Sea of Strangers

by Erica Cameron

  “Can you help them?” I ask Natani.

  “They’re already pulling more desosa than I’ve ever channeled.” He bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think touching either is a good idea, but I might be able to…”

  Taking a deep breath, Natani steps closer to Chio, calm moving outward from him in waves. The andofume’s energy doesn’t lose force, but it does lose bite. Some of the lightning-like crackle in the air dissipates, and that shift seems to ease Tsua and Chio’s burden. They resettle their stances. Steady their hands. Breathe deep. Keep working.

  Tessen shakes his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice they were doing this. I should’ve felt this kind of power even from outside.”

  “Not even you can be aware of everything at once. You’ve been focused on watch shifts.” Swallowing and wrapping my arms around myself, I lift my chin toward the susuji. “Can you sense anything different from the first attempt?”

  “Not while they’re working on it. I think I’ll have to wait until they’re done to know.”

  “Waiting.” I rub the bridge of my nose. “Why is our life filled with so much waiting?”

  Tessen’s lips thin at my hesitation. “You’ve always expected too much of yourself. It was good on Shiara—pushing yourself was how you became the best in our year—”

  “Second-best,” I remind him. “I wasn’t the one who was tapped to become a student of the kaigo, remember?”

  “As if that matters now.” Tessen watches me sidelong. “What I was trying to say is it’s different here. Pushing yourself to accomplish everything now is only going to burn you out. We don’t know where the end of our journey is, and we can’t even see the path we’re supposed to be walking on. Then you have the added pressure of a whole second project while we’re stumbling our way on a first.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  His focus shifts to the andofume and their new susuji. “That one day, probably sooner than any of us would like, you might have to choose one over the other. We may have been forced to leave Itagami behind, but that doesn’t mean what we learned there isn’t true anymore.”

  The actions of one cannot, and should not, be paid for by the suffering of many.

  It’s part of Itagamin law. There’s more, though, and it’s this other half that Tessen is probably thinking of now.

  The needs of one cannot, and should not, outweigh what is best for many.

  “You wanted to be a leader, Khya.” Tessen’s voice is low and unusually gentle. “I’ve always believed you could become a great one, but you have to be willing to put everything you want second.”

  I force myself to breathe slowly. Evenly. My heart is beating so hard my chest hurts. “You’re right, and maybe one day it’ll come to that, but we got this far because I put Yorri above everything else. I’ve always done that.”

  “You say that as though I don’t know,” he says wryly. “I’m not expecting that to change, I’m just hoping you’ll at least try to remember the rest of us when you have to make that choice.”

  Tilting my head, I watch him out the corner of my eye. “You say that as though I could forget you.”

  “You’d better not.” He mutters the words darkly and crosses his arms over his chest, but he can’t completely hide the way his lips want to curve into a smile.

  An hour later the andofume shudder and lower their hands. Tessen and I get up as soon as the flow of desosa stops. I shout for Wehli. Tessen and I aren’t fast enough to catch them before they sink straight to the stone, but Wehli’s a ryacho—all I see is a blur of color and then he’s there, catching Chio before his head connects with the stone. Tsua is farther away; not even Wehli’s speed is enough to get to her in time.

  “We’re fine.” Tsua waves off Zonna’s concern despite her panting breaths and what looks like blood dripping down the side of her neck. “Tssiky’le, I haven’t been this tired in ages.”

  “I don’t know how Varan could’ve pulled this off by himself.” Chio is curled over, resting his forehead on his knees. “Not before he had an andofume’s endurance.”

  “Your brother was nothing if not resourceful.” Tsua’s eyes flutter closed and don’t immediately open again. “Leave us to sleep for now. The susuji needs to settle. When we wake up, it should be ready. And hopefully it’ll be right, too.”

  “From your lips to the Kaisubeh’s ears,” Chio mutters.

  “Hush, vanafitia.” Tsua lies down on the stone, using her arm as a pillow. “I doubt they want to hear anything we have to say.”

