Tiny Raven

Alessia was still sorting herbs when Patrian spoke again.

“Since you’re determined to be useful while Askarion keeps you horizontal, translate something. Three scouts brought in yesterday, Tharon irregulars. They were muttering in dock-pidgin before fever took them. Something about weight measures and a ‘moonless tide’.”

Patrian’s eyes narrowed, sharp and assessing. “I need to know if they’re describing a smuggling window or dying delirious. Dock-rat cant isn’t in my medical texts, and you’re the only translator in camp who won’t embellish to save their pride.”

“Moonless tide,” Alessia repeated, the words clicking into place like a lock’s tumblers falling. Her fingers paused over a sprig of foxglove, the leaf suspended halfway between the ‘kills’ pile and the basket. “Not a metaphor. Harbor slang. Means the new moon phase—darkest night, highest blackwater currents. When the Myrian swells, but there’s no light to catch the boats on the surface.”

She set the leaf aside and pushed herself a little straighter against the pillows, forgetting for a moment that her ribs protested such things.

“It’s a smuggling window,” she continued, voice dropping to the low register used for discussing dangerous things in crowded markets. “Three nights, maybe four, depending on the phase. The irregulars aren’t delirious—they’re warning you. Walus moves his heavy timber and special cargo during moonless tides. Less chance of Aurean patrols spotting the wake, and the harbormaster’s night-blind without a lantern.”

Alessia frowned, counting backward through the phases of the moon the way other people counted coins. She rolled a dried leaf between her fingers as she worked through the dates.

“If they’re talking about it now, then the current window is closing soon. Next moonless night is… three days? Four? Time gets fuzzy when you’re horizontal.”

Askarion grunted, low and noncommittal, the sound of a man who had just filed away crucial intelligence while pretending he already knew it. He didn’t turn from the supply crate he was organizing, but his shoulders lost their sharp, aggravated edge.

“Three days,” he muttered, slamming a jar of salve onto a higher shelf with more force than necessary. “Timber movement. Special cargo.” He shot Patrian a look sharp enough to cut leather. “We’ll move the scouts to the secondary tent after dark. Burn the linens they bled on.”

Then he turned, fixing Alessia with a glare that would wither crops. He stalked back to her cot, swatting her hands away from the herb basket with a careless flick of his wrist.

“You’ve identified three plants correctly out of twenty, contaminated your bedding with poppy, and nearly gave yourself a blistering rash out of sheer ignorance.”

He straightened, wiping his hands on his apron.

“At least you’re less useless than the last translator we had. He cried when he saw blood. You just bleed on the furniture and keep talking.”

He kicked the basket closer to her good hand.

“Keep sorting. And wash those hands again, you missed a spot under the left thumbnail.”

He paused at the tent flap, glancing back with one eye narrowed against the morning light.

“Maybe you’re worth the catgut I wasted on you.” He snorted, a sound suspiciously close to reluctant approval. “Maybe.”

Patrian watched her hands as she washed. Methodical, thorough, scrubbing under the nails where the poppy latex hid. He noted the tremor in her fingers, the way she paused to check the water’s clarity before drying them.

“You understood what it meant,” he murmured, his voice low and clinical. He reached over and adjusted the ‘safe’ pile of herbs, moving the licorice root precisely one finger-width left, aligning it with some invisible standard.

Then he stilled, his gaze lifting to hers with the focused pressure of a blade testing for weakness in armor.

“Three days. Moonless tide. Useful information for someone planning an escape.”

He folded his hands, resting them on his knee, his expression utterly unreadable.

Alessia’s hand froze in the cooling water of the basin, the ripples lapping against her knuckles betraying the tremor she couldn’t quite suppress.

Three days. The moonless tide.

She could. The route was there—Salt Gate to the deep moorings, a skiff in the dark, vanishing into the blackwater before the patrols blink.

She was already calculating the weight of the satchel, the silence of the shackle dragging through the surf, Stella’s hand in hers as they—

No.

Her fingers closed around the silver signet where it hung against her sternum, warm from her skin, heavy as an anchor. Odrian’s collateral. Proof that she wasn’t meant to run.

She pulled her hand from the water and dried it, watching the droplets vanish into the rough linen, gone like the escape routes she was burning one by one in her mind. When she looked up at Patrian, her voice was hoarse, stripped of its usual barbs by exhaustion and something far more terrifying. Certainty.

“Three days ago, I would’ve vanished while you were still boiling your instruments,” she admitted, rolling the ring between her thumb and forefinger until the metal bit. “I’d have left the ring on the cot, taken my daughter, and let your kings wake up to an empty bed and a lot of useless promises.”

