Chapter 13 Learning the Ropes
I stood for the better part of an hour outside Thanavar’s cabin, waiting for Echo to be done. As I did, my mind raced over the events of last night.
I had an earring. I was now a member of the Touchstone’s crew.
I’d learned many things about them over this last day—mainly that they were the same as any other crew, with good and ill working side by side.
Trust was a thing not easily earned, and I didn’t know where Kit fit in, whether she was a friend or a foe or a soul in league with the enemy.
I couldn’t even begin to make sense of it.
Who was the enemy? If it wasn’t Thanavar, then whom?
And was he really missed in the Abolition?
If so, that made him the last Priestlord to serve on the Cloudgate and a sworn enemy of the king.
He said as much himself. And yet, he sailed with a Letter of Marque.
Eighteen when I swore allegiance to my enemy’s enemy…
Smoke had said the Cloudgate was a rotting wound, a bleeding, festering shadow of what once was.
Did it have mountains like other islands?
Did it have sand and trees, rocks and fields?
Or was it a Rhi’Ahr spit, an inhospitable atoll of ice and snow and deathly cold?
Did the suns ever shine, or was it perpetually surrounded by the Dread’s waterwalls?
Navy ships were forbidden from approaching it, forbidden even from entering the Sheets without a specific commission.
Ships that strayed too close often found themselves caught in the Dreadcurrent or becalmed in the Silence, where the seas held their breath for weeks on end and smothered hapless crews with diamond-laced air.
And while I wanted dearly to see this oceanic marvel of magik, I remembered what Smoke had said about ships like driftwood raining down from the skies.
And what could I expect at Bilgetown, one of the most terrifying places in the entire Northhelm?
She had no land of her own but moved without sails across oceans.
Rumor had it that she ate ships foolish enough to trade with her, and yet we were going to trade with her, to find a piece of a Forge-damned puzzle.
I sighed as I stared at the captain’s door. I really should have taken that second tot last night. I was entirely out of my depth.
There was a rattle of the door, and Echo peered out.
“The captain will see you now, Ensign.”
I slipped in for the second time in as many days.
The faun stood behind me, hands behind his back. I didn’t sit, either, despite the fact that there was a chair. I hadn’t been asked, and I’d not presume. Not with this man. Not anymore.
There was an open journal on his desk. His right arm was still in a sling, and I watched in wonder as ink wrote runes across the page.
There was no pen, no quill, merely the strum of his fingers above it all.
I was impressed. It took serious skill to wield runes that way, creating something from nothing at the stroke of a finger.
He paused at the last rune and frowned.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
Echo peered over the desk and flicked an ear.
“Define ‘certain,’ sir.”
Even upside down, I could read it. I saw that rune every moment of every day now.
Aro’el.
“I must think on this, Doctor,” he muttered. “The sequence will be complicated and the assumptions a reach. One miscalculation, and everything is lost. I do not know that we have the skill.”
“Of course, I could be mistaken,” said Echo.
“I doubt that very much.”
I watched him as he read. It was hard to think of him as the enemy now, and I studied the lines of his face, realizing that it wasn’t all severe.
In fact, the cut of his brow was elegant, with thick brows and delicate lashes.
His lips were slightly parted in concentration, softening the usual sharpness of his mouth and jaw.
And of course, there was the sweep of his remarkable sea-deep black hair, strands curving along cheekbones higher than the most regal faun, minotaur, or homani in Oversea.
It was always said they were a beautiful people, and as he sat there, deep in thought and steeped in magik, I couldn’t deny it. Elven and beautiful, like a sword of oiled steel.
Still, any sword could cut. Any sword could draw blood.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Thanavar said. “I shall think on it.”
Echo nodded, sparing a glance at me before slipping out the door.
After a moment, the captain pushed the journal aside and looked up.
“You have officially joined the crew.”
“I have, sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“You need a station.”
“I do, sir,” I said.
