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A Free Story
Before the novels, a single tide. Bitter Mark is where the cycle first breaks water.
Puerta de España, Trinidad, 1679. The Iron Mercy puts in for water and supplies. Two days, three at most. But in a harbour where nothing holds still long enough to be owned, Ying sees something she wants, and what she wants is never the thing you would expect.
They went ashore just after. The town was not a town so much as a habit. A scattering of storehouses, yards, cookfires, and shaded places where men conducted business in lowered voices. The air smelled of salt, woodsmoke, and something darker, fermented, drying, changing.
Kasim caught it before he saw it. He slowed. "Cacao," he said, almost to himself. Ying did not respond. He turned slightly, following the scent through a yard where sacks were laid open, beans spread to dry, men turning them with flat boards. The smell was bitter, thick, unfamiliar in its strength. He crouched near one of the piles, lifted a handful, and let the beans fall back through his fingers. Bitter. Promising. No answer.
He straightened. Ying had stopped. Not at the cacao fermenting on the ground. At the far side of the yard, where the ground dipped and shade pooled beneath a rough awning. Men sat there on low crates and broken boards, cards spread between them, counters scattered in a loose circle. Hemp sacks of beans close by, waiting for sale. Nothing unusual. Except she did not move.
Kasim followed her line of sight. Cards. Hands. Laughter. Coins. Buttons. Carved scraps. Ordinary. Except for one. He was about to speak when she stepped forward. Not toward the cacao. Toward the game. He followed.
The men barely glanced up as they approached. One of them, older, thick through the shoulders, with a strip of cloth tied loose at his throat, sat slightly apart from the others. Not separate. Central. The cards moved through him. The counters drifted toward his hand before being pushed back into play. He ran the table without appearing to. Every port had one.
Kasim shifted his attention, letting his interest appear casual. Ying stood behind him. Still. Then, very softly: "I want that."
Kasim frowned slightly. "The beans?"
"No."
He followed her gaze again. The counter lay near the man's hand. Small. Pale. No larger than a coin. Its surface had been worn smooth by years of handling. A lotus sat worked into its face, not raised but set within it, and the light caught there a beat too long. Nothing remarkable, except to one who would know. Except Ying, and she did not take her eyes off it.
For a moment, the yard fell away. A table, far from here. Not this heat, not this air. A different light, filtered, interior. Hands moving with more care. The same shape. The same weight of attention given to it, though no one spoke of it. Then it was gone.
Ying exhaled. "That one."
Kasim looked at her properly now. "You're sure?" She did not answer. She did not need to.
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