Vayra wasn’t sure what to expect when they reached the shore, but a perfectly flat, vertical cliff hadn’t been on her list.

It wasn’t exactly a cliff—it only jutted out of the water enough that it was a few feet taller than the Harmony’s main mast, and she had gotten used to bigger. They sailed as close to the shore as they dared, but there were no rocky spikes or shards to watch out for. The only risk was running aground.

“Captain,” Nathariel said. “We have someone following us.” He spoke calmly, but that wasn’t exactly something to be calm about.

Vayra sprinted to the stern railing of the quarterdeck, her eyes wide. But the entire ocean at the base of the Stream was littered with ships. Most were small and fast—the biggest was a frigate with two gun decks—but there were lots of them. Too many to reliably tell which were which.

Thankfully, there was no buzzing in the back of her mind. There were no God-heirs too close.

“Which ship?” she whispered.

‘There could be any sort of enemies here,’ Phasoné said. She had retreated back inside Vayra’s head a few minutes ago, having no reason to stay in her physical form. ‘And we have made quite a few people mad.’

“Myrrir better not still be after us,” she muttered.

“It’s not a junk,” said Nathariel, pointing out to the sea behind them. “A square-rigger, single gun deck, three masts—just like us.”

Vayra narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t pick out any ship from the distant crowd that was following them. Just to be sure she wasn’t missing anything, she leaned over to Glade and asked, “Do you see anything?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Nathariel spun his finger in the air ahead of himself, drawing a little circle of flaming Arcara. When he pulled his hand away, the burning ring stayed. “Look through it.”

He had circled one of the distant ship-like specks. Vayra didn’t expect herself to pick out any of its details, but…well, it had a blood-red flag and a brown wood hull with few ornaments. Its prow had turned towards them.

With a shudder, she realized that she wouldn’t have been able to make out those details before reaching Third Lieutenant.

‘The advancement was a slow process, but it adjusted some of your interior workings,’ Phasoné said. ‘Eyes, perception, senses.’

Naturally, Vayra sniffed the railing next.

‘Oh, by the Streamfather…’ Phasoné groaned.

“I guess the varnish does smell more intense…” Vayra shrugged.

“What are you doing?” Nathariel asked softly. He pulled her aside so Glade could see the circled ship.

“I was just…” Vayra shook her head. “Nevermind. What’s wrong with that ship?”

“Redband Pirates,” Nathariel said. “Distant vassals of Nilsenir, and they may or may not be working with him. There is a Second Lieutenant stage God-heir aboard the ship—and that would be the Path of the Bloodpowder, which you don’t want to mess with if it can be helped.”

“We have had dealings with the Redbands in the past,” Glade said. The circle of flaming Arcara had dissipated. “They will not be friendly to us, whether they are with Nilsenir and Karmion or not.”

“I figured,” Nathariel said. “The good news is that they likely haven’t identified us. The bad news is that the Harmony is a very boisterous ship, with its ornaments and all. They see us as a hearty prize.”

“The Harmony is a beautiful ship, I’ll have you know!” Pels called. He still stood beside the wheel hub, giving quiet directions to the coxswain, but he had turned away for a moment.

‘If we head down one of the inlets, they’ll follow us,’ Phasoné warned. ‘And we’ll lead them right to our prize, too.’

So destroying them was the best option…

‘Unless you want to draw undue attention to ourselves, I wouldn’t advise it. We don’t need all the other God-heirs here ganging up on us when they see blatant starlight magic.’

Vayra scowled. Not many options, then. “Go through that fogbank,” she said, pointing up to a wall of mist ahead. Where the sea crashed on the shore on an especially sharp jut up ahead, it stirred up a mist. In the early morning, the mist gathered into a thick fog.

“And then?” Pels asked. “Either the fog melts off, or we have to leave and head to our inlet anyways, and they’ll see us.”

Vayra leaned over the railing and stared at the churning water below for a second, then pushed herself back up and turned back to them. “Nathariel? Sir? What’s the biggest flame you can make?”

The God-heir snapped his fingers, generating a small flame at the tip of his thumb. “I like what you’re thinking…”

“Portable fog?” Glade asked.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Hold on a second.” Pels spun around to face them. “Am I the only one who…oh! Make a steam shield, eh?”

“Aye,” said Nathariel. “Get us into that fog, and we’ll disappear. I’ll keep the ship hidden as long as I can. Vayra and I will. No one will see us leave, and they’ll think we’re still in the fog.”

“And me?” she exclaimed.

“You have a technique to learn.”

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]

“Your Starlight Palm is effective as a single burst of energy. My goal is to turn it into a beam of power. We’ll use it to stir up fog.”

Nathariel stood at the edge of the Harmony’s forecastle. They had just entered the fogbank.

He leaned over the railing and looked down, then planted his feet down with a stomp that shook the boards of the deck. Flicking his hand out, he launched a column of flame Arcara down into the water. It roared through the air like a thousand sheets of paper ripping at once. A cloud of steam boiled up, washing over one side of the ship.

He cut the blast off with a flick of his wrist.

Vayra’s eyes widened. There was no way she’d ever be able to do that with starlight. It wasn’t like fire, which just needed any sort of heat energy to draw from. Nathariel could create fire from anything. Starlight needed stars, and lots of them.

