Now Anjine turned, startled to see her father at the doorway to Sena’s chambers. Korastine’s expression was unreadable, his
eyes red. She didn’t know how long he had been there, watching the two of them. Mateo quickly spun, ready to defend Anjine
if trouble threatened, but he relaxed quickly when he saw who it was.
“They told me I’d find you here,” Korastine said evenly. “We have to talk.”
Anjine blurted, “We just wanted to let some fresh air into Mother’s room. We were thinking of her, honoring her memory.”
Mateo interjected, “Please don’t be angry with us, Majesty.”
Korastine looked slowly at the young man. Anjine realized that her father had barely noticed where they were at all. “I’m
not angry… not with you. There has been terrible news from Ishalem.”
“Ishalem?” Anjine shook her head—the city had already burned down. What could be worse?
Korastine told them.
“I came to speak with both of you, because today our lives have changed. I foolishly hoped that tempers would die down and
cooler heads would prevail as the leaders realized how much we all have to lose. I always considered the soldan-shah to be
a wise man, and I believed he respected me. But now we have no choice.” He heaved a long, cold sigh that sounded like a winter
wind. “Mateo, your father was one of my bravest soldiers, a captain of the royal guard—and I daresay, even a friend. I promised
him I would raise you in a way that would make him proud. Now it is time for you to make all of us proud.”
Anjine had heard the story many times and at first assumed that Mateo was embellishing it, but her father insisted it was
true. Despite the hurt Mateo had suffered, Anjine was glad that it had brought them together.
Ereo had been the captain of King Korastine’s personal guard. After the death of King Kiracle, while people thought Korastine
was weak, several merchant families demanded to have their taxes reduced and certain types of shipping declared tariff free.
Korastine refused, and the incensed merchants set a trap for him in the streets on his way back from the launch of a diplomatic
ship. They hired thugs dressed as Urecari sailors to assassinate the king.
Ereo fought like a whirlwind to defend his ruler. Two other royal guards were killed. Though Ereo managed to defeat the last
of the would-be assassins, he suffered a mortal wound himself. While he lay dying in the street, Ereo begged Korastine to
take care of his five-year-old son, Mateo, whose mother had died three years earlier from fever. The grateful king swore to
do so.
Despite their disguises, the assassins turned out to be local Calay men, and the plot of the merchants was exposed. Korastine
had them all executed and seized their assets, and Mateo grew up in a special position in the castle. Though not a noble,
he had the king’s blessing.
Mateo looked much older now as he glanced at Princess Anjine, then turned back to the king. “How do you need me to serve,
Majesty?”
“I always thought you were too young, but that is because I saw you as the boy you were, not the man you are becoming. You
are old enough.” He looked at his daughter. “You are both old enough. I’m afraid you’ll have to become adults sooner than
I intended. From this day forth, Mateo, you must be a soldier. And you, Anjine”—Korastine wrapped his arms around her—“you
must prepare to be queen.”
That night, on calm seas, Criston drew the deck watch. It had been months since they’d seen any sign of land.
Although there seemed little chance the
Luminara
would strike rocks or a reef out in the middle of nowhere, this was uncharted territory. On this moonless night, Captain
Shay had ordered the sails tied up, and the ship drifted gently for hours. Most of the crew was asleep. Up in the night sky,
Criston saw constellations that did not match the star patterns he had long ago memorized.
Carrying a whale-oil lantern, he slowly made a circuit of the ship, always alert. He peered overboard at the ghostly outlines
of waves, but no sea monsters came up to feed at night. He had seen many wonders since the beginning of the voyage and couldn’t
wait to get home and tell Adrea all about them. Now he placed the lantern atop a barrel, sat down on a crate, and took out
a sheet of paper Captain Shay had torn from one of his journal books. With a lead stylus, Criston scratched out a letter—the
twelfth one he had written since his departure from Calay.
On the paper he expressed his thoughts, his love, writing for Adrea’s eyes alone; he would trust the merciful tides to bring
the letter to her. Orico, the cook, relinquished empty glass bottles to Criston for his odd obsession.
