by Traci Chee
In Kelanna, when they mourn, they tell stories—as if the stories will keep you close to them. Believing that if they tell them often enough, for long enough, you won’t be forgotten. Hoping that the stories will keep you alive—if only in memory.
But some of them, a sad and hopeful few, talk of a dead sea. In the far west, in the wild waters beyond all the known currents: the place of the fleshless. They say that at night, when the sky is darkest, the waves glitter like rubies. They say that these are the thousand red eyes of the dead—though there are more than a thousand, and they will not always be dead.
• • •
Deep below the surface of the sea, far beyond the warm reach of sunlight, it will be a blind world, with no difference between night and day. There will be no color, no shape, no shadow. They will be suspended in the void, unable to tell if they are fixed or moving because there will be no landmarks for them to recognize. There will be nothing to tell them where they’ve been or where they are going. They will be alone.
This will be the wild black world at the bottom of the sea, a place meant only for monsters and ghosts.
But then, at last, after endless years of waiting, they will hear the call. They will rise, shooting upward through the darkness like bolts of light. They will come to the deep blue, where the whales sing their sad songs and starving sharks swim for miles in search of prey. They will stream by squid, sea turtles, clouds of shrimp, schools of shimmering fish, and enter the vivid turquoise world just below the surface. The white flashing underside of the sky and the sun striking the water.
Like spears they will burst into the air. They will remember how bright the world is, how the waves sparkle, how the sky is so unforgivingly blue. They will remember the way the wind pulls them, tugs them, scolds, and carves them. And the sound of it all: the slap of waves on a wooden hull, the creak of timber, the calls of gulls, the rough salted voices of sailors and the clatter of activity on deck, hammers clanking on distant shores, children laughing, swords crossing, guns firing, people speaking, shouting, singing.
They will have returned.
is this a book
Chapter 26
Ships in the Fog
It was past dawn by the time Sefia and Archer were let out of the great cabin. Captain Reed had not said he was going to let them stay on the ship, but there was a funeral to attend to, and some other business the captain and the mate would not discuss. Though the sun had risen, the fog obscured much of the morning light, and to Sefia’s sleep-deprived brain, they seemed to be floating in a liminal space between night and day, here and there, reality and fiction. Beside her, Archer yawned and winced, patting his injured ribs.
The rest of the crew had gathered on the main deck, where a makeshift raft loaded with blackrock waited to be lowered into the sea. On top of the pyre, Harison’s body lay with a single red feather between his stiff fingers.
For his mother.
“Looks like he’s sleepin’, don’t it?” Horse murmured.
Sefia set her jaw. He looked vacant, not like a person but a person-shaped mound of flesh, and whatever had made him Harison, whatever had made him cringe and mutter and laugh, was gone. Her eyes were dry as she watched the fog churn over the gray waters.
As a rule, funerary rites on the sea were quick affairs, and most of the mourning was done in the weeks afterward, as those who knew the deceased told and retold the stories of his life. So there was little ceremony: the tolling of the ship’s bell, the torch, and the lowering of the pyre into the sea.
Two crewmen pushed the burning raft away from the ship, and Jules stepped forward, twisting her cap in her hands. Sefia recognized her from the legends about the Current: a stalwart sailor with skin like sunlight on honey and arms tattooed with birds and flowers. She was in charge of leading the work songs for the larboard watch, singing out line after line for the rest of the watch to repeat as they hauled sheets or turned the capstan. Her voice was strong and fine as silk, rustling at the edges, and it rose over them as the pyre floated into the fog, fire and black smoke melting into the mist.
Soft as an echo, I feel I am fading—
Fading until I am gone.
Still I remain. I am listening and waiting—
Waiting for you to go on.
Once more, once more.
Tell me my story once more.
Swiftly repeat it before I’m forgotten—
Pleading, O tell me, once more.
Theo, the chanty leader on the starboard watch, added his haunting baritone to the chorus, and one by one, the other sailors joined them, until the song was a tapestry of sounds layered one on top of another in startling seamless harmony. The music made Sefia think of the way a city disappears, smaller and smaller on the horizon, as a ship sails away from it, until it is nothing more than a vague shadow . . . a smudge . . . an imagined point on the wide blue sea.
As the last notes faded, Horse murmured, “You miss a man so much.”
And the rest of the crew echoed him.
You miss a man so much.
Then it was over, and the crew dispersed to their watches. Sailors scattered to the forecastle, the galley, the crow’s nest. Sefia was handed a steaming mug and a bowl of rice porridge while Archer was whisked to the sick bay. She barely got the chance to tell him it was going to be all right before he’d disappeared belowdecks.
Sefia stumbled up the steps to the quarterdeck, clutching her breakfast. Her crate lay on the deck, its broken side splintered where Archer had shoved it open. Behind it, Captain Reed prowled back and forth at the rail, looking into the mist, then turning around again to stare with equal intensity at the crate. She wondered why it upset him so much. The chief mate simply stood beside it, brushing his fingers against it every so often, as if to reassure himself it was still there.
