For three days, he had recuperated in the heart of a wooden whale, one built from the very trees of his home realm. He felt swallowed whole, unable to escape his past. And now, against his will, he was being dragged back home. Four years ago, he had left Saysh Mal in chains and now he returned just as bound-if not by iron this time, then by duty.
Alone, he crossed the room to a curved rail that overlooked a wide window in the lower hull. The space, though smaller, mirrored the captain’s Eye. The window opened a wide view of the passing landscape, the little that there was to see with dawn barely breaking.
But Brant had woken well before sunrise, knowing they’d be crossing into the Eighth Land this morning. Over the past days, tensions continued to mount within the craft as all wondered about the state of Tashijan. With the ship burning alchemies, they sped faster than any raven could wing.
The regent had been particularly short of mood, worn by the worry of it all, the responsibility. Even the roguish nature of Rogger and his ribald tales of his prior exploits did little to lighten spirits. Brant had also noted how Tylar had begun to limp over the past two days. No one commented upon it, but he had seen the regent, wearing a worrisome expression, kneading his left knee when he thought no one was looking.
But their confinement would soon end.
As Brant waited for sunrise, he felt a now-familiar warming of the stone at his throat. He searched around him, knowing Pupp must be near.
The door creaked open behind him. He turned to see Dart slip into the room. She wore the black boots and leggings of her station at Tashijan, though the shirt was untucked and worn loose. She had also left her half cloak back in her room. It was the first time that he had truly seen her free of cloak and hood. Her tawny yellow hair was longer than last he remembered, past the shoulder. She even looked taller out of her cloak, her eyes bluer. Still, the look she’d worn on her face when he first met her back at the school in Chrismferry remained. Anxious.
“Oh!” She startled back. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
“Just come to watch the sunrise,” Brant said.
She edged back, awkward with her intrusion. She would not meet his eye.
“I’ll leave you to your sunrise,” she said.
“No…please…” He waved to the rail.
She approached warily, as if she would rather be anywhere else.
“I appreciate the company,” he said, intending it as a balm for her, but was surprised at discovering it was also the truth. The realization suddenly dried any further words in his mouth.
Brant cleared his throat. He had heard about Dart’s connection to the rogue god who had wandered so disastrously into his life. A god named Keorn, son of Chrism. The rogue god gave birth to her, while his death took Brant’s life away. And it seemed now their lives were still linked: by the bones of the same god’s skull.
His hand drifted closer to hers on the rail-not touching, just closer. Not finding words, he stared below. The roll of the sea lay beneath their keel, black still with night, but to the east, the skies brightened rapidly with hues of purple and rose. The first light revealed a new world rising steeply out of the seas, a land of rock and jungle, cliff and creeping vine.
She spoke to the wide window. “Tell me about the Eighth Land.”
That, he could talk about. “Most of it is hinter-shattered rock, thick jungle, steaming vents of brimstone. There are few gentle beaches, few harbors. Only three gods made their homes there, each more isolated than the last.”
Out the window, the morning sun set fire to the highest peaks.
Dart made a small exclamation, struck by the raw beauty of the sunrise. An ember of pride for his homeland burnt within him.
“Duck down here,” he said and crouched below the railing.
As she knelt beside him, their shoulders touching, he pointed toward the brightening land rising from the sea. “The northernmost cliffs that lie ahead are the domain of Farallon, lord of the Nine Pools.”
“The Jeweled Pools,” Dart said with a thread of wonder. Five rivers flowed out of the highlands to form a cascading series of cataracts and waterfalls, captured on nine separate terraces, a great pool on each. “Is it true each pool is a different hue?”
“That’s how they got their name. Master Sheershym, a chronicler at my school in Saysh Mal, says it’s because of dissolved stone and water depth, but I’d rather think it’s Farallon’s Grace.”
“It’s probably both,” Dart suggested.
The rising sun now glinted off the falling water in the distance.
“What’s beyond the pools?”
Brant pointed higher, where the peaks glowed emerald in the first rays of the sun, shrouded in mists. “The highland mountains are split by a deep valley, all thickly forested.”
“Saysh Mal,” she said.
He only nodded. He had no wish to talk much about his home. They would be there soon enough. Instead, he crouched even lower and pointed to the curve of the horizon. There, almost directly south, was a shouldered mountain that towered above the others. Unlike the emerald glow of the highland peaks, the tip of that mountain turned the first rays of the sun into fire. But Brant knew the opposite was true. It was snow that tipped that mountain, an ice that lasted all the seasons, chilled by the thin air near the roof of the world.
Still, the mountain’s heart burnt with fire.
“Takaminara,” he said, naming god and mountain, a sleeping volcano that would occasionally quake the entire land.
“Truly? It doesn’t appear as tall as I’ve heard tell.”
“The distance deceives-as it has many men and women.”
“And it’s true that the god lives in caves at the top of the mountains? No castillion. No handservants. By herself.”
“There are the occasional pilgrims who have braved the cliffs and crumbling ice,” he said. “And those foolish few who seek merely to touch the sky. But most of those who climb seek to become her acolytes, to be blessed at her feet, to be burnt by her Grace and have their inner eye set ablaze.”
“The rub-aki,” she said, touching her forehead, “the Blood-eyed.”
He nodded. The rub-aki were stained with the fiery blood of Takaminara. Each bore a crimson print of her thumb burnt into the middle of their foreheads.
“Can they truly see the future with their inner eyes?”
Brant shrugged. “It is said that by staring into their alchemical fires, they can portend the future. But few have ever witnessed a true foretelling.”
“I once saw one of the Blood-eyed at the Grand Midsummer Faire back in Chrismferry.”
“A charlatan surely. Master Sheershym once told me that fewer than two acolytes a decade survive the ordeal of Takaminara and return from her caverns into the world.”
“But I’ve heard of plenty-”
“It’s easy to tattoo one’s forehead and claim to see the future. Master Sheershym said that for every thousand who claim to be rub-aki , only one truly is. And they certainly would not be selling their skills at a fair.”
He said the last more harshly than he intended.
“Oh…” An edge of embarrassment returned to her voice and manner.
He suddenly felt like a cad. He stood up, drawing her up in his wake. “But in the end, I guess none of the god-realms really matter. Not even Saysh Mal. It is into the hinterlands that we must ultimately tread. Once there, we’ll all be on equal footing.”
“Equally blind,” Dart mumbled.
From the shadows that moved over her features, he had only unsettled her further.
She stepped away. “I should return to my room. I need to collect my cloak and prepare my bag.”
“Wait-” he blurted out before he could stop it.
She glanced to him.
He struggled for some way to make up for his poor manner. He didn’t want matters to end this way. “I-I wanted to ask you something else. Something’s that been troubling me.”
“What’s that?”
