34. THIRTY-FOUR #2
“What better cause could we possibly have? Who could do this, if not you and I?”
Fankalo’s fingers flexed along the handle of her father’s dagger, sheathed at her waist. “Want is not an adequate word.” She didn’t want any of this. But she didn’t want the Tera’thians to raise a Ruxian that would lay scourge to the rest of Nelfindar, either.
His hand clenched his tunic over the mark on his chest.
“He is not your master any more.” She hadn’t told him that Cul’Mon had sent assassins to retrieve him twice since they’d escaped the Tera’thian charter ship. “And we’re just using the notoriety as a fear tactic. Building a reputation. All words, no punch. Fear becomes power.”
She wouldn’t have believed that broken signals could be so riddled with skepticism.
“We’ll only be pretending until we’ve built it.
It’s already begun. We don’t need to outnumber them.
We need to outsmart them.” Time and time again, she’d led the Rogue’s Rapture to a bounty using that very method.
“That starts by making ourselves out to be bigger than we are until the lie attracts bodies that turn us into the very thing we claim to be.”
Calver shook his head. Something twitched in his face before he gave up on signaling and turned to scribbling furiously on the paper pad.
‘This is war against Kath’s most powerful empire.
We can’t just lead a clever attack on their borders.
The Tera’thians can only be taken out from the inside.
Even if you somehow recruited hundreds of thousands.
You would need to destroy their internal command before leading an attack. ’
For the first time, her confidence took on water.
She felt out the subject with her Luck. The threads of future could only stretch so far with any clarity, but sometimes vague concepts would still provide impressions.
Taking down the Tera’thians felt lucky, so she would find a way to make it happen: it was as simple as that.
Wasn’t it?
Calver’s gaze went distant, and for a moment she thought she’d lost him to his standard state of blankness.
Until he crossed his arms and paced a lap of the room.
The way his eyes darted and his brow furrowed…
he almost seemed like his old self. Except—the boy she remembered had always believed in her.
But the boy she remembered also liked cuddling, and singing, and games, and had a handful of friends she’d been jealous of, and—
“You’ll do what?”
It seemed whatever he had to say was too important to be lost in translation. He pulled out the paper again. ‘I can take out their command. The emperor. The prince, his only named successor. Cul’Mon. I can do it in one blow.’
And he thought she was overconfident? Fankalo circled her wrist. “Give me a hint, here.”
He scribbled again. ‘Does your ship have an Aetech lamp?’
She gestured to the oil lantern hanging by the door which cast a soft glow over the darkening space. “We don’t use that garbage. The sheer principle that the Nelfinden nobility pay a thousand silver for something fire can do for free makes me want to burn something down.”
‘What about the bounty from your latest conquest?’
Fankalo wouldn’t have thought it possible for an expressionless, silent man to have a disapproving tone. And yet, older brothers were made for proving their siblings wrong, weren’t they? “You have a lot of gall to judge the way I make a living.”
‘Just check the crates. It was a Skywalk trade vessel. I guarantee it has at least a dozen.’
She struggled to hold on to anger. This was the first true conversation she’d had with Calver in the months since they’d found him. The note proved that even when he was so deeply despondent he seemed more animal than human, he was still processing some of what was going on.
Fankalo stuck her head from the room and ordered one of the crewman, Melnar, to bring them an Aetech lamp. Minutes later, a knock sounded at the door and Melnar entered, skirted around Calver like he might bite, and pressed one into her hand.
“That will fetch seven hundred or more,” he said.
Everything about the lamp reeked of wealthy entitlement. The belief that worth could be based on rarity, status, or aesthetic—over physical function—was an affliction she would not allow her crew to suffer. She handed the device to Calver like it was rotten.
But Calver? He clutched it like it was his own beating heart. The hard lines in his face softened.
he signaled with one hand.
“What do you mean?”
Calver activated the lamp and stared at the light whirring inside. he signaled one-handedly.
Perhaps he’d used the wrong syllables. “Explosive. Distortion lamps?”
He nodded.
“To what extent?”
His face was so rigid, he must believe what he was saying.
“You mean as big as the ship?”
