Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-six
Our purpose is to serve. But secondary to that is to distinguish ourselves, in order that our opportunities to serve are the best they might be.
—WRITINGS OF PRIOR JEVGENI, THIRD PRIOR OF THE DUSK CLOISTER, IN THE ERA OF TEMPESTRA-SESILIA
THE FIRST TIME I see land as a thin strip of grayish green far in the distance, it’s a little disconcerting.
No… a lot disconcerting. Ships, sailing, the ocean—all concepts I read about at the Cloisters, but the reality of being kept safe by nothing more than some bobbing bits of wood…
there’s an unnerving nature to it I can’t ignore.
The vastness of the water, heaving below us, stretching out to the horizon and beyond.
There’s excitement, but apprehension as well, just like back at Cineris.
I can’t deny the fear that comes from leaving the mainland behind, not all of which can be explained away by my divine tether.
Then I spot the dolphins. Another thing I’ve only ever seen in a book, they race alongside the Squid’s Shadow, more graceful than I could have imagined, their slick skin catching bits of sunlight as they rise and fall in the frothy waves.
Mishael, the cabin boy, wanders by, toting a sack of something or other.
“Hey!” I call to him. “Do you ever see whales out here?”
His features narrow, as if I’ve just asked the stupidest question he’s ever heard. “Sure, sometimes. You’ll see the plumes they make when they surface, if they’re about.”
Whales. I spend the next hour with my eyes glued to the water, hoping to spot one of the giant sea beasts. I left Nolan still asleep in the cabin, and I’m so intent on my sightings that I jump when he appears at the rail beside me.
“What are you doing?”
He sounds awfully sour for someone I left alive, when the opposite was tempting. I’m about to scold him for leaving the cabin unaccompanied, when I see the pallor of his skin—paler than normal, with a distinctly unhealthy tinge. “Watching for pirates. You look like shit.”
“I’m fine.”
He is most certainly not fine. His knuckles whiten on the rail, as if he thinks he’s going to tip over it at any moment.
A thin pink scar remains where my sickle skewered him, and I’m briefly annoyed that we heal so fast, and that my little reminder will be soon forgotten.
Even my injured arm is only a vague, occasional ache at this point.
But Nolan appears so miserable that I’m not too bothered.
“Maybe you should go back to bed.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Oh.” I turn back to the ocean. “Okay, then. Well, just so you know, Mishael will be bringing your breakfast to the cabin shortly.”
He grimaces. “I don’t want it.”
“Are you sure? The cook makes a mean breakfast porridge apparently. Looked a little slimy to me, but that’s apparently from the fermented fish he uses to give it a salty, savory—”
With a lurch, Nolan pitches forward and vomits over the side of the ship.
I take an automatic step back to avoid any wind-carried spray, smothering a smile.
It’s certainly not in character to relish my employer’s suffering.
But I’m enjoying it on the inside. And understanding what Cleophas meant about seeing whether I had a sailor’s constitution. Nolan, for sure, does not.
“Oh, are you all right, sir?” One of the other passengers stops a few paces away, eyes wide with concern.
Nolan straightens to reply but only manages a weak, dismissive gesture before another heave takes him.
“He told me he’s fine,” I say. The man is of nondescript height and build, maybe a decade older than we are, with a receding hairline that ages him beyond that.
He’s also the only other passenger that’s acknowledged us since boarding.
I know there are more on the ship, but they’ve kept to themselves.
“Been a while since my employer was last on a boat, that’s all.
C’mon.” I take Nolan by the shoulders. “Let’s get you back to the cabin so you can lie down. ”
Nolan doesn’t resist. “Thank you for your concern, sir,” he mumbles thickly as we pass.
“Ask the ship’s cook for some of his special tea,” he calls after us. “Settles things right down.”
I wave thanks as Nolan and I make our way below deck. But as soon as no one is in sight, Nolan breaks away from me and stumbles to our cabin, where he collapses onto the bunk.
I consider the other passenger’s suggestion, about fetching the tea, then return to my aquatic vigil instead.
We follow the coast for the first few days, making brief stops at smaller ports along the way to take on additional cargo.
Nolan is scarce, only appearing when we are docked, as if needing to remind himself that solid land is still nearby.
Then comes a morning when the land is completely gone, and we’re surrounded by nothing but a dark, salty wetness.
My wariness about leaving behind the known for the unknown grows, as does the ache for the Goddess’s light.
It is no longer a nagging discomfort, but a deepening, encompassing ache that leaves me tossing and turning, struggling to push past it into sleep.
It doesn’t help that our cabin smells like vomit more often than not.
Driven below deck by a late-morning squall, I find Nolan exactly as I left him earlier, exactly where he’s been for the majority of our time on the Squid: curled up in his bunk and miserable.
“You know, I have to wonder…” I take a seat at the desk, rubbing my tired eyes. “What would Prior Yiorgo say if he could see you now, felled by a rocking wooden tub?”
The angry glare I get is as strong as the sour smell of sick. “I’m not ‘felled.’ If I need to prove that to you—”
“You’ll what, spit up on me like a toddler? No thank you, I’ll take your word that you’re fine and dandy.”
