It rained hard that night in Bahngol. Livia would never see the town in full swing, would never enjoy the merriment and jubilance of which only sailors are capable in their short bouts on land. She had her companions had found shelter in one of the many pubs, taverns, and inns offering accommodations. They didn’t stick around long enough to make any friends, wishing to put this place and what had happened here behind them as quickly as possible.

The morning was as crisp and clear as a dead seer’s crystal ball. The sun had hardly risen before the three were at the docks and booking passage on a clipper ship that looked as old as its centuries-old trade route; its salty dog of a captain looked even older. He permitted them to stow below with the cargo for a more-than-cheeky sum, but the three accepted, too pressed for time to wait for a better deal to come floating into harbour. “She might look like a pile o’ shoal splinters,” the captain coughed. “I care not who ya are, but if its speed that concerns you, you’ll find no faster ship on the Culldan Channel than the Toothy Crocker.”

The Culldan Channel: that was the body of water they needed to cross. It was the closest the two continents of Berodyl got; you could just about make out the far shore on the horizon if you really focused, and only on a day as fine as this one.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in the belly of the beast like this,” Krey smirked, patting one of the many crates that creaked in the dark. He got a flash of a smile out of Livia, but Emilie didn’t give an inch. The hierophant had her hood drawn and her back turned, rosary clenched in fists. Krey drew Livia aside and whispered with her. “We need to find some way to cheer her up before we reach port; the next leg of our journey will not be a carefree one.”

Livia decided to put her curiosity about their destination aside for the time being. “Got any ideas?”

The knight sighed. “It didn’t hit me until I woke this morning how difficult our encounter with Fyren has been for Emilie. I do not hold all the ten gods in such reverence as she does, but I do hold one… and I can only imagine how much it would hurt if I saw him die in front of me.”

Livia nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.” Phyrn… she felt a phantom burning in Veridis’ scabbard.

It was then that, muffled through the planks, they heard the sound of voices raised in song. “Maybe we should go above deck. The open sun and sky has to be better than this dingy old hold.”

Krey nodded, and the two went over to Emilie once again. “We’re going up top,” he offered to her back. “You should come with us, My Lady.”

Perhaps it had been that esteemed address that she just couldn’t bear that finally turned her around, though she still kept her head down and eyes obstructed. She walked behind them, and they went up to see what all the noise was about.

The water’s scent rolled over them on the chilly breeze, the sun melting that chill before it could make them shiver. The crew ignored them, continuing the motions they’d practiced more times than they could count, voices united in a perfect rendition of a song only one among them had heard before. Surprisingly, it was the hoarse captain who lead the rendition, and Livia couldn’t help but wonder if it had been singing for untold years that had worn his throat so. Their song came to an end when the captain noticed them approaching. He turned and scrutinised them with eyes harder than the rocks beneath a lighthouse. “I thought I told you to say below deck.”

“We can’t resist a good shanty,” Krey shrugged.

Livia gave him a look, but restrained herself from saying anything. Shanty? Is that what that was? She’d never heard the word before. It sounded to her like the young-and-old capella that performed in her hometown’s chapel, reciting boisterous hymns praising their blessed seneschal and bountiful land.

The captain raised an eyebrow and dragged his rusty hook hand through his scraggly chest hair, bared by the deep V of his loose shirt. “That so? Well, why didn’t you just say so? If you know a lyric or two, then why don’t you start us off?”

Krey cleared his throat, and Livia looked at him as if to say really? You’re really going to do this?

Even Emilie made a small sound of surprise, so quiet that nobody heard it.

Krey winked at Livia, and put one hand on his chest and extended the other aloft.

“Once more, oh once more!

We shall roll with the waves once more!

For glory and gold, to breathe life in the bold,

We shall roll with the waves once more!

They soar, oh they soar!

Overhead do those gulls soar!

You can steady your hand, for you know they mark land,

Thank the gods that those gulls do soar!

The moor, oh the moor!

Just shut up and trust in the moor!

Love your time spent at port, for it’ll feel too short,

When you report for duty back at the moor!

No more, oh no more!

We’ll raise and drop anchor no more!

Some day we will die, or retire to land dry,

Either way we shall sail no more!”

The crew had all joined in, including the captain. A smile cracked upon his face, revealing his yellowing chompers. “Not bad, ya shiny git!” he punched Krey’s armour jovially. His gaze turned to Livia. “What about you, lass? Does a song dwell in your heart?”

“Well…” she stammered, twirling her fingers together. “There is one… one song that I used to sing with the other children in my chapel capella. It was a hymn for the goddess Phyrn.”

“Phyrn? Hmm… she may not guide our steps out here upon the blue, but her spirit may linger in the wood of our vessel. I would hear your hymn, girl.”

She took a deep breath, drew Veridis, and held it in both hands like a torch in the night.

“Light in the dark, footing in the tumult,

To the keeper of the path do we owe our salt.

Bounty of wood, walls of our homes,

Fruit in our baskets, our little parish grows.

Green threads in the red of our land,

Like spring and autumn hand-in-hand.

Phyrn of low foliage, blessed be her name,

The sower of seed and soil and grain.

The seneschal tends with unseen labour,

Her sentinels perish in faith of our favour.

We build all that we need to prosper in her grace,

With the sacrifice of that she has leased from embrace.

To this end we know true that we are her chosen,

Safe fast asleep ‘neath her boughs.

So until all the world is exhausted and frozen,

We shall keep to our stewardship vows.”

