Smoke Over the Sun

Blank stood with her back to the sinking Honesty. The restless sea would soon consume it and even the smoke rising in a black pillar would be swallowed by the waves. The sooner the better, she thought.

Only one man had surrendered, who now sat tied to the mainmast. Ides towered close by, resting against a stack of crates. He hacked at a sizable splinter of the Honesty with a dagger in a poor excuse for whittling. However, his attempt at intimidation was working, and the man hung his head, eyes closed, flinching with each scrape of the dagger.

Oda sidled up beside Blank. She nodded towards the stern, tail twitching. Rue stood at the rail, alone, heedless to the noise and crew milling behind her.

Blank sighed, then caught Ides’s eye. Jerking her chin towards the stern, she waited for him to join them before cornering Rue. Ides cleared his throat roughly.

She startled and spun, then sagged. Leaning back with her elbows on the rail, she fixed her eyes on some far distant point on the northern horizon.

“Start talking.” Oda demanded.

“The whole story this time.” Blank added. She was done with the dodging and half truths. Everyone else had been upfront, now it was her turn.

“The Honesty’s my home ship,” Rue began quietly, “and that was my mom, Cassia. I grew up there with my parents and oh by the way thank you for burning down my house!” The last part rose to a shout and she glared at them all with suspiciously red-rimmed eyes.

Blank planted her hands on her hips. “They were trying to kill us.”

Her voice shook. “They were doing their job!”

She shifted, uncomfortable. How many of those people had been Rue’s friends? No, they’d chosen their side. They were Zandeer. Evil through and through.

“Your mom was really mean!” Oda said spitefully. “She threatened to make me into mittens!”

“You shot her!” Rue shot back.

“She would have shown us no mercy.” Ides remarked blackly.

“Yeah, well,” Rue sniffed, “That’s Mom for you.”

The silence was thick, and Blank had no idea what to say next. What was there to say? ‘Thanks for not betraying us when you could’ve?’ Unlikely.

“She left the crew to die.” Rue whispered, unprompted, her gaze boring a hole through the planks. “She abandoned ship and ran like a rat. I…”

Ides’s arms were folded tight across his chest. “Are you prepared to let her go?”

“Yes,” she whispered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “How can I follow someone who turned their back on me? My loyalty is with a ship lying at the bottom of the sea, and with a woman who…” she wrapped her arms across her torso. “The path I followed ended with her. With the Honesty. All I can do now is go forward, or else my life will be spent looking back.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I can chase after a life gone up in smoke, or I can look to those who -mostly-” she glanced at each of them, “-accepted me without question.”

Blank’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly. Despite everything, she couldn’t turn her back on her. “I want to forgive you, truly, but there is so much trust that you’re going to have to earn back; from everyone.”

The cats looked uncomfortable, but nodded their agreement.

“I know.” Rue murmured. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Guy appeared at Blank’s side, bandaged and hard-faced. “You alright?” He asked Rue tersely.

“Fine,” was the hoarse reply.

“Before we were interrupted,” he addressed the party as if their conversation earlier that morning had hardly faltered, “you were talking about plans of an attack on Traclo.”

Blank nodded, struggling to pick up the train of thought after the strain of a long night and morning’s battle. “They’re not going to repeat their last attack. It’s quieter this time.”

“A silent invasion.” Guy looked tired. “Vev has suspected as much for a while. Did anyone find any indication as to when?”

“Soon,” Rue spoke up. “End of week at the latest.”

Blank affirmed it. “They’re not wasting any time.”

“We need specifics.” He pressed. “Things like this don’t happen in a day, and right now every minute is precious.”

“We could ask that guy!” Oda pointed to the prisoner.

Someone called for the captain, and Guy paused, torn. “Alright, you’re in charge of the interrogation. Any details you can get out of him comes to me immediately. Understood?”

“Yes sir!” Oda saluted him as he walked away. “Okay, I have a plan, just follow my lead!”

She spun, and with a determined bounce in her step, headed for the prisoner.

Blank hung back, unsure of how to contribute. But with Oda taking charge, it was bound to be interesting.

____________________________________________________

Rue had no interest in playing along in Oda’s schemes of getting the Honesty man to talk. She trailed behind the others to where the pirate sat bound as they quietly discussed questions. Finding the chunk of shrapnel Ides had been hacking into, she pulled out her small knife and settled onto a low barrel, tucking a knee under her chin. She began to gently carve into the wood, splintered edges slowly smoothing. Her long hair had come unbound and smelled of smoke as it shifted in the breeze. If she focused hard enough, it was like she was back home, unwinding after a raid.

Oda approached the pirate and balled her paws on her waist. “Okay friend, talk, and maybe we’ll give you a merciful death.”

He squinted up at her. “And what if I don’t?”

“You will.” Ides corrected, his looming presence blocking out the morning sun. Some of the man’s bravado swayed and he tried to recover by giving Oda a withering glower.

"If you don't" Oda stepped closer, paw resting on the pommel of her rapier, "I'll kill you. I've killed a Zandeer captain before, so you're easy meat."

