“Captain,” he said. “Mr. Fahr says all ready on the main.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said the captain, and he looked at me. “You have until Emberset to decide.”
I swallowed and slipped the earring in my pocket.
He rose to his feet and strode around me to the door. I stood and almost touched his arm as he passed, but instead made a fist and hid it behind my back.
“Captain,” I said, my throat beginning to tighten anew. “I, um, you…”
He turned and looked down at me from the corner of his sea-deep eye. I took a breath and raised my chin.
“You were the hawk,” I said. “In the battle, sir. You were the hawk, and you saved us from theEndorathil.”
He waited. Suns, he drew the air out of every room like a tide.
“I know that now, and I know that there’s a lot more I need to learn, so thank you for taking the chance on a wretched woman from a lost frigate.”
“Well,” he said with a quirk of his lips. “The frigate is still lost.”
A joke?
“Do you really think Commodore Bracebridge wants me for the chimeric?”
“I think, very soon, all the world will want you for your chimeric.”
Echo and I followed him down the corridor, every step tilting now as I tried to keep my thoughts to myself. But you can’t quiet a fear that big. It wasn’t loud, just heavy, shifting like ballast in a storm. Only thing to do is hold fast and pray you don’t capsize.
Echo didn’t look back, but his ear flicked.
“You can lock it down if you want, Ensign Renn. But we cannot change what’s coming.”
All the world will want you for your chimeric.
No longer a wayward girl swept out to sea, no more a wretched woman from a lost frigate. I was a runechaser, a wielder of chimeric, and now I’d become a weapon of war. It was time I stopped running and learned to fight.
11. The Worldrune
The man hung from the yardarm, neck bent, tongue bulging, his naked body swinging with the dip and swell of the sea. This was the last of the attackers, and the captain had assembled the entire crew earlier to witness his flogging. Even with him so high above, I could still see the welts on his back from the cat o’ nine. The harpy had refused to talk or to give up the name of the mutinous “soul,” and the captain had sentenced him to death. His wings were bound, and chains were tied around his leathery ankles. Then, he was hauled up the mainmast and hanged from his neck, twisting and thrashing until he croaked his last.
I had never seen a man die like that. It was shocking and visceral, but while I pitied him his agony, I didn’t think it cruel. He and his mates had taken coin to kill our hands. Neither mercenaries nor pirates deserved mercy. Now, his body swung, and his eyes fed the gulls. I prayed Buck would soon cut him down and feed the fishes because, even with my heart of stone, it was a gruesome sight.
On the prow beneath, Worley fussed over his clutch of ocean swifts. There were chicks inside, but he reached into the basket and pulled an adult, stroked its downy head before flinging it into the sky. The bird disappeared almost immediately, and the thin man clasped the basket shut on the tiny, chirping mouths.
I threw a glance to the quarterdeck, where Smoke was at the sunswheel. His mate, Neale, stood to the side, taking in the lee of the wind. The deck had been cleared after the battle with the Dreadship, but Buck still oversaw repairs on the forecastle. It had taken a beating, and his boatwrights were hard at work on the spars and rails. His riggers scaled the yards like treemonks, yarn in their sacks and needles in their teeth.
Life, death, war, duty. It felt good to be back on the Ship ofSpells.
I wondered if she felt the same.
From the main, Devanhan Fahr stepped beside me, hands clasped behind his back.
“I believe I am to sorry up, Blue,” he said.
He didn’t look at me but set his gaze on the horizon. I grinned at his discomfort.
“Square me a rum, and I’ll let it slide.”
Fahr smiled back, relieved. He was fetching when he smiled. Eyes gleaming, cheeks like apples on erthe. Young and happy and free, or at least he looked it.
