Chapter 5
We were there in the captain’s cabin—Fahr, Echo, Smoke, and me—sitting around the large desk and poring over a map of the world.
I knew some of it, to be sure. I had tried to pay attention to the sea charts in the Berryburn Yard, the ones that detailed Oversea’s four continents and the series of island chains that formed our northern helm.
But always, the largest, most obvious feature of any map was the Dreadwall, a curtain of water that circled the erthe at the equatorus, effectively dividing the helms in two.
“The sea meets the sky at the Elder Dreadwall, cast by the Priestlords, may never she fall,” the shanty went.
There were no Priestlords anymore, but the Dreadwall still stood, powerful, terrible, and destructive as hels.
For as long as time recorded, it towered over the horizon, rushing upward against all natural forces for a half league into the sky, and the oceans raced toward it with relentless currents.
To be caught in its tow was certain destruction, for the tides met the Dreadwall with such force that few ships had been known to survive.
Pieces of shattered vessels were said to rain from the skies for days.
I’d never seen it myself, but I had heard enough to know it was true. Even my mother had spoken of it. But unlike the shanty, she claimed it was cast by a powerful Dreadmage to keep the helms separated and war at bay, and it still stood, majestic and lethal, ready to crush ships to kindling.
I couldn’t imagine the power needed to cast such a thing. I couldn’t fathom the skill.
My gaze slid to the captain. His head was bent over the chart table, hair curling at the ends as it dried from the earlier torrent, the lamplight catching the blue-black edges. He’d flung his drenched overcoat across a chair, and the sleeves of his flaxen tunic were shoved above his forearms.
Even focused on the map, his power seemed to roll off him in steady waves.
For a moment, I could almost believe the stories.
I could see him as they must have seen the last Dreadmage.
No wonder the Overlanders had feared these people enough to raise a wall of water between the helms. Their elven bodies were said to be stronger, more powerful vessels for magik, capable of commanding chimeric the way waterspinners commanded the waves.
And if they all had the same power coming off the captain, as easy as breathing, we were right to fear them.
In my twenty-some odd years on the erthe, one thing I had learned to be true of all men—they always want more power.
Smoke muttered something as he pointed to the equatorus, and I pulled my gaze from the captain to the map again. There were more important things to focus on than the follies of men. Namely, the hunt for the Marelethan.
It was easy to pick out Oversea in the Northelm, our continents and islands north of the world-crushing Dreadwall.
Nethersea was south of it, and no map I’d ever seen had shown continents at all.
There were whispers of cities that roamed the seas, however, and rumors of gaps in the Dreadwall, where the walls had cracked and the rising waters had split, allowing Rhi’Ahr ships access to raid and pillage at whim.
I had even heard one theory from a professor at Berryburn that the Rhi’Ahr were attempting to bring the Dreadwall down.
They’d slaughter us all if that were the case.
But now, as I studied this particular map, I noticed a single continent drawn on the southern pole, and a cold wind swept down my spine when I realized that Thanavar had added it.
Of course he’d know. He was Rhi’Ahr. He had likely sailed to Oversea through one of these fabled gaps.
How he ended up here, as captain of a frigate with a Letter of Marque, was a story I desperately wanted to read.
Whether it was the gaps or magik, he was here, wrapped in moonslight and shadow, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes away.
He hovered over the table, a cup of wine in one hand, and my skin burned just being in the same cabin with him.
Before the Endorathil, I’d never seen a Rhi’Ahr.
Before the Ship of Spells, I could never have imagined being this close.
The cyr in the corner was clearly his, and I wondered how much Overland blood it had spilled.
My mind raced at all the ways I could kill him, and I didn’t bother hiding my thoughts.
Echo sighed repeatedly, shaking his horned head and trying to warn me with his large brown eyes. I ignored him, choosing to focus on the map and the spread of the runescars that danced beneath the leather of my gloves.
“Was it enough, Mr. Fahr?” asked Thanavar.
“The best we could, sir,” said Fahr, running a hand across his forehead. “Hodgetown could have benefited from one last dousing, but the Templemore had other plans.”
The captain paused to study his wine.
“I am concerned with the audacity of this raid,” he said. “Hodgetown may be one of the southernmost Emperial ports in Oversea, but in all these years, it has never been attacked like this.”
“It’s practically an invitation to open war,” said Smoke.
“I doubt the king can refuse this time,” said Fahr.
“He will refuse,” said Thanavar.
“And how many Overland cities will be razed until he bites?” asked Smoke.