The others didn’t know the words, but they caught the tune quickly enough, and hummed their accompaniment. When it was over, a wholesome silence fell over the Toothy Crocker.

The captain broke said silence. “I’ll have to remember that one. Bless ye and ya green goddess, lass.” Finally, the captain turned on Emilie. “And does Miss Virgin White even have a voice?”

Emilie said nothing, still hiding behind her hood.

Before he could goad a response out of her, a cry came down from the crow’s nest. “PIRATES! HARD AND FAST TO STARBOARD!”

The captain produced a monocular and spied the incoming ship. “Blast! It’s those bastard Laughing Gales again! Man the cannons and take evasive action!”

“The who?!” Livia whinnied as the ship rolled beneath her feet, the water getting choppy.

Krey took to her side, keeping her on her feet by pressing his shield into her back. “A nasty bunch from our next destination.”

Not a carefree one indeed, Livia mused silently.

“Captain!” Krey hollered. “If you can produce a flame, please do so when the enemy reaches us!”

“And what do you plan on doing with a naked flame on a wooden ship, lad?!”

“I plan on throwing it at the enemy,” he grinned. The captain responded in kind, not questioning how the knight would accomplish such a feat. Finally, Krey thought, what little magic I have will be useful.

Livia rested the flat of Veridis’ blade on Emilie’s shoulder, and it seemed to stir her. The hierophant finally looked into Livia’s eyes, and the outlander said: “time for us to do what we’re out here to do. Time for us to save the day.”

Emilie’s eyes sparked with something Livia hadn’t seen in them since they’d first met at the edge of the world. The hierophant lowered her hood, and tears began rolling down her face. Slowly, gracefully, she glided to the side of the ship and watched as the Laughing Gales fired hooks into the Toothy Crocker, drawing their ships together. Livia stepped up onto the edge and gave Emilie some final words before leaping into action. “Time to stop wallowing in self-pity, Your Holiness. Time to restore the faith.”

At this, Emilie’s gaze snapped to the sky, and her mouth opened. She raised her rosary up in one hand, her arms apart in a Y stance… and she finally let her song join the others that had gone before her. Her voice cracked with the agony of a wounded animal, but with every enunciation, with every scream of her soul that laced the vibrations of her mortal chords, a light grew in her bosom that sent swathes of red across the decks of both ships, and through the forms of her allies.

“Death may take thee in the end, but not on this here day,

For the frigid ghost doth pales in the presence of our way!

Ours is that of strife and blood, sanctified in prayer,

We honour those who fell for us with life’s unrivalled flare!

Scarlet, crimson, red like rust,

Blood is ours and not for the taking, a symbol of the gods’ trust!

Vermilion, cinnabar, red like wine,

Victory is the one true offering, and shall be yours and mine!

One day in the gods’ embrace,

Will you find your naked soul…

But only if you shine like gold,

And burn like blackest coal!”

Livia and Krey almost forgot to help in the fight, enraptured by the singular performance of their divine maiden. Wisps of deep sanguine wove around them and through them, filling them with godly fury and noble wrath. Krey did as he’d promised, and used his pyrokinesis to fling fireballs from the oil and torches the captain had organised. Livia cut through Laughing Gale raiders as if Veridis’ blade was made of infinite fire, their mundane cutlasses losing every clash as easily as their cloth and flesh shortly after. That thrumming red worked its way into Veridis itself, the shield it projected made sharper, more jagged this time, and was both green and red. When the enemy captain stepped onto the deck with a thunderpipe loaded with mini-cannon shot, she swatted it back at him with sweetcrest shield and took his head clean off. The force blew Veridis out of her hands, and it embedded itself in the side of the Toothy Crocker.

“YAR! THAT’S HOW YA DO IT!” the captain cheered, and his men roared too. Emilie began her song again, continuing her bolstering spell, and the crew joined in this time. They retreated as Krey finished ensuring that the enemy ship would burn nicely, and cut the cables binding them together. Livia retrieved Veridis and cut the final cable herself, Emilie’s magic departing the blade and leaving it as it had always been. She felt it leave her too, and a cool, gentle calm washed over her as she, Krey, the captain, and the crew pushed what remained of the Laughing Gales out to their watery grave.

Emilie felt every fibre of her being tremble in ecstasy; never before had she cast green magic from so deep in her soul. She let herself fall backward, knowing she’d feel no pain when she hit the deck… but hit the deck she never did. Instead, she fell into the arms of her two wardens, who lowered her softly the rest of the way. Her chest heaved up and down, and faint groans tinged each breath. “To have that out of my system… this is a catharsis like no other.”

“Emilie…” Livia said with awe. “What was that? It felt incredible!”

“That…” Emilie summoned one last burst of feeling, and spoke the last of her anguish. “It was… a eulogy of a sort, I suppose. Or, perhaps… one final prayer.”

“For Rajata?” Krey asked.

Emilie nodded.

Livia hummed in contemplation. “Despite what she did… you really did still love her, didn’t you?”

“I am a hierophant, Livia. My love for the gods is unconditional.”

The captain took to the bow of his ship, and bellowed a new song that came to him right there and then:

“The Laughing Gales will not enjoy the tale we have to tell,

For it’s the tale of how we sent their kith and kin to hell.

Profit shall they not from all the loot they tried to take,

And tonight the biggest pay of the week shall we make!”

His crew hurrahed in response, raising their fists to the sky.