Page 57 of The Lost Reliquary
“What I’m saying,” he continues, more tartly, “is that I would have done the same to any other Dawn Cloister candidate. It was a means to an end. It wasn’t as if I particularlywantedto kill you.”
I stop what I’m doing. Look him in the eyes. Whatever truths lie behind them might as well be locked in the vault with the Goddess’s reliquary. “Iknowit isn’t personal. It hardly ever is with us Chosen, but that doesn’t stop what we inflict on each other, does it?”
The ship creaks around us, more reaction than Nolan emits. For a moment, our truce feels as fragile as Cleophas’s pretty teacups—one decent wave and it will be upended, shattered. But I won’t be goaded again, or picked apart by Nolan’s mind games. “If we’re keeping up appearances, you’d best stay locked in the cabin when I’m not with you. And right now, I’m going to go make sure Mortimer and Buttons are nice and comfy.”
Before he can say another word, I retreat from the cabin, back up onto the deck, where the sailors rush around in a flurry of final preparations for our departure. The horses don’t need me—I just wanted away from Nolan—but that goal achieved, I find myself without a task or destination. The frown of a passing sailor tells me I’m in the way, so I retreat to the rail of the ship. Beyond it, Phrygis glows with the reds and oranges of the setting sun, like the whole port is aflame. It almost resembles Lumeris, a thought that’s followed by an ache in the pit of my stomach. Fingers gripping the rail, I stare downriver instead, away from the mainland, to where the open ocean waits, and everything beyond it.
Cyprene.
The reliquary (maybe).
A hundred lands I’ve never even heard of.
Then I see Cleophas, leaning against the frame of her cabin door, still sipping tea as she watches her crew work. She spots me spotting her and a small, almost teasing smile appears on her lips. “Settled in?”
I take the question for an invitation to approach. “Uh… yes.” The reply is stilted as I fumble for whatmyadopted persona would say. How does Nolan do this so easily? “My employer finds the cabin quite… cozy. He’s resting after our travels.”
There’s a glint in her eye, as if she knows I’m spinning horseshit. “A little crowded for you, though.”
“I haven’t spent much time on ships.” Or any. “Used to a bit more space to move around.”
“First time off the mainland, isn’t it? Or will be. I can always tell.”
No point in denying it. “Is it that obvious?”
Her head tips. “The way you were eyeing my maps? A bit.”
The captain is observant. But there’s no harm in her catching me in curiosity. Or me in continuing it. “Would it be an insult to ask to take a closer look at them?”
She drains the remainder of the tea. “Not as far as I’m concerned.” She turns back into the cabin, gesturing for me to follow. “So long as you handle them carefully. A good chart is worth more than a brick of gold out at sea, and only a little less than the last cask of fresh water.”
Something ignites in me again, being back in her cabin, with itscollected proof of a world beyond the Goddess’s, wrought in ink and paper, carved out of wood and stone. A pile of maps now covers the table Cleophas and Nolan took tea at, weighted to keep them open. I recognize the coastline on top, and the little dot that represents Phrygis. Carefully, I remove one of the weights and lift the corner, revealing a chart beneath that shows a swath of islands that appear to lie to the south of us. Maps of our imminent voyage. And beyond that, the Unlit Seas, and a world not bound by Tempestra-Innara.
“Have you been to all these places?” I say, referring to the other charts tacked to the walls around us. It’s not quite the question I want to ask. ButWhere would you go, if you’d never been anywhere else?catches in the back of my throat. An answer might become an aspiration, and for all that I crave exactly that, hope of escape is still too fragile to bear that sort of weight.
“Many,” Captain Cleophas replies. “I’ve spent far more of my life on a ship than off, but it would take a dozen lifetimes to visitallof them.”
I move closer to one, admiring the details not only rendered in black but washed with blues and greens, and limned in some places with gold. “You’ve always been a sailor then.”
“I was born on a ship—my parents’, to be precise. Plan to die on one too, gods willing, and let the waters swallow my remains as repayment for what I pray will be the many years I was given.”
Not Goddess.Gods.
She notes my awareness of her wording. “A lot of beliefs out there. I prefer not to pile my hopes around the favor of any one deity. Who knows what god might lay claim to the particular patch of water I find myself traversing one day?”
Is that heretical, coming from someone whose bloodlines didn’t begin flowing here? For all my education, I hardly know. The Salt Goddess was once favored by sailors, but did that include those that came from beyond their reach? And what else might a sailor like Cleophas have encountered in her time? Intrigue overpowers the good sense to keep my mouth shut. “There are other gods like Tempestra-Innara beyond the Devoted Lands?”
Cleophas shakes her head. “No living, breathing divinities. Not that I’ve seen anyway.”
Good.Begs the questionWhy only here?though. “So these other lands believe in stories.”
“Stories carry power.” She sits down on a padded bench that lines a window at the end of the cabin. “Not power like the Flame Goddess, admittedly.”
“Is that why you came here?”
She laughs—a deep, comfortable sound. “There are certainly those that hear the stories of the Devoted Lands and flock to them, make them their new home. It’s been that way for centuries. My parents’ ship must have ferried hundreds of expectant pilgrims so tempted by the Flame that they left the religions of their ancestors behind to see what its warmth had to offer.”
“And they stayed when they experienced Tempestra-Innara’s power?”
