What From the Water Rises #21

In which Cassennia must make a choice

On the day she issued the challenge to the prince’s guard, Cassennia visited Mireht for the first time since she’d arrived on Isle Ezu.

This was in part because she lacked the patience to wait at home for the messenger to report back, in part because she felt desperate to speak with anyone about what she was doing. Mireht was a fellow Mesaanoti, a fellow spy, and the closest thing she had to a friend on the island.

Of course, Mireht did not share her enthusiasm and invited her in for a cup of tea with an exasperated air.

Cassennia knelt on the floor with a warm cup in her hands, ready to explain her plans without pleasantries. When she spoke, she did not name her targets, hoping her language was vague enough not to invite Ezu-anvashe’s attention. “I want them to feel the pressure of everyone else watching them,” she concluded, “and speculating about them.”

“But if everyone isn’t watching them…?”

“Well, they don’t have to. Better if they don’t. It’s about what they believe.” Cassennia smiled, but Mireht’s face remained blank. “There is something unique about their relationship. Something… intimate. Anyone who looks closely enough at them can surely tell.”

Mireht frowned into her tea, considering this. 

“Besides, I thought it would be smart to exploit their… Sehmeri anxieties.”

“So you make them nervous,” Mireht said stiffly. “Embarrass them, perhaps. How do you convince them they’re better off elsewhere?”

“I suppose,” Cassennia said, the words coming slow and deliberate, “I’ll have to frighten them more.”

“Then do that,” Mireht said. “Manipulation may not be the right tactic.”

They spoke for a little longer, tossing vague ideas back and forth. Mireht switched to communicating in writing, arguing in favor of openly threatening the prince; Cassennia explained her fear that they would flee to some remote part of the island. While she could locate them wherever they hid, she would lose much of her chance to convince them that others knew Azarion’s true identity if they were no longer adjacent to densely populated Zuenos.

Mireht did not seem convinced of Cassennia’s plans, but Cassennia found herself equally uninspired by Mireht’s. When the two reached an obvious impasse, Cassennia excused herself rather than continuing to argue, and Mireht seemed relieved to see her go. Cassennia, grateful as she was for the distraction, felt that she’d gained little insight from their time together.

It was mid-afternoon by the time Cassennia reached her own home, and the messenger reported back a half-hour later. Though the swordsman—whose name, she learned, was Phaeon—eventually accepted the challenge, he had first tried multiple times to refuse it. That worried her; it did not sound like the behavior of someone who believed they would soon be publicly exposed or humiliated.

She thanked the messenger with a cloth bag full of tea herbs and made her way to the beach where the prince and his guard lived, the tracking device keyed to Azarion hanging from her neck. Tired as she was after her hours of walking, she needed to see for herself how the two were reacting.

In the waning light of sunset, she found the young men crouched near a tidepool. Azarion was speaking, his guard—Phaeon—listening, as always.

As she waited in the brush, watching them, she had to admit to herself that there was no urgency in the prince’s speech. Even from afar, when she could not make out their words, she could see how relaxed he was; his broad gestures and easy smile suggested he was telling a lightly amusing story.

Cassennia backed away, heart hammering in her chest.

Maybe Mireht was right; maybe she was incapable of playing off of their fears with any subtlety and needed a more direct—more violent—approach. But hadn’t it been brilliant to imply the pressure of others’ prying eyes without revealing all that she knew? To exploit the Sehmeri fear of being attracted to someone of the same gender? She had been so confident in this plan.

Yet neither the young prince nor his loyal swordsman showed any outward indication of concern. It wasn’t just the stoicism required of Sehmeri men, either; though she never could read the guard’s mood, the prince was expressive by any standard. Every time she’d seen him, he was laughing or brooding or pouting. Whatever the cause, they were not reacting as she’d hoped.

By the morning of the duel, any lingering excitement she’d felt for her plans had shifted to a mingled dread and uncertainty. At the last minute, she decided to take her usual position beside the prince’s home—hidden among the larger rocks on the beach directly behind it—and watch for the two men.

For a while, nothing happened. She crouched beside the damp rock, absently running her fingers over the carpet of lichen, and waited. Eventually, the swordsman arrived with his blade hanging from his hip, visibly tired and agitated, even from a distance. At least he looked suitably nervous now. 

He disappeared into the house, then left minutes later in the same state. Cassennia had traveled the path connecting this part of the shore to Zuenos often enough by then to recognize the trail into the city.

Glancing up at the sun’s position, she realized it was almost time for the duel to begin. So where was the prince? Why wasn’t he making his way into town, looking just as frightened as his guard?

