I missed Phaeliisthia flying us places. I’d even take the frigid cold of our first flight with Sire over the monotony of this particular journey.
Ea’Ssyri Thelia stayed with us in the carriage, performing complex sigilcraft workings every few hours or so. At first she’d told us to keep the shutters closed.
That lasted all of the first day, then she’d shown Kyrae and Ssiina how to create a spell that would prevent anyone without countermeasures—whatever those were—from seeing anything other than an indistinct, shadowy blur.
I could do that without even trying! But I was smart enough not to volunteer my powers in front of the Jii’Ssyri’s second. At least that meant we could look out the windows!
At the jungle. And more jungle.
The sea breeze was long gone too, leaving just a dense, moist, pleasant sort of heat that Kyrae nevertheless complained about. Truthfully, it’d be better in the open under the sun, but there wasn’t a lot of that save the thin, bright ribbon where the canopy above had been cut.
The road, muddy in places and cobbled in others, wasn’t like any way I’d traveled before. Boats were nice and even and didn’t jostle or bounce, just pleasantly rolled to the heartbeat of the water under them. Streets in cities could get plenty muddy if they weren’t paved with stones, but you never really felt the bumps the same slithering around.
Worse, space was at a premium, and from Ssiina’s pained hissing every time we hit a bump, I knew I wasn’t the only one suffering having to coil up so tightly for so long. At least the Ea’Ssyri is an elf and doesn’t take up much space.
I only got to stretch at night, when we were briefly allowed out to relieve ourselves and for the siilaks to eat. I didn’t know how we were getting fresh meat, or the dried meat the rest of us were eating. I didn’t know how the coachwoman kept going through the nights.
What I did know, however, was that the road was getting busier. We started passing towns again, though never cities. Jungle gave way to damp valleys and marshland set up with rice paddies and terrace farms. For the first day, it was beautiful.
Then I got tired of seeing that, too. Even the big hills to the north, their rounded peaks far too low for snow, just went on and on. The road became crowded to the point we had to slow our pace, and the coachwoman took us around through rutted sideroads so narrow we’d scrape on levies and bushes.
We spent two days like that, even darting up into the hills. Never, however, did we take a wrong turn. Whatever Ea’Ssyri Thelia or the coachwoman or the siilak pulling us along were doing to navigate got us through with minimal difficulty.
And maximum discomfort. I felt like my lower body was going to rattle itself apart. I probably had a dozen bruised ribs and some kinks that’d take days and a long soak in good sunlight to fix.
Still, we didn’t get stuck. Soon enough and without incident, we were back in the jungle, on what had to be the main road.
All the while, through my many, many aches and pains, I worried about Sire. Conversation had run out long ago, and we rode in relative silence save for the endless sound of wooden wheels on whatever surface the road was made of.
I didn’t keep track of the days, but Kyrae said we’d been traveling for two weeks when the Ea’Ssyri deigned to inform us of the next leg of our journey at some time in the middle of the night when we were all mostly awake.
“We will be switching to an aazh’kaa tonight,” she tried to stifle a yawn with her hand, but failed.
“Thank Jaezotl,” I muttered, voice raspy from disuse.
Ea’Ssyri Thelia shot me a tired glare. Instead of a response, I caught her yawn, jaw popping and fangs clicking.
“Where are we?” Ssiina asked, shifting her lower body with a wince. She at least covered her yawn, and the glare I was getting told me Ea’Ssyri Thelia was none too pleased I hadn’t. Tough luck.
“North bank of the Hssyri upriver of Iitya’iin, right?” Kyrae guessed, she swallowed her own yawn—but barely. “Or are we near a tributary?”
The Ea’Ssyri grew a faint smile and sat up a little. She and Kyrae had developed a bit of a rapport in the rare moments when conversation had actually gotten going. Usually to complain that their tiny sore butts were equivalent in magnitude to an entire lower body going half numb from stiffness.
Just like Aunt Ssyii, Thelia without her title was a person like any other. An uptight, judgmental person I didn’t particularly care to get closer to, but a person. At least she was suffering too.
So I was only a little surprised when she gave us a candid answer.
