Tides & Drift E-Book

Adrienne Young

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 217

Beschreibung

A moving return to the world of Fable, these two stories dive into the bittersweet first meeting of fan favourite characters Paj and Auster, and the intrepid voyages of Willa and Koy as they forge their own path across the Narrows. Tides When Auster, a young member of the Roth crime family, meets a deckhand named Paj that he's been sent to rob on behalf of his infamous uncle, his world is turned upside down. Tides is a tale of first love, heartache and breaking free, following Paj and Auster's beginnings before the events of Fable and Namesake. Drift After leaving the only family she's ever had on the Marigold, Willa has made a new start on a remote island carving out her own stake in the future of the Narrows. She's found an unexpected business partner in Koy and whether she likes it or not, they are suited in more ways than one. Together they plan to turn Jeval into the farthest-reaching port before the waters of the Unnamed Sea. But when the Saltblood ships docking in their newly minted harbor start bringing unsettling news, the more Willa is forced to rely on Koy, and she discovers that he's more than an opportunity to create her own destiny. He also just might be the safest harbor she's ever known.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave Us a Review

Copyright

Introduction

Timeline of Books

TIDES

DRIFT

About the Author

ALSO BY ADRIENNE YOUNG

Sky in the Deep

The Girl the Sea Gave Back

Fable

Namesake

The Last Legacy

Saint

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Tides & DriftPrint edition ISBN: 9781803369471E-book edition ISBN: 9781803369488

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UPwww.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: February 202410 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Tides - Adrienne Young 2021. All Rights Reserved.© Drift - Adrienne Young 2023. All Rights Reserved.

Adrienne Young asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

INTRODUCTION

The first time I ever visited the Narrows was the day Fable first came to me. I often get story ideas in a single picture. I then spend months, sometimes years, answering the who, what, when, where, why, and how of that picture before I start writing it. With Fable, it was a girl standing on a beach, watching a ship sail away. Little did I know that she was on the island of Jeval in a place called the Narrows, a little forgotten corner of The Unnamed Sea.

In the book Fable, we follow Fable on her quest across the Narrows to find her father and claim her place on his crew. After narrowly escaping the retribution of a dangerous dredger named Koy, she is forced to trust West, a young trader who will steal her heart, as will his crew. Willa, Paj, Auster and Hamish become the family Fable never had as she carves out her own stake in the world.

In Namesake, Fable and West’s journey takes them to Bastian, a glittering city in the Unnamed Sea where Fable’s mother’s past and Fable’s role within it are revealed. When her path unexpectedly crosses with Koy once again, she finds they have more in common than she thought. We also learn more about Auster’s mysterious background when we meet the Roths, the crime family he left behind when he fell in love with Paj. And in the end, with a new future at the tip of their fingers, Willa decides to make her own fate by leaving the crew behind.

Back in Bastian, Henrik, the patriarch of the Roths summons home his long-lost niece, Bryn, in The Last Legacy. The fate of the Roths as a family takes a turn, shifting their ties forever, but all of these stories find their origins in Saint, the tale of Fable’s father as a young dreamer at the dawn of the Narrows and the earth-shattering love he shared with her mother, Isolde.

Now, I am happy to give you Tides and Drift, two Narrows novellas that give you a peek into the stories that bridge the gap between these characters and their futures in this world. Tides follows the origin love story between Paj and Auster before the events of Fable, as they defy the Roths definitions of family, loyalty, and faith. In Drift, we follow Willa and Koy after the events of Namesake, as they set out to open their own port on the island of Jeval.

I hope you love wandering this world with these characters as much as I do. I can’t wait to see where they go next.

TIMELINE OF BOOKS

Saint

Tides

Fable

Namesake

The Last Legacy

Drift

TIDES

ONE

The harbor was dead, and that was never a good sign.

I leaned against the wall of the merchant’s house beside Murrow, my eyes trained on the ship anchored in the fourth bay down the docks. The Scourge was a midsized schooner with three masts and a crew that was short at least a few hands. It arrived in Bastian every two weeks like clockwork and dropped anchor for a single night on its way to Nimsmire. We’d been watching it for months, checking the quantities unloaded against the harbor master’s logs.

