Thanavar turned to the young midshipmage, released his hold on the wheels.
“The deck is yours, Mr. Neale. Take us out the eastern pipe and run sharp. Let us elude the Crown today, if we can.”
“You can handle it, lad,” said Smoke. “An extra ration tonight if you’re quick and clean.”
The man called Neale beamed at them both beneath a cloud of black hair.
“Aye, sirs,” he said. He knuckled a salute and squared to the crew. “Avast, ye soddin’ jaks! Haul sail or Bracebridge will haul arse!”
TheTouchstonebanked starboard as seamages scrambled to comply. The wind snapped and the hull creaked, and soon, the smoke of Hodgetown faded into the distance. The echo of Navy cannons took much longer.
Thanavar turned, and suddenly, I dropped to my hands and knees, released.
“Kirianae,”he said, the language rolling from his lips.“N’gariyad ilfoy?”
I had no words. I was under no spell, but I had no words. I knew nothing of his world.
“I don’t understand…”
In hindsight, I was surprised that my tongue actually worked. He sighed.
“I will give you a second chance, Ensign,” he said. “No one is offered a third on my ship.”
A chance on the Ship of Spells. Everything inside me raged at the thought. And yet…
He looked up.
“Messrs. Fahr and Oakum, fetch the doctor and join me in my cabin. Bring the wretched woman with you.”
He spun on his heel and disappeared through the hatch, taking the air with him.
I was grateful, then, when Fahr and Smoke grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet.
5. Chaser
We were there in the captain’s cabin—Fahr, Echo, Smoke, and me—sitting around the large desk and poring over a map of the world. I knew some of it, to be sure. I had tried to pay attention to the sea charts in the Berryburn Yard, the ones that detailed Oversea’s four continents and the series of island chains that formed our northern helm. But always, the largest, most obvious feature of any map was the Dreadwall, a curtain of water that circled the erthe at the equatorus, effectively dividing the helms in two.
“The sea meets the sky at the Elder Dreadwall, cast by the Priestlords, may never she fall,” the shanty went. There were no Priestlords anymore, but the Dreadwall still stood, powerful, terrible, and destructive as hels. For as long as time recorded, it towered over the horizon, rushing upward against all natural forces for a half league into the sky, and the oceans raced toward it with relentless currents. To be caught in its tow was certain destruction, for the tides met the Dreadwall with such force that few ships had been known to survive. Pieces of shattered vessels were said to rain from the skies for days.
I’d never seen it myself, but I had heard enough to know it was true. Even my mother had spoken of it. But unlike the shanty, she claimed it was cast by a powerful Dreadmage to keep the helms separated and war at bay, and it still stood, majestic and lethal, ready to crush ships to kindling.
I couldn’t imagine the power needed to cast such a thing. I couldn’t fathom the skill.
My gaze slid to the captain. His head was bent over the chart table, hair curling at the ends as it dried from the earlier torrent, the lamplight catching the blue-black edges. He’d flung his drenched overcoat across a chair, and the sleeves of his flaxentunic were shoved above his forearms.
Even focused on the map, his power seemed to roll off him in steady waves.
For a moment, I could almost believe the stories. I could see him as they must have seen the last Dreadmage. No wonder the Overlanders had feared these people enough to raise a wall of water between the helms. Their elven bodies were said to be stronger, more powerful vessels for magik, capable of commanding chimeric the way waterspinners commanded the waves.
And if they all had the same power coming off the captain, as easy as breathing, we were right to fear them.
In my twenty-some odd years on the erthe, one thing I had learned to be true of all men—they always want more power.
Smoke muttered something as he pointed to the equatorus, and I pulled my gaze from the captain to the map again. There were more important things to focus on than the follies of men. Namely, the hunt for theMarelethan.
It was easy to pick out Oversea in the Northelm, our continents and islands north of the world-crushing Dreadwall. Nethersea was south of it, and no map I’d ever seen had shown continents at all. There were whispers of cities that roamed the seas, however, and rumors of gaps in the Dreadwall, where the walls had cracked and the rising waters had split, allowingRhi’Ahrships access to raid and pillage at whim. I had even heard one theory from a professor at Berryburn that theRhi’Ahrwere attempting to bring the Dreadwall down. They’d slaughter us all if that were the case.
But now, as I studied this particular map, I noticed a single continent drawn on the southern pole, and a cold wind swept down my spine when I realized that Thanavar had added it. Of course he’d know. He wasRhi’Ahr.He hadlikely sailed to Oversea through one of these fabled gaps. How he ended uphere, as captain of a frigate with a Letter of Marque, was a story I desperately wanted to read. Whether it was the gaps or magik, he was here, wrapped in moonslight and shadow, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes away.
