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Red Tide, Enchantress of the 4th Renown, The Reef, sleepless in the house of giants
Throne Gazer, Trident Master of the 4th Renown, The Reef, in consideration of his own hostility
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25 Meltzend, 61 AW
The Crown, North Continent
95 days until the next Granting
The sun hadn't yet inched back over the horizon and probably wouldn't for hours, but something in Red Tide's body told her that it was morning. Or, at least, something within her refused to expend any more effort trying to sleep.
Before disappearing to her own chamber, Mockery had given no instructions for where the oca’em should stay. So, they had chosen a vault cluttered with chests and trunks, which they were able to quickly rearrange into short barriers to at least give them some privacy from the trolkin roaming the castle. All of the boxes had already been emptied and abandoned, much to Cuda Bite's disappointment. Some enterprising trolkin must have had the bright idea to unpack the trunks to organize their contents rather than use them for storage. At least that made them easy to move around. Amongst the wood and metal, they had noticed a few clamshell chests, like the ones that Deep Dweller had hidden on the beach for them all those months ago. Red Tide ran her fingers across the smooth ridges of a clamshell and thought of how far they had come.
“Nothing inside there, Red,” Cuda Bite said. “I checked.”
“Right,” she had said, yanking her hand back and standing up.
“You good?” Cuda Bite asked.
“Tired,” she replied.
But Red Tide found that her eyes wouldn’t stay closed. It had been weeks since she last slept with a roof over her head. The feeling unsettled her. There were strange vibrations through the stone of this dead castle; the screaming, bleating, and random hollering of the trolkin echoed through the maze of clutter in such a way that Red Tide could never be sure which direction they came from. While the others slept, Red Tide toyed with pieces of coral from her pack, using [Coral Tender] to shape the rough shards into delicate circlets.
Eventually, when her body told her it was morning, and the others still slept in the mellow glow of the fire arteries, Red Tide decided to explore. Maybe she could discover something useful in the trolkin vaults, or else some bauble that would amuse Cuda Bite.
Red Tide navigated through the cavernous spaces on light feet. She'd gotten turned around the night before, so she decided to follow the cold draft that flowed toward her—either she would find her way back to the outer ring of the Crown where they'd entered, or she'd make it to the crater at the building's center and get a firsthand look at a giant's tomb. Turtle Jaw would be jealous that she saw that before him.
She hadn't gone far when she sensed movement behind her. Red Tide expected a trolkin—she had seen Blanket peeking in at them during the night. Instead, when she glanced over her shoulder, she discovered Throne Gazer following a few steps behind. He brushed dark hair out of his eyes as he drew level with her; his mane had grown unkempt and bushy while they traveled north, some of his braids popping loose. With his other hand, he clutched his trident. Throne Gazer had rarely set the weapon aside since they'd joined the trolkin.
“Following me?” Red Tide asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “None of us should be alone in this place. Especially not you.”
Red Tide's lips curled back. “I can handle myself.”
“I know.” He breathed out sharply through his nose. “Our hostess is obsessed with you. Given the opportunity, she might lock you away.”
Red Tide stopped bristling. A similar thought had crossed her mind the night before, when Mockery had showed them the troll named Feather trapped in his pit. They would be murdering that sad, monstrous behemoth later that day. After that, his enclosure would be empty.
“Nobody's putting me back in a cell,” Red Tide muttered. “Anyway, it's what you wanted coming up here, isn't it? An alliance. You suddenly give a shit if I'm the fish on the hook?”
Throne Gazer peered down his nose at her. “All goes as my mother planned it. Yes.” He paused. “Though, I do not think she suspected you would be their singular focus.”
“Jealous?”
Throne Gazer’s mouth pressed into a flat line. “By the tides, no.” He shook his head. “I doubt I would have been able to treat with them if you weren’t here. I did not expect to find them so… repulsive.”
Red Tide considered his words for a moment, then snorted. “You expected them to be nobly persecuted but reasonable. Like us.”
“The land walkers tell stories of both our peoples. Of our monstrousness and barbarity.”
