We were all going to die today.
With a deep breath, I opened my trunk and rummaged through the journals and inks. Faces stared back at me. Echo and Smoke, Buck and even Neale. The cyclope at Corvallan and the fauns in Flogger’s Bay and the little girl from Bilgetown. I picked up herwooden doll. This was more than a piece of drift, because she had been loved by a little girl. I held her for a moment before tucking her into my vest.
The fate of the world is in our sails.
I took another breath and marshalled my bones. I was not Kirianae of the House WoodRaven, Priestlord ofLindurithainand Goddess of the Tree. I was Ensign Honor Renn, bluemage of the Navy and of the renegade Ship of Spells, daughter to an ironmage in the bloody Court of Sand. I was Aro’el,chaser of chimeric and spinner of the sea. I held the heart of a grieving Priestlord in the palm of my hand.
And that was enough.
I whispered a prayer to the Sister Moons and headed back up to the main.
There was something utterly terrifying about racing headlong toward a half-league-high wall of water. The wind was relentless and fierce, the current too strong to break free. We would hit and shatter, or we would rise, and there was absolutely nothing in our power to stop it.
There was little else now but dread and Dreadwall. The roar was deafening, the sky before and above us billowing gray. From the base, a cloud of white mist and green spray cut across the entire world, growing larger and more threatening as we hurtled toward it. It was easily a half league deep, and we were heading into it in a matter of moments. Buck had abandoned clocking our speed once the line had snapped at sixty knots, which was clear impossible. Then again, Thanavar had promised us impossible. At this speed, the sea spray cut my cheeks and stungmy eyes and the wind bit like winter in the Spits. All was the wall, and the wall was all. The roar and the speed, the spray and the sky.
I was on the main, tied off to the mast with four chests of chimeric strapped alongside. We were all tied off now, and the ship listed heavy to port because of the cannons. We were sailing due south, but I knew that wasn’t the plan for long.
“All hands make ready!” came Fahr’s voice over the bullhorn. He was at the captain’s right hand, Echo on the left, while Thanavar himself was at the new moonswheel, awake and aware and in complete command.
TheTouchstoneshuddered as we entered the cloud, and I could see nothing but white beyond the bulwark and the sails.
His gold-shot eyes fell on me.
“Ensign Renn, chimeric, please!”
“Chimeric, aye!” I barked. With a deep breath, I laid my hands on the mast.
Runes and patterns glowed up her timber, flashed all along her deck, danced across her sails. The rails, the sails, the shrouds, the yards. She gleamed and glowed like a starry sea. She was beautiful. She was magnificent. She was magik.
Be good and be swift…
My chest grew tight, and I was thankful to hear her voice in my head again.
“Close-haul us, Mr. Oakum. Sou’sou’east!”
“Sou’sou’east! Aye, sir!”
The crew heaved line, and the sails snapped full, and theTouchstoneshuddered once moreas slowly, she began to bend.
Be still and be strong…
“Court of Sand, cast away!”
Tied to rails off the pup, the ironmages began to spin. I watched my mother and felt a stir of pride. She was amazing at her craft, I had to admit. She was an ironmage, and she wasmagnificent.
Be wary…
Beams moaned and timbers creaked as the ship leaned into the wind. All around us, water was rising straight up. I knew we were intentionally rolling. The weight to port heaved her deep, and the masts skewed port. While we were close-hauled, we were approaching too fast. There was no way we could come alongside the great Dreadwall without slamming into it and shredding like chaff from a field of sunbaked wheat.
Be wise…
Suddenly, the cloud lifted, and I saw it all. The great wall, wider, taller, and more terrible than any waterfall on erthe, all the sea rushing madly straight up to the moons above, and I cried out in terror, hugging the mast as the ship began to roll.
Beloved.
And Thanavar spun the wheels, hand over hand over hand over hand. The rudders squealed and the tillers shrieked, and the ship leaned hard to port. Harder, lower, deeper, until theTouchstoneslid nigh horizontal, her yardarms spraying seawater, her keel kissing the Dreadwall. We were still moving, almost capsizing now as we yawed hard, and I clenched my eyes as the strain pulled me downward. Good thing I was tied, and the captain was tied, and we all were tied, else we’d all be over the side. The sea was on my left, the sky on my right. We were skidding close-hauled, racing abreast of the Dreadwall, sails bent as we cut at right angles to the sea.
I remembered the day I first learned to skate. The pond by our house had frozen solid, and I had strapped knives to my boots and set out across the ice. I fell more times than I can remember, but I was stubborn and tough and refused to give up. Finally, after hours and hours of trying, my body blue from bruising and the cold, I skated across the surface like a dancer. I was four.
