Chapter 84

  They set sail early the next morning, the wind with them. Nereida sat below deck, feeling the gentle rocking of the boat, listening to the songs of the ocean. She could still hear the fear in the songs, the warnings. The gods travel with the siren-boat. They are wrathful and without mercy. The song broke her heart, but, what was more, Alejo heard the songs, understood enough that he was on edge. The little boy looked up after every bite of breakfast, naked fear on his face, before Egaz would say something that grabbed his attention, some kind of game the two of them had. Once they were done, Nereida pulled her boys aside, and offered to put the bracelet on them, to mute the songs. Alejo looked torn, exhausted and afraid.

  “Just until the songs are quieter,” Nereida promised.

  “Is it real, mommy?” he asked. “It wasn’t just Dymion, was it? I don’t wanna be a god!”

  “You won’t be!” Egaz cried, hugging his big brother. “It’s okay, Alejo. We can be brave together.”

  “Egaz is right, love. The Ocean’s already chosen.” She kissed her eldest son, then her youngest. Alejo looked comforted, and he leaned into her, his soft hair tickling her nose. Egaz looked worried still, anxiety on his little face as he looked at her.

  “But little sissy’s going to like you best, big brother.”

  “Naw,” Alejo ughed. “I’m too big to bother with babies, even if they are dragons. She’ll like you!”

  “I’m not small!” Egaz stamped his foot.

  “Are too!”

  Nereida bound her boys’ magic up with the bracelets, her heart breaking at their anxious expressions. Alejo, at least, looked calm once the magic settled, relieved that he could not hear the songs beneath the waves any longer. Egaz pouted, but allowed her to cuddle and sooth him.

  Over the next few days, as they moved out of hostile territory, Nereida spent most of her time below deck with the boys and with the egg strapped to her. Ael was taking point above deck, and doing Admiral things, charting courses. They made time for each other in the evening, but until they were clear of the waters that Jules had procimed were “cursed”, she did not want to risk having the boys or the egg above. They practiced restraint. After a few days, they removed the bracelets to let the boys' magic be free. Alejo’s magic was wild and strong. He could call water to his side, move it about, but he was a child with a sword: just as likely to hurt himself as someone else. He could heal, though they only practiced that if someone had a minor injury, cuts and rope burns. He mostly used his magic to draw the salt from the ocean water so that he could water the pnts under Dymion’s gentle guidance. Alejo clearly missed the farm, missed their own gardens. Egaz, by contrast, was the dagger to his brother’s greatsword. He could not yet pull the salt from the water or heal. He made the water dance, however, making silly shapes as he told stories. Additionally, he could summon ice to his hands and throw it, though not with a great deal of accuracy. The ice would always melt within moments, as if it had not existed at all, except for the damage it left behind.

  Finally, after three days, they were free of the waters, and those who had hidden below were allowed back on the deck. The wind had been consistently with them, without Epelda ever lifting her voice in song. Nereida imagined that the Wind Dragon would not require song to focus her will, nor would she require the intense somatic gestures that the people of the Stars or the Sun used. Nereida brought her children to the deck, only to see that Epelda was watching from her perch in the riggings. She came down, her movements perfect and graceful.

  “Sissy!” Alejo cried excitedly. Egaz ducked behind Nereida, pressing his face into her skirt.

  “Not Sissy,” he muttered, so quietly that Nereida was certain Alejo had not heard him. But the Great Dragon smiled widely, her expression welcoming, and she took Alejo in her arms, holding him tightly.

  “We missed you.” He looked suddenly sad, seeing her maimed hand, and he reached out to touch it, only stopping himself at the st moment when a look of panic crossed Epelda’s face. It was Epelda’s panic, Nereida realized, her heart clenching, as her daughter looked up with a sad, broken look.

  “No touch, please,” she signed. Alejo took a step back, signing “sorry” three times. “Tell me something about your adventures, Alejo.”

  The little boy wove a fantastical tale about defeating a great evil that slumbered in the bowels of the ship. Egaz even came out of his shy shell to add to the story. From their tale, it sounded as if the boys had been exploring the ship while she had been away, and had discovered a pair of rats that they called “the great evils” and they summoned a cat “our great stead!” to defeat them. The cat walked away full, and the rats were killed. Carlos had apparently been with them the whole time, pying the part of a page boy to their knights. It sounded like a wonderful little rk, though she was unhappy that the boys had watched the cat kill the rats.

  “Fluffims is the best,” Egaz said, wrapping up the story. He grinned at his mother as if he could hear her disapproval. “Can Alejo and I py tag?”

