Saia clutched Serit’s screaming shape against her shoulder. After the initial jump from the top of the flying city, they had somewhat calmed down, at least until they were past Iriméze’s pipes. Once the clouds had started thinning out, showing the endless blue that awaited below, they had resumed screaming.

“Stop! We’re going to die!”

Saia was about to rebuke that they should have been used to jumping down from the clouds, but realized where the problem lay: the shilvé learned early on to jump down from their city without fearing for their lives, because a silent pact with the world reassured them that they would become rain before impacting with the ground. Now that they had fallen past the threshold and Serit’s body had realized it didn’t apply to them anymore, all the fear they had felt prior to their first jump had come back in full force.

“Slow down!”

“I know, I promise we’ll land safely.”

She took advantage of her position to check the world below: the sea expanded eastward, to the point there wasn’t much to be seen in that direction, except for distant stripes of land. There was another shore, much closer, with walls of vertical rock instead of sand, jutting out from a huge forest. She immediately thought it was the external one, but as she fell closer, she realized that the trees weren’t the tall giants she’d seen the night of her victory against Vizena.

She focused on the horizon, looking for the mountain. She found it, or better, she found many of them, with wildly different shapes, some isolated, some close to each other. She tried to remember the mountain’s exact shape, but in their differences they were still too similar to each other to serve as a guide. Besides, she suspected mount Ohat was on the other side of the sea, beyond the horizon. She thought of checking the maps one second too late: the surface of the water was less than a towerlength below, and approaching fast. She slowed down Serit’s fall enough it wouldn’t hurt them, then let herself plunge into the water.

The sea was dark, but the darkness couldn’t faze her anymore, nor did the water pressing against her stone eyes. She could see everything around her, in every direction, crystal clear as if she was looking through the glass of her binoculars: the bottom was so far below it felt like her fall from the clouds had just started again. She saw rocks emerging from the sand, hiding a deeper darkness. The only sign of life was the occasional movement between the algae, or a fish emerging for an instant to catch its prey. Their camouflage was good enough it could fool her, even if she was sure she could see their viss if she expanded her domain wide enough.

She took in the quiet as she sunk faster than anticipated, until it was interrupted by a wild splashing and distant screams. She looked up to see Serit flailing in the water. She realized that they might not know how to swim, since Iriméze didn't have a river or lake.

She pushed herself back up, creating a vortex in the water below her. She emerged next to Serit and immediately caught them by the back of their tunic. She kept them out of the water, propelling herself toward the nearest shore.

Swimming was extremely difficult with that body, to the point she suspected it would be better to walk on the bottom of the sea. But that would mean drowning Serit, and besides, she wouldn't know in which direction to go: the mountain was far enough to be invisible, the sea long enough that she could walk for weeks before finding the opposite shore. And she still didn't know what the guardian was. With her reserves of viss running low, rushing straight toward it could be a mistake.

She knew of only three entities who had managed to reach the mountain from the external world: a giant of fire, an enemy fleet, and a ship with a tanhata crew. Finding a ship was her best bet.

She felt extremely lucky when, further down the shore they were approaching, she spotted a vessel floating next to a cliff.

The sea bottom was finally high enough that she could walk on it and still keep Serit out of the water with a raised arm. She climbed the gentle incline until she reached the beach and let them down. Their legs buckled and they fell down on their knees.

“I hate land already.”

Saia laughed. She left them there to explore a bit ahead, hoping to find a path that connected the beach to the tall ledge of rock at its end. She found a narrow trail of beaten earth snaking up between the rocks and a stretch of grass. Both soil and sand presented traces of human footprints, partially washed away by the waves and wind during the night.

She walked back to Serit, still kneeling a few steps from the roaring waves.

“There's a ship ahead,” she said. “Maybe we can convince them to bring us…”

They sneezed, hugging the soaked tunic closer to their body. They took out a portable light from their pocket and raised it to illuminate Saia's face.

“It's freezing. Can we rest and wait until tomorrow?”

Saia looked back at the ledge of rock. The ship was still anchored in place, and she could keep guard for the rest of the night in case it decided to leave.

“I guess we can.”

She helped Serit set up and light a fire, wondering whether bringing them with her had really been a good idea. Sure, her viss wasn't being sucked away to the other side of the sea, but she needed to slow down because of their need for food, sleep and clean water, which was remarkably difficult to find in the area. She explored a bit the stretch of grass and the outskirts of the forest. When she came back empty-handed Serit was already asleep, so she just sat down next to the fire, observing the sea and the ship in the distance. If she didn't look at the forest and the foreign shape of the shore, it almost felt like she was home, with the mountain at her back, her family nearby. After weeks of being told what to do and led around foreign landscapes, the quiet of the sea was a healing balm.