With that, any fear of the tabaxi vanished and he couldn't surpress an incredulous snort, his mouth quirking in a half smile. "You?"

"With this very dagger!" She brandished the tiny blade and waved it under his nose.

He went cross-eyed trying to see it. "That bitty thing?"

“When’s the next attack on Tralco?” She demanded.

He side-eyed Ides then shrugged. “Can’t hardly remember what day it is now.”

“Tuesday,” Oda supplied for him after a moment’s pause. After a sleepless night everyone was disoriented.

The man laughed and leaned back, resting his head against the mast. “You’ll never make it in time. Thursday at daybreak’s when they’re making their move. All you’re gonna find’s a burning city. Pity you won’t be fast enough to stop them.”

“That’s a lot of talk coming from dead weight,” Rue snapped from her place at the back of the group, clenching the knife in her fist. She glared at the man, who matched her look with equal venom.

“Traitor,” he spat, disgust pulling at his features. “I can’t believe you, the captain’s daughter.”

“Your precious captain,” she hissed, rising slowly, “abandoned us both.”

“You left!” he shouted in the sudden silence.

“I was trying to come back!” She yelled, and the air turned downright turned sour. “But I guess it doesn't matter anymore, does it?”

The others whirled on her. Oda, of course, was the first to find her voice.

“You what?” The tabaxi yowled. Ides’s eyes darkened dangerously and Blank tensed.

Her stomach twisted and she felt she was going to be sick. “You wanted the truth, didn’t you?” she asked, stepping back and pocketing her knife and the unfinished wood.

She spun on her heel and ran for the rigging, climbing to the highest place she could reach. They’d demanded the truth, she’d given it to them. They could do with it what they chose.

____________________________________________________

Oda was all but vibrating with rage. She was getting no answers from the prisoner and too many from Rue.

Flexing her claws in frustration, she growled at the man. “Make yourself useful, dead weight, or I’ll gut you myself.”

The man had the audacity to laugh, but the sound died as he glanced up at the glowering leonin.

Ides didn’t move. His eyes and voice cooled as he recovered from Rue's outburst, his heavy features impassive. “Tell us about the squid god.”

The pirate’s demeanor shifted, and he squirmed a little in his bindings. “Riffian’s the one to do with all this talk of gods. I don’t know any more’n that and I don’t care to.”

“You’d better be telling the truth about the invasion,” Blank joined the interrogation with an icy tone.

He bared a grin. “You’ll never make it in time. Tralco will be nothin’ but ashes.”

Ides turned and stalked away, presumably to inform Guy of their findings.

Oda took that as a sign that the prisoner had depleted his helpfulness. She crept up to stare him directly in the eye. “I did kill a captain, scumbag,” she hissed, drawing her rapier, “and you can find out for yourself that I’m telling the truth.”

She drove the blade deep. She was rewarded with a spurt of blood as the man coughed, air hissing from his pierced lungs.

Gasping like a fish, he managed a small smirk. “You… could… never.” His eyes glazed over and he went still, rusty red blooming from his ribs.

Blank made a noise like she wanted to say something, but Oda ignored her.

Strength buoyed by satisfaction, she cut the body free from the mast and rolled it to the side of the ship, given a wide berth by the crew who watched mutely. With a heave and a shove, she sent the dead pirate into the waves.

Ides returned, muttering a new round of questions under his breath. He sighed as he surveyed the cut bonds and Oda standing smugly at the rail. A thin strain off annoyance slipped into his tone. “Guess that finishes things here. You couldn’t have waited?”

“He didn’t believe me.” Oda explained, miffed. She was getting real tired of people doing that. Wiping her blade clean, she went off in search of a sunny spot to curl up. She was real tired in general.

____________________________________________________

Evening enveloped the Dawn like a rolling tide. Starlight and moonlight turned the swelling sails ghostly white as the ship's casters supplied gust after gust of wind. The waves had long since become a ceaseless roar as they sped over the sea, hellbent for Tralco.

It was nearing midnight as Ides paced the deck. There were a sparse few remaining above decks, everyone was exhausted by the early, eventful morning and day pushing the ship to its limit. The two watchmen wandered aimlessly back and forth over the deck, eyes drifting lazily over the dark sea.

Ides, however, was as tense as a bowstring. He wasn’t interested in sleep, his blood still ran hot. Today had been the most successful he’d felt since Gladis, like he had actually landed a blow against Zandeer. He wanted more.

Caution pricked at his nerves, and his spine stiffened. He turned and glanced up, the sails were still. Where there was once ceaseless noise, silence loomed.

“Not tired?” Sheverash leaned easily against the mast, casual in the way of an observant predator. All he lacked was a flicking tail.

Ides shook his head and corrected, “Excited.”

“Why?”

“I’m this much closer to my goal.” He didn’t think he needed to elaborate on his plan for Zandeer's eradication to the god of the hunt.

“Hm,” Sheverash’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Tell me this, leonin, if that is your goal, why have you been playing it safe?”

Ides snorted softly. The last day wasn't quite what he’d qualify as ‘playing it safe’.