  “You may; just stay back from the railings by at least five feet. Safety first.”

  “Yes mommy!” Off the two ran, ughing as their hair was tousselled by the wind.

  “They are sweet,” the Wind Dragon said, using Epelda’s voice. Nereida shivered. Hearing Epelda’s voice making words was almost painful, because they weren’t her words. “I’ve had children too, Ocean’s daughter. I know the pain of watching them grow. How you wish to hold them and keep them safe from the world. How you would pay anything to keep them safe.”

  “Is payment due?” she kept her tone light, her eyes on her boys as pyed. She dared to peek at the god who held her daughter in her power. Her heart hammered in her chest. She hoped that the Great Dragon did not know how much her words frightened Nereida.

  “Not yet. Though one can never truly tell which way the wind is blowing.” She chuckled lightly, and it sounded simply wrong coming from Epelda. She had heard her daughter ugh many times now. There was nothing of Epelda in the chuckle.

  Above them, the sails were full of a steady, perfect wind. A moment of silence stretched between Nereida and the Wind Dragon.

  “Might I hold the egg, Moon-Daughter?”

  “You may,” she replied softly. “Be careful with my daughters, your Grace.”

  “You have not crossed me. You have nothing to fear from me.” She took the egg, stroking it lovingly, humming to it. “She will be strong, your little one. A worthy addition to our family.”

  “Our?” Nereida hissed. The Great Dragon smirked.

  “Little cousin, you belong to the Ocean, her daughter. Your daughter will be one of us. You may not see the eons we have and are yet to see, but you aren’t human any more. Or did that not occur to you?” Nereida stared, unable to form a coherent reply. The Great Dragon chuckled again. “Don’t worry, Moon-Daughter. Should you survive your task, you will have many years to come to terms with this.” She gently passed the egg back to Nereida. “I am supposed to be in the nest above, and so I will leave you with this: there is a fee coming due, but you will not know it until payment is required. I hope that your sails stay full…. And when we enter the Sylph’s territory, please ensure that your lovely wife does not tell them what I am. I suppose, on further thought, I should have ensured that she not tell anyone, not just keep it from the crew.”

  She bowed her head slightly in a curt goodbye, before she climbed up the ropes as if she belonged in the air. Perhaps she did.

  Nereida found her wife at the mast, the Admiral’s face conflicted.

  “We need a storm, and we’ve had nothing but fair weather for days,” Ael grumbled. Nereida smiled at her wife.

  “Are you compining that the weather’s been fair?” Ael sighed at Nereida’s words, rolling her eyes.

  “We will be at Port Ventia tomorrow,” Ael said after a moment. “A real port. With docks. Markets! We are far and away from where we should be, but coming through siren territory has shortened our travels greatly. We will be requesting a few days at their port. We need news, we need supplies and…. And my people need a break.”

  “Below deck for me and the children then?” Nereida asked. She felt like she had been punched, the air stolen from her. It had been long, months, that she had not had to hide away like a dirty secret. But Ael shook her head.

  “Love, we hoisted the siren’s fg. We are The Fg Ship of the Sirens. I cannot lower the fg. Not without complications that I am completely unwilling to see.” She took Nereida’s hand. “I swore to be the emissary of the sirens. Part of flying this fg means they want the world to know they are not mindless, not insane. They are ready to talk. To come to the table.” Ael touched her other hand to the mast, her Admiral facade slipping back on. “You will need to dance on the edge of the knife again, Nereida. You will need to be the face of who they are.”

  “But I know nothing about them!”

  “Irrelevant. We need them to see that we have sirens on the crew. You, Jules. Not Kana, the baby or the boys, not unless we are certain the Sylph will deal with us fairly.”

  “And if we have to fight our way out?”

  “We have a god on the ship,” Ael’s reply was so bitter Nereida wondered if her wife would still be tasting her words tomorrow. “We will survive, and continue on. But if they are willing to deal, my crew desperately needs a break. We will stay until the morning after the full moon if they let us.” Ael disappeared behind her armor, turning her face from Nereida. “And then our next stop after that will be… when I take you home.”

  “Take Basi home,” Nereida replied. “I am home.”

  “Even if your father orders you to stay?”

  “He is my father, but you are my wife. I’m not leaving you.”

  “There will be…. They won’t let me be me on nd.” Ael’s uncertainty broke her armour, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

  “Do not change who you are for my old man,” Nereida ordered, taking her wife’s hand. “My father will have to deal with his own emotions. Though… we do need to decide which name we will both go by. It will… it will determine how we are seen… by both our people.”

