by K. Ferrin
Guilt was something she already had too much of without listening to any more of Celene’s. Fern blamed Ling for everything that had happened to them, including Alyssum’s death and abandonment. It wasn’t lost on Ling that Fern’s words had shifted from Alyssum’s injury to her death. She had given Alyssum up as dead.
Fern didn’t want her, and though Dreskin and Drake constantly sought her, she didn’t want them. They would try to convince her that Fern would come around eventually, that Alyssum was fine, that they’d make it to Vosh and find the navire and that everything would turn out just fine. But Ling didn’t believe any of it, and she suspected Drake and Dreskin didn’t either.
Even the boatsmyn were struggling. Drake’s crew was accustomed to strange clientele and even stranger cargo, but even they were not immune to boatsmyn superstition. The relentless dark, the looming white faces and dinner-plate-sized eyes of the sirené every time the biolumesce came on, Amalya’s screaming, and Ling’s lurking wore on all of them. She heard them increasingly gossiping about curses and other dark magics, and some of them were half convinced the warlocks were secretly aboard the ship already, though such a thing was impossible, as any rational person would know. They told stories of movement in the corner of their eyes, shadows flitting about during the brief periods the biolumesce was lit, and—to Ling’s eternal entertainment—they gossiped about strange things being found, ropes left uncoiled, cargo shifted and moved about, and, of course, the vanishing of knives from the kitchen.
The knives were her doing. She liked varying her cutting with a wide selection of blades. But the rest of it grew out of the idle chat of an increasingly unnerved crew. Their anxiety, too, became a balm to Ling’s own. In this, at least, she was no longer alone.
Chapter Seven
“Ling.” Dreskin was standing right outside the crack she’d settled in only an hour before. She couldn’t hide her surprise that he’d found her. She’d not spoken to anyone for weeks, and was certain she’d not been seen by anyone recently either. Though she could never truly be certain, of course—not with a memory as susceptible to failure as hers was.
“I know you’re in there. I’ve checked literally every other possible hiding place on this ship. It’s taken me weeks to catalogue them all. Why are you hiding like this?”
“Go away.”
“We need to talk, Ling.”
“No we don’t.”
“Yes we do. We are almost through the Darkling Sea, and we’ve got an army of people who will be expending a lot of energy to find us once we leave it. We need to be together on this, Ling. We’ll never be successful if we can’t even speak with one another.” He sounded exasperated and more than a little tired. “The crew is on edge. Fern is still clamoring about going back to Marique. Drake and I are barely holding this ship together, and we need you engaged on this. Half the crew is terrified you’ve turned into some ghost, with all your lurking about!”
So he’d still not convinced Fern they were doing the right thing. He’d been spending time with her, cloistered together in the cabin, speaking in low voices punctuated by an occasional outburst from Fern. Ling knew he’d done his best to reason with her, to help her see she’d let her fear run away with her, that she had every reason to believe Alyssum was fine and none to believe she wasn’t. All to no avail, it seemed. Ling wondered if he’d convinced her of anything else, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking.
“You know what he did to me, Dreskin.”
Dreskin was quiet for a moment. She could hear him breathing in the darkness. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t leave her in Middelhaern.”
“Yes you could have, and that’s exactly what you should have done.”
“She and Amalya would have starved,” Dreskin said. “There was nothing for them back there. Not without someone to help look after them.”
“They would have been fine. Besides, they are not your responsibility, Dreskin.”
“You know as well as I do they would not have been fine. And it’s a good thing I didn’t think that way when I saw you fleeing your mother in Middelhaern. Or when I sent you to the Courser.”
Anger flooded through her at his words. He wasn’t wrong about that. She’d never have made it to Marique without his help, and he’d had no reason to give it that day he’d helped her aboard the Scarlet Float.
“They would have found a way, just as I would have,” Ling said. “You should never have brought her here.”
“You know what fate awaited them. You would have me leave a woman and her touched daughter to that?”
“He tried to kill you, you know, while you were lying unconscious with blood seeping out of a crack in your skull. He tried to poke a knife into you. You’d be dead at his hand now if I’d not stopped him.”
That caught him off guard. He was quiet for a moment before continuing. “That changes nothing.”
“Yeah? Well it should.”
Dreskin paused for the space of several breaths before continuing. “Celene is not Fraser, Ling. You cannot hold a mother accountable for the actions of her grown son!”
“She raised him to be what he became!”
Dreskin sighed deeply and was quiet for several minutes before continuing. “When we first met, you asked me why I helped you. Do you remember what I said?” Dreskin fell quiet, waiting for her response.
She didn’t remember, but she knew nevertheless. She’d written it in the grimoire. It had meant so much to her then, to hear those words. He’d said a person should be judged for who they were, their actions, not what they were or where they came from. But that was an entirely different situation from this. She hadn’t deliberately hurt anyone. Fraser had.
Dreskin continued. “I will not sentence a woman and her daughter to death, or worse, because of the actions of her grown son. You of all people should understand that, Ling. Hate me for it if you wish, but I’ll not set her out for you, or for anyone.”
