A candle, a magic seal, and a letter [https://i.imgur.com/uFfcQkj.png]

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25 May

Beast Slayer

Somewhere in Prism Sound

T:

The loudest sounds in the cabin are the sand in the hourglass and my own heart. The dribble of granules scrapes on my nerves, but Bunt must have moved the glass in here as a gesture of faith that I would return. I’m still shaking and weak, the pen hard to grip. There’s blood under my fingernails, Ree, what have I become?

Twenty-three days since I was forced into this position. Twenty-three days since four bodies were wrapped in canvas and tipped over the bulwark. Now, thanks to me, before the Beast Slayer reaches harbor that count may rise to eleven.

So much has happened. I am so scattered and aching, body and soul. If it weren’t for your surely frantic state, I wouldn’t write at all. Here it is, in black and white: the Beast Slayer was attacked.

You may have noticed from the heading of my letter that we left Time Strait for Prism Sound—the last body of water before Neth Harbor, the waves violet in color. There are no navigable ports on Prism Sound, so named because one of the original explorers praised the beautiful rainbows wreathing the sky ahead of the ship, only to realize too late the rainbows came from spouting sea monsters who attacked and sunk them within the hour, only four of the crew surviving (by sealing themselves in magicked barrels, in case you were wondering).

We’ve been in deep waters all this time, giving me no opportunity to anchor and truly rest—or investigate. All those grand plans have vanished like smoke in a tornado. Every day after draining myself at the wheel, my Touch would run low and I’d act the fool—sometimes a stoic statue, sometimes a giddy ninny, occasionally weeping gently for no reason, always fizzy to my fingertips from lack of power.

I’d stumble from the bridge, down to the main deck and into the hatch, then through to the captain’s cabin where I take my meals (not prepared by me, don’t you scold me again, I can barely lift a fork let alone cook). My mercurial moods and obvious failings have not helped my relationship with the crew—who seem alternately afraid of or trying not to laugh at me, and I’m not sure I blame them. No Toucher as weak as I in their right mind would decide to pilot a Nethership.

To top all that, the fever victims took a turn for the worse, the men on the edge of death, so Sawl’s quiet support in the galley vanished because of it, making the worst of the crew bolder and urging me into a tactical retreat.

I admit this knowing it will add fuel to your sisterly suspicions, but if it weren’t for Trin, I would have—I don’t know, dissolved? Gone truly insane? Two days after my last letter, I actually missed my cabin door, halfway to the hold before I stopped in the darkness, disoriented and discouraged.

“Captain?”

I jumped, heart thip-thumping out of fearful instinct. Behind me was a sailor outlined in the faintest light, breaking all my own rules never to be alone with a man onboard. “Trin?”

“Aye. Where are you headed, Captain?”

“I was…” Mouth dry, I merely shook my head, shaking numb fingers.

Wordlessly, Trin turned around, waving toward my cabin. Feeling foolish, I followed him, blinking at his sweat-stained back. It should have been repulsive—heaven knows what the Restin sisters would titter into their gloves, shocked at seeing a man actually sweat—but perhaps they’d have shut up too when they saw Trin’s muscled shoulders shifting under his homespun tunic, or the energy in his step and curl in his fair hair.

Yes, Trin is a handsome man, around my age or a little younger, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-four. It’s difficult to know. I wouldn’t dare ask.

You are no doubt rabid for me to get to the ‘zippy stuff’ as you said when we were children—the truth is, Trin has a great deal to do with the ‘zippy’ bits. At least once a day, Trin finds an excuse to escort me to my cabin no matter my state, always moving on ahead when we reach my door as if he had other duties in the hold or in the crew’s quarters. Perhaps he does have other duties; yet the way he chats with me of the weather or Solan or the quirks of the crew makes me wonder if Trin is lonely for a peer as well. So many of the sailors have families or have sailed for years. Perhaps it shouldn’t puzzle me that Clacey recruited for experience rather than strength given the danger we’ve faced on one voyage.

