Myrrir was sailing on a branch of the Stream, heading past the galactic core, when a small sloop appeared behind them, its lanterns flashing and signal flags flapping. It took them a few minutes of sailing to realize that the ship wanted him to stop.
He ordered the crew of the Hyovao to raise the sails and pull the Streamrunning fins out of the water. There was nothing more they could do except drift, and eventually, slow down enough that the other ship could latch on without tearing the both of them to pieces.
He wasn’t sure what to expect. Its flag wasn’t a pirate flag; it was brown with a crest on it that he couldn’t make out from a distance.
“Keep alert,” he told Tye as the small sloop drifted up beside them. The vessel only had three cannons on each side, and a single deck. Its mast was crammed with as many sails as possible, though they were all folded currently. They could be pirates, but surely, they wouldn’t be willing or able to take on the crew of the Hyovao. Myrrir wouldn’t let them set a single foot on his ship.
The sloop’s crew ran a gangplank across from their deck to the Hyovao’s bulwark. Clearly, someone wanted to talk.
Myrrir ran down to the main deck, his hand on the hilt of his sword. His flask of gunpowder bounced at his hip, ready to use, and he cycled his Arcara as quickly as he could, preparing for trouble.
He stepped up onto the gangplank. The crew of the sloop, a host of dirty mothfolk in mismatched uniforms, all stepped back.
Mothfolk. He snorted, and he had a suspicion who the ship belonged to. He looked up at the flag flying on the mast. Now, much closer, he could see the crest of the Victra Family—a golden spool of silk.
The other side of the gangplank shuddered. Wren jumped down from the mast, landing on the gangplank in a crouch.
Myrrir knew the bounty hunter didn’t have the Mediator; there was no way someone like her would have succeeded. But he feigned ignorance. “Did you complete your task already? I’ll need to see the Mediator before I give you the rest of the gold.”
“You got my fish?” Wren asked. She stood up, her wings folding behind like a cape. Once they were neatly tucked, she dropped down again and sat cross-legged on the gangplank.
Myrrir nodded. “I received the message, correct.”
“And you left Larin VI. Unreliable and unappreciative as ever, I see.”
“You…know me?”
Wren huffed, then crossed her arms. “I encountered you on Mascant a few times, maybe six or seven years ago. You were on the brink of Captain, at the peak of First Lieutenant, and completely unappreciative of all the progress you had made.”
“I don’t recall you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“What do you want, then?” Myrrir stepped closer. “More time? I didn’t impose a limit.” To be certain, he let his Arcara flow in a fast cycling pattern while he was close to her, just so she would sense his full spirit. Perhaps, depending on how weak she was, it might weigh her down.
Wren didn’t flinch. “No need to exert pressure,” she said, raising her hands. “I’m at Third Lieutenant, flat.”
Myrrir nodded. She wasn’t cycling, but he could sense the strength of an elixir swirling in her veins somewhere. She’d…had one recently, at least. The Victra Family would’ve had the funds for the best.
“I want to know why you thought that sending me after the Mediator—your prize—was a good idea,” she said. Was that earnest honesty blazing in her eyes and voice, or was she just really bad at hiding her curiosity? “If I had caught her, I’d just have brought her to Karmion. Straight to him.”
“Perhaps I had trusted you to honour your word.”
She let out an exaggerated laugh. “No, no, Captain Myrrir. In the Tarrebian? No one would keep their word unless they swore on their soul, and besides, half of those drunkards don’t even believe in God-heirs. I know you wouldn’t trust them.”
Myrrir folded his hands behind his back, unwilling to rise to the challenge.
“I suspect you didn’t think that I’d be capable of it in the first place,” Wren said. “Which I have to say, makes me wonder about your plan, especially when you were already leaving Larin VI after you received my fish.”
“So you want me to tell you my plan?” Myrrir had to admit that he was confused by her earnesty.
“I came here to tell you that I’d keep pursuing the Mediator, and that I would catch her.”
“After admitting you planned to bring her straight to Karmion, and not to me.”
After a short pause, Wren nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. But I also came to tell you that she was heading southwest, away from Thronehome. Seems like she uncovered something in the Order of Balance Temple library.”
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“Why tell me this?” he inquired.
“Make it a competition, let’s say,” Wren said. “You don’t think much of me, and I’ll prove that I, not a God-heir, can do just as much as one.”
Myrrir sighed. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“I want it to be.” Wren hopped to her feet and turned around. “I work better when I feel slighted. Spite is the best elixir in the galaxy.” She hopped off the gangway and signalled for her crew to haul the gangplank away. “Good luck, Myrrir!”
After a few seconds, the sloop’s crew raised the wooden board. A few more, they lowered their Streamrunning fins and took off down the enormous river.
Myrrir marched back to the quarterdeck, where he met with his officers and Tye. “We’re on a schedule, now. Someone wants to race us to the Mediator.”
