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Not many lunched at the dining cabin. Most preferred the open decks, marvelling over the calm waters of the Kapuluan Raja, shaded under abaca and batique tents, fanning themselves with ricepaper fans. They were all dressed in the higher fashions of the Eastern Isles. Thick ossa—long tunic dresses split at the outer thighs and worn with a skirt or trousers; or robes over the traditional yi-sang—cross-collared tops worn under pleated skirts. Isla and Tam Mai were considerably underdressed in their simple syarong, even though Isla had tied the wrap-around in one of the most complex styles she knew.

The cabin was amply lit, the air sweet and savoury. Sunlight streamed through large, panelled windows on all sides. Isla removed the shawl from her shoulders and draped it around her sister's face. The tables were fashioned in what some highborn ladies admired as the Tsunai style: low and perfectly square, surrounded by large sitting cushions, and hollow in the middle where it dipped into a sunken hearth. A thin chimney extended over each hearth, through which dangled several hooks and chains.

They took a table in the only available corner, where the crook of the fluted walls offered shade from direct sunlight. Beside theirs was a table of four merchants, each trying to outshine the other in their tales of finaglery. Isla hooked a kettle over her hearth and listened.

Two Surikh, a Napoan, and a Porasawan, judging by their accents. She sniffed under her breath. It sounded like the opening to a bad joke. They talked over rice wine, debating the best markets, most profitable price points, and other nonsense that had her tuning out within seconds.

It's like I'm in Intercontinental Trade again with Master Chendra. She chuckled at the thought of her old mentor tossing a miniature trade ship across the room at her.

'What's so funny?' Tam Mai sidled her cushion closer.

'Just a grouchy old man I once knew.'

'Uncle Bart?'

Isla laughed aloud. 'Oh, no. Someone much more miserable than Uncle Bart.'

Her sister's eyes furrowed in disbelief, but Isla was spared an explanation when the attendant came with a platter and laid it upon their table. Thin-sliced meats, fruits and vegetables in a basket, small bowls of various dips and sauces ... Tam Mai did not wait for the man to set the grill on their hearth. She fumbled with the dining reeds and reached for what looked like fish slices. The attendant listed off their choice meats and seafoods while Tam Mai chewed, Isla pretended to listen attentively while trying to eavesdrop on the merchants. One of them—the Porasawan—had started bragging about his wares: exotic medicines he had supposedly acquired from across the Eastern Isles.

'Here is but a sample.' He held a tiny jar between his fingers, turning it against the light of his hearth. Isla barely saw it in her periphery; no larger than an inch, filled with white powder. 'And this alone is already worth a fortune. This, my friends, is a remedy made of only the finest, strongest dji-ran horn in all the Eastern realms.'

The Napoan snorted. 'I suppose you tracked and hunted them down yourself.'

'I didn't need to. I saw the uncut horns, attached still to their heads.'

'Pah, these days even a modestly trained seamstress can sew an oryx horn to a horse and make it look like the real deal.'

'You reveal yourself, Hanchu. Are you telling me you aren't able to distinguish the horns of a desert-dwelling oryx to those of the flesh-eating dji-ran? How about the alpine ibex and the bull-horned rhino? Well, don't worry about it too much. I did not become master apothecarist by cruising on pleasure ships all year round, after all.'

'... and upon this platter we have a selection of bluefin tuna, spotted seatrout, salmon, and yellowtail,' droned the attendant. Isla thanked him with a smile. He left as the merchants devolved into katagelastic humour.

It must be tiring to be so antagonistic all the time. Isla poured herself some tea. Tam Mai liked hers steeped until the water turned dark and bitter, but Isla preferred it light with a lump of sugar. Tea often helped whenever Tam Mai started to feel overwhelmed, it must be Noi's influences rubbing off on her. Dji-ran horn might also help. They say it improves mental acuity, among other things.

Isla snuck a glance at the Porasawan merchant over the top of her cup. She would be tempted to steal his ware if she thought it was authentic, but dji-ran were as elusive as they were vicious. Did this man, foolish enough to be loudly boasting of such exclusive merchandise in his possession, expect anyone to believe he could ever get his hands on genuine dji-ran horn?

'They'll never grant you an audience with the Emperor, peddling such nostrum,' said one of the two Surikh merchants. The sleeves of his robe were so wide they drowned his teacup when he lifted his hands to drink. 'If anything they'll revoke your license.'

'Nostrum! You are one to talk, with your untried runes! Who do you think has been supplying the dynasty its palliatives?'

'You and a hundred other merchants, and yet for generations now the same malady still afflicts the Divine Gyok.'

Isla reached for a strip of loin, using the movement to shuffle her cushion closer to their neighbour. Little was known of Emperor Gyoseong and the condition that plagued his line. Eshe had not shared any details to Gyani's servants, only that a messenger carrying the royal crest of the Divine Gyok had come to request her services. Isla's subsequent enquiries had come up empty. All she could glean were things the general populace was already familiar with: rumours, theories, news their neighbouring kingdom had allowed to filter through.

The Emperor's third-born child was different from other children his age. It was unclear how or why, only that his condition frequently left him central in a crater of devastation. He was not even the only one of the Gyok clan living with one mysterious condition or other. The price of such great theurgy, people would say, often with awe.

What do they know? Isla's meat hissed when it touched the grill. Beside her, Tam Mai was still chewing blissfully. What would they say of her condition? Even the suggestion that it was some sort of logical consequence to some grander scheme made Isla's blood boil. There was no higher meaning, no divine reward nor punishment involved. Just her sister, trying to get through another day, one step at a time.

