Ch 9
On Sura Island, at the foot of Mount Sura, Azula sat in his boat in the middle of the lake, staring at the letter delivered by Vandra, Teba Inn’s owner in the port city. He was the only one willing to show them kindness, and he sent them messages by pigeon. Magnus claimed that Vandra owed him a favor for saving his daughter from a bandit, so their ties could not be easily severed. Still, they had to be careful not to place Vandra’s livelihood in danger, so they would not rely on him too heavily.
Azula stared at three letters in total, Vandra’s that had arrived in the morning, one he had been hauling around like a dark talisman, and a third from his mother.
Azula wished he could ignore them all, wary of the sense of crisis and anger filling his heart. Life on Sura Island was full of growing pains. They were building homes for newcomers and finding ways to restock the dwindling grain in their communal warehouses. There were school-age children who needed a place to study, craftsmen out of work who needed a new way to earn an income, and the sick who needed skilled healers. Azula was overwhelmed.
He reached for the first letter and frowned as he read. The letter was the magistrate’s order, signed and stamped to make it official, an order asking the Draeya general to find the thieves plaguing the Sura and bring them to justice. Azula scoffed every time he reread it. What a performance the general had staged.
He stabbed the letter in the middle with a dagger, holding it in place on the wooden bench of his boat. He would keep it until he met that master of ashes again for answers.
Azula reached for Vandra’s letter. It was a listed account of events that had happened since the Sura Clan had been expelled from the capital.
The first news was that all Sura Workshops in Genad City were seized by the finance ministry. Their tools and products were confiscated by the imperial court. Azula scoffed at the greed of the imperial court officials. Their livelihood had been taken over as if it were a common product.
The next item on the list was the fate of any Sura Clan members who were discovered still in the city. Azula bit his bottom lip when he read the list of nearly twenty of their people who were murdered by rogue mercenaries on their way to the port. There was no mercy in the Kingdom of Lyria.
Wiping away tears, Azula read on.
The minister named Gesi Ajai had landed a windfall by becoming the new minister of finance and leaving his ministry of agriculture to a subordinate. Azula frowned; somehow, that felt important, but he could not fit it into his clan’s misfortune. His attention was pulled instead to a note on marriages.
The first was that the Draeya general’s little sister had been named the new Basilinna, which elevated her family’s status. Marquis Draeya was now a duke, while his son had become a commandery prince.
Raithion was now a glorified general who could command all His Majesty’s armies. Along with the new station, the Draeya prince had married Gesi Ajai’s daughter, making her a commandery princess.
Azula sneered. Gifts and rewards all around after betraying his people. Vandra had finished the letter by attaching a notice he had found on the streets. It read, “The Commandery Prince Draeya has seized and sealed the Sura Clan Chief’s Manor. None shall be allowed to enter or own it.”
Azula felt pain strike deep in his heart. His father’s house in the capital was no longer theirs. He had not even gotten a chance to sift through it. What did the Master of Ashes want with it?
Crumpling the letter with a force of anger, he dropped it on the bottom of the boat and stepped on it. He then reached for the neatly folded paper his mother had given him the day before. It was a letter from his father. She claimed Marius had written it before he left the manor with the legion officers who captured him.
Azula had no courage to open it when his mother gave the letter to him. His father’s death felt like a cruel joke. Every morning for the last two weeks, since the funeral and the tattoo on his back, he had opened his eyes and hoped he had escaped the nightmare. Alas, hopes and dreams could only fill his imagination. Reality was far more punishing.
Breaking the seal Marius had placed on the thick letter with green beeswax, Azula unfolded the letter.
“Azula, Don’t make that face full of grievance. I’m eternally disappointed that I won’t get to scold you when you arrive in the capital. Don’t be sad, little demon. Whatever you find, know that I’m forever happy to have been your father. I’m very proud of you. Your dad is proud to have called you a son. Take care of my wife for me, let her smile often, and even though Alise is always so strong, be a place she can come to complain and lean on. How short life is. Azula, live a long, fun one and be as wild as you have always been. I love you. Dad.”
Azula could barely read the “Dad” Marius had signed at the bottom. His eyes filled with tears. The grief he had been fighting for days as he planned a funeral, managed the clan’s needs, and settled their people broke through.
A harsh sob escaped his lips, followed by a second. A deep, cavernous pain opened in his chest. He sobbed and cried loud and rough, shouting as much as he could as the pain filled him up. In the middle of the lake he so loved, only the fish and creatures in the deepest part could hear his grief. So, he let it rule his soul for a while.
