Standing on the edge of the river, I stared at the stars that I'd grown up staring at. I'd spent my childhood dreaming of a better life, and I'd spent the past seven years building it. Now, I stood between my past and my future. My perfect world had flipped upside down in just a few hours. I didn't hear Del until she spoke from just behind me. "If you'd like to go, Alric volunteered to accompany us," she said softly.

I frowned as I grumbled, "As my hired sword?"

"No," Del snapped, "As our friend. Our family." My heart sped up. My family. I had a family. Alric, Lena and the girls, Mehmet and his aketni, Nayyib, Del, and Sula. I didn't need the metri. But I did need to wash my broken hands of her, once and for all.

"We leave for the harbor at dawn, tell Alric he may bring Lena and the girls. Prepare Sula for the trip, ask Mehmet to borrow his wagon, and ask Nayyib to join us. The Metri deserves to know that while she will never sink her hooks into him, I am not the last Stessa male." Del nodded beside me, then brushed light fingers over my arm.

After a moment of her strong silence, I glanced to her. The strong jawline glowed, and the blue eyes blazed. "Come kiss your daughter good-night, and then come to bed," she whispered, "Tomorrow will be a long day."

As Del walked back to the glow of the houses and Academy, I watched her graceful, cat-like movements. So much had happened in the past fourteen years. I'd lost everything I'd won, and the won everything I'd lost. Everything but my fingers, and my heart. Del still had my heart, and my fingers were offered to the gods of Skandi. But tomorrow I'd win something I hadn't even dreamt of receiving. Ownership of my past.

The port was crowded as we strolled in. Sula rested in my arms, wide-eyed. Del and I had agreed not to take her away from the aketni when she was younger. We wanted her to grow up in our sheltered corner of the world. But this was important so Sula sat in my arms, her soft hands on my shoulders, her jasmine scented hair clinging to my cheeks.

"Papa," she whispered in my ear. "Why are men staring at you?"

I swallowed heavily, but before I could answer, Del spoke up. "Your Papa is a legend because of his name, and his sword, my little sandtiger. The claw marks that you are so fond of make many men fear the sword on his back."

"Papa," Sula said again, in a lecturing tone, "Did you kill anyone?"

I smiled at her and replied, "No one who didn't deserve it, little one." She nodded, then kissed my cheek. Suddenly, I bumped into Del, who had stopped right in front of me. "Del!" I exclaimed as I turned to where she looked. In the harbor rose a ship with blue sails to match the tattoos under my hair.

Del slid backwards a step and grabbed my free hand. "No one is getting on that ship," she said, practically spitting her anger. Her pale Northerner hand brushed Sula's tanned Borderer skin. "No one."

"Prima!" I called up the gangplank. At first, there was no response, then the red-headed, freckled face popped over the railing.

"Tiger," she said, announcing it rather simply speaking. "The metri was afraid you wouldn't come," she continued. "Won't you and your company come abroad?"

I shook my head. "No. The Metri will come to me. Neither myself, or my family," I said, motioning to those around me, "Will step foot on a slave ship, either armed or not, in the presence of a pirate crew."

"I am your family, Sandtiger," came the authoritive voice of the metri as she stepped up to the railing. "By blood."

I smiled at her, enjoying the verbal game that would ensue. "I care not for blood that courses through my veins, only for that which is spilled by the edge of my blade. Come, join us, we shall discuss your new-found allegiance with the bastard son of a molah-man."

"This ship has been blessed, the South has been not," the metri shot out in a vain attempt to anger me.

The same smile played on my lips as I retorted, "If you'd like to speak to me, then you will join the heathens down below." With that I strode away and into the nearest café.

For years, I had placed myself in the back corner of a cantina, always ready for whoever strolled in the door. Then, fourteen years ago, I was shaken when a stunning Northern Bascha with a sword walked into a cantina, looking for me. It changed my life, and not always for the better. After nearly killing her, her nearly killing me, being expelled from the North, being expelled from the South, being named borjorni, kidnapped at sea, enslaved numerous times, even by my grandmother, stripped of my name, title and scars, loss of my fingers, then, finally, my return to my home, my daughter's birth and my new life, and knowing that this simple café could start it all over again… I wasn't ready for this when I woke up yesterday morning. Yet here I am, waiting for the metri.