The Heart of All