I pulled my pocket watch from my vest. It clicked, opening in my palm. The yellow light of the streetlamp gleamed on the glass as I tilted it. “Two minutes,” I murmured, looking over my shoulder to Murrow.

My cousin’s curling brown hair was barely contained beneath his cap. It was his attempt at being inconspicuous, but there was nothing ordinary about him. He was uncommonly tall and lanky like his father, with huge feet, and his pants were almost always too short—a detail that aggravated our uncle Henrik to no end. He liked the family to be clean-shaven, buttoned-up, and shined like a brass buckle, even if we were doing the work of sea urchins.

Behind him, Ezra nodded in answer, a look of utter boredom on his angled face. His features were distinctly not Roth, though in the years since Henrik plucked him out of a rival’s workshop and brought him home, he’d managed to end up looking like us in other ways. His nearly black hair was combed back, the collar of his jacket flipped up against the wind. It wasn’t often he ventured out of the workshop, but I needed three bodies for this job if I was going to pull it off. My uncle didn’t like mistakes.

The Scourge’s route stretched all the way to the Narrows and carried everything from silk to salted pork, but it was one of the few Bastian-based trading operations that had license to carry the thing we were after—Sowan rye. The potent spirit was made in sea brine barrels by crofters in the north, and there wasn’t a bastard in Bastian who wouldn’t pay top coin for the stuff. That was exactly what my uncle Henrik was counting on.

The harbor bell rang, signaling the official close of business in the merchant’s house, but most of the ship crews were already drinking in the city’s taverns. That should have been my first clue. Things were never that easy.

I snapped the watch closed and tucked it back into the pocket against my ribs. “Let’s go.”

Murrow pushed off the wall and stepped out first, shoving his hands into his pockets and starting up the main dock. He kept his face down, turning it just enough to keep it from catching the light of the streetlamps. It was more instinct than anything. We’d learned to be invisible at a young age, when his father and our uncles started using us as decoys. Might as well make use of them, Henrik had said. It had been the same for him. No one looked twice at a well-dressed boy in a tailored jacket. Not unless they could see the Roth tattoo on your arm. I’d been given that when I was twelve, like everyone else in the family.

Ezra ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back from his face as we waited. Murrow passed the second bay, then the third. There wasn’t so much as a hitch in his gait as he reached the fourth. He waited until he passed a stack of barrels, and when he was illuminated in the pool of light from the next streetlamp, he took one hand from his pocket and let it fall to his side. That was the signal.

It was clear.

I didn’t hesitate, moving up the dock with Ezra on my heels. The harbor was patrolled by the watch, and there would be at least one member from the Scourge’s crew guarding the unloaded inventory waiting for delivery to the merchant’s house. But the pickup wasn’t coming. I’d made sure of that. And more often than not, the crew member left to guard the cargo was half drunk by this hour.

Moonlight rippled on the surface of the calm, black sea to our left, and the elevated street stretched out along the water to our right. I watched Ezra’s shadow from the corner of my eye, counting the steps. They were like a heartbeat, steady and even until we reached the Scourge, and as soon as the dock broke off I turned sharply, disappearing between the barrels. Ezra took the next opening, and I listened to his footsteps on the other side of the cargo as we both made our way toward the crates we were looking for.

I searched the lids until I spotted a stack burned with the port seal of Sowan. A relieved breath escaped my lips and I knocked on one of them with a fist, letting Ezra know I’d found it. A soft splash sounded below the slats of the dock under my feet, and I looked down to see a near-invisible Murrow pulling a pair of oars from the water. He stood, catching hold of the dock with both hands to hold a small rowboat in place.

I hoisted the first box into my arms, careful not to jostle the corked bottles inside. Ezra was already climbing into the boat below and as soon as his boots hit the hull, he reached up, ready to take the crate from me. I squatted onto my haunches, leaning out over the water. But I froze when the prick of sharp metal stung against the side of my neck, just below my jaw. A chill ran down my spine and the crate almost slipped through my fingers. I’d had a knife to my throat enough times to know what a blade felt like.