“One of Hammontor’s relatives, coming to claim revenge on you?” Tye asked.
“Very unlikely that she had anything to do with Hammontor,” Myrrir commented. If Wren had ever met Hammontor, she would have disliked the other man more.
Myrrir tried to recall Wren from Mascant, but he had been to the galactic capital multiple times, and these days, the visits rarely made an impression on him. It was impossible to have a first visit to Mascant ever again.
“A discontented young God-heir looking to make a name for herself,” Myrrir muttered to Tye.
“Is it possible that she truly isn’t a God-heir?” Tye walked to the railing and leaned over it, and Myrrir joined him. They watched the sloop fade off into the distance. “The Victra Family’s silk production has made them incredibly wealthy. Perhaps they were able to afford enough treasures and elixirs and pills and whatever other augmentations your type consume…to raise her otherwise impotent spirit to greater levels.”
“It’s possible,” Myrrir acknowledged. “But I find it more likely that she’s just a bastard child.”
After a brief bout of silence, Myrrir turned back to the rest of the quarterdeck and said, “Set sail. We know the Mediator was heading in this direction. The closer we are, the more clues we’ll find. Karmion once regarded the God-heirs on the Path of the Blaakflag as the best manhunters in the galaxy. Let’s live up to our reputation.”
“Yes, sir!” the officers and sailors called. Tye shouted orders at them, as did a few of the officers under him. The sails climbed back up their masts and the Streamrunning fins dropped back into the water.
The Hyovao set off. Myrrir was just about to climb back to the afterdeck, to cycle his Arcara in the falling wake of the ship, with a near-unlimited supply of mana, when he felt a surge of power in his core. It was bursting at the seams, full of purified mana and itching to grow.
“Myrrir…” Tye said softly. “Are you alright?”
“I’m…I’m…” Myrrir clenched his teeth, but it was like trying to hold back a streamrunner with his bare hands. “...advancing.”
Myrrir was about to run up the stairs to the afterdeck—to climb from Captain to Commodore would take more mana than he had available—but he doubted the spray of the wake would be enough. He turned and ran to the forecastle, where more Stream water spilled over the front railing.
The iridescent water was bursting with mana. He needed it all.
He sat down on the front deck of the ship, leaning against the railing. The advancement might take a while, but there was no better time. As if he had a choice.
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Wren ran to the front of her ship. The little sloop, the Wormspinner, had been a gift from her father, who had given it to her as a yacht. He didn’t have to know that she had long since replaced the soft, civilian crew with ex-pirates and hardened mothfolk sailors looking for a little extra pay. There were plenty of mothfolk to go around, after all.
She basked in the Stream water, and though her spirit still tried to resist her, she cycled it as much as she could. She would need as much Arcara as she could get if she wanted to truly collect the bounty on the Mediator.
After spending an extended stint in the library at the Order Temple? And heading this direction. The Mediator was looking for a teacher.
“Oh, Nathariel…” Wren muttered. “You wouldn’t take her in, would you? I sure hope not…”
With a heavy sigh, she reached into her satchel, and produced a small book. For Vallor’s Descendants, it said on the cover. She flipped it to the inside cover, where the words Path of Splinters were written. Below it, on the bottom edge of the page, the parchment was charred in a distinct, star-shaped, rippling pattern. Like folded steel, except instead of steel, the ridges were made of burn and char.
She growled, then snapped the book shut. “If I wasn’t good enough for you, then neither is the Mediator.”
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Bremi walked with Lieutenant Tikks around the main deck of the Harmony. Tikks pointed out duties of the seamen, who were varnishing the railings and polishing the ship’s gold filigree decorations.
“We wouldn’t have built a ship this ornate nowadays,” Tikks said, stepping around a pair of sailors who worked to coil up a rope. “But since we have a beauty like her, we’d best take care of her.”
“I thought the Harmony was blessed by Vallor himself,” Bremi said. “God of Ships and all that.”
“Well, more accurately, the God of wooden ships,” Tikks clarified. “Varnish isn’t wood, and neither are the cannons.” When they reached the forecastle, he stopped and looked back across the deck. “We used to only take midshipmen who were already seamen for a few years. But given your relationship with the Mediator and our need for somewhat respected officers, they put you in. But that doesn’t mean you have a free ride.”
“It’s an apprenticeship position, now, if I understand correctly,” Bremi replied, trying to show the lieutenant his knowledge. “And all the midshipmen do it.”
“Precisely,” said Tikks. “Give it three years, and you can take the lieutenant’s examination. A few promotions after that, and you can captain your own ship.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Now, Captain Pels entrusted us with the job of getting the ship ready for proper combat while we waited for him to get back. We still have some sorting to do in the cargo hold, and I think they’ll need our help arranging the gun carriages below deck. What do you say—up for a little more work?”
“Always, sir.”