The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

at another corpse, the eyes wide and unseeing. It’s Matsin’s man—the one who went into the hidden room to bring out the children.

“Go,” I rasp, shoving the boy along, but he barely moves. “Go,” I cry.

He can’t seem to move. I grasp his hand and hobble as fast as my aching ankle can take me, watching as the two girls hurry across the gangplank, each with their hands tight around the boy who is their ward.

I skid on a puddle of wet—not blood. Not blood, I tell myself as I recover my balance, even if it’s a lie.

The boy shrieks in fear.

I twist as a sailor grabs him by the arm. I don’t think, don’t register the sailor’s short sword. Instead, my hand swings around and the bone knife glances off his neck, sliding sideways and cutting through flesh and muscle. He screams, shoving the boy away, his sword flashing through the air. I’m going to die. I scramble back, slippers sliding, and my bad foot turns, sending me sprawling on my back as someone shouts behind me.

The next moment, there’s someone over me, blades flashing, and then the sailor cries out again, a gargling, horrible sound that rattles through his throat. He falls back, his sword dropping from his fingers.

“Can you get up?” the man above me says, stepping sideways, his eyes scanning the deck.

“Bren?” My voice is light and shaky. I cannot quite believe he is here.

He nods once, never looking at me. “See if you can stand.”

He sheathes his dagger, his sword still in his other hand, and reaches out to help the boy to his feet. The boy. I push myself up, my ankle throbbing.

“Keep moving,” Bren says, as if blood weren’t dripping from my knife, as if the sailor weren’t collapsed on the deck beside us, blood spreading out around him. But then there’s blood dripping from Bren’s sword too.

Don’t think about it.

“How are you here?” I pant out, staggering forward, Bren pacing me with the boy in hand.

“I got your message,” he says grimly. “Figured I’d watch to see if you needed backup. Good thing I did.”

He turns suddenly, shoving the boy into my hands, and then his blade flashes up to block another blow. The metal gleams crimson in the sunlight. The attacking sailor snarls, shoving forward, but Bren presses back. How many sailors are there? And where are Garrin’s men?

“Rae, go!”

I grasp the boy’s shoulder and push him onto the gangplank. He’s shaking and unsteady, but I can’t carry him with my ankle hurt. “Go,” I tell him. “To the carriage—as fast as you can!”

“Kelari!” Garrin calls. His men sprint across the dock toward us. He runs behind them. I wave and urge the boy on. He makes his halting way across, weeping as I hold his hand and try not to stumble.

There is not a thing I can do to help Bren except get to safety. It seems an impossibility when my feet touch firm ground. I glance over my shoulder to see Bren do something—I’m not sure what—and the sailor pitches sideways, losing his footing and toppling over the railing. Bren spares me a sparkling grin—how wrong that looks, amid all the bloodshed—and turns back to the fight.

It is almost over now, and I am grateful to see Matsin still standing, his voice carrying as he shouts an order. Captain Grefan is no longer visible, cut down or wounded or fled, I cannot say. The remaining sailors and single river guard seem to be backing away. They drop their weapons, one by one.

“What happened?” Garrin demands as his men come to a stop beside me, looking up.

“Where were you?” I demand.

“I went back to the warden’s office to see what other galleys—” Garrin shakes his head, his gaze flicking from the blood saturating the bottom of my skirts to the crimson-streaked decks. “What happened?” he repeats.

I transfer my blood-streaked knife to my left hand and wrap my good arm around the shoulders of the little boy, aware he is shaking as badly as I am. “We found some children. And then Diara and the crew attacked.”

Garrin closes his eyes, gives himself a little shake, and then looks toward the ship with renewed determination. “Take the children to your carriage. I’ll handle the rest of this.”

“Thank you,” I say, because I don’t think I can turn around and look at the remains of the bloodbath. I continue to the carriage, the bone knife still in my hand. The children have gathered by its side, though not a one has set foot in it. I lead my charge over to join them.

“Up we go,” I say, my voice unnervingly cheerful, and the children allow me to herd them into the carriage box. I stay outside a moment longer, wipe the blood from my knife with trembling fingers using a fold of my skirt. The hem is heavy with the stuff, dripping. So much blood. I shove the knife into its sheath halfway clean, scrub at the spatter of blood on my hand. Blood from a dead man. One whom I wounded, and Bren killed.

I stumble one foot to the side and empty the contents of my stomach upon the stone wharf. I’m shaking still. Shock, I decide, latching onto what I’ve learned from Mama.

“Kelari?” a voice asks. It’s one of the older girls, watching me from the door of the carriage.

“Coming,” I rasp, and spit to clear my mouth.

When I look up, I spot Bren standing by the railing of the galley, Matsin a few paces away, talking to him. The fighting is over, and both of them are spattered with blood but appear relatively unharmed. Matsin gestures toward the dock once, the gesture half invitation and half order. Does he mean to detain Bren or only offer him safe passage off the ship? Or question him first?

I step forward, one hand on the side of the carriage, as if there were anything I could do from here. Bren glances across to