True to his parting promise, Criston filled his letter with the things he had seen, the places the
Luminara
had gone. So far, he had discovered that the empty ocean was anything but empty. Right now the night-dappled sea was aglow
with luminous plankton that skirled just beneath the surface like a silvery blue storm, an ethereal light that drifted and
twitched, flushed into intense brightness in the ship’s wake.
A glowing swarm of bubble jellyfish drifted alongside the
Luminara
. Whenever the jellyfish bumped into each other, they released a crackling spark in a discharge that drove them apart again.
The creatures had floated along with them for the past three nights, sinking to the darker depths when the sun rose.
Criston wrote about them, imagining Adrea was there beside him. “Captain Shay was so excited the first time he saw the jellyfish
that he ordered specimens drawn up in a bucket, but the moment he touched the creature’s membrane, his hand was so severely
stung that he still wears a bandage, days later.”
After he filled the page, telling Adrea again how much he missed her, how much he hoped that she was safe and healthy—and
that he hoped she thought of him as often as he thought of her—Criston rolled the letter and slipped it into the empty bottle.
Before sealing the cork to the end, he carefully withdrew a single strand of Adrea’s golden-brown hair from the lock she had
given him, which he kept protected in his pocket at all times. He pushed the strand in with the letter, blew gently inside,
and whispered, “Find your way back to her.” Sympathetic magic would reunite the hair with its owner… or so the legends said.
He had to trust it to the sea.
Criston went to the port-side rail, closed his eyes, and pictured Adrea as vividly as he could, then tossed the bottle overboard.
He heard the faint splash and saw the bobbing glass glint in the starlight, drifting away as the
Luminara
moved on. Of his twelve letters so far, at least one of them had to find its way to her.
Feeling tired but not sleepy, he walked toward the stern where the captain’s wheel stood next to the two compasses on their
stands. Another hour remained on his watch. The magnetic compass showed that the
Luminara,
after a long trip west, was heading south now, having picked up a strong current, like a river in the Oceansea. Since Captain
Shay had no particular course in mind other than to explore the unexplored, he had let the current guide them. The Captain’s
Compass, as always, pointed its needle back toward Calay, just like the legendary compass Ondun had given Aiden before the
first voyage.
Following its pointer, Criston looked off to sea, imagining Tierra, Calay, Windcatch… and Adrea, somewhere beyond the horizon.
Prester Jerard joined him so silently that he startled Criston. Since the old man often had trouble sleeping, he came to keep
Criston company and tell him stories. The two men stood by the wheel, listening to the creak of the rigging, the whisper-slosh
of waves against the hull, the snoring of a dozen sailors who preferred to sleep on deck rather than in the stuffy bunks below.
“I saw you throw another bottle overboard,” Jerard said. “A letter to your sweetheart?”
“It always is. How much farther do you think we will sail?”
“How much farther
can
we sail? Ondun is great, my friend, but even I never imagined Him capable of creating a world so vast. Any day now, I expect
to hear the roar of falling water, feel the whoosh of spray, and see the edge of the world. But it’s just more and more open
sea. I come out at night hoping to see a distant spark, a glimmer of the beacon. Then at least we’ll know where we are.”
“A beacon?”
Jerard stroked his long beard. “The Lighthouse at the end of the world.”
Criston frowned. “I don’t know that story. Is it from the Book of Aiden?”
“In some texts. Others include it as part of the Apocrypha. It’s just a story, maybe no less true than all the rest.” Criston
waited for the prester to continue.
Jerard touched his fishhook pendant and looked out to sea. They began to walk slowly around the deck. “The Lighthouse was
built on a tiny island, far from Terravitae, to hold an exiled man who committed a terrible crime. Holy Joron sentenced him
to live for all eternity, so that he could keep watch for Ondun’s return. When God comes home, the cursed man must be the
first to see Him and ask for forgiveness. And so, the Lighthouse keeper shines his light across the ocean and waits and watches,
peering through his giant lens so he can see everything that happens in the world, everything that is denied him.”
Criston gazed out at the waves, but saw no glimmer of light other than the ethereal luminescence of the plankton. “If we see
the beacon, that means we’re close to Terravitae?”