She took out Aili’s shard and began sending her first message.

Dawn came surprisingly fast. Serit batted their eyes at the first ray of sun, and immediately started whining about their cracked lips.

“Let's go to the ship,” Saia said. “I’m sure they have something to drink.”

That was enough to convince them to stand and follow her toward on the path. She speeded ahead, impatient to know what was awaiting them. Once at the top of the cliff, she approached the very border and stopped to observe.

The ship was right below her, traversed by movements and distant voices. It was longer and wider than any she'd ever seen, including the tanhata one that had intruded on the peace of the mountain. The hull was thick and heavy, with small portholes. Despite the length, the ship wasn't proportionally tall. One end of it carried an irregular pyramid of what seemed like gray stone blocks stacked on top of each other. More were being transported onto the ship by some crewmembers through a precarious gangplank connecting ship to shore. The work was proceeding slowly, since the blocks had to be carried by rolling them on top of tree trunks and pushing them up toward the ship, while a long line of people heaved them with a rope on the other side. Saia wondered why they were working so early, when the sun was just barely rising, then realized it was cold enough to make the effort bearable.

Someone climbed the tall central mast and Saia retracted, aware that they could see her standing on top of the cliff. She wasn't scared to be spotted, but still didn't want to alarm the crew before she had figured out how to best approach them. She focused on the rest of what she could see all around her.

The shore was barely a stripe of sand that immediately gave way to a gauge on the flank of the cliff. The view gave her pause: some villages, mostly the western ones, excavated parts of the mountain to extract materials. The activity was always a source of controversy, since most people considered the mountain sacred. The compromise was to only extract what was necessary, not dig too deep, and cover up the abandoned excavation sites with soil and vegetation once they were depleted.

Saia knew the mountain wasn't sacred, that presenting it as such had been one of the many ruses of the monks, but she still felt like she shouldn't be looking at that spot where the ancient irregularities of the stone were brusquely interrupted, as if cut like butter. The empty space was occupied by pieces of rock in various stages of refining, with people cutting away pieces with chisels and hammers bigger than her head, until they produced a perfect cubic shape. Piles of them waited around the end of the gangway, ready to be collected by the crew.

“A quarry,” Serit said, out of breath after the climb. “What's your plan?”

“I’ll ask if they can bring me home.”

“They'll probably refuse.”

“Then I'll take the ship.”

She started to descend before Serit could protest. She felt good, not having to listen to anyone. A ship would mean moving faster across the sea. She could try to cross, and if she met the guardian anywhere, she could at least take a good look at it before fighting or fleeing.

Some people around the perimeter of the cave took notice of her. It wasn't difficult, considering there was just one path leading from the top of the cliff to the quarry, and they had probably been the ones to create it. They yelled something at her, but she didn't understand the words.

“I want to talk,” she replied in her native language, aware of how pointless it was.

“Wait,” Serit panted behind her.

Saia was about to ignore them, but the alarm in their voice convinced her to stop. She saw Serit accelerate to reach her, causing a small landslide of gravel. She noticed they had raised the neckline of their tunic to cover their lower face, up to their eyes.

“What are you doing?” Saia asked.

“Do you have some cloth? Spare clothes, scarves, stuff like that.”

Saia looked inside her bag: she had her old shirts and two spare tunics, but they were still moist. Serit took two of them and wrapped them around their head, hiding both the hair and the rest of the face. The only visible part was a slit around the eyes.

“If anyone asks, the gray is makeup. No one can know I'm a shilvé," they explained, while a distant figure detached from the rest of the workers and started climbing the path to reach them. “Apart from some merchants, most of them never saw one of us. It would be chaos if the voice got around that we can descend on earth. They think we're evil."

“Really? And I guess the whole attacking from the clouds and stealing materials has nothing to do with it?”

“Most of our cities…” Serit started, but was mercifully interrupted by the man who had been climbing the path toward them.

He said something else, hand on the sword at his side. The sounds of his tongue were surprisingly similar to Saia’s own language, at least compared to Shilizé. Some words sounded familiar, but the man was speaking too fast to be certain.

She looked at Serit.

“You're the expert with languages. What is he saying?”

“I think it’s Arissian. I’ve barely studied it, but… Let me try.”