The day before I missed a letter, for once it was Trin who paused at the Captain’s door, leaning against the frame. Trin looks me nearly in the eye--I've been glad for my taller-than-average height as a woman in this sea of men--so it was easy for me to see the raw concern in his gray eyes. Suddenly, I felt as if he was standing much too close, but something in me didn’t want to pull away.

“You haven’t heard a word I said the past minute have you?

I shook my head, vision blurry. Something about the purple waves in the Sound make me feel as if I am always dreaming, never truly awake. Even the ship seems to be tiring at our pace as if my exhaustion is bleeding into her timbers.

“Take some longer rests.”

At this, I instantly started shaking my head. “Tory says our water stores are low, and the Sound is a treacherous place.”

Trin smiled.“I’ll wake you in six hours.”

I straightened my spine. “No.”

“You might as well just go to sleep. It’s no use protesting. The men will listen to me.”

I knew they would. Bunt or Uri trade off waking me (Bunt cares for the hourglass like a beloved pet, and Uri is somehow the only man I trust in my room) and neither of them is strong-willed. Trin obviously thought getting my orders rejected to be the easiest thing in the world, no matter that he’s only a midshipman.

Ree—oh, I’m blushing with shame to remember it. Foolish, stupid, idiot, me. My pride, raw and screaming, rose in my chest, along with a little Touch-driven recklessness. All the slurs, the disrespect, the sneers, and the dismissals I’d suffered stung as if freshly inflicted. I flushed, turned on my heel, and marched back past the galley, up the stairs, and to the bridge. Trin followed me, muttering under his breath, “Captain, what are you—no, don’t, Captain—stop, Maisi, stop—”

That’s not even my name, you cocky dolt. I climbed the flight of steps to the bridge, ignoring the high-flying, bushy brows on Tory’s face or the sudden silence of the two dozen men manning the deck, the edges on the reefed sails flwipping in the breeze.

“Too fine a day to sleep it away,” I said, blinking owlishly.

Several men looked up at the grouchy, low-hanging clouds in confusion but obediently loosened the lines. Trin stood frozen several feet from the wheel but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a glance. Despite my shaky hands, I felt a sense of relief taking hold of the spokes again, the Beast Slayer’s presence flowing through my mind like aged, honeyed cider.

By the time another hour had passed, my ire had ebbed and a trace of panic set in. The lavender waves seemed almost grey, fitful as they slapped against the prow, and I felt as if they slapped me in the face instead. Never one to go this far past my limits, I was painfully fizzy and dizzy and teary. Do you remember the one night you and I whined at Mama that we should stay up as long as the adults and she blithely let us try? Overtired and bored, you called me a bossy hen and I called you an annoying shrew. You cried and before midnight we were both wrecks in our beds, pitifully thankful when Mama tucked us in.

Staring out over an outlandish, lonely sea, all I wanted at that moment was Mama to make me go to bed. Mama to roll her eyes and drag me away from the wheel, saying, “Stupid and tired are a bad combination, love. Don’t let me catch you being both.”

I was about to go down below before I fell down—about to let the memory or ghost of Mama take me away—when the Beast Slayer cried in my mind without words, a humanless, fierce scream. I screamed too, without meaning to, blindly jerking the wheel to the right as the force of the Slayer’s cry tore through me.

The sails, which had barely had enough wind to fill, now luffed at a useless angle to the breeze. As the crew distantly clamored, talking over each other, I kept screaming until my breath was gone, then I gasped and screamed some more.

Distantly, I felt Tory’s hand on my shoulder, the only time I’ve ever seen that blustering man actually timid. “Captain?”

“Something, something—” I gabbled.

Hisses and plops, so many it sounded like rain, surrounded the ship. I was still gasping for breath, the edges of my vision turning black as men rushed to the sides, but only a few, luckily. Gren and Werin were slapped in the chests with something silver, disappearing overboard without even time to scream with me. After that, sailors dove for the center of the decks as Tory roared, “Battle stations!”