She leaned back against the pillows, the stitches pulling sharp at her ribs, and met his clinical gaze with a defiant lift of her chin.

“Today, I’m sorting herbs.”

She let the ring fall back against her chest. A solid weight over her heart.

“So tell Odrian he’ll get his collateral back when he’s eighty. And tell him I expect better wine by then. The vintage he’s been serving is terrible for my convalescence.”

Patrian huffed and gestured toward the basin of water, still faintly cloudy from her earlier scrubbing. “Wash your hands again. Properly this time, beneath the nails. When Stella arrives—as she will, despite my explicit instructions to the contrary—you will not touch her until I verify you’re not carrying poppy residue. I won’t have a child sleep through supper because her mother is too proud to ask for help distinguishing latex from sap.”

He adjusted the herb basket, moving the dangerous specimens to the far side of the cot, and fixed her with a stare that managed to be both assessing and grounding.

“Collateral or conviction, you’re only valuable to this camp if you’re lucid and vertical. Try to remain both until sundown. The scout in the corner still might wake up screaming, and I need that licorice root—in the correct pile—so I can soothe his throat enough to question him. If you’ve poisoned him with your fingering, I’ll be very displeased.”

Outside the tent came the unmistakable sound of a child arguing with a grown man. Neither voice sounded particularly victorious.

Patrian sighed.

“Your five minutes are almost up.”

Askarion returned to jab a finger at the fresh dressing peeking out from under Alessia’s chiton. “You. Stop flexing your jaw like you’re preparing a speech. Every time you tilt your chin like that, you strain the catgut at your ribs. I can see the dressing darkening from here, you stubborn dock-rat.”

He stomped to the supply crate, slamming jars around with theatrical violence before retrieving a fresh roll of linen. He tossed it at Patrian without looking.

“Re-wrap her before she leaks actual blood onto the only useful report we’ve had all week. And you—” he fixed Alessia with a glare that could etch pottery, “—you did well enough with the moonless tide business. Congratulations. You’ve bought yourself another three days of being useful instead of compost.”

He kicked the herb basket away from her cot with his boot, sending dried leaves scattering. “But you’re done sorting. Patrian can play teacher with someone who isn’t oozing. You rest—actual rest, eyes closed, mouth shut—or I’ll strap you to this cot with the tent ropes and dose you with enough nightshade to make you think you’re resting while your body repairs itself.”

He paused at the flap, gripping the canvas as he glanced back, his voice dropping to a gravelly mutter.

“Your demonspawn is lurking outside with a fistful of rocks and a demand to see her mother. I told her five more minutes. If you’re not demonstrating a pulse strong enough to satisfy me when I get back, I’ll tell her you’re napping and feed her honeycake until she vomits.”

Patrian moved to the cot the instant Askarion’s shadow cleared the canvas, his fingers finding Alessia’s wrist with impersonal efficiency. His thumb pressed against the bruised vein, counting the flutter of her pulse against his own internal rhythm.

“Rabbit-quick but steady,” he murmured, releasing her only to peel back the dressing at her ribs with a single, deft tug. He inspected the fresh sutures before securing the linen again with a sharp, practiced twist. “You’ll survive the five-minute deadline. Barely.”

He reached into the basket, selecting a sprig of dried lavender and placed it in her palm. Safe, benign, something to occupy her hands.

“When your daughter enters, you will check your fingers for poppy residue one final time. You will smile—not convincingly, but adequately—and you will accept whatever rocks she offers without flinching. Children smell panic like hounds smell blood.”

“You do realize I’ve raised her for five years?” Alessia asked with a raised brow as she dipped her hands in the water to wash them once more, paying close attention to under her nails. “I know how to…” she fumbled for the correct word, “…perform for her.”

Softer, more to herself than to him, she added, “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time she’s seen me injured.”

Patrian took her wrist, turning her hand to inspect the creases beneath her nails. He frowned at the faint residue still clinging to the cuticle of her thumb and scraped it away with his own thumbnail.

“Performance requires energy, Thief,” he said, releasing her hand only after he was satisfied. “You’re currently running on spite and depleted blood. Your daughter has seen you injured, yes—but she’s never seen you surrender to it. Perhaps try that instead of the mask.”

He adjusted the fresh dressing at her ribs, his touch light but firm. “She knows you’re hurt. She’ll know if you’re pretending. Children sense the dissonance between ‘fine’ and ‘safe.’ Give her the truth—limited, filtered, appropriate—but truth. She’ll sleep better knowing her mother is being tended to, rather than performing vigor she doesn’t possess.”

