I found the entire voyage aboard the Kaminari Maru to be…honestly kind of annoying. Most of the sailing that I had done in the past had been under the sails of the Thorny Reef. Some of my fondest, freest memories here on Vereden had been on that ship, simply standing at the railings and staring off into the blue distance. Some men found the endless horizon of the ocean to be daunting, that emptiness presenting a threat to their very souls.

Not me. I loved it.

Sailing upon the waves, especially aboard a pirate vessel, was something I enjoyed immensely. The sheer freedom of it all…the uncharted, unbound possibilities….

It called to something, deep within my soul.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? I loved sailing with pirates.

Not, as it turned out, on merchant vessels. And not with a Kawamaran merchant, at that.

It was so stifling.

Normally, I could appreciate the very formal, rigid rules of Kawamaran society. Once you learned them, it helped to smooth almost every single interaction over. It was nearly ritualistic, honestly. If you acted properly, you could predict nearly every encounter you would have with a Kawamaran man or woman.

But that same ritualism ruined sailing for me.

The Captain of this vessel wouldn’t let me help out around the ship at all. I couldn’t help the deckhands swab, I couldn’t maintain the rigging, I couldn’t man the crow’s nest, hell! I couldn’t even volunteer in the galley.

For as enthusiastic as the man had been to accept us aboard his vessel, it was like he didn’t even want our group to step foot outside of our cabins. Captain Satoru had, in a very strained, very polite, and very Kawamaran manner, requested that we not interfere with the workings of his ship.

Those words were pretty much meant for Bella and I.

We were the only ones who were trying his patience. Azarus could take or leave the entire sailing experience, in the end. He had no problem pretty much snoozing the trip away in his bunk. Renauld, as I had learned months previously, wasn’t the only Gnoll who didn’t care much for the process either. Liora very pointedly had a tendency to stay out of sight during voyages like this one.

All the salt in the air didn’t agree with fur.

And Venix had parked himself in a cross-legged position near the stern of the ship, closed his eyes, and started meditating on that first day. I hadn’t even seen the Cultivating Antium so much as twitch an eyelid in the entire time we’d been sailing. He sure as hell hadn’t reacted when the Captain had tried to ask him to move.

Eventually, the man had just given up and instructed his crew to swab around the samurai.

Which left Bella and I.

We were restless.

Bella, I think, because sailing was her life. She’d spent decades upon the waves of Vereden, and had no intention of ever stopping. She lived and breathed the salt, and would die upon it one day, completely content and never once feeling that she had wasted her time among the living. As much as she respected the sovereignty of a Captain aboard their own vessel, she also wanted to keep busy and contribute in some way. I did too, honestly. I think the inaction the Captain was forcing into us made both of our skins itch.

And so, the two of us were leaning against the railing not far from the meditating form of Venix.

Sulking.

I sighed, gazing out at the horizon behind the Kaminari Maru, as we sailed towards Goryuen. It had been three days by now aboard this vessel, and hopefully, the trip would be over soon. We’d encountered enough fair winds that it was possible we would reach the isle quicker than expected, according to an antsy Bella. Said Pirate Captain was to my left with her back to the ocean, while I was looking out at it.

I broke the silence between us. “Is…this…” I said, gesturing to pretty much the entirety of the ship around us with my gloved prosthetic hand. “Common, with merchants?”

We knew each other well enough by now that Bella could guess what I meant.

She twitched one shoulder in response. “Sorta,” Bella muttered dourly. “It’s why I didn’t stick around, after I signed up with one of ‘em.”

I cut my gaze over to her in surprise, one eyebrow raised. “I thought you were pretty much raised by Cassandra? When did you ever have a chance to become a merchant?”

Bella crossed her arms and frowned. Not at me, or even the ship itself. I think it was just the past she was frowning at. “Well…,” She drawled. “Cass is real big on personal freedoms, as ye can imagine.”