Trin, who I hadn’t noticed standing close, launched himself off the bridge, skipping the stairs entirely. He ran to the chest of weapons kept on deck as the riggers climbed like spiders upwards, awaiting orders to adjust the still-luffing sails.

As far as I could see, the lavender of the water was laced with silver threads, some thin enough to embroider with, some thick as curtain rope. The sea looked like a flower vase mended with molten silver, the metal still showing the cracks where it was first broken. The effect was beautiful, alluring even, at least until I realized the threads were creeping up the bulkheads—the wooden barriers on the edge of the deck to keep men from being swept over—strands reaching for the crew.

Tory shouted orders, but as he did, I felt the ship’s displeasure. “Men, we’ll outrun ‘er! I want every last scrap of wind in those sails now! Captain, turn her starboard!”

I obeyed, but the Slayer groaned in my mind. I felt tightness around her boards, keel and stern, the threads binding her like a noose, with strength like I’d never felt before. Just as fishermen can guess the size and species of a catch from the sort of tug they get on their line, I sensed the threads belonged to something big and flat. A little like I imagine a parasol would feel if you dragged it through a pond while open—assuming of course that the parasol was six fathoms across.

I didn’t choose to speak. The shout was wrenched from me. “No!”

Tory ignored me. “That’s it, boys, she’s catching wind!”

Suffocating, suffocating, I felt the threads twist tighter as the ship turned another degree. The Slayer moaned in distress as I abandoned the wheel, crossing to an eel-oil lamp someone had left burning from their recent trip below decks. I lifted the lamp over my head and threw it into the center of the deck, creating a fireball that plumed halfway to the crow’s nest.

“No!” I bellowed. “The monster wants us to struggle! The Slayer is—”

“Shut up, wench!” Daw roared. “This is battle!”

I slammed my hands down on the rail. “Listen or I’ll throw myself over!”

Tory made a fearful lunge for me—no doubt believing I lost my mind—but I merely looped one leg over the rail, ignoring the silver thread playing at my ankle and tugging at my boot. Despite the danger, stillness and silence reigned over the creaking ship except for the ripples and waves from writhing tentacles.

“Back, quartermaster,” I said, low and slow. “Back. Onto the main deck. That’s an order.”

Tory, red-faced and puffy with rage, obeyed. There was no doubt I meant what I said, which scares me now. I hadn’t realized exhausting my Touch could leave me so without inhibition that I would hurl myself off the ship if it seemed the thing to do.

Taking advantage of the quiet that would surely only last a moment, I shouted fast, so all could hear, “I can feel the Slayer. She’s weathered more attacks than any of us, long before Clacey stepped aboard. The ship knows monsters like this. The threads are really tentacles but they don’t have great strength alone—only a few are thick enough to attack and pull you under—but when we struggle, the monster uses the motion against us, I feel it.”

“Then what do we do?” said Tory, with cold, false calm.

“Keep the Slayer as still as possible and keep the tentacles below the waterline. The horizon is already higher. It’s pulling us under an inch at a time.”

Tory whirled, squinting. It took him a moment to notice what I’d felt instinctively from the Slayer, the waves just a hair closer to the deck.

Crossing back to the wheel, I adjusted it a smidge. “Sails at quarter! We need as little movement as possible! Do you hear me?”

For a moment, tension held in the air, like a bowstring not yet released. Then the riggers climbed up the lines and obeyed, their movement stilted as they reefed the sails to quarter fullness.

Tory ordered, “Everyone, grab a weapon and do whatever it takes to get those threads off this ship!”

“Tie yourselves on!” I added, loud enough that no one could pretend not to hear me. “We have safety tresses—wear them! It’s better than being pulled over like—”

I didn’t have to finish. The crew was already rushing to obey.

I’ve imagined battles I might be in. I imagined the blood, clanging of swords, even giant tentacles on a squid breaking off one of the masts like a child’s rattle. I never imagined wordless thunder, grim and desperate, as men chopped the edges of the ship to pieces trying to keep the sea from swallowing us without a sound.

