Ship of Spells

Chapter 28 Keelhaul and Ketch #2

I was tired and I was sad, so I was angry. No surprise there. Anger was my default, my safe place, my home. Not so different than Thanavar, I reckoned, but my hands had not shed the same blood.

One of the windows was open because the hawk was in the skies, scouting out a path due south through the Sheets.

I could see the dark clouds flashing on the horizon.

I hated the Sheets. I hated the Silence.

More than these, I hated the fact that my mother was here, now, working her arcane ways through the lives of the crew.

She had spent time with both Thanavar and Dev, and I knew she was attempting to seduce them both.

Either one would be a win for her, like a dog marking a stone, taking what I’d earned and working them to her advantage.

The story of my foggin’ life. I just prayed they’d steer clear.

I’d never needed to seduce. I’d just made an offer and been accepted or rejected. There was no great game in my old world. If I was lucky, just a really good fog.

I grabbed the blanket on the chest. It was covered in white feathers.

I climbed on top of the chest and held it out the window, shook it out a few times, and watched the feathers lift away on a leeward wind.

I hopped back down and folded it in quarters, then eighths, just how he liked it.

Just how I was told. Foggin’ steward, indeed.

It was wool, so it was coarse, but it felt like home under my skin.

It smelled of oak and oil and salt and sea.

I held it to my chest and turned to look past the bookcases to the small sleeping quarters beyond.

At least she hadn’t been there yet.

It was a narrow bed on gimbals, hung from the rafters to rock as the ship pitched through the waves.

I’d never seen the linens disturbed; the lone pillow never creased.

I knew I’d never need to make that bed because he spent his nights sleeping as the hawk on the blanket on the chest. Honestly, there was little to do as steward save wash the glasses, shake the blanket, and replenish the wine.

It was an easy post, in spite of my wrath.

I refused to look through his journals, though I desperately wanted to.

The chest was another story.

Still clutching the blanket, I turned. It called to me, this chest filled with chimeric.

It was RuneTree wood—I knew it in my bones.

It sang songs of want and desire, of power and need.

It was all there within a wooden box, with only an iron clasp to protect it.

There was no lock, and there was no key.

There was only honor and fear in equal measure, but I had neither honor nor fear left in my bones.

I reached down to stroke the lid, closed my eyes as the chimeric leached through the fibers of the wood.

I breathed it in, wishing it would fill my body and brand me whole.

I wanted it like I had never wanted anything before.

Wanted its power to burn my skin and boil my blood, so I could leave this ship and fly away and be alone forever.

I would be the Dreadmage of the world, and no one would call me runechaser ever again.

Or I’d burst into glorious flame and float away like the feathers on the ocean winds, never to be seen again.

“Aro’el,” said a voice, and I jolted out of my thoughts. Thanavar stood beside the desk, brow furrowed, glancing at the blanket clutched in my hands. I looked down. It was sizzling with chimeric.

I was wearing my gloves. It shouldn’t have burned through.

“This was a mistake,” he said.

I held it out, and he snatched it from my grasp, crossed the floor, and flung it out the transom window. It boomed when it hit the sea.

“You are relieved of duty as steward and are dismissed.”

I stared at the floor, trying desperately to control my racing thoughts. Darkening like the storm clouds we courted in the Sheets, whispers like chimeric, powerful and raw.

“I said dismissed, Ensign.”

“No.” I looked up at him, heart hardening to stone. “Why did you kill Worley?”

His eyes flashed like the lightning, and I raised my chin, defiant.

“You asked me to be Navy while serving the ship,” I said. “Last night, you said a Navy witness would be wise. Well, consider me Navy now. Why did you kill Mr. Worley?”

“I trusted him,” he said. “We all did. With our lives and our secrets. He betrayed that trust.”

“You didn’t have to keelhaul him. That was cruel.”

“The Rhi’Ahr way,” he said.

“You could have clapped him in irons and kept him in the brig. You could have dropped him off at the nearest port with neither penny nor purse. Hels’ hooks, you could have set him in the dory and quit him to the sea. He was a sad old man, and you killed his son.”

“We have been dogged for years now, by Emperial ships and Rhi’Ahr,” he said. “I can’t count the number of men I’ve lost to their guns, and there is no worse crime than betrayal on a ship of war. It is worse than piracy or cowardice, for it buys and sells souls as if they were plunder.”

“You sold Cable and Dion for the price of some timbers,” I said. “For the bones of the Nil’hellyn.”

“You are in dangerous waters, Aro’el,” he growled.

“You didn’t have to keelhaul—”

“He killed my men!” He swung in close now, and I could feel his breath on my skin. “He killed my crew, and without a doubt, he killed yours!”

My heart was already stone. Now it turned to ice.

“Hodgetown, Flogger’s Bay, the Hall of Sheets, Port Corvallan,” he went on.

“The Templemore was always there like a shadow, chasing us from port to port and peppering our wake to keep us hot. But have you not noticed, Aro’el, in this chase, that it was not merely the Templemore who dogged us but the Endorathil as well? ”

The Endorathil. Nothing triggered fear in my heart like that name.

“How was the Touchstone merely days away from your sorry frigate, when we have all the oceans of the world in which to sail?”

“You said she was drawn to the chimeric in the water—”

“Could she have felt that chimeric a half world away?” He straightened, stared down at me, but did not step back.

“Could we have made it to you even if she did? No. The Endorathil was looking for us, Aro’el.

Looking for us because she knew where we’d be.

Your unfortunate frigate was simply in her way. ”

Suns, moons, and stars, I knew it was true, and my gut twisted at the thought.

