Vayra went about the rest of the day as best as she could, trying to pretend that everything was normal and that she’d accepted her fate—to train under Nathariel.
When evening came, she ate dinner with Glade and Nathariel. Her stomach still churned, and she felt an odd anticipation in her chest. Every second, she figured something might snap, and she would have to run.
Nothing bad happened, not through dinner nor while everyone was trying to fall asleep. She stayed wide awake, and she figured there was no use pretending she had fallen asleep. It wasn’t as though she’d slept well the previous nights, so it would probably be more absurd if she did pretend to sleep.
Besides, Nathariel would probably sense her pretending, too. She needed to wait until he was asleep.
‘Vayra, you need to stop,’ Phasoné tried.
The Goddess had been trying all day, and Vayra had started to tune her out as best as she could.
‘And I can feel you thinking that, too! But you’re not doing a very good job at tuning me out; I know you’re hearing what I’m saying.’
Vayra didn’t react. She had to look like she was sleeping.
After a few hours, when she couldn’t hear Nathariel shifting, and she could hear Glade snoring, she slipped out of her hammock. She hadn’t truly tested Nathariel’s senses, but she doubted he would be too in-tune with his surroundings while he was sleeping.
She stepped to the door, making sure to keep every step and every footfall as soft as possible. When she reached the door, she placed her hand on the handle and pushed. The hinges creaked, and she winced. Her toe went numb for a second, and she stumbled forwards, but she used the door to catch herself. No one woke up.
Losing control of her limbs? Phasoné was trying to push in again.
As soon as Vayra was outside, she sprinted down to the river. “Phasoné, please be with me on this one,” she whispered. “I’ll need your help. Please.”
‘I don’t want you to die,’ Phasoné asserted.
“You don’t want to die with me, that’s it?” If the Goddess was truly afraid, then all she needed to do was say so. Vayra wouldn’t hold it against her—that was natural. But to let it stand in the way of helping her friends?
‘Maybe you can do this without getting caught. But there’s a risk, and…I don’t want you to get hurt.’ Phasoné sighed, which sounded like a whistling wind inside Vayra’s head. ‘I don’t want you to change, Vayra.’
“Then take over and stop me.”
‘I’ve been trying.’
All throughout the evening, there had been a few instances of a numbness-like tingle rolling through her fingers.
‘You’re too strong now,’ Phasoné continued, ‘We need to work together.’
Vayra looked down at the river. There were no stars out, only a cloud of ash above. A bolt of lightning shot through it, however, illuminating the water for a moment.
‘Vayra, I care about you. I want you to succeed. I want us to succeed. And I don’t want you to get hurt. Please.’
“I won’t. Phas, I promise. We’ll get in there, we’ll help, and we’ll get right back out.” Vayra clapped her hands back and forth, like she was wiping dust off them. “Done and dusted, really quick.”
The Goddess inhaled slowly, then groaned, ‘Alright, fine. Fine.’
Vayra glanced back at the hovel, then at the horses. She contemplated stealing one for a moment, but she doubted she could go overland like Nathariel could. She wasn’t a God-heir who could sense volcanoes—and probably stop them with a flick of her hand.
Her best bet was back through the Chambers.
She patted her haversack and her satchel, and she made sure her pistol was loaded. As soon as she was satisfied, she jogged down the shore of the river, trying to put as much distance as she could between the hovel and herself as she could.
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This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Bremi woke up in a cold stone cell. Part of him wanted to say he had just woken up in it, and to forget everything that had led to it, but he couldn’t. They had been ripped from the cargo hold of the Harmony, dragged onto a wagon, hauled inland with the rest of the crew…
He pushed himself up to his feet and walked over to the corner. He didn’t exactly know where here was. Some sort of mining facility, as best as he could glimpse it, on the shore of a lava river. The cell was made of stone, and the front wall, the one with a door, was entirely a metal lattice. He could see out into a hallway, lined with about ten more of the cells.
Each, like this one, was stuffed with people from the Harmony’s crew. Sailors, officers, everyone.
Bremi recognized a few officers in his cell. Lieutenant Tikks, and a few of the Carpenter’s Mates—who he was equal in rank to, by the book, but they were older and had much more experience.
He knew there was only one reason Myrrir had captured them. They were bait.
It had already been a few days, and most of the crew had given up on the prospect of escape. But that meant putting the Mediator at risk, and thus, the whole galaxy. Bremi knew his sister; she was coming, whether she’d promised him otherwise or not.
Bremi slipped through the sailors and officers in his cell, and put his hands on the lattice wall of their cell. These rooms hadn’t been built to hold prisoners. It was a mining facility—these were storage chambers for equipment. But Myrrir had struck some sort of deal with the operators of the facility, and he didn’t know what it was.