The moment she was about to abandon hope of spotting him and start creeping after Phaeon, the door creaked open once more. Azarion stepped out of the house and circled the exterior, following his guard’s path. Much to her disappointment, nothing about the boy appeared upset; her momentary view of his face revealed only curiosity.

She stood, prepared to follow—but an impulse came over her, and she let it lead her into the house. There, she swept her eyes over the interior, startled by how little she saw. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but it hadn’t been a sparse room like any other on Isle Ezu. Other than the woodstove, shelf, and kitchen table on one half of the room, there was nothing but a futon with a nest of blankets near its foot and three small hooks mounted on the wall.

Two hooks were empty. The third held a simple cloth bag. She headed straight for the bag and examined its contents: a thick stack of papers, a broken quill pen, and an inkwell. 

Without time to investigate them one by one, she snatched a few papers from the collection at random and shoved them into her own bag. Even if they wouldn’t provide her the option to blackmail Azarion, maybe the discovery of the missing files alone would intimidate him.

With that, she rushed into Zuenos, heading straight toward the western plaza. The sun was directly overhead when she arrived and slipped into the throng of people—time for the fight to begin.

At the center of the gathering crowd, Leontas, the man she’d anonymously hired, was speaking to another she did not recognize.

She turned to the stranger standing next to her and asked, “Do you know who’s fighting?”

“Other than Leontas, no,” the stranger said, shrugging. “I just got here.”

When she turned to ask the person on her other side the same, a tension swept over the crowd and drew her attention back to the center. The prince’s guard had emerged into the clearing, and she pushed her way further into the press of bodies to find that he was tight-lipped and tense. With fear or fury, she could not tell.

The duelists spoke, but to Cassennia’s disappointment, nobody mentioned the true reason for the challenge. Did the audience already know? Were the terms revealed elsewhere? Or was it typical for the duelists to keep them discreet? This was an imported Sehmeri tradition, not anything Cassennia had experienced in Mesaanot; she was quickly beginning to doubt her assumptions about how it worked.

The fight had begun while she was contemplating this, and Phaeon landed the first touch in mere moments. She startled at the sudden shout of “One!” Did these bouts normally happen so fast? It seemed she had little time to waste.

She thrust her hand into her bag, gripping the rune device that alerted her to Azar’s presence. It jolted at her touch, the familiar sensation reverberating up her arm; she found him in no time, lingering near the edge of the crowd. The expression on his face—eyes wide and wondering, eyebrows subtly knitted—was intrigued, at best.

Discouraged, she slipped out of the throng and sought rumors along its edge.

“Who’s that man fighting Leontas?” she asked someone, pointing—but they ignored her, their attention riveted on the fight.

She tried the same question on another, but they screamed “Two!” in unison with those around them.

In the moment of anticipation between rounds, as the fighters caught their breath and reset their stances, she found a pair of Sehmeri teenagers. “Who’s the man fighting Leontas?”

They both shrugged.

“Do you know the terms of the fight?” she asked, to the same response.

The accusations she’d leveled—the terms of the duel she’d arranged—had been obscured. Nobody even knew Phaeon’s name, let alone his reasons for fighting so viciously.

And his swordplay, when she glanced back to see how he was faring, had only grown more bloodthirsty and desperate with time. She found herself begrudgingly impressed by the passion in his performance. If anyone spoke of this fight afterwards, it would be about the skill the swordsman demonstrated, not the reason he was compelled to fight in the first place.

So she’d failed. Nobody knew that Phaeon fought on behalf of his alleged lover, much less who that lover might be. Their reputations would be unaffected; the public eye would not turn on them, except, perhaps, in admiration for Phaeon’s abilities; the prince would remain unafraid and unaffected, his guard tense and upset.

Defeated, she started back for the path leading to the prince’s house, weighing the value of hiding in the rocks and watching them return.

When she reached into her bag to find the rune device, it thrummed violently against her palm—and she realized almost too late that the prince was approaching. She ducked into the dense row of short, spiky trees marking the edge of the city and held her breath as she watched him pass.

A woman pursued him—a woman she recognized. It was the Sehmeri noble she’d followed home from Zuenos’s market, the one whose sneering condemnation of Azarion and Phaeon’s relationship had inspired her to make her accusation in the first place.

The two disappeared down the fork in the path leading away from the prince’s house, and Cassennia crept between the trees to follow, finding herself in a tangle of broad green leaves interspersed with unripe white-green buds.

“Three!” came the distant call of the crowd.

Cassennia froze where she crouched among the plants. She was not close enough to make out their words, but she realized that the prince and the woman were now standing nearby and arguing. All she caught was their tones; the old woman’s sounded demanding and angry, the prince’s soft and slightly shaky.