“But we don't actually fucking eat each other.”
“We do not.” Throne Gazer reached out for the wall of an archway as they passed, leaving a handprint in the dust. “And we are born, not made. They choose this.”
“So all that shit's got you thinking, hey, maybe these trolkin deserve to be hunted. They’re not like us,” Red Tide said. “And that's got you feeling like you're no better than a land walker.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Throne Gazer looked straight ahead. “I have no interest in tying our fate to these people. Of aiding the Lady Mockery with whatever she intends.”
“You do a good job of hiding it,” Red Tide said, dryly. “Whatever that mad trolkin bitch truly wants, or thinks she wants, it ain’t any different from what that drooling beastlord Yodor plans for the leviathan we promised him. Problems for next year. When we’ll more than likely be dead.”
Throne Gazer sighed. “What does it mean that I find that notion comforting?”
“Means neither of us got enough sleep.”
They entered a vault filled with plates and bowls on one side and shields on the other. Off to the side with the shields, there was a single table—circular—covered with stacks of coins from the southern continent. Red Tide paused to consider the scene, then shook her head.
“They sorted everything round into one room,” she said. “Wonder if the smoke told them to do that.”
Throne Gazer veered off the central path toward the shields. He tapped on one with the butt of his trident and the front caved in from rust. Wincing, he poked at a few others.
“Useless things underwater, so I never trained with a shield,” he said. “But I have considered acquiring one before the Granting. There must be something usable in here.”
Red Tide fished around in her pouch, producing one of the coral circlets she had been working on during the night. “Here.”
She tossed him the coral and Throne Gazer turned just in time to snatch it out of the air. He let the coral dangle from his index finger. “What’s this?”
“Put it on your wrist,” Red Tide said. “Let’s see.”
Throne Gazer raised an eyebrow at her, but squeezed the coral bracelet over his hand. Months ago, he probably would’ve hesitated more. She could crush his arm with the coral now, or sever his hand. They really had come a long way.
Red Tide focused with [Coral Tender]. Throne Gazer was about twenty feet away, but she could still sense the coral around his wrist. He flinched when she coaxed the coral to expand, blooming outward into the circular shape of a shield. After his initial surprise, Throne Gazer quickly adapted, hunkering behind the shield and thrusting forward with his trident.
“Less weight,” he said. “And a handhold for my fingers.”
“Yes, boss,” Red Tide replied.
They experimented with shapes and sizes. Once they’d settled on a shield form that Throne Gazer liked, Red Tide committed it to memory. She practiced reducing the coral back to a bracelet and then expanding it again, until she sensed her Ink beginning to fade.
“I have one for everyone,” she said. “Different ideas. To suit them.”
“This is good,” Throne Gazer said, running his finger over the coarse bracelet. “I do worry…”
“What?”
“I worry we become too reliant on you.”
Red Tide scowled. “Then don’t fucking use it.”
She turned to continue on in the direction they had been going, into the cold wind that drifted through the interconnected vaults. Throne Gazer followed.
“I did not mean to give offense,” he said. “I only meant that there are limits to your Ink. If you’re using your abilities on us, that could ultimately leave you vulnerable and—”
“You’re right,” she snapped. “I’ll save my Ink for myself.”
Throne Gazer sighed. “You spent too long without a pod.”
“And you spent too long thinking you’d be in charge of one.”
“Not every contrary thought is an insult.”
“Not every asshole is stuffed with…”
Red Tide trailed off as they reached the next archway. At first, she thought they were looking at some strange sculpture of a forbidding tree. As they drew nearer, though, Red Tide realized they were faced with bones. A skeletal foot, to be precise. The heel was dusty and cracked against the floor, the toes hanging curled above Red Tide's head. Throne Gazer's palm squeaked as he tightened his grip on his trident.
“These giants,” he said, and shook his head. “Hard to imagine.”
Red Tide cocked her head. “What's hard to imagine? The bones are right there.”
“Hard to imagine them walking around,” he replied.
