Page 35 of City of Stone and Silence

Our crew gather around eagerly. Catoria’s people open the sacks, distributing large, round fruit with hard rinds, which they demonstrate how to crack to get at the sweet, grape-sized seedpods. There are berries, also unfamiliar-looking but delicious, and some kind of yellow tuber. Cookfires are hastily kindled for these, along with the barrels of fish, and the smell drifting over to us is unbearably delicious.

Meroe is eating a stone fruit, a bit like a plum but with an apple’s firm flesh, with the careful delicacy I would expect of a princess. I’ve already torn through a bowl of berries and one of the hard-shelled things, and I’m working on a second, wiggling the pods out of the shell and popping them into my mouth, then spitting out the small, hard seeds.

“Something doesn’t add up,” Meroe says. “Literally add up. Catoria said Soliton delivered them five years ago.”

“Veldi said the same thing.”

“But Soliton didn’t come here five years ago. It was still sailing around the Central Sea. You and I weren’t onboard yet, but plenty in the crew were.”

I frown. “The Scholar said the oldest people in the crew had been there more than fifteen years.”

“Right. And obviously Soliton didn’t go past the Rot in all that time, and it certainly didn’t stop here and throw everyone off.”

“So Catoria’s lying,” I say.

“She doesn’t sound like she’s lying,” Meroe says. “She sounds … I don’t know.” She looks away, uncertain.

“What?”

“Lonely.” Meroe sighs. “Maybe I’m just seeing a little of myself there.”

“She seems to have plenty of people around.”

“They’re retainers and servants. Believe me, it’s not the same.” Meroe shrugs. “Anyway, I don’t think she’s lying to us deliberately. But she may be confused.”

“She says Soliton comes here every year,” I mutter. “But obviously it can’t be doing that, since we know people who’ve been on it for years.”

Meroe’s eyes widen. “Could there be more than one ship? You saw the docks.”

“Blessed help us. One of the things is bad enough.” I shake my head. “Kuon Naga seemed certain there was only one, and he would know, if anyone would.”

“Then maybe Catoria is wrong about how long it’s been,” Meroe says. “Veldi says there’s no seasons here, so maybe what she thinks is a year is…”

She trails off, and I can see why. “Twenty years? Someone would notice that. She says she was twelve when she was picked up, and she looks younger than me.” If it really had been five years, that would make her my age. I had guessed her at closer to Tori’s. “She’s sure as Rot not thirty.”

“She may be older than you think,” Shiara says.

Shiara glides over, graceful as always. In one hand she holds three skewered, blackened fish, from which a fantastic smell is rising. She hands one to me, and I tear into it with my teeth. It’s unseasoned and unevenly cooked, and still the best thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s amazing how a couple of hard days without food change your perspective.

Meroe takes her fish and pulls it apart with her fingers, popping white slivers into her mouth. Shiara follows suit, which makes me feel like a barbarian, as usual. For now, though, I’m too absorbed to worry about it, sucking scraps of meat from the thin, flexible bones.

“What do you mean?” Meroe says, between bites.

Shiara pauses before answering. She’d remained silent through Catoria’s story, which is typical of her. Of the old Council—Zarun’s easy smile and casual violence, Karakoa’s bluff honor, the Butcher’s cruelty and pride—Shiara is the one I understand the least. Since we came to the Garden, she’s worked with me and Meroe without complaint, but I still know almost nothing about her. From manners and appearance, at least, you’d think she was Imperial highborn, but something makes me doubt it.

“I remembered where I’d heard the name Cresos,” Shiara says now. “I knew it sounded familiar.”

“And?” I mumble, licking my lips. My fish is mostly bare, and I already want another.

“It was in a history book. The Cresos clan plotted treason against the Emperor, but they were discovered and exterminated.”

“That matches what Catoria said…” I begin.

Meroe is quicker on the uptake, as always. “When were they exterminated?”

“In the reign of the current Emperor’s revered grandfather, if I’m remembering correctly,” Shiara says, with surprising calm. “At least eighty years ago.”

“Eighty years?” I manage.