'Your services might even no longer be required,' said the one named Hanchu. He had switched to Common Kapuluan in his rising ire. Clearly it was easier for him to jeer in the Eastern Isles' continental tongue than in his broken Srikh, but Isla had to concentrate to keep up. 'Who will be financing your snakeoil then?'

'My snakeoil, friend, is sought after by men and women across all our wondrous kingdoms. I have no concerns at all. You cannot imagine the amount people are willing to pay for a single ounce of jantau root powder, a pedicle of saltwater seroja, a single bulb of flowering senandu. Even if it takes years before the Emperor grows tired of his new Terran witch I'd still make easy profit.'

Rich, coming from a seedy merchant. He seemed exactly the type who would call old men therapeuts but young women witches. At the mention of the flower, Isla had considered purchasing an extract from him ... but after that comment about Eshe, she quickly changed her mind. What kind of honest merchant supplies senandu bulbs, anyway?

Her mind trailed inevitably to that cursed blooming season ... Has it only been over a year? It seemed a lifetime ago since she left Kiet lying there in his chambers ...

'Eldest, What's wrong?'

Isla turned at her sister's voice. Tam Mai's face was full of concern, a half-eaten prawn dangled between her dining reeds. 'Nothing, Tamma. I'm just not as hungry as I thought I was.'

'But you love squid. There's so much squid. You should try it with this sauce here.'

They would've just completed the ceremony for the release of lament. Isla dipped into the sauce perfunctorily. He would have been there, mourning his mother. Had he known? Does he know the kind of woman she truly had been?

Rajini Amarin had tried to kill her, had kept her sister in a secret dungeon, starved and tortured. And yet, every time Isla thought of Kiet, she could not suppress that pang in her chest. She may not have killed the rajini herself, but it was she who lured Rajini Dhvani into the dungeons that night. And if I had to, I would do it again.

Tam Mai picked a piece of squid off the grill, popped it into her older sister's mouth. 'See? It's nice, isn't it?'

'Mm. Chewy. Just the way I like it.' Six years she locked Tamma in down there, and here I sit, feeling guilty. I'm sorry, Kiet, but your mother deserved everything that came her way.

They still knew very little of Tam Mai's past. It was not a subject anyone approached unless initiated by Tam Mai herself, and those occasions were so rare Isla did not even remember when the last time had been. When she did speak of the years before her imprisonment, her stories were vague and disjointed. A house filled with children. A man who carried a snake whip. A large woman who would make children pluck the white hairs from her head and pop the pimples on her back. Tam Mai only ever spoke of them with fear, as a reference to something cruel or unpleasant. 'She smells like Mother Umar,' or 'The whip-man says girls should keep their heads down,' and other such erratic observations.

At some point, she had been brought to Kathedra. Isla inferred from her stories that she had been sold at a Trader's Square—one similar to the night market Bart had shown Isla so long ago—and purchased by a nobleborn who would later discover Tam Mai's gift for portraits. Tam Mai would recount snippets of painting various faces. A boy more handsome than any man she had ever seen, who would bring her new paints and pretty ribbons everytime he came to sit for her. A beautiful man with hair so long he wore it as a crown around his head. A girl who had a rabbit for a bondmate, not much older than Tam Mai had been at the time, but who seemed to be worlds apart by the way she even stood. 'So still and pretty, like a statue,' Tam Mai had said.

Those times were perhaps her happiest, until her talents caught the ear of a rajini. One who loved to sit for portraits.

Somehow, Rajini Amarin had discovered who Tam Mai truly was. An orphan whose family died trying to leave the kingdom, the same year a renounced prince and his wife were found murdered in the middle of the woods. An orphan whose parents happen to have shared given names with said couple. It would have piqued her interest for sure.

It would not have been difficult for a rajini to track Tam Mai's original slavers and confirm her suspicions. Everything to verify their identities would have been there: their ship pass, travel permits ... All our belongings that the slavers wouldn't have been able to sell.

'Eldest, Are you ill?'

Isla startled as Tam Mai held a hand against her forehead. How different things would have been for her sister, had the rajini just let it go.

'Did I cook the squid for too long? Does it taste like rubber?'

'No, Tamma. You did a great job.'

But of course Rajini Amarin wouldn't have let it go. Not when she discovered Tam Mai—the descendant of a royal man and a baseborn woman—had something she was not supposed to have.

"Is it those men? Are they saying bad things about your friend?" Tam Mai's voice leapt into her head with all the intensity of a bullhorn. Isla dropped her cup, yelping as hot tea spilled over her lap. "I can give them the white lights if you want."

Isla shook her head, leaned forward to whisper in Tam Mai's ear. 'What did I tell you about jumping into people's heads?'

Tam Mai had the decency to look abashed. Isla wiped her thighs, already smarting from the water. She was not angry, only mildly annoyed. How many times did she need to remind her sister? She was so tired from constantly keeping up her mind-shield. It was one thing for Tam Mai to push into her thoughts like that, but Isla did not trust her sister to resist the temptation of a curious mind. What if someone caught her peering? What if she peered into a void?

Ifrit's breath, we need to find Eshe.

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↝ END CHAPTER THREE ↜

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☆ this chapter is dedicated to lavenderstar. check out her book, "SECRETS OF THE SWORDS" if you like fantasy adventure ☆

Video: Ambient sounds of an afternoon meal at sea
Image: Original artists unknown

Surprise! Looks like Tam Mai also has theurgy. Hopefully it doesn't get her in trouble!

The crackling hearth in the video is a the Japanese irori—basically what I've modelled the pit tables after, except in Isla's world, the hearth is surrounded by an elevated floor table, which some irori also have.
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