They said something, hesitating between words, repeating themselves. The man frowned and barked something else.

“The quarry is off-limits,” Serit said, stepping back. “Let's go.”

“Tell him we want a passage on the ship.”

Serit hesitantly repeated her words, or so she hoped. The man breathed in sharply from the nose, as if aggressively sniffing a flower.

“That means no. Definitely no. Let's go, please.”

Serit retreated a few steps, reaching out with a hand to drag Saia with them, but without actually touching her.

She stepped forward.

“We're going to sail on that ship, regardless of what you want,” she said in her own language, sure that the tone would come across where the words couldn't.

The man extracted his sword and pointed it at her chin. She grabbed the blade with a hand and squeezed. She quickly realized that crushing it would require more viss than expected. The man tried to dislodge the weapon from her clutch, but couldn’t even move it. He stopped struggling. His forehead distended as his rage evaporated, revealing paler lines in the midst of his tan.

Serit said something else in his foreign language. The man reluctantly nodded.

“I asked if there's someone we can talk to,” Serit said.

Saia let go of the sword. The man hid it inside its sheat and slowly turned around, eyes wide as if he couldn't believe what was happening. Saia and Serit followed him down the path and between the piles of stone blocks of the quarry. The man was heading toward the only spot in perennial shadow, where a heavy wooden table had been set down onto the irregular pavement of rock. It was finely decorated, even if bleached by the sun. It looked out of place in a quarry in the middle of nowhere.

A rough carpet covered the area below and around it, keeping the sandals of the man sitting behind it safe from the dust that seemed to cover everything else. He was dressed more heavily than everyone around him, in a blue cloth that wrapped around both shoulders, instead of just one like the shirts of the workers. He was the only one in the quarry with skin as dark as Saia’s, and perhaps for the same reason he observed her the longer, maybe looking for signs she belonged to his own people. His eyes quickly moved away to follow a new cargo as it crossed the bridge. He jotted down something with his quill on the half-empty page of the book open in front of him.

He suddenly said something, without looking at anyone in particular. The man that was leading Saia and Serit stopped, standing straighter, and answered in an agitated tone.

“He doesn't like being interrupted,” Serit said. “And finds his excuses lazy. But he'll talk to us, as long as we don't interrupt him while he counts.”

“Seems like you know their language well enough,” Saia commented.

“I understand more than I speak. And swearwords are universal.”

The man behind the desk beckoned them forward, dismissing the guard with a gesture of the quill. Serit started a new attempt to speak in the foreign language, but the man cut it off by saying something in a different one, looking at Saia. When she didn't answer, he changed it into something else. She shook her head, but didn't know how to communicate that she most certainly didn't speak any of the languages he knew.

“Not even this wretched idiom?” the man suddenly said in an accented Shilizé. Serit recoiled.

“We do understand that,” Saia said.

“Good.” The man looked away to follow the passage of two more stone blocks through the bridge. “You're merchants, then?”

“Yes,” Serit answered before Saia could. “Tares and Iliva.”

The man narrowed his eyes on their face, but didn't comment. Saia guessed that Serit’s poor disguise was immensely helped by the fact that cloud people had never set foot on land before.

“I’m Deoris, but I'm sure you knew that.” He wrote something down on his papers. “What do you sell?”

“Right now, nothing,” Saia said. “We need a passage on your ship. We can pay.”

Deoris gave her a long look.

“To where?”

“Mount Ohat.”

The man stared at her for one second longer, then burst into laughter.

“You two are strange,” he said, and for the first time he set down the quill. “You don't speak any of the major languages of the continent, except for some botched Arissian. But you know Shilizé. And after this request… It almost looks like you just fell down from a cloud.”

He laughed as if he’d just told a joke, but Serit tensed. Saia managed to hide her agitation behind the statue’s impassibility.

“The eastern part of the sea is dangerous. Deathly. Nobody has ever gone far enough to see the end of it, nevermind mount Ohat. No ship would ever try that route, regardless of price.”

“You're lying,” Saia said.

Deoris's hilarity disappeared. He took the quill and wrote something else.

“If you think you can fight the guardian, go. But I won’t drag my ship and crew into this.”

“What’s the guardian, exactly?” Serit interjected.

“Nobody returned to tell. And I won’t be the one to find out.”

“Someone managed to cross the sea,” Saia continued. “I saw…”

Serit reached out to grab her arm. She stopped for an instant.

“I know for sure someone did. A crew of tanhata,” she concluded.

