Solis

by Kat Ross

  “Storm’s coming,” she said. “Captain says everyone should prepare for rough seas.”

  “Rough seas?” Megaera laughed darkly, one hand braced on the door. “What does she call this?”

  “It’s going to get worse.”

  An instant later, Cyrene and Charis crowded the doorway. Cyrene’s pretty almond eyes were bleary and red-rimmed. Only Charis looked alert, gripping her staff as if she expected to confront a boarding party of pirates.

  Nazafareen had lived in Nocturne and easily judged time by the moons, but for her companions from Solis, the constant darkness played havoc with their natural rhythms of rest and wakefulness. As a result, some of the Maenads slept all the time and others hardly at all. The seasickness didn’t help. Nazafareen heard a loathsome retching sound from the dim recesses of the cabin that must have come from Rhea.

  Lightning flickered through the porthole, though it was still far away. Down the corridor, Darius spoke in a quiet voice to Herodotus and Kallisto.

  “Don’t worry,” Nazafareen said confidently, “the captain knows what she’s doing. I figured we were bound to hit bad weather eventually. Just sit tight.”

  “As if we had any choice,” Megaera muttered, wincing as the ship gave a slow roll.

  “Oh, quit complaining,” Charis snapped. “At least you’re not sharing a bunk with Rhea. If I’d known she had such a delicate stomach, I would have asked to sleep in the cargo hold!”

  Rhea snarled something vicious from her bunk and Nazafareen used the distraction to slip away and leave them to their squabbling. She did sympathize. It must be difficult for four women to share a cabin, especially when two of them were sick half the time. Darius had offered to give his up since he spent most of his time on deck or with Nazafareen, but despite Cyrene’s constant harping, she’d chosen to stay with her sisters. Nazafareen wondered if it had to do with the twins, Adeia and Alcippe. She knew the Maenads still mourned them, as she did too. Perhaps it was a comfort to stick together.

  Curiosity drew her and Darius back up to the deck. Captain Mafuone gave them a hard look but didn’t insist they go below—not yet, at least. This was her first real storm at sea, and Nazafareen wanted to see it for herself. They moved to the stern, out of the crew’s way, and leaned against the taffrail.

  “How many times have you been on a ship, Darius?” she asked.

  “Twice, counting this one,” he replied.

  “Was there a storm?”

  Darius pulled a bruised apple from his pocket and bit into it. “Not then. We crossed the Midnight Sea, but it wasn’t nearly as rough as this.” He chewed thoughtfully. “We did ride through a sandstorm in the desert once. I don’t think anything could be worse than that.”

  They watched in silence as Selene crept above the horizon. In her buttery yellow light, Nazafareen could see clouds shaped like mare’s tales trailing off to the southwest. Then the wind died. The Chione sped along swiftly because the Marakai were working invisible currents in the water, although the air felt thick and oppressive.

  “Perhaps the storm turned away from us,” she said to Darius.

  He shook his head. “This is the prelude,” he said quietly.

  And of course, he was right. Within an hour, an impenetrable blackness covered the northern horizon. One by one, the stars winked out, as if devoured by some slouching celestial beast. They stood together as the Chione hurtled into the teeth of the gale and Nazafareen’s heart stirred with a strange exhilaration. She’d always thought earth to be the strongest element, but the spectacle of air and water clashing together in all their fury quickly disabused her of that notion. Never had she felt so small and helpless. But the bravery of the Marakai crew, who clung to the rigging like a flock of dark birds and laughed in the face of the storm, gave her courage.

  Due north they ran. The seas grew heavier. Lightning forked overhead.

  “Get below,” Captain Mafuone ordered. She stood on the quarterdeck, arms crossed and legs spread. “It will be upon us in minutes.”

