Shaya stood at the prow of the ship and looked out over the glittering jade water, enjoyed the wind as it blew through her hair, and inhaled the fresh air. She didn’t remember appreciating the trip across the Jade Sea as much when Lumir had taken them to their new home, but she guessed her mind was occupied with... every other conceivable thing, given the circumstances. Now that she could pause and just live in the moment though, the world was a beautiful place.

“Oi, Hunter!” One of the crew shouted as he passed by, “Got another tale for us tonight?”

“You bet friend,” she grinned back at him. She was, admittedly, running out of true stories of her expeditions to tell them, but the crew had been so enraptured that she couldn’t let them down now. Some of the other passengers, and even the captain himself, joined her evening story circle over the past few days.

They were about half way through the journey, with the only land mass in sight the towering form of Mount Arcadia. The day was cooler than the rest, with more clouds swarming the sky than she’d see in some time. Surly’s first mate warned that there could be a storm coming, but he based the forecast on his knee acting up so Shaya didn’t pay it much mind.

With nature suitably enjoyed, she made her way back to her cabin to spend some time with Quill and then get to her magic practice. She passed two of the younger nephilim passengers from Zothiri sparring with dueling foils, calling out points whenever one tapped the other gently, and turned them down when they tried to goad ‘the Monster Hunter’ into fighting them. Sunlight turned to lamp light and the flapping of sails turned to the flapping of lips as she went down the steps into the crew quarter. There she had to deflect requests for more tales, promising more at a later time, and continued down another deck to where the passengers were stored.

She passed her neighbours in the hallway, the two merchants she had seen boarding the ship when she arrived. Shaya shuddered when she saw the two tall, broad-shouldered men, but there was no averting her gaze or avoiding them. They shot daggers at her with their eyes as they passed each other in the cramped hall, voluminous robes swishing and brushing up against her, and she made an apologetic gesture to them. She was lucky they hadn’t complained, and her only complaints about them was that at least one of them was regularly – and loudly – sea sick out their open port.

Quill was not enjoying being cooped up in a cabin for most of the time, but they weren’t trained enough to be allowed on deck unless nature called. This led to some serious squawking, no doubt exacerbated by the other problem.

Shaya ducked as she entered her small cabin, her handle squeaking loudly as she turned it. It was large enough for a cot and her backpack, and not much else. The poor gryphlet couldn’t stretch their wings to preen and it was clearly driving them crazy, especially since they were molting. Little pin feathers poked out of Quill’s head and wings in places they couldn’t reach in the cramped space.

They looked up at her and gave a miserable squawk.

“Sorry buddy,” she kneeled next to them, “I know you don’t like it here, but it’s almost over. Just a few more days and you’ll be in open space all the time again.”

Shaya slipped on her leather riding gloves that she had removed the finger tips from with her dagger. Then she gingerly scratched Quill’s head, trying to work off more of the little pins so the feathers could be free. Quill would bite at her on occasion when removing a pin was too uncomfortable, but luckily her modified gloves meant her hands were safe. She had learned quickly how capable a bird’s beak was for maiming prey after a few nips to her hand. When her companion got too nippy, she gave up and took out a small leather notebook.

Time to practice.

She flipped open the notebook, which contained notes on her magical experiments. The little thing was meant for merchants to take brief notes in, so she had to flip through several small pages cramped with her wild scrawling to get back to where she left off.

“Phaedra!” She called out and her Esper appeared, the angel’s ethereal form passing through the walls and ceiling of her tiny room. Looking out the port hole in her cabin, Shaya had no problem drawing in Amber.

Due to her lack of sanctions, Krebo and Jax had only taught her a handful of runes to form the foundation of her circuits. Light armour, spirit weapon, barrier of light, ignore pain, and mend wounds. Shaya did what she could to improve with using these runes in magic circuits, but a realization had dawned on her since departing.

I was too focused on raw power, she thought to herself, but I think I understand what Krebo was going for at that last training session.

“Gird my form against harm!”

Rather than focus on a complete set of smooth plates, Shaya traced out a smaller, rougher circuit. When she channeled aether into the spell, a breastplate of simple, flat planes weaved around her torso and similar box-like bracers wrapped around her forearms. She had cut everything from the circuit that wasn’t an absolute necessity to protect her, so the hard light maintained its dim, golden glow and she felt the inefficient spell guzzling her Amber like a marooned sailor finding fresh water.

