Chapter Three

"Dirty jishen," whispered Tris, focusing on the brush in her hand and scrubbing hard at the floor. She washed away grime with every stroke, wiping it clean to reveal the shining wood underneath. She heard Niko walk around the room as she scrubbed, then kneel down beside her. He pushed his sleeves up his arms, wrapped his fingers around a brush, and dipped it in the pail next to them.

Teacher and pupil worked together in silence. Tris couldn't have read his thoughts if she had tried, after the conversation on control they'd had. Did he still think she'd acted rashly? She shuddered, thinking she'd dream of drowning slaves for the rest of her life.

Her thoughts turned to the captive she'd been serving the past several days. She sighed. It was in this very room that she'd been teased, taunted, and even lost her temper at those Daja called jishen. It was a handy word to describe what Tris felt towards the pirates that had tried to destroy her home and her friends. Her hand paused on the brush, a nagging memory rising her thoughts.

"Niko…"

"Yes, Tris?" the tall man turned to her, and she looked up at him, giggling a bit to see him with her on all fours. Clearing her throat, she sat back on her heels and scratched an itch on her nose with the back of her hand, a puff of suds transferring from hand to face unintentionally.

"Um," she began, frowning, frustrated with herself for stuttering. "The silver light that I see because you put that stuff on my spectacles…" He nodded, and she continued. "I saw it a lot when I was taking care of the pirates."

"You were probably seeing the magic in the bandages and medicines you were using," Niko said coolly, returning his attention to the floor. "I see magic everywhere – it's not difficult to mistake something."

Tris bit her lip hesitantly. Could she have been wrong? Every time, the same room, same people, same insistent flickering. She pressed her cause further, needing answers. "It wasn't the medicines, Niko, I'm sure," she said. He raised an eyebrow. "Every time I tried to pin it down, I was always looking at the same person – this girl. She was a… a pirate, I could tell, in a room full of them."

Niko was silent. The silence stretched, and Tris could not read anything behind her teacher's hooded black eyes. Shifting, her arm swiftly reached out and dumped her brush into the bucket – water sloshed over the sides and spilled onto the floor. "Well?"

"I'll see what I can do, Tris. I can't promise anything," he finally replied. "As I said before, you could most possibly have been mistaken. However, an untrained mage is a danger to all." A corner of his mouth twisted upwards. "As you quite well know." The girl's face turned pink. "Now then," he continued, briskly pushing up his sleeves as they fell down his arms. "Let us finish this room and leave this place as soon as possible, shall we?"

Sighing in relief – one less thing to worry about – Tris knelt down and scrubbed harder.

"So then…?"

"No, Niko, no. I repeat, no. You must be joking, and you know I certainly do not appreciate…"

"The trial is tomorrow."

"Damn you, Goldeye!"

Light struck Juda's eyes, and the girl grimaced. She ran her tongue – swollen with lack of the water she'd refused from the guard – over her cracked lips and tasted blood. I should just swallow my pride and stop shunning food, she thought in a deep crevice of her mind. Shaking away the idea – she had her pride, and she fully intended on keeping it, thank you very much! – Juda stretched her legs that she had curled up to her chest in sleep against the cold wall of the cell, and looked up at the intrusion. It was dawn – nothing could be seen but blackness through the small, high window several feet above her head. The light came from a lantern at the entrance, the flame flickering and spluttering in an overkill of oil.

"Hurry up, already!" a deep voice growled. The girl could just make out the figures of two men in guard's uniforms, tugging at something that hung from the ceiling. There was a loud thud as the object fell to the ground. Her body jerked. The light fell on her, and she quickly shut her eyes, feigning sleep. There were footsteps. From beneath her closed lids she could feel the flame draw away, and they fluttered open again. The guards were gone, the body with them.

The older woman that had been dozing beside her hours earlier was now dead to the world – and, it seemed, so was the object that she'd heard fall to the ground, in a more literal sense. Wriggling out from between the people on either side of her – it was quite crammed in the small holding cell – Juda snatched her sister's necklace and held it in her fist. Pulling her hand to her chest, she crawled with one arm to the empty space. She felt claustrophobic, and needed air.

Lying down, she drew in a sharp gasp and scuttled quickly away. Letting fly a string of colourful curses with flavours from all over the Pebbled Sea, she groped in the darkness, horrified yet fascinated. Slowly she looked back at what had frightened her so.

Eyes adjusting to the darkness of the cell, she saw the faint outline of a rope in the shape of a noose. Dark blood stained the rim of it, dripping onto the ground where she had lain. One hand reaching to the small of her back, she drew it away at a slight wet stickiness. Making a face, Juda resigned to crawling back to her former spot, and leaned against the cold wall. Only a few more hours; then she faced the Duke of Emelan. Or at least his representative. His grace would in all likeliness not be there to deal with people so low as pirates.

