Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-five
There is nothing beyond the Unlit Seas that is not cold and dark compared to the Flame. I will not, cannot, ever call it home again.
—WRITINGS OF THE PILGRIM EKKRU, IN THE ERA OF TEMPESTRA-ENOCH
WHEN CLEOPHAS SAID SHE had a cabin available, apparently she meant one cabin, singular.
And only one bunk, of course. As far as amenities are concerned, they’re a bit lacking, consisting entirely of a small desk, one wobbly chair, and a salt-worn strip of rug. I awkwardly maneuver through the narrow doorway and dump our gear onto the floor, already growing tired of our little fiction.
Nolan leans against the doorframe, giving me a saucy smirk as he nods at the bed. “So… are we going to share?”
“You wish.” I extract my bedroll and blanket from the pile. “I’ll sleep in the hold with the horses. No offense, but Mortimer and Buttons smell better than you.”
He steps in and closes the cabin door, keeping his body between me and it, still smiling. “You won’t seem like a very good bodyguard.”
“I’m not. You should probably keep that in mind, seeing as how easy it is for someone to accidently fall overboard.”
“I thought we had a truce?”
“I said ‘accidentally,’ didn’t I?”
He falls onto the bunk, shedding his new persona and the teasing tone in a heartbeat.
“It will look strange if you don’t keep to our story.
We don’t need anyone getting more than the normal level of suspicious about what we are doing here.
As you said, it’s easy enough for someone to disappear overboard. ”
“Fine.” I drop my bedding. “Floor it is.” I can’t fault his logic, even if I don’t like it. Even if there’s as much potential danger within this cabin as without. Part of me doesn’t even care; after our anxious, sleepless journey to Phrygis, a floor is as inviting as a feather bed.
“Don’t worry.” Nolan stretches out, throwing one arm behind his head. “I’m not going to cut your throat while you sleep.”
“How reassuring. Especially given how truthful you’ve been so far.”
The air around him cools. “You know, eventually we will have to trust each other enough to let our guards down. Or this isn’t going to work.”
I snort. Clearly, I’m not the only one who is exhausted. “Oh, does someone need a nap?”
He frowns. “Lys—”
“Take your own advice. You’re the one with the history of betrayal.”
“It wasn’t personal.”
“Hmm, I guess that makes it okay then.”
“What I’m saying,” he continues, more tartly, “is that I would have done the same to any other Dawn Cloister candidate. It was a means to an end. It wasn’t as if I particularly wanted to kill you.”
I stop what I’m doing. Look him in the eyes. Whatever truths lie behind them might as well be locked in the vault with the Goddess’s reliquary. “I know it isn’t personal. It hardly ever is with us Chosen, but that doesn’t stop what we inflict on each other, does it?”
The ship creaks around us, more reaction than Nolan emits.
For a moment, our truce feels as fragile as Cleophas’s pretty teacups—one decent wave and it will be upended, shattered.
But I won’t be goaded again, or picked apart by Nolan’s mind games.
“If we’re keeping up appearances, you’d best stay locked in the cabin when I’m not with you.
And right now, I’m going to go make sure Mortimer and Buttons are nice and comfy. ”
Before he can say another word, I retreat from the cabin, back up onto the deck, where the sailors rush around in a flurry of final preparations for our departure.
The horses don’t need me—I just wanted away from Nolan—but that goal achieved, I find myself without a task or destination.
The frown of a passing sailor tells me I’m in the way, so I retreat to the rail of the ship.
Beyond it, Phrygis glows with the reds and oranges of the setting sun, like the whole port is aflame.
It almost resembles Lumeris, a thought that’s followed by an ache in the pit of my stomach.
Fingers gripping the rail, I stare downriver instead, away from the mainland, to where the open ocean waits, and everything beyond it.
Cyprene.
The reliquary (maybe).
A hundred lands I’ve never even heard of.
Then I see Cleophas, leaning against the frame of her cabin door, still sipping tea as she watches her crew work. She spots me spotting her and a small, almost teasing smile appears on her lips. “Settled in?”
I take the question for an invitation to approach. “Uh… yes.” The reply is stilted as I fumble for what my adopted persona would say. How does Nolan do this so easily? “My employer finds the cabin quite… cozy. He’s resting after our travels.”
There’s a glint in her eye, as if she knows I’m spinning horseshit. “A little crowded for you, though.”
“I haven’t spent much time on ships.” Or any. “Used to a bit more space to move around.”
“First time off the mainland, isn’t it? Or will be. I can always tell.”
No point in denying it. “Is it that obvious?”
Her head tips. “The way you were eyeing my maps? A bit.”
The captain is observant. But there’s no harm in her catching me in curiosity. Or me in continuing it. “Would it be an insult to ask to take a closer look at them?”
She drains the remainder of the tea. “Not as far as I’m concerned.” She turns back into the cabin, gesturing for me to follow. “So long as you handle them carefully. A good chart is worth more than a brick of gold out at sea, and only a little less than the last cask of fresh water.”
Something ignites in me again, being back in her cabin, with its collected proof of a world beyond the Goddess’s, wrought in ink and paper, carved out of wood and stone.
A pile of maps now covers the table Cleophas and Nolan took tea at, weighted to keep them open.
I recognize the coastline on top, and the little dot that represents Phrygis.