Not so different than the Navy, I told myself. Perhaps more talking.
“The doctor says that you are the daughter of a greenmage healer,” he said. “Since his loblolly, Arik, was killed in the Dreadship’s attack, he is in need of an assistant.”
“Aye, sir.”
He glanced back down to the papers on his desk, nudging one to the side. “Smoke has also petitioned for your assistance at the helm.”
“Aye, sir. He has.”
Thanavar lifted his gold-shot eyes, and my breath caught in my throat.
Suns, what was happening to me?
“And what is your preference, Ensign?”
I gaped at him. No Navy commander would care what post you longed for. But I didn’t miss my opportunity. I shook my head and said, “Neither, sir.”
I’d thought about it all night, as I lay dreamless after the scorpion. If I was to truly be a part of this crew, if this crab was not to get eaten, I needed to earn my place.
“I want to try to lace our shots with chimeric,” I said. “Like the enemy.”
Thanavar stilled, his eyes narrowing on mine. “And you know how to do this?”
“No, sir,” I admitted. “I don’t.”
He sat back, and I felt he could see right through to my bones. I swallowed as if exposed.
“How did you stop the shot from the Endorathil?” he asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” I said. “I just formed a protection spell and willed the chimeric to compound it.”
“Wylde magik?”
“My mother was wylde,” I muttered.
And I waited for the customary scoffing or snort of derision that always followed.
Wylde mages were untaught and untrained and therefore unpredictable, and the Navy had warned us against wylde urges.
It was the path to runechasing, they insisted, and to a new cadet, there was nothing worse than that.
But to my relief, there was no scoff or snort. Instead, he pursed his lips and thought a moment.
“Have you ever cast a shroud spell?”
I shook my head.
“An imbue spell?”
I shook my head.
“Tecton Permeatus?”
I frowned. Tecton Permeatus meant “to construct within.” I shook my head again, twisting the sash at my hips. Only blue threads woven with raw. No red or gold, green or black.
He sighed.
“I’m disappointed in Taran Vir.”
“So, teach me,” I said.
He blinked at me in surprise.
“Teach me,” I said again.
“No,” he said sharply.
My shoulders sagged. “Have you already laced the shot yourself?”
Though I had seen no sizzling chimeric, had not felt the hiss from cannons of our own.
He released a breath. “I cannot.”
I tried to tame the expression that flashed across my face.
“You don’t know how?” That would certainly make the teaching harder.
“It is not a question of knowledge, but rather of higher alchemy and of will,” he said, his tone making it clear that the subject was closed. “Regardless, I will not teach you.”
“Why not?” I asked. “We need it done, and I’m a quick study.”
“Out of the question.”
“But why?”
“Because you are not Rhi’Ahr,” he said. “The chimeric has never been wielded like this by a homani, and it may kill you. It may have already begun.”
His eyes flicked down to my arms.
I met his gaze, challenged it.
“If I don’t have long to live, then I’d like to truly live,” I said. “Besides, I’m a bluemage, Navy trained. Maybe I can turn the tide of this war, but I won’t know unless I’m given the chance. Sir.”
I almost smiled. He almost returned it.
“The doctor says the runescars are travelling.”
“They are,” I said. I removed my gloves and pushed up my sleeves. “Well beyond my elbows, now.”
“Hm.” He pushed to his feet and turned to the chest behind his desk. When he opened the lid, I hissed. “Does this hurt you?”
“Not much,” I said. “Not anymore. It tingles. Burns. Like tats and needles.”
“Come closer,” he said.
My heart thudded at the invitation, and I moved around the desk. I felt his nearness like a burning of my skin, breathed deep the scent of brandy and linseed oil, old books and the sea.
He stepped aside.
“Tell me what you see.”
I peered into the chest, and the sight took my breath away.
Chimeric. I’d never actually seen it before.
I’d never known what it looked like, virgin and raw.
Orange like cinnamon, it was a forest of lights, a stormy sky, a furious ocean, alive.
