“What is it?” Rysn asked softly.
“Blackbane,” he whispered. “A virulent poison, prepared in its strength. I found it hidden among the Horneater woman’s things. Brightness . . . I think this is likely what was used to kill the ship’s pet. The group from Urithiru didn’t arrive on the ship until after the pet was dead, but they were in town the night before.”
“How can you be certain this killed Screech?” Rysn asked.
“I’ve heard of this poison before,” Nikli said. “It is said to make a person’s skin darken when it kills them, and I heard that poor Screech’s skin was off-color when they found her. Brightness, it’s clear now. The Radiants are lying to us. Why would they work so hard to undermine the trip?”
“Why indeed,” Rysn whispered. She unfolded a small red handkerchief from her pocket and waved it. Kstled had been waiting for this; he rushed down the steps from the quarterdeck, hand on his sword, joined by two of his best soldiers. Lopen and Huio, who had been hovering near the ship instead of scouting outward as usual, dropped to the deck as well.
“Rebsk?” Kstled asked her. “Is it time?”
“Yes,” Rysn said. “Take him.”
Nikli didn’t have time to so much as cry out. Kstled had him against the deck in seconds, a sturdy rope binding his wrists. It drew attention from the sailors, but the two armsmen waved them back to their work—and they went, knowing they’d get an explanation eventually. News didn’t remain secret long in such close confines.
“What?” Nikli sputtered. “Brightness? What are you doing? I revealed the traitor to you!”
“Yes, you did,” Rysn said. She’d had days to prepare for this event, ever since she’d become certain Nikli was the one creating the “omens.” It hurt anyway. Damnation. He seemed so genuine.
Kstled finished binding Nikli and pulled him over and up to his knees. Nikli looked at her, and his next objections died on his lips. He seemed to know she wouldn’t believe them.
“Of all the people I spoke to, Nikli,” she said, “only you constantly tried to get me to turn back. And once you realized I wasn’t accepting the omens, you saw me searching for the culprit. So you manufactured one for me.”
He didn’t respond, bowing his head.
“When I had Kstled thoroughly search Cord’s room yesterday, we found no sign of this bag of poison in her things,” Rysn said. “Yet you magically found one. Along with claiming expert knowledge on how it was used to kill the ship’s pet.”
“I see,” Nikli finally said, “that you learned all of Vstim’s lessons, Brightness.”
“Being betrayed by someone you trust is painful beyond explanation,” Rysn whispered. “But that is never a reason to pretend it can’t happen.”
Nikli sagged further.
“Why, Nikli?” Rysn asked.
“I . . . have failed. I will say nothing more, Rysn, but to beg you—with all sincerity—to turn back.”
“I can make him talk, Brightness,” Kstled said.
“I assure you, good man-at-arms,” Nikli said—his accent having completely vanished. “There is nothing you can do to me that will get you the answers you desire.”
Radiant the Lopen stepped closer. She hadn’t shared her entire plan with him, but had given him enough. She knew firsthand the danger of the Fused Lightweavers. If Nikli was one of those, she wanted a Radiant ready to face him.
At her request, the Lopen scooped Chiri-Chiri from her cloth nest on the quarterdeck, then brought her to Rysn. Kstled stood and pulled Nikli to his feet, bound. Rysn held Chiri-Chiri up toward him, and the larkin lethargically chirped.
“Anything?” she asked the larkin.
Chiri-Chiri clicked, but didn’t otherwise respond. Rysn pulled her back and offered her a sphere, which thankfully she consumed.
“I don’t think he’s hiding Stormlight or Voidlight,” Rysn said to the soldiers. “But I can’t be certain.” She scratched Chiri-Chiri where her carapace met skin. If Nikli was secretly an enemy servant, Chiri-Chiri would have drained his Light away.
At her command, Kstled sent two armsmen to search through Nikli’s things. She watched closely, but the captive man showed no sign of Voidbringer powers; he merely drooped in his bonds.
“Tell me, Nikli,” Rysn said. “When we search your things, what will we find? Proof that you’re the one who poisoned the ship’s pet and put the worms in our grain?”