Carefully, I remove one of the weights and lift the corner, revealing a chart beneath that shows a swath of islands that appear to lie to the south of us.
Maps of our imminent voyage. And beyond that, the Unlit Seas, and a world not bound by Tempestra-Innara.
“Have you been to all these places?” I say, referring to the other charts tacked to the walls around us.
It’s not quite the question I want to ask.
But Where would you go, if you’d never been anywhere else?
catches in the back of my throat. An answer might become an aspiration, and for all that I crave exactly that, hope of escape is still too fragile to bear that sort of weight.
“Many,” Captain Cleophas replies. “I’ve spent far more of my life on a ship than off, but it would take a dozen lifetimes to visit all of them.”
I move closer to one, admiring the details not only rendered in black but washed with blues and greens, and limned in some places with gold. “You’ve always been a sailor then.”
“I was born on a ship—my parents’, to be precise. Plan to die on one too, gods willing, and let the waters swallow my remains as repayment for what I pray will be the many years I was given.”
Not Goddess. Gods.
She notes my awareness of her wording. “A lot of beliefs out there. I prefer not to pile my hopes around the favor of any one deity. Who knows what god might lay claim to the particular patch of water I find myself traversing one day?”
Is that heretical, coming from someone whose bloodlines didn’t begin flowing here?
For all my education, I hardly know. The Salt Goddess was once favored by sailors, but did that include those that came from beyond their reach?
And what else might a sailor like Cleophas have encountered in her time?
Intrigue overpowers the good sense to keep my mouth shut.
“There are other gods like Tempestra-Innara beyond the Devoted Lands?”
Cleophas shakes her head. “No living, breathing divinities. Not that I’ve seen anyway.”
Good. Begs the question Why only here? though. “So these other lands believe in stories.”
“Stories carry power.” She sits down on a padded bench that lines a window at the end of the cabin. “Not power like the Flame Goddess, admittedly.”
“Is that why you came here?”
She laughs—a deep, comfortable sound. “There are certainly those that hear the stories of the Devoted Lands and flock to them, make them their new home. It’s been that way for centuries.
My parents’ ship must have ferried hundreds of expectant pilgrims so tempted by the Flame that they left the religions of their ancestors behind to see what its warmth had to offer. ”
“And they stayed when they experienced Tempestra-Innara’s power?”
“Many, yes.” Here she pauses, considers me again, this time for longer.
It’s not hesitation, exactly, but I can tell she’s choosing her words carefully.
I am a stranger. And we are still close enough to a cleric to lodge an accusation or two.
“Others turned around. Called the Goddess a demon made flesh and fled back to the safety of their homelands.” She shrugs.
“Either way, my parents were paid. A sailor sails where there’s wages to be earned.
And here, there aren’t many willing to trade with the…
less reputable parts of the Devoted Lands, not when they can fall afoul of the Goddess’s devoted so easily.
Be labeled a criminal or heretic and be punished. ”
“But that doesn’t bother you.”
I can tell she hears the statement, not a question.
“I have felt the Flame’s warmth and know it to be a true thing.
” Not exactly a clear picture of her beliefs, or her loyalties.
“I have also learned that those who hold the Goddess in their hearts can be persuaded to remain unbothered by my operations for the right price.” She pauses.
“It took a lot of winds and waves to earn that experience, though. Your employer, on the other hand, seems quite confident in his destination for someone so young. I do hope he hasn’t taken a larger bite than he can chew. ”
“If he has, that’s why I’m around for.”
She considers me. “And what about your interests? Do they lie upon the waters?”
“I don’t know.” Only half a lie. “Do I come off as the seafaring sort?”
“Hmm,” says Cleophas. “Too soon to tell. But you’ll know soon enough.” She winks before standing again. “I need to go see if preparations are complete for our departure. But please, stay. Indulge your interest. Certainly, I would never stifle the sea’s call, if that’s indeed what you’re hearing.”
It’s not, but just like Nolan, I can pretend.
By the time I return to the cabin, blood buzzing with the names of new lands and countries, it’s late enough that Nolan is curled in the bunk, face to the wall, sleeping.
Or pretending to. I don’t plan to follow suit, despite his assurances.
But I’ve never been on a ship, and foolishly underestimate the gentle lull of the water combined with my own growing exhaustion.
So, when I do wake—with a start, in the thick dark of the deepest part of night—I’m more than a little surprised to be alive.
As my pounding heart slows, accepting that Nolan has kept his word, I realize what has roused me: a voice.
I keep still. The sound is barely there, faint as a mouse’s scratching, and it takes me nearly a minute to understand that what I’m hearing is Nolan.
He’s praying. I hear the recitation of the words, too faint for me to truly make out, but familiar enough that I don’t need to.
More surprise. I’d assumed Nolan’s frequent prayers were part of the act he used to lull me into a false sense of confidence.
That his deep piety was part of the costume.
But the whispers continue, and I begin to feel embarrassed, as if I am intruding on something private.
Which is stupid—prayers were never a secretive thing in the Cloisters.
And Nolan was never shy about them before.
Still, the feeling persists until, finally, the devotions cease.
I tense again, waiting for movement. The shifting of a body.
The drawing of a blade. But there is only the sound of Nolan’s breathing, falling slowly into the rhythm of sleep.
Eventually, and more than a little reluctantly, I allow myself to follow.