Tory’s advice, which he still tried to give me, fell on numb ears. I looped my leg over one more time to convince him to keep his distance; I realize now he was trying to tether me down for safety, but I was too Touch-stricken to understand. By then, I was barely aware at all of what was happening on deck as I dove deeper than ever into my connection with the nethership.

The Slayer and I merged together almost as one. When I felt the tentacles tighten, I shifted the wheel, releasing the tension before it could solidify. It was a dance of twitches and winks, a mincing waltz of death.

There weren’t enough tresses for half the crew, forcing many to use scraps of rope or braided twine. Two sailors were lashed around the neck by tentacles and tugged overboard, snapping the weaker tethers as they disappeared instantly into the murk. Three others were saved only because those close to them had the reflexes to cut away the monster’s threads before they tightened and tugged. Once, I saw Trin parrying and slashing, a silver coil moving almost too fast to see as it grabbed for Trin’s sword with eyeless precision.

It could have been minutes or an hour before I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Sensing resistance, the unseen monster redoubled its efforts, whipping threads faster than the men could catch them, digging into the cracks between boards on the Slayer’s side. Those saved by the tresses or their fellows had blood pouring down their necks from the cuts the tentacles left there.

Sawl arrived above decks almost immediately after the battle started, carrying up the fever victims and strapping them down out of the way so he could tend to the wounded without abandoning the ill. Soon he had a half-dozen fainting sailors piled out of the way, pressing on soaked bandages.

Distracted by the bloody sailors, too late I realized the monster was picking away at a board below the waterline, feeling only when the board gave way and water rushed in. I screamed, “We’re taking on water!”

At once, someone laughed, a hopeless, frantic sound. “Hysterical woman.”

I ignored him. “Uri!”

Uri was behind me at the stern, so I only heard his reply, “Aye!”

“Take six men below and stop up that hole!”

“Can we use—”

“Yes! Whatever it is, yes!”

“We’re listing!” Daw shouted out.

“Gee, I wonder if it’s all the water we’re taking on!” I bellowed.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Chagrined and terrified, the men fought harder, but between the damage and the monster’s determination, we’d sunk six feet into the depths. I could easily see silver threads writhing under the water with chilling eagerness, anticipating their massive meal, the water churning like a boiling pot.

I draped myself across the wheel, eyelids drifting shut despite my panic. I was so very, very tired, a sort of tired that went beyond my flesh and into my bones. Never before had I felt the fizzing all the way up to my shoulders, creeping into my skull. Sure, Trin shouldn’t have carelessly suggested a mini-mutiny, but I reacted with a childish display of will. That hour of sleep I’d thrown away, ignoring the danger it put the crew in to have an utterly exhausted captain—it wouldn’t matter on just any ship, but this is a nethership, and I’m the only Toucher we have.

No fragment of energy or drop of fortitude was left within me, all worn away by a solid week at the wheel. Yet somehow, my connection with the Slayer held.

I straightened, slapping myself in the face hard enough to leave welts, making myself study the problem, the deck, the men. I cringed when I saw them tiptoeing around the glass lantern I’d broken. Even though the wood wouldn’t catch since all our lanterns are eel oil, it was a foolish thing to do when half the men go shoeless. Quite a few wore Sawl’s bandages on their feet, no doubt cut by shards.

The lantern.

“Great stars and planets that’s it,” I said hoarsely. “Bunt!”

Bunt, who had been rushing about with knives and boards and bandages, looked up like a pointer in tall grass.

“Get three sailors and gather every scrap of eel-oil we have! Every bottle, every rag—before I can count to thirty, you hear me?”

Bunt didn’t even say aye-aye and amazingly the men he grabbed (Rex, Horice, and Mahn) didn’t protest either. As soon as they appeared through the hatch with milky bottles in their arms, I took a breath, knowing the crowd wouldn’t like this.

