Massive walls of black cloud roiled upward into the singular slice of blue sky overhead, and the roar of the flanking Sheets was deafening. For our part, sailing was clear and smooth, and we ran on full canvas as if we were on the open sea. Still, I couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding, as if the sides of this oceanic corridor could collapse at any time upon us. Indeed, it could, for the very existence of gaps was due to the weakening of the Dreadwall, and I wondered why anyone of sound mind would accept a commission like this.
It took us half the day to pass through the Hall of Sheets, and I spent that time working with Fahr on wielding thechimeric. It was harder than expected, and I knew it was because of the struggle between instruction and intuition. I’d always suppressed wylde magik in favor of Arcana—what the Navy called training—and it felt strange to be asked to trust my instincts and reach for it now. I wondered if it were theRhi’Ahrway. That only added to the strife, however, along with the howling Sheets, the sliver of blue, an unsettled crew, and the promise of Dreadwall at the end.
“Can you feel the patterns, Blue?” Fahr shouted over the wind and the snapping of the sails. “Really feel them? You can’t direct them unless you know them.”
I spun my right arm, complemented with a flat, outward-facing palm with my left. Runes crackled as I made a shield, but it wasn’t what he was asking for.
“But this is how the runes connect,” I said.
“It’s not.”
“That’s what they taught in Berryburn Yard.”
“They also taught you knots and guns,” he said. “I thought you wanted more.”
I released a puff of breath. He had asked for anAuctorusCirculaia, a “knitting together,” a spell of creation that was similar to a bind. Binding was all in the position of the fists. Fist clenched. Fist open. Hold, bind, release. But anAuctoruswas about the fingers as well as the hands and the arms. Fingers crooked. Fingers extended. Fingers touching. With their fingers, mages drew the patterns in the rune-laced air. If we drew them correctly, the world echoed like the strings of a harp.
“Make music, Blue,” Fahr said. “Play a bind chord and make it sing.”
My right hand spun, drawing, drawing. The patterns sparked. I could see them in the air. It was all there, right there, at the tips of my fingers…
The shield pulsed as chimeric burned it into the dark sky.
“Lean into it!”
I growled and pushed the pattern, feeling the chimeric burn my arms next, but the runes sputtered without result. I had chasedRhi’Ahrships across an ocean. I had stopped cannonballs in their course. Why couldn’t I cast this?
I didn’t understand the magik. I was out of my depth.
I flung the shield, and it burst from my palms across the choppy waters, illuminating the storm clouds like lightning, but it sputtered and died before it did anything more.
I stomped my boot on the wet, wooden deck.
“I can’t,” I growled. “My hands!”
“It’s not your hands,” he said. “It’s your head.”
I swear I could have killed him in that moment. I could have spit daggers from my eyes.
“You’re at war with yourself, Blue,” he said. “The chimeric fights to override the Arcana you’ve been taught, and your instinct fights them both.”
At war with myself. He didn’t know the half of it.
“The chimeric clearly has its own laws, but no one in Oversea has wielded it like this before, so it’s all new. You’ll just need to find your place.”
That is your course to chart, Thanavar had said, as Navy and privateer. Like threading a needle but using two threads.
There was a whistle from the sky, and I looked up. A swift swept through the canvas, weaving between the sails like a honeyfly in a field of blooms. Worley popped through the hatch, and I watched as the bird settled onto his finger, its wings flapping madly until he cupped it in his hands. He kissed the top of its little head and turned to trot back down to the great cabin.
“He still boggles me,” said Fahr. “Speaks to those birds like I’m speaking to you now. He can send them anywhere in the Northhelm, as long as he can picture a map.”
“Life on the Ship of Spells,” I muttered. “Even the birds knowwhat to do.”
“Don’t worry, Blue,” said Fahr. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I need a drink,” I said.
“Well, we have an open bottle in the wardroom,” he said. “I’ll pour. You drink.”