  Chio snorts as he settles down next to her. It seems to take less than a minute for both to fall into a deep, unmoving sleep, so I go to check on Sanii. Apparently, the susuji did have an effect—Sanii’s various scars are all but gone, and so is the ache in eir shoulder from an old injury. Ey’s healed in ways even a hishingu mage couldn’t manage, but that’s it. Nothing more.

  So I return to watching over the andofume, waiting to see if their second attempt is any better than the first.

  Four hours later, although there are bruise-like shadows under their eyes and a certain carefulness to their movements, Tsua and Chio are immediately back to work. They’re also ravenous, eating out of bowls of food on their lap as they sit with the glowing pot between them.

  The purple-tinted light coming from it seems brighter than the draft Sanii drank, but they’re frowning as they prod the liquid with magical fingers. Before they’re half finished eating, they beckon Tessen and me closer, gesturing to the susuji.

  “What do you think?” Tsua asks.

  Tessen will be able to read more than I can, but I still focus on the luminescent liquid, trying to remember what I felt from the first one. Far as I can tell, the sole difference is potency, and only by a little. There’s nothing in it to help me pretend this one might work where the first failed.

  When Tessen shakes his head, I know what he’s found even before he says, “It feels like this one will do exactly what the other did.”

  Tsua closes her eyes and nods. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “I knew this wouldn’t work. I hoped I was wrong, but when am I ever wrong about Varan’s—” Growling, Chio rubs both hands over his smooth head. “This is why I never paid attention to what he was working on. None of it made sense. None of it should’ve worked.”

  “And yet it did. Twelve times.” I sit down across from him, trying to stay calm. “Your memories of Varan right before he tested this on you are the only solid lead we have to follow. Clearly what we found in the mountains didn’t work, so what’s next?”

  “I don’t know.” An apology shows in his eyes. “All I know for certain is what we have won’t work. Unless one of the Kaisubeh blessed the rot-ridden thing.”

  “Maybe Varan found Kaisuama,” Tessen jokes weakly, his smile forced.

  Kaisuama? It takes me a moment to remember the right story—it’s a mountain the Ryogans used to believe the Kaisubeh watched them from. My smile is as weak as Tessen’s joke was. “If he did, the Kaisubeh probably gave him what he wanted just to make him go away.”

  Tsua and Chio smile with us, distracted but listening enough to know what the expected response is. Then Tsua blinks, her eyes narrowing. “What did you say?”

  “I…” Bellows. Hoping she’s not going to be like Osshi and take offense at the careless remark about the Kaisubeh, I repeat what we said and then gesture toward the wagons. “It was in a story Lo’a told us. I know the belief is ancient, but I—”

  “Do you remember?” Tsua faces Chio, her half-moon eyes full. “He disappeared. For three weeks. Almost four. And he was half dead when he finally stumbled back into Uraita.”

  “He said he’d been hunting gods,” Chio responds slowly, his own eyes bulging. “And we all thought it was a joke to avoid telling us where he’d been, but what—”

  “What if for once he was being honest?” Tsua breaks in and finishes. “You know he was obsessed with the Mysora range. It’s why he hid his wo
rk in these mountains.”

  “And he spent years collecting every story about the Kaisubeh he could. Who’s to say he didn’t hear that exact tale and decide—” Chio rubs his hand over his mouth, lines of concentration etched around his eyes. “But we don’t even know where to start.”

  “In the mountains, obviously, but…” Tsua gets up and jogs toward Lo’a’s wagon. She comes back with a handful of rolled maps and Lo’a in tow.

  “There is only one place no one looks.” Lo’a says, pointing to a section of the Mysora Mountains that’s shaded gray on the map. “If Kaisuama is real and it has not been found before, where else can it be except somewhere in Nentoado?”

  “Why there?” I ask, trying to get a better view of the map.

  “It’s impassable,” Tsua explains. “Whole caravans have died trying to find a way through Nentoado.”

