Chapter 8

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By morning, the archipelago had vanished behind them in a curtain of fog that was barely visible on the horizon. Elmira did not know what she had expected once they cleared land, but it was not this. No gulls, no distant breakers, only the hush of the open sea and the slow, rhythmic creak of the Scarlet Sphynx’s timbers.

They had two weeks of open water ahead - if the untamed wilderness of the ocean behaved. Ten days, Tam and Okurac agreed, if the weather held and Elmira worked her little miracles.

Hard work was nothing she had ever shied away from so from day two, Elmira began to pay her passage. Standing at the forward rigging, fingers brushing the lines as she whispered under her breath. Faint threads of daylight traced her skin, disappearing into the ropes like a breath taken deep. The solar silk sails stirred, catching the current, filling with a steady push that smelled faintly of jasmine. A little quirk, and nod to the childhood home only she knew.

Rina watched her from the deck, arms folded over her chest. “Not bad,” she muttered, half to herself. “We might just outrun our luck.”

From above, unseen, Jessa snorted. They jumped and looked up to see the tabaxi curled on the ropes. “Luck doesn’t last out here,” she said, peering out across the waters that had turned a deep azure under the clear blue sky. “Only wit, wind, and willingness to bleed.”

Her tail flicked lazily, her ears shifting from side to side, catching all the small noises that humans and elves could not.

“I’m just giving the wind and the sun a little encouragement,” Elmira said, watching Okurac’s ink-smeared hands drag across the map from afar. He squinted against the glaring sun and bent over the maps again. “And the Sphynx can take more than you would think.”

“That’s not your usual hedge-witch trick,” Rina said, arching an eyebrow.

Okurac called out something and they watched as Tam and Orwyn joined him on the quarterdeck. “We’re five knots faster already,” they heard him say, his words carried on Elmira’s gust of wind.

Elmira glanced up to see Rina watching her intently. “Where’d you learn that?”

“You think I’m dangerous.”

“I think you’re something,” Rina said with a shrug. “The question is whether that’s good or bad.”

Jessa leaned in, sniffing the air dramatically. “Smells like starlight and secrets. I like that.”

Elmira gave them both a sidelong glance, guiding the threads of light into their new home. “I am not sure if that is a compliment.”

Jessa’s grin widened. “That’s fair. I’m not sure either.”

There was a long pause while the three remained motionless, the wind tugging at the sails and distant creaks echoing through the ship. Elmira broke it first, nodding toward Jessa.

“You, though. There is something about you. You move like someone who does not want to be watched, or remembered. Did I hear something about a wine cellar?”

The tabaxi’s ears flicked back, just briefly. “Everyone’s got a trick,” she said lightly. “Some of us prefer ours don’t glow.”

Elmira burst out laughing. “Fair,” she acknowledged and decided to let it go. A rogue’s life was not an easy one.

Rina finally stepped forward. “Alright then. Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

There was a look in the half-elf’s eyes that was cold, measuring. The sun was at her back, one hand resting near the hilt of her blade, her posture casual but coiled. There was no challenge in her voice but she heard it anyway. It was the look of a hunter. Elmira knew women like her, Ignis, she was one herself. The kind who did not bluff, who trusted skill over stories. Warriors who had bled enough to stop being impressed by shine and spectacle.

Rina wanted to see her, not her magic. She felt the presence of her patron in the back of her mind, but it was faint - almost like she was distracted by something. Elmira smiled.

“Let’s do this.”

They cleared a spot on the lower deck, away from sails and lines. A few crewmates loitered to watch,  Jessa perched high on a coil of rope, Lint already cheering for both sides, and Orwyn watching with arms crossed like he was reading a report that might explode.

Rina stepped into the circle, rolling her shoulders, a practice sword in one hand. “Nothing lethal. Unless you’re feeling brave.”

Elmira gave a faint grin and accepted the wooden sword held out to her by Lint. “Only when I’m bored.”

The first clash was fast. Rina struck like someone who’d been training since childhood. Efficient, brutal, no wasted motion. Elmira ducked, sidestepped, turned a stumble into a spin, splints flying off their blades as she blocked. She was no soldier, but she was slippery, and she didn’t fight fair. She fought like Korp had taught her. Like the Base had forced her.

“Not bad,” Rina said between strikes. “You learned this wherever it is you’re from?”

Elmira parried and kicked low, making Rina hop back with a yelp. “Some of it. Some of it I made up.”

“I can tell,” Rina snorted, rubbing her shin.