  Neither Nazafareen nor Darius put up an argument. They retreated to her cabin and huddled on the bunk as the storm broke with shocking suddenness. Rain hissed against the porthole, and the darkness was absolute except for flashes of blue-white lightning. Deafening booms of thunder shook the timbers of the ship. As the hours passed, the waves grew so mountainous they overtopped the deck and burst through into the companionways of the vessel. Freezing water crept beneath the door. Nazafareen gripped the rails around the bunk as the ship pitched and rolled, sending her belongings tumbling about the cabin. The roar of the tempest drowned out any attempts at speech so she and Darius simply held each other, waiting to see what would happen next.

  As the storm reached its zenith, a terrible crack rang out. She thought it could only be one of the masts breaking in half. This was followed by the clatter of hailstones the size of oranges pummeling the deck. Nazafareen didn’t think the Chione could survive another minute, but somehow the ship stayed afloat.

  It was the darkness she hated the most. Since her encounter with the snake that long-ago night in the forest, Nazafareen dreaded the lacuna—the period when none of Noctune’s three moons were visible. The daēvas called it True Night. If the stars were obscured by clouds, the blackness felt crushing, dense and solid. But the lacuna usually lasted a few minutes. This darkness had persisted for hours. Each sloshing roll might be the last if the ship capsized, and Nazafareen knew she’d never make it out if that happened.

  Finally, with the water steadily rising, she and Darius reached an unspoken agreement that they’d rather be drowned above than below, so they clawed their way through frigid knee-deep water up the ladder to the deck. As Nazafareen poked her head out of the shattered hatch, the ship climbed a great, curling wave and scudded down the back side with a sickening lurch. Wind whistled in her ears. It whipped froth from the surface into the curtains of rain so one could hardly tell where the sea ended and the skies began. She seized a bit of rope and held tight as a fork of lightning illuminated the scene of devastation.

  Both masts had cracked, the top halves swept clean away. Bits of shredded sail flapped in the rigging. Water rushed everywhere, pouring into cracks where the hail had smashed through the deck. A knot of Marakai sailors huddled with Captain Mafuone, all of them soaked to the skin. Nazafareen hauled herself along the rope, reaching forward with her left hand and then using the crook of her right arm to keep from being flung overboard. She felt Darius’s fist gripping the back of her tunic.

  “How much more of this?” Nazafareen yelled when she was close enough to be heard.

  Captain Mafuone turned. “The storm is big,” she yelled back. “The outer edge is still a day away.”

  Nazafareen blinked stinging saltwater from her eyes and shared a grim look with Darius. A day?

  The captain muttered something to herself, then conferred with the daēva Nazafareen knew to be her current master. An order was quickly relayed to the crew, who began hauling up the cargo from the hold and tossing it over the side. Barrels and crates, chests and clay amphorae, all vanished into the heaving waters. Captain Mafuone held her arms to the sky and chanted something in a strange tongue.

  “What are they doing?” Nazafareen shouted to Darius.

  He shook his head, hair plastered against his pale face. “I’ve no idea!”

  With the cargo gone, the ship had almost no ballast and the waves flung her about even more violently. It made no sense. Nazafareen feared the Marakai were carrying out some final ritual in preparation for the certain death that awaited them all. Then she felt Darius’s hand tighten on her arm. She followed his gaze toward the horizon. A patch of darkness lurked there even blacker than the sky. He drew her close and they clung together like children.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  His eyes narrowed, the irises glowing an eerie blue. “I think it’s a wave,” he said faintly.

  “The rope!” she cried.

  He seized the end a
nd wound it around them, tying it off in a quick knot.

  The sea began to rise like an incoming tide, lifting the Chione higher and higher. Darius was wrong, she decided. This thing rushing toward them was not simply a wave. It had no slope at all—the face appeared vertical. The top, which towered at a hideous height above, did not curl, although a thin white line ran along the crest and streaks of froth poured down the face like a waterfall. In no time at all, the smasher was upon them and the Chione’s bow lifted to meet it.

  We’re going to capsize, Nazafareen thought with the perfect clarity of the damned.

