Nilsenir wasn’t expecting any visitors at his hall at such a late hour. He was about to rise from his throne and return to his private chambers for the night when the doors swung open. For a few seconds, he saw nobody. He stopped moving altogether, but he drew from his nearly endless well of mana to begin a combat-focussed cycling technique.
He stretched out his perception, sensing his surroundings and everything within the chamber. Two vats of black powder waited behind his throne, ready to be put to use. The banners overhead swayed, but he stilled them with a stomp of his foot. His strength was such that he could control a flag marked with any of his sigils. He was surrounded by weapons.
For good measure, he still drew his pistol.
The two attendants at the other end of the hall had the sense to step away from the doorway. A horse trotted up the stairs and through the open doors, and a man in a dark cloak rode atop it.
Nilsenir couldn’t sense anything about the man or the horse. Either the man was nothing, or he was really good at hiding the strength of his spirit.
There were only a few people in the galaxy who could hide their true strength from Nilsenir. He dropped to his hands and knees and bowed, pressing his forehead against the floor.
The man rode his horse across the hall until it stood right in front of Nilsenir. He dismounted, landing heavily on his black boots. Beneath his cloak, he wore a pristine military uniform—blue, of course—and a golden sash. Atop his head, he wore a tricorn hat with a plume made of nothing but magically-suspended water.
He crouched down in front of Nilsenir, but didn’t dip his head—nothing would be construed as a bow. “What a mess this has been.”
“My Lord Karmion,” Nilsenir whispered. “What is demanded from me?”
“A little more caution, and much more prudence in who you choose to serve you,” Karmion snapped. “It seems the Mediator is growing well-known in Velaydia. In time, those rumours will spread to the Elderworlds, and there is only so much I can do to suppress it. You should thank me that the papers wouldn’t even dare to print her title, really, but I don’t suppose you understand how much work I do to keep this empire together.”
“I understand, Karmion, I—”
Karmion threw his cloak off his shoulders, revealing shiny golden pauldrons and a row of military medals formed entirely out of water-infused Arcara. As soon as his cloak left his shoulders, all the gold of his attire seemed to shine brighter, and the veil lifted from his spirit.
The sheer force of flowing Arcara and quantity of mana blasted Nilsenir like a surge of wind high up in the atmosphere, though no air flowed. The strength of Karmion’s core buzzed in the back of his neck, nearly pushing him to the ground. The two attendants were thrown back against the wall, and they fell lifeless to the ground, souls evaporated.
In a deep voice, Karmion boomed, “Do not tell me you understand. I have done everything in my power to hold this galaxy together, and you will tear it to shreds if you have your way.” We walked in a circle around Nilsenir. “Dark forces lurk on our galaxy’s borders, and the nebulae seethe. The strength of the Stream wanes, and the Mediator seeks only to keep balance, hm? She’d kill me for it, she’d kill me…”
“My lord—”
“I wasn’t finished,” Karmion stomped his boot down, the force sending shivers up Nilsenir’s arms. “I gave you two years. Nearly a quarter of that time has passed. She is the only one in this galaxy who can rival my rule. She would pave the way for that Velaydian king, a mortal with no Spirit Potential, to rule. He knows nothing about power! I struggled to get where I am, climbing over thousands of other God-heirs to get where I am.” He shook his head. “You sent a Captain after her, thinking it would be enough?”
“I sent my strongest, most prized pupil.”
“You sent your son, hoping to seize glory for your family.”
“My strongest. He has been punished for his failure, and I am doing my best to make amends—every hunter and pirate in the Tarrebian knows who to look for.” Nilsenir held up a hand, begging the Ocean God to let him continue. Before Karmion could unleash his fury, Nilsenir added, “I didn’t tell them what she was, only that she uses a starlight Path.”
“Some will put the dots together.”
“Some already have,” Nilsenir countered. “But they will bring her in. So long as you stop the papers from publishing anything, and punish anyone who speaks openly about it…the galaxy will forget.”
“Indeed,” Karmion said, a satisfied smile seeping onto his face. He pulled his cloak back over his shoulders, and placed the veil back onto his spirit. “I offer this final warning: be aware of your son, Nilsenir. Do not let him grow…defiant.”
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Vayra bit open a cartridge, then poured a dribble of gunpowder into the pistol’s pan. She snapped the frizzen shut. Once she was satisfied that the powder wouldn’t spill out, she poured the rest down the pistol’s barrel and pushed a small shot down afterwards. The pistol’s tiny ram rod was just enough to push the shot and powder to the back of the pistol.
She gave it as much packing as she could, then pointed the pistol forwards.
“Decent loading speed,” Captain Pels said. “Keep your arm a little higher.”
‘And don’t drop it this time!’ Phasoné added.
Pels stepped behind her. “Now, gently, pull the trigger—it isn’t a musket, and when it snaps, it’ll feel a little awkward in your hand. Control it.”
They stood on the Harmony’s forecastle. They had set an empty rum bottle on the railing as a target, but no one expected her to hit it. The pistol was smoothbore, and the best she could do was point in the direction she wanted and shoot. Still, she aimed at the bottle as best as she could.
