“I saved your soul?” Gele repeated the question after he gagged and spat over the side of the canoe. Maybe this phantom was a hallucination. Perhaps he had drowned. The cold breeze, leftover from the storm, bit at his bare body. Shivers took over him as he held onto his stomach. Yet, despite the discomfort, it proved Gele was alive. “How did you end up there, in the Anima?” The words fell over as a groan; he spat out water again.

  “I was out. . .” Sawyer grabbed her forehead, trying to remember. “I was out near Allecros. There were ships everywhere. Storms up above. Swarms of fire were shooting out from the shore too. The fleet, it. . . the Navy surrounded the fleet, didn’t give us a way out. We fought and lost.” Sawyer leaned forward, close to retching herself, admiring herself with a sullen gaze. “So this is how I looked when I died, good and ugly. Lost my best trinkets, my saber, and my gun too, shit,” she tsked. “My frigate got gored by cannonballs and chains and sank soon after. That Anima was under us, I guess. The bastard, it must have eaten all my friends and could have gotten me too. Luck got me stuck in its teeth. Is that what happened? Everyone is dead except for me. I know it did happen long ago, but saying it aloud? It doesn’t feel real.”

  “Do you remember being in the Anima’s mouth?” Gele asked, then he coughed. He could see it—a horde of ships battling in the night. Smoke blinded him. And then, he heard the rumblings of cannon fire. The memory had laid before him, pulling him back through time. He coughed again, thinking he breathed in the ash.

  Sawyer reached out and patted his back with her mangled hand. “I remember it all, being water, light, whatever we are when you slice all the meat off. I was cold. I was floating, either stuck listening to creatures’ calls in the deep dark sea or trapped in old memories. A dream . . . it was like a dream . . . and I don’t know how long I was there. Thank you, truly. You saved me from an eternity in Hell, it feels like.”

  “I thought I was going to drown. I was going to drown. The water was all around me, and I couldn’t swim anymore. You pulled me out,” Gele said. His fingers rubbed his throat. Every breath was a gift. He could not escape the sensation of being closed in on all sides.

  “You could have been with me, trapped in its mouth.” Sawyer forced a laugh, averting her gaze as Gele sat stunned and shivering. “You saved yourself from that. But, you brought me along too, strangely enough. What’s your name? Why did you come down to kiss the Anima’s bony lips?”

  “Gele, my name is Gele of Melaopel. I’m a dancer from Galu.” His finger gestured to the island, not far from where they drifted. “And I tried to run away. Didn’t get very far, it was either I tried to slip past my people or the spirits. I chose the wrong course, it seems.”

  “Well, now you have a spirit for a friend,” Sawyer smirked, “and I was a pirate, thief, and backwoods magician in life. Perfect for getting you away from. . .” She paused as if she’d been struck on the head. “Where did you say, Galu?”

  “Galu,” Gele repeated, nodding. He dipped his hands into the sea, paddling with them. Then, both bitter and gracious, he let out a soft sigh when he noticed the ebb and flow of the waves pushing him gradually back to shore. The spirits and the seas were forgiving this time. “There are many islands in the world. Galu is just a small one. Maybe you haven’t heard of it. Vall is to our south, and Rem is north, then Warrl to the west. To the far east are the Shadow Isles. Have you been to any of those?”

  “No,” Sawyer sighed, “I’ve seen the map of the world, seen half of it with my own eyes. Never have I heard of such places.”

  “And I’ve never seen ships so large or seen someone dressed like you.”

  “Shit, then the Anima migrated far from my grave—to a land not yet seen by my countrymen.” She stood atop the canoe. Weightless, she did not tilt or rock the boat. Instead, a tiny, scared laugh came out of her. “But it seems the disease of Sawyer Jean has come to ravage Galu, or are you still planning on running away?”

  “I cannot run on water,” Gele sighed, “and a boat cannot sail without a mast. So the Sea of Shrouds is sending me home, and the Second Sea watches it all, most likely laughing like you are.”

  “I’m laughing at my circumstances, not yours,” she spat. “Can’t get another boat? Stealing one could be easy.”

  “This boat, it belonged to my father,” Gele said. “With the mast broken, the only way to get a boat now is to earn one. On Galu, that means becoming a warrior.” His fingers touched the bruise on his stomach. The stinging came in quick sharp pains. “To become a warrior means to win a fight I cannot win. Nab, the King’s son, is a strong man. A hunter, he butchers whales, piercing their skulls with his spear. He jumps in and tries to get swallowed. All so that he can cut the whale open from the inside. When he and his hunters bring them to the shore, he slices the blubber off himself and builds more harpoons from the bones.

  “Even the other warriors venture out to all the islands around us. Traders, soldiers, and adventurers were all able to leave the island. They earned that right through the trial. To become a warrior, I need to defeat Nab to prove I’m strong. I tried before and lost. His first punches sent me to the floor groveling. Fastest any man had ever fallen. But, everyone was there, Sawyer; the whole village.”

  “I wasn’t,” Sawyer said. “All I saw was Gele of Melaopel freeing a soul from an Anima. That has merits outside the scope of blood and blubber. Magicians from my homeland would revere you as a prophet if they heard what you did.”

  “Do prophets earn boats?” Gele said with scorn. “That’s all I need. I don’t need my people’s praise, just for their laughing to stop.”

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  “All you need to do is defeat one man?”

  Gele nodded, “a prince.”

  “A prince is still a man, so go for the balls.”

  A half-laughing, half-coughing snort burst from Gele’s mouth. “Maybe that would help me last just a few seconds.”

  “Few seconds is how long a fight lasts.”