“I don’t know if you knew them. I don’t know if you cared. But Worley’s treachery cost you your Dawn Watch and sent her good men and women to the deep.”

Corwen. Vir. Firmir. Lagerheim. If not my friends, they had been my crew.

“This is not a game,” he said. “This is not an exercise. This is war, and you are not captain. You are not responsible for the lives in your care. I am, and I will not be dressed down by a junior officer for carrying out the duties of my command. Do you understand?”

Damn, my throat.

I nodded once. There was nothing to say.

He turned on his heel and grabbed a bottle.

“I do not enjoy it, Aro’el,” he said. “It weighs on me every day.”

I stood for a long moment, trying to master my breath, caught between the captain and the books, the basket of glass and the chest filled with chimeric.

I could feel the runescars burning along my skin, across my breastbone now, and down my belly.

But as they went, they charted a new path, spinning new patterns while burning off the old.

I was not the same mage I was when I was pulled like a fish on to the Touchstone’s fabled decks. Not the same mage at all.

“On a ship filled with crew who worship you,” I said quietly, “who hang on your every word, who would die for you if only you asked, you choose to be alone still.”

“You sound like Dev.” His back was to me as he poured himself a glass.

“There’s a reason ships have bells. Maybe you should listen.”

“I said dismissed.”

“No.”

He growled, but I did not move.

“No, I will not be dismissed. You told me to chart my own course, and I know this is how I will serve the Ship of Spells.”

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he turned now and leaned against the desk, cupping the wine in his hands. He glared at me now, and I could see the runes spinning as he thought. Gauging the winds and adjusting course.

“You gave me three chances,” I said. “And I took each one, so you have no one to blame but yourself. Hels, Kit said you commissioned the naval blue the moment you drew me from the waters. You knew you needed a rudder, and I’m vain enough to think that was me.

And whether you admit it or not, I’m here to keep you steady, the weight at your keel. It’s why you wanted me to stay Navy.”

Strands of dark hair had fallen into my eyes, but I stared at him through it as if it were bars on a cell.

“It’s true. We are in dangerous waters, between the ironmages and the sea, but if you’re willing, I will be your kedge.

Not your compass, because Forge knows, I spin too wylde on my own, but we’re runechasers both.

I have to believe that the Touchstone chose me for more than my chimeric.

I have to believe I have a place on this ship. ”

Suns, where did all these words come from?

But I wasn’t afraid anymore. I wasn’t afraid. I clasped my hands behind my back.

“I am charting my own course, and it leads me square in front of you.”

I was stubborn, and I was skilled. I wasn’t going anywhere, and he knew it.

He hadn’t looked away. Forge, I didn’t know if he had even blinked.

“I will not change course,” he said in a low voice.

“When you’re heading into reefs and contrary winds, it’s sometimes wise to trim sail.”

He swirled the wine, gaze still locked. The cabin filled with a heady aroma of fruit and oak, sweet and dark, and I felt him lean toward me, just a breath. The ship pitched hard, rocking us closer.

“Why are you taking us straight into the Sheets?” I asked.

“I have no choice,” he murmured. “Mr. Worley knew our course. I did not hide it from him because I did not know, could not fathom, that he was the soul.”

He tossed back his wine.

“We are followed.”

My stomach dropped. “The Templemore?”

“Even still.” He turned to the window, his hand brushing the transom.

“The king has demanded we turn you over, but I have refused, and so now we are marked. There are six ships hunting us. We cannot fight all six, and we have no time to lose them playing cat-a-mouse along the Sheets. She will never stop hunting you, for you are proof a homani can wield chimeric.”

“And turn the tide of war,” I murmured, echoing his words from those very first days. I set my jaw. “You should have turned me over.”

“I would not,” he said. “I will not.”

That hidden, secret heart of his, yearning to be found.

“You see, you have refused to let me sink her...”

Oh, fog.

“And now we are caught between a school of hungry sharks and a very distant, dangerous shore.”

Oh, fog. He was right.

“But as captain, that is on my shoulders, not yours.” He turned back, gaze steady on mine. “Everyone in the world will seek to diminish your power, Aro’el, including me. Do not let us.”

Suns, I was angry and exhausted and confused, with no crab shell in sight. So why did I want to taste that wine secondhand?

“But you are dismissed from the position of captain’s steward.”

My shoulders sagged. There was no reasoning with this man.

“We have need of a graymage, now,” he said. “So, graymage or mirrormage. Pick one. I will train you myself.”

These winds were buffeting, and I’d forgotten how to breathe.

“Now, please leave,” he said. “I’m tired and have much to think about. I would sleep, but I have no blanket because you turned it to char.”

The chest of chimeric sat barren and clean.

“I—I’ll fetch a new one.”

I wasn’t sure how. My legs felt like seaweed, my spine like slack rope. My hands trembled as I gathered the basket and stepped toward the cabin door. But I had done it. I’d stood up to this powerful man and not backed down. That was a victory all its own.

“Aro’el?”

Heart in my throat, I turned.

“Thank you,” he said. “For the bell.”

He was a whirlpool, relentless and swift. I barely got a breath before I was pulled down again.

“Echo does say I’m loud,” I said after a moment.

A twitch of the lips. Practically a belly laugh for him.

I turned to the door.

“Good night, Aro’el,” he said. “Dream sweet.”

I wasn’t expecting that from him, tender as it was.

Barely a breath.

“When the moons meet,” I murmured in return.

I slipped out the cabin and slid the door home.

That night, we entered the Sheets.