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“I wish,” he said, “that this ship could move faster. I wish we could be doing things. This is taking too long.”
“I’m doing things,” Huio said. He turned around in his seat at the desk, holding up the repaired spanreed. “See? It has been returned identically to its previous state.”
“Yeah? Does it still write?”
Huio made a few circular scribbles on a piece of paper from the satchel. The conjoined spanreed, in turn, jerked across the paper in a single line, back and forth.
“Uh . . .” Huio said.
“You person-who-has-rotten-fruit-for-a-head!” Lopen said, jumping to his feet. “You broke it.”
“Uh . . .” Huio repeated, then made another scribble. The pen reacted as before, moving left and right on the page in accordance with his motions, but it didn’t go up or down on the page when he moved his pen to the top or bottom. “Huh.”
“Great,” Lopen said. “Now I’m going to have to tell boss ardent-lady. And she will say, ‘Lopen, I can see that you are very careful, and often not breaking things, but I’d still rather your older cousin not have rotten fruit inside his skull instead of brains.’ And I’ll agree.”
“They have a ton of these things,” Huio said. “There’s at least, sure, twenty pairs in the storage they sent us. I doubt it will be an exceeding burden if one is malfunctioning.” He scribbled again. Same result. “Maybe I could—”
“Try to repair it?” Lopen said, skeptical. “I suppose. You’re, sure, super smart. But . . .”
“But I’d probably break it further.” Huio sighed. “I thought I had it figured out, younger-cousin. They don’t seem even as complicated as a clock.”
“And how many of those have you managed to put together correctly after taking them apart?”
“There was that once . . .” Huio said.
Lopen met his eyes, then they shared a grin.
Huio slapped him on the arm. “Return those to the ardent-lady. Tell her I will pay for the broken reed, if it’s a problem. It will have to be next month though.”
Lopen nodded. Both of them, along with Punio, gave most of their Radiant stipend to the family for helping out with the poorer cousins. A big chunk went to Rod’s family. Radiants were paid well, but there were a lot of cousins who needed help. It was their way—when Lopen had been the poor one, they’d always helped him.
Lopen walked out onto the deck, proud of how well he’d adapted to the swaying of the ship. However, he stopped as he noticed a large group of sailors congregating on the left side of the ship. The, uh, starboard side? He wandered over, and then Lashed himself upward to see over their heads.
Something was floating in the water nearby. Something large. And something that was very, very dead.
8
Rysn felt a sinking sense of dread as Nikli carried her to the side of the ship. The sailors had bunched up here, attended by anxietyspren—like twisting black crosses—and a few globs of fearspren. They made way for Rysn, and Plamry—Nikli’s Thaylen assistant—hurried forward and set down a high stool for her. She gripped the rail to steady herself as Nikli placed her on the stool, then she nodded for him to retreat.
That made room for the captain to step up and stand beside her. Sitting there, Rysn could peer over the side of the ship to see what the others had been whispering about: a dead santhid. A decaying shell and husk, flipped over on its side, its whited eye staring toward the sky. It was enormous, nearly a third as long as the ship itself.
The large marine creatures were incredibly rare. She had believed them extinct, but had enjoyed stories from her babsk about them. They supposedly rescued drowning sailors, or trailed ships for days, improving the moods of those on board. More spren than animal, they were somehow able to magnify peace and confidence.
Likely that was as much fancy as the Passions. But no sailor she’d ever met would speak ill of santhidyn, and meeting one was among the best omens in the ocean. She didn’t need to ask to know what finding a dead one would do to the mood of her crew.
The sailors sensed this was coming, she thought. They’ve been on edge these last few days, waiting. Perhaps, like Rysn, they’d noticed the pattern—and had expected a third, worst omen. To them, this would be proof the trip was cursed.
And, as she looked down at that large unnatural corpse—she found herself questioning. Sure, omens seemed like nonsense. But she’d assumed the Voidbringers were only stories, and they’d returned. Her mother had always laughed at the idea of Lost Radiants wandering the storms as spirits, but now she had two Radiants on her ship. Who was Rysn to say what was fact and what was myth?
No, she thought. There must be another explanation. Could someone have planted this?
She’d been expecting a third omen like the grain or the dead pet. Something a person could achieve in secret. But this . . . this went far beyond such simple plots. Did she really think someone hiding among her crew had managed to find a near-mythical creature, kill it, and deposit it in the ocean without raising suspicion?
No one has to have planted it, she told herself firmly. This could still be a random unlucky event.
She glanced down again, and swore that oversized eye was looking at her. Seeing right through her, even in death. As decaying chunks of the santhid began to float off from the main body, she felt as if she were being watched. And she became suddenly aware of the crowding sailors’ mood. Dark. Too quiet. No mentions of what a bad omen this was. They already knew. There was nothing more to say.
“We’ll be turning back after this,” said Alstben, a tall sailor who liked to spike his eyebrows. He looked at Rysn. “No way we continue.”
Storms. It wasn’t a question. Rysn searched for support from the captain, but Drlwan folded her arms and didn’t contradict the sailor. Doing so would likely invite mutiny. This crew was probably too loyal to do such a thing as kill their captain, but . . . well, if the Wandersail returned to dock with its captain, armsman, and owner locked up because they’d “gone mad,” who would blame the crew? Particularly after an omen as sure as a dead santhid.
Rysn nearly gave the order. She knew when a trade deal was mired in crem, when it was better to walk away with your goods than try to force an accommodation.
And yet. That meant giving in to the superstitions. And someone was trying to spook her crew, even if this specific event was random. Turning back meant giving in to whoever that was.
Most importantly, turning back meant giving up on helping Chiri-Chiri. Sometimes the trade was too important to walk away from. Sometimes you had to negotiate from a position of weakness.
“Why is it floating?” Rysn asked the sailors. “Shouldn’t it have sunk after it died?”
“Not necessarily,” Kstled said, emerging from the rear of the crowd. “I’ve passed a ship lost to ramming before. Days later, bloated corpses still floated in the water, nibbled at from below by fish.”
“But something this big?” Rysn asked. “With that shell?”
“Greatshell corpses can float,” another sailor said. “Pieces of them, after they’re dead. I’ve seen it.”
Damnation. Rysn didn’t know enough to keep pushing on this line of reasoning. Yet it seemed so unlikely that they had randomly run across this right in their path. Maybe there was another option. Maybe it wasn’t one person working to undermine her mission, but a larger organization. The enemy had Fused, creatures with powers like Radiants. This could be a Lightweaving, or a Soulcast dummy, or any number of things.