Elmira narrowed her eyes, moving in a circle around the half-elf until she had the sun in her back. When Rina squinted against the sharp light, Elmira lunged but Rina caught her wrist mid-strike, twisted, and knocked the blade from her hand.

They stood locked like that for a breath, chest to chest, breathing hard.

“Flashy,” Rina said. “But predictable.”

Elmira raised a brow. “Are we still talking about swordplay?”

Rina chuckled, stepped back, and let her go. “You’re not bad, El. You fight like a gutter rat, though.”

Jessa clapped lazily from her perch. “Kiss already,” she called down.

Rina rolled her eyes. Elmira smirked. “Guess we’re putting on a show.”

“Then let’s give them something to talk about.”

Elmira retrieved the sword where it had fallen and they circled again, slower this time, Elmira more cautious, Rina more curious. A feint to the left, a twist, a few attacks testing the limits and reflexes of the other, and then Rina dropped low, sweeping Elmira’s legs out from under her with a sudden, ruthless grace. The deck hit her back like a punch, the wind stolen clean from her lungs. Elmira coughed, blinking at the sky.

“Such a graceful warrior,” the voice in her head chuckled.

Shut up.”

“Match,” Rina said, her shadow appearing above her, offering her a hand.

Elmira took it, still breathless but grinning. “You’re good.”

Rina helped her up without gloating, already turning to face the crew who had gathered to spectate. “Well since you’re all so punctual,” she called, voice sharp as a drawn arrow, “you can join me. Standard drills. Pairs.”

Groans answered her, followed by the shuffle of boots.

Elmira stepped back, hands on her hips, watching as Rina fell into command like a second skin. Her movements were crisp, her words direct, and the crew responded. Even the rowdiest of them falling into line with a mixture of respect and self-preservation. They were a ragtag bunch of misfits and strangers, but damn, Orwyn knew how to gather a crew and for the first time since she got ejected from the Portal she felt like she fit in. Just a little.

The voice chuckled with both amusement and reproach. “Are we considering the pirate life?”

“You join at the most inopportune times, you know that?” Elmira told her, trying to school her expression. “Let me enjoy the fantasy. I will be yours once more in what… ten days?

Like you were never not mine.”

There was no wasted motion in the way Rina moved, no hesitation in her commands. Elmira watched the way she corrected Jessa’s stance with a slight nudge, how she sparred with Marlo without flinching despite the minotaur’s size. It wasn’t just about strength. It was knowing when to strike, where to stand, how to anticipate the beat before the beat.

Every step of it is a language, Elmira realized. And Rina spoke it like a native.

So Elmira stood by, quiet and attentive, taking notes and already turning the fight over in her mind, learning where she’d lost it and how to lose better next time.

A whistle cut through the air when Marlo went down under Rina’s precise punches, followed by a loud whoop. From the captain’s quarters, Tam made his appearance - leaning over the railing with a grin wide enough to rival the horizon.

“Well done, gunner!” he called out. “I was just about to call for the ropes!”

Elmira shot him a look, and Tam, ever the performer, swaggered over to them with his cutlass twirling in one hand.

Rina rolled her eyes, but the amusement was evident in the tilt of her lips. “Nice of you to show up, Captain. Itchy fingers?”

Tam flashed her a roguish smile, but his eyes were already scanning the crew deep in their drills, noting their movements and their postures with the same intent Elmira had. “I couldn’t miss such a riveting match, now could I?” He gave Elmira a dramatic bow. “With such a show, I might have to challenge you to a duel.”

Elmira raised an eyebrow. “You? Duel me?”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Rina said, her tone as sharp as her gaze. “This crew has plenty real fighters.”

Tam ignored her, always at ease in his own skin. “I see a real pirate as well,” he said, clapping Elmira on the back. “And yes, my fingers are very, very itchy.”

Rina turned back to the crew, not missing a beat. “Alright, you lot. Enough ogling, I did not tell you to take a break.”

Tam winked at Elmira, still grinning as he joined his crew. “For what it’s worth, I’m always open for a match, just don’t expect me to make it too easy.”

“Don’t expect me to forget a deal,” she retorted in a voice only he could hear.

As Rina began issuing orders for the drills, the crew, though still grumbling, fell into their rhythms, like a well-oiled machine. When he’d gone a round against both Rina and Orwyn in a two-against-one that he won with a few creative choices, Tam took a position nearby, watching with a calculating gaze as always.