I sure could.

“And so, when I came of age, she gave me a choice,” Bella continued. “I could sign up with Marrowmist, and try my best ta attract a crew. Or I could hitch a ride out with one of our suppliers, and try my hand on a ship that was on the right side of the law. This was after I’d done me years as a ship rat aboard Cass’s flagship.” She sighed, cutting her eyes over to me with a wry look. “I actually tried, ye know?”

I raised my other eyebrow to join its twin, and turned around to join Bella with her back to the sea. “No shit?”

Bella smirked and nodded. “Yup, and I lasted all o’ a month. Hated it. Too…stuffy, too hidebound fer my tastes. Not quite as bad as all o’ this,” She said, gesturing with one finger towards the Maru in much the same way I had. “But more than enough ta send me flyin’ back ta the Mists. ‘Honest’ work just weren’t fer me. At least…not if I weren’t at the helm. So I gathered me own crew, and struck out on me own.”

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

I snorted before nudging her with one elbow. “And now you and your crew are one of those crews on the right side of the law,” I said teasingly. “You’re under contract with Grey, now.”

To my surprise, Bella sighed at that and nodded. “Aye, fer at least another five years,” She said morosely. “That’s how long the damned exile is gonna last. But, Nate?” She turned to me with a serious look in her eyes then. “Once that’s up, I’m heading back to Marrowmist. It’s…it’s me home. And I don’t think I could live the rest of me life in the shippin’ business. It…ain’t just the sailin’ I love.”

Ah.

I see. I…couldn’t relate with that. I was a bit…uncomfortable, with the implications of piracy. I’d had no problems with the whole thing, while the entire southern half of the continent was embroiled in civil war. During that time most pirate crews had sided with the Uprising and turned their raiding upon the Loyalists, either under the banner of the Bluebacks or Freefief. But that was over, now.

While a ton of pirate crews had taken the chance to ‘go legit’, Marrowmist as the biggest hive of them had just barely eked out a stance of true neutrality. And with the war over, their normal activities would likely resume.

Marrowmist might have been the most civil of the pirate collectives, but…

They were still pirates.

And in piracy, innocents were sometimes caught in the crossfire.

In much the same way a young Bella had been.

I carefully kept the frown threatening to creep across my face at bay. In my mind, the end of Bella’s exile…it probably meant the end of whatever was growing between us. I had…problems with the practice of piracy. To me, it scourged people in much the same way that slavery did.

And I…doubted I would be able to sway Bella from the life she loved.

This relationship, such as it was, had a time limit.

I changed the subject before things could become awkward. “Speaking of the ‘life’,” I said, lowering my voice. “Are there any homegrown Kawamaran operations?”

Bella tilted her head up in thought. “Yeah,” She said quietly, after a moment. “But they ain’t got an enclave like us Herztals. And it’s generally harder fer them ta do it, out here. Not because of the Imps. It’s the monsters out here, keep piratin’ down.”

I furrowed my brow. “I thought sea monsters were relatively rare, out on the open waters?”

That was something I had learned during my time out on the ocean. Apparently, it wasn’t common for monsters to form in the lightless depths. Not impossible.

Just rare.

Something about the Aetheric properties of the ocean kept monsters from forming to the same degree that they did upon land. Most water-borne monsters tended to form along the shorelines and thus haunted them. Even the Frostbrine sea-spiders we’d encountered back in the caves under Caer Drarrow stalked the shores of the frozen north, instead of venturing far out to sea.

“Why…?”

My wordless question was answered by an unexpected source.

“It’s the Oni,” I heard a deep voice say from behind me and to my right. My eyebrows shot up, and I turned to face the speaker.

It was Venix. He had opened his eyes after days and days of deep meditation to fix me with a serious stare. “They do not need to breathe,” He said shortly. “And they are always venturing toward Goryuen, from all corners of the Empire. What that means is that the Oni simply walk along the ocean floor to the isle.”

