But Onaya Bone said that Nexus was made of a different kind of power. Something that the gods could use for protection when alchemy proved useless against the aliens.
That it was the same power trapped in the rings.
That the ring—and by extension, that meant Meran—was a weapon.
Talis looked around the open deck but did not see any sign of the simula.
“Their fleets have engaged in battle with The Divine Alchemists,” Dug said.
He handed her the scope, which she held up to her goggles, struggling to see through it properly with the extra distance between it and her eye.
Large as Nexus was before her, the scope proved how far away they still were. The Yu’Nyun and Veritor ships appeared as clustered dots against the flood of green. In the scope she saw them more clearly. Winds flapped the airships’ sails and pushed their lift balloons like toys in a bath. They were firing their weapons at something… at.…
She tugged on her ’locks piously. Then felt the pang of the memory and squinted into the scope again. That could not be Silus Cutter she saw. From this distance she could only discern the backlit shape of a figure levitating in the open skies around Nexus to face the assault. Too slender to be Helsim Breaker. Quad-limbed, so not Lindent Vein. That left Onaya Bone or Arthel Rak.
They’d know when they got closer.
What was she thinking? They were going in closer.
Whomever it was raised their arms defensively. Flares of light popped with distant rumbles as weapon fire struck against some kind of shield. Nexus energy. The deity fought back, but whatever powers they summoned were deflected off the alien ships.
Even though the god was as tall as the Veritor airships were from keel to weather deck, they looked so small against the brilliant green sphere behind them. It did not give Talis hope. Her faith faltered, and her stomach tilted with the vacuum it left behind. But Nexus dominated the scene. Surely something that large was strong enough to make a difference.
Whether to wear the ring seemed to be the critical question, more and more, minute by minute.
Once, the strong winds that whipped the Veritor ships about would have been a reassurance that the gods would protect Peridot. That Silus Cutter would protect his children.
But Silus Cutter was gone. Someone else was commanding the high winds in the battle out there, and it wasn’t the gods.
Wasn’t the Veritors, either.
Regardless of any pact made with the aliens, those fragile wooden airships had no friends in that fight. Jostled by the winds, the shudder of impacts crashing against their hulls was plain to see even from this distance. As the flagship was pushed sideways through the sky, two more figures were revealed on the ship’s far side. Helsim Breaker was easy to identify, twice as wide as the other being beside him. His hands clapped together, and two Veritor ships moved sideways and crashed against their flagship’s sides, as though they were all being crushed in an invisible compactor.
Talis edged to where Scrimshaw stood, watching xist former allies. Not a hint of what xe was thinking.
“So what’s your plan? What do you want out of this?” She watched xin through her dark goggles. Xe turned xist head to acknowledge her without looking away from the battle beginning in earnest.
“I do not know,” Scrimshaw replied. “For now, I suppose I want to survive long enough to decide.”
Flames spiraled from the second figure—that would be Arthel Rak, then—and as she raised the scope back up to her eyes, they crashed into the lift envelope of one of the Veritor ships like a battering ram. The hull tilted suddenly to hang lopsided and low beneath its buckling canvas.
Black smoke swirled forth from the engines of another ship. More flames appeared along the hull of a third, traveling along the railing, speeding toward the lift lines.
The show of divine power would have been more reassuring if the aliens were also sustaining damage.
Talis frowned. The Veritors would fall out of the skies and Wind Sabre would be left alone to face gods and aliens. Both had used her. And if she didn’t do this right, she’d be playing right into line with what they wanted.
Those two crates of money in the hull of her ship were not enough to soothe the fire of shame that seared her gut and twisted beneath her shoulder blades. If anything, they made it worse.
Snapping the scope closed, she tossed it to Dug and hurried back to her cabin.
She climbed onto her bunk, rumpling the bedclothes beneath her boots, and uncovered the safe.
Meran would still get what she wanted, by her own spoken definition. Talis wasn’t going to leave the particulars up to the ancient woman who sought vengeance, nor would she hand over the ring to a cowardly goddess. Nor to the Veritors, nor the aliens.
She was the only one qualified to represent the folk who busted their tails, every rotted day, just trying to be decent and get by. To survive. For the folks whose world was under attack, whose gods were under attack. Whose Nexus was about to be shattered, drained, harvested.
She still had no big plan, just a sense of how much damage all those conspiracies might cause.
So what if she didn’t know what was best? Of all parties, she might be the only one who would lose any sleep over it.
The safe swung open and she snatched up the pouch. Untied its strings and dug inside.
And pulled out Meran’s brass-beaded anklet.
Chapter 36
An angry wind was howling on deck when Talis emerged, running, from her cabin. It forced her to stop and catch her balance.
Hair whipped around and into her face, stray