****
Alise sat on a bench outside, taking in the cool fresh air before she had to go back to bed for rest. A thick cloak was wrapped around her. The comfortable seat afforded her a beautiful view of the lake where Azula liked to swim. An hour ago, she had watched her brother push his boat out, saying he needed some time to take in the quiet of the lake. She wanted to enter the house when he was safely back on solid ground, so she watched his boat in the middle of the water.
She was absentmindedly staring at the figure on the boat when she noticed Azula dive into the lake. She counted minutes, waiting for him to resurface beside the boat, but he never did.
“No.” Alise stood, dropping the cloak on the ground. “No! Azula!” She started running down the short path to the end of the dock where Azula’s boat was usually tied. “Azula! Azula!”
She screamed his name, hoping he would resurface, but she could not see him.
“Azula!” she screamed again, hysterical, tears filling her eyes. What if he had drowned? What would they do? “Azula—”
“Alise.” Magnus, their uncle, wrapped his arms around her. “What’s wrong?”
Alise gripped his jacket, pointing to Azula’s empty boat. “He went into the water and hasn’t surfaced. We have to go get him. Let’s go! What if something has happened to him? Uncle, hurry.”
“It’s okay,” Magnus soothed, pulling her into his arms.
Alise tried to see Azula’s boat, she turned to see her mother running down to join them, followed by Alvas, Kalas, and Senin.
“Go get him,” Magnus told Kalas. “Tell him his sister is worried.”
“They have to get to him fast,” Alise said, pulling away from Magnus. She started to follow Kalas to the large boat that the boatman had brought to the dock. “I’ll go—”
“No.” Lasma reached for her, while Alvas wrapped her shawl around Alise’s shoulders. “You’re still healing, child. Let Kalas and Senin go. Stay here with us.”
****
Azula treaded water, letting the weight of it heal the worst of his grief and wash away the tears he had shed until his eyes felt swollen. He held his breath a moment longer, enjoying the tunnel of light that shimmered through the surface to light the water, until ripples filled the surface and he saw an oar waving above. He sighed and swam up, wondering if Alvas had arrived again to threaten to empty the lake.
He was surprised to find an anxious Kalas and Senin leaning over the larger boat.
Pushing his hair back, he wiped water from his eyes and frowned.
“What happened?” Azula asked.
“Alise saw you jump into the lake,” Kalas said. “You didn’t come up in time, so she panicked and started screaming. She is convinced you have drowned. Come on. If we don’t get back to shore soon, she will come out here herself.”
Azula reached for Kalas’s hand and let him pull him up into the smaller boat.
“Did she forget I can swim underwater?” Azula asked as he gathered his letters and put them in the pocket of his coat. Kalas tethered the small boat to the big one, and Azula joined him in the larger one, where he started changing into dry clothes.
Senin helped the boatman row back home at top speed.
“Your is stressed,” Kalas said. “You’re her only brother. She just lost her father and her husband. She’s a little raw right now. Everyone in the clan is, you know.”
Azula sighed and pulled on a dry white tunic and his wool trousers. He wore his socks and barely had time to put his boots on when they arrived at the dock.
“Where is he?” Alise called out, her voice shaking with fear. “Did you find him?”
Azula, hating the sound of her fear, climbed out of the boat. “Alise. I’m okay. Wh—”
She did not give him a chance to complete his sentence. She ran into his arms and burst into hard sobs, her body shaking. Azula wrapped his arms around her and stared at his mother and Magnus in shock.
“I thought you drowned,” Alise said between her sobs. “I can’t lose you too, Azula. You have to be okay. Do you hear me? You’re all we have left. You have to be fine.”
Azula closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, holding her gently as he tried his best to soothe her. He let her cry it out. Then, when she was depleted, he carried her into the house, taking her straight to her bed. He left Alise’s side when she fell into a deep sleep at dusk.
Heading downstairs to the great room, he found Magnus and Lasma talking with the council members. The Sura Clan had suffered too many losses. The council members sitting in their Doriel house were all new, save for Juya, Magnus, and Lasma. All the others had been caught in the massacre as they tried to help people to safety.
Juya was still running the clan’s communal finances. Magnus and Lasma were managing the community’s social welfare. Kalas was in charge of the mining of ore and the logistics to the warehouses. Alvas oversaw schooling the young ones, while Lasma and Juya managed the older children’s schooling needs.
Senin had taken on the role of trying to help clan members set up any economic activities they needed, while Azula needed to find a way to sell their goods as the island adjusted to a new world.
They had gained two people who had been based in the capital.
Tanya Nuovis, a woman skilled with blades and knives. She could fight off the strongest man. Juya insisted she had protected him when he was on his way from his house to find Alise after Marius’s arrest. Tanya oversaw the training of the first batch of Sura Clan warriors. She was to be helped by the second person Azula did not know, Wolfe Silverberry.
