Tulia woke in the Boiling Sea. She knew the sea from the feel of the water, the way the salt of it chafed and pricked her entire body, the sheer irritation.
There was nothing like the burning water of the Boiling Sea. Tulia had learned this as a child. She hadn't understood at the time why it was the people shunned the water and the children only ever played in the muddy inland lakes. They called the fantastic blue water dangerous but a Tulia of six had paid no attention and made a day playing in the sea.
It wasn't until a man Tulia had never seen before desperately pulled her out of the water that Tulia noticed the purple scales spreading across her limbs. Swollen veins bulged through the furious skin, the same blue as the water. Footprints and handprints dotted the salted beach where she had walked and at some point they had become filled with blood. In a few hours Tulia was blind.
When the healing people of the village came to watch Tulia die, they said that this was how the water was. After a certain point the water numbed the mind and body of its victims so that they did not feel it kill them. Tulia had not been expected to live the night but within a day Tulia's sight returned and within a month there was no trace of the water on her skin. It was almost as though the sea had never touched her.
Now in her sixteenth year though, Tulia had still not bled. The salt had poisoned her womb, a healing woman had explained but she told Tulia to be thankful all the same. Children were a small price to pay the Boiling Sea.
But Tulia was in the sea again. She could feel the salt rake at her skin and she did not think she could pay such a steep price again.
For a moment Tulia considered simply letting the sea have her but fear got the best of her. It was said there was no pain that compared to having the water inside you. However, when Tulia tried to swim the calf of her right leg seemed to ignite. Something so terrible had happened to her leg that Tulia wondered if it was even still there. She wondered if that was the price this time.
Only when Tulia received her first mouthful of burning seawater did she finally punch upward toward the surface despite the pain. To her surprise she had only been a foot or so below the water and her head quickly broke the surface. The salt seared her eyes and stung her throat as she coughed what she had swallowed. Her head throbbed and her right leg raged in the water.
For a while Tulia did not understand and just fought to keep her head above the water in her agony. Something wet and solid bumped Tulia's cheek and she flinched before she recognized the feel of wood. The sting in her eyes soon resided enough for Tulia to open them and the moon was bright enough to show her the thick flank floating beside her. Tulia reached for the slick wood and pulled her torso out of the water so that the flank sank a few inches in the water but Tulia was raised over the dark water.
Around her Tulia saw the burning remains of the ship she had sailed on. It had been small and it only burned long enough for Tulia to see it disappear under the black water. By the moon, Tulia saw other flanks of wood smaller and larger than the one that held her up. The bodies of a crewman and the captain floated nearby. They and Tulia had been the only ones on deck, the rest had been below deck in the cabins.
Nyldi and her baby, Tulia suddenly realized and she couldn't believe it had taken her so long to think of them. That was the price.
The thought brought bile and the rest of the saltwater from Tulia's stomach and she could not stand to be another second in the water with her dead children and all the others. When she tried to move, the pain in her leg intensified and dizzied her, threatening to steal her consciousness and drown her. But if Tulia didn't move the water would poison her again and she would die all the same.
Paddling with her left arm as her right clutched the flank, Tulia swam slowly and tortuously to a small intact section of the ship's deck that was large enough for her to lie on. She hoisted herself onto the wreckage, whimpering as the fire around her leg burned harder still in the chilly air. From the rip in her pants, Tulia saw the split flesh of her calf and watched as hot blood began to flood it and flow down her leg.
She remembered the stories her grandparents told of the monsters of the Boiling Sea. They were all people who had died in the water, cursed to burn forever in the salt and their fury at their fate had turned them into monstrous things. Blood was supposed to bring the monsters racing and senseless fear began to take Tulia, tearing at her stomach and strangling her heart.
Tulia reached under her longshirt and began to unwrap her breasts, pulling the long white fabric out from under her longshirt. Shaking from cold and terror, Tulia guided her clumsy hands around the ruin of her leg pulling the fabric as tightly as she could bear. Her tears were hot and salty, but they only flowed for a moment before Tulia awoke dry in the sun.
