42. Forty-two
Chapter 42
In the morning—once we finally managed to pull ourselves out of bed—we were greeted with more Temorian hospitality. Oraik didn’t answer when I knocked on his door, but I was hungry, so Kalcedon came downstairs with me to inquire about food.
We each carried a new lock of the other's hair in our pockets. We didn't plan to part ways, but we were lovers now, Kalcedon had informed me gravely when I woke. He needed to be able to find me, and I him. He'd added that if I ever risked going cold to call him again he'd not let me out of his sight for so long as I lived.
Breakfast was already laid in the private room where we’d taken our meals, baked eggs that had gone cool and thick slices of sourdough bread, mashed beans drizzled with oil. In the center of it all was a covered basket.
“Supplies,” Kalcedon said when he tilted up the lid. “Food enough for a few days at sea.” Peeking furtively at the closed door to the room, he took a piece of bread and raised his mask.
He let the mask drop as the door swung open. Oraik sauntered in.
“You’re awake,” I said. I pushed the bread towards him as he dropped into one of the chairs. He shook his head, holding up a hand. “You’ve already eaten?”
“I couldn’t resist one last walk around the city,” he explained. “But I suppose we’ll be leaving soon.” He gave me a meaningful look, one eyebrow raised.
I cleared my throat.
“You know, I think we ought to go to Rovileis after all.”
“Really?” Oraik said, faking surprise.
“It’s the safer option,” I said.
Kalcedon planted his elbows on the table.
“I disagree.”
We both turned to look at him—at the flat mask covering his face.
“Really? But… if Meda thinks its safer…” Oraik started.
“She told me what you said,” Kalcedon informed the prince.
“Meda!” Oraik turned on me, eyes wide in disbelief.
“Anyways, if you really don’t want to go to Rovileis, I don’t blame you,” Kalcedon muttered. He folded his arms across the table, pushing back his plate. “Terrible city. And the three of us, you know… we can manage. So you don’t need to worry about that.”
With a loud scrape, Oraik pushed his chair back from the table, leaned over, and grabbed Kalcedon in a hug. The half-fae flinched away too slowly as I watched in awe. Kalcedon squirmed, but Oraik held tight.
“That’s enough, you can let go,” Kalcedon growled.
Oraik held on a moment longer before he relented, grinning.
“Thank you, truly,” Oraik said, as he brushed back one of his curls and folded his hands in his lap. “But it's what I want. I lied —I was at the harbor. A warship came in last night. Apparently, a mask seller at the docks reported seeing a faerie…”
I shot Kalcedon an alarmed look. He shrugged.
“Anyways, they’ll escort me,” Oraik finished.
“We’ll come with you,” I offered instantly.
Kalcedon shifted in his seat. Reaching forward, he cut a slice of the egg dish and levered it onto the serving knife.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” he said.
“But didn’t you just say the three of us—?”
“I was trying to be kind,” Kalcedon said. We both stared wide-eyed at him. He sighed and continued: “it’s better if we meet him there, where it’s more fortified. Everyone was staring at the two of us yesterday, not at him. Scrying for him will point straight to us—so if we’re on a different ship...”
“To be clear,” Oraik said, “I didn’t stand out yesterday only because I am not a witch. My obvious beauty is not in question.”
Kalcedon snorted. I knuckled my jaw with a frown.
“I don’t like it,” I admitted.
“I’ll be fine. So long as I’m not eaten by any sea monsters,” Oraik said. “And you don’t have to meet me there.”
“We will,” Kalcedon said, before I could answer. We both looked at him. “You’re Meda’s friend,” he muttered. “Besides, we’re going to live there. So she can make everyone at the Temple realize how bad at casting they are.”
“That’s not why,” I told him with a laugh, but for some reason the dream—as long as I’d held it—felt stale. Oraik grinned and grabbed the last piece of bread, then stood. Just like that the meal was over. And with it, our time in Koraica.
We said farewell at the inn and took separate paths to the crowded harbor, so that Oraik would be harder to track. When we arrived the Cachian warship was still there, waiting at the far edge of the longest pier. We took seats on a wall of barrels, and I watched without looking directly at the ship.
“It’s nice you were finally getting along,” I said after a moment of silence.
“I still think he’s obnoxious,” Kalcedon said gruffly.
“You don’t fool me. Pretend to be tough all you like, I’m glad you made a friend.”
“Shut up.”
Soldiers lined the gangway, facing out so that they could not see as a figure—I knew it for Oraik, despite the distance—climbed aboard the ship.
The gold and white sails remained furled. I leaned back against the barrel behind me. The warm sun felt good on the bare arms of my sleeveless dress, but there was too much to look at all around us, bustling crowds shouting to each other above the bells and gongs of the shipping roads.
Kalcedon spotted the figure first, nudging my knee with his own and sitting straighter. One of the Nameless was coming straight our way, their face indistinct and their tawny bronze breastplate glinting in the sun.
“Mistress,” the Nameless said, stopping six paces away and inclining their head. One hand rested casually on the pommel of the curved sword at their waist.
“Do you need something?” Kalcedon’s voice was needlessly blunt. The Nameless didn’t flinch, but then, they couldn’t see how fae he looked beneath the mask.