  Up and up the ship tilted, until the sky became the new horizon. Nazafareen pressed her face to Darius’s chest, the rope biting painfully into her back. And then the Chione gave a sudden, violent lurch. The ropes slackened and pulled tight again as the vessel righted itself and pitched forward. Nazafareen’s eyes flew open. A grey tentacle extended from the wave, coiling around the hull and lifting the Chione clear as the smasher passed beneath her. More tentacles—thick as the boles of an ancient oak—encircled the quarter deck and forecastle. Nazafareen gasped as one slithered past her foot. It had a smooth gray hide with tiny pale suckers on the underside. She couldn’t begin to fathom the size of the creature they belonged to. She had just decided they’d traded one gruesome end for another when the crew gave a ragged cheer.

  “She has accepted our offering,” Captain Mafuone shouted. “The price is paid. The bargain struck.”

  Far below, the sea continued to rage and boil, but the monster held the Chione as gently as a babe in arms. She swam smoothly through the water, only her powerful tentacles visible against the waves. Nazafareen and Darius shared a look of awe.

  “It must be Sat-bu!” Nazafareen whispered, thinking of the tattoos of the faceless monster worn by the crew.

  “They might have called on her a bit earlier,” Darius replied with a shaky grin. “Though I suppose the captain didn’t wish to part with her cargo until she had no choice.”

  The rain still beat down, but from her vantage point high above the waves, Nazafareen’s terror began to ebb and she peered at the sea, hoping for a glimpse of the creature’s face.

  “I wondered if these sea gods they worship were real or made up, like the Greek ones,” she mused. “Do you think it’s just tentacles?”

  “I don’t know. They must be attached to something…else.”

  But whatever the rest of the creature looked like would remain a mystery. She carried them for many leagues to the edge of the storm, where she deposited them back into the sea and sank into the depths. Water streamed from the portholes as the Marakai used the power to drain the ship and effect hasty repairs to the hull. Darius’s skill with wood came in handy, and they both pitched in until it was certain the Chione would stay afloat. Then they crawled below and fell into a sodden, dreamless sleep.

  When Nazafareen woke, the sky had cleared and the moons shone down, but the sea was still rough and driven by strong winds. Darius had already gone. He seemed to dislike the cramped confines of the cabin and rarely stayed below more than a few hours. She found him with the Maenads and Herodotus on deck, the latter looking bruised and tired but glad to be alive.

  “If there’s a gate to the underworld in the Isles, just push me through when we get there,” Megaera declared as Nazafareen approached. “I’d rather brave the harpies than set foot on a ship again.”

  “At least my sickness is passed,” Rhea put in. The tallest of the group, she stood regally at the bow, her pinecone-tipped staff in hand. “I think the storm beat it right out of me.”

  Nazafareen eyed Herodotus, whose pockets bristled with rolled up parchment like the quills of a porcupine. “I clung to a ladder all night,” he confessed. “But I kept them dry. A record of all our adventures so far. I plan to write a book, you see, perhaps more than one—”

  “Did you see it?” Charis interrupted, her eyes shining with wonder. “The beast?”

  “Not it,” Captain Mafuone corrected tartly, striding over. “Her. And She hears all, so you’d best guard your tongue.”

  Charis snapped her mouth shut and made the sign of forked fingers to ward off ill luck.

  “No disrespect meant, Captain,” she muttered.

  “None taken,” Mafuone said grudgingly.

  Nazafareen joined Darius, wrapping her arm around his waist. He scanned the sea. “Where are we?”

  “Not far from the Isles,” Captain Mafuone replied. “But thanks to the gracious intervention of Sat-bu, there’s no need to go there.” She shared a look with Kallisto, who nodded, excitement in her eyes.

  In the distance, Nazafareen saw a thick grey line, though to her relief it didn’t appear to be moving.

  “That is the place we seek,” Kallisto said, following her gaze. “The home of Sakhet-ra-katme.”

  “What’s in there?” Nazafareen asked. “An island?”

  Kallisto smiled. “You’ll see shortly. It’s lucky Sat-bu brought us here.”

  “More than luck, I think,” Captain Mafuone said. “They say one must have great need to find Sakhet. Perhaps the goddess knew this and helped us.”