Wolfe Silverberry was a warrior who had trained in the city’s garrison. He was quite skilled with a sword. He had the build of a warlord and the temperament of a wolf. His anger was hard to manage. His son was the boy who was lynched outside an exchange bureau. His wife had died years before, and his son was his only remaining family. Now he burned with an anger Azula was sure would not end quickly. He could only pray that anger would not consume Wolfe.
Azula watched the group of people now responsible for the clan for a moment longer before he fully entered the great room. Alvas noticed him first. She stood up and moved to a table where she filled a mug of hot green tea for him.
Azula accepted the mug with a grateful smile and sat in the closest armchair.
“How is Alise?” Lasma asked.
“She’s asleep,” Azula said. “I didn’t know she would get that worried about me going out for a dive.”
“You jumped into the lake,” Magnus said. “Anyone who doesn’t know about your strange hobbies will think you’ve decided to end it for good. Don’t do that anymore when she’s around.”
“Mm,” Azula said with a sigh, sipping his green tea. “Juya, how is the grain holding up?”
“We need a refill of stock in eight weeks,” Juya said. “The only healer we have also says we need to supplement our meals with meat and start finding healing herbs. While we can hunt in the forest, we need to find a way to sustain our consumption. Someone in the farms on the other side of the mountain suggested farming chicken and ducks.”
“We should get the hatching eggs from the mainland,” Tanya said.
Azula thought about the letter from Vandra. “I got a letter from the innkeeper today. Anyone from the Sura Clan on the mainland is dead. Mercenaries got to them on their way to the port. We can’t risk an excursion into Lyria Kingdom.”
The room filled with silence as they thought about the families waiting on news of their missing loved ones.
“Then,” Magnus said, breaking the silence, “the northeast is our only path now. We should consider how we’re going to approach trading with the Nerasa Kingdom and their Rewa Port.”
“Yes,” Lasma agreed. “Everyone should write a list of immediate needs. Juya, let us know where we are financially. The Lyria Kingdom denaris may need exchanging for Nerasa gold.”
“I’ll tally what can be used,” Juya said.
“Let’s not forget that we’re changing how we manage our administration offices,” Lasma said. “We need more accountants to help Juya, skilled ones to help Tanya and Wolfe, and teachers…there are so many spots to be filled.”
“Even as we restructure our leadership, our immediate issue is finding a way to sustain our island’s food supply,” Azula said. “Mom, you find a way to convert more of the fertile lands. See if we can farm rice, and vegetables.”
“I’ll talk to the women,” Lasma said.
“I have modified a cargo ship,” Azula said, meeting Magnus’s gaze. “I have a tentative plan on how we can approach the Nerasa Kingdom, but it will need some statecraft.”
“I can’t go with you,” Magnus said, his gaze shifting to Lasma. “While you travel, you’ll need me and Kalas here to manage the day-to-day.”
“That’s okay,” Azula said with a quick smile. “I want to suggest bringing Juya with me. He’s been in the capital and helped Dad and Alise navigate the politics in Genad.”
“I can’t,” Juya started to protest, but Azula grinned at him.
“Don’t you want to discover if there are more amazing precious stones in the world?” Azula teased. “You’ve already appraised the ones Lyria Kingdom could offer. Surely Nerasa has new types you can exploit.”
“You’re so sly, preying on my habits. I’m half worried about sinking in a ship you’ve modified,” Juya said, shaking his head.
“Hey, my skill is very good. Even if it sinks it will because we made a navigation mistake,” Azula said. “I need you to be very confident in my skill because that’s what we’re going to build our reputation on in the Nerasa Kingdom.”
“What do you mean?” Lasma asked, her worried gaze resting on Azula.
“We will not sell ore to Nerasa. We will sell them finished products and negotiate the sale of blueprints for trade rights,” Azula said.
“Would that work?” Wolfe asked.
“It could,” Juya said. “Meaning we won’t need to open workshops in their territory, just sell skilled workshops the know-how. In some cases, we’ll need to approach high-level officials to work in small cities, but in larger ones we can offer to train artisans in well-known workshops. If they agree, the Sura Clan gets money, and we can do with it what we will.”
“Mm,” Azula said. “See, Juya knows what he’s talking about, even though I’m just guessing at it. Once we have enough money, we bring it back and build what we need here and figure it out as we go.”
Lasma sighed, while Magnus grinned.
“Well, I guess the first thing to do is to test your modified cargo ship,” Magnus said. “If it is seaworthy, then we can plan the first trip to the Nerasa Kingdom. Let’s hope Juya can refine this plan of yours.”