The bodies and the rest of the wreckage were all gone with nothing but blue sea for miles and for a moment Tulia could scarcely believe it had happened. But then she remembered Nyldi and her baby and she did not move again that day.
For three days Tulia burned in the sun. There was no hiding from it. Even under her clothes Tulia could feel herself searing. Her skin cracked and bled in the heat and the night came with its own freezing torment.
She only moved to wash her leg, still crushed under fear for what lurked under the dark water but desperate not to let the wound fester even though it wasn't likely she would live to need the leg.
The water was always perfectly still and during her days on the raft Tulia would often wonder if she had moved at all and if she was not still floating right over the ship.
Her thoughts were jumbled and confused with maddening images of home and Nyldi and Nyldi's baby. The pain in Tulia's stomach was the worst of all and on the third day of drifting, Tulia could no longer move from it. She had tried not to sleep much for fear of falling in the water as she knew she had no chance of making it back onto the raft if she did. On the third day however Tulia wondered if it would not be kinder to let herself fall after all and she closed her eyes in what felt like surrender.
A splash woke Tulia and she found herself in a monstrous shadow. Her raft wobbled as something large plunged into the water and began swimming toward her. To her surprise and disappointment Tulia was still afraid and she began to weep when the thing took ahold of her raft.
"Can you move?"
It was said in the Common Tongue. Tulia had learned it when she was young but her throat was so dry she couldn't possibly answer. The voice continued to speak despite her silence, trying to sound soothing as it said things Tulia was not expected to understand.
"I have to take you in the water," it said. "I'm sorry. It will hurt."
Large hands gingerly rolled Tulia closer to the edge and strong arms pulled her back into the sea. The cracks in her skin and wound on her leg burned with a new fury Tulia could not bear. She screamed a hoarse, soundless cry that fell to a choking whimper.
"Just a while longer," it said. "We're nearly-"
Tulia awoke again lying on her back on the deck of a ship. From the solid thunks of feet on the wood of the deck, she knew the ship was enormous, triple the size of the small ship at the bottom of the Boiling Sea.
She was still in the sun and while she burned still, Tulia felt people surround her and was shamed by how her wet longshirt stuck revealingly to her unbound breasts. Tulia rolled onto her stomach to cover herself, feeling the skin on her back break and scream in protest, but she needed at least that much dignity.
To her left Tulia saw a large wet man and she heard the voice from the raft come from him. He argued with a small dry man in black robes, the clothes of the Other Lands. The small dry man was making a motion to throw something overboard.
"Are you mad?" the dry man shouted. "That's a Red girl! Just look at the hair!"
"What of it?" the wet man asked.
"It's like blood," the dry man spat. "It's unnatural and I won't have it on my ship!"
"What's more natural than blood?" Tulia heard the wet man say before her mind melted away.
Tulia was weary from too much sleep but each time she tried to wake, someone would make her drink creamy water that made her sleep again. Tulia was too weak to resist and lost track of the days this way, trapped in a maddening cycle of dreams.
Many times she found herself back on the raft, burning and alone in the Boiling Sea. Other times she was safe at home combing her mother's hair or reading beside her father. The cruelest dream was when the ship and Nyldi and her baby made it to the port.
"Tulia, look!" Nyldi cried on the docks of a strange city, her babe squirming in her arms. "What a marvelously odd place! It doesn't look at all terrible like they say!" Nyldi paused and gave Tulia a puzzled look. "…but then again they also say it doesn't always look at all terrible like they say it does, but that it still is and that you shouldn't be fooled. I…I don't quite understand that, I never did but…why do you think the houses are so tall? Could we have one, do you think? I'd like to live in one. Maybe a blue one like that one over there. What do you think, Tulia? Until your uncle comes."
When Tulia woke, she was covered in sweat and her throat nearly closed from grief. She managed a few shaking breaths before she thought of the impending cream water.