  “I know that,” Gele scoffed, “that’s all it took for Nab to knock me to the ground.”

  “If you cannot beat one man bigger than you, how do you expect to venture out beyond him, Gele? I have been in your spot before. I was ten when I first became a sailor. A little girl dressed as a little boy had all the reasons to keel over and die the first time she stood before a bigger, more dangerous bastard. I survived then because I was lucky, observant, and hungry for something more.” She counted her reasons off with all three fingers of her mangled hand. “We are weak creatures, Gele, skin made of silk and hearts of paper. I have paraded around as both man and woman, opposites that mean nothing to the cruelties of gunpowder and gold. We build tools and armies, but even then, we are nothing. Mermaid empires, who use our souls like wood-stove fuel, with bodies morphed with fish, turtles, and whales, will one day rise from the water and take us with them. They would not let a single man stop them. Neither would the krakens and leviathans of the deep murky sea. They are born from Hell, I’ve heard. Great crabs live down there, fighting forever with Anima and other dark things.

  “But those are only myths, sailor’s tales. What about all the ships that never made it back to port? Then you have the dead empires. Two thousand years ago, the twin kingdoms of the Harpies and Angels, winged people of the distant east, were slaughtered by a single force. Will you let that happen to you?” Sawyer’s chest puffed out. Her voice swelled. Leaning forward, she was right in his face. “I’ve been to the ruins and robbed their catacombs and nests. I saw how they lost everything. Even with the power of flight, they could not escape the inevitability of the Second Sea. Their fortresses were little shields. It took barely any effort to scale them, only believing that wings meant nothing to arrows. Do not be afraid of a single wall, Gele, for many more are sitting just beyond these waves. Will you step forward anyway? Say yes, and you are a warrior to me. If you refuse, then let the foreign beaches remain a pleasant mystery. Everything around you is big and mighty. What will you do despite that?”

  What will I do? Gele could see it, the tombs of Harpies and Angels. Marble halls overwhelmed by moss and tarnished gold, and a mountain of stone statues, reclaimed by a jungle of massive bats that screeched songs in the night. He walked there himself, saying nothing as he fell into the visions. He felt the humid breeze coil around him for a moment as he looked upon the skeletons of harpies, rusted swords still stuck in their spine. Wings, they still had their rotted wings. Can people grow wings? He thought to himself as he sank into someone else’s adventures.

  “Not anymore,” Sawyer said. She had pulled back away from him, interest directed towards the Second Sea. “People can only stand and swim now.”

  Gele froze, a drop of sweat dripping down his face. A chill slithered down his spine. “I didn’t say anything.”

  The spirit turned back to him, an eyebrow raised. Bubbles danced inside her ghostly body. Saltwater dripped from her hair as she shook her head. It looked as if she melded with the Second Sea for a moment. “You did. I heard you.”

  “Our souls are intertwined, are they not? You must have heard me think.” He felt his heart drop into his stomach. His throat grew tight like he was drowning once again. It felt weird like something was really in him. His head could feel her think, too, like worms wriggling together in one terrifying mass.

  “Stop!” She snapped, eyes wide as saucers. “I guess we are trapped together. There are shackles around our ankles. No, more like we were boiled together in the same broth.” She shuddered. “I didn’t think about that, the way you might have to live with me.”

  Gele dipped his hands in the water, pushing the canoe further to the beach. He was almost home. The sand caught the light of the spirits. So red it seemed like a spool of velvet was cast across the shore. “You and I are together now; two souls. Like how the Second Sea is billions, whether we agreed to it or not. Either that or we swim together in the Anima’s belly.”

  “I’m not complaining. The alternative is clear to me,” Sawyer cracked a smile. “But still, so strange.”

  “Maybe there is a way to get you a body.”

  “A hag, lovely woman, once told me that spirits attach themselves to anything. Some soldiers became their swords, some seeped into their houses, and another person may not be so uncommon. The Second Sea, in that regard, is just the easiest place for people to go. But I never heard about severing a ghost from something haunted.”

  “Do you want to get severed?” Gele blurted the question out. All he could think about was the ship, the ruins, and the one who told him of it. Yearning, he reached and grabbed her shoulders. His hands held the ghost firmly, and he did not give her time to answer. Then, begging, he said, “let’s go, to the far east and the distant west, to the south, then north and back again. First, the islands around Galu, to where the mermaids live, and then to the Second Sea! I need to see it with my own eyes, just as I planned to do before. The world’s bigger than I imagined! Please, I can’t go alone . . .”

  Sawyer looked at him aghast. At first, she stood stunned. Then, another laugh tumbled forth as she fell to her knees. A wheeze followed, then a snort, and finally giggles. “When I was flesh and blood, many stupid men gave me stupid marriage proposals. That, my friend, was quite the same. Let’s take it slow, you and I. First, we get you your boat. We get a warrior. Then, we’ll think about the world. We need a crew for that, and I still mourn for mine. I don’t know how long I have been dead, but I’m eager to see the new and distract myself from the old.”

  Gele hid his face, realizing what he had said. He was naked, still close to heaving up seawater. Did she care? She must have had a worse conversation than this. Dwelling on it, he found his companion’s feelings within his own. Walls, like caverns sealed with stone, blocked his probing. “Your crew. . .”

  “No, don’t,” Sawyer warned. The Second Sea stayed a stark red, polluted with flashes of yellow and orange. The spirits, shrouded in their false fire, lent their light to Sawyer, who reflected the glow in her eyes molded from seawater. “Let’s focus on you becoming a warrior. Then we’ll talk of spirits, even the ones eaten and barred from entering the Second Sea.”