Illustration of a letter, magical wax seal, and a candle [https://i.imgur.com/uFfcQkj.png]
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May 13
Beast Slayer
Somewhere in Time Strait
Tarisa,
I don’t have much time. We’ve been falling into our bunks all-standing (it means not undressing even if we’re soaked) for almost four days straight. With only some naps here and there to remain upright, I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life but, Ree? I’m reborn. I feel like I’m flying and dying simultaneously.
I carved my mark on the wheel.
Even down in the captain’s quarters, I can hear the ship singing Tarisa! The wind has picked up so that the bow crashes into the waves with great booms and sheets of spray, the Slayer shivering with pleasure. I didn’t realize the ship was alive, after a fashion. I’m obsessed, unable to bear the thought of the widow-fog catching us, of the ship being burned, that singing stopped—
The fog. I forgot to tell you, I never made it until dawn. I was grateful that I’d stacked that chest in front of the door because someone tried to barge into the cabin after all. When the door stuck they settled for banging on the timbers hard enough to make them creak. “Captain Mar’!”
I recognized Uri’s voice, scrambling out of bed. I don’t know how I slept, but somehow I managed it, dreaming foggily of home. Shoving the chest aside with a loud squeal, I threw the door open.
Uri stood in the corridor, Bunt hovering at his elbow. It was the boy who spoke before I’d even fully opened the door. “The fog’s almost upon us!”
Slamming the door behind me, I pushed through their smelly mass and ran down the narrow corridor, scrambling up the stairs with my nose to the wind. I ignored a handful of sailors lining the bulwark, all of us enthralled by the same terrible sight.
What had been a crimson, fuzzy line earlier that evening had become what looked like a roiling storm front of glittering red, the glow of the magic in the sea clashing with the rippling light of the sky to create unholy shadows on the mist.
“Why did no one call me sooner?” I thundered, aghast.
A sheepish-looking Tory hurried aft from the foredeck. Before he could get close with his excuses, Trin broke away from the other sailors at the railing and said, “Two men slipped their watch, miss--Captain. They just got drunk, figuring this was the end.”
It probably is the end. The rigging above whipped fitfully in the wind as I ran up to the quarterdeck, too tired and frightened to mind my tongue. “You mean, no one else was watching?”
Trin shook his head, following Uri, Bunt and Tory up to the quarterdeck. It shows you how far ship protocol has deteriorated that a cabin boy and two deckhands felt no need to ask permission to be at the helm. The other sailors stayed dumbly below on the main deck, as if stunned. At least Tory hadn’t alerted the whole ship to our danger yet so the crowd was small.
Trin said, “Oh, others were watching off an on, it just happened so fast. All night, the mist has been much the same, not advancing or retreating. Sawl was coming up for a bit of air a quarter hour ago, after patching up uh, Roger and the other fighters from today. He's the one that spotted the witch-fog moving.”
I hadn’t even noticed Sawl leaning on the railing beside the wheel, arms folded. It was the first time I’d really stood face to face with our sawbones and I flushed. Seeing him brought back the numb horror of yesterday--blood, a scream, the surgeon grappling with my attacker.
Before the murders, Sawl did little but tend to two chronic fever cases. Magtox is a persistent illness, where the patients need constant care, so that keeps him isolated. I haven't forgotten your suspicions, Tarisa, but I don’t even know Sawl’s real name. Captain Clacey’s odd drawl meant that any time he told a crew member, “Go see the sawbones,” the crew mocked Clacey’s accent behind his back, “Go see sawlbones.” Sawbones became Sawlbones, then just Sawl.
His features would be delicate if it weren’t for his beard and size. I think he’s closer to forty than thirty, hair so dark it’s almost black, graying at the temples. Unlike the rest of the crew who mostly wear queues, Sawl keeps his hair shorter, I bet to keep the blood out of it. That is practically all I know of him, but I thought you’d want every detail given his involvement in the burials.
“Captain,” said Sawl neutrally, with a nod.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
I nodded back, mouth dry, looking to the bank of fog. I have never felt so screamingly powerless in my life.
“We got a hex eel and a few desm fish,” said Uri in a helpful tone. “So we must be still in the north of the Strait.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said hoarsely, shifting my gaze to the massive, pitch-stained wheel. “We just have to get away.”
In a repeating nightmare, I looked about for a knife. Tory offered me one, a massive thing used for gutting fish.
Sawl proffered an elegant, stiletto dagger instead, saying, “Usually there’s more pomp and circumstance. In a ship binding, the knife is supposed to match the wielder.”
I took the blade from him, a bloom of hope budding in my chest. “You’ve seen a binding ceremony before, then?”
Sawl shook his head. Hope quashed, I moved towards the wheel, barely conscious that now a dozen crewmen stood on the deck below, watching me and shifting about restlessly. I wondered if they’d throw me over when I failed. Any captain or navigator I’d ever heard of was a member of the Royal Society, with a well of Touch deep enough to heal stab wounds or scatter storms. I couldn’t even dye my hair blond, remember that summer I tried? Ended up dappling my curls with white spots, like a buzzer moth.