“Men! Everyone take a bottle and drench the sides of the Beast! We’re setting her on fire!”

I had expected protest, refusal. I was prepared to threaten to throw myself over for the third time. Indeed, there was a general cry of denial, of repulsion.

Tory’s eyebrows flew up into his graying, wild mop, face alight with understanding. “Aye-aye! Do it, do it now!”

As the men rushed to drench the wood of the Slayer in eel oil, I sucked in a breath through my teeth as Terence was yanked overboard, leaving a skim of crimson on the oily wood. Though he wasn’t the first to die, he was the first death to really register in my Touched mind. If there had been anything in my stomach I would have heaved it onto the boards, but the act of vomiting would have taken too much energy.

“Flint! Does anyone have flint!”

Still seeing Terence’s body I slapped myself again. “Here!”

Reaching over, I touched a finger to the soaking bulwark, a spark flying from the tip.

The sight of the Beast Slayer’s sides roaring with green flames was intoxicating, invigorating—terrifying. Crowded like frightened mice in the middle of the deck, the crew watched in awe as the tentacles recoiled from the fire, the oil dripping down and spreading to the water around the ship so that even those threads were forced to retreat.

As the riggers stepped forward to wet the ship again, Sawl rose up from his crouch over a man whose face was a mask of crimson, raising his hand. Something about that man made them stop short without having the surgeon even speak a word.

“Save it,” Sawl said, above the eerie crackle of the oil. “The captain was wise to suggest we use fire that won’t burn the ship, but we’ll run out of eel oil long before the monster runs out of hunger. We shouldn’t have used so much in the beginning.”

Now that Sawl said it, I realized the man was right. Though it was satisfying, thrilling even, to so completely turn the tide of battle, the victory was short-lived and short-sighted. I could feel threads below the waterline trying to draw tighter, still forcing me to wiggle the wheel this way and that to keep the ship from getting enmeshed.

Many eyes turned to me and I was surprised to realize the men were waiting for me to decide. For my orders. I nodded, waving with two fingers to signal the riggers should wait.

My head felt heavy, like a boulder wrapped in wool, the nod a gargantuan effort. My knees had been trembling for an hour. I could no longer feel fingers or toes, and I would not have been conscious without the strength pouring into me from the Slayer, the steadiness of her timbers and presence.

With blurry eyes, I watched Sawl climb the stairs to stand beside me on the quarterdeck. Anyone else I would have threatened, moving to the railing and ordering them to keep their distance. The not-entirely-irrational fear that the men would truss me up and make me steer as they liked hadn’t left me completely. But something about Sawl kept my feet glued to the boards for better or worse, waiting for him to speak.

“How long has it been since you slept, Captain?”

“Since it was dark.”

It was a stupid answer, perhaps, but a telling one, considering how long I’d been at the wheel. We had long since passed noon.

“Captain, sit down.”

“I can’t steer sitting down.”

“Bunt!” It was the first time I’d heard Sawl yell in nearly seven months on this ship. “Get the captain a chair!”

Distantly, I heard an aye-aye. I shook my head. “I’ll sleep if I sit.”

“Captain.”

I looked up at him. He looked as tired as I felt, with stubble on his pale cheeks and jaw, dark hair sticking to the sweat on his neck. Don’t squirm Tarisa, but in that moment the possibility that Sawl had murdered the captain in cold hatred didn’t bother me a whit. I cocked my head. “I’ve never been to sickbay.”

“No, Captain.”

“How often do the fever victims need treatment?”

“You mean the antidote?”

I shrugged, careful not to jostle the wheel. What an odd conversation. It felt like a dream. Fizz. Fizz.

“Every twenty minutes, with worse attacks once or twice a day that require doses by the minute.”

“When did you last sleep, Sawl?”

At this, the first smile I’d ever seen on him, sad and soft and weary all at once. “About fifteen years ago, Captain.”

