Chapter Two
Varis
It’d been two winters since that day. Varis stared up at a midnight-dark sky, bathing in moonlight and twinkling diamonds, a hoard in the sky that belonged to him alone.
The gentle rocking of the sea beneath him did more to wake him than lull him, as days were hot and bothersome. Too much of a chance to be seen.
Varis stretched out from his place among scratchy canvas looped among leaning masts, ready to do his nightly fishing. A few of the pink-bellied ones with silver and black scales would sate him well for the night, he decided.
In the distance, a bright light from a lighthouse beckoned him. A siren-like beacon begging him to come to shore. To die like all the others had.
Still, he stared at it, something different about it that night. Something beautiful in the light. The same thing he’d stared at for two years.
War was shit at the best of times. And this was not the best of times.
Varis grabbed his harpoon and scooted to the edge of the fore top yard, the open arms of the first mast that had once held the billowing sail aloft.
He stood and stretched, saltwater spraying off the bow as the surf crashed against the forward side and the rocks it had grounded upon so long ago.
He breathed deeply, tasting the air before staring at the churning waters below.
Not wanting to wait any longer for a meal, he dove and sank deep into the tide.
Pushing through the dark waters, starlight and the moon’s glow lit the world beneath the tide with spectral ripples.
A place where his eyes could see better than others, work that made him especially adept at working the night on the ship, back when it still sailed. Back when the crew was still there.
Lost in the darkness, he scouted on the seafloor, waiting for his chosen target: delicious fish. His mind replayed his journey, across the saltwater stills, the doldrums of Elide, and into the kingdom of Rammolia, their last stop before Monsmount. A war-torn port they never got to visit.
They came upon the port in a frenzy of war, fire rising from the horizon, smoke rolling into the sky.
The air was rank and thick with excrement of all varieties.
Hundreds of ships lay in wait a mile from shore; the jolt and crash of hulls second only to the fetid stench of still waters as waste poured overboard.
In those days, making port cost ten gold, and taxes were assessed based on the cargo carried.
But when the war had risen to its peak, making port cost seven-hundred gold, a fat bribe to two officials, and even then, the cargo might be seized to give to the armies and seamen conscripted into a war for a nation they wanted no part of.
Not wanting to pay the price or forfeit their cargo or men, the ships dropped anchor just beyond the line of neutral waters and lay in wait for the siege to ebb, but it never did.
Ships came and went, the line of them fattening then moving on, taking a risk to the next port with nothing but losses, but they had cargo that couldn’t be sold elsewhere.
Sure, they had barrels of rum, casks of cheeses and exotic silks woven from the cocoons of moths who fed only on wine grapes and thimblefuls of fire whisky.
Their rich royal colors were only allowed to be worn by Monsmontian royalty, and to even be in possession of them was grounds for beheading.
Varis had joined the trade four years ago, fleeing his destiny in the dead of night.
His light-umber skin bore white patches along his neck and shoulders that marked him as a cursed child, to be given as sacrifice to the temple of Alim for their god, so his ashes would rise to the heavens and appease them.
Once he discovered his fate, he’d boarded a ship that night, taken a single silver as his conscription fee, and escaped a world where half the ship he joined with assumed he’d put some girl in the family’s way.
Despite his protest otherwise, and admission that he was fleeing for search of love, as he was a flower child, nobody believed him.
Even after bedding him, they didn’t believe him.
He was just a pretty boy who liked men—who probably also put a girl in a vulnerable place.
Which, as he thought about it, Varis realized that most of the men who had joined up likely had a similar story. He didn’t miss any of his companions nearly as much.
In those two years, his crew had jumped ship, swimming through the still waters, avoiding the lacemaker beasts that lurked below, only to die crashed upon the sharp rocks of the shore.
Eventually the ship drifted, crashing against a drifting vessel until it took on too much water, grounded itself on an outcropping, and lay in wait for port authorities to eventually come seize the vessel or rescue the contents.
Day by day, fewer men stayed on board with Varis. Until the first winter came and the sea froze solid. So many men tried to brave the walk across the ice. So many men had fallen into the frozen waters to their doom.
Varis had made do over the seasons, swimming from one sinking and abandoned ship to the next to steal supplies.
Lacemaker beasts never bothered him, and if they did?
He’d welcome death. A man with no nation was as good as dead.
But as long as he held onto the royal cargo, he had a chance of making a claim when the war died down.
As supplies dwindled, so did new ships, and the once-thriving ports had become a battleground. A military outpost had, also, dwindled to nothing.
Until the present day.
Something had changed on the shores. The ports were actively being repaired; a new kind of fire had risen, one burning the refuse and waste that littered the shores.
The tides had changed, and Varis knew that someone would come, and he’d have to present his cargo.
He only prayed they didn’t see his markings and ship him back to Kaliman.
If that was the case, he’d happily end his existence. Alim would never claim his ash.
But as the bitter memories passed, he hefted his spear and whipped his legs into motion, jettisoning toward a school of fish, not his desired snack but a meal all the same.
Here was hoping they at least got to have a little weird fish sex before they got skewered. Would suck if his meals were virgin sacrifices to his gut.
He no longer would be. He’d made sure of that his first night offshore.
He climbed back on board and stoked a fire, his tinderbox running dangerously low.
“Fish again.” He sighed, and somehow it was still better than being sacrificed.
As he cleaned his catch, a shadow blotted the moon, and he looked up, catching a glimpse of a great white wyvern—not one like the Rammolians bred. These were saurian royal beasts; ones he’d only heard tales of.
His heart clenched as he watched the creature jettison past, an intense longing to be up there in the sky coiling in his belly. Perhaps whoever it was would stop by and offer him rescue, supplies, or finally take his cursed goods.
It circled him twice before doing the same to other abandoned vessels, and with its shadow went a little piece of Varis’s heart.