Tress of the Emerald Sea (The Cosmere)(61)

“Uh…”

“People can always use more shoulders. You know, despite people promising me cold ones as gifts on three separate occasions, they’ve never come through? Humans can be so inscrutable.”

“Right. Uh, back on topic? Please?”

Ulaam smiled, fingers laced before him. Strange, how his grey skin and red eyes could seem so…quaint once you got to know him. Less demonic. More eccentric. “You won’t be discovered,” he said, “unless someone actively saw the Midnight Essence moving about while you were controlling it. Once the bond breaks, it evaporates into black smoke, which disperses quickly. No residue is left behind.”

Tress nodded, relieved.

“Why are you so anxious about this?” Ulaam asked.

“Well, I just had a conversation with the captain,” Tress said. “I feel like I got the better of her. And so…”

“And so you wisely assume that maybe instead she was secretly manipulating you. Perhaps because she had a clue as to what you were doing, hmmmm? Curious. What, tell me, did you get her to do?”

“Sail us to the Crimson Sea,” Tress said. “I know what you’re going to say. But I also talked to Fort, Salay, and Ann. They’re willing to sail the Crimson too, and think they can make the Dougs agree.”

“I don’t doubt they can,” Ulaam said. “The three of them can be very persuasive. But why are we sailing the Crimson? What in the world could make you want that to happen?”

“Oh!” Tress said. “Right. Well, that’s what I found out when I was spying on the captain. She plans to visit a dragon and make him heal her.”

“Xisis,” Ulaam said. “She plans to bargain with Xisis?”

“Yes, and so I persuaded her to sail the Crimson.”

“Something she already wanted to do?”

“Well, yes, technically. It’s more that I persuaded her without her knowing I was persuading her.”

“To, again, do something she wanted to do.”

“It’s complicated. But I worry maybe I’m not as clever as I might have thought I was.”

“That seems self-evident, child,” Ulaam said.

“Well,” she said, sitting down on her bed, “wasn’t it at least a little clever? The captain was going to sink at least one more ship. So getting everyone to go now instead… Everyone wins, right? Assuming we can find the dragon, the captain will get healed. No more ships need be sunk. Maybe once she’s no longer dying, Crow will let everyone go. And I…”

Well, she would be on the Crimson Sea—remarkably, halfway to the Midnight Sea. That would put her closer to rescuing Charlie than she had realistically thought she would get.

“Child,” Ulaam said, going to one knee beside the bed, “Xisis is a dragon. He doesn’t offer boons. He offers trades.”

“For what? Treasure? You mean we have to rob some more ships first?”

“Xisis has no need for lucre, Tress. He wants for only one thing in order to continue his experiments: servants to do his chores. But seeing as he lives underneath the spores, he requires a very particular kind of servant.”

“Particular…in what way?” Tress asked.

“They can’t be afraid of spores,” Ulaam said. “That is always the trade. One reasonable boon—a healing would count, I suppose—in exchange for one slave to work for him all their days. The trick is finding him an offering who doesn’t panic at being led through a tunnel of spores.”

In that awful moment, Tress remembered the captain’s eyes when Tress had decided to remain on the ship. When she’d volunteered to become ship’s sprouter.

You really aren’t afraid of spores, girl? Crow had asked.

Oh, moons… Tress thought.

Outside, the seethe started again. The ship lurched into motion a short time later, and she heard the captain calling new orders. They would head to a port and take on extra stores, since they would very soon be going on a long journey…without ports…

Crow was planning to trade Tress to the dragon. And Tress, in her ignorance, had greatly accelerated the ship toward the event. She might have tricked Crow, but she’d managed to trick herself as well.

She would have no proverbial potatoes. But she certainly was standing in a big pile of the tosher’s soil.





THE LOVER OF TEA





Tress spent the next three days trying to devise a way to escape. Surely she’d done all that could be expected of her. She’d protected the crew of an entire merchant ship. She’d managed to set the Crow’s Song on a course toward a safe reconciliation for everyone except herself. Surely her conscience would let her flee now.

The ship would stop at port to take on water before sailing the Crimson, and she had to find a way off the ship there. Then she could get on with her real quest, and let the Song go without her.

Except…

She sat in her room, leaning on her worktable and looking at the cups Charlie had sent her while traveling. He’d stayed true to her all that time, going so far as to sail to the Midnight Sea because he refused to take the easy path and marry one of the women his father wanted him to. He’d gone to his doom because of…because of love. For her.

Could she really run? Hoid was her best lead in figuring out how to reach the Sorceress. Plus, here on this ship she had a crew that would sail the Crimson. And could she really abandon her friends? Particularly when they were showing so much faith in her? If she left, who would the captain give to the dragon? Would Crow be left with no recourse but to return to the Verdant Sea and continue her pillaging, murderous ways?