Hastily, she took a swig of coffee and gobbled down a few spoonfuls of the rice, which was light and creamy and fluffy as clouds, with a hint of ginger and red chunks of sausage. Even a few mouthfuls of Cooky’s food warmed her insides, and she instantly felt more awake.
Reed gestured for her to eat faster. She shoveled a few more spoons of porridge into her mouth obediently.
“What can you tell me about this crate?” he asked.
Sefia swallowed. The wooden box was stamped with the insignias of all the ships it had traveled on: each stamp was painted with a black slash after the crate was dropped off, and then it was stamped again before being loaded onto the next ship. But that was nothing unusual. She crept closer, and what she saw nearly made her drop her breakfast.
There, in the upper corner, scratched into the wooden boards, were words.
Words!
She grasped for them. Their small splintery edges cut into the tips of her fingers.
The letters were so precise they must have taken years of practice to perfect. There were other writers, then. Other readers.
Sefia swayed. The scratching sound they’d heard back on the docks—someone had carved these words into the wood while she and Archer were inside.
She had the sudden feeling that something was wrong with the crate—or no, not wrong exactly but strange, so that it flickered in and out of her vision, as if it were made of something more than planks and iron nails. She put out a hand to steady herself, to reassure herself that the crate was still there.
She drew back. That was what the mate was doing, brushing his fingers against the crate because he couldn’t see it. It was entirely invisible to him, who could see everything on the Current. But how? Was it the words that had done it?
As she explained what the words said, Captain Reed glanced at the mate, whose brow furrowed, deepening the lines on his wrinkled face. “But I didn’t know words could do this,” she added.
Reed flicked open a knife.
Sefia tensed and glanced at the mate, but his grim face was impassive.
&nbs
p; The captain offered the knife to her, handle first, and held out a scrap of wood. “Try. Let’s see if you can make something disappear.”
She only hesitated a moment before she took the knife and began to carve. She’d told him everything the night before, everything she knew about the book and the symbol, her parents and the impressors, Archer and Serakeen, what it meant to read and how she’d taught herself to write. She dug the tip of the knife into the wood, scoring it, chipping away at the curves of the letters, until the pale wood beneath showed.
She grimaced at her own imperfect writing, the letters tipsy and mismatched.
“Well?” the captain asked.
The chief mate plucked the block of wood out of Sefia’s hands and dappled his fingers over her hastily carved letters. “Nope,” he said.
Reed took back his knife, blew the last splinters from its blade, and folded it up into his pocket again. He tapped his chest thoughtfully, and seemed about to speak when something on the water caught his eye. He pressed himself against the rail, his gaze traveling back and forth across the waves, tracing their shapes.
Sefia knew that look as soon as she saw it. He was reading. Maybe he couldn’t read words, but he could read the water. He could navigate it effortlessly, as if the oceans were splitting into glossy liquid roads for him. No one knew the sea like him.
“Something’s out there,” he muttered.
“The ship that woman came from?” the mate asked.
“Don’t know.”
Sefia glanced down the stairs to the main deck. If more people were coming for the book, they had to get away. Archer was in the sick bay; the book, in the great cabin. She wouldn’t leave without them.
“Sail off the starboard beam!” Meeks shouted from the crow’s nest.
Reed stared into the fog. “What sort of vessel?”
“Don’t know, Cap. She was gone before I could tell.”
From behind them, the mate spoke up: “Is it today?”
Sefia glanced at the captain, who shook his head. “Not today,” he said.
Pigtails flying behind her, the ship’s steward, Aly, raced up to them and passed a spyglass to Reed. He put it to his eye. All across the deck, sailors peered into the fog. For a moment, nothing stirred except the roiling mist.
Sefia edged toward the stairs, ready to run.
The mate caught her by the back of the neck. She struggled briefly, but his hand tightened like a vise and she went still. “Don’t think so, girl.”
She glared up at him.
From above, Meeks called, “There she is again, Cap!”
A ship appeared in the mist, little more than a shadow with tendrils of fog twisting around its hull. Reed passed the spyglass to Aly. “I need your eyes, kid. Who’s out there?”
The tall steward raised the glass. After a moment, she lowered it again and shook her head. “Too much fog to tell, sir.”
Reed cursed.
The mate’s hard fingers pinched the back of Sefia’s neck. “You said you could see things, girl.”
She tried to pull away, but he hung on, and she looked toward the ship, steeling herself against the pain and the nausea. Then she blinked, and streams of golden light rippled outward from the shadowed vessel. She saw flashes of uniforms, rocky shores where Evericans once fought Evericans, before King Darion united them against their Oxscinian colonizers. She lurched forward, blinking.
The chief mate hauled her upright again. “What’s wrong, girl?”
“It’s from Everica.” She grimaced as the vertigo struck her. “The navy.”
A muscle twitched in the mate’s jaw. “Are you sure?”
She rubbed her temples. “I’m sure.” She’d heard attacks on the shipping lanes were getting more and more frequent. Lots of people were scared to leave their own kingdoms. Even outlaws like Captain Reed skirted the battle zones in the Central Sea.