The armour was far from optimal, but she at least made sure the plates included a basic gorget and were less likely to deflect blows up into her neck and face.

She mapped out the feel of her circuit again and made another note in her notebook with her stubby pen and black ink.

Rapid Armour. Cast time: 10 seconds.

She smiled as she flipped back to the previous day’s notes: casting time down from 12 seconds.

Progress!

Flipping back even further, she found the last time she had practiced her full armour of light spell: 30 seconds.

Ten seconds is still far from ideal, but I can at least probably get that off in the middle of combat or with little notice. Then I just have to absorb the aether loss until the worst of the situation is over.

Shaya dismissed the spell and started over, again and again, focusing on speed more than clean executions. As the afternoon passed by, her confidence continued to grow – and it had nothing to do with the amount of Amber she was burning through. A growing pressure behind her eyes told her it was time to quit, before she started to burn out her spirit.

“Huh,” she said aloud to the gryphlet, who had napped next to her for the past hours, “I haven’t recorded how long I can practice for, but it feels like the sessions are lasting longer and longer.”

She made another note in her book:

9

“Titan spit, I’m out of ink.” She scritched Quill’s rump as they slept, earning her a pleased wark as their feline tail rose and the dark poof of fur at the end wiggled in delight. “Alright friend, let’s get you outside for a walk.”

Their head rose in excitement, the desire to nap dispelled in an instant. “Wark!”

The late afternoon sun greeted them as they emerged on the deck, its light filtered through darker, denser clouds than she had seen earlier that day. She frowned up at the sky and then at the first mate, who tapped the side of his nose when he saw her. “I still call Titan spit that you called this based on a bum leg.”

He laughed in response, and returned to his duties.

The crowd had changed up above, with a shift change leading to new crew mates at each station and the passengers rotating through as some desired privacy while others wanted fresh air. The two duelists remained, however, and Shaya spotted her neighbours standing off to the side of the deck, watching the fencing match as it took place. The gaze of one of them slid off the duelists and scanned the deck, pausing on tough-looking people or those in rich attire.

That’s not the look of an idle, bored merchant at all.

The man’s gaze swept around the deck and locked onto Shaya, their eyes meeting. She only just realized how non-descript he and his partner appeared: dark hair and brown eyes common for Kelahk, and nothing of note on their faces. The merchant robes were bulky enough to cover their builds as well.

Spit, don’t let him think you’re onto him.

Shaya bowed her head in awkward acknowledgement and made another apologetic gesture.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he studied her, but were drawn to Quill when the gryphlet spread their wings and gave a triumphant squawk. She watched him for another instance, and realized that his eyes did not shine in annoyance or agitation – she saw something else there. Greed, maybe even malice.

Shaya flicked her eyes away from the man watching her, and rubbed the back of her head in feigned embarrassment as Quill’s cry drew everyone’s attention to her. Most of the sailors looked excited to see them, but the other passengers were an even split between annoyance and excitement. She walked towards a less populated part of the ship, which happened to be the poop deck above the aft castle.

Fitting, she thought to herself with a smirk.

She spotted the captain chatting with the helmswoman and gave them a wave as she walked towards them. “Captain, can I have a word with you in relative private?”

“O’ course,” Kredig said, clapping the helmswoman on the back hard enough she had to catch herself on the wheel.

The two of them walked to the very aft of the ship, where a nod from the captain dismissed the sailor standing watch there. He leaned against the railing and Shaya feared it would snap under his weight, but it held and the big man smirked at her concern. “Don’t you worry about Surly here, she’s my pride and joy.” He took in a deep breath of the fresh sea air, “So, what I can do for ya, oh slayer o’ beasts?”

“Out of curiousity, did you vet your passengers much?” She asked.

He was taken aback by her blunt question, his head cocking at her when he recovered. “Out o’ curiousity – what peaked yer curiousity?”

“I don’t want to name anyone, but I just got some strange vibes from some of the passengers,” she explained, “it might be nothing, but I got the sense they were casing the ship and its occupants. I dunno, like they might be looking to rob some of the richer passengers or...well, I don’t like how they’re look at the gryphlet either.”