He was such a hard man to get a read on it was infuriating. Was he serious? Unserious? Competent? All show, no substance? All of the above? Tam’s bravado was infectious, even if she didn’t take him seriously. How could she? Yet, there was something about him, a charisma she hadn’t seen in quite a while. And a luck that never seemed to run out.

 

As the days went on the crew fell into a comfortable rhythm. When she wasn’t running drills, Rina spent her time watching the waves that grew more monstrous the further into the ocean they got. Walls of water that crashed with the force of an angry god. Elmira was thankful for the solar silk that kept them in the air, if not airborne proper. Jessa ran ropes and practiced knife tricks on the rigging when no one was looking while Nix did the same below. Marlo, ever tireless, double-checked every pulley and support, muttering about “strange tensions in the boards.” Even Lint seemed subdued, quietly loading flares and checking powder charges without her usual humming.

 

On the fourth night, Tam found Elmira at the bow again, her gaze locked on the vast, star-laced horizon. Now, somewhere in the middle of the Morimyr, the wind had softened to a hush and the Scarlet Sphynx sailed in near silence, her sails glowing faintly under Elmira’s gentle guidance. Stars spilled overhead, sharp and countless. Below, the water mirrored them perfectly, as though the ship drifted between two skies. She had never seen so many stars outside the astral sea. It was like looking at a layered painting that fooled your perspective.

“You look like you are trying to convince her to give up her secrets,” Tam said, unsurprised to see her awake.

Elmira didn’t turn, her gaze fixed on the inky, moonlit water. The sea was quiet now, all its fury spent. “Maybe I am.”

He leaned on the rail, green hair standing on all ends. “Hope you’re not hoping for answers. All that’s down there is teeth, memories, and things best left sleeping.”

She gave a small, dry snort of a laugh. “Teeth I can deal with. It is the memories that get you.”

“There’s that accent again,” Tam noted as if it was just something trivial that had bugged him for a while but Elmira’s chest tightened. “I can’t place it.”

She kept her expression neutral. “You’ve been to every place there is?”

“No, but I’ve been around the oceans a time or two, and you kinda pick these things up,” he mused with a slight squint and a light tone. “It’s old. Very old. My guess would be that you’re not of this plane. But if you’re going past the Straits… Well, you might just be imperial. Am I close?”

Silence stretched out between them only punctuated by the waves broken by the rudder as the night made the ship sit lower in the water than usual. Her mind raced with a thousand thoughts, her cheeks heating with a rush of blood. Was it possible that this man who painted the picture of a fool-hardy buccaneer with a reckless attitude and charisma for miles, had a brain beneath all that hair? Had she entirely misjudged his character?

“I have been away a long time,” she said after a while, deciding that the truth could not hurt her here. “Feels like everything is either forgotten me or tries to chase me away.”

Tam chuckled, the sound low and rough. “That’s the way of it.” But he caught the look she cast him out of the corner of her eye and the humor faded slightly from his tone. “Isn’t it?”

“You were born out here?” she asked, tilting her chin toward the endless dark. “Is that what Orwyn meant?”

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze had already drifted seaward, out past the horizon as if it whispered things only he could hear. This was another Tam. Different from the Tam of the taverns in Varu. Different from the captain leading his crew with a sword and a grin. She liked this Tam.

“Midstorm,” he said finally, voice softened by memory. “Sails full, lightning crawling down the mast like it had somewhere to be. My mother said I wailed louder than the wind and damn near scared the thunder off. Didn’t touch land until I was five, and even then, I hated it.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t move right,” he said simply, a small shrug lifting his shoulders. “Land. It’s too still. No rhythm. The sea, though. Man, she sings to you. Push and pull, breath and break. You don’t fight it. You dance with it.”

She watched him for a long moment, and there was something that leaked into her expression that she did not stop or hide, a flicker of admiration, or perhaps understanding.

“You talk about the sea like she’s a lover.”

“She is,” Tam replied without hesitation. “She’s cruel sometimes. But fair. That’s more than you can say for most.”

They stood together in the hush of night, the wind threading through the sails overhead, carrying the scent of salt.

“I am going home,” Elmira said suddenly, and it felt almost like a confession. “That is what this is. I left a long, long time ago. Been to other places. Places I cannot even put into words.” Her brows furrowed. “But something is pulling me back now. Something big. Bigger than me. And it feels like I am running out of time.”

Tam tilted his head, eyes still on the water. “And you think it’s still there? That home?”

“I do not know,” she admitted. “But I will find out.”

He nodded slowly. “You’ve got the look of someone who doesn’t stop once she starts.”