Kneeling on the boards, a cold wind chilling the sweat on my face, I realized with a start that I had a dilemma. When I carved my name before it obviously didn’t work. Simply doing the same thing over again seemed both stupid and torturous. Glancing at the wheel’s other marks, I noticed other captains had used crests or symbols, like the flying snake a few spokes up.
Instead of my name, I decided to use Mama’s family crest instead. I scraped a rough goldfinch into the body of the wheel, the bird’s delicate wings outstretched, biting deep enough to expose red wood. When I scraped out the tail I sat back on my haunches, knife and hands braced against the wheel’s pedestal.
Nothing happened for three heartbeats. Bunt took in a sharp breath that was silenced by Tory’s grip on the boy’s arm. Sawl’s big shoulders tensed, eyes fixed with strange intensity on the wheel itself. Tears filled my eyes and nearly trailed over. I wiped them away with my hands, then rubbed at the finch, wondering if I’d carved it wrong again somehow, or if I was just too weak.
As soon as my salt-wet fingers touched the wood, it was as if I’d been struck by lightning, though the voice that came into my head was mellow, Hello, friend.
With a rush, I was instantly aware of the fibers of the wood beneath my feet, every board on the ship settling into my consciousness, much as I’m sensible of my own fingers and toes. Rising, I took hold of the wheel’s spokes, hissing through my teeth when the wind gusted, tugging at the lines. It felt like someone plucked at my hair; at that moment I couldn’t tell where the ship began and my body ended.
I looked to the horizon, reeling, the sky seeming to swirl above me. The fog was twice as close. Without thinking, I turned the wheel.
Glacially, the ship went the wrong way, the opposite direction of what I had expected. Yet it was enough, and I wasn’t the only one who knew it.
Tory exploded. “Everyone to stations! Riggers, up the shrouds, get those sails loose! Bunt, if there’s a man or rat asleep on this hunk o’ junk in two minutes, it’s your hide I’m whippin’!”
Bunt snapped to, ‘aye-ayeing’ as he went down the stairs. The men on deck hadn’t been able to see or hear everything, but as the ship turned just a little under its own power, they all cheered, a ragged, painfully hopeful sound.
Trin squeezed my hand where it held the wheel. His hazel eyes were merry and bright. “Well done, Captain.”
I blushed, of course I did. As the ship turned into a beehive set on fire, the bridge gradually emptied, leaving me alone. I realized too late that I still clutched the dagger Sawl had given me, and felt a little shudder. Where had that knife been? I couldn’t trust the blade any more than I could trust the man.
As I stood there, my sense of the Slayer deepened and strengthened by the minute, until my head ached with new awareness, totally overwhelmed. Every wave that slapped her hull, however small, made an impression. I realized, with a jump and a gasp, that the ship was listening to me as well, and I sensed more than translated the feelings it felt—she felt.
She liked me. A warm, genial tone came to our connection, steady and sure.
I smiled, squeezing the spoke, even as the Widow-Maker crept closer. The sails thwapped in the wind, the men drawing the sheets taut, a lookout already crawling like a stickbug to the crow’s nest. Usually I was down below while we were underway, chopping up eels or hiding in cabins. Not now.
“Now, we fly.”
The Slayer didn’t understand the words. But she understood me perfectly as we turned workwise with the waves, our stern to the doom that chased us.
More later, I’m needed above. The ship won’t steer without me, but we had to reef the sails anyway for a moment; some gargantuan weeds snagged on the rudder.
Maree
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May 13
Rosetree
Solan
Maree:
I don’t know what to say. I’ve been staring at the page, too full of everything to write any of it down. Triumph and relief and fury and sadness, all muddled together. Nate’s been baffled, having no idea why I was pacing in circles for half the week, munching on biscuits like a dog and swearing under my breath, waiting for your second letter—if it came.
I feel somehow like I’ve lost you again. All this time you’ve been seeing things I never will, feeling things I’ll never feel and now this. Come back to me, M. Or take me flying in the clouds with you.
I left this half-written letter for an hour on the desk, hoping to fill the blankness somehow. I’ve decided to curl up on Mama’s bed after this, in the dark, pretending nothing is real, not the fog that’s chasing you or the ruin that’s chasing us. I’m leaving Rosetree tomorrow, a day before Councilor Erring is set to arrive. If he comes early the whole plan goes to pieces but I know all too well there’s nothing I can do about any of it. The weather has been dreadful, spitting rain with dreary, half-smothered sunshine.
Just one more thing. In the letter you thought would be your last, you said you lost your temper when you yelled at the men and made them listen. On the contrary, I say you’re not the same girl hiding in the galley, silently sprinkling a little joy over the food for those who would never thank you for it. In fact, I don’t think that girl was ever really you at all. I think you should let a little more of Mama come soaring out of your mouth.
Tarisa