Then I was shoved against the wheel so hard I cried out, head striking the spokes. Transforming from soothing surgeon to blazing madman in an instant, Sawl’s thrust was so sudden I instinctively grabbed at his arm, my eyes falling on a silver thread around his neck, one thick enough to penetrate the flames. I didn’t realize it then, but I underestimated the monster’s intelligence; it had deduced where the captain stood, but caught Sawl instead of me.

I slapped at the tentacle around his neck as if it were a garden spider, shrieking like a bedlamite. “Off! Shoo!”

My Touch flared, scorching the silver tentacle and Sawl’s skin, leaving a palm-shaped, white burn. My fingers came away bloody as Sawl staggered back, dragging me with him.

“Ow,” I said, head lolling on my neck.

Then my view of the ship snapped into blackness. I didn’t even feel myself hit the boards.

I love you, Ree-Ree. I do. I am so sorry for making you worry these days, these months. I’m sorry I didn’t think of a better plan. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger, or smarter, or a better big sister, to leave you alone to clean up my mess. The part of me that was convinced none of this was my fault died with Terence, Gren, Werin and the others.

See I knew, even when I was slowly returning to wakefulness, the stained cloth above me a blur, that I had failed. A distant keening in my mind—the Beast Slayer, still whole but battered—made me realize she mourned the loss of those she had carried, in a strange, distant way. Not with human guilt or shame like that which still burns in my chest, but with a sadness difficult to describe. She ‘saw’ the lost sailors differently but with deep fondness, as distant lights belonging to her, under her care and snuffed now forever.

Tears leaked from my eyes before I’d found the strength to open them, or the thoughts to explain the weeping.

“Sawlbones, she’s comin’ to.”

Leather boots squeaked against worn wood. A wet cloth gently pushed between my lips. It was sweeter than pixies’ nectar. I nearly gagged. I meant to say, remove that soggy nastiness! What came out was, “Bluch.”

Then the darkness descended again. For what felt like an eternity, that was my existence. Darkness, silence, the sweetness and roughness of the cloth, and big hands pushing mine away when I tried to remove it, only to fall unconscious again.

When I finally woke for good, it had been six days since my last letter. I’d been unconscious for three, timing I only worked out later. Trying to jerk myself up, I gasped when those same, cursed hands held me down, pressing on my heart.

“Easy, Captain.”

I knew that baritone. Jerking wildly, I turned to see Sawl, crouched down at eye level with the hammock frame. A chest and three other hanging bunks—all empty—were the only other furniture in the tiny cabin. Seeing the bunks empty struck fear in me I was too groggy yet to understand. He struck fear in me.

“Wha…”

“Don’t talk. Drink.”

Somehow, the order came across as a polite nicety. Automatically, I took the cup, grateful even for the almost-foul water to wash away the cloying sweet clinging to my teeth. I chewed and swallowed the soaked hard-tack in the water too, my stomach feeling raw.

“What—”

“Don’t. Talk.

My jaw snapped shut. With some alarm, I realized Sawl’s blazing glare, one I’d never seen the likes of, was fully focused on me. “Don’t talk. Don’t move. I’ve never seen a Toucher so completely, utterly empty. I think your bond with the ship is all that kept you from dying from it.”

At my obvious alarm, he merely continued, low and forceful, “Not to mention exhaustion, dehydration and sunstroke. Did you even notice the burn you had?”

“Burn?”

“Sunburn? Windburn?”

I felt myself flush as if to prove him right. “My skin felt hot, I suppose.”

Sawl rose quickly to his feet. “Now you’re awake, I need to talk with Tory. I’m sorry, Captain.”

I called after him—he was halfway out the door already—“For what?”

“Miscalculating.”

Then Sawl was gone.

I’ve been writing for hours now. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to write it all down—has there ever been such a letter? When Mama and Papa used the seals to send their love notes, could they ever have imagined I’d be sharing such gruesome realities?