“We are told you will travel separately.”
“We will,” Kalcedon answered.
“I am to thank the mistress for the service she performed in this city. The Chancellor wishes to confirm you are coming straight to Rovileis. Your presence is much desired.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to sound calm even though my heart was pounding. I folded my sweaty hands in my lap. The Cachian Chancellor knew who I was?
“Both?”
“Yes, both of us.”
“Very good.” The guard bowed and walked away, vanishing into the crowd.
“Did you hear that?” I turned to Kalcedon, grabbing hold of his shoulder through his shirt. The mask turned to face me, his expression as unknowable as the Nameless.
“Yes, I heard,” he said dryly. He wrapped an arm around me and tugged me tight against his side. “Maybe they aren’t so stupid after all.”
“They’re not stupid at all,” I answered.
He snorted and kept his grip tight on me.
“...It’s impressive,” he admitted.
“What is?”
“You. What you’ve done.”
I didn’t have an answer to that, but rested my head against his shoulder. Kalcedon took my hand without looking at me. We stayed resting together until the gangplank was pulled aboard the Cachian ship, and the white sails with the Temple’s gold eye dropped and billowed taut under a stiff wind.
“I suppose we’d better leave, too.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a sigh. “I didn’t hate it here.”
I rose, and he picked up the basket, and we made our way to the wolf.
At mid-morning, an hour or so after sailing, Kalcedon shaded his eyes and squinted east across the water. Light glimmered on the sea, making it difficult to stare towards the horizon.
“What is that?” Kalcedon asked. I left the tiller to stand beside him and shielded my own eyes. It was a busy passage we were on, and I could make out a few ships on the Etegen.
“The Buis tal-rih?” I asked.
“No, behind it.”
“But there’s nothing behind it. Wait. That… flickering? I think it’s just sunlight.”
“It’s another warship,” Kalcedon insisted. “You don’t see it?”
But suddenly it was there. The concealment cloaking the ship fell away, leaving a strange vessel riding high on the water. It was a massive contraption, a bone-white ship with four masts as well as a row of oars. A long bowsprit bore a figurehead, its shape indistinguishable over the distance. It was too far away for me to feel anything from it, but it had to be fae. A chill trickled down my spine like sweat sliding over skin.
The Buis ship began to turn towards the sudden apparition. There was a distance between the two. The Buis ship fired its skein-bows, to little effect.
It was sinking, rapidly, without any clear reason why.
There was nothing terribly dramatic about it. No smoke, no fire. Just one ship appearing and the other sinking. It only took a few minutes for it to vanish under the waves. We stared in silence. It occurred to me that even if we stopped any more stones from falling, even if the Ward remained in place a hundred years longer, our world as we’d known it was over. There were faeries, and more than just a handful, inside the Ward.
“What in horns,” I said softly, after the final slip of the Buis ‘rih was gone from view.
The fae ship slowly turned, pointed towards us—or just to Koraica beyond. It vanished from view again, slipping into a shimmering veil of light.
“Is it coming this way?” I breathed.
“Going to Koraica. It must be. They would’ve scried us yesterday, with all the noise we made.”
I looked at him. Kalcedon had been unmasked since we left the harbor. Now he was frowning, his brow furrowed as he squinted in the direction we’d last seen the ship.
“But what if it’s not?” I whispered.
“Well, it’s not pointing to Rovileis. That’s the good news.” He glanced down at me. “Still. Maybe we’d better take the long route.”
We turned south, taking a curving path that bent towards Nis-Illous rather than the straight way to Rovileis city. Kalcedon wasn’t at full strength yet, but he had power to spare. I used it to call the strongest wind that I thought our sail could handle, knocking us far out of the way. If the outland warship followed us, we didn’t see it, though perhaps it was buried deep in another concealment.
By nightfall we had reached the uninhabited saltmarsh isles between Temor and Nis-Illous. Most of the isles flooded periodically with the tide, leaving only the highest strips of land visible. The tide was low now. We followed one of the winding, muddy channels to a stand of scruffy trees that would provide a little cover. Dropping the wolf’s anchor, we ventured up to the highest point of land.
A tiny bug droned right next to my ear. I hissed and swatted at it.
“Probably shouldn’t risk a fire,” Kalcedon said. “Just in case.” He didn’t need to say out loud that we still couldn’t be certain the ship was headed towards Koraica.
I was barely listening. I felt the sharp prick of a bite as another bug landed on my arm. With a frustrated noise I grabbed Kalcedon’s heat and snapped up a shield. He flinched at the feeling and looked at me in surprise.
“ Bugs ,” I told him, hands crabbed miserably into the spell. “Sorry I didn’t ask. There wasn’t time .”
He smiled crookedly. Kalcedon came to stand right in front of me. He raised his hands until they mirrored mine, then cautiously slid each of his fingers against my own, curling his hands into the spell’s pivots. I held my breath as the net of magic wavered, threatening to break. Kalcedon held steady.
“Make a real shield,” he told me gently. “One you don’t have to hold all night. I’ll keep this one going.”
Gratefully I slipped my hands free and went to work.