  “It’s the widest part of the Mysora range.” Chio traces the border of the gray-shaded area with his fingertip. “In my day, no one had found a safe path through the Nentoado range.”

  “But it has been a long time since you were last here,” Lo’a reminds them. “And my people have the need for places to hide, places no one will bother looking for us.”

  “You have one within Nentoado?” Tsua asks.

  Lo’a tilts her head in acknowledgement. “Kaisuama is definitely not along the path my people travel. However, we stay to the edges, never through the heart of the range.”

  “And if Varan found Kaisuama in these mountains,” Chio says, “the heart of the range is exactly where it must be.”

  “We can find it.” Everyone turns to me, their expressions a mix of skepticism, amusement, and resignation. “Tessen can find anything, and it’s not like we don’t know how to climb.”

  “Khya, this won’t be like the mountains on Shiara,” Chio says. “You think it’s cold now, but this is warm compared to where we’d have to go. The peaks are so high it’ll get hard to breathe, and the storms—If those catch up with us while we’re in those mountains, the winds could get strong enough to knock us into thin air. And sure, no one can follow a trail better than Tessen, but we can’t count on there being a trail to follow. If there were, Kaisuama would’ve been found centuries ago.”

  I can’t do anything about the trail—especially since I don’t know what we’re looking for other than a mountain the Kaisubeh, who I’m not even sure are real, might call home. “My wards can protect us from the worst of the wind, and our magic will make the climb simpler. I’m guessing the Ryogans never tried crossing these mountains the way we will.”

  “Likely not,” Tsua admits with a smile. “Doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, though.”

  “Of course not.” I rise to find the others. “When is anything ever easy?”

  Chapter

  Ten

  According to Lo’a, we can’t start a journey into Nentoado from just anywhere along the Mysora range. The only path she knows of into the impossible land begins near the mouth of the Sansosi’ka River, at least three days north of where we waited out the storms.

  The mountains are rocky and uneven, the massive outcroppings of dark gray stone so different from the layers of limestone and red sandstone of Shiara. Our path is narrow and curving. The tall trees clinging to the slopes make it feel even tighter, but it’s good cover, hiding us from view at a distance, and it’s a useful windbreak. It saves me from having to use my wards.

  On the third day, we reach a point where we have to leave the wagons behind and climb the mountain on foot. The trees and growth will give us handholds to pull ourselves up the steep, sharp ridge, but the climb will still be arduous. And from the description Chio and Tsua gave us, it’ll only become more exhausting the farther we get.

  I think that realization is what changes Lo’a’s mind about coming with us moments before we leave. It’s a smart choice. I’ve spent years climbing cliffs and mountains, and even I’m not looking forward to what’s coming. It’ll be worse when we lose the cover of the trees and the wind can come straight at us.

  We leave Lo’a’s caravan on a wide ledge of stone protruding from the mountain, protected from sight on three sides. They’ll be safe here, hopefully. The grueling travel of the remainder of the afternoon makes me glad they stayed there. We only stop when we find a safe place to sleep for the night. We barely slow except for the moments when we have to wait for Osshi to catch up, or physically drag him up a particularly steep section of rock. In those moments, I can’t help wishing he’d stayed behind, too.

  Wehli acts as our scout, using his ryacho speed to dash off in different directions, checking routes for dead ends and pitfalls or, when the sun begins to set, find us a safe place to sleep. Although he does find a scattered series of ledges, there’s not enough space for us all to sleep on the same one. We can cook and eat dinner on the central step while those asleep or on watch spread out along the other tiers. It’s not ideal, but it’s enough.

  “This whole journey feels like hunting a mykyn bird at night during a new moon,” Rai mutters as she lights the fire for us. “I don’t like how little we know about this.”

  “I guess it won’t make it any better to hear that we’re technically not within the boundaries of Nentoado yet.” Chio finishes skinning the animal Wehli caught this afternoon, and Tsua hands him a thick, straight stick to use as a spit. “This is easy compared to what we’ll have to get through when we hit those peaks.”