Kredig’s eyes narrowed, the coal-like embers flaring, “That’s a pretty serious accusation.”

“Just an observation, at the moment. That’s why I wanted to raise it with you in private.”

“And jus’ how would you know what a person looks like when casin’ a place?”

Shaya broke eye contact and leaned on the railing, looking out over the Jade Sea. The sky behind them was still a clear blue, with all of the dark clouds racing ahead of them. She mulled over her options, watching the water ripple in the ship’s wake.

Do I trust him enough to share my past?

Why would he trust me if I didn’t offer anything, though?

“Before I Awakened, my brother and I were orphans in Imperial City,” she explained, “forced to live in the Blight and survive somehow.” She turned back to him, his intense gaze attentive, and still waiting for her to continue speaking.

With a sigh, she continued, “I know what it looks like, because I was a thief in a former life. I could be wrong, but my gut tells me I’m not.”

“Hmm,” he rumbled, “how would you even rob someone onna boat? It’s not like there’s any place to go.”

Shaya gave it a moment’s thought before responding, “A few options come to mind. The first is you steal something relatively innocuous, or that could go unnoticed. A bit of jewelry, some coin or something from sealed cargo. The second is to shift the blame to someone else – fan noted enmities between passengers, plant some evidence on a scapegoat, or something darker. The third would be not robbing them on the boat, they could be marking folks or their cargo for when the boat reaches its destination.”

The sparks in his eyes intensified as she spoke, and his frown was a deep crag when she finished. The silence stretched between them until Shaya thought she should go, but he spoke just as she was about move away. “It’s prolly not the cargo,” he confided, dropping his voice to a whisper, “Imperial City has a food shortage, so Surly’s laden down with grain and salted meats to help feed its masses. Now, who do you suspect?”

“You’re that quick to trust me?”

“Ye’ve been a boon to the crew, ye walk around with an Astorian Saint as yer Esper, and, assumin’ ye’re not exaggeratin’ your stories too much, you sound like put yourself at risk for the well-being of others more than’s healthy for you.” He gave her a tight smile, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “So I’m inclined to trust ye a bit, at least.”

Thank you, Saint Phaedra. She thought to herself. Hopefully this keeps my reputation niiice and clean in case I do ever have to play the scoundrel someday.

She nodded to Kredig. “Thank you, I’m glad I’ve made a positive impression. As for who, it’s the two robed men who boarded around the same time I did.”

Kredig couldn’t restrain the deep rumble of agitation that left his throat, and his eyes even flicked to where the two suspects were still standing on the lower deck. His eyes smoldered and teeth ground together loud enough to make even Krebo’s restrained anger seem like child’s play.

Gods, is he going to have them thrown overboard right now?

Wait. Shaya looked at the captain, at how his jaw muscles bulged and how the wooden railing creaked as his giant hands gripped it. The all-too-familiar attempt at restraint written across his features. Oh Throne above, his demonic curse is putting him into a blood rage.

Kredig’s nostrils flared with rage and fire swam in his infernal eyes as he looked towards the two men Shaya had accused of ill intentions. Shaya had experienced a similar sensation, but never from such an indirect trigger. Wounds would set her blood boiling, and perhaps even direct insults, but this? She counted herself lucky that she had such weak blood, if this was what a true nephilim descended from Tarrak was like.

“Captain,” she said, trying to draw his attention.

It didn’t work. He was glaring directly at the merchants, who would notice the moment one of them scanned this direction – raised aft castle or not.

I can’t let him tip them off, or rush over and tear them limb from limb.

“Kredig.” She tried not to draw the attention of any nearby crew or passengers, it wouldn’t due for anyone to see him like this. “Kredig!”

Still nothing.

Gods, what do I do? Slap him?

No, that would draw too much attention to us anyway...

“Figures it’s the ones that can offer good money for privacy,” he finally growled, shaking his head to clear it, “Thank you for bringing your suspicions to me, but your role in this ends now. It’s my job to make sure the passengers are safe, me an’ the crew’ll deal with this – if it amounts to anything.”

“Are you sure? I’m happy to help.”

“I’m sure, don’t stick your neck out any further.”

“Well, if you insist, I’ll stay out of it,” Shaya lied.