Then the woman raised her voice, and Cassennia caught a few contemptuous words: “—threatening you—knowing what I know—your secret—Ezu-anvashe stopping—”

Cassennia allowed her panic to freeze her where she stood for a handful of seconds before she spun around and pushed back toward the path to the prince’s house. She felt compelled to watch him return, to determine what had happened from his reaction—

Even as she ran down the trail, she had to accept the obvious. The Sehmeri noblewoman knew.

And what would she do with that information? Surely, she’d been on the island long enough to understand how to subvert Anvashe’s surveillance. The other ex-nobles were all literate. How long would it take for them to spread word through all of Zuenos—then across the entire island?

The Sehmeris, she realized, would prove more dangerous to her mission than those who the Sehmeri crown had exploited and displaced. Their enemies might harm the boy or attempt to hold him hostage, but their nobility would likely want to smuggle him back to his home, where she could never reach him.

She arrived at the little house and caught her breath outside the front door, trying to determine what options remained to her. The thought of people discovering the truth—especially the sort of people who the noblewoman would find it necessary to inform—terrified her. It was only a matter of time now before someone snatched him up.

She needed to act fast.

Without the time to plan or think through what she was doing, she pulled one of the pilfered sheets of paper from her bag and scrawled a simple note on its back. No option remained now save for direct confrontation, but at the very least, she could delay that confrontation until she had a little more time to think.

Her letter read, A—I know your secret. Meet me tomorrow, an hour after sunrise, at the tidepool where you and your guard were foraging last night, so we can discuss how I can keep it to myself.

She stabbed it into the door with the little knife she kept in her bag and fled down the coastline, her heart hammering. 

It was too soon—and she’d squandered her time until that moment, having gotten no leverage—but her task had become urgent. 

She could do nothing now but show her hand and offer up whatever she could.

* * *

She hadn’t realized how little she expected to see the prince the next day until he approached her.

The boy was unaccompanied and seemingly unarmed; he carried nothing but the bag she’d stolen from, which hung from one shoulder. He glanced around with each step as if searching for an ambush.

It was the first time she’d seen him up close, and as he drew up to her, she was struck first by his eyes—which were so beautiful, round and near-black and fringed with thick, dark lashes, and empty of everything but wariness.

In one hand, he was holding a sheet of paper, almost crushing it in his tight grip.

“Where did you find this?” he asked dully, before she had the chance to speak. His grasp loosened on the paper; he smoothed it flat and held it out without taking those watchful eyes off her face.

She lifted both palms in a conciliatory gesture and stepped forward to take it. There was the note she’d written him, scrawled across the back of one of the documents she’d snatched from his bag. A quick scan of the words revealed that it described some sort of trial, in which the council debated something about punishment and Anvashe’s role in delivering justice.

Judging by the dates at the top—noting the year by Sehmeri and Mesaanoti calendars—this had taken place decades ago.

She handed it back with a one-armed shrug. Admitting that she’d stolen some irrelevant piece of old Isle Ezu record-keeping did not strike her as a good opening to their conversation, so she disregarded his question.

Instead, she said, “I know who you are, Azarion.”

He flinched at the sound of his true name, then let out a weary sigh. She paused, giving him a moment to react, but he offered no more feeling than he’d already given. Something about him seemed… oddly resigned. Empty. In a flat tone, he asked, “How do you know?”

“How—?” She shook her head. “Well… it’s obvious. I didn’t invite you here to tell you how I discovered who you are. I invited you here to offer you a way out. The reason why—”

“That noblewoman told you?” he interrupted. When she hesitated, he elaborated, “The old woman?”

“No,” Cassennia answered. Better to let him believe the truth was leaking out in multiple places, spreading beyond his control. “Someone like her wouldn’t talk to a Mesaanoti, especially not about you,” she added, willing to bet this was true. “That’s not important, anyway. I’m trying to help you.”

“She said you weren’t smart enough to worry about,” the prince said—as if to himself. He sounded defeated, not malicious; though he appeared unable to register Cassennia’s words, he met her gaze, his dark eyes flashing. “I didn’t think you knew. Who are you?”

Something about him grated on her nerves, but Cassennia forced a smile. None of this was going as she anticipated; she was unaccustomed to dealing with royals, she supposed, and assumed she’d have the upper hand by default. But here he was, somehow dominating the conversation by ignoring her. How strange it was, still, that he was acting so calm. Had she underestimated him?

Or would she have been wiser to keep trying to scare him?

Before she could decide, he spoke again in the same flat voice. “Anvashe will kill you if you tell anyone. Ask that noblewoman. She knows it, too. She’ll tell you.”

Their conversation was drifting further from her point than ever, but she couldn’t help but reply. “If he finds out,” she said, “and if I tell anyone. Which I haven’t.”

“He hears everything,” he explained, his voice slowing like he thought her stupid. “He’ll know.”