I blinked at that, before a chill ran down my spine. The Oni walked to Goryuen? Like, along the sea floor?

I warily looked down at my feet to the deck of the ship below, as if I could look through them to the ocean bedrock below.

If Venix was right…there could be any number of Oni waiting below us right now.

When I look back up, I saw that Venix had a small, nearly infinitesimal smile on his chitinous face. He shook his head at me. “Do not worry,” He said. “The Oni travel routes to the Isle of the Dragon are well known to the Kawamaran merchant fleet.”

Bella pushed off of the railing to nod at him. “Which is why the Imps don’t let other ships navigate these waters,” She said wryly. “It’s a spider-web of Oni roads in all directions. If ye don’t know the right route ta take, ye’ll run right over one of them. Yer liable to have a great big brute zip outta the water then and club ya good. Lights out then, fer most merchant tubs out here.”

I furrowed my brow. “What about passage between the islands?” I asked, confused. “Or, hell. Even on approach to the islands. Are there Oni roads there? I don’t remember us taking any special routes.”

Venix shook his head, but it was Bella who answered. “Nah, the knowledge of the Oni roads between the isles is public knowledge,” She said. “Everyone knows how ta avoid ‘em. The Imps only keep knowledge about Goryuen secret, so no damn fool tries ta set foot on it.”

We were interrupted, then, by the sound of shouting from above. Looking up, I could see that the lookout in the crows next of the Kaminari Maru was yelling and waving his hands frantically. For a moment, his words didn’t reach me, over the roar of the waves around us. But I heard him, eventually.

“Captain! Captain!” The young man was shouting desperately. Across the deck from us, near the helm, Captain Satoru looked up in confusion.

“What is it?” He called up.

The young man took a deep breath. “Land!” He bellowed. “Land on the horizon!”

I felt a relieved smile start to edge its way onto my face at his words, if not his tone. It looks like this frustrating voyage would soon be over. That had to be Goryuen he was speaking about.

His next words wiped the smile from my countenance.

“Ships on the shore!” He continued, just as loudly. By this point, most of the deck had stopped their duties to watch the announcement. His words caused a wave of silence to roll through the sailors. “Flying unknown colors!”

I took a deep breath then before looking over at Bella. My friend and occasional lover had a confused frown on her face. “So much for secret routes.”

Bella shot me a dirty look but ignored my words otherwise. Instead, she hurried after Captain Satoru as he nearly tripped down the stairs to the bow of the ship. Venix rose from his cross-legged position to follow after, and I copied him. As we stepped onto the main deck, I saw Azarus poke his head out of the door that led to the cabins below. “What’s goin’ on?” He asked over all the raised voices.

I just shook my head at him. “I don’t know, but it’s probably trouble. Get the others.”

Azarus furrowed his brow but nodded at me and retreated inside.

Meanwhile, I hurried to join the group at the bow. There, the Captain, his first mate, Bella, and Venix were peering over the horizon in one way or another. Both ship Captains had far-eyes out and were peering through them, while I saw a strange glint in Venix’s compound eyes as he squinted into the distance. After a moment, I heard Bella curse loudly, causing the first mate to eye her with disdain. She just ignored him and kept looking.

“I don’t recognize that banner,” I heard Captain Satoru say with a frown audible in his voice.

Bella lowered her far-eye to scowl over the horizon. “I do,” She said grumpily, as Venix seemed to spot the same thing they did. The Antium man let out a long, drawn out sigh as he folded his four arms into his sleeves. He almost seemed irritated.

As Azarus, Liora, and Renauld wandered up to join us, Bella shoved the far-eye into my chest. “Ye will too,” She said with a frown, nodding over the horizon.

I took the hint and raised the far-eye to take a look.

She was right.

I did recognize them.

“Shit,” I said with a growing frown, lowering the small telescope.

“That’s the Order of Solstice’s Flame.”