“Stand up.” A deep voice sounded in the dark behind me, and I set the crate down between my feet. I lifted my hands slowly out to the side as I rose.

Below, Murrow stared up at me with wide eyes. Ezra was pulling the knife from his belt. But by the time they made it back onto the dock, I’d be bleeding. One shout into the night air for the harbor watch and all three of us would go down.

The moment Murrow began to hoist himself from the boat, I kicked my boot to the side in a quick sweep, knocking his grip from the dock. He tumbled back into the hull with a crash, and one of the oars slipped into the water, disappearing. He cursed, trying to leap back up for the dock, but it was too late. The current was already tugging the boat out into the bay, the dark swallowing it whole.

“Turn around.” The voice spoke again with the same patient cadence.

I obeyed, turning my back to the ship, and when I saw the face before me, my eyes narrowed. The trader was young, probably my age. A deckhand working his way up the ranks of the crew.

He looked down at me with a flat expression, his black eyes like polished pieces of onyx. They were as dark as his skin, but as he took a step closer to me, the light from the streetlamp shimmered over it like the smooth face of a black pearl.

“Willing to die for your helmsman’s coffers?” I muttered, glaring at him.

“I don’t give a shit about his ledgers, but you touch that rye and it’s coming out of my coin.” He lifted the knife, forcing me to raise my chin. “So if you want it, you’ll have to find a way to cut me first.”

There was no way for me to reach my own knife quick enough, and he knew it. Any minute, the watch would come across those crates on their rounds, and then they’d be hauling me up to the merchant’s house. That was if I were lucky. It was more likely that this deckhand would let his helmsman deal with me, and that would be worse. Much worse.

His gaze drifted to my left hand. “Pull up your sleeve.”

I stood up straighter, trying to read the look in his eye. He wasn’t stupid, and that wouldn’t bode well for me either. I reached for the cuff of my right sleeve instead and unbuttoned it, taking my time.

“Not that one,” his voice grated.

I grinned, and he looked surprised by it, leaning back away from me slightly. His eyes didn’t leave mine until I had the sleeve rolled up to the elbow, and he took hold of my wrist roughly, pulling my arm into the light between us. He glanced at the tattoo on the inside of my forearm: two entwined snakes eating one another’s tails. The ouroboros was the mark that every member of my family had. The mark of the Roths.

His eyes lifted again, running over my face slowly, as if he were trying to solve some puzzle he saw there. His fingers tightened around my wrist, and when boots sounded on the other side of the slip, he suddenly let me go. I glanced at the darkness behind him as two shadows appeared on the dock. The harbor watch.

Any other trader would have called out to them or used their knife by now, especially after seeing my tattoo, but he stayed quiet. The boots moved closer, reaching the next slip, and I tried not to think about what my uncle would do when he had to come haul me out of the merchant’s house.

As soon as I thought it, the prick of his blade at my throat vanished. The moonlight flashed on the steel between us before the trader slipped it back into his belt.

My brow furrowed as I looked up into his face, and for a moment, I could have sworn I saw a smirk playing on his lips. But before I could open my mouth to speak, he shoved me hard in the chest with both hands and I flew back, the heels of my boots scraping on the wood slats as I fell from the dock.

I hit the cold seawater and plunged beneath it, thrashing as my jacket tangled and the bubbles spilled from my lips. My shoulder hit one of the pillars holding up the dock as the current swept around me, and when I saw the moonlight above I swam toward it, the weight of my boots heavy beneath me. By the time I broke the surface with a gasp, I was already out from under the docks, being pulled into the bay.

I flung my wet hair back, blinking furiously as I turned, trying to see in the dark. In the distance, a silhouette stood on the docks, only half lit by the string of streetlamps behind him. He watched me drift away from the harbor, and as I swallowed another ragged breath, he disappeared.

