The Speaker Read online

  ALSO BY TRACI CHEE

  The Reader: Book One of Sea of Ink and Gold

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Traci Chee.

  Title hand-lettering, map, and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Ian Schoenherr.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Chee, Traci, author. | Schoenherr, Ian, illustrator.

  Title: The speaker / Traci Chee ; map and interior illustrations by Ian Schoenherr.

  Description: New York, NY : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2017]. | Series: Sea of ink and gold ; book 2

  Summary: “Sefia and Archer’s adventure continues as Archer searches for a way to combat his nightmares of his time with the impressors and Sefia becomes more and more consumed by her study of the Book”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017016556 | ISBN 9780399176784 (hardback) | ISBN 9780698410633 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Books and reading—Fiction. | Nightmares—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Kidnapping—Fiction. | Orphans—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C497 Spe 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016556

  Photographic elements (or images) courtesy of Shutterstock.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  THIS IS A BOOK.

  THERE ARE HIDDEN ELEMENTS AND CODES WITHIN ITS DESIGN.

  LOOK CLOSER AND HAVE FUN.

  For Charles, Zach, and Paul,

  who were taken too soon

  Contents

  Also by Traci Chee

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Crew of the Current of Faith

  The Red War

  The Dreams

  1: Quartz and Tiger’s Eye

  2: Runners

  3: The Call of Thunder

  4: Boys with Scars

  5: The Hunters and the Hunted

  6: That’s What You’re Remembered For

  7: All Is Light

  8: Stories Written with Love and Guilt

  9: Nobody Comes Back Unscathed

  The Corabelli Curse

  10: How to Kill a King

  Account of the Lion Tamer

  11: To Pass on a Secret

  12: Ambush at the Rock Eater

  13: The Dead Arise

  14: Bell of the Desert Gold

  Account of the Second Child

  15: The Loyalty and Cowardice of Dogs

  16: The Secret Keepers

  17: If You’d Been There

  18: The Shrinking Sea

  19: Strange Marks

  20: Bloodletters

  The Suicide King

  21: The White Plains

  22: Gauntlets of Ink

  23: Once Damaged

  The Lighthouse Keeper

  24: After

  25: Before the Inevitable Comes

  Cry of the Watchman

  26: Lies of Omission

  27: Brothers

  28: Love and Death

  29: Born for This

  30: Assassination Is a Slow Dance

  31: As All Fools Must Do

  32: The Dead Were All He Saw

  33: Poison on Her Tongue

  34: Full Circle

  35: Captain of the Black Beauty

  Account of the Impressor

  36: In the Lair of the Enemy

  37: Far from Home

  38: The Traitors’ Daughter

  39: Reasons to Stay

  40: The House on the Hill Overlooking the Sea

  41: One of the Wolves

  42: Long Live the King

  43: The Many or the Few

  44: What Is Written Comes to Pass

  45: Always

  46: Of Oaths and Prophecy

  47: The Boy from the Legends

  Acknowledgments

  CREW OF THE

  Current of Faith

  CAPTAIN—Cannek Reed

  CHIEF MATE

  SECOND MATE—Meeks

  STEWARD—Aly

  COOK—Cooky

  CARPENTER—Horse

  SURGEON/SAILMAKER—Doc

  HELMSMAN—Jaunty

  SAILORS

  Jules—chanty leader of the larboard watch

  Theo—chanty leader of the starboard watch

  Goro

  Killian

  Marmalade

  THE RED WAR

  THE ALLIANCE

  PHASE I: Conquer Everica

  EVERICA — Lord King Darion Stonegold (Master Politician)

  — General Braca Longatta Terezina III (Master Soldier)

  ✓ Stonegold & Braca unify provinces under one banner. Rock & River Wars

  ✓ Oxscini = common enemy → EXPLOIT THIS.

  ✓ Begin eliminating outlaw way of life.

  PHASE II: Ally with Liccaro

  LICCARO — Rajar (Apprentice Soldier)

  ✓ Rajar becomes Serakeen.

  ✓ Serakeen blockades Liccaro & gains power/influence over corrupt regency government.

  Serakeen uses influence to empower political allies to seize control of kingdom!

  PHASE III: Ally with Deliene

  DELIENE — ? Arcadimon Detano (Apprentice Politician)

  ✓ Build following among provincial nobility.

  Assassinate King Leymor Eduoar & successors.

  Get elected sole regent of kingdom.

  PHASE IV: Conquer Oxscini & Roku

  OXSCINI & ROKU

  Everica, Liccaro, & Deliene form the Alliance.

  Deliene attacks Oxscini from the north.

  Everica & Liccaro attack Oxscini from the east.