“Well, tell those people to show up at Aressea with some proof that what you’re saying is true. The families will fight with each other for the opportunity to make them rich.”

“Aressea?” Serit repeated, suddenly beaming.

The man raised his eyes from the paper, clearly annoyed.

“Yes, Aressea. Don't tell me you don't even know where you are.”

“I know it's in the area,” Serit quickly added. “But we didn’t quite plan to cross into its territories.”

“Where do you even come from?”

“Minas,” Serit answered. “We were attacked by... By some cloud people who wanted our wares, so we had to deviate from the main route to escape them.”

“What kind of wares?”

Serit looked at Saia before answering.

“We'd rather not say.”

The merchant set down the quill for a second time.

“I’ll be frank. You two seem suspicious, if not a bit insane. You come from outside the republic, but you speak a local language and Shilizé. You're merchants, but don't have anything to sell. You want passage to the most dangerous place in the area, possibly in the entire world. You're only here because you managed to fight off one of my guards, but I have many more at disposal, not to mention the protection of the entire Neydis family and of Mayvaru herself. Leave or I'll be forced to invoke it.”

Saia stepped forward and put both hands on the desk, staring down at Deoris. Sudden shouts reached her from every corner of the quarry.

“You will bring us to mount Ohat,” she said.

She stepped away from the desk before the man could answer and walked toward the nearest block of stone. She put her hands against the rock, determined to raise it over her head to prove her strength. Then she’d have asked Deoris if he felt so sure his guards and whoever the Neydis or Mayvaru were could fight her.

As soon as she touched the stone, her anger dissolved: the material felt eerily familiar, even if she couldn't quite place the sensation. She sent a sparkle of viss forward to examine it, and for an instant the block became part of her body. There was no distinction between her arms and the stone. She had to focus on her fingers to make sure they were still there.

“What do you think you're doing?” Deoris yelled at her. “That viserite belongs to the Neydis family.”

He added something else in his own language, addressing the guards. Serit was backing away from them, toward Saia.

“What are you doing?” they asked in the language of the mountain.

She didn't answer, instead expanding her domain to inglobate the block. She tried to mold it in the shape of a hand. The fingers formed under her own, an exact copy of her right hand. She tried to make it bigger, to grow a sixth finger, but the hand lost details as it tried to expand to fulfill her vision. The end result was a botched monstrosity more similar to a dead spider with broken limbs.

She remembered the lessons with Filsun and tried to imagine the rock as part of his body, and her viss flowing into it his viss when he was floating in fog form. She shaped the viserite again, this time obtaining a masculine hand. Then she added one finger by copying the pattern she'd used for the index. This time, the hand looked realistic, even if still creepy in the way it jutted out from the block of rock, one too many fingers protruding toward her.

She noticed at that moment that all the movement around her had stopped, guards and merchant watching her creation with wide eyes. Deoris dropped the quill onto the paper and stood, ignoring the stain that immediately covered his writing.

“How... How did you do it?”

Saia ignored him, knocking on the block of rock instead.

“What's this material?” she asked.

Deoris approached her and examined the hand.

“It's the only mineral that reacts to magic with such eagerness. Even then, it's extremely difficult to sculpt. How did you do it?”

Saia looked down at her own statue: she'd given it the shape of her own body because somehow the information she needed had been preserved inside her viss when she'd become a goddess. She didn't know the nature of those information, only that they allowed her to reshape herself as she willed. Apparently it had something to do with how her viss used to move inside her human body, even if she couldn't experiment without revealing her nature to everyone watching.

Filsun's training was based on making his fog take and maintain a specific shape by moving his viss inside of it. The same technique worked for éshan. Apparently, she could do the same with that rock, as long as she memorized the pattern she needed to produce a specific shape, like a finger or a mouth. The difference with fog and éshan was that the rock maintained that shape, instead of losing it as soon as she relented control.

“I’ll tell you how I did this if you bring me to mount Ohat.”

The man retracted from her sculpture.

“I told the truth when I said that your request is impossible to fulfill. And even if you told me your techniques, I wouldn't be able to appreciate them. But I know someone who could.”

“Someone who can bring me there?”

He shrugged.

“Perhaps. They certainly can cover you with all the riches you can imagine, at which point I'm sure you'll find someone foolish enough to attempt the voyage for a good pay.”

Saia contemplated the block of stone in silence.

“And how much would that cost us?” she asked.

Deoris smiled.

“Nothing. I'm sure the Neydis’ will recompense me adequately for bringing them a sculptor of your caliber.”

