The crew of the Skycutter cheered as we pulled up alongside the deck.

  The skiff rose on its rope with a slow, swaying pull, bumping softly against the ship’s dark hull while hands above caught lines and hauled us in the rest of the way. Lanterns had already been lit along the rails. Their warm gold light swayed in the evening wind and painted the deck in moving bars, catching the gleam of freshly tarred wood.

  Vexa was first off the skiff and onto the deck itself.

  Captain Roan was the first to greet us. As always, he had a pipe in his mouth, and the air around him was thick with smoke, the gray curls trailing up past the brim of his hat and dissolving into the darkening sky. His black beard had been trimmed neat in the span of our absence. Still big, still full, but no longer so wild.

  He extended a hand to Vexa. “Hope you had a pleasant trip—”

  She slapped it aside casually and walked right on by.

  Dragus was there as well, his pink frilly glove held to his chest. He reached out toward her. “Wait,” he said. “Are you okay? I can heal you—”

  She dodged to the side, unable to meet his eyes. “Not this you can’t,” she muttered, almost as if she hadn’t meant anyone to hear. Then she ducked away into the lower decks, disappearing down the stairs before anyone could stop her.

  The crew stared in awkward silence. The rigging pulled eerily in the wind, a thousand taut lines sighing overhead. Dusk had gone purple along the horizon, and the first stars were beginning to burst through the twilight.

  “What are you staring at?” Roan barked. “Get back to your duties.”

  The crew obliged at once, breaking apart and flowing back into work. Boots thudded. Lines were hauled. Someone up in the shrouds cursed cheerfully at a knot. Somewhere aft, a pulley squealed. The ship lurched and began to roll slowly forward.

  Captain Roan extended a hand to me. “Sorry you had to see that, lad,” he said. “You can rest for the night, and then I’ll debrief you in the mornin’.”

  I stepped onto the deck and felt immediate relief. There was something about the land beneath the mist that always felt wrong in some subtle way. This, the ship beneath my feet, swaying and familiar, felt real. The boards flexed under my weight as if they knew me. The world narrowed into wood and wind, and for the first time since leaving the island, my shoulders loosened.

  Finn jumped off the skiff next, landing with a loud thwunk nearby. “Evenin’, Captain,” he said. “Another mission well done, if I do say so myself. You see, there was this giant eight-legged—”

  “We’ll talk about that later, Finn,” Roan cut in. Then, lower, he asked, “It happened again, didn’t it?”

  Finn frowned. “You know I don’t like talking about Vexa behind her back. She’s my partner.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “But eh… you should talk to her.”

  “And what am I supposed to say?” Roan asked. “She just has these moods… and the drinkin’ makes it worse—”

  They both noticed me standing there awkwardly, caught between them with wet sand still in my boots and blood half-dried on my clothes.

  Roan drew in a puff of smoke. “Sorry, lad, for involving you. Vexa… Well, Vexa is Vexa. She is confident and smart, but she gets in her own head. Forgive her. For me.”

  I waved him away. “Nothing to forgive,” I said. “She saved my life. More than once. If she needs time to… deal. Then that suits me just fine. I still haven’t processed it all myself. Not really.”

  Roan smiled. “Wise beyond your years, Torren. I knew I made a fine choice picking you up from that idiot of a Captain, Zyren.”

  “Wise enough to stay alive on the streets,” I replied. “Until I made an unwise choice.”

  Roan let out a soft laugh, and in the lantern-light his face looked older than usual. It was lined in the way only people responsible for too many others ever looked. “Unwise choices are why we are all here in the first place. You’re among friends.” His smile softened. “Among family.”

  At that word, I couldn’t help but smile.

  Family.

  I was tired. Bone tired. The kind of tiredness that lived behind the eyes and in the joints. There was a deep heaviness to it, as though part of the island still clung to me. My knees wobbled from fatigue, and no matter how much I tried to stand straighter, I couldn’t quite hide it.

  Roan gave me a hard look, likely noticing. Then his eyes smiled kindly at me, even though the rest of his face remained stern. “Off you go, lad. To bed with you. No duties tomorrow and light work for a few days after. We’ll need to find you something to do.” He turned to Finn. “And you, I heard you were delinquent with your last duties. Pawned it off on someone else. You will get no rest tomorrow.”

  Finn’s jovial smile turned down. “But Captain!” he protested, pointing dramatically down into the mist. “We just cleared an island.”

  “Aye,” Roan replied. “Now maybe you’ll think about that next time you want to skip out on your job. We all work here. Some more deckwork. Others clear the islands. All work.”

  “Pssh,” Finn replied. “Except you.”

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  I thought that direct call-out of the captain would earn Finn some real trouble, but Roan merely smiled, all teeth. “I work harder than the lot of you.”

  “How so?”

  Roan drew in and breathed out a long, thin trail of smoke that curled between them. “I have to deal with a reckless fool like you. Now go. Get. To bed, the both of you.”

  Finn sauntered by me and held his forearm out. “To a job well done, eh?”

  I smiled and tapped my forearm against his. “To a job well done.”

  ***

  That night, I couldn’t sleep.

  I tossed and turned and tossed some more in the hammock, its ropes creaking softly every time I shifted. There was always a vibration to the ship, subtle and constant, like a second pulse beneath your own. The Skycutter was never still. There was always this gentle sway, the rise and dip through the cloud currents, the deep thrum of the aethermatter somewhere below decks, and the occasional heavier footfall overhead from whoever had the late watch.

