists and ankles. “Talk we later.”

“Wait,” Zulimaya insisted. “Am I really one of your kin? What is this sister of knife and coin business you keep talking about?”

“Seven years sailing the world have I, apprentice, underling, and now sister, with many lands and troubles in the twixt. Others perhaps of more age might differently tell, but in no place find I red hair and pale skin but in the islands and valleys of the Anenidae. Mixes, yes, but like you none. One of us be you, plain it show. Some of we travel do, selling and trading spice, lumber, and silks, watching the nations and protecting our kin. Sisters of the coin.”

“And the knife?” she whispered. It all sounded grand, but her eyes were drooping, and she was struggling to focus.

A crafty glint shone in her eye, and she smoothed Zulimaya’s hair. “Later of this speak we. Safe you are. Rest now.”

“Your name,” Zulimaya mumbled.

“Ianthe,” she said. “A flower of purple is it, from the hills of Aenid.”

My name is a flower too. She thought she’d said it out loud, but then she realized her eyes were closed, and darkness cradled her like a mother. She believed this woman, this Ianthe. She would be safe, and she would wake feeling better and better until she healed. And when she did, she’d find herself surrounded by kin.