“You have had ten years to come up with a solution, Mr. Oakum,” said the captain. “Now we have six months.”
Smoke rolled his expressive eyes and reached for his cup.
“This demands we step up our efforts,” the captain said. “We are compromised if the cruisers can come and go like this.”
“We can patch all the breaches we find in the Dreadwall,” said Fahr. “But there’ll be more as long as the chimeric is mined. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Six months,” said the captain.
There was silence for a long moment.
“They have clearly found a way to track the Cloudgate,” he said. “If we aim to stop this, we must cut off their supply.”
“We’re only one ship,” said Echo.
“But oh, what a ship,” said Fahr with a grin.
Smoke tossed back his rum.
“Then we take the bloody fight to them,” he said. “Sail through a gap on our own and sink every ship we find.”
“That’s too dangerous,” said Echo.
“So’s leaving it,” said Smoke.
“It is not helpful if it is not lasting,” said the captain.
“It was lasting,” said Smoke, and then he sighed. “Until it wasn’t.”
“I will not warn you again, Mr. Oakum,” said the captain, and the room fell into strained silence once more.
I didn’t know what they were talking about, but the tension had the weight of a wave about to break.
“The chimeric has turned the tides,” said Fahr after a long moment. “We can’t fight it.”
“That is true,” said Thanavar, his gaze darting to mine. “But I wonder if now, we are able to find it ourselves.”
He turned and moved to a wide mullioned window.
Beneath it was a wooden chest topped with a blanket covered in a dusting of white feathers, and I wondered if the winter hawk belonged to him.
It would make sense, given that they were both Netherborn.
Thanavar removed the blanket and reached down to the chest’s latch, opening it with a click.
Immediately, I hissed with pain. My hands had sprung to life, dancing with unseen pattern and crackling with heat.
He turned to look at me, and my heart thudded in my chest.
“What is your name again, wretched woman?”
Suns, I hated him.
“Ensign Honor Renn,” I said.
“Remove your gloves.”
“You’re not my captain.”
“Please,” he said.
I wasn’t expecting that.
Slowly, carefully, I slid the gloves off, one finger at a time. My skin was alive with chimeric.
Thanavar reached into the chest, and I could see his hand moving within.
“Aro’el is the Rhi’Ahr rune for ‘chase,’” he said. “I have just drawn it in the chimeric.”
“You have chimeric in there?” I asked.
“Show me your palm,” he said.
I did. There was a new, unfamiliar rune burned into my skin.
“Aro’el,” he said. It was like a song, a breath on the wind, a poem. Lyrical and lethal, just like him and all his people.
He closed the lid, and the rune faded into another flat scar. I slipped the gloves back on and tucked my hands around my ribs.
Fahr leaned forward.
“But what can an ensign bluemage do that we cannot?”
“Not any ensign bluemage, Mr. Fahr. Just this one.”
“Has the Touchstone chosen her?” asked Echo.
“Because of the chimeric, it seems so,” said Thanavar. “Despite my ardent counsel otherwise.”
“She has her own mind,” muttered Smoke.
“She does indeed.”
They didn’t know the half of it.
“It’s a bad idea,” said Fahr. “She doesn’t belong here.”
“You are the one who taught her the Carmen Lumiere,” said Thanavar, jaw tightening.
Fahr shrugged. “One spell’s not a post.”
“For the moment, she is with us until there is a port at which to moor her,” said Thanavar, crossing his arms across his broad chest. “Besides…”
The captain turned his sea-deep eyes on me, and a shiver raced along my spine.
“The Marelethan and her companions cannot be far.”
I glared darkly at him, raised a challenging brow. “Are you asking me to stay?”
“The Touchstone is not a schooling vessel,” he said. “And we have no place for an unskilled, wylde Blue. Still, you may have some small part to play in this great game, if you have the bones to play it.”
Unskilled. Wylde.
“And if I refuse?”
“You will be put overboard in our quartermaster’s favorite dory.”
“The one with the holes,” said Smoke. “Haven’t gotten around to tarring ’em yet.”
And he tipped his glass in my direction.
“You ran from the Navy,” I grumbled.
“We did not run from the Navy,” said Thanavar, pushing his thick, black hair off his forehead. “We ran from the Templemore.”
“HMRS Templemore,” I said.
“HMRS Templemore would see us at the bottom of the ocean, in flagrant violation of the King’s Marque.”
He had a point.
“I won’t breach naval law. I’m still on a Navy ship’s roll,” I said.
“A ship that is also at the bottom of the ocean.”
Forge, I hated this man.