  “Then we owe her a debt,” Rhea said solemnly.

  Mafuone smiled. “She likes pretty things, or objects of sentimental value. If you wish, you may offer something to the waves. But Sat-bu’s price has been paid. The treaty honored.”

  She turned away and signaled to the crew. A squall brought fresh curtains of rain and they all drew up their hoods. Scraps of sail rattled like pennants from a bloody battle.

  “I’ve never lost a ship yet,” the captain muttered. “But if we don’t reach port soon, we may all be swimming with Sat-bu.”

  And so the Chione lurched forward, drawn on swift currents toward the line of grey mist.

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  Glossary

  Abbadax. Winged creatures used as mounts by the Valkirins. Intelligent and vicious, they have scaled bodies and razor-sharp feathers to slash opponents during aerial combat.

  Adyton. Innermost chamber of the Temple of Apollo, where the Pythia issues prophecies and receives supplicants.

  Anuketmatma. Worshipped by the Selk Marakai as the spirit of storms, she takes the form of a small grey cat with dark stripes. The Selk carry her on their ships and lull her with milk and honey.

  Archon Eponymos. The chief magistrate of Delphi. Appointed by the Ecclesia.

  Archon Basileus. A largely ceremonial position, the Archon Basileus oversees civic religious matters such as festivals. However, his powers have been expanded under the new Oracle.

  Avas Danai. Children of Earth, known for their dark hair and eyes and strength in earth power. The Avas Danai are divided into seven Houses located in the Great Forest of Nocturne. Their primary trade commodity is wood. Qualities of earth: Grounded, solid, practical, stubborn, literal, loyal.

  Avas Marakai. Children of Water. Dark-skinned and curly-haired, they are the seafaring daēvas. They make their home in the Isles of the Marakai and act as middlemen between the mortals and other daēva clans. Their wealth derives from the Hin, equal to one-tenth of the goods they transport. No one else has the skill to navigate the Austral Ocean or the White Sea, so they enjoy a monopoly on sea trade and travel. Qualities of water: Easygoing, free, adventurous, cheerful, cunning, industrious.

  Avas Valkirins. Children of Air. Pale-skinned and silver-haired, they live in stone holdfasts in the mountains of Nocturne. The Valkirin Range is the source of all metal and gemstones in the world. Qualities of air: Quick to anger, proud, changeable, passionate, ruthless, rowdy, restless.

  Avas Vatras. Children of Fire. Red-haired and light-eyed. No one has seen the Avas Vatras for a thousand years, since they tried to burn the world and were imprisoned in the Kiln. The only clan with the ability to forge talismans. Qualities of fire: Creative, ambitious, generous, destructive, curious, risk-taking.

  Bond. The connection between a linked pair of talismans that all
ows a human to control the power of a daēva. Can take the form of two matching cuffs, or a bracelet and collar. A side effect of the bond is that emotions and sensations are shared between human and daēva. A bond draws on fire and will only work in Solis, not in Nocturne.

  Breaker. See negatory magic.

  Chimera. Elemental hunting packs, they’re made from water, earth and air, seasoned with malice, greed, sorrow and fear. Chimera cannot be killed by any traditional means and will track their quarry to the ends of the earth.

  Daēva. Similar in appearance to humans with some magical abilities. Most daēvas have a particular affinity for earth, air or water and are strongest in one element. However, they cannot work fire, and will die merely from coming into close proximity with an open flame. Daēvas can live for thousands of years and heal from wounds that would kill or cripple a human. Regarding clan names, val means mountain, dan means forest, mar means sea, vat means fire. Avas means children of.

  Darklands. The slang term for Nocturne.

  Diyat. “The Five.” The governing body of the five Marakai fleets.

  Dominion, also called the gloaming or shadowlands. The land of the dead. Can be traversed using a talisman or via gates, but is a dangerous place for the living.

  Druj. Literally translates as impure souls. Includes Revenants, wights, liches and other Undead. In the Empire, daēvas were considered Druj by the magi.