  “But that’s just it.” Rai plays with the sparks, flicking them into the flames. “We’re going into an area known for its dangers, and we’re going not only without a map, but without a destination, a direction, or a single clue what we’re looking for.”

  “We’ve had better plans,” Etaro agrees wearily, rubbing eir sharp chin.

  I rub my thumb along the red cord, absently trying to weave power into its threads. It never sticks. “We may not have a map, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a destination. And Chio was right—to make the susuji work, Varan had to have used immense amounts of desosa, more than we could produce combined. A person or a place that powerful won’t be easy to hide.”

  “And we have a Tessen.” Rai smirks and flicks sparks in his direction.

  “A Tessen. Does that mean there’s more than one?” Sanii shudders, the motion exaggerated. “That is an awful thought.”

  Rai laughs. “Unless you’re Khya.”

  Tessen smirks and ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck and only looking at me out the corner of his eye. In the morning, when we move out, he’s still watching me sidelong. I hold his arm, keeping him a few feet back from the rest of the group. “What?”

  “Nothing. I— Well, sometimes it’s easy to forget until something reminds me.”

  “Forget what?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately, and then he sighs and says, “That when someone teases us about being together, it’s not a lie anymore. Or wishful thinking.”

  “I…” Swallowing hard, I stop walking. “It’s real. I promise it’s real.”

  “I know.” He squeezes my hand and pulls me close, until the toes of our boots touch. “I do know, but with everything that’s been happening, with how little time we’ve been able to spend alone, it can feel…”

  “Far away?”

  “As far away as home,” Tessen says.

  “Then maybe you should remind yourself more often.” I grip his chin, tilting his head down until I can press a hard kiss to his lips. They’re cracked the same way they were in the desert, but this time it’s from the cold. When he slides his hands to frame either side of my neck, his touch is achingly gentle. My tongue swipes along his full bottom lip, but I can’t do more now. The rest of the squad must be at least a hundred yards ahead of us. “Bellows, Tessen. How do you so consistently have the worst timing?”

  “It’s a talent of mine.” His voice is dry, but his eyes are shining with humor. Then, whether it’s to collect his thoughts or track the squad, he looks northeast. “My least favorite
talent, honestly.”

  “Well, come on then, basaku.” I pull him back, kissing him sharply one more time. Then I push him a step up the steep slope. “Go put your more useful skills to work.”

  “And then there are moments like this.” He heaves an excessively aggrieved sigh and makes sure I see him roll his eyes before he begins climbing to catch up with the others. Catches up and then passes them all, taking a spot near Tyrroh at the front of the line, leaving me grinning at his back.

  He and Tyrroh are nearly the same height, both just over six feet tall, but their builds are so dissimilar. I somehow forget how leanly built Tessen is until I see him next to Tyrroh’s broad, thick frame. Tessen moves more smoothly, reminding me of a teegra cat’s prowl, while Tyrroh is more solid, like a moving boulder, but they keep pace together perfectly.

  Before I learned to trust Tessen, I might’ve been suspicious of them heading the line like this, and the easy way they pass bits of information about the road ahead back and forth. Moons ago, I might’ve convinced myself Tessen was trying to impress the nyshin-ma just to overshadow me; now I’m simply glad Tessen has an older riuku mage to learn from. Tessen is already more powerful than Tyrroh can ever be, but Tyrroh understands what Tessen experiences better than any of the rest of us, and that’s an especially good thing here.

  We don’t have a map or destination, so our two riuku mages are the only guide we have. They’ve had to use their overpowered senses to search for anything strange, any sign of our destination. I’m still not sure how they’re going to know what’s strange and what’s not when everything here is so different from what we’re used to, but I’m glad we’ve got them to follow. Even if Tyrroh is an oraku instead of a basaku—only his sight, hearing, and smell enhanced instead of all his senses—having him and Tessen leading us into this is so much better than walking into Nentoado with nothing.