The Deepest Blue(30)
AS SOON AS HE WAS WELL ENOUGH TO MOVE, KELO BOOKED PASSAGE to Yena on a slender ship, a breed of seafaring vessels that were built to cut through the water with speed and stealth—their captains advertised swift passage between the five major and myriad minor islands of Belene with little to no interference from spirits. You paid handsomely for that, but Kelo didn’t need to offer gold: he had his skills. Even with one broken wrist and flares of pain from his other wounds, he could still carve.
As the ship sped away from his home island, he unrolled a leather carrying case that held his wood-carving tools, and with his uninjured hand, he set to work on the mast, carving runes that would repel spirits.
Runes weren’t effective against all spirits. Neither were charms. Certainly our village is proof of that. Kelo had carved charms on many of the houses himself, and he’d supplied the majority of the charms that had hung in the windows and doorways, yet still homes had been destroyed and lives lost. But runes and charms would make most spirits hesitate—and sometimes those precious seconds gave you just enough time to escape. If the heirs had come, it might have been enough.
The sea breeze was steady in his face, and as he chipped away at the mast, he kept having to pause to push his hair back behind his ears. If Mayara were here, she would have handed him a hair tie the second she saw him distracted. But she wasn’t, and with his injured wrist, he couldn’t knot the ribbon. It was only by the tenth time his hair flopped in his eyes, breaking his focus, that it occurred to him he could simply ask someone else.
He missed Mayara so abruptly and deeply that it felt as if a knife had stabbed him in the gut.
She always made sure he tied his hair back, and he always treated her cuts when she scraped herself on rocks and coral. He cooked her favorite spiced pineapple mash, and she reminded him to eat, even when he was in the midst of an all-absorbing project. . . . We were a team.
We are a team.
That was why it had been such a simple choice for them to marry. It wasn’t because of the shrimp buffet, as Mayara had liked to tell people. And it wasn’t because he’d wanted to see her in that nacre dress, though he had. She looked like art. Exactly as I’d imagined. No, the reason he wanted to marry her was because he wanted his life to be by her side.
It was, he thought, the best reason of all to marry: Because we want to be together.
Just that one reason, true and beautiful. Like Mayara herself.
And it was the reason it had been a mistake to tell her to become a Silent One, and why he had to see her again and tell her how sorry he was for asking that of her. They were meant to be together, no compromises.
That’s what he planned to tell Queen Asana: she had to stop the test and release Mayara, because if she didn’t, then she would destroy something rare and precious. Yes, heirs were needed for protection—but this, the kind of love that he and Mayara had, was what the heirs fought to protect.
He just hoped she didn’t think it was all bullshit.
“Hey, charm-maker.” The captain of the slender ship poked his shoulder. “Done yet?”
Kelo frowned at the rune he’d carved. It was intricate, with the right patterns to appeal to fire, water, and air spirits—it should work, buying the sailors at least a few seconds. But it should be brighter. He wasn’t sure why he felt so certain, but he trusted his instincts. “Do you have any resin?”
“Pitch? Got that.”
“Yellow resin.”
“Might. Why?”
“It’ll make the rune more effective.”
The captain grunted. “Never heard of that. Runes are supposed to be bare wood. That’s how they’ve always been done. Yellow resin is not traditional.”
“Have you ever heard of the Massacre of Yellowfin?”
The captain scratched his beard. Kelo noted that it seemed to be the captain’s favorite pastime. Every conversation he’d had with the man, the captain had had his fingers stuffed into the straggly tangles of his beard. Kelo wondered if the man thought it made him look wise. It makes him look like he has fleas. “Can’t say I have.”
“That’s because there was no massacre when there could have been. Spirit storm, but everyone sheltered inside a single house that had been covered in runes highlighted with yellow resin. They came out after the heirs had beaten back the storm, and every building was flattened except for the one they’d taken shelter in.”
The captain’s eyes bugged. “I’ll get you the resin.”
“And a cooking can, to melt it.”
“Right away.”
Kelo turned back to the mast. If he poured melted resin from the top, it should follow the channels of the runes down—he’d carved them so they’d all connect.
A nearby sailor cleared her throat. “You know, I’m from Yellowfin. We didn’t have any spirit storm, and we certainly don’t have any house with yellow resin.”
“Maybe it was a different village?”
“Or maybe you made it up.”
Kelo flashed her a grin. “It will look better in yellow.”
The sailor laughed.
The captain brought the resin, as well as a cooking cannister. Kelo dropped the yellow resin into the top and waited for it to melt. I have to trust my instincts, he thought. Without Mayara, they’re all I have.
A few seagulls circled the top of the mast, calling to one another. He spent the rest of the journey adding the resin to the runes and imagining what story he was going to tell the queen to convince her to change a far more important tradition.