He fell silent once again and waited, but she said nothing, just listened as he breathed.
“We will leave the Darkling Sea in a few days. If we don’t pull this crew together before then, we may as well give this whole thing up. I doubt we’ll make it more than two days in the state we’re in. Think about it, Ling. Is your anger worth letting the entire world die?” He stood there for several minutes more before moving away, his steps slow and heavy on the deck.
Ling looked up into the sky, or at least where the sky would be if there had been stars or a moon to break up the inky black. She knew he was right, as much as it angered her to admit. If they failed, the last of the magic would drain out of the world. But maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing. If all the Mari and warlocks died off perhaps the world would be a much better place.
She tapped her head against the crate behind her. She wanted that to be true, but it wasn’t. She couldn’t sit back and let Fern die any more than she could let Fariss kill the people of Meuse, no matter how much the throbbing knot at the center of her being wanted her to. She knew that voice was the voice of her own hurt, not that of her true conscience. Besides, the death of magic wouldn’t only affect Fern; it would affect everyone she had ever known. Everyone she ever might know in the future. It was so abstract as to be almost meaningless, all those nameless faces, indistinct shapes she imagined out in the world.
Ling waited until she was certain he was gone and then climbed to her feet. She crept out of her hole to find the ship lit from tip to tail with the blue glow of the biolumesce. Ling grimaced at the brightness, but couldn’t help smiling at the sight. Fariss wanted them all dead, yet it was his magic that kept them all alive now.
As she moved toward the wheelhouse, she saw Amalya sitting next to the railing. The girl sat with her legs crossed in front of her, her entire body rocking as she colored over a single line on the deck with a charred bit of a stick. She had snot running between her nose and upper lip. She spoke as she rocked, an endless stream of words that never made much sense to Lin
g. She wondered if even Celene knew what the girl was saying.
Celene was sitting next to her daughter, one arm stretched out on the railing as she stared out to sea. Celene turned as Ling approached and smiled in greeting. The woman had no idea that she’d been behind the girl’s unrest these last weeks. Ling glared at her, wanting to smack that smile off her face. Suddenly she wanted Celene to know just how much she hated her. As she moved past them she paused long enough to reach down and squeeze Amalya’s shoulder firmly.
Celene’s smile faltered and her face collapsed in on itself as she stared up at Ling in shock. Ling met her eyes before continuing on her way, Amalya screaming in a rage behind her.
Ling continued toward the wheelhouse, and, as she climbed, she allowed a tight smile to curve her lips. Drake stood atop the wheelhouse as she always did, leaning against the wood railing, one bare foot lifted to the second rung, steaming coffee beside her as always. Ling sat down across from Drake, arms tightly crossed against her chest.
Drake’s mouth was pressed into a frown, her eyes glittering dangerously in the low light of the biolumesce. Ling gazed at her, eyes steady. Drake had seen what she had done, that much was clear, but Ling didn’t care. She squared her shoulders, ready for a fight.
“Not everything, or everyone, is what they at first appear to be,” she said. “Take Dreskin, as an example. He’s Alyssum’s son, you know.” Drake’s voice was soft; her anger didn’t carry into her voice, but she made no attempt to hide it in her eyes.
Ling ignored Drake’s words and poured herself some coffee. She lifted the cup to her lips and took a deep draught.
“Not by blood, of course. His parents were killed when he was three. They were close to Alyssum, and she’d been like a grandmother to him since he’d been born, so she took him in.” Ling stared into her cup, refusing to acknowledge Drake’s words.
“They gave their lives protecting Alyssum and Fern, and Dreskin will do the same with his. He’s not a boatsmyn, not really. He sails, but he also listens. He reports what he’s heard back to Alyssum. He’s one of us, been in the fight longer than I have been.”
Ling had always wondered why he was here, why he’d sent her to Drake and the Courser. Now she had her answer.
“He’s a good man, Ling, and he’s done the right thing by Celene and Amalya.”
Ling slammed the mug down and glared at Drake. “You don’t know what—”
“I can guess well enough.”
“Then you know why I want her gone.”
“I understand your anger. But you’re wrong to judge Celene for what her son did. They will stay onboard this ship for as long as they wish it, for as long as they offer their aid. In case you haven’t already noticed, we are in short supply of allies.”
“Aid? All the girl does is leave black smears of ash all over the deck and scream any time anyone brushes by too closely!” Ling pushed herself to her feet and moved to the ladder.
“As I said, not everyone is what they may at first appear to be. Don’t let your past define you, Ling.”
“Who are you to tell me such a thing? All you do is hide out up here all day and in your cabin all night. The crew is in a shambles; the boatsmyn are nigh on convinced we’re cursed, and those that aren’t are too afraid to even speak to you about what’s going on. This ship, this entire quest is falling apart, and you’re just standing up here letting it all happen!”
Drake’s lips tightened into a flat line and she turned away from Ling to stare, once again, into the night. Ling glared at her back, seeing how her shoulders hunched up tightly as if she expected an axe to fall at any time. Drake took a deep breath, and Ling saw her force her shoulders down. She turned back to meet Ling’s eyes with her own.