  Normally, it was soothing. Like how children were generally rocked to sleep—

  That thought gave me pause.

  Had I ever been rocked to sleep?

  Had my parents loved me? Cared for me? Held me?

  The questions came like stones dropped down an empty well. No splash in return. No answers to be had. Just the mindless echo.

  The ground beneath the mist had felt wrong, yes, but there had been one thing about it that had not: the stability. The stillness. I had spent my whole life in turbulence, kicked from one place to another, sleeping in corners and alleys and half-rotted shelters, never belonging anywhere long enough to call it mine. I was accustomed to sway. To uncertainty. To movement. So while the ground had felt wrong, in some ways… it had felt right.

  In some ways, it had felt like home.

  I sat up.

  The sleeping quarters were dim; the lanterns trimmed low to embers behind clouded glass. Hammocks swung gently in long rows. Bodies filled them, crew sprawled on backs or sides, boots hanging off ropes, one or two snoring softly, someone muttering in sleep. I slid my feet into the J1s at the end of my hammock and stood carefully, trying not to set the whole line swaying.

  I tiptoed out.

  There were so many people sleeping there, and still I couldn’t quite place why the quarters felt so large. The Skycutter was a smaller ship. I had heard the crew talk about it often enough. So why was there so much space? Why so many hammocks? Why did the crew feel more plentiful than the ship should allow?

  The thought nagged, but exhaustion dulled it before it could fully form.

  I climbed the stairs and stepped onto the deck.

  A soft breeze touched my cheeks and played through my hair. Cool and clean, with a certain gentleness to it. It smelled of mist, smoke, and the iron tang of the ropes after a long day. The sounds of work had thinned into a night-watch lullaby. Somewhere at the stern, someone turned a crank with slow rhythm. The ropes snapped now and then as they caught the wind.

  I was really taking a shine to life on a ship. And I had to admit, being sentenced to a fate worse than death might have been the best thing that had ever happened to me.

  “Attend me, young Torren,” I heard a voice call out.

  I knew immediately who it was.

  Walking toward the front of the ship, I found Raela, her wooden wings pulled tight against her back. She was staring out across the endless mist, and the ship’s lamps gave her carved body a warm golden sheen. The mist ahead rolled in pale drifts, lit silver where moonlight found it, black where it deepened. I couldn’t help wondering again how closely it resembled that great stretch of water I had seen on the island.

  “It’s called an ocean,” Raela said. “Or some refer to it as the sea.”

  “You know what I’m thinking?”

  Raela turned, and the sight of her womanly form gave me pause yet again. Her curves were beauty carved into wood. A perfect example of a woman… albeit also that of a dragon. The lines of her body were elegant and impossible, softened by craft and made dangerous by the claws and horns and wings.

  She held her dragon-like hands to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “You are still so impressionable, my young skyrat.”

  She stretched out, revealing more of her full form to me.

  She had been carved entirely naked, and as much as I tried to draw my eyes from her, I couldn’t. The coolness of the air did nothing to cool the heat rushing into my face.

  Raela cooed softly as she drew back in. “Some things are ripe for the taking, such as a stolen glance.” She reached out and tapped my shirt where my heart lay. It beat like a drum. “And some are too precious to steal. I am not for you, and you are not for I. It can never be. So steel yourself from your lustful thoughts, as it affects me more than you know.”

  “I… I’m sorry?”

  Raela smiled and turned back toward the cloudsea. “Alas, there is nothing to be sorry for, my young skyrat. Youthful lust is a fine vintage; but one too rich for my taste. Not to worry, there are many young maidens aboard the ship for you to throw your heart at. And other things as well. Many young men too, if that is your pleasure. And that’s not to mention Skyreach or the Freeskies Archipelago.”

  I decided instead to share the view with her. I hopped up to sit next to her, staring off the front of the ship into the endless mist. Then I realized what I had done.

  Presumptuous.

  I started to jump back down. “I’m sorry—” I sputtered. “I didn’t think before I—”

  Raela put a hand around me, holding me still. No—drawing me closer.

  I could feel warmth emanating from her, like the last heat held in a charred log after the fire had died.

  The ship went up and down and up and down through the mist, or the cloudsea, as some called it. At first, I thought she held me in a comforting way, but then I realized she was holding me there for my own safety. More than once the ship lurched slightly, and I began to slide forward on the smooth carved wood where it ended, dropping into eternal darkness.

  “What’s the Freeskies Archipelago?” I asked.

  Raela chuckled. “Ah, you’ll see. Soon. I believe we are due for a visit. Surely I could use one. Desperately.”

  There was something wrong with the way she muttered that last word. Too drawn out. Too… sensual. I ignored it, likely my own temptations getting the better of me.

  For once, Raela pretended not to notice. We simply sat and watched the cloudsea part before us, the Skycutter literally cutting the sky.

  Now and then the mist thinned and revealed stars beyond it; cold, hard lights hung in blackness. Other times it closed around us so completely that it felt like we sailed through the inside of a dream. The prow cut a path through it all, and the cloud rolled away in soft banks from either side.

  We stayed that way for some time.

  Then Raela turned to me. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but then I saw something change in the corner of her eyes. A light of sorts. Bright.

  Then dark.

  Impossibly dark.

  Before I could even ask what was wrong, she picked me up and hurled me back onto the deck with startling force.

  From the crow’s nest above, someone cried out, “Sky Serpent!”