She slid her finger onto the trigger and gave it a soft tug. Smoke puffed out of the pan, then a moment later, a shot blasted out the barrel with a fang of smoke and fire. It whipped off into the void, racing through the cocoon of Stream water around the ship and splashing into the iridescent water some great distance away.
The pistol snapped back against the palm of her hand, but she clutched it tight. The impact still stung, but the pistol didn’t fall out of her hand.
She’d held and fired muskets before, but the pistol was a little different. It was much harder to control.
She shook it, letting the smoke clear from the barrel and letting it cool off.
“Good,” Pels said. “Now, if you let your wrist be loose like that, you’re going to have worse luck aiming.” He crossed his arms and walked back to the rum bottle, still perfectly intact. “Stand on the other side of the forecastle. Keep shooting until you get lucky and shatter the bottle, and I’ll let you keep the pistol. We’ve got plenty of shots and powder.”
For the rest of the day, she practiced loading and firing as fast as she could. About halfway through the day, Glade and Bremi arrived to check on her. Glade, however, had his own training to attend to, and he didn’t stay long—while they were on the ship, he had explained, there was no way Vayra would be in danger.
Halfway through the afternoon, one of her shots grazed the neck of the rum bottle, shattering it. It wasn’t a clean hit, but the bottle tumbled over the railing and careened into space.
“I’ll count it,” Pels said, holding a minuteglass in his hands. “We’ll keep practicing until you can fire three times in a minute—just like a proper Redmarine.”
Her face dropped, and she sighed. Her stomach was starting to grumble, and her hands ached from holding and firing the pistol. On Phasoné’s recommendation, she had practiced firing with either hand, and both were sore now. But if she wanted to wield the scythe and use a pistol, she’d need to be competent firing with both hands.
“But not today,” Pels told her. He smiled. “Go get some food and relax. You did well.”
She chuckled. “You seemed to enjoy that…”
“Just a little, yep.” He tipped his hat, then set off towards the stern of the ship. “Now, I’m off to pester Glade and make him eat, too. Don’t get into too much trouble.”
Vayra headed first to the galley, where the cook had prepared dinner. He’d boiled pucks of hardtack to make them pliable, then fried them in grease to make them pleasantly crispy—a rare delicacy to celebrate the first day of a voyage. Strips of bacon accompanied the meal.
Vayra brought her food down to the cargo hold where, in the middle of the barrels and supply crates, the crew had set up a makeshift common room. The Harmony was a small ship, without a wardroom or common space, so the officers and crew gathered together where they could. It was a small valley in the midst of the cargo, lit only by swaying lanterns. Off-duty sailors filled every crevice.
Mr. Kertogg and Mr. Tressdott stood at the edge of the common room, faces appalled. The sailors tossed hexagonal playing cards down in a stack, laughing and jeering and (occasionally) gambling rum rations.
Vayra stepped between the marines and whispered, “Pels didn’t have any problem with them gambling, especially if it made them closer with the officers.”
“How can the navy tolerate this?” Kertogg exclaimed. “We should report—”
“It does look fun, though.” Tressdott’s beard shook, and he leaned closer, examining the game.
“Not you too! Dwarves wouldn’t know proper fun if it collapsed their mine around them…”
“Have you played, Mediator?” Tressdott asked.
“No, but I’ve watched,” she said, then took a bite of her meal. She hadn’t fully grasped the rules of the game yet, and she didn’t need to make a fool out of herself. As she ate, she navigated around the dwarven marine and leaned against a stack of barrels.
The ship’s cat watched the commotion from on top of the stack of barrels. Vayra glanced up at it for a second, then ripped off a chunk of bacon and placed it in the palm of her hand. Reaching up, she held the meat out to the cat.
After a few seconds, she figured the cat wouldn’t do anything. But as soon as she was about to pull her hand away, she felt a rough tongue scratching against the palm of her hand. When she looked up, the cat had snatched the bacon up.
“Good kitty,” Vayra whispered. Hesitantly, she reached a little higher and scratched under its chin. Its fur was soft and clean, and it purred.
“Making friends with Orlas, are you?”
Vayra turned her head towards the voice—she spotted a sailor whose name she didn’t know. The boy stood at the edge of the common area, watching the game. He was about as old as Bremi, though he was broader in the shoulders and had plain blonde hair.
“Orlas, the cat,” the sailor said. “She’s our ship’s cat. Best mouse-hunter in the galaxy. At least, that’s what your brother says.” The boy lowered his voice to a whisper and added, “We work on the same watch, him and me.”
“Should…should I stop feeding her?” Vayra asked. They didn’t need a mouse infestation because she taught their cat not to hunt.
“Well, I figure she could use all the food she can get,” said the sailor. “She’s gonna have a litter, on account of that tortoiseshell cat on Ramesworld, and she hasn’t been hunting as much.”
“She’s going to have kittens?” Vayra tried not to smile, but the thought of a litter of kittens running around the ship was hard to resist.
“Looks like it. Unless you’ve been stuffing her belly so full that it’s started to swell.”
“First time I’ve managed to get close to her.”
Before the sailor could respond, someone beckoned him over. Vayra spent the rest of the evening watching the card game and occasionally petting Orlas, before she decided to head off to bed for the evening. There would be plenty more to do tomorrow—and every day after, until they arrived at their destination.