“It will work,” Azula said, confident in his crafting skill. He had no idea about building a nation, but he certainly knew how to make things people wanted to use. The more they wanted to use them, the more money they could make, and with money, Sura Island would survive. “Okay, let’s start planning…”
***
As plans went, it wasn’t the most brilliant, and there were too many variables that affected the result. Some of which included an unforeseen life-changing storm that capsized Azula’s modified cargo ship. Thankfully the ship was close to land, and even though the crew barely survived, they landed on the shores of the Nerasa Kingdom relatively in one piece. There were no losses of life, but they had little to no money to implement Azula’s economic ideas. Azula, Wolfe, Sennin and Juya and a small crew of five men all decided to find work first, then figure out how to send grain supplies to the island by the end of the month.
The Nerasa Kingdom was bustling, the port vibrant and a melting port of culture. No one wondered about the Sura Clan’s strange hair color because the Nerasa people had more outrageous colors, there were even people with white and green hair. So, the port of Rewa welcomed a shabby crew of Sura Clan members who worked on the docks to gain money for sustenance.
One night, two weeks after their arrival in Nerasa, Azula was sitting by the beach, mourning the fate of his capsized ship, when he spotted a man drowning in the ocean. Afraid of watching a life being lost, Azula ran to save the drowning man. Once he pulled the heavy, tall man with unusual flaxen hair out of the water, he sat next to him at a loss.
The man was dressed in a Nerasa army uniform that declared him a general.
Azula wondered what kind of fate he had, meeting so many generals in a lifetime. He got up, ready to walk away, but the Nerasa general held on to his ankle and looked at him with startling blue eyes.
Afraid of losses, as previously experienced under the Master of Ashes in the Lyria Kingdom, Azula kicked away the hold of the golden-haired general and ran back to the inn where his people were staying temporarily. He fell asleep, endured dreams of Alise giving birth to a son who turned into a mischievous urchin, then woke up to find their inn filled with Nerasa soldiers. The general had come to find him.
Thankfully, their lackluster luck changed that day.
The golden-haired general turned out to be the son of the prime minister. He had fallen into the water from a cliff at his residence. Azula had no interest in asking why the General was walking so close to the edge of a cliff. In any case, the general’s name was Trevan Pearcliff.
Trevan was staying at the port of Rewa, hoping to find a way to transport sand from a nearby lake to the capital of the Nerasa Kingdom. It looked like a test given to him by his superiors.
Juya was quick-witted and managed to attract the general’s attention with a blueprint of Azula’s cargo carriage. The golden-haired general commissioned three large cargo carriages from the clan and found them a yard to work in at the port.
Azula, Wolfe, Senin, and even frail Juya along with their crew of five men worked hard, day and night, conscious of the two-week deadline at home. They managed to make the three cargo carriages and were paid once the sand was filled in the carriages without mishaps.
Elated with their work, Trevan commissioned five more carriages, which gave them enough money to buy grain and send it with two of their crew to the Sura Island.
With Juya’s help, Azula negotiated with Trevan and managed to get the golden-haired general to sell them the plot of land where they were working. Trevan helped them acquire a trade permit, helping them establish a small presence in Rewa Port.
From there, the Sura Clan established a strong sustainable trade with the Nerasa Kingdom. Azula discovered that the currents into Nerasa Kingdom needed experience and know-how. So, he set to understanding the maritime navigation rules of entering Nerasa waters and built two more cargo ships. Once the ships were completed, the island focused on export trade.
All their products were made and forged on the island and sold from the yard at Rewa Port. The only thing they created on Nerasa soil was the cargo carriage, and Azula took great effort to train the Nerasa metal crafters Trevan brought to him. He showed them how to make the cargo carriage to avoid conflict with the region’s trade rulebooks.
On the island, the Sura council used the money Azula brought back to build homes, administration buildings, three schools and a healing center. They sent Sura scholars to Nerasa to train as teachers, healers, builders, as Nerasa had a vast sea of knowledge in building buildings. Some of the Sura Clan members made good friends, and soon merchants interested in Sura products brought their ships to the north of the island.
Magnus and Lasma built a trading port on the north side of the island that traded with ships on the way to other lands and provided a resting stop for travelers. The port was protected by the soldiers Tanya trained, and she was soon referred to as General Tanya by all her recruits. In time, Sura Island established itself as an island nation.
In the blink of an eye, five years passed, and Azula was already acknowledged by the people in the Nerasa Kingdom and beyond as the prince of the Sura Nation.
****
Sui Writes 
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