"No…more," Tulia choked out to the ceiling, but the cup of cream water still came to her lips. "St…op. Stop." The cream water flooded her mouth, but Tulia could not bear to dream again and spat it up on her chin. "Stop! Stop it! Please!"
The cup was pulled back and Tulia finally managed a look at her tormenter. A fat girl with large, unbound breasts stood over Tulia. She peered curiously down at Tulia looking both hurt and annoyed.
"All right, then. All right," she said. "There's no need to shout."
The situation stunned Tulia, her head cloudy from sleep, and she wondered hazily if she should apologize but thirst won over her guilt.
"May…" Tulia struggled to wet her raw throat. "May I have some…normal…water, please?"
The fat girl gave her an odd look. "Normal water? How do you mean?"
Tulia was annoyed. "Water that won't…make me sleep," she clarified even though it ravaged her throat to do so.
"Oh," the fat girl said softly and she held up the goblet of cream water. "This is milk of the poppy, not water but I don't think you'd like water, either. The wells are funny again and it's not quite safe to drink water at the moment." The fat girl moved to a table near Tulia's bed and poured purple water into a clay cup. "Here's some wine, though."
The fat girl propped up Tulia's head and dribbled the purple water into her mouth. It tasted of spoiled fruit and Tulia nearly choked on the acrid drink but forced herself to swallow. It sat badly in her stomach and did little to sooth her throat. Tulia turned down a second cup.
"Say," the fat girl said as she replaced the cup on the table beside them. "I've been wondering something for a while, now." She shifted nervously on her heels for a moment, but then looked back at Tulia. "Why haven't you got any hair?"
But Tulia was more concerned with where all her clothes had gone. She could only vaguely feel her body but she was almost certain that she was naked under the thin white sheet covering her.
"Where are my clothes?" Tulia asked. She tried to move but her body was unbearably heavy. A horrible shock went through her right leg when she tried to move it and Tulia gasped at the pain.
"Try not to move," the fat girl said. "Yes, you probably can't feel it right now on account of the milk, but you were burned badly when Ser Karver pulled you out of the sea." She gently pulled out Tulia's left arm to show her.
Tulia sucked in a pained breath and looked away. The skin was an angry red, almost purple, and covered in thick white flakes. She could only imagine what the rest of her looked like.
"I know," the fat girl said not unkindly. "But the maestar says it's actually much better now and that it's healing. Another week or so and we can scrape off the top and then in a month or two you'll be normal."
"…and my leg?" Tulia asked.
The fat girl's frown frightened her. "The maestar says the salt kept it clean and it didn't fester, so there's no need to take it off. There's a chance it'll work well enough, but you probably won't feel it anymore and it'll scar bad." The fat girl gave her a weak smile. "It could be worse, though, I think."
Tulia tried to accept the comfort but it weighed little in her mind.
"Where am I?" Tulia asked. She almost didn't but her father had told her to be brave in the Other Lands.
"Farbourne," the fat girl replied. "An island off of Dorne."
Dorne, Tulia thought to herself. The poppy milk still clouded her head but Tulia managed to recall a map of the Other Lands from her lessons. Dorne was the southernmost kingdom by the Summer Sea. Tulia had needed to land mountains away in Old Towne and even then, her uncle's lands were even further north.
"And whose bed is this?" Tulia continued weakly.
"Ser Henrick Karver's," the fat girl replied. "The house is his too. He said he'd get you to wherever you needed to be when he got back."
The words revived Tulia a little. Not everything was lost; she could still get to her uncle's and maybe in a few years even return home.
"When will he be back?" Tulia asked, her chest tight with hope and dread.
The fat girl frowned again. "Unfortunately, a war's just started."
The words did not have a clear effect on Tulia, mostly because she did not completely understand them. Tulia had heard of the Other Lands and their wars but beyond the rumored savageries, she knew nothing about them.
"Well, how long does a war take?" Tulia demanded.
The fat girl seemed to find the question strange and eyed Tulia suspiciously, wary of being made foolish.
"How long?" Tulia repeated.
The fat girl's expression turned to pity. "You'll be here a while."