Chapter 17 Glorious
“Ensign Blue,” said Worley. “The captain wishes a word, if you please.”
I looked up from my bunk, where I’d been since the Auctorus the night past. Echo had been my nursemaid for most of that time, checking my bandages, bringing me brine tea and biscuits, and making notes on my ever-travelling scars.
As I rolled out of the hammock, I had to hold the ropes while my head spun anew.
There was no rocking. There was no sway.
The Touchstone had entered the Hall of Silence.
“On deck or in his cabin?” I asked, surprised I had a voice.
“He’s here, Ensign Blue.” He gestured with his hand. “In the galley.”
“Here? Now?”
“Shall I tell him it’s a bad time?”
“No,” I said. “No, I’m just surprised.”
“Welcome to the Ship of Spells,” he said, then disappeared from my little corner of the galley.
In vain, I tried to assemble my kit. I was only in breeches and tunic, no waistcoat or sash, and I was grabbing for my boots as the captain stepped in.
I froze like a rabbit, one foot in the air.
The ceiling was low for him, and he clasped his hands behind his back, bending a little at the waist to keep his hair from catching the boards.
His eyes darted around, as if seeing this place for the very first time.
He took another step but caught himself and reached down to pick up a handful of fabric.
He held it out to me, and I snatched it from his hand.
“My sash,” I said quickly and began to wrap it around my waist. Suns, this man was so imposing that he made my little corner feel but a crag.
“At ease, Ensign,” he said. “I merely wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine, sir,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting—”
“I am sorry,” he said.
“I just wasn’t expecting you here, sir. In the galley.”
“No. I came to apologize.”
I blinked at him.
“For what?”
“Your shoulders,” he said. “The doctor said the talons went deep and you lost blood.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“You went over the side,” he said. “I caught you just before you hit the water.”
I had almost no recollection of that night.
“It is dangerous in the Halls,” he said. “The waters of the Silence are deadly, and there are creatures that you see nowhere else. If we lost you, I’m sure we would never find you.”
Almost as if he thought I was worth saving.
“Thank you for catching me, then,” I said, my cheeks warming.
Almost as if I was important.
He flashed me a smile, but it was gone in a heartbeat, and I swallowed, looked at the boards.
I needed to distract myself from the fact that he was here, in the galley, with me barely dressed, bloody and bandaged, and foot bare on the floor.
As if hearing my thoughts, he spied my other boot, snatched it up, and passed it to me.
I pulled it on and straightened, reached a hand to still the hammock that was swinging beside me.
Suns. So soft. So awkward. Wayward woman swum out to sea.
He cocked his head like a bird. Like a bloody winter hawk.
“What were you doing that caused you to fall?”
“I think…”
I released a breath and frowned, trying to remember.
“I think I made an Auctorus,” I said. “That’s what Dev and I were working on. An Auctorus Circulaia.”
“That was no Auctorus Circulaia,” he said. “At least, not one I have ever felt. And, on this ship, I feel them all.”
I believed that.
“I was trying to lean into the wylde, like you said,” I muttered. “But I can’t control it. It’s too much. It’s too hard.”
“It was glorious,” he breathed.
Something passed between us then, as quick and unpredictable as a squall. Not captain to ensign. Not orders or rank. Just a man. Just a woman.
And between us, the truth of it: Both of us runechasers. Both of us drowning in it.
The Worldrune a net. It gathers and binds.
She was right.
And both of us always wanting more.
There were things I could’ve said. More I could’ve asked. But neither of us moved. The air had shifted—thick, heavy, sitting between us like a rope we were both too stubborn to pull.
So, we stood there, hands clasped behind our backs, like that would keep us anchored in the pitching of the sea.
“Would you like a chair?” I asked finally. “Nan has extra—”
“No,” he said. “No. Mr. Fahr said… Hmm.”
He fell silent for another moment before he reached into his waistcoat pocket and held out his hand. In his palm was a thread.
“Dev said that, in the Navy, this would be the appropriate mark for such an achievement.”
It was a long golden thread for my sash.
“Oh…”
My throat tightened.
“It is spun from a shearling farm in Braithe, where they plait gold fibers into the loom.”
He held it toward me. I plucked it from his hand and ran my fingers along its delicate strand.
“It is quite strong,” he said. “Kit chose it, and she knows her craft.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, fighting the stinging in my eyes.
He stepped closer, and my skin woke with the nearness. He raised his hand to my collar, slid the linen away to study the bandages. It was an intimate touch, and be damned if it didn’t make my heart race.