“We’re just north of Kya’iin, a moderately-sized fishing village. We’ll be embarking from a tributary, then joining the main channel along with the vessels heading out to fish in the morning. From there, we will turn upriver until Qirjaa’iin, where we will disembark and be picked up by a carriage from Hesuzhaa Jii’ssiisseniir.”
Kyrae beamed, but the bags under her eyes ruined the effect. “I was right!”
Ssiina nodded, probably drifting back off to sleep.
I, on the other hand, gave a polite smile. “Thanks for giving us an actual answer!”
Ea’Ssyri Thelia stiffened. “It was not my intent to deceive you or your sisters, Hssen Issa. Much of this trip until now has been flexible, and subject to the whims of fate. Truthfully, it’s been a far less trying experience than I assumed it to be.”
Tilting my head, I blinked at her. “Less trying? I’m so sore I can hardly move, I’m bored out of my mind, and I want to eat a fried fish so badly I’m tempted to jump in the river and try to catch one myself.”
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Her smile widened. “And yet, you three are remarkably well-behaved despite this.”
I rolled my eyes and sat up a little higher—ow. “Well yeah. We’re not kids anymore.”
The Ea’Ssyri just shook her head.
“Issa,” Kyrae started, “I think she means we’re not acting spoiled.”
“Oh.” I snorted, then laughed, hissing. “S’that why you were such a jerk?”
“Issa!”
Ssiina grumbled, coiling a little tighter. “Listen… to Kyrae.”
“I acted as needed to ensure your safety,” the Ea’Ssyri said simply.
“You could’ve been nicer about it!”
“Could I?”
I tilted my head.
Ea’Ssyri Thelia looked out the window, past the shimmering barrier and into the still night. “How much time would have been lost? Would you have understood the severity of the situation?”
“Not a lot and yeah probably.”
“I will not apologize.”
“Didn’t figure you would.” I glanced down at Kyrae.
She just looked up at me and shrugged. “Sink yourself deeper into the mud if you want to. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Don’t you feel the same way?”
“…I would not be so callous about it.”
“So I’m right then!”
“Issa!”
The Ea’Ssyri coughed, loudly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken up. I may yet revise my opinion regarding your maturity.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just wake me up when we’re getting on a nice, stable boat.”
***
I woke up on the boat. Specifically, I woke up to creaking wood and the smell of rotting fish juices.
“Wha?” The space was dark and relatively cramped: clearly the hull of a ship, recently cleaned of refuse. Unlike the carriage, the shadows were lively here. With my still-new-to-me sight, I could make out the direction of the wood’s grain all the way across the tiny space, and I could clearly see Kyrae dozing off next to me.
She snapped awake when I moved. “Don’t panic,” she hissed. With a flick of her fingers, she summoned a tiny ball of light, dim, but enough to blind me.
“What’s going on?” Instinctively, I pulled the shadows a little closer, armor in case I needed them.
“The Ea’Ssyri carried you aboard with magic,” Kyrae said, stifling a snicker. “Said it’d be easier that way.”
I must’ve frowned something awful because Kyrae kept going, quickly.
“You didn’t miss much. Just an old-looking fishing boat—”
“She said aazh’kaa!”
“Which could technically be considered that. All you missed was getting out of the carriage by the riverbank in the jungle and getting on the boat.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t be mad.” I lifted myself up to look around. “Where’s Ssiina?”
“On the deck while she still can. We have to be belowdecks once we get close enough to the fishing town.”
“Then why are we down here?”
“In case you didn’t wake up, or your eyes were reverting.”
“How are they?” I had to force myself not to blink into her light.
Kyrae frowned and inspected me a little closer. “…how do you feel?”
“I feel… great actually.” Someone had stretched me out, and the aches in my tail were quickly fading in the dark of the hold.
“That can’t be good,” my sister muttered.
“Huh, why?”
“Your eyes are almost black.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Can you hide it? And why does it matter anyway; the Ea’Ssyri knows and the coachwoman has to be in on it.”
“The ship has a crew, Issa.”
“They’ve gotta be in on it!”
“Do they?”
I hissed and pouted. “Well, can you do anything about it?”
“Give me some time.”