I will cut it short. It was a solid day before Sawl let me sit up, obviously afraid I would overextend and faint again if I so much as sneezed. Perhaps because I did sneeze, and faint, not long after he bluntly laid out my foolishness before me. My fear of Sawl ebbed through sheer exposure; if he wanted to kill me, he sure missed an excellent chance. So I shunted aside the danger I felt alone with him, well aware I was too helpless to do a thing about it. Just as I was helpless to get word to you. I shed tears, when Sawl left me alone, knowing how you must be suffering a world away.

The aftermath of the battle was something else Sawl didn’t find me strong enough for, nor would he speak of the still-unnamed monster or even the state of the ship’s leak. Though I asked and even ordered to be told, he pretended not to hear me. Indeed, any attempt at conversation was met with stony, but oddly polite, silence.

I noticed him rubbing his neck often with lotion. As he turned away I caught a glimpse under his collar of the burn I had left there. Tarisa, I still don't know how I even hurt him like that. It shouldn't have been possible for me to use my power directly on his skin; the Touch works always on objects that aren't alive as a medium. I didn’t ask if it was healing, tried not to think of how much such a wound was surely agony for him. I said nothing. I didn’t have the strength to puzzle out between he and I who had harmed or saved who.

This evening, I was sitting up, feeling strong enough, at last, to return to my cabin, well aware this was the day and I had only until sunrise to write to you. I tried a different tack. “Are there others?”

Sawl glanced at me from the opposite hammock, where he was ripping bandages. At the beginning of my convalescence, I might have quailed beneath the severity of his gaze. Now I realized that was just how Sawl was. “You mean wounded?”

“Yes.”

He bowed his head and seemed to consider before nodding. “We lost Xavi, and three men are still laid flat with their wounds. Something in the tentacles discourages clotting, like mosquitoes do, only much worse. As the ship has been drifting, the men have taken shifts keeping pressure on cuts.”

“Stars preserve us.”

Sawl smiled—only the second smile I’d ever seen on his face.

“What?”

“It’s a ladylike phrase, Captain, one I rarely hear in sickbay.”

“Why aren’t the wounded here?”

“Keeping pressure on cuts is not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t risk the wounded men waking you with groans or curses. We’re caring for the rest in the crew quarters, and sickbay is closer for me to run in between you all.”

“And the magtox sailors? When I was woozy, I thought I heard…”

Though his eyes barely creased, and his relaxed posture didn’t change, here again was the intense man who thrust me aside in the blink of an eye, taking the lash that was meant for me. Never in my life had I seen anyone look so dangerous as Sawl did then. It took my breath from my lungs.

“They are well.”

“Well? Sawl—”

“Captain, I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

I doubted that, and I doubt him. Tarisa, you revel in those novels with daring men and fainting women, a dismally accurate portrayal of Sawl and I before I wilted like a dry daffodil, but don’t be fooled. I know it seems strange, but I trust Sawl less now than I did before.

He saved my life and knew what to do when I so terribly overextended myself but in the times I was awake, I sensed the walls in him are thick and armored. This man I’ve barely known, though I’ve lived near him for half a year, is purposely aloof, I see that now. I would bet my life that Sawl has secrets as deep and dark as Prism Sound. I feel them. Yet I’ll be forever grateful to him, though he be our murderer, and the dissonance of that is jarring.

So I said what Mama would have liked me to. “Thank you, Sawl.”

He didn’t meet my eyes, but nodded, a strangely gentlemanly gesture.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry for the burn.”

“Think nothing of it. It saved my life and nearly cost yours.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that as Sawl took me by the elbow, shepherding me out of the room and to the captain’s cabin. Just before the door shut, I asked through the crack, “How are the water barrels?”

“Tomorrow, Captain.”

He left me. I plopped on the chair and I wrote. And wrote. Truthfully, I haven’t read your letter from four days’ past, Tarisa. I couldn’t bear it, not yet. I feel as fragile as spun glass. Perhaps…tomorrow.

I’ve just realized—I can’t hide down here, sleep another night while the ship drifts. All this time, the ink has been sliding to and fro on the desk, my greasy hair swinging before my eyes with harsh swells. No, the ship has waited long enough for her captain. Sawl will have to haul me bodily below if he wants to stop me.