Nikli refused to meet her eyes.
“You want me to turn back,” Rysn said. “Why? And how did you do that trick with the santhid?”
When Nikli didn’t respond, she looked to the Lopen.
“There’s no way to tell if he’s a Fused, gancha,” he explained. “At least, no way I can tell. Queen Jasnah, sure, she could do it. But to Rua and me, he looks like a regular person. Even cutting him won’t work. A regular singer, they would bleed blood the wrong color. But a Lightweaver? Well, he could change that.”
“Could we have Cord inspect him?” Rysn asked. “And see if she spots any strange spren?”
“Worth a try,” the Lopen said, and went to fetch her. Rysn didn’t expect much, unfortunately. Cord had been around this man for the entire trip. If there had been something to spot, surely she would have noticed it already.
Indeed, after a quick inspection, Cord just shrugged. “I don’t see anything unusual,” she said in Veden. “I’m sorry.”
“We’ve taken his assistant captive, Brightness,” Kstled said softly. “Just in case.”
“Plamry knew nothing of this,” Nikli muttered.
“What do we do with him?” Kstled said.
Normally, she’d have thrown him in the brig. Plamry too, as she wasn’t certain she could trust the man. But her ship was approaching a mysterious storm. Traversing that, then exploring the island beyond, would consume her crew’s attention. Did she really want a possible Voidbringer sitting in her hold?
Unfortunately, if he was a Voidbringer, executing him would do no good—he would simply claim a new body at the next Everstorm. And if he wasn’t one, she keenly wanted to interrogate him once the mission was finished.
“Cord,” she said. “A moment, please.” Rysn pulled herself a little way to the side, and Cord joined her. “If he were a servant of one of those . . . gods you told me about,” Rysn whispered in Veden, “the ones that guard treasures? Would there be a way to know?”
“I have no idea,” Cord said softly. “The Gods Who Sleep Not are powerful. Terrible. Cannot die. Cannot be captured. Eternal, without body, capable of controlling cremling and insect.”
Delightful.
“Radiant the Lopen,” Rysn called, “would you and Huio fly our captives to the main island of Aimia? Bring some manacles and lock them to whatever convenient feature you find. Give them some food and water. We’ll leave them, and recover them after exploring Akinah.”
“Sure thing, gancha,” the Lopen said.
It wasn’t a perfect solution; she fully expected Nikli to have found a way to escape by the time they returned for him. But at least she’d have him off her ship. Voidbringer, god, or simple traitor, this seemed the best way to protect her crew. She’d send word of his location to the Thaylen watchpost. Plamry, at least, might be innocent. She didn’t want him left alone if something happened to the Wandersail.
One of her sailors arrived with manacles, and Rysn watched—discomforted—as Nikli and Plamry were flown off. Storms, did she need to suspect every member of her crew of being an enemy Lightweaver?
The only thing she could do would be to have the captain and Kstled interview every crewmember, to search for anyone who seemed off. Kstled went to join Captain Drlwan on the quarterdeck—she’d been informed ahead of time, of course. She would make an announcement to the crew.
Eventually, the sailors sent to rummage through Nikli’s things returned with another bag of poison and, curiously, an annotated recipe book written in Azish.
Rysn looked through this, finding notes that said things like, “Humans
prefer salt in abundance” or “cook longer than you think will be required, as they often eat their meals mushy.” And, most alarmingly, “This will cover the taste” in reference to a spicy dish.
The implications haunted her. If his attempts to get them to turn back hadn’t been successful, would Nikli have poisoned the crew? It made a terrible kind of sense—they’d have needed another cook if Cord was imprisoned, and Nikli had bragged to her about his cooking ability. She could see a world where he was put in charge of the ship’s galley, and the rest of them unwittingly ate his deadly meal.
It was time to put some extra precautions in place. A few rats tasting each meal before it was served to the crew, perhaps?
Who are you really? she wondered at the distant figure. And why are you so intent on keeping us away from this island?
11
The Lopen gained new respect for the Thaylen sailors as the ship breached the storm around Akinah.