“You’re right.” Drake spoke quietly, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her words. “Alyssum and I…I love her, Ling. I’m desperately afraid I’ll never see her again, but it’s not that. What we are doing is bigger than any one of us, even her. I know that; she knew it.”
Drake leaned back against one of the chairs, barely perching on its front ledge. Ling moved away from the ladder, shifting closer to Drake.
“It’s not right, what’s happened to you.” Drake’s voice was soft, so quiet Ling was forced to draw even closer to hear her words. “What we’re asking of you…it’s not right to ask it of anyone. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, discovering what you were, how those people must have treated you, all the things that happened to you between that day and the day you set foot on my ship. And none of us have made it any easier. We’ve failed you in so many ways.
“I could have protected you from Fariss in the very beginning. I knew letting you leave with him that day would be a mistake, and I let it happen anyway. Everything that has happened since that day is on me, and I’ll regret it for all the days of my life.”
Ling pulled back in surprise at Drake’s words.
“We need you. I believe, as Alyssum did, that you are key to ending all of this. But we have no right to demand it of you, to force you to act against your will. If you feel powerless, it’s because of choices I’ve made, and I am sorry for that. If you want to stop, to give up, I won’t blame you for it. I’ll do what I can to get you anywhere you want to go. All I ask of you is to give us a chance to finish what we started. To stay out of Fariss’s hands, hidden from the warlocks, until this is all over. Whatever that ending looks like.”
Ling was completely taken aback by Drake’s words, and she had no idea how to respond. Drake had just acknowledged everything that had tormented her for months, and had given her a choice in what she wanted to do now. From the moment she’d been strapped to that chair by Laera, any illusion she’d had of being in control of her life had dried up like a small pond in the heat of the dry season. She’d been rescued by Witch, then driven out of Meuse. She’d stowed away on the Crimson Float because it was the only way she could get to Middelhaern, had gone to Dreggs because it was the only possible means of finding Grag. Every choice she’d made hadn’t been a choice at all; she’d been forced every step of the way by circumstances outside of her control. Until now.
“I see what it has done to you, Ling, what I have done to you, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to say that. Please, forgive me.”
The walls that had propped Ling up suddenly came crashing down around her, and she sank down to the floor, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her weight. All the anger and frustration that had bottled up inside of her drained away, and an odd clarity settled over her. Drake dropped down beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“You are right about what you said before. Farris would have found a way. There is nothing you could have done to prevent it.” Ling spoke the words, and as they left her mouth she realized they were true. That path had been set the instant Fariss saw Alyssum pause and look at her that first day on the Courser. No matter who she had been with or where she’d been, he would have found a way to get her. Or he would have been compelled to act to prevent what he saw as a changing of the tide to favor the Mari. The path might have varied, but the end result would still be right here in this moment. “The only thing that would have set us on another path was if I’d never come here at all.”
“Without you we would never have discovered a way to close that breach.”
“We don’t even know for certain if the navire will work. And every warlock in the world is set to keep us from it even if they do. We may fail yet.” Fariss believed she was the key to gaining control over the last of the magic in the world. He would stop at nothing to ensure he possessed her.
“Regardless, I am thankful you came into our lives. I have no regret about allowing you on board all those months ago.”
Ling looked at her and saw the truth of Drake’s words in her eyes.
“What do you wish to do?” Drake asked.
Ling looked down at the deck below, to where Amalya sat with Celene, dragging a charred bit of stick back and forth across the surface. Some boat
smyn darted here and there as they worked the ship while the others milled freely about the deck, taking their leisure in the small amount of light available to them in the interminable dark of the Darkling Sea. Fern was nowhere to be seen, and Ling imagined her friend huddled up in her cabin feeling so alone, so powerless. She turned to look at Drake, and the two women studied each other for several minutes before the corners of both their mouths lifted in a smile.
“You’ll want these.” Drake held out a pair of dark glasses. “You’ll be blinded when we cross over otherwise.”
Ling hesitated for a moment, searching inside. She wanted to be certain the choice was right, that it was true. The fear was there, as it always was, but so was the conviction that what she did now was right. It had been right all along. She’d just wanted, needed to be able to make the choice for herself. She reached out a hand, smiling as Drake dropped the dark glasses into her palm.
“And it stops here, Ling.” The corners of Drake’s mouth remained curled upward, her eyes soft, but there was a hard edge to her voice. “Amalya and Celene have a part in this as valuable as any other. Never again.”
Ling felt her defenses rear up, walls slamming back into a place as an old anger raised its shaggy head, but she pushed them all back. She had every right to be angry about what Fraser had done, but she had no right to treat Amalya the way she had. A part of her had known it all along. She nodded her head, meeting Drake’s gaze squarely.
“Never again,” she said, and she meant it.
Ling looked down at Amalya. The girl was smiling now, Celene saying something to her daughter that had made her laugh. She overwhelmingly felt the need to atone for what she had done, and she hoped one day she would be able to.
Beyond them, in the shadows at the furthest reaches of the blue glow of the biolumesce, she could see the slightest glint of light off scale where the sirené circled.