“And you have the look of someone who never stops at all,” she returned, a half-smile tugging at her lips.

He flashed that rogue’s grin, warm and sharp all at once. “Why would I? There’s always another wave worth riding.”

She chuckled, soft and real. “What happens if there is none?”

Tam looked up at the sails overhead, at the night sky beyond. Then, with a shrug that was more promise than doubt, he said, “Then I guess I build one.”

The sails stirred, catching wind and magic both, shimmering faintly under the stars. The Scarlet Sphynx cut forward across the vast wilderness of the Morimyr Ocean, swift and sure. The ship hummed as it sailed through the night, the silk catching the barest shimmer of light from the twin moons above. The ocean stretched endlessly. Suddenly she understood what all those sailors felt, those who, like Tam, found land too haggard, too neat. Elmira leaned on the rail, her thoughts turning inward again when Tam broke the silence with a low murmur:

“You ever hear of the Watcher Beneath?”

“Does not sound like the comforting sort,” she said with a sideways glance.

Tam’s grin was lopsided. “It’s not a bedtime story, that’s for sure. My mother used to tell it when the waves went glass-still like this and the fog rolled in too thick. She said sometimes, when the sea forgets to breathe, something ancient stirs beneath it. Something that remembers when there was no sky. It watches ships pass overhead, choosing which ones vanish and which ones go mad.”

Elmira arched a brow, her pulse beating a little quicker. “And how does it choose?”

“That’s the thing.” Tam tapped his temple. “Some say it’s drawn to those who don’t belong - travelers who’ve walked between worlds. People with magic in their blood or purpose stitched into their bones. Others say it’s not about who you are, just whether you’re looking down… when it’s looking up.”

He chuckled at his own tale, but the sound didn’t carry far in the stillness. Fog had begun to gather at the edges of the horizon, curling low over the waves. Elmira, usually quick with a skeptical reply, found her tongue silent. It was just the sort of tale Arman would laugh at. But here and now… A chill crawled up her spine. Not fear exactly, but recognition. The story rang too close to something she had heard before, in a place that did not belong to the sea, but knew it all the same.

“I do not know if I believe in it,” she said eventually, her voice soft. “But… it feels like something is watching. Like it knows where I am headed.”

Tam tilted his head toward her. “You’re not going home on a mere feeling, are you?”

“No,” she said, almost to herself. “I am being called. Re-called.”

Tam looked out over the railing again, his voice quieter now. “Then let’s just hope the Watcher’s got other ships to haunt.”

“And his helper too.”

The dark storm approaches,” the voice said so low Elmira thought she had imagined it. “Make haste.

They stood together, silent, as the wind picked up again, soft, but insistent, and the Scarlet Sphynx sailed on, deeper into the ancient waters of the Morimyr where myths breathed beneath the surface and stars whispered old names into the void.

 

The morning of the tenth day dawned with the sight of the sails as red as blood. Clouds bruised the horizon, and the sea had gone still, too still. Okurac stood at the wheel, his one good eye narrowed against the wind. He muttered the old saying like a prayer or a curse: “Red sails in the morning… sailor’s mourning.”

No one laughed.

The wind picked up by midday, first in gusts and then in howling gales that made it dangerous for Elmira to give her usual push. The Scarlet Sphynx groaned beneath their boots as the storm rolled in with unnatural speed, turning the sky a sickly, green-tinged black. Rain hammered the deck. Lightning spidered across the sky like cracks in glass. The crew had seen their fair share of storms before, but this, this was something else.

Marlo barked orders to secure the rigging, while Rina’s sharp eyes flicked between cloud patterns and sudden gusts as she tethered the canons and anything loose on the deck. Orwyn moved with practiced precision, checking lines and getting the crew into position. Elmira reinforced the steel on the hull with quiet spells, but even she felt the raw, hungry pressure building in the air, like something watching.

Tam gripped the wheel with both hands, soaked to the bone and grinning like he was about to kiss the storm.

Then came the bellow.

It wasn’t thunder. It was lower. It vibrated in their bones.

“Dear gods,” Rina breathed. “What is that?”

The sea to the portside churned, frothing black and white. And beneath it, a massive shadow moved. Long and coiling. Elmira turned just as a massive tentacle broke the surface like a tower rising from the deep, its suckered flesh slick and glistening. Then another. And another. Water surged up onto the deck as the beast revealed itself - a Kraken spawn, smaller than legend but still mighty enough to drag ships to the depths.