Saia looked at Serit. They gave her an encouraging nod.

“Why are you so happy about it?” she asked in her own language.

“I’ve read a lot about Aressea. It's an interesting place.”

Saia looked at Deoris.

“We're coming with you.”

“Excellent. I have to warn you though, we'll only depart in a few hours, after the cargo has been loaded. In the meantime, you can wait on the ship.”

He gestured toward the vessel. Saia left without a word, Serit immediately following her. She didn't feel like waiting for a second longer. Having to meet someone else she didn't care about, explaining in detail who she was and what she could do, all for a chance to receive enough money to buy a ship and crew herself, felt pointless when there was a functioning vessel right in front of her.

She looked up at the lowered sails, wondering how much it would take to push the ship out of the cliff and through the sea. Zeles had managed to repel the tanhata by creating waves and winds, but she imagined it would require a lot of viss if she was to sustain a similar effort for days.

“How much energy do you think it takes to move that?” she asked Serit, speaking directly into their ears.

Their eyes widened.

“Why this question?”

“I’m going to try regardless of your answer, so might as well tell the truth.”

They looked at the hull, muttering numbers under their breath.

“In terms of months, I guess at least seven per day? But I thought we accepted his offer…”

“I’m tired of waiting, going slow, being cautious. I've done that for months at Iriméze, and look where it got me: far from home, with one-tenth of the viss I had before.”

“Did you hear what he said? There's a guardian…”

“I know. I have to try. I don't think there's anyone else around more prepared to deal with it than me, and I have no intention of dying either. I'll go back if it's too dangerous.”

“Provided it allows you to leave. Or that you'll have enough viss to go anywhere after you escape.”

Saia accelerated, leaving Serit behind. Their doubts were legitimate, but she didn't feel like entertaining them at the moment. She needed to take that ship, then she could think of how to go about the voyage.

The sturdy wooden gangplank didn't buckle as she climbed it toward the main bridge. She recognized the familiar rolling of the waves that she'd experienced many times when fishing with her dad. She would have liked to get on a ship, when she was a little girl. Except Vizena had so thoroughly prohibited it that she'd pushed that wish down, like most of the rest. Part of her still awaited the punishment for breaking that rule.

She reached the center of the vessel, away from the pushing and dragging of the stone blocks. The screamed orders and swearwords gave her a clear picture of the manoeuvres even while she focused on something else. Namely, expanding her domain to include the sea beyond the ship.

The anchor was still firmly in place, so instead of dislodging it, she cut the rope with a slash of wind. There would be time to look for another one once she'd left the actual crew behind.

She approached the railing and rested her crossed arms on top of it, feigning innocence as she created a wind to stir the waves. To her satisfaction, the ship lurched forward. There was an instant of quiet while the crew looked around for an explanation of what was happening. The blocks of viserite that had been just brought on board were quickly secured with ropes. A woman dressed in precious-looking clothes stepped out of the captain's cabin and asked what was wrong.

Serit reached Saia.

“At least let them down,” they said.

“I know, I'm not a monster. I’ll leave them and the cargo on the shore.”

She pushed the ship once more, ready to give the announcement to the crew. Before she could, her winds disappeared.

She focused on her domain: the particles of her viss suspended in the air were disappearing. She felt the lower portion of her domain slowly shrink, out of her control. She expanded it again, and the process began anew. This time, though, she felt something crawl just outside of her perception.

“Rats?” she asked out loud, startling Serit.

The crew, meanwhile, had retrieved the cut rope and was trying to assign blame before the captain could. They were gaining control of the ship, tying it back to the shore, retrieving a spare anchor.

Saia examined the rats that were pushing back against her domain from all the dark corners of the ship: they were different from the ones that lived around the mountain. Bigger, but it wasn't what caught her attention: their whiskers were longer and thicker, and seemed to move independently, like tentacles. Every time they intercepted her viss, they seemed to suck it away. Saia realized at that moment that, despite the number of people moving around the ship, no surface was stained with viss.

She focused on the sea: some of those creatures were in the water too, furiously paddling against the waves. They were the ones that had absorbed the patterns that created the winds. If she wanted to take the ship, she had to kill all of them. She felt a bit of discomfort in seeing how big their colony was, but she had no choice: even after stealing the ship, she couldn't let them drain her viss right at the moment when she needed it the most.

Despite her resolve, killing them proved to be next to impossible. She had to target the closest ones, otherwise she couldn't push her domain past them. Even then, they were rarely isolated from the others, so they managed to absorb her viss before it could form the pattern for slashing. She only managed to push them around with winds, but it wasn't enough to kill them.