"Niko, you didn't… Lark, he wouldn't have, would he?" Tris turned wide eyes on her friend's teacher.

"Yes, my dear, I do believe he would."

"She'll be eaten." A voice said bluntly from an open door across from the main room.

"Which one?" A brown chin plunked down onto hands of the same chocolaty colour.

"I doubt that, Briar."

"Well, that's one way to get rid of pirates."

Duke Vedris IV, the ruler of Emelan, looked over his captives with a mix of distaste and satisfaction. The old pirate chaser looked rather foreboding – and no wonder, considering the circumstances he was in his courtroom for. Middle-aged with a hooked nose, deep-set dark brown eyes, shaved head, and fleshy features, he seemed completely unapproachable and in a dark mood.

Many of the pirates had died in their own attack on Summersea harbour, whether in battle or from injuries afterwards. The group that filed into the large chamber now was the second in the day that the jury was to deal with – the others had already been sentenced to different fates; slave labour, death or life-time service to Emelan and its residents. This group seemed to be the stragglers, in clothes given to them by healers and stained with blood, slow-healing wounds visible on faces and arms.

There had already been interrogations, leaders executed, and he'd heard that a potential witness had committed suicide rather than betray his leader. Either the man was a fool, Vedris mused, hadn't heard of the mage Enahar and his sister Pauha's deaths, or there was something else that he had sacrificed his life to keep hidden. It mildly interested him to know of such things, but to his left the judge was eyeing him.

The judge could stew for a little while longer. As the last of the captives – wrists shackled, legs hobbled on some of the more nasty-looking ones – were brought in, he was surprised to see the form of a young girl, no older than his own great-niece Sandrilene. Or a girl he thought she might be; the child had an androgynous look, and for a moment he wasn't quite sure if he was looking at a pretty boy or a plain girl from this distance, despite the long blonde hair. Sitting back in his chair, Vedris shook his head slightly. How young did those pirates raise their children to be like them, in any case?

There was a tap at his shoulder. He turned – a nervous boy shifted from foot to foot, dressed as a page. Smiling slightly, Vedris allowed the boy to deliver his message in a hushed voice. His smile disappeared, and he nodded at the judge to continue with the sentencing. Standing up, the duke of Emelan quietly exited the room.

- - -

The ropes were chafing her wrists. Not that her skin was flower petal-soft, but the thick cords hurt and Juda's temper was rising. What could they do, in any case? Her dark green eyes had already begun taking in every detail of her surroundings the moment she entered the chamber. Large and echoing every sound made, she heard low voices buzzing and the shuffle of papers from the clerks at their intricately designed tables like everything else in the room.

Her eye had also caught that of her prosecutors – the magistrate and the duke. For a moment she didn't recognize her main enemy, in his simple, dark-coloured clothes of no extravagance. Still, his station was evident in his presence and manner. A low growl emerged from her throat; several people gave her dirty looks, but she wasn't sure if they were reactions to her voiced opinion or simply to her being in their line of vision.

The pirates were rounded up into a small area before the jury. As the testimony was read, Juda noted that the duke up and left the room. A smirk twisted its way onto her face; she'd been right. Too good for her kind, was he? But then, why would someone in such high standing as him care about the crime and justice in his land? One day she hoped he'd fall off his high horse and break his neck in the act; and she anticipated being there when he did.

"Already judged us, why don't they just get on with it?" someone muttered beside her.

"Makes them feel like they're doing something," another hissed. Their voices were best described as 'glum'. They didn't look forward to slave labour for the rest of their lives.

Neither do I, Juda considered.

One by one they were being led away. The words 'labour' and 'service' seemed to jump out at her. Service to the very people they'd been intent on killing and taking from? She spat on the floor in disgust. She'd kill herself long before she'd ever serve these people, uppity as they were.

Someone pushed her from behind; Juda opened her mouth to snap at them when she realized that the judge was looking over her, obviously surprised to see a girl of her age. Maybe I'll get off lucky, she thought, allowing her mouth to shape itself into a grin. She smoothed the skin on her face, her expression chaste. The hard light in her eyes dimmed.

Her innocent demeanor seemed to work. The judge's face softened slightly, and he cleared his throat.

"Children are often guileless and easily molded," he began. Juda felt triumph blossom in her. "However," She froze. "Even a short lifetime of wickedness is enough to condemn anyone." The judge jerked his head, his eyes now cold. Juda felt strong hands on her forearm, in too much shock to resist being dragged.

"Excuse me," a crisp voice interrupted the judge as he began to speak once more. Heads turned. In the open double doors of the chamber stood a dark-haired figure.

"I have a proposal."