He wrapped his fingers around the lattice and leaned as far forward as he could, then whispered, “Captain! Captain Pels!”
Over the past few days that they’d been trapped, everyone had been calling for their captain, uttering one thing or the other. Most begged him for a plan, and he had clearly done his best to reassure them, but in a predicament like this, there was little to be reassured of.
But Bremi had a plan. “Captain!” he hissed again, looking up and down the hallway for guards. Myrrir’s pirates patrolled, but not often. It was more common to see an employee of the facility rushing past, head low, trying to avoid the gaze of the prisoners.
“What is it?” Pels whispered back from a different cell, his voice calm and soothing. If it was a show, he was doing a good job at convincing everyone that it was all under control.
“I have an idea,” Bremi said. “We—”
He cut himself off as soon as he heard a clatter from down the hall. A door swung open. A pirate guard marched down the hallway, grumbling to himself. Bremi thought the oceanfolk man said something about Myrrir, though he couldn’t say for certain.
As soon as the guard reached the end of the hall and passed through another door, Bremi said, “We just need the keys.”
“ ‘Course we do, boy,” Pels replied.
“The workers also have keys.” Bremi had been watching closely the last few days. For as long as he had been paying attention, he noticed that some of the higher-ranking workers carried keys—after all, these cells had been used to store expensive mining equipment before they’d been repurposed.
“And the workers are with Myrrir.”
“It’s not like they have much choice if they’ve gotta deal with a God-heir.” Bremi narrowed his eyes. He needed to wait for some more evidence to pass by, then.
After a few hours, another worker walked down the hall. He was a human, his skin caked in ash and soot so dark that Bremi couldn’t make out where his head began and where his clothes ended.
The only reason Bremi knew he was a worker was because of his brassy epaulet with a sigil that looked like a fishing net. A few streaks ran across it, like he had tried to smear the ash off. He walked with his head down, so his dreadlocks and tricorn hat nearly fell in front of his face. He stepped slowly, every footfall a sigh, and even though he must have been high-ranking in the facility—he had a ring of keys hanging from his belt—he didn’t look like he was enjoying himself.
Resistances didn’t form on happy planets, Bremi knew that much. He figured he could exploit that.
“Excuse me, sir?” Bremi said, pushing to the front of the cell, again. He took off his midshipman’s coat and tossed it to the back of the cell, then snatched up a tattered straw hat from a seaman to make his disguise more complete. A bedraggled young seaman was more piteous than an officer. “Sir?”
The worker took one more step, then came to a halt. With one more exaggerated sigh, he turned to face Bremi. “What?”
“We were just wondering…what do you think’s gonna happen to you, sir, when Myrrir is done with this place?”
The worker scoffed. “Stuff it.”
Bremi shrugged. “Myrrir might battle the Mediator here and tear the place up, or rip it to the ground. What’ll you do for work then?”
The worker began to walk away again, shaking his head.
“If you let us go, the Mediator won’t come here…you’ll still have a place to work…”
“You’d best shut it if you know what’s good for you, boy,” said the worker. “Mediator’s been gone for a lifetime, and one ain’t comin’ back just because you hope real hard.”
“I know her,” Bremi said. “She’s alive, she’s bonded with a Goddess, and she’s coming.”
“Sounds like a rogue God-heir to me.”
“And what God-heir would use starlight?”
The worker stopped, but still, he shook his head and said, “I dunno the ins and outs of the Starlight Goddess’ crotch, and I don’t much want to.” Still, Bremi sensed a touch of hesitation in the man’s voice. He could work with that.
“If you let us go, what happens?” Bremi pestered. “Myrrir doesn’t have to know it was you.”
“He’ll kill us all if he finds out. Pop our heads full of gunpowder or just have us hanged.”
“But he won’t find out.”
The man said nothing, but he didn’t walk away, either.
“What happens if Myrrir does capture the Mediator again?” Bremi asked. “You’re afraid of the God-heirs? When there’s no one left to fight them, what’ll you do then?”
“I’ll keep my head down and shut up.” The worker stared at Bremi for a moment, then glanced up and down the hallway. As far as Bremi could see, there was no-one around, and the worker must have decided the same. He turned his hip towards the cell—his belt and keyring along with it—then looked Bremi in the eyes and nodded. “I want to make a living, kid…and keep my life. And you should too. Stay quiet. Get out of here, and forget you ever heard the word Mediator. She ain’t coming back.”
Bremi plucked the keyring from the man’s hip and delivered an innocent smile.