Besides, even if it had been nighttime, with a sky full of stars beaming down on the ship, she didn’t have a direct line to the stars inside the fogbank. All she had was her scarf.

“Even if I could make a beam like you did, I wouldn’t be able to maintain it for long, if at all,” she told him.

“Aye, but that’s what we’re here to work on.” He held out his spear. It was made of an amber-like substance, but she knew it was Moulded Arcara. Permanently Moulded, not like her scythe or Phasoné’s projection. “This spear has very little power on its own. It’s Lieutenant graded, meaning anyone Lieutenant above could use it in battle without the spiritual strain overwhelming them.”

“You want me to use your spear, now?”

“That’s not the point,” Nathariel said. “The strength of the weapon doesn’t matter in this case. For some of my most intensive techniques, I use it to help guide my Arcara—it helps focus my willpower, just like the Ni Mela.”

Vayra bit her lip. She recalled the fight between Nathariel and Myrrir. An image of Nathariel flashed through her mind—flinging flame Arcara off the tip of his spear.

“I don’t have a physical weapon,” Vayra said. “Only Phasoné’s scythe.”

“Yes, yes you do.” He pointed his spear down at the pistol tucked into her belt. “It’s a normal pistol, graded for even mortals, with no spiritual strain. But you can still funnel your power through it.”

Vayra pulled the flintlock pistol out of her belt. She hadn’t used it in a while, but there was still a shot loaded and powder in the pan.

“Get rid of that shot,” Nathariel instructed.

Vayra pointed the pistol over the front railing of the ship. The fog made it hard to see anything ahead of them, and the cliff stood off to the side as just a dark silhouette. She fired her pistol off at the cliff, then shook it to cool the muzzle.

As soon as she lowered her arm, footsteps pounded up the forecastle’s stairs. Bremi ran up. “Sis, and Mr. Admiral! Captain says we have about ten minutes before we’re out of the fog.”

“Can he circle around and give us more time?” Nathariel asked.

“The wind forbids it, sir,” Bremi said, dipping his head and clutching his straw hat. “You’d better be quick, sis.” He gave another short bow, then turned away and ran back to the main deck.

“Can you make enough steam on your own?” Vayra asked Nathariel.

“Not without setting the ship aflame as well.”

“Alright, then…” She held her pistol out. “We’ve gotta be quick, is what I’m hearing.”

“Just like when you used a Bracing technique,” Nathariel began, “first gather up a healthy source of starlight Arcara.”

Holding her free hand over her scarf, Vayra gathered up her seer-core—a ball of bluish-white light, made out of pure starlight. It seemed dimmer after her advancement to Third Lieutenant, and every so often, a streak of black void slipped through. The little swirling storms that let her gauge her Arcara and mana stores had drifted to the seer-core’s equator, too. Still, she turned to Nathariel. “This work?”

“It will do, yes.” He turned around. “Funnel the energy through your arm like you are unleashing a Starlight Palm, then feed it into the pistol.”

Vayra immediately swapped hands, so she could hold her pistol in her flesh-and-blood hand and the seer-core above her mechanical hand. Funnelling energy was easier with her real hand—she had been practicing enough lately to find that out.

“But this pistol isn’t starsteel,” she said. “It won’t conduct Arcara.”

Nathariel stepped up to her side and flicked the pistol’s frizzen open. “It doesn’t need to. The gunpowder ignites in the pan and sets everything in the barrel alight as well; there’s a hole between the pan and the barrel, and you should be able to send starlight Arcara through it just like you’re firing a shot.”

He spun his spear and flicked a small bar of fire out the bow of the ship. “Willpower is focussed on intent. You are still creating the blast. The intent of the pistol allows you to focus and control your willpower around it.”

She nodded, then immediately set to work. The first few attempts, she only managed to launch a normal Starlight Palm. It nearly blasted the pistol out of her grip.

On the seventh attempt, she launched a single, cohesive blast of white light out around the pistol. She sucked energy in from the seer-core. It flowed through the channels of her mechanical arm, then through her own body, leaving a slightly-burnt residue in her channels (which her enhanced body quickly cleansed) and enveloped the pistol. In a single burst, the starlight flew off the pistol and screeched away into the distance.

Already, the fog was starting to thin. More and more daylight bled through onto the forecastle.

“Think you can hold it for longer?” Nathariel asked. He kicked her ankle, forcing her to widen her stance. “Stay low and planted.”

There wasn’t much other choice. “I’ll try.”

She ran to the starboard railing, and Nathariel ran to the larboard side. “On my count,” he said. “Three…”

‘Refill your seer-core,” Phasoné reminded her.

Vayra did, then pointed her pistol down at the water.

“Two…one…now.”

She focussed a beam of starlight out of the pistol. Every muscle in her body clenched. It took all her concentration just to breathe.

‘You can do this, Vayra, Phasoné encouraged. ‘Just hold it for a little while.’

With a high-pitched whine, the beam of starlight scoured the surface of the water. It started out clothesline-thin, but Vayra forced more energy out her hand and into the beam of starlight-Arcara.

The seer-core shrank. Inside her body, Vayra burned mana to maintain the technique, and outside, she spent Arcara.

The beam grew to the width of her finger.

A cloud of steam rose out of the water and steam washed over the ship, shielding it from sight.