Like waves of powder or molten sand, it crackled, shifting and lifting the way ash would on a breeze.
Moving, sliding, rising, falling. It glowed warmly, and I leaned closer, breathing it in.
“Can you hear it?” he asked.
“It’s weeping,” I said.
“The Tears of the Moons,” he purred. “Call them.”
I raised my hand over the chest. The chimeric responded, rising like serpents toward the rune on my palm. Slow and graceful, it reached powdery tendrils, and when they touched my skin, I saw stars.
“The Touchstone is drawn to it,” said Thanavar. His voice was muffled, as if far, far away, but his body was warm behind mine. “She remembers when it used to course through her veins.”
He laid his hand over mine, and I shuddered at the touch as the chimeric snaked between our fingers and curled across our palms. My runescars sang across my skin, gleaming and fading like embers in a fire, and I knew his magik quickened them deeper, brighter.
I longed to lean back into him, to let him support me as I surrendered to the chimeric, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet as waves of heat and power and memory washed over me.
“Call her,” he said.
Touchstone, I said in my head.
No.
I bit my lip.
“She said no.”
He sighed.
“Kirianae sil laethe. Kirianae ik thay’ell, mira sil.” He looked at me. “Try again.”
I closed my eyes.
Touchstone, please?
Almost immediately, I saw an island with cinnamon skies, a bay with brilliant green waters, and streams that flowed uphill.
Vines of purple and spice on the breeze.
I saw stars in the heavens and nights with no dawn.
I saw Luna, Lyrik, and Lore. I saw Forge and Ember and a tree—no, the tree, the RuneTree that had been cut down by the enemy.
Once again, I saw the hawk, asleep in its branches, and I knew now, without a doubt, that it was Thanavar, and that somehow, he was connected to this tree the same way he was connected to this ship.
Kirianae ik thay’ell, Gavriel sil.
Be wary. Be wise.
Kier Gavriel.
I snatched my hand away, gasping for breath. My throat was full of chimeric, and my hands glowed like beacons on an ocean.
“You are wylde,” he said, closing the lid of the chimeric-filled chest.
I wasn’t on the island. Where was I?
“No, that was my mother,” I said in a voice barely there. “I learned Arcana in Berryburn Yard.”
“You deny yourself,” he said. “Wylde is good. There is less you must unlearn.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard it like that, and I turned, seeing him with new eyes. Memories coursed through my mind, and my body responded, runescars glittering and hot. He could have plucked me like saltgrass. He could have slain me with a word.
Suns, I would have let him.
He glanced down at my arms. The runes had crept past my elbows, and these new ones gleamed with gold.
“How do you feel?”
Heat stained my cheeks.
“Dizzy,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Tell me how you feel.”
Runechaser.
“Alive,” I breathed. “Kier Gavriel.”
He stiffened.
“What did you say?”
“Kier Gavriel,” I repeated. “What does it mean?”
“Where did you hear that?” he growled.
“The chimeric,” I said. “It talks to me. Or maybe that’s her. I don’t know.”
He studied me for a long moment, searching my face with his steely, gold-shot eyes.
These were deep waters, cold and fast, but my body was alive with chimeric, my thoughts wylde with chance.
Skin burning, but it didn’t hurt. Heart racing, but I didn’t fear.
I should have. This was new and raw and uncharted territory.
I should have been terrified. Instead, I was alive.
Alive with a Rhi’Ahr captain who would teach me how to wield chimeric for the king.
What did that say about the war? What did it say about our helms?
It didn’t matter. His currents would take me where I needed to go.
And I would take him with me, for good or for ill.
Be wary. Be wise.
Finally, he looked away.
“I will teach you this,” he said. “But at the first sign of problem or ill health…”
I gazed up at him. He was so tall, so broad, while I was wiry and slight, but I swear he was the one holding his breath.
“Aye, Captain,” I said.
“Come with me,” he said.