He begins to retort, but the ship hits the roll of a wave, heaving up and down. Nolan’s complexion pales further, mouth snapping shut.
I stifle a smile, affect a sigh. “If you’re going to be laid up indefinitely, I guess it’s on me to see what I can pick up about what awaits in Cyprene.”
“I told you”—he starts to sit up, a movement that clearly costs him—“I’m perfectly well enough to—”
“Oh, shut up.” I slump, annoyed at his pathetic defiance. “And stop pretending. It’s exhausting. So our blessing doesn’t protect against seasickness—what’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re less of a Potentiate because you got a bit nauseated.”
His face hardens further, pale lips thinning to near white.
I laugh, understanding. “Oh, that’s exactly what you think, isn’t it? You’re reeeeally worrying you’re less worthy to become Executrix because you get seasick?”
His mouth purses. “Weakness in an Executrix isn’t—”
“Isn’t what?” I roll my eyes. “How fanatical were they over in the Dusk Cloister? Do you really think any of us are perfect? That Andronica didn’t have any weaknesses? Of course she did, or else she wouldn’t have gotten torn to pieces and neither of us would be sitting here right now!”
“That was different. The reliquary blood… none of us could have been prepared for something like that.”
The same way we weren’t prepared for the Renderers. Which is what this is really about.
“No, none of us were prepared. Intentionally. Of course, if we had been, if we’d known about things like the reliquaries, the potential danger from them, then maybe we wouldn’t have had to make such a big deposit at Cineris, huh?
And maybe you wouldn’t have gotten snared outside Novena?
” As good as he is at hiding his thoughts, I can tell that question vexes him.
But whether he thinks I’m being insolent or that I’m right or maybe a touch of both, I can’t tell.
“Relax. It’s not like I’m going to run to Tempestra-Innara as soon as we get back to the Cathedral and cry ‘Look, we found the reliquary even after Nolan nearly got butchered like a spring lamb, and oh, he started puking his guts out the moment we stepped off dry land.’ ”
Nolan turns over partway, so I can’t see his face anymore. “Then you’re foolish—to have an advantage and not use it.”
“You just implied you could still kick my ass. So not much of an advantage, is it?”
He doesn’t reply, and a heavy silence falls over the cabin, broken only by the creak of the heaving ship.
“Don’t—” I bite the word off at first, but once the question starts, I can’t stop it coming. “Don’t you get tired of it? Being in competition all the time in order to get the best of a life we never had any real choice over anyway?”
Silence. Then: “The Goddess chose us. Blessed us. It’s our honor to serve.”
Of course it is. Don’t forget you’re still the devoted Potentiate.
“Service isn’t the same as competition,” I say, but inoffensively.
“We all serve them in the end, and isn’t that what really matters?
That we do it, and do it well, no matter where or in what capacity?
” More quiet follows, and I start to wonder if I’ve gone too far.
But I suppose if he rats on me, I can play the seasick card after all.
“We should want to serve as well as we possibly can,” he says finally. “Not simply adequately.”
“Sure, fine. Look how well that turned out for Fedic.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he got shuffled off to a half-rotten city where it was clear he was all but forgotten about. I saw the letters from Lumeris. However he served the Goddess, it wasn’t enough to keep him close.
And that’s why the Renderers got him.” Not to mention who knows how many others over the years, once their blessing had faded and they’d failed to cultivate the right anchors and alliances.
A few silent heartbeats pass. “Maybe he should have worked harder to ascend the Priors’ ranks.”
“You consider lack of ambition a weakness too?”
“I consider it a failure to serve to the best of one’s abilities.”
Frustration fills me again. “How many Potentiates died during your time at the Cloister?”
“What?”
“You heard me. How many of our blood brethren never even made it to serve, because they were pushed too hard, or presented too much of a threat to their fellow Potentiates?”
Another retreat into quiet.
“How many times did one of the other Potentiates try to sabotage or even kill you?” I press. “How many times did you try to kill someone?”
“None.” The word comes quickly. Defensively. “I didn’t need to resort to hindering anyone else in order to prove myself.”
“Well, not until recently.” I’m tired suddenly, of the conversation, of the years of vicious conditioning that led to it.
It thickens the air, pushes the walls in even closer.
I stand, keeping my eyes off Nolan’s huddled form.
“You’ve been sick long enough. I think it’s time to go see if the ship’s cook has any of that tea the other passenger mentioned. ”
“Tch. Doing something nice for me, Lys? After I tried to kill you?”
“I’m doing something to hopefully keep you from continuing to soil our very small cabin with the nasty contents of your stomach.”
“If you were smart, you’d poison it.” His tone carries a hint of teasing humor.
“Didn’t say I wasn’t going to.”
There’s a sensation of escape the instant I step out of the cabin.
And not only because there’s no vomit smell.
I didn’t mean for the conversation to happen, but it did, and now I feel like I’ve shown Nolan something that maybe I shouldn’t have.
Despite our truce, any honesty between us feels like a trap, set by our years in the Cloisters, ready to spring shut at the tiniest misstep.
I can only hope to tread lightly long enough to find the reliquary.
After that, there will be no avoiding it.