The Slayer is low on supplies and no doubt morale. A man would climb those steps and grip the wheel and so shall I. But not for long this time, don’t sweat over it, T. As Mama would say, “Stupid and tired is a bad combination.” I don’t intend to brew that poison again if I can help it.

I miss you so much I can’t seem to breathe. Or perhaps that’s just the thought of stepping on that scarred, stained deck again. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you—

Maree

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25 May

Yoren Hall

Solan

To the Captain,

Bravo. Bravo. It is all I can say, but not nearly all I feel. My heart is bursting but oh, oh so heavy. You didn’t answer, and didn’t answer, and I don’t want to think about the last four days. Instead, I’ll think of you.

Maree, listen to me. You are not the Maker, deciding who gets pulled overboard and who gets saved with a bit of quick thinking. Papa spoke of commanders he watched when he was fighting the Eternal War in Trifay, strong men whose seeds of guilt grew into choking vines of darkness that brought them to their knees. I know you can’t simply banish such feelings, I can’t imagine how it feels to watch men pulled to their deaths, but don’t drown in your undeserved blame; you’re playing with fire that could not only sink you but the ship you’re on.

You said it yourself: no Toucher as weak as you are would take on a nethership. Making a foolish mistake when exhausted and delirious from Touch haze is not only forgivable, but we should have seen it coming. I see now that you should plan on going a little crazy, calculate your limits and put safeguards in place when you do overreach.

No one can sacrifice more than their life but apparently, you gave it your best shot. How could anyone ask more of a captain than that?

You are the most selfless, forgiving person I have ever met. You’re mourning with all your soul for men that made your life miserable and I don’t know whether to cry or cheer for it.

So instead, since Mama isn’t here to say it, I will: go to sleep. I get the downright alarming impression that you are planning on returning to your old schedule of remaining barely conscious for days on end, but I think it’s as obvious as a sheep butt in your face that Captain Maree being too tired will dangerously slow if not sink the Slayer.

I’m so scared, Maree. I’m trying not to think about it because I’ll only cry and cry, and then I’ll get puffy and people will notice and ask, but I almost lost you. I can’t lose you. I can’t. Please.

So sleep, darn you. For me. I’m begging.

As for here, there’s so much to say but I’m afraid to send much through the seals after the length of your letter. I don’t remember Mama ever saying the seals had a page limit, but I don’t think she and Papa ever tested them. Given that you are my lifeline and I yours, I think it would be foolish to press our luck now. So the first four days of the party will have to wait until I write you again, though I could spit nails being so responsible.

This is unlike any house party I have ever attended. To say the Viscountess and Viscount are eccentric is to say a volcanic eruption is warm. A battle of its own has started, along more genteel lines, and I wish with all my soul you were here to braid my hair and talk me through it. It’s been nightmarish trying to pretend levity when I’ve been sick over you, but with your letter and Camden arriving on the same day, I’m breathing deeply for the first time in what feels like an age. Yes, Camden arrived today, half a week after the rest of the party. The household was gone on an excursion until nightfall, so I haven’t even spoken to him yet. After returning from the seaside, everyone went to their rooms to dress for dinner.

I just can’t express how strange it is here, within me and without, as if the sun has shifted and the light strikes differently. I feel like a fraud, my mind full of monsters and death and bloody heroics. Then I smile and laugh and make conversation (occasionally frightful or ridiculous or contentious conversation) all while a piece of me is a world away. I won’t hear a word against this Sawl person until you find a signed confession from him. It’s because of the surgeon I got one more letter, and I could kiss him on the lips for it.

But first I would wrap my arms around you and squeeze all the hurt, and the salt, and the grief out of you until we were both clean and whole.

I love you sis, a thousand, thousand, thousand times.

Tarisa

P.S. I cannot believe I almost guessed right. A giant sea slug would have been better.