Auraya climbed to her feet. “I’ll help you carry our friend here back into the bower, then I must go.”
Together they lifted the man and carried him to the bower of cured Siyee. Auraya stepped outside again. Standing in the entrance, Mirar watched as she walked a little way from the bowers. She smiled at him once, then rose up into the air and disappeared into the night.
He sighed. She had started to see the potential in the Gift within moments of learning it. It would not be long before she returned with questions.
Imenja’s ship was bigger than the raiders.‘ It was a different shape, too. Reivan had explained to Imi that this ship had been built with a narrow hull so it would travel fast. Most ships were used to carry things to trade with, so they had wider hulls in which to store goods. This ship only had to carry them, a crew, and their supplies.
The entire ship was made of a black wood from a place in the southernmost part of the southern continent. The star shape that Imenja and Reivan wore had been painted in white on the hull. The sails were also black with a white star. Imi could imagine how formidable this large, narrow vessel would look to traders and raiders. She almost wished they would encounter the raiders that had captured her. Maybe Imenja would punish them with her magic.
Where there had been a large hole in the deck of the raider ship to allow access to stolen goods stored in the hull below, Imenja’s ship had a shallow depression which created a sort of low sitting area, covered by a kind of tent. There Imi, Imenja and Reivan slept or sheltered whenever it rained. The rest of the time they sat on deck and tried to keep out of the way of the crew. Imi had been inside the hull a few times. There was a bucket down there for bailing out water, but the ship was so well made it didn’t leak much. The time she’d spent in the raiders’ ship felt like a distant memory or a story she’d been told, though she occasionally had nightmares about it.
The hull was full of stores. It was half as full as it had been when they had set out a few months before. The food they ate was far better than what she’d been given as a prisoner, but not as good as what she’d enjoyed in the Sanctuary. Tonight the meat they had eaten had been too salty and there had been only dried fruit and nuts to go with it. She found herself daydreaming of dried sea grass rolled around fresh crawler meat and smiled at herself for craving what she had once considered boring food.
A crewman was clearing away the plates and utensils now. Imi looked up to see Imenja unrolling a large map. She had seen it before many times, but it always intrigued her. It was the way the world looked to a Siyee, yet it was useful to landwalkers.
The captain unrolled his own maps, which were covered in lines that made no sense to Imi, and weighed them down with various objects. Lamps within the tent swung back and forth to the swaying of the ship, throwing moving shadows over everything. The captain pointed to a place on his map, then to one on Imenja’s, and spoke.
Reivan glanced at Imi, then translated. “He says we’re about here, far enough from shore that we can no longer see it from the mast.”
“Could a boat be rowed to shore from here?” Imi asked the captain, with Reivan translating quietly.
“Yes, but it would take many hours. Worse if there are currents against us.”
“What is the risk of being seen?”
“Always high during the day.”
“And at night?” Reivan asked.
“The moon is near full,” he reminded them. “We won’t be able to see if there are any reefs closer to shore, either.”
“You don’t have to take me all the way in,” Imi told him as soon as Reivan had finished translating. “I can swim some of the way.”
They turned to regard her, each wearing a frown.
“Are you strong enough for that?” Reivan asked.
The captain said something in a warning voice.
“He says there might be sea predators. Spinerakes, which I think you call flarkes.”
Imi felt a rush of fear, but she straightened her back. “The only really dangerous sea creatures are flarkes and they like smaller prey. They’ll only attack people that are hurt, or if there’s no other food. If the Siyee see you they’ll try to kill you. That’s more of a risk for you than this is for me.”
As Reivan translated Imi’s words, the captain smiled crookedly. He looked at Imi with what she thought might be admiration.
“We have to hope there are Siyee on shore to find,” Reivan said.
“I only have to swim along it to find them. Getting back to you will be harder. How will I find you if the ship and the boat can’t be seen from shore?”
Imenja and Reivan exchanged a glance.
“We must agree on a time and place,” Reivan said. “We take Imi toward shore in the morning and pick her up at night.”
“How will I find you in the dark?” Imi asked, shivering as she considered what it would be like swimming in darkness. “I’d rather swim during the daylight.”
Imenja smiled. “Then we’ll take you at dawn and pick you up in the late afternoon instead,” she said. “If you don’t find Siyee that day, we’ll sail farther west the day after and try again.”
Imi nodded. “That will work.”
Reivan translated this for the captain, who nodded. He turned to a crewman waiting nearby and spoke. The man disappeared, then returned carrying a flask and some small, duck glasses. Imi struggled to stop herself grimacing. The drink served at the end of formal meals was too strong and sour for her, but she always made herself sip it for fear of causing offense. It did make her pleasantly sleepy, however, which was better than tossing and turning in the “tank” bed they had made for her in the hull. The tank kept her wet, but it wasn’t easy to relax in water that constantly moved with the ship.
Tonight she probably would lie awake, despite the drink, thinking of the adventure ahead. Would there be any Siyee on shore? Would they help her?
As Juran opened the door to his rooms, Dyara felt instantly on edge. Though he looked calm, there were lines on his face that only appeared when he was in great distress. He stepped aside and gestured for her to enter, saying nothing. Rian and Mairae were already there. Both looked bemused.
Sitting down, she waited as Juran paced the room slowly, clearly gathering his thoughts. She knew him better than the other White, but that was to be expected. They had worked together for seventy-six years. Every sign of his agitation worried her more, and it took all her self-control not to demand he hurry up and tell them what was bothering him.
“For the last few months Huan and I have been watching a... a certain individual,” he began. “We have been waiting for a sign that our suspicions about him are right, or not. Tonight we found that they were.”
“Who is this person?” Dyara asked.
Juran stopped pacing and looked at her. He took a deep breath and his expression hardened. “The man we have been watching is Mirar.”
Dyara stared at Juran in disbelief. The room was silent for several heartbeats.
“He’s dead,” Rian stated.
Juran shook his head slowly. “He isn’t. I do not know how it can be true, but it is.”
“You’re certain of this?” Dyara asked.
“We are now.”
“But you found his body.”
“We found a body that had been crushed. It was the right height, the hair coloring was correct, but nobody could have recognized his face. He wasn’t seen leaving the collapsed house, and plenty were watching.”
“But there was no way to prove the body belonged to Mirar,” Dyara finished.
“No.”
Mairae leaned forward in her seat. “How did you discover Mirar was alive?”
Juran sighed and moved to a chair. “I should explain how this all came about. Auraya discovered Mirar in Si a