“Sometimes, when I am the hawk, I forget myself,” he said. “Do they hurt?”
“Not much,” I lied. “Echo says the chimeric is healing them.”
“Good.”
He released the linen but didn’t move away.
“The next time you wish to cast that deep, please have someone attend,” he said. “We cannot lose you over the side.”
I raised my eyes, spied the pendant around his throat.
Definitely a bird carved in ebony. Up past the pendant to his throat, his angular jaw and high cheekbones and his sea-deep eyes.
All the worlds were in those eyes, sea and sky, waves and land, suns and moons, Oversea and Nether and the Island InBetween.
“I will do that,” I breathed. “I’ll have someone attend.”
“Good,” he said, and he nodded once. “Very good.”
He turned and walked toward the galley proper but paused to glance back over his shoulder.
“You should be in the wardroom with the other officers,” he said.
“I have it on good account that they snore,” I said, a smile turning up the corner of my mouth.
His lips twitched, and then he was gone. But I stood, holding my thread and breathing his tides for a while longer.
We’d made good time in this gap until the Hall of Silence.
There, both eastern and western horizons exchanged their storms for a sickly gold.
They glimmered with an unhealthy sheen, as if reflecting tiny splinters of broken glass, and my skin crawled with the chimeric that choked out the air.
The winds and currents slowed then, too, giving me a hint of what would lay in the Silence on either side.
Sliver of suns while the corridor runs, the Touchstone had said, and I was so grateful for the sliver of blue above us.
It meant some wind still swept from north to south toward the breach.
In the Silence proper, the air rose directly up, eliminating any breeze, and for a sea bird that caught the winds, that was a problem.
In the gap, the heat was sweltering, the suns relentless, so I was reduced to half-buttoned tunic and breeches as I lay in my bunk, journal in my lap, charcoal stick melting in my fingers. I was almost asleep when the shouts of the crew roused me and lured me up to the main.
It was the first time I’d been on deck since the Auctorus, so when I pushed open the hatch, the humidity struck me like a fist. While there was a breeze in the Hall of Silence, Forge loomed overhead as if boiling the seas below him.
I couldn’t even see Ember because of Forge’s massive, fevered face.
Swabs gathered at the prow, shouting and pointing at the ocean ahead of us. But the sails themselves were laughing, and I looked up, knowing and delighting in the music of the Touchstone’s voice.
There were even more swabs perched in the rigging, but I was surprised to see Thanavar up there with them. He was wearing neither captain’s coat nor boots, and like them, his eyes were fixed on the waters ahead.
Don’t even think about it, Dev had said. Hard not to when he was so very fascinating. The last Priestlord of Lindurithain now sailing for the king. I didn’t dare look away.
I’d have to be very, very careful.
I glanced over to see Smoke at the wheels. His neckerchief was tied around his forehead, catching the sweat that rolled down his face. He nodded at me, so I ambled over and fell in at his side.
“Sailsquids,” he said. “A whole school of them.”
My eyes lit up.
“I’ve never seen one,” I said.
“Good eating,” said Smoke. “A Rhi’Ahr delicacy, in fact.”
“Rhi’Ahr delicacies?” I grinned. “Nan?”
“Thanavar taught him a few,” he said. “Mostly kelp and sea pearls and green ocean shite, but sometimes the sea sends a good fishy steak our way.”
I moved to the bulwark and leaned on my elbows over the rail.
The Dreadsky rolled all green and yellow, and heat rippled in the distance, but truthfully, the Silence was close enough to be a threat if we veered to either side.
I shuddered to think of being trapped in its becalmed embrace, no wind for the sails, no relief from the heat.
I couldn’t imagine what the Silence might do to my runescars were I ever to venture in…
I heard a cheer from the rigging and looked up again. Thanavar was climbing down the shrouds, and he leaped the last bolt, his bare feet slapping hard on the deck.
“Mr. Buck!” he cried. “Fetch your harpoons!”
“Aye, Captain!” called Buck, and another cheer went up from the crew on the main.
“Full sail, Mr. Oakum,” the captain called, and he swung around. “Oh, Ensign Renn.”
He strode over to us at the wheels. His sleeves were rolled up in the heat, and his waistcoat fluttered unbuttoned and free.
His linen tunic was damp and clung to his lean body like a second skin.
He had loosed his collar, his gold-laced skin glistened with sweat, and once again, I could see the pendant stark across the hard lines of his chest.
It had to be a hawk.
I could be a hawk, I thought to myself. If I was ever a mirrormage, I would be a hawk.