Darkness crouches all around us, but in here there’s warmth and light, and Meredy’s eyes meeting mine each time she pauses to turn another page, and—a small but steady spark.
***
“We need to have a talk,” Kasmira announces the next morning as the rest of us yawn into our breakfast. Already wide awake, Kasmira has let her first mate, Dvora, take the wheel for a little while, but she’s called the rest of the crew into the dining hall for some sort of meeting.
“Remind me where we’re headed again?” a sailor asks. “Sorrel?”
“Sarral,” Kasmira says patiently. It’s a westerly kingdom one of her contacts in Lyris mapped out for us before things got heated. “And that’s partly why I called you all here. See, I was just thinking—from now on, we need to have a cover story. The Lyrians never minded my, ah, trading ventures, but others might consider them... criminal. Besides, we don’t want anyone in Sarral asking questions about who’s on the throne back home. That means we’ll need an excuse for why we were allowed to leave when everyone knows King Wylding forbids it. Suggestions?”
“Why do we need to treat our new queen like some big secret, anyway?” someone asks. I recognize her as a friend of the loudmouthed sailor who let out the news of King Wylding’s demise at the tavern in Lyris.
“Because we don’t know how or when Valoria plans to contact other leaders,” I say, trying to keep the irritation from my voice. The answer seems so obvious. “We don’t know how they’ll react to her rule, to the new Karthia. We need to keep things under wraps for now, to let Valoria decide how to reach out to the world on her own terms.”
“What if,” Meredy interjects calmly, “we tell anyone who inquires that King Wylding and his council had a meeting about updating their maps, and while he was opposed, the queen changed his mind?”
Kasmira shakes her head. “The queen hated change as much as her husband.”
Grinning at Meredy, I chime in, “I know it’s lame. But no one has spoken to the queen in over two centuries, so do they really have a reason not to take our word for it?”
Kasmira and a few of her sailors laugh, apparently satisfied.
But I’m not. Not quite yet. “What’s our real story though, Kas? I mean... where do we plan to go from here? From Sarral, rather?” Given the heavy silence that follows, it’s something we’ve all started to wonder.
“Well, speaking of maps,” Kasmira says after a pause, “I’m sure the Sarralans have some. Assuming I can get them to play nice and share, we’ll have our pick of destinations. I’m not particular on thewheremyself, as long as there’s gold and jewels and kisses for the taking. So, how much of the world do you all want to see before we head home?”
I don’t have to think about my answer for long.
“Nineteen new places,” I say quickly, looking to Meredy for approval. “We can count Lyris and Sarral as two of them, so that leaves seventeen to go before we head back to Karthia. That is, if everyone else agrees.”
Meredy doesn’t meet my eyes, but she touches the small of my back with a shaking hand, making words impossible for a moment.When I find my voice again, I add for the crew’s benefit, “That’s one place for every year Evander lived, every year he was robbed of seeing the world. How long do you suppose that will take?”
Kasmira touches her fingers to her brow in a salute—a sign of respect for Evander’s memory. “Perhaps a year, or perhaps much longer. Depends how much you want to linger in any given spot.”
“Not long,” I say quickly, thinking of how little I liked Lyris, and what unpleasant things could await us on other shores. “Let’s try to make seventeen quick stops after Sarral this year—you can choose the places, whichever ones have the shiniest jewels and the prettiest people to kiss—and then return to Karthia to share all we’ve seen with Valoria.”
After a moment’s consideration, Kasmira flashes a grin. Just like that, we have a plan.
***
The sea was supposed to carry me far away from my problems. From echoes of death and suffering. From nightmares. From monsters. But with the person who’s becoming my biggest problem of all lying on a cot not two feet from mine, feigning sleep, the heat from our bodies stifling in this tiny room, I wonder if this trip will solve anything like I’d hoped. I wonder if King Wylding really did keep me there, sheltered behind his marble walls, for my own good. If he was right to fear the unknown.
I don’t think so, somehow. In the fourteen days since Karthia’s shore became a smudge of ash on the horizon, I haven’t seen anything to make me scream, or even shiver—unless the tavern fight in Lyris counts. So far, the unknown is just salty, smelly, and damp. The path to Sarral seems endless.
Meredy shifts on her cot. Unable to steal a glimpse of her in thevelvety darkness, I picture her lying there, restless, her hair unbound and puddling on the floor as she tries to make her lumpy pillow comfortable. It’s hardnotto think about her, even dream about her, when she’s this close.
A wave jars me into greater alertness as it slaps the hull of theParadise—orMy Failed Escape Plan, as I’ve decided to call it—and the ship groans as the wind shudders around it. My body protests the hard tilt to the left with a shiver of nausea. I scramble upright. If the ship takes on water, I’m going down with it.
“Nightmare? Or seasick?” Meredy asks blearily, lighting our fish-oil lantern that casts deep shadows with its greasy glow. She hangs its ancient strap from a beam overhead. “Shall I fetch the bucket?”
“Nope. I’m not giving up that easily.” Smiling weakly, I grip the edge of my cot as the ship creaks and rights itself. “But I suppose this is a good time to mention I don’t know how to swim.”
Meredy looks more alert now. “Me neither...”
I frown. It’s not that I expect Meredy to save me if something goes wrong out here. I just tend to think of her as someone who can do everything. “Your mentor didn’t give you swimming lessons when you were training to survive in the wilds as a beast master?”
She flashes a faint smile. “The lakes in Lorness aren’t warm enough for that.”
Funny. In our two weeks on this ship, surrounded by water, neither of us has mentioned swimming. Guess we’ve both had too many other things on our minds.