The paper pad flipped open. Back to scribbling. ‘I mean as big as the planet, if I intended it.’
Fankalo’s skin itched. That was insanity—and Fates, did Calver ever fit that bill.
Calver paused, rubbing the tips of his fingers against the charcoal.
His deep brown eyes flicked to meet hers before returning to the glowing orb.
He chewed at his lip. ‘There’s an energy retainer built into them.
And I can pinch it off and move it. If I focus for long enough.
Sometimes it takes a while to get to a state where I can find it. ’
She understood, then: her brother did have magic like her, but it had found a different outlet.
“Can you show me?”
Calver nodded, eyes unmoving from the light.
“How long does it take?”
The charcoal flew over the pad. ‘If I have the right tools, maybe an hour. Two?’
Melnar brought Calver a number of fine instruments from their hold. Calver, suddenly a refined technologist and not a bloodthirsty monster, diligently pried the Aetech lamp apart.
While he worked, Fankalo walked.
She might have hated what Aethertech Mechanics represented, but she understood its fundamentals. Distortion technology was a manipulation of energy. The same magic the Ruxians used, but limited to the devices which contained their power.
Aetech’s technology was a well-guarded secret.
Dozens had tried to recreate it. All had failed, her own father included.
He’d once thought to pull a heist in replicating the technology for an Aetech core, only for a hired expert to inform him that the chance of success sat next to impossible.
That was why Aetech could charge the exorbitant amounts it did: it held the secret recipe.
So if Calver could alter an Aetech lamp, what did it mean?
She had long since burned Methu’su’s journal as a matter of her own protection.
Now, she forced her mind to remember all that she’d read half a year before.
Each Ruxian’s grip over distortion manifested in different ways, depending on the Fate they aligned with.
She and Calver were only conduits, but perhaps they also had their own manifestations?
Calver didn’t feel Luck the way she did, or at least not to the same capacity.
But the edge he’d always had with a dowaga must stem from some amount of foresight.
If Calver’s mind wasn’t completely saturated by its own slosh and he actually could manipulate the technology, what else could he do?
Calver worked through the darkest part of night.
Fankalo stayed up with him, too wired to sleep.
He remained silent, but it was a different silence to his standard—busy, not empty.
She wanted to ask him questions. She wanted to tell him about everything, but worried she might say the wrong thing and send him into catatonia.
Seeing him like this, she remembered the times they’d huddled together under blankets in the corner of the shanty, breath and smiles mingling. He would tell her stories. Then she would tell them back, but exaggerated to make him laugh.
This—Calver here and mentally competent—was the moment she’d been waiting for. For six years. And it wasn’t perfect, but she still had it.
Sometime in the night, she fell asleep without realizing and woke up to Calver rapping his knuckles on the table. He held out the lamp.
“Finished?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
He nodded.
“We can float it?”
Calver nodded again.
As they made their way to the main deck, Fankalo wondered whether she had wasted a night of necessary sleep. She had been so excited about her brother’s responsiveness that she’d listened to a madman. It was more likely Mitek would kiss her on the mouth before that lamp did anything but shine.
The rays of firstlight had pierced the horizon when they passed through the hatch.
Without prompt, Calver vaulted over from the starboard rail and into the ocean, lamp in hand. Fankalo pulled the lid from one of the cargo crates and tossed it after him.
Her Luck suddenly spun in a way that was neither positive nor negative. The feelings it impressed on her were sometimes akin to emotions. She’d begun to recognize them more intimately. This one was amusement, and the distinguished familiarity of—
She glanced sideways in time to see Mitek slide in from wherever he’d been lurking to kick her in the ass. He didn’t run away, though.
“Fuck you,” she said, first rubbing her backside, then punching him in the shoulder. She never understood why he got up so early.
“Morning, Captain.” He settled beside her, usual smug grin on his stupid face. “Ah, good. Looks like your boy finally decided to take a bath.”
She beat her hip into his. They were the same height, according to Drogus, after they’d placed their most recent bets on it. At twelve, Fankalo neared the height of most grown men. Calver being an exception.
“Calver’s coming around. He’s been tinkering with an Aetech lamp all night. Thinks he can weaponize it.”