  “Among my people,” Ael began, “when a man and a woman marry, the man takes the wife’s name. When two men or two women marry, they take the name of the higher ranking one. And while I have long been a Kyverna, I am not the st of the name.”

  “If we take my name, love, there will be expectations pced on you.”

  “Kyverna has its own expectations, Ner.” Ael pced a gentle kiss on Nereida’s forehead. “And my cousin may demand that my heir take the Kyverna name.”

  “Epelda, or Eggy?” Ael blinked at her and then began to ugh.

  “Dragon’s saggy tits, love, did you nickname our youngest daughter Eggy?”

  “Well we don’t have a proper name for her.”

  “You don’t name the unborn, love. It invites disaster.” Ael smiled softly, as if she wanted to reduce the harshness of her words. “We can talk names when she is here, when we see her.”

  “So… Ael D’Igna?”

  “So many vowels,” the pirate grumbled. Nereida ughed. “Can Epelda be Kyverna?”

  “That’s the name Basi gave her when she was given her countess title. He told me when I asked. It seemed right to him.” Nereida leaned in, kissing her wife gently on the cheek. She gave Ael a cheeky smile. “Now… I believe there was a bet about it being a trap?” Ael opened her mouth, closed it, and then grinned.

  “Oh love, you are a menace.”

  The next few days and nights passed without event. The story-telling circles returned, and with the stories came the crew’s good mood. Nereida made sure to tell obscure stories each night, ones she had never told, about wars her people had fought, mostly civil wars or wars against the demons. She told them of the sacred pilgrimage that some took to the Dragon’s Rest, a great volcano that slumbered. It was said that on the first day of summer, you could feel the snores of the sleeping Star Dragon in the walls. Ael looked concerned when she told that story, her eyes darting to Basiano. Nereida tried not to follow her wife’s worries, but she had simir ones. They would be in her homend before spring ended, and could, in theory, make it to the Rest. Would the gods take her brother as they had her daughter and Dymion?

  She sat beside her wife, her good mood spoiled by her worries. Evander, sensing her mood, went up and performed a dirty little song, making everyone ugh. It seemed that the night had been rescued, when Epelda stepped onto the storytelling ptform. Dymion went to hand her the drums she usually used, but Epelda shook her head. Nereida grabbed Ael’s hand tightly, pulling her down as the Admiral was attempting to stand. Nereida met Epelda’s eyes, and saw the calm, hard expression that she had come to think of as the Great Dragon of Wind. The Dragon moved Epelda’s hands.

  “Princess, transte,” she signed sharply. Nereida nodded, even as Ael sputtered angrily on her behalf. She squeezed Ael’s hand tightly in warning, and then moved to stand beside Epelda. Epelda began to sing. She was using siren songs, coupled with signs, to communicate. Jules, watching from the crowd, went still, the colour draining from his face.

  “When the Great Dragon of the Water was shattered by the brothers, the others gathered to decide what to do. The devastation was immeasurable. They decided to give humanity, Scions and dragon blooded, a chance to recover without intervention. But Stars and Shadow were still problematic. They had been forcibly separated, nearly at the opposite ends of the world from one another. The Great Dragons of Sky and Sun went to force Shadow to y down arms and rest. It is said they were successful, as none of the three have been seen since.

  The Dragons of Wind and Cloud were sent to speak to Stars. Stars was horrified by the destruction caused by his hand. He wanted to make it right. He chose to sleep, with the promise that when he awoke, he would be merciful.

  But Wind and Cloud worried that he would be back to his old ways immediately. And so, while Stars slipped into sleep, they took a scale from him before his body dissolved into the aether. That scale was forged into a sword meant for mortal hands, and given to the eldest surviving Scion of Wind. A relic that could, in the hands of a mortal, kill Stars.

  The sword, called Fire’s End, is said to have passed along the Sylph people for generations and generations. The truth of the sword has been lost to time, though they know that the sword is unbreakable, ancient and bck. Should you ever happen upon a Sylph with such a sword, it is best that you watch your tone, for if their sword can kill even a god, what can they do to you?

  Nereida finished the tale, and Epelda smiled, looking exhausted. Her hard expression had melted into Epelda’s gentle face. The young woman sat beside her beloved, slipping her uninjured hand into his. His smile was pained and worried. Nereida colpsed beside her wife, unsure if she should ugh, cry or sleep for a week. At least tomorrow evening they’d make port. And instead of gods, it was nobles she’d have to dance around. That sounded like a lovely sojourn.