  Everican forces capture Roku.

  Second First Assassin kills Queen Heccata.

  soon to be First!

  Combined Alliance forces attack Oxscini via Broken Crown.

  Oxscini falls.

  THE RED WAR IS COMPLETE.

  KELANNA IS OURS.

  Are you with me?

  The Dreams

  Archer was dreaming again, and in the dreams he had no name. He didn’t remember when he’d lost it, but now the men called him boy or bootlicker or nothing at all.

  He stood in a circle of stones, large and pale as skulls, while men and women jeered at him from outside the ring, their faces turned into hideous masks by torchlight. When he shifted, bits of gravel dug into the bottoms of his bare feet.

  “This your new candidate, Hatchet?” a man sneered. He had black
deep-set eyes and sallow skin.

  “Got him in Jocoxa a couple months back,” Hatchet answered. “Been training him up.”

  Hatchet—stout build, ruddy skin, always picking at half-healed scabs.

  The nameless boy touched his neck, fingers grazing the scars at his throat.

  Hatchet had burned him.

  The sallow man smiled, his teeth sharp and small like a ferret’s. “Argo’s already put down four underfed whelps like this one.”

  Turning, the boy with no name found Argo standing on the other side of the ring, the light flickering over four raised burns on his right arm. Through the short coils of his beard, he wore a slack-jawed smile.

  The crowd began clapping and whooping. A signal, maybe.

  Argo strode toward the nameless boy, who tried to step sideways. But he stumbled.

  “Watch it!” Hatchet snapped.

  The boy with no name was turning, bewildered, trying to find Hatchet’s watery eyes in the crowd when Argo attacked.

  His fists were everywhere, raining on the nameless boy’s face and head and chest. It got hard to breathe, hard to see.

  The blows came faster, heavier, like hail.

  The boy with no name doubled over, caught a knee in the face. The ground rose up to meet him.

  Dimly, he heard Hatchet shouting, “Get up! Get up, you little—”

  But he did not get up.

  Argo flipped him onto his back, straddled his chest, and raised a hand to strike.

  In that moment, the nameless boy understood: This was the end. He was going to die.

  He would cease to breathe. Cease to be. Cease to hurt. It would be easy.

  But he didn’t want to die.

  And knowing that, knowing he wanted to live, however hard it was, however much it hurt, something opened up inside him, something hidden and ugly and powerful.

  Argo slowed.

  Everything slowed.

  As if the seconds were stretching into minutes, the minutes into hours, the boy without a name could see where the fight had begun and every hit he’d taken since, all unfurling before him in perfect detail. He could see bruises and newly healed bones beneath Argo’s skin, could sense pressure points in his joints like buds of pain waiting to blossom.

  The fist came down, but the nameless boy deflected it into the dirt. He trapped Argo’s leg with his own and rolled, pinning his opponent beneath him.

  “That’s right, boy! Fight back!” Hatchet shouted.

  The boy could have struck. But he leapt to his feet and looked around instead.

  He could see everything. He knew which torches would be easiest to wrench from the ground and how long it would take to reach them. He knew which of the stones lining the ring would make the best weapons. He counted revolvers and hidden knives in the crowd, found loose patches of dirt where the footing would be weakest. He saw it all.

  As Argo stood, the nameless boy hit him in the face. The flesh crumpled. He hit Argo again and again, quick and hard, where it would hurt most. Where it would do the most damage.

  It was easy.

  Natural.

  Like breathing.

  Argo’s kneecap popped. Ligaments snapped. The boy without a name struck him in the collarbone. He could almost see the splinters of bone spring away from each other under the skin.

  Argo was crying. He tried to crawl toward the edge of the circle, but his arm and leg were no longer working. His limbs were covered in dirt.

  The crowd called for blood.

  Kneeling, the nameless boy picked up a rock studded with crags.

  It was almost over now. He could see the end. It was very close.

  Argo’s eyes were wide with fright. His gums were bloody as he pleaded for his life.

  But the boy with no name did not listen.

  Living meant killing. He saw that now. He knew what he had to do.

  He brought the rock down onto Argo’s face. He felt the impact, the sudden warping of bone and flesh and beard. There was no more begging.

  He raised the rock again.

  CHAPTER 1

  Quartz and Tiger’s Eye

  Sefia glanced down at Archer, where he lay in the hidden pocket among the rocks with the rest of their belongings. He stirred once, tossing the blanket from his chest, and went still again. During the two hours since moonrise, he’d already slept and woken so many times, slept and woken, continually pulled under the surface of his dreams until he thrust himself into consciousness again, gasping for air.