He’d spent the last few weeks sitting with them at meals, climbing with them on the rigging, scrubbing the deck alongside them, or swapping stories as they swung in their hammocks at night. He’d even picked up a little Thaylen. He was living on a sailing ship, so he figured—sure—the best way to pass the time was to follow Huio’s example and try to become a sailor.
Lopen had heard them talk about the terrifying experience of facing down winds and rain while on the sea. You didn’t sail a storm, they’d explained. You hung on, tried to steer, and hoped to survive until the end. He’d felt the frightened tone in their voices, but Damnation, he felt something ten times worse as the Wandersail headed into the strange storm.
He’d flown about in storms, sure. He was a Windrunner. But this was different. Something primal inside him cringed as the wind made the water churn and froth. Something that trembled as the darkening sky painted the ocean with new ominous shadows. Something deep in his heart that said, “Hey, Lopen. This was a baaaaad idea, mancha.”
Rua, naturally, took it with a grin on his face, having adopted the shape of a skyeel with human features. He swam through the air around Lopen’s head as the ship began to sway like a child’s toy in the bath.
“Lopen!” Turlm called, rushing past with a rope. “You may want to get belowdecks. It’s about to get wet up here!”
“I won’t melt, hregos!” Lopen called back.
Turlm laughed and continued on. Good man, Turlm was. Had six daughters—six—back home in Thaylen City. Ate with his mouth open, but always shared his booze.
At his warning, Lopen took a solid hold on the railing. It was strange to see the ship stripped of most of its sails, like a skeleton without the flesh. But this ship, sure, was special. Fabrial pumps would supposedly keep it bailed, no matter how much water washed onto the deck. And there were stabilizers that used attractor fabrials. Those would shift weights around in the hull—crazy, that stuff was built inside the hull—and keep the ship from capsizing.
At the captain’s orders, the oars came out. They used those for fine maneuvering when trying to ram enemy ships, but here they could reposition the ship to take big waves the right way. When caught in bad weather, ships would try to “run” the storm. That meant going with the wind, only in a specific way that sounded extremely technical to Lopen. He’d nodded anyway, since the words had been quite interesting, particularly coming from the lips of mostly drunk men.
They couldn’t simply run the storm here though. They had to breach it, reach its core. So they’d follow the storm in a loop around Akinah, slowly edging inward, ever inching toward the center. And they had to keep ahead of the waves, which meant sometimes colliding with other ones in front. They’d need to “head” those waves: keep the ship going straight at them, breaking them across the bow. The oars would help keep them positioned for that.
It felt downright heroic to meet these winds with only one small stormsail maintained by a few valiant sailors. The rest were below, either at the oars or maintaining the fabrials. Lopen didn’t see how the sail wouldn’t just blow them all over the place, but they all said it would work. They’d also tied bags of oil over the side of the ship too, with punctures to leak—which they said would keep the water from spraying so much on the deck.
The captain stood firm and shouted her orders into the wind, sending them straight into the gullet of the beast. And by the Halls themselves, if the sailors didn’t take it with determination and grit.
The wind picked up further, blowing sprays of water across Lopen’s face. Huio hadn’t wanted to come up above, had said Lopen was crazy for insisting on being on deck. And yes, cold water began to seep through his unders to prickle his skin. But storms, it was an incredible view. The lightning made the water seem to spark, transparent, and huge froths of it surged into the air. A storm on land was a sight to behold, sure, but a storm on the waters . . . this was majestic. Also horrifying.
“This is amazing!” Lopen said, pulling himself along the railing so he was closer to Vlxim, the day’s helmsman. Three other men stood at the ready to help Vlxim wrestle the wheel to control the rudder. That was common on ordinary ships, but this one had some kind of mechanism to help the helmsman, and so it might not be needed.
“You haven’t seen anything!” Vlxim shouted. He was bald like Huio, which made his eyebrows look extra amusing to Lopen—particularly wet as they were. But he played a mean mouth harp. “We’ve trained to sail into highstorms on this ship if we have to! I’ve actually been through one! Waves as high as mountains, Lopen!”