He stepped back, folding his hands. “Besides, Askarion’s threats aside, you do actually need to rest. Not perform rest. Simply… be still.”

As if on cue, Stella burst through the tent flap like a small, determined battering ram, her arms full of rocks that clacked and clattered against each other with every step. General Stonebelly was wedged under her chin, Lieutenant Pebble rode in her kolpos, and she was clutching something new and shiny. A quartz-veined stone she must have pried from the shoreline that morning.

“Mama!” she announced, loud enough to make the scout in the corner flinch in his fever sleep. She screeched to a halt at the foot of the cot, her dark eyes wide and scanning, checking the bandages, the pillows, the way Alessia’s hands rested on top of the blanket exactly as ordered.

She frowned, suspicious and fierce, her lower lip jutting out.

“You’re s’posed to be resting,” she said, not a question but an accusation, stepping closer with the gravity of a tiny judge delivering a verdict. “Uncle Patch said no touching. And Uncle Asky said no moving—” she paused, scrunching her face up in concentration, “—and he said if you tried to ‘sort herbs’ again, he’d tie you to the cot with fancy knots.”

She deposited her armful of rocks onto the crate beside the cot with a dramatic thunk, then clambered up onto the narrow space left on the mattress with the easy confidence of a child who had never been told ‘no’ and never planned to hear it. She wedged herself carefully against Alessia’s uninjured side and pressed her forehead to her mother’s shoulder.

“Your hands are green,” she observed, muffled against the linen. “Like the time we tried to make dye from dock leaves and you got a rash.” She pulled back just enough to fix Alessia with a serious, searching gaze. “Did you get a rash again? ‘Cause I can get Uncle Dio to yell at the plants. He’s good at yelling.”

She reached up with one small, sandy finger and traced the edge of the silver signet where it rested against Alessia’s chest, her touch light and curious.

“You still got the ring,” she whispered, as if confirming a secret pact. “Good. That means you gotta stay. That’s the rule.” She nodded, satisfied, and settled more firmly against her mother’s side, one hand resting possessively on the blanket above the fresh bandages.

“I brought you a present,” she announced, reaching for the quartz-veined stone. “It’s Captain Sparkle. He’s in charge of making sure you don’t run away while you’re resting. He’s very fierce.” She held the rock up for inspection, turning it so the morning light caught the white veins. “See? He’s got a face. That means he’s watching. And if you try to get up, he’ll tell Uncle Dio, and then Uncle Ody will do the fancy knots, and then General Stonebelly will throw you in the dungeon.”

She paused, considering, then added with devastating logic. “So you should probably just sleep. I’ll guard you. I know all the rules now. No touching the green stuff, no drinking Uncle Ody’s vinegar, no pulling your stitches like last time.” She patted the blanket above the bandages with grave authority. “I’m a very good guard. Admiral Snip said so. He gave me a claw-salute.”

She snuggled closer, her small body warm and solid and there, her fingers finding Alessia’s hand and lacing through the green-stained ones with fierce, possessive strength.

“Five minutes,” she whispered, repeating Patrian’s limit like a sacred vow. “But I’m gonna ask for more. Uncle Asky likes me better than you. He said I have ‘excellent bribery technique.’ So don’t worry, Mama. I’ll fix it.”

Alessia looked down at her hands and then at the quartz-veined stone in Stella’s small fist. It did look vaguely like a face, if you squinted and had the imagination of a five-year-old who talked to crustaceans.

“Captain Sparkle, huh?” Her voice came out rough, scraped thin, but she forced a grin that felt more genuine than it should have. “Looks like a tough bastard. Bet he’s already planning defensive formations.”

She shifted her weight carefully and let her cheek rest against the top of Stella’s head, breathing in the smell of sea salt and honeycake.

“Thank you, Starlight,” she murmured, low enough that only Stella could hear. She tucked the lavender sprig behind her daughter’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got a very important job here.”

She gestured with her chin toward the scattered piles of herbs, “I’m learning which plants will poison Uncle Ody when he gets too dramatic. It’s vital work. Someone has to keep him in line.”

Her thumb traced the edge of the quartz stone Stella had placed on her chest, next to the signet. “And between Captain Sparkle watching the exits and you handling the negotiations for more honeycake… I think I’m the safest person in this entire camp. Even safer than if Uncle Asky strapped me down with his fancy knots.”

She kissed her forehead, tasting salt and sand. “Five minutes is plenty. You just sit here and be fierce.”