Fuck…” Jessa hissed just as the sea around the ship crashed once more, tossing them off balance. She caught the center mast just as an empty barrel careened off the side just past her.

“Cut the sails loose!” Tam shouted, vaulting up the rigging as if he wasn’t the captain of the ship. “We’re riding the storm out of this one!”

“He’s mad,” Jessa gasped but only so loud that Elmira could hear before she hauled herself to her feet.

“What does he mean!?” Elmira asked but received no reply.

A tentacle lashed across the deck, splintering wood and sending a chest that wasn’t tied down flying. Marlo roared and grabbed a harpoon, hurling it with all his might into the beast’s side. It shrieked, a wet, gurgling sound that split the air as it wrapped around the aft mast that groaned in protest. Jessa was a blur of fur and steel, slicing through smaller tentacles with her twin karambits. Rina drew her bow even in the pouring rain, firing arrows into the beast’s central mass. Elmira tried to summon light, but the storm scattered it, diffused it. Still, she burned bright, a beacon among chaos, calling out warnings as tentacles crashed and coiled, flinging her daggers just to have something to do. She doubted they did much against the monster that had them in its grip.

The ship pitched dangerously as another massive tentacle curled around the hull, beginning to squeeze. The Sphynx screamed.

“We’re not going to make it!” Orwyn shouted, his voice barely audible through the storm.

“Oh, we will!” Tam shouted back, eyes alight. “Just need to piss it off. Lint!”

“Got ya, cap’n!” she shrieked and tossed him a lantern that burned purple and green.

He grabbed it mid-arch, smashed it against the rigging, and hurled the flaming oil at the beast. The fire caught its body and the creature reared back, howling. Elmira watched, astonished, as the water did not quell the flames but rather made them burn hotter, bigger. The growl of the monster drowned out the storm.

“NOW! HARD TO STARBOARD!” Tam roared, landing gracefully by the wheel and grabbing on with both hands.

The crew obeyed. Okurac grunted and leaned his bulk into the wheel’s turn as the ship groaned and twisted just as Marlo pulled with all his might. Ahead loomed a wave like a mountain that they were about to slam into. Tam didn’t hesitate. He turned into it. Elmira wrapped a rope twice around her forearm just as she felt her feet slip from under her. If she screamed, the sound was drowned and she felt a pop as her shoulder nearly tore out of its socket. For a moment there was nothing but air between her and the wrathful waters.

The Sphynx surged upward, climbing the wave up and up, hull creaking like a living thing. For a moment, they were suspended at the peak, weightless, then the Scarlet Sphynx came crashing down the other side in a fury of foam and wind and Elmira slammed into the stairs and slid down the steps onto the deck before the rope caught her once again.

Behind them, the Kraken spawn let out one final, echoing cry and vanished beneath the waves. Silence came gradually over the next minutes, first in brief lulls, then in full. The sea calmed. The storm, like a living thing denied its prey, sulked off but Elmira did not let go of the rope. She did, however, crawl onto the stairs. Tam stood at the helm, wild-haired and rain-slicked, laughing like a man who’d just cheated death again.

“See?” he said between breaths. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Jessa wrung out her tail and glared up at him. “One of these days, your luck’s going to run out, Captain.”

Tam winked. “Maybe. But not today.”

Beside him, Marlo, Okurac, and Orwyn leaned hard on the wheel and the railing, panting with water streaming into their eyes and off their cloaks. Their roaring laughter reached Elmira where she lay, rope around one arm. A sudden, uncontrollable bubble of relief rose in her chest. Her head lolled against the railing and she laughed, long and gasping, chest tight from exertion but looser than it had been in weeks. Gods, it felt good to laugh like that again.

“Yo, birdbrains! We’re coming out of the eye!” Rina shouted through the resurging storm, her boots skidding across the slick deck as she lunged after a whipcord rope that had come loose. She caught it, slammed it against the mast, and tied it down with muscle and scowl.

“We’re still in a storm!”

The reminder hit them just as another swell lifted the Scarlet Sphynx, but this time, the ship crested the wave with more grace than panic. The worst of the fury was behind them, though the rain fell like strings from the sky, and the wind howled. The storm was losing power fast, but it was fiercer than anything Elmira had experienced before. The ship rode lower now, the sea rolling beneath them like a long, weary sigh.

The hatch to belowdecks slammed open with a bang, and Nix stumbled out, hair plastered to his face, a bleeding cut on one temple. His eyes were wide as if he'd looked into something down there that looked back.