“What's going on?” Serit asked. “I feel your... Disappointment?”

Saia shrunk her domain. She turned around, leaning with her back against the railing, but still observing the animals paddling in the water to return to the ship. They moved in two orderly parallel lines. Something in that lineup felt too organized, too human, compared to how animals were supposed to behave. She expanded her domain again to observe them closely, as much as she could without their whiskers absorbing her viss. Instead of the pearly black of their peers inside the ship, their eyes showed a golden pupil at the center. Saia observed them as they circumnavigated the ship and climbed on board through the gangplank. The crew saw them but didn't react, returning to their tasks as if the rats were a normal occurrence. The golden pupils disappeared from their eyes and they scattered at the corners of the ship.

Saia realized at that moment that Serit was looking at her with a questioning look. She told them what she'd seen and endured their irritating smile.

“This means we're not stealing the ship?”

“No. I can still make you swim all the way to Aressea, though.”

Whatever retort they were about to give her was cut short by the opening of the door to the captain's quarters. The creature that stepped through was unlike anything Saia had ever seen: covered by a long brown fur that drooped down toward the bridge of the ship, it moved on four legs like a sheep, but the muzzle was pointy, a square black nose at the end and a long pink tongue underneath. The ears were pointy as well. One eye was covered by the fur, the other had the same golden gloom of the rats. The creature was staring at Saia, its flanks moving with shallow breaths. Saia pointed at it.

“What's that?”

Serit looked from her to the animal with growing amusement.

“A dog. I forgot you've never seen one. Come on.”

They started walking toward the animal, gesturing for Saia to follow them. She reluctantly stepped forward.

“Don't be scared,” Serit said, kneeling next to the dog. Their heads were at the same level.

“I’m not,” Saia protested.

“Remember I can feel your emotions, now.”

They held out a hand. The dog pushed its muzzle forward, nose trembling. Serit laughed.

“Come on, let it smell you. That's how they greet people.”

“I don't have a smell,” Saia said, staying where she was.

The dog stopped sniffing and approached her instead. It kept staring at her, up and down, with the only visible eye.

Saia held out a hand. She could see the creature's pointy teeth at the side of its mouth, and even if she was virtually invulnerable, having her fingers so close to something that could potentially shorten them made her nervous.

All her fears were justified when the dog bit her.

She didn't flinch, looking at the creature instead: it wasn't applying pressure, maybe sensing that there wasn't flesh underneath, but stone.

“No,” Serit said, slightly panicked, pushing the dog's head away. “Let her go.”

The animal did. It turned and entered the cabin without emitting a sound.

Serit stood.

“Sorry. It seemed friendly.”

“His eye was glowing,” Saia said. “Same as the rats.”

“I don't know much about the animals of this area, but the population makes heavy use of magic. Maybe they were influenced more than in other places?”

Saia peered into the darkness of the captain's quarters. She could clearly see the dog walking in a circle before laying down. The fur moved away from its eyes, small and black.

“What are you two doing there?” someone yelled behind them. The captain was walking toward the door. “Don’t stand in the way and don't snoop around.”

Saia and Serit moved back toward the railing. After the initial scare of the ship moving of its own volition, the crew resumed its work.

“It's weird,” Serit said after a while. “At mount Ohat you have a lot of animals that can be found in other human cities or houses, but not dogs.”

“Why is it weird?”

“They're extremely common. For guarding, managing sheep, companionship, hunting. Do you have cats?”

Saia considered the Shilizé word for a second, then shook her head.

“I don't even know how to translate that in my language.”

Serit's eyes widened, as if they'd just had an illumination. They turned to look down at the water splashing against the side of the ship.

“You don't have words for a lot of animals. I've never noticed.”

They started muttering under their breath words that Saia didn't know.

“Predators,” they exclaimed in the end. “Most of them are predators. Animals that eat other animals.”

They looked at Saia as if asking for an explanation.

“So what? We don't have them, of course we don't need to call them anything.”

“But it's weird. The fauna in our cities is very limited, but we still know what those creatures are. And we have eagles and such, they eat other birds.”

Saia remembered Rabam’s statuette. She reached into the bag to take it out.

“We have owls,” she said, showing it to Serit. “They eat…”

She paused, looking down at the bridge of the ship, as if she could see past the wood boards at the rats crouching in the dark.

“And snakes,” Serit pointed out.

“And sea snakes,” she specified.