Arc 11: By Fog Enshrouded

“It'll be hard work and long days, but once things start moving, they'll take on a life of their own. They'll do everything else for us. They'll do – anything – else for us. Besides, we're not afraid of hard work, are we?”

Merigold Thresh

- - -

When I was young, I fell asleep with road-song in my ears. My lullabies were the grumble of rolling wheels, the rasp of tarnished leather, and the sigh of rushing wind. The sounds of a boat a-sailing, I have learned, are not so different. Is it any wonder that I have spent most of our journey south asleep?

Deeply asleep, as well. Far from the clawing grasp of nightmares, and almost never in the hammock so graciously strung up for me. In the three days since setting sail, it's become something of a game amongst the ship's crew to guess where I would be found next. Some of them even bet on it. There's a little slate of places and odds somewhere, carefully hidden from their captain's eye. Juliana's done well for herself, acquiring a little purse stuffed fat by coppers and silvers. Its location is a well-kept secret: Clarke has it, tucked into a little bag she bought before we left Amberdusk, and the Thorngages, behind.

Milo had hugged me. Held me by my shoulders and bade me travel safely. Safer than how you found us, anyways, he'd said, messing my hair between his hands. His dark eyes were made bright by unshed tears as I promised that I would try. Close enough, he'd declared, then stepped back to let Lavinia and Adelaide say their own farewells.

Don't do it again, warned the little Queen of Splinters. I swore I wouldn't, bowing to give my word at equal height. She searched me with her mother's eyes and her own frown, before nodding and surprising us both with a kiss to my cheek. She'd fled to Milo and hidden behind him, ignoring his questions.

Adelaide wouldn't let me apologize. You didn't bring it to us, she'd said, it followed you, and that's not your fault. I didn't believe her, no matter how much I wanted to. She'd shaken her head and lamented fondly that Milo and I were much too alike. After passing her thumb over the place her daughter kissed, she'd told me, Be well, and gone back to her family.

“Port on the hori–zon!”

It comes from the ship's bow, this leather-lung bellow, echoing across the deep, rolling water. Sound carries out here, I've come to learn. A sneeze from the helmsman could startle someone amidship as it had come from right behind them. My current nest is between a pair of rope coils, made comfortable with some borrowed cushions and my ever-reliable cloak, and from it I catch pieces of sailor-talk as they pass me by.

Took long enough, one grouses to another, passing a flask between them. Dullest trip ever done, I swear...

Aye, the other agrees, before pointing the flask's mouth at him. Dull's good, though. Better nothin' happen than anythin'.

The point is conceded with a grumble, and the pair move on. I hatch from my egg of cloth and leave the nest behind. I got my sea-legs after the first night, and so weave through crew and crate without trouble until I reach the ship's bow. Grip the spray-slick rail with my hands and rise up onto my toes. Up here, the cresting summits of rolling waves rise higher than my flat-footed eye can see. They hide the horizon from me, and I won't abide that. It's been long enough.

Up on my toes, it's clear enough to see. Clear, and disappointing. At the furthest edge, beyond which there be monsters, is a dirt-colored lump no larger or wider than a pea. I drop my heels back to the deck and sigh, any excitement gone away with the wind. In its place comes anxiety. Fear, not for myself but for my people, camped in plain sight of a fear-stricken town reeling from four murders. They'll stay until I come to them. No matter what's demanded of them or believed of them, they'll stay.

If anything happens to them, it will be my fault. I stand with planted hands, rising and falling at the ship's bow, and will it to greater speeds. The discolored lump remains as first seen: disappointing and distant.

“Won't be long, now,” someone opines from behind me. I catch my startled sound in the bite of my teeth and spin. A man of the crew, tanned by sun and weathered by wind, points with his chin into the distance. “Looks further'n it is.”

“How much longer?” I ask. He shrugs and squints up at the sky. Gauges something in its endless vault.

“Be in around midnight, most like,” he answers. Not as soon as I like, but much sooner than I fear. It'll have to do.

- - -

The gangplank's end has scarcely ceased its clattering fall to the dock before I move to rush down it. There can't be more than a mile between me and the city outskirts. If I run the whole way, which I should think I'm healed enough to, I can be there in a few minutes, patience and anyone in my way be damned! I put one foot on the rattling plank before a thickly muscled forearm blocks my sight. I know it well enough, as I do the scuff-scarred bracer that covers it. Juliana's eyes are still a narrowed squint, closer to black than any shade of blue in this midnight hour.

“What?!” I demand. I'm this close, and she's stopping me! Brazenly, in all her broad-shouldered magnificence! Her thunderhead brow twitches upward, surprised by the heated impatience of that one word. Clarke trails a few steps behind her, given the same reverent distance by the ship's crew as she was by the people of Valdenwood. By the set of her jaw, it's about as welcome. Any other time or place and I'd go to comfort her, but the need to get off of this damned ship is making my teeth itch.

Later. I'll do it later. I promise.

“Just wait,” Juliana tells me. I don't want to wait, not for another moonlit second! My people are here, so am I, and I have been waiting for three days. No more waiting! “You can't go anywhere if you re-injure yourself. Or drown.”

“I can swim!” I protest, “I'm a fine swimmer!” Behind Juliana, Clarke rolls her eyes. It's weak as protests go, and all who heard know it. Juliana does me the unearned courtesy of saying nothing further. I bounce on the balls of my feet while two men with cloth-wrapped mallets pound wooden plugs into the ship-side end of the gangplank. With a final, mighty whack, it's declared steady enough for passage.

They're right.

Those first few steps are tottering, ungainly things, more like a drunkard's stagger than anything else. After becoming accustomed to the sway of a ship's deck, the stillness of land is jarring and discomforting. Land-sickness, in a way. It slows me down. Makes me wait until Juliana and Clarke have descended to join me. Juliana runs her thumb under the strap of her pack, rolling her shoulders to settle it between them more comfortably. Clarke reaches out to take my hand, twining her fingers with mine. Seeking comfort from me.

Later. I promise.

For now, though, I turn and look up. Into blue-dark eyes narrowed against the glow of Port Viara at night. Plead with them. In what I should think is a final effort to give me pause, she asks, “Won't they be annoyed with us, showing up at this time of night?”

I open my mouth.

“I know, I know,” she says, “They're waiting for you.”

I close my mouth.

She sighs down her crooked nose. “Fine. Come on, then.” She sets off down the wooden dock, boots falling like those cloth-wrapped mallets as her long strides pull her further and further away from us. We hurry to catch up, and the three of us pass through the empty, lamp-lit streets of the city. Soon, my people outside it will be gone from this place. Having done what tradition demands of them, they'll be free to leave. They'll be safe. As safe as a Royah can be, anyway. All that might happen after can wait until then.