TWO

A bruised cheek was nothing to the punishments I’d seen my uncle Henrik dole out over my lifetime. He hadn’t said a word when I showed up in his study that night in my ruined suit and told him what happened to the crates of Sowan rye. He’d simply set down his smoking pipe and stood from his desk before striking me across the cheek with a closed fist. Then he’d told me I’d have to pay for the handwoven rug I’d ruined with the seawater still dripping from me.

In the two weeks since I’d botched the job at the docks, the mark on my face had faded, but the consequences were far from over. Henrik had me manning the most dreaded post he had to assign—the tavern. I’d spent morning to night sitting on the stool at the end of the counter over a bottle of rye while Ezra ran my pickup routes in the city. He hadn’t been happy about the new arrangement either, forced to leave his work at the forge to cover my jobs. And Murrow was even more irritated. I’d broken two of his fingers when I kicked his hands from the dock, but I’d seen no sense in risking all three of our necks. Not when the job had been mine in the first place.

The post at the tavern, however dull, was a simple one. Taverns were a thoroughfare for the traders stopping in Bastian on their routes, and it was the best place to collect information. There was no one more loose-lipped than the low-level crew members of a trading outfit, using their one night on land to fill themselves with rye before they set sail again. The stool at the end of the bar was bought and paid for by Henrik and was reserved for the person on the lowest rung of his favor. Ever since the night at the docks, that was me.

I’d been sitting at that counter for twelve days straight, staring into a rye glass and keeping a mental register of slurred, broken conversations. Every night, I wrote them down in a report for Henrik, and when I climbed into bed, I still smelled like the sour rags the barkeep used to clean the counter. The next morning, I put on a clean shirt and went back.

When I asked Henrik how long he planned to keep me there, he’d just laughed at me. I couldn’t help but think I deserved it. I’d done a shit job of accounting for the crew member on the docks, assuming that whoever it was would be just like the fools that filled the tavern. The mistake could have gotten me killed. Worse, it could have gotten Ezra and Murrow killed.

I turned the glass on the counter, pinching my eyes closed to quell the throbbing in my head. The dim light of the oil lamps cast everything in a grimy glow, and as the moon rose, so did the noise. Throngs of trading crews spilled into the tavern until it was filled to the brim, bringing the smell of stinking bodies and spilled rye. The barkeep’s daughters wedged themselves through the crush of people with their pitchers in the air, refilling the glasses on the rickety tables.

I tipped my head to one side, stretching my stiff neck. There hadn’t been a scrap of news in days that Henrik would find interesting, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the stool until half past eleven. If I did, my uncle would know. Somehow, he always knew.

I tugged at the chain of my pocket watch until it fell from my vest, then caught it in my hand as a man sat down beside me. The smooth silver casing had been cast by Ezra, and my name was engraved on the inside. I set it onto the counter, staring at its glass face. Still more than an hour to go.

The air was stifling, and sweat dripped down my back, soaking my vest. I sighed with relief when the doors to the street opened again and a gust of damp, cold air rushed into the tavern. It tingled against my hot skin and though Henrik wouldn’t approve, I unbuttoned the top of my shirt, pulling it open at the throat.

Someone tapped the counter a few stools down, signaling the barkeep, and I rubbed at my temples, groaning.

“Three.”

I stilled when I heard the voice. Deep and rhythmic. It was one I recognized.

Down the bar, a hand was splayed on the wood countertop. Smooth, obsidian skin. I leaned forward, just enough to see his face. It was the trader from the Scourge. The one who’d held a blade to my throat and then pushed me into the water.

The barkeep pulled three green glasses from the shelf behind him, and the trader propped himself on his elbows as he waited, tapping his fingers. He watched as the glasses were filled, but when he reached into his pocket for the coin to pay, I silently lifted two fingers from the counter. The barkeep answered with a nod, dismissing him.

“No need,” the barkeep murmured, moving to the next person waiting.

The trader stared at him, confused, before he turned and searched the bar with a frown. He went rigid when his eyes landed on me, and I picked up my bottle of rye, refilling my own glass.