“Ha!” Lopen said. “You haven’t seen anything. I was once in a place where Everstorm and highstorm met, and in that, the rock flowed like water and—sure—entire chunks broke like waves against one another. I had to run up one side, then slide down the other. Ruined my storming trousers!”
“Enough!” the captain yelled over the wind. “I don’t have time for you two to compare sizes. Vlxim, one point to port!”
The captain eyed Lopen, and he gave her a salute—because they were on her ship, and here she outranked even the people who outranked her. But he got the feeling that the captain was the kind of person who had been born an officer, coming right on out of her mom with a hat on and everything. People like that didn’t understand; bragging wasn’t about making yourself look good, but about convincing the other guy you weren’t afraid, which was completely different.
A wave surged over the deck, and Lopen lost his footing, but clung onto the ship’s aft rail and grinned—sopping wet—at Vlxim when he glanced over. Lopen righted himself with effort, and thought about Vlxim’s words. How could waves get bigger than these? They sailed up the side of one that Lopen could have sworn was too steep to ride. Then they went crashing through the top, like Punio through a crowd on his way to the privy after a night of drinking.
Lopen whooped as they teetered, then came rushing down the wave’s other side. Rua swirled about him as a ribbon of light, excited, dancing with the wavespren—who went splashing high into the air as different waves met. This was the best time they’d had in ages.
Then Turlm—the fellow who had passed Lopen with the rope earlier—got caught in an unexpected wave and washed clean off the deck. Into the drink, the dark abyss, to be claimed by the seas and strangled with water.
Well, couldn’t have that.
Lopen burst alight and leaped over the rail, Lashing himself toward the water. He hit with his own crash, pulling in so much Stormlight he glowed brightly in the dark water—revealing a struggling figure being swept away in the currents. Well, Lopen had spent a few days practicing this while out on the ocean, doing scouting runs. Lashings worked fine underwater. And hey, who needed to breathe when you had Stormlight?
He Lashed himself toward the dark figure—Rua guiding the way—and blasted through the ocean like some kind of underwater creature built to move through it easily and swiftly. Or, well, like a fish. They called those fish, didn’t they?
Lopen grabbed hold of the struggling form by his clothing, then Lashed both of them upw
ard. Rua pointed the way—it could be surprisingly difficult to tell directions in the darkness underwater. Lopen exploded from the ocean a moment later, carrying a sputtering Turlm.
Rua darted ahead, leading him toward the ship—which was good, because in the dark tempest, details were about as easy for Lopen to make out as his own backside. Lopen hauled Turlm over the rail and hit the deck with a thump, then Lashed the man in place so he wouldn’t go sliding off again.
“Storms!” Fimkn said, stumbling over to help the other sailor. Fimkn had a medic background, and he and Lopen had bonded over the fact that both had been told too many storming times to boil bandages. “How did you . . . Lopen, you saved him!”
“It’s kind of our thing,” Lopen said.
Turlm sputtered, then started laughing uncontrollably. Joyspren like little blue leaves spun around him, then swirled into the air. He gripped Lopen’s hand in thanks. The old one. His Bridge Four hand, not his Knight Radiant hand. Fimkn sent Turlm belowdecks—a replacement had already come up to take his post—so Lopen un-Lashed him. Storms, that replacement had shown up quickly. They were expecting to lose people. Or at least they were prepared for it.
Well, not on Lopen’s watch. You didn’t let your friends drown in nameless oceans during a frigid storm. That was, sure, basic friendship rules right there.
He marched back up onto the quarterdeck. The captain and the others here had ropes to hold them in place, but those had to be short, and didn’t generally work for the other sailors, who needed a lot of freedom of movement. A long rope on a man who got swept overboard in this kind of storm broke necks and smashed sailors into the hull. The chances were better, though still slim, without ropes.
Lopen figured he should be extra careful with the captain anyway. With her permission, he stuck one of her feet to the deck, so she could move a little—but had one really steady foot to rely upon.
“You could have done that all along?” the captain asked. “I saw you struggling to keep upright earlier! You were sliding about with the waves. Why didn’t you stick yourself down?”
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