I inclined my head in return, and he left me.I was no Sooth, but, as I watched him fade into the crowd, I could not shake the feeling I would see him again.
AEADINE HERESIES—To speak on the many heresies of the Aeadine peoples and their singular saint would be to detract from the purpose of this study.However, the Aeadine Cult of the Moon certainly bears mentioning.In sympathy with lost traditions of their land, including the worship of ghistings and the veneration of the dark of the moon, they have taken what little is known to them of Mereish magics and beliefs and formed their own, repressed cultus among the Aeadine peoples.During past peacetimes, Mereish missionaries have sought to understand and monitor this cult, and even to aid them upon occasion, but these efforts were not condoned by the Mereish Crown.
—FROMA DEFINITIVE STUDY OF THE BLESSED: MAGES AND MAGECRAFT OF THE MEREISH ISLES,TRANSLATED FROM THE MEREISH BY SAMUEL I.ROSSER
FORTY-FOUR
The Black Tide Gathers
SAMUEL
The following day, Benedict was summoned to the fort.Uninvited and taut with nerves, I occupied myself with practical matters, perusing requests from quartermaster, gunner, carpenter, purser, and so forth for resupply while in port.I put the final details into a written report to the Admiralty of all we had seen in Mere and knew of the Black Tides, the Ess Noti, and Faucher’s magics.Then I laboriously made two copies, adding them to my personal copies of Maren’s notes.One bundle I stowed in my sea-chest and the other I quietly posted to my parents’ largely forgotten house east of the Lesterwold.No matter what transpired next, no matter how the powers that be reacted to the revelations, there would be record.
I sent several other letters besides, requesting an update on the Rosser household and reaching out to old friends.I had not done the latter in years and had to swallow a great deal of pride to do so now, but I felt in want of allies, and hoped the truth of Alice Irving’s affair with Ben might have begun to soften their opinion of me.
The cabin door slammed open.Ben strode in, throwing his hat onto the floor and pulling at his cravat like a man fighting with a noose.Mary appeared in the doorway behind him, slipped inside, and shut the door cautiously.
“I am barred until an official inquisition,” my brother raged.He threw a hand out, the strangled cravat clutched in his fingers.What little control he had left faded with each word until he was screaming.“The fucking Mereish Fleet is coming and they will not give me a ship!”
Magni power billowed out through the room, wave upon wave of hateful, intense magic.
Mary came to stand with me, shoulder to shoulder, as Tane flickered across her skin.“He has been raging at the crew,” she whispered.
“What are you saying?”Ben snapped.
Mary flinched, and I glared at him.“Calm yourself.”
Ben’s rage peaked.“Do not look at me like that!Not the two of you.Do you think I would hurt you?My only allies in this shit-smeared world?The only people who I do not have tobewitchinto enduring me?”
“That may be the kindest thing you’ve said to me,” Mary commented.
He glowered at her.
“Ben.”I did not approach him.“Your ship was lost with all hands, and only you survived.An inquisition is not uncalled for.”
“This is not about the wreck!It’s aboutAlice!”Ben threw the cravat at me, but it only fluttered placidly to the deck.Unsatisfied, he advanced on us, breaths ragged, half a dozen aborted ravings on his lips.He stopped at the warning expression on my face, with visible strain.
“I am disgraced.They will not let me fight.Before the week is out they will be pressing drunken wastrels from the gutters, but they will not haveme.”
I felt no pity, which, upon reflection, surprised me.He was experiencing what I had endured for the past four years.
“Hartwill not sit in harbor,” I said steadily.“And anyone aboard my ship when we engage is required to do their part.Have you been ordered to stay on shore?”
“What?Ordered?No.”Ben stared at me for a long moment, then seized his own forehead and pressed his temples so hard his thumbs turned white.“Sam, I earned my rankings.I will not be degraded to fucking privateer.”
“Then don’t,” Mary suggested, her patience clearly at an end.“Find a tavern, get drunk and pity yourself.If we survive, we’ll peel you off the floor.And if we die because you were not there to help us?You can always bewitch yourself a few new allies.”
Ben jerked out a chair at the table and sat.Every line of him quivered, fraught with tension, then the life drained out of him.He opened his mouth to speak, and my mind raced ahead, hoping for an apology, a confession, gratitude.None came.
“Fine,” he said at last.He looked around the cabin, bleary-eyed.“I can stay aboard?Fight with you?”
I nodded.
“Good.I need a drink.”
Mary came to stand over Ben.“No, you need company.And if we happen to drink and play dice and pillage the pockets of every fool in Renown, that will be an aside.”
Ben looked at her warily.“Where is the highwayman?Is he not your usual accomplice?”