I kept hissing, but relented and allowed Kyrae to fix the sigilcraft construct on my eyes. When she was finished, the interior of the ship had lost a little detail. Still, I could make out the ramp and trapdoor leading up and I made a beeline for it.
Kyrae followed hurriedly behind me. Even if she couldn’t smell the hold quite like I could taste it, that didn’t make it pleasant.
Topside, the stars were just starting to fade as blackness gave way to maroon at the edges, barely visible between the gaps in the canopy above us. The river was probably three or four times as wide as the canals in Uzh, and just as muddy.
The boat we were on was more aazh than aazh’kaa: small, low, and with only a single mast holding up its square sail. The Ea’Ssyri was talking quietly to a small lania’el with strikingly yellow-green scales and a good set of scars on her arms at the stern, and two others—one a lania’el and one an elf—busied themselves doing… boat things. The wood creaked and groaned as we slid through the water, the river ahead lost around a leafy bend.
Ssiina was up here, too, coiled very loosely around the mast and watching the stars. She blinked wetness out of her eyes and waved when she saw us, forcing a small smile.
I could tell it was forced because it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Hey.” I coiled up next to her, and Kyrae used me as a reclining chair. “Thinking about Sire too?”
She hissed a soft agreement. “Dyni too. And all the others—especially the ones who didn’t make it. Lyniss must be happy both his parents made it back.”
Now it was my turn to look up at the stars. All those dead—fifty three, if the number hadn’t changed. That entire message was burned into my memory. “I’m glad they made it back. That Sire and Dyni will be okay. But I want to be there.”
“Like we all do,” Kyrae added.
“Yeah, duh.”
Ssiina snorted. “She’s right, you know. You said it almost like we weren’t all thinking it—I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just… like you, I suppose. I dunno.”
“Dunno?” I repeated with the same faux-slurred hiss she’d used.
“Did I sound weird?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Ssiina sighed. “Was hoping I’d gotten a little better. Could you imagine the look on Sire’s face—on Dyni’s—if I could talk like you used to the next time we see them?”
I giggled before I could stop myself, and opened my eyes wide, jaw still hinged, but hanging open.
“No way.” Kyrae waved her hands and made a stern face, pursing her lips so tight they turned almost white before relaxing again. “She’d totally look like that.”
Ssiina shook her head. “I was thinking more of an exasperated sigh and one of her half-frowns. You know, the kind she’s been making lately when she tries to be serious but doesn’t want to?”
“Not gonna make the face?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t do it justice.”
I snickered. “Yeah, you don’t look mature enough to pull it off.”
“Hey!” Ssiina caught my smile and her frown flipped. “Don’t make me toss you in the river!”
“After all that time stuck in a box? I don’t know if I’d mind!”
Kyrae adjusted her position on my coils, shoving the top loop over. “Ssiina, if you throw her in, let me get off her first.”
Ssiina glared at me, and I put my hands up. She nodded curtly, then went back to stargazing. Tired as I felt, I didn’t have it in me to push the point any further. Besides, we only had a little more time until we’d get called to go sit in a cramped hold.
I’d barely closed my eyes, when I felt the boat lurch. “Ssiina!” I called, snapping awake to look at her.
My eyes met her golden ones, confused as I was and wide with surprise. Down on my coils, Kyrae swore and jumped up. All the way down my spine, icy cold surged and I felt the shadows move a moment before they reached for us.
Hissing, I wrenched them to me, only barely succeeding at keeping them away from my sisters. Now wreathed in shadows that seemed to merge with my flesh, I whipped around to see where we were being attacked from. I heard metal on metal behind me, and I saw a mass of shadow at the stern shrinking to the size of a pinprick, golden light struggling inside.
No way.
This can’t be happening!
Across the deck, the yellow-green lamia from earlier barely blocked another blow from an elf cloaked head to toe in shadow.
The boat lurched again, this time stopping dead with a sickening crunch. I felt power pressing in from all sides, cold and slick and familiar. From the dense jungle around us, more shadow-cloaked figures leapt onto the ship, the shine of metal in the fading starlight the only color visible.
Shit, I guess we weren’t as covert as we’d hoped.