wasn’t so short.”
Pey Lu shot him a narrow-eyed look. “Your looming isn’t as threatening as it should be. This is an interrogation, remember?”
“Is it? There’s usually more blood at your interrogations.”
Yanko shuddered at the reminder of what she was. They treated it so lightly, as if being a pirate was simply a matter of choosing freedom over an allegiance to any nation. The dead villagers on that island would disagree.
Pey Lu turned her back to Gramon again. “Yanko, the Kyattese are not only the rightful owners of the artifact, but they’re paying extremely well for its return. They are a prosperous people. I won’t pretend that we spend a lot of time worrying about morality and right and wrong here, but in this case, the Kyattese have more of a claim to the lodestone than the Nurians do.”
“Do you know what it does?” Yanko asked, feeling defensive on his nation’s behalf, maybe because he wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong. But the Kyattese had left their homeland seven hundred years ago and had never been back. Clearly, they didn’t need that continent or island or whatever it ended up being. He couldn’t believe they would truly need the lodestone to find the lost land if they wanted it. “Our people need that continent far more than the Kyattese do. As you said, they’re prosperous on their islands. Our people are starving.”
“Empires rise and fall. Land gets old and used up. It’s not our place to stop the tides.”
“Just to profit from them?” He sounded bitter and frustrated, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to accept that his mission might not be entirely justified. Too many people had died. He had to believe he was doing the right thing.
“I seek money. You seek the Great Chief’s blessing, even though I’ll wager you’ve never met the man and have no idea if it’s truly an honor to be one of his moksu.”
Yanko clenched his jaw to keep from blurting that it was Prince Zirabo he was working for and that he had met the man. Nobody had found his letter yet, and he had no intention of giving away free intelligence, not intelligence that mattered.
“More of an honor to be a Nurian citizen, working to improve the lives of our people, than a pirate stealing lives.”
“I took more lives fighting for the Great Chief than I ever have as a pirate.” Pey Lu stood up and walked away without waiting for a response. She jerked her chin toward the door, and Gramon followed her out. The door thudded shut.
“Did the Great Chief ever command you to torture and kill innocent villagers?” Yanko asked to the closed door.
He flopped back on the bunk, thumping the mattress in frustration. Using his mind, he checked the passageway outside, wondering if Pey Lu would leave her threatening Turgonian to guard the door.
They were both still out there. Talking about him?
Yanko rolled out of the bunk and padded to the door as softly as he could. He pressed his ear to the cool boards. All it would take was for his mother to use her senses to detect him, but maybe she wasn’t thinking about that right now.
“...let me question him?” Gramon was asking. “Seriously.”
“I don’t think he knows much. He thought it was behind that waterfall, the same as we did. He’s no further along than we are.”
“He might know where his employees went. They got the journal, right?”
“Yes, but I’d already skimmed through it. There are only three other islands mentioned. We’re on course for the closest one.”
Yanko wished he’d had a chance to skim through the journal. Would Dak head straight for the closest island too? Maybe he would yet have a chance to catch up with his comrades—and ensure he got the lodestone first. He might be able to escape once they were anchored off some new shore, especially if Pey Lu took her fire mages and left him on the ship.
“It would be good to know who sent him,” Gramon said. “Do you really think your Great Chief would send a boy?”
“He uses people indiscriminately. I’m more surprised that the Great Chief cares about finding some lost continent. He’s shown he’d rather make war and steal people’s resources through force than use guile or creativity to solve problems.”
“All the more reason to question the boy, then.”
Pey Lu did not answer right away, and Yanko checked with his senses again, half thinking they might have left the doorway.
“He’s my son, Gramon.”
“A