Vayra fell against the railing, panting. “For the record, Phas, that was not my definition of ‘a little while’.”
It had been much, much longer. She was drenched in sweat on the outside, but inside, she was parched. Dark specks whirled in front of her eyes, both from exhaustion and dehydration. Her mana was nearly all out, and she had spent two entire cores worth of Arcara.
“Held it for five minutes,” Nathariel said, looming overtop of her. “Not bad for a second try.”
“It felt like an hour…”
They had made it into an inlet and sailed into a canyon of smooth stone. The irrigation corridor was still wide enough for four galleons to fit across it, but with the steep walls of stone, no one would see them—and because of the steam, no one had seen where they slipped off to.
Now, they had a head start inland, and that was the best they could ask for.
To rest and recover, Vayra climbed up to the top of the mainmast and sat up on the highest platform—which, as Phasoné made sure to explain, wasn’t the best choice when tired. Vayra barely made it up the ratlines, but she did it anyway.
The view was worth it, though. Wind blew directly down the irrigation streams, pushing the Harmony from behind, but it also made the unkempt fields ripple. Stalks of golden wheat swayed, and a distant band of orange-leafed trees rustled.
An unusually strong gust blew across the fields. It pushed the wheat completely flat, revealing the wrecks of hundreds of wagons and tills scattered around the fields.
“What happened here?” Vayra whispered to Phasoné. They weren’t the only ones on the upper platform; there were also sailors and lookouts and sailmakers. She sat on the very corner of the platform, out of the way, but she didn’t want to distract them at all.
‘When Talock disappeared and Karmion took over, I figure most of the farmhands got out of here as quickly as they could,’ Phasoné explained. ‘No sense in looking like an ally to the only person who could rival Karmion’s rule.’
“They didn’t loot it?”
‘Why would they? Most of them were mortals. Besides, within a few days, Karmion had the planet locked down. I…I wasn’t even allowed to visit it until now.’
They sailed down the river until noon. Unlike most rivers, though, it flowed inland, carrying the Stream-water-fresh-water mixture along with it. Tubers ran up and down the cliff face, sucking water up to the fields. When Vayra viewed them with her spiritual sight, they began to glow. They were filtering out the fresh water through a series of fibrous locks, allowing only the wisps of spirit water leftover from the Stream to pass.
At noon, they reached the band of forest. Trees hung over the irrigation channel, criss-crossing overhead. Branches brushed against the top of the mast, and orange leaves fell like snow. It would have been perfect had the wind not carried a vague whiff of rot in it.
An hour into the forest, they reached a branch in the irrigation river. Vayra climbed down to the main deck and ran back to the map table, so Phasoné could give instructions on where to head next.
They took the channel that led due north. According to Phasoné, if they kept heading northward, they would reach one of the planet’s largest greenhouses—an experimental facility for devising new elixirs.
“You might even find some runestones to socket in your arm,” Phasoné said. She had appeared in her full form again. “Our arm, I suppose…” She tapped the planetary map with a ghostly white finger. “But yes, keep heading north whenever you can.”
For the rest of the day, Vayra practiced meditating and cycling, trying to replenish her Arcara.
“The Lieutenant stages are partially about pure Arcara accumulation,” Nathariel had explained, “but also about core strength. Regardless of the advancement process, you will need a strong baseline of Arcara. It takes God-heirs decades, and sometimes even centuries to get through these stages. The Mediator’s natural affinity for absorbing mana and purifying it allows them to progress through in a year or two. You need to do it in months. For now, keep using the Burnished Flame Loop—it’s your fastest purification technique.”
They left the forest by evening, but the surrounding cliffs had risen, and now, they were higher than the ship’s main mast. The river was going down, and the cliffs were going up.
The next morning, Vayra joined an expedition out onto the surface of the planet. They threw grapples over to the cliff’s edge and climbed over—her, Glade, Nathariel, the Order Adepts, and a party of Redmarines.
At a brisk walk, they could keep up with the Harmony. This new swath of fields was almost perfectly level, and any fieldstones had long since been plucked out. Vayra ran her hand through the wheat stalks as they scouted around the vessel, scooping the grains off the top of the stalks. They glowed in her spiritual sight, and when she held them, they buzzed with spiritual energy. When she ate them, they filled her stomach with lightning.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But that meant they were working. They contained almost-purified Arcara. All that remained was to integrate it into her spirit, and a little bit of cycling did that.
She instructed the rest of the Adepts and Glade to do the same—there was no reason for them to not take advantage of the opportunity, especially when their weak spirits made it hard for them to accumulate Arcara like she could.
At noon, a band of darkness appeared on the horizon. First, Vayra assumed it was another forest, but as they got closer, she realized that it was a bluff running across the entirety of the continent. It rose a few hundred feet in the air.
