Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

M aybe it won’t be so bad, I try to tell myself as they march us past the women’s quarters and the darkened galley. Soli did worse. Æther Fortune might have flogged Ready, but he wouldn’t flog his own son, would he? And Luck said he would take care of me. Everything will be raveled back right soon.

We stop before a solid door with wood carvings inlaid in the metal. The sight of it sends my heart into a canter. I know this door. The same carvings—our ancestors looking skyward, then boarding their ships, then Saeleas floating weightless with her hair fanned out like an angel—grace the entrance to the captain’s quarters on the Parastrata. I’ve spent hours polishing them at Llell’s side before the Day of Apogee. A scroll of words unrolls from Saeleas’s mouth. I know well enough what they say without reading, the same words my mother whispered in her fever dream. Women of the air, stay aloft and be whole!

Then the whole verse comes back to me, and I ache with dread. I want to run, but my body isn’t done playing traitor, and my limbs lock up.

But woman, her mettle’s thin,

Like copper sails to trap the sun’s heat.

Cover us all, she does,

Tame the stars’ fury and channel life.

In the air, she floats;

A perfect, iridescent thing.

But when her feet touch the ground,

Bare time till she falls crumpled and tarnished.

Women of the air, stay aloft and be whole!

I feel as though the floor is falling out beneath me. The tall Fix steps forward and pounds a fist on the door. I finally catch a glimpse of Luck. His face says he’s as wracked with regret as me, as tarnished as I feel, but he tries to smile at me anyway. Don’t fear. I bow my head and let my damp hair hide my face. How can he protect me if he’s as frozen by shame as I am?

A section of the door creaks open, a little hidden latchport. “What?” says the guard.

“We need to see Æther Fortune and the Parastrata captain.” The Fix spits.

“What? Now?” says the guard. Then he catches sight of me, hair snarled with briny water, only half dressed in my shirt and underskirts, and he jumps as if someone has touched a bare wire to his skin.

The Fixes march us into the captain’s quarters. Men’s laughter rings through the sickly sweet smoke clouding the air. The crewemen lounge on oversize pillows of hide and silk, shouting and singing and throwing back glasses of clear rice wine. My heartbeat doubles. I’ve never been in men’s quarters before, except for the times Modrie Reller sent me in to clean, and the rooms were empty then. My father’s yellow-white hair stands out bright as a nova in a sea of dark heads. Æther Fortune sits beside him. My arms and face burn. Panic crackles beneath my skin. I try to break for the door, but they catch me and spin me around to face my father again.

My father’s eyes narrow at me like a cat’s. A hush spreads out around us.

He stands and shifts his gaze to the Fixes. “What are you doing with my so girl?”

“Your so girl,” says one of the Fixes, sticky with sarcasm. “We caught her naked in the desalination reservoir, letting young Æther Luck put his hands to her.” He shoves Luck forward.

Æther Fortune shoots to his feet. “My son?”

“We thought you’d want to talk on what they were doing there, exactly, in the full middle of night,” the Fix says.

My father’s eyes are metal. “And what were you doing with our bride, Æther Luck?”

“I thought . . .” Luck’s head drops. “We . . .”

No, I think, despair creeping over me. Don’t act the smallboy, not now.

“Speak up.” My father looms over him. “Let us hear you.”

“I . . . we were sealing our bond,” Luck says. He lifts his head and tries to stare back at my father, but I can see he’s shaken. The look on my father’s face is enough to make me want to drop to my knees and beg mercy. “We thought it wouldn’t matter so soon before the binding.”

“Wouldn’t matter?” Æther Fortune pushes forward. Blood flushes his cheeks and throat. “Wouldn’t matter?”

“I know it was wrong,” Luck says. “But I care some lot for Ava and once we’re bound it won’t—”

My father looks as though he’s going to strike him, but it’s Æther Fortune who does it. He hits Luck close-fisted across the eye. There is a snap, and Luck doubles over, clutching his face.

I stifle a cry.

“My own son.” Æther Fortune grabs Luck by the back of the neck and pulls him up.

Luck swallows, a bruise already purpling his cheekbone. “Father . . .”

“It matters to me,” he says coldly, and strikes Luck again with his ring hand.

Luck drops to the floor. His face is bleeding. He touches the cut and stares at the red smear in confusion. ther Fortune levels a kick at his ribs. Luck collapses, all the air driven from his lungs.

“No!” I try to run to him, but the Fix holds me back.

Luck’s father delivers another kick, and then another, and another. I cover my eyes, but I can’t escape the sound of it—the thick blows, the grunts. Finally, an ther crewemen puts a restraining hand on his arm.

The captain steps back, breathing hard, and smoothes his hair. “It matters to me,” he says again. “Ready the airlock.”

“Please.” I stretch out my hand and step between Luck and his father. “I let him.”

A silence falls over the room, broken only by the sound of Luck wheezing. Æther Fortune and my father turn to me slowly, and I realize what I’ve done. I should never have spoken, not at all. I know that; any so girl worth her salt knows that. My father and Æther Fortune stare at me as if one of the goats has opened its mouth and formed human speech.

I drop to the ground and hold up my hands in supplication. “Your mercy, so father.”

“You consented?” my father hisses. His eyes are cold as the Void.

I bow my head and nod, terrified and bewildered. My father looks as though he wants to cut my throat.

“So captain.” Luck staggers to his feet, clutching his ribs. “So father, punish me as you did Soli’s husband. The blame is mine, not Ava’s. We can still be bound, and make everything right.”

“And what . . .” Æther Fortune’s voice is dangerous. “What makes you think you can steal my bride, small Luck?”

Silence.

“Your bride?” Luck darts a horrified look at me.

“Yes, my bride.” Æther Fortune flexes his hands into fists. His pockmarks stand out in sickly moons over his reddening face. “The ink’s fresh, but the contract’s signed.”

Luck swallows. “I thought with it being time for me to take a wife, and you talking on how I’d need to marry before I take the captaincy . . .” His voice trails to nothing.

“So you’re taking the captaincy too, then?” Æther Fortune’s voice rises. “The way you’ve taken my bride? Is that what you are? My own son, an adulterer and a traitor?” He pushes Luck backward. One of the Fixes catches him before he hits the ground and pushes him back to his feet. Æther Fortune rounds on my father, breathing hard. “And you, with your some pretty lies about your virtuous daughter and her skilled hands. Now we see what they’re skilled at.”

“Brother Fortune,” my father says. “On me and my wives, our regrets. Our deep apologies. Let me find you another girl from my crewe. A better bride, pure, more docile. I have a younger daughter by my third wife near enough come to womanhood. You could take her now and . . .”