  Even now, he didn’t seem to be resting—brow creased, fingers twitching, lips drawn back in a snarl or a silent cry. She wanted to go to him, to smooth his forehead and uncurl his fists, but since their escape, he’d been different, distant. Their encounter with the Guard had changed him. It had changed how they were together.

  It had changed everything.

  Perched on a granite boulder, Sefia pulled her blanket closer about her shoulders. She would have preferred her hammock to this niche between the boulders, but her hammock had been left on the floor of Tanin’s office with most of her supplies.

  And Nin. The aunt she’d sworn to rescue. The aunt she’d failed. A small body beneath a bear-skin cloak.

  Sefia shuddered, remembering what had happened next: the gleam of the knife, the way Tanin’s skin split beneath the blade. Her second kill.

  The Guard would make Sefia pay dearly for that if they found her. Now two of their Directors had been killed by her family.

  As she did every few minutes, she narrowed her eyes on the woods. Feeling for that special sense she’d shared with her mother—and her father too—she reached for her magic.

  It was always there, always moving, like a powerful ocean beneath a crust of ice. For the world was more than what you could see, or hear, or touch. If you had the gift for it, the world was Illuminated—every object swimming in its own history, every moment accessible if only you knew how to look for it.

  She blinked, and her vision came alive with swirling golden currents, millions of tiny bright specks shifting with the wind, the upward inching of the trees, the sigh of decaying matter settling gently into the dirt. In the valley below, not two miles from their camp, the remote alpine city of Cascarra lay along the Olivine River. This close, Sefia could see lamps like golden beads spangling the streets and lumberyards, barges tugging lightly at their moorings, smoke spiraling up from the pointed rooftops. But nothing disturbed the peace.

  Sefia blinked again and her Vision—what the Guard called the Sight—faded. She and Archer were safe, for now. The Guard had not come for them yet.

  But they would. Just like they had come for her parents.

  Lon and Mareah.

  At the thought of them, her heart curled up like a leaf in frost. Sometimes she found it difficult to believe they’d been part of a secret society of murderers and kidnappers—not the gentle people who’d raised her, protected her, loved her. But then she’d remember how her mother used to twirl her blades before chopping vegetables. How she’d once killed a coyote among their chickens with one skillfully flung knife. And she’d remember her father at his telescope by the window, studying the ocean. Only now did Sefia understand—he’d been watching for signs of the Guard. For the people who hunted them.

  They’d kept so much from her—who they were and what they’d done. Because of their secrets, she’d been forced to run when she might have fought. Forced to hide when she might have been free. Nin was dead because Sefia had been unprepared. No matter how much she loved her parents, she couldn’t forgive them for that.

  Or herself.

  And now she was on the run again.

  Five days ago, she and Archer had fled the Guard’s trackers by boat, sailing north along the rocky Delienean coast. It wasn’t until they spotted another ship behind them, gaining quickly, that they’d risked going
ashore, scuttling their craft in an attempt to shake their pursuers.

  They’d climbed into the Ridgeline, the high range of mountains leading to the Heartland in the center of the kingdom. There among the peaks, they’d headed toward Cascarra, where they hoped to catch a riverboat back to the sea.

  After that, they’d keep running, as long as they could. Hunted the rest of their lives.

  Sefia turned her attention to the leather-wrapped object in her lap. Books were rare enough in Kelanna, hoarded by the Guard while everyone else floundered about without reading or writing. But this was more than just any book. This was the Book—infinite and full of magic—a record of everything that had ever been or would ever be, all the ages of history spelled out in fine black ink.

  As she’d done every night since she began running again, Sefia gingerly pulled back the waterproof leather.

  She could find out who her mother and father had really been, and why they’d done what they’d done . . . but she could never quite muster the courage to look.

  Archer jerked in his sleep, exposing the vicious burns on his neck. Beneath him, dry twigs snapped, like gunshots in the still woods.

  Sefia stole another glance at the surrounding forest, but the underbrush was still.

  With a sigh, she sat back again. The Book’s cover was cracked and stained, with discolored scallops and whorls where there had once been jewels and decorative filigree. But the only traces of precious metal that remained were its clasps and gold-capped corners.

  Out of habit, she began tracing the symbol in the center.

  Two curves for her parents. A curve for Nin. The straight line for herself. The circle for what she had to do: Learn what the Book was for. Rescue Nin. And if she could, punish the people responsible.

  But she still couldn’t bring herself to open the Book. Still couldn’t face the truth. She was about to replace the leather covering when a branch cracked in the distance.

  Tensing, she blinked, and her Sight flooded with gold. To the east, she spotted men descending from the ridge, weaving in and out of the moonlight like black fish in a black pond, fins flashing on the surface before they submerged again.