She was sure the smile she gave him in return was just as condescending as his tone, but she had to do something with her face while her mind raced through possibilities. Did he still believe Anvashe was infallible? If he assumed he was untouchable by virtue of Anvashe’s presence, she’d never meaningfully frighten him. She needed to rid him of the notion, but how? 

“Hears,” she murmured, struck by the uneasy awareness that the god may have been listening, “sure. But I found out somehow, didn’t I? How do you think that happened?”

Her words gave him pause for a long moment, and he stared at her, his brow furrowed. Finally, he answered, “I have Anvashe’s protection—sworn to me.”

She did not know what to say to that; he glanced around furtively as if waiting for the god to arrive and threaten her on his behalf. When the god remained silent, the prince sighed.

“He allowed me to come,” Azarion said, “and he intends to let me stay.” There was an edge of emotion in his voice now—growing louder and more intense with every word, but beginning to shake, as if the reality of the situation was just hitting him. “He won’t let you harm me. And—and Phaeon will champion for me if you try to threaten me.”

“I’m not threatening you,” she said, trying to keep her own voice level, “and Mesaanoti people don’t solve our problems with duels. I haven’t yet assimilated to the culture here; to me, solving problems with swords is for the Sehmeris. Besides, you can’t expect your swordsman to keep fighting on your behalf forever, can you? He can’t protect you against everything anyone says about you.” He paled a shade with those words, his unblinking gaze taking on a cast of fear. “Come, now,” she continued, “that’s not a long-term solution. How long can sword fighting buy your privacy? Your safety?”

“Keep…? What do you mean?” There was a new intensity in his words, a sudden sense of urgency. “When was he fighting on my behalf?”

For a second, the words caught her off-guard—but even when she realized his meaning, she was sure to keep the surprise on her face.

“You haven’t heard?” she asked. How was he unaware? Had the swordsman lied to him? That explained why they hadn’t gone together, why Azar was so ambivalent to the proceedings; he hadn’t known. “Yesterday…”

She trailed off; no more words were necessary. The prince’s lips parted, but he could not manage to speak. He stuttered out a couple of syllables, then pressed his lips together and shook his head in denial.

Seeing her chance, Cassennia said, “The details of what happened are not important. What matters is this: you have been discovered, and your secret is spreading. I do have an offer for you—”

“An offer,” he echoed.

“Yes. Safe passage on a boat leaving the Zuenos wharf at dawn tomorrow, heading straight for the Mesaanoti coast.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Or wait for someone else to kidnap you, or smuggle you away on a boat, or harm you—”

“Anvashe won’t allow it. And why would I go with you to Mesaanot?”

“I’m offering you amnesty.”

“Well,” he said, more demanding than ever, “who are you?”

“Someone who wants to help you.”

“On whose authority—?” he began, then snapped, “Prove it!”

She opened her mouth to tell him she was an agent of Aameja, then remembered that Anvashe was listening and pressed her lips together. Silently, she reached into her bag in search of another piece of paper to write down the truth, but found something more compelling instead and passed it over.

His eyes scanned the words, growing wider as they went, and he looked up at her with his brows furrowed. It was the thank-you note he’d written that had somehow ended up in her possession. Mireht had ripped away the signature to use in the rune device that now sat vibrating on her hip, but the rest had remained intact.

She remembered reading it, admiring his careful handwriting, although the content of the note was laced with the exact level of condescension she would expect from the imperious brat who stood before her.

“Why—?” he started, but stopped himself, at a loss for words.

“This is proof of my status, is it not? Who would have something like this in their possession?” He frowned down at the note again, then turned his frightened gaze back on her. “I’m not a Sehmeri agent, as you can see, but I am someone with the authority to get my hands on something as valuable as this. Doesn’t it tell you something about—?”

“Listen,” he interrupted sharply. “Anvashe will kill you if you tell anyone.”

“But are you sure?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “If he doesn’t, then Phaeon will.”

She could’ve replied—could’ve reiterated that neither option was certain, that he was overconfident in his safety—but he turned on his heel and walked away, and she did not stop him.

Chasing him down would just serve to frighten him, and for now, she wanted to believe there was some chance he’d show up at the wharf the following morning, ready to flee.

Or maybe she had already frightened him away. Maybe he was already forming a plan to flee with the swordsman to some other part of the island, to somehow remain hidden and safe on Isle Ezu.

Somehow, though, she doubted it. Ezu was a small island, and she would prove her ability to track him if he made it necessary; she could find him, no matter where he hid.

Her next plan—and the only one left to her—was to keep offering until he was scared enough by the truth that people did know his identity to accept.

Though she was not sure why, she felt more confident in the inevitability of that than ever.