“Now, don't misunderstand. You’ve done an admirable job defending Tralco’s borders, but you’re on the defensive. Why is that?”

“Waiting for information.” He shrugged. “I’m not wasting my precious time and resources on grunts. I’ve been trying to find and pick off the leaders.”

Sheverash rolled a gold coin over his fingers. “You’ve heard the tales of hydra,” His white eyes swirled in the dim moonlight. “Hack off as many heads as you please, yet you never get anywhere.”

“You strike the heart.” Ides acceded, swallowing frustration. The heart was what he’d been after for years, was it not? “So tell me where it is.”

Sheverash gave him a knowing, significant smile. “It’s a lot closer than you think.” His gaze drifted down to the deck, as though he were looking through to something, or someone, that lay beneath.

‘Ides,”

He jerked his head up. It shouldn’t surprise him that a deity knew his name. Didn’t make it any less jarring.

“Look, I like you, but for now I can’t interfere more than I already have. Here,”

The coin sailed through the air, and Ides caught it easily. It weighed heavily in his paw, the etchings across its surface denoting it to no country or guild he’d ever seen.

“Flip the coin, and I will come.” The god said, sea mist gathering in slow spirals around him. “It works only once.”

Ides looked down at the coin, and when he raised his eyes again, Sheverash was gone, leaving nothing but shifting shadows and a night breeze in his place. The boat lurched under his feet as time wound back to its normal pace, and the sails snapped under the strain of a magical gale.

Pocketing the coin, he tilted his head back and looked at the stars. They were so much brighter over the ocean, and different than he remembered in Dialis. Even stars changed, and that thought settled like a little stab of sadness in his soul. One thing Ides knew for sure, however, was that he had not seen the last of the god of the hunt.

____________________________________________________

Rue hid in the cabin all that day. She did her best to ignore the silence when Blank and Oda came in for the night, their conversation dying at the door. A few hours before dawn, a hard-faced crewman knocked and said she’d been drawn for the watch. She slunk out of the room and old habits took over. She found a spot near the stern on the portside, and wedged herself into a space between some barrels and the rail. With her knees up practically under her chin, she noted dully that hiding places like these had been a lot roomier when she was little. She kept her eyes on the sea, and despite her best efforts, her gaze wandered eastward where she imagined she could still see a pillar of smoke rising. It was like a big ugly bruise, one she kept pushing over and over, unable to let it alone.

The morning watch ended, and still she stayed, unwilling or unable to move, she wasn’t sure. Her legs had gone numb ages ago. The sun continued its rise, and the wind sang in her ears.

Thane was the one who found her as he passed by, bleary-eyed from his shift at the helm and clutching a mug of something warm. “Hey,” he said softly. “How are you holding up?”

She shook her head, unable to look him in the eye. “Trying not to think about it… but it’s all I seem to be able to do. You?”

He leaned lightly against a barrel. “It hurts, a little. The ship was where I was born. It was home for as long I can remember.”

“Yeah.” Rue pushed herself to her feet, propping herself against the rail and trying to shake some feeling back into her legs.

Thane hesitated, seeming to consider his next words. “Do you know what happened to Quintus? I didn’t see him aboard.”

“Mom…” her voice hitched, thinning pathetically. Damn the tears, she felt like a wrung-out raincloud. “I think she killed him. Overheard people talking when I was on the island.”

Thane’s eyes widened. “What?”

“They said they got into a fight and she threw him overboard. Unless being invisible messed with my hearing somehow.” The sad attempt at… sarcasm? humor? fell flat.

“How would being invisible mess with your hearing?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never been invisible before.” She twisted a lock of her hair between her fingers. “I keep holding onto hope that he survived but…”

“He was a mage, though, wasn’t he? Is there any way…” his question faded. Even magic had limits and Cassia was not known for her mercy.

“He is… was… the best mage I ever met.” She flexed her fingers and a little lick of fire played over her knuckles. “He’s the one that taught me everything I know.” A shudder ran down her spine as she relived the terrible moment, flat on her back and seeing death in her mother’s eyes. “I didn’t want to believe what I heard but when I was on the ship, Mom- Cassia all but confirmed it.”

“What did she say?”

“She said they didn’t see eye to eye on things anymore,” her throat constricted so tightly it hurt, “Me included.”

Thane blew out a breath. “Hells. I’m… so sorry.”

She shrugged, hot tears stinging her lids.

He rested a hand on her shoulder. “You can always come talk to me, you know that, right? Guy or I are here if you need us.”

“Thanks.” The sleepy expression that pulled on his features sent a twist of guilt under her ribs. “Go rest.”

He shuffled below decks, and Rue sank back into her hiding place. There was the bruised feeling again, deep in her chest, threatening to consume her entirely.

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Part 16?! Time flies when you're procrastinating ':D Let me know what y'all think, and be ready for next month's update- it's got some of the biggest plot developments so far. All I'll say about it is that feedback would be 'handy'! Thanks for reading!

Just joining the fun? Start with Part 1

Newest update -> Part Seventeen