“Sure,” she said. “Hard to imagine anything dead walking around.”
“You have decided to be obstinate.”
Ignoring him, Red Tide edged around the foot sticking out from under the archway. From what Red Tide could see, the skeleton looked whole. The giant had died on its back, its arms sprawled out into the next room, like some enemy had surprised it as it came through the entryway. Or perhaps it just had a heart attack ambling around its empty castle.
To hear Mockery tell it, the bones throughout the north had been left as they were for centuries. The trolkin harvested them. Red Tide approached a jagged crack in the giant's shin bone where vivid blue frosswiss spilled out in overlapping ribbons. The aroma of the leaf was strong here, so close to the source. It gave off a piney scent when the trolkin smoked it that Red Tide found almost pleasant, at least compared to the other smells of the trolkin encampment. But where the frosswiss sprouted from the giant's bones, there were other, deeper odors—a tinge of decay, coppery marrow, and chalk. Red Tide did not quite understand how, but the plant smelled cold. Like a deep breath on a frigid night, simultaneously stinging and invigorating.
Without realizing she was doing it, Red Tide had reached out to a tangle of leaves. Throne Gazer gently held her arm.
“You should not,” he said.
She snatched her arm back. “Get off.”
Throne Gazer nodded further into the vault. There were trolkin watching them. One man and two women, each with clippers and satchels, delicately cutting away the frosswiss from overgrown patches on the giant’s rib cage. For a moment, Red Tide was taken aback. She hadn’t really seen the trolkin doing anything that could be considered productive.
The male trolkin was taller than the two women, but lanky in the way that some of them were, like he’d been painfully stretched but not built the muscle to match. His head was bald, shiny blue, but he’d grown a silver beard that corkscrewed down to his waist and was full enough for him to hide his hands within. The trolkin wore a robe—large enough that Red Tide could tell it was once a patchwork blanket that he’d stitched pockets into. He said something to the women and they went back to clipping frosswiss. Then, the male trolkin approached.
“Honored guests,” he said, his voice soft for one of their kind. “I was hoping we would meet soon. I am Esoteric.”
“The trolkin mage,” Throne Gazer said, flatly.
“Ah, you’ve heard of me.”
“You’re Mockery’s favorite monster,” Red Tide said.
Esoteric chuckled and dipped his angular frame in a bow. “My lady speaks most generously of you, as well,” he said, his eyes on Red Tide.
“Bet she does,” Red Tide replied.
He talked fancy for a trolkin, like he’d long ago mastered the courtly manners that Mockery liked to go on about. But Red Tide noticed a strange set to his jaw. His teeth didn’t quite fit together right. Beneath that beard, she saw a hint of a deep groove or scar. Someone had cleaved open the lower half of Esoteric’s face and not put him back together gently.
“I see you admiring the frosswiss,” Esoteric said.
“That is not what we were doing,” Throne Gazer replied.
The trolkin mage kept his eyes on Red Tide as he maneuvered his spindly fingers into one of his pockets. He produced a fat-bellied pipe into which he plucked a pair of icy leaves direct from the giant’s shin. Using his elongated thumbnail, he began to grind down the plant.
“Have you been offered a sample?” Esoteric asked.
In the weeks of chaos, it hadn’t occurred to Red Tide that none of the trolkin had bothered to share their smoke. Her brow furrowed in thought. These creatures were free with everything else—meat, shelter, treasures and trash. Even their bodies had been on offer. But frosswiss had never been shared.
“No,” Red Tide said.
Esoteric tutted. “I suspect Lady Mockery wished for your first experience to be here, in a place of relative safety,” he continued, reading Red Tide’s expression. “Under my expert supervision.”
“Thank you,” Throne Gazer said coldly. “But we think not.”
Red Tide glanced at her fellow champion. We. Now, they were a we? Perhaps, she was letting her annoyance with him get the better of her, and this was an unwise decision made strictly to spite him. But then, what was so wrong with that?
She met Esoteric’s warm, blue eyes. “Fire it up,” Red Tide said.
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