“Damn it to hells! We’re out!” he shouted over the wind. “The quartz is drained, nothing left to push the reserves!” He staggered to the mast, clutching it as the ship bucked. “If you’ve got any more miracles, now’s the damn time!”

I believe that was your cue, child,” the voice reminded her and Elmira felt her cheeks flush though the tone had been gentle and warm, if a little dry.

“Get below!” she shouted to Nix, boots hammering the slick deck as she leaped up the rest of the stairs. Her coat, though buttoned as tightly as it could, snapped behind her like wings, seawater and skywater soaking through to her bones. She stopped right in the middle of the deck, between the stern and the wheel, finding a small metallic loop bolted into the deck where she could jam her foot. Not the only mage with the same idea, she thought with a smirk just as the ship jerked again, but this time her balance remained. From here all three masts were in clear view, the sails heavy with storm.

“Damn, El, just when I could not love you more,” Tam said, barely glancing her way, hands steady on the wheel despite the rain stinging his face. His grin flashed, crooked and utterly unfazed. “Ready when you are.”

From her new vantage, Elmira glanced back at the churning dark and froze. A shadow moved below the surface, vast and coiling. It glowed faintly beneath the waves, each pulse like the flicker of a dying star. It didn’t rise. It didn’t dive. It only turned, slow and deliberate. Not chasing. Not retreating. Just watching.

Heart pounded in her ears, but she turned her focus back to the sails, to the storm pressing in and the waves rising high above them. Warmth spread inside her chest, moving like snakes through her legs and arms. Ayursha was here.

“Lux solis,” she whispered, and the warmth became golden light erupting from her outstretched palms, blooming like a second sun in the storm-dark sky. Not warm and flickering like flame, but bright and fierce and unyielding. It surged up into the rigging, blazing through the heart of the Scarlet Sphynx. The crew shielded their eyes against the sudden light that the sails drank in, the solar silk threads shimmering like fire caught in glass.

The sails snapped taut with a thunderclap as more than a gale caught in them. The ship lurched, skimming higher, faster, the sea shedding from her sides as though she remembered she was not meant to sail but to soar.

Cheers rang out across the deck. Rina whooped from the midship line. Jessa clung to the rail, eyes wide, a laugh bursting from her chest. Marlo bellowed something unintelligible, hoisting a thick rope like it weighed nothing. Even Okurac, salt-streaked and stone-faced, gave a sharp nod of approval. But it was Tam who looked over his shoulder at Elmira, eyes catching the radiance of her spell.

“Remind me,” he said, grinning like a man who'd married luck itself, “what we’re paying you again?”

Elmira, breathless, hair plastered to her skin by rain and arcana, just smiled. “I believe I am paying you, Captain.”

“Huh,” he said with a wink, pulling the hair out of his eyes. “Good.”

The light burned on and the Scarlet Sphynx surged above the waves, only the deadliest even grazing the hull. The power surged through her veins and it was all she could do to control it. But control it she did. She felt the ocean and felt it answer. Light was hers to command. Air too. It fought tooth and claw but it bowed to her will, it had to. These were the elements of her people. The gifts of their gods. A reminder of why the Akati were mighty. Because they were fey and blessed and she was their Elder.

There you are,” the voice said. Or perhaps it was just her imagination. The grin that split her face was as mad as Tam’s with the sheer amount of energy coursing through her celestial-touched veins. Through her blood. Through every fiber of her being. If the others could see her eyes without her contacts, they would see eyes filled with stars and night, ablaze with the cosmos like a window into another realm.

Letting the crew do what they did best, Elmira remained at her post keeping the ship in the air. Her eyes wandered to the depths below them again, and that faint glow they left in their wake. Lint appeared at her elbow at some point like a summoned imp, her small green face furrowed with curiosity, binoculars in hand. She squinted through them and tilted her head, scientific and utterly unbothered.

“Too damp,” the goblin muttered. “Next time, we use black salt and fireglow resin. Burns hotter in water. Sizzles down to its rotten little bones.”

Elmira blinked as the image of that monster burning leaped into her mind. “You have something like that?”

Lint grinned, her teeth too sharp for comfort. “Not yet. But I will.” She cackled and scurried off into the lower deck, probably to brew up the next hazard for sea gods and common sense alike.

Elmira looked back to the water one last time. The shadow was gone. But she had the feeling it hadn’t gone far.

Half a day later, the clouds were a little less dark and the rain a little less heavy. And then: “Land ahoy!” came Jessa’s cry from the crow’s nest.

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