“Move.” I flicked a hand toward the man sitting beside me and he instantly stood, scrambling clumsily out of the way.

If the trader thought I was going to offer more of an invitation than that, then he was mistaken. But he seemed to consider whether he wanted to take the seat, glancing around the tavern. There wasn’t a single chair left in the house.

He finally picked up his rye and set the glasses beside me, sliding onto the stool. He took a single sharp sip before he drained the glass in one swallow and lined it up neatly beside the other two.

“I suppose you expect me to thank you,” he muttered, not looking at me.

I tried not to smile, turning my glass in a circle on the bar again. There was something strange about the way he spoke. I’d noticed it that night. He folded his arms on the counter and I watched the travel of light across his skin from the corner of my eye. It was that same shimmer I’d seen on the docks.

“You just came from Dern?” I asked, taking the shot of rye.

He looked suspicious now, studying me. “How do you know that?”

I shrugged. “I know everything about that ship. I was working that job for months before you—”

“Saved your life?” he finished, arching one eyebrow.

I did smile at that. It was true. His helmsman probably would have strung me up from the mast if he’d turned me in. Even the harbor watch might have found reason to make sure I disappeared, depending on their mood or the current state of their relationship with my uncles.

“I suppose you expect me to thank you.” I repeated his words back to him.

The line of his mouth tilted and he stifled a laugh. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t say it.

“I’m Auster,” I said, turning on the stool to face him. I held out a hand between us.

He twisted to stare at it silently for a moment before he sat up straight. “Paj.” He took my hand and shook it, his eyes running over my clothes. “I see you had that fancy jacket cleaned.”

“Replaced.” I grinned. “Cost me a purse of copper.”

“Serves you right.” He picked up his second glass.

I liked this bastard. “You’re from Bastian.” I meant it as a question, but it didn’t sound like one. “What part?”

Paj went stiff again. “Why?”

Heat came into my cheeks when I realized that I didn’t know why. I just wanted to talk to him. “No reason.” I refilled my glass, though my head was already swimming. Maybe that was what was wrong with me.

He cleared his throat. “North End. I was born in North End.”

I was surprised that he’d answered, and even more surprised that he’d answered honestly. I knew how listen for a lie like I knew how to do the figures in my uncle’s ledger.

“What about you?” he asked.

I closed the pocket watch on the bar, suddenly unconcerned with the time. “Lower Vale.” I gave him the answer easily, watching his face for whatever reaction might surface there. But there was none.

“That’s right,” he said, almost to himself. “That’s where all the Roths are born.”

Anyone from Bastian had heard the name and the stories that came with it. But the only people who knew which of those stories were true were the ones who had the ouroboros tattooed on their arm.

He reached for the third glass. I searched for something else to say when the thought crossed my mind that once he finished, he might get up and leave. I was even more unsettled to find that I didn’t want him to.

But as soon as I thought it, the doors to the street flung open again and the night air poured back inside. I looked over my shoulder to see Murrow pushing into the tavern. His broken fingers were still wrapped together, and his hand swung heavily at his side as he made his way toward me.

I let out a breath, clenching my teeth. When I looked back to Paj, he was eyeing me inquisitively.

The crowd parted as Murrow stalked toward the bar, and when he reached me, he picked up my glass and dumped the rye into his mouth. He slammed it onto the counter as he swallowed it down. “Time to go.”

Paj looked between us, an unspoken question in his eyes. His last glass of rye was still in his hand, dangling from his fingertips.

I cleared my throat, tucking the watch back into my vest. Then I raked both hands through my hair to slick it back before I slid off the stool and pushed the unfinished bottle of rye toward Paj. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine for just a moment. Just long enough to make a tingle wake on my skin.

As soon as I felt it, I turned on my heel, pushing into the crowd gathered around the bar. Murrow followed, and I didn’t look back, pinning my eyes to the floor.

Murrow jerked the door open. “Who was that?” The question was half hearted, and I was glad. That meant he hadn’t recognized him.