In that tense, horrified hush, one side of the gate creaked open again.A single guard stumbled out, clutching at her chest.She collapsed into the floodwaters—a wash of colorless ripples swallowed her and she did not rise again.
“The Black Tide,” Alamay’s voice murmured, replying to a question from Grant that I had not heard.“All mages are stronger tonight.”
Ben turned to look back at us, his black-rimmed eyes white in the shadows.“Are you coming?”
By the time we followed my twin into the shipyard, the remainder of the guards were either dead or in hiding.Ben preceded us, striding to the end of a long, partially submerged dock whereHartlay.
I strode after him, Mary’s low whistling haunting my steps.A fog had already begun to roll in, shrouding us from sight.
“Your timing is impeccable,” Ben said, waiting for me besideHart’s placid bulk.Half the buttons on his coat had torn off and he was soaked, his eyes reddened with sweat and seawater and their dark rim of sailor’s kohl bleeding down his cheeks.The blade of the saber in his left hand was clean, pebbled with droplets of water, but there was blood on his knuckles and caked around his nails.
Whatever qualms I harbored towards my brother’s actions and sinister appearance, they silenced as I climbed aboardHart.The ship’s namesake ghisting swirled through the wood beneath our feet in restrained welcome, and, as my officers began to climb through newly unlocked hatches, a grin split my face.
“Mr.Penn,” I greeted, grasping the man’s forearm.Fog swirled past us, and Mary’s whistling transitioned into a low, humming song.
His grin was equally as broad, and there was a gleam in his eyes.“Captain Rosser, knew I’d be seein’ you about some time soon.”
I clasped his forearm a little tighter, then released him.“Ms.Skarrow and Mr.Keo?”
“All worse for wear, but present and accounted for,” Ms.Skarrow herself replied, joining us and tugging her fringe.“Shall we make him ready, Captain?”
“Yes, very good.We will leave the harbor as soon as possible and make for the Aeadine Anchorage,” I replied, easing back into my role like muscles in warm water.I leaned over the hatchway and saw the remainder of the crew arrayed below, peering up and beset by ripples of barely contained cheers.I saw Willoughby among them, his arm around a weary-looking Poverly.But they were all well.
“You will all be up and free very soon,” I promised, raising my voice just enough to carry.
A few ragged cheers broke forth, to which I saluted and withdrew.Ms.Skarrow and Mr.Penn had already scattered, joining a dozen of the best hands in preparing the vessel for departure.
Mr.Keo remained, watching me with his chin raised and eyes expectant.
“Mr.Keo.Ms.Firth shall see to our cover and Ms.Uknara our course out of the harbor.I shall need to step into the Other.You have the deck until I return.”
“Yessir.”Keo saluted.His wide-set, hooded eyes were subdued, and his smile less wild than Mr.Penn’s had been.“It is good to have you back, Captain.I see you have what we came for?”
Benedict strode by just then, heading through the companionway and calling, “Sam, you need to hire a surgeon.”
“Yes,” I said, my own smile tightening.“I suppose we do.”
Getting the ship underway was no easy feat, but it was conducted with haste and discretion in record time.Mary and Olsa took position by the wheel as the former began to truly sing, drawing the perpetual fog down the bay to meet her existing, subtler miasma.Another wind stirred our sails alone, propelling us away from the docks with a care and delicacy Mary had rarely exhibited before.
WithHart’s ghisten light rippling through the deck beneath our feet, we passed ships of every size and stoically bore the occasional curious watchman.We passed sleeping outer villages with their stilts and bridges, some completely flooded, others barely above the high waters, and entered an open stretch between the last settlements and the lofty outlook of the fort.
I joined Mary and Olsa, whereupon I finally pried the coin from my flesh and dropped wholly into the Other.
Olsa was there in that second realm, inhabiting the edge between worlds—guiding our ship through the fog with careful commands to the helmsman.I noted her glow, then passed deeper into that realm.
As the midwife had said, the Otherborn creatures around Ostchen were countless.Their glows swelled from dim reflections in the corners of my vision to a chaos of clashing, blinding lights.They shone off the Dark Water, through the water, turning it everythingbutdark.The Other was color that night, vivid and assaulting.Even the lines of ghisten ships faded in the force of their illumination, and, for a moment, I was forced to close my eyes.
When I opened them again the lights were no less overwhelming, but my focus was steadier.
And so I began to call.I called the white lights and the orange ones, the bruised purple and the muddy yellow, the gold and therarest, most subtle pulses of dusty, dark rose.Some were indifferent to my summons.Others were aggressive, outwardly resisting me.
The rest came in droves.
Thus it was that we left Ostchen in an unearthly cacophony of muffled screams, bells, gunshots and crashing water.Here and there as the fog eddied, I saw my beasts at their tasks.A familiar dittama dove beneath the waves and remerged beside an anchored ship, shrieking.An enormous octopus with the head of a budding flower clamped onto one of the fort’s cannon batteries, its legs a whirl of water and sickly orange light.A huden charged across waves lit by the blinding white of a morgory swarm, swirling around a clutch of ships whose ghistings stood manifest, warding the creatures away from their hulls.A sleek creature between a shark and a serpent with shuddering, thundering wings reared up to the height of a foremast before it crashed back down in a scattering of smaller, lesser creatures.
The Otherborn were not the only lights to be seen, however— either in the Dark Water or the waking world or the mire between where I existed.The lights of Sooths, Magni, and Stormsingers were cast throughout, defending their vessels, turning the winds, clearing the fog.Each and every one was brighter than I had ever seen before.
These became stronger as we passed the mouth of the bay and the full Mereish Fleet came into sight.They were a forest of masts to all sides, every one of them lit with ghisten glow.Just when I thought I could discern the edge of the fleet, I saw another mast, the bulk of another hull, the glint of more magelight.Ghistings manifested throughout, driving back creatures as Sooths—many of them Summoners—worked from the decks of their ships.