Jerard smiled. “If we see it, that means many things… not the least of which is that the story itself is true.” The old man
touched the pendant and with the same finger touched Criston’s forehead. “You have faith. I have seen it. Every time you write
a letter to your beloved and throw the bottle overboard, you show your faith.”
Criston smiled wistfully back at the old prester. “I have a certain amount of faith in the ocean currents, but I have complete
faith in Adrea.”
At the beginning of each autumn, migratory seaweed arrived in Windcatch, carried on warm currents and blown by changing winds.
Three days earlier, fishermen returning to port had seen the approaching kelp, and the villagers bustled to prepare for the
year’s harvest. Fishermen tied up their boats and stayed ashore, some grumbling about the fine weather they were missing out
at sea, while others were glad for the change in the daily routine.
Windcatch had been built around a small harbor bordered by steep hills. With the approach of autumn, the wind and water patterns
formed a gentle whirlpool that drew in the drifting seaweed.
All the villagers came together to meet it, since the harvest provided much of their yearly income. Men went inland and loaded
carts with wood for shoreside bonfires; others scrubbed out huge cauldrons to prepare for the rendering. Women set large baskets
out on the piers, and eager captains emptied their boats, anxious to take the first haul of seaweed up to the Calay markets.
Bottle makers washed their brown glass bottles to hold the distilled kelp liquor.
Adrea, Telha, and Ciarlo were ready for the chores. Criston would have been there beside them, with the
Cindon
scrubbed and ready for a profitable trip, and Adrea realized with a pang that this was the first year she had harvested the
seaweed without him.
Dressed in a brief swimming shift, Adrea waded out from the gravelly shore beside her brother. Both of them carried baskets
slung over their necks and shoulders. Buoyed by the water, Ciarlo’s limp no longer bothered him. When they met the outlying
tendrils of the seaweed, they withdrew long knives and pushed their hands among the leathery, greenish brown straps to find
the bulbous bladders, which they sliced off. The kelp nodules were the first and most valuable part of the harvest, but the
villagers also used everything else.
She and Ciarlo kept a count, each trying to outdo the other’s tally. As Adrea waded deeper into the seaweed tangle, the thin
fabric of her wet dress pressed against the rounding curve of her belly. Her pregnancy had started to show, but she did not
let that slow her.
Ciarlo cut off a pink kelplily and presented it to her with a flourish. Its petals stretched out wider than the span of Adrea’s
hands. “Since your young sailor isn’t here, allow me to give you this bouquet.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It smells like fish.”
“When the seaweed starts rotting, you’ll think this smells like a moss rose by comparison.”
Having filled their baskets, they sloshed back to the shore, where chattering workers punctured the bladders and squeezed
out the liquid, which was easily fermentable into a briny, strong drink for which Windcatch was well known.
As migratory seaweed filled Windcatch harbor, the warm calm waters triggered its reproductive cycle. Kelplilies bloomed in
great rafts of color, and floating pollens fertilized the seaweed. Seedlings floated free, and the rest of the large mass
died and broke apart. Over the next month, as the seaweed rotted, most villagers remained inside their homes, burning candles
and incense to mask the stench. When the weather changed and the autumn storms picked up, currents pulled the decaying seaweed
back out into the ocean. At sea, the drifting seedlings would form new clusters and grow into larger rafts, circulating in
the currents before returning the following year to continue the cycle.
Hard-muscled fishermen dragged large nets full of thick kelp fronds back to the shore. The tender fleshy ends would be sliced
and salted. When eaten fresh, the seaweed was delicious; when dried and preserved, it formed a long-term staple of the Wind-catch
diet, though most people were sick of it by the time summer came. The fibrous remnants of kelp fronds could be beaten and
felted into a durable fabric—another item for which Wind-catch was famous.
Old Telha decided that she’d spent too many years of her life doing the messy work. This year, she set up a reed chair in
some shade and readied a flat rock and mallet, so she could beat the kelp fronds to prepare the fibers for cloth making. She
talked with the other fishermens’ wives and widows, gossiping, laughing, complaining. Children splashed in the water, eager
to help, while their young mothers tried to work on the harvest.