The Carnelian Way

24.2

The sinking sun warmed Rina's face as her feet pounded the stone esplanade. She darted through the crowd, navigating a group of swaggering sailors. They drank from pints of beer as they beelined for a group of whores sashaying in a rainbow of low-cut silk dresses, flashes of long, pale legs revealed with each step.

A sharp cry jerked her attention to a group of dockworkers heaving a pile of cargo on a ship. A crate at the top of a stack tilted, then toppled off, falling to the street with a crash of splintering wood and a tumble of gold. More shouts followed as the leader scolded the men.

No street urchins raced in to steal the gold, and Rina smiled. It was safe here. The people were content with what they had, and Mai, he would bring this to the Denese too.

Instinctively, her hand went to her chest, this time for the crystal sewn there. It bumped into Fin's, and she found the pendant even hotter than before. He must want her to hurry.

She picked up her skirts and raced again, amber lights streaking about her, this time navigating a cluster of families crying and hugging their loved ones.

By the time she reached the Crystal Queen, she was sweating and panting and cursed the past sedentary months. She recognised one of the sailors, Nathan, and called out to him.

Nathan paused and dropped the parcel he carried. He leaned over the railing, and furrowed his brows, then he turned behind him and shouted to someone she couldn't see. "Nah, it's that Denese girl the Capt' was so fond of," he said. Chuckles followed, and Nathan's body shook.

Rina clenched her teeth. "Is he in?"

Nathan faced her again with an expression of surprise. "You're a demanding one, aren't you?" His lips quirked, and he shook his head. Rina thought he muttered, "Just like the Capt' likes," but couldn't be sure. Nathan bent down and picked up his parcel, wrapped in oilcloth and rope, still shaking his head. "He ain't 'ere. Left an hour or so ago." Nathan cocked his chin, and Rina followed the direction, to where a cliff just west of the city rose, circling the far end of the bay.

Fin's words echoed in her mind. "Every town and city I visit, I find myself a place, so that as much as I move through this world, I always have a home."

She twirled Fin's crystal, and the stone pulsed. Yes, this would be where he would go. He must be waiting for her.

She put her back to the sailor and hurried the rest of the way down the pier, sweat running down her back. At the end, she slipped out of her shoes, letting them dangle from the tips of her fingers, and jumped off the last stone slab into the soft sand.

She closed her eyes. Waves lapped the shore as the sun penetrated her eyelids. She opened them again to find footprints in the sand.

The footprints ended at a goat track leading up the edge of the cliff. Slipping her shoes back on, she hitched up her dress, stepping around spikey bushes and foliage. The wind picked up, blowing her dark waves across her face, and she flicked them back. Her calves burned.

A soft voice was the first thing she heard. Pausing, she listened. Fin—it was Fin!

She hurried, soon reaching the top of the cliff. She stopped. A man's silhouette sat near the cliff edge, sitting under a date palm, back to her. She knew those shoulders. The crystal pendant was so hot now, and it thrummed against her skin. Come, it said. She did, tiptoeing toward him, hands fanning through a spurge bush.

The murmuring continued, and she smiled, remembering how she'd teased him for talking to himself on the journey here. How he told her it was a way to survive the lonely seas.

She was almost there. She made out the outline of a picnic basket, the neck of a wine bottle sticking out, glowing like blood in the light of the late sun.