Her heart dropped the closer they got to it. Were they going to have to leave the ship behind?
‘There should be a lock,’ Phasoné said.
Vayra tilted her head. “A lock? Like…a padlock? We have to—”
‘A water lock, for raising and lowering ships. You’ll see.’
When they reached the bluff, it was mid-afternoon, and the sun bore down directly on them, making everything feel a lot warmer. Vayra sheltered in the shade of the rock shelf, trying to determine what would happen to the ship.
The Harmony sailed all the way into a cove in the cliff wall. The river flowed into it for a few more ship-lengths, then ended abruptly at a white-sand beach. Vayra paced back and forth, looking for a route to keep travelling, but there was nothing. A pair of doors even guarded the cove entrance, plastered with lines of runes as if to say ‘don’t enter here, it’s a dead end.’ They shouldn’t have been left open.
‘Vayra, look up,’ Phasoné instructed.
At the top of the cliff, another set of doors waited. They didn’t reach all the way down like the first set did, and the runes engraved in them glowed bright blue. Enormous pitcher plants perched at the edge of the upper cove walls, their heads tilting precariously over the cove below.
“Ohh…” Vayra breathed. “It fills up with water, raising the ship, and we can make it into the higher river…”
‘You got it,’ Phasoné said. ‘However, those pitcher plants, a breed specifically cultivated by Talock, only pour at twilight.’
So they had to wait a few more hours until the sun set. “So much for our head start…”
“It does not look like anyone has followed us,” said Glade, stepping up behind her. “We still have time, and if we can fit through the lock alone, then anyone sailing down this channel behind us will have to wait another day before they can pass.”
There wasn’t anything else to do around the ship—they had already had a day of sailing in a straight line to make sure everything was in good order. When Vayra made it back down to the deck of the ship, Pels was already dismissing the sailors. If they wanted, they could go ashore—but they had to be back by twilight.
“That includes you two,” Nathariel said, pointing at both Vayra and Glade. “The Adepts are already keeping watch, and I have my senses extended as far as they go. If anyone sneaks up on us, we’ll know.”
“I should…cycle Arcara, or something…” Vayra said. She was about to climb down the edge of the ship and swim to the shore for a bout of peaceful, quiet meditation, but Nathariel put a hand out in front of her.
“I’m sure Phasoné will agree: you cannot spend your entire life working on advancement,” he said. “You’ve been doing that for the past few months…”
“And I’ve got power to show for it…” she said. “I promised my brother I’d do my duty as Mediator…”
And this war had to end, before more beautiful places like this got ruined.
‘That may be,’ Phasoné said inside Vayra’s head. ‘But, if you constantly push yourself past the brink, you’ll just end up tiring yourself out and being less effective. Breaks are important. It’ll be better for you in the long run.’
“What are you two suggesting?” Vayra asked.
Glade pointed at himself. “Me?”
“Nathariel and Phas,” she said. “Sorry. She was talking inside my head…”
“Take a break,” Nathariel instructed. “Relax. This may be the last time you’ll ever have for the next few years where you’re not working, so make the most of it. Just maintain your cycling pattern—I hope it’s become second-nature.”
She was about to open her mouth to protest, but she shut it again. They made a compelling argument, and if there wasn’t anything better to do…
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]
Vayra stood on the sandy shore at the back of the cove, hands on her hips.
Relax.
How did that work, again?
Phasoné groaned inside her head. ‘Oh, come on…you’ve never been to a beach before?’
“Well…no.” Vayra dropped down on the sand cross-legged, letting the waves lap up against her boots. “There were shores on Tavelle, and to the south, apparently there were some nice beaches—in the summer, of course—but Bremi and I never visited. Too busy scrounging for food and running for our lives, and all that…”
Apparently, there were entire resort planets, with giant palm trees and beaches that stretched as far as the eye could see, but Decathe, her homeworld, was hardly that.
‘It looks like your brother has figured it out,’ Phasoné said.
Further down the beach, Bremi and the other midshipmen and young seamen splashed in the water. They’d taken their boots off, as well as their coats and tunics, and a few of them were even swimming around.
“I’m not my brother…” Vayra whispered. “I’ve…got a little bit more on my plate than him. But I’ll try. I, uh…”
‘Well, then come on. Meet me in the void, and we’ll get you ready.’
“In the void?”
‘We’ve got a few preparations to make. You can’t go swimming like this, now, can you? I’ve been to some of the fanciest, most prestigious resort worlds in the galaxy—if anyone can help you get ready, it’s me!’
Vayra sighed. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”
‘That’s the spirit!’
She shut her eyes and pulled herself into the void.