Meeks let out another cry from above. “It’s a Blue Navy vessel, Cap! She’s headin’ our way!”
Reed’s eyes widened with surprise. “That’s some trick, kid.”
“Is that where the woman came from?” Sefia asked.
“The Blue Navy don’t make killers like that,” Reed muttered. “Least, they didn’t used to.”
Sefia eyed the ocean. The ship was drawing closer, growing larger and larger in the mist like a shadow at dusk.
Suddenly, there was fire in the fog. Two explosions of orange lit up the mist like firecrackers.
“Get down!” Reed yelled.
Sefia was thrown to the deck. The chief mate’s body landed on top of her, shielding her from the blow. The sounds of distant cannon fire reached them, but there was no splintering of wood, no splash of iron in the water. She scrambled out from under the mate and hauled him up after her.
The captain was already at the rail, staring out over the ocean. “That wasn’t meant for us.”
The mist rolled back, unveiling a second ship, its shapes blurred at the edges, its colors dimmed by fog. The Everican Navy vessel came about to meet her.
“Can you see who it is, Aly?”
The steward put the glass to her eye. “Sorry, Cap.”
Sefia ran to the rail. “Is that where the woman in black came from?”
Reed nodded. “Maybe.”
She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. The two ships were tilting at each other like jousters with spiked lances, the fog wafting around them as they prepared for battle. If that was the assassin’s ship, she could find out where it had come from. Who else was on it. She blinked, and her Vision filled with gold.
She saw cannons. Powder kegs. Chain shot. Then a mirror. Echoing marble corridors and a round vault door of burnished steel. A keyhole like a star, with sharp points and birds in midflight etched around the edges.
Waves of light cascaded across her Vision, tearing at her focus. The fog was closing over the two ships, curling over their sterns and sails. She saw storms, rain, water droplets forming and falling and breaking apart as they struck the surface of the sea. She thrashed in the Vision, searching for the ship, but it was gone. The gold currents washed over her, pushing her deeper into the depths of light and memory. Stretches of blue. Heat. The white disc of the sun. The light spiraled around her, dragging her farther and farther from her own body, until she could feel the edges of her consciousness beginning to unravel, dissolving into the endless sea of light.
And then.
Someone grabbed her. She felt it distantly. Hands dug into her arms. The pain spread to her elbows and up to her shoulders, down to her hands and into her chest. She felt herself being drawn back into her body, slicing through the golden seas until she found herself again.
She blinked, but she saw nothing but thick clots of mist.
And then she was coughing, choking, leaning out over the water with Archer’s arms around her, his wounds bleeding through his bandages as he tried to hold her back.
Sefia shook with anger and exhaustion. “No . . . !”
But the ship was gone. They heard the muffled thunder of cannons, saw blossoms of flame in the fog.
She slumped against Archer.
“It was them, I know it was!”
The wood bit into her skin as she pounded the rails.
Archer caught her hands and pressed them flat, holding them hot and bruised in his own.
Turning, she buried her head in his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried.”
The doc was standing by the stairs at the edge of the quarterdeck. “We heard the cannons,” she said. “He wouldn’t listen when I said you were safe with the captain and the mate.”
Behind them, the mate murmured, “The Crux couldn’t have gotten here so soon. Think it was the Black Beauty?”
“She ain’t gonna pick a fight with the Blue Navy when she wants that treasure as much
as we do,” Reed replied. He tapped his belt buckle. “I ain’t gonna wait around to see which one comes outta this alive. Get the men on the yards.”
“Wait!” Sefia pulled out of Archer’s grasp as the mate strode toward the main deck, shouting orders. “They might know where Aunt Nin is. She might even be on their ship!”
The captain shook his head. “It ain’t worth the risk, kid.”
“They killed my father! They killed Harison!”
“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped. “That boy was my responsibility. I’m the one who’s gonna have to tell his ma that her baby is dead. I ain’t gonna do the same for anyone else on my crew. Not today.”
He turned his back on her, and Sefia fell silent as sailors began scrambling into the rigging. There was a great creaking of ropes and sails and the Current picked up speed. Doc tugged Archer back to the sick bay to re-bandage his injuries, and Aly slipped away so silently Sefia didn’t even realize she was gone. And then Sefia was alone with the captain.
The far-off rumble of cannon fire faded into silence, replaced by the hissing of the ship on the waves. They stood at the rail, Sefia fighting the urge to empty her stomach overboard.
“What happened back there?” the captain asked.
Sefia held her throbbing head between her hands. “I thought that was my chance. To get the answers I’ve been looking for.”
“You looked like you were dyin’.”
She bit her lip. “I think I was.”
“And your boy saved you.”
“He’s not . . .” Her voice trailed away. “Yeah. He did.”
The captain’s blue eyes flashed in the shadow beneath his hat. “You kids are lucky.”
Sefia traced the on the rail. “I wouldn’t say lucky.”
Reed was silent as he studied the steel-gray sea. “You said you were goin’ to Jahara,” he said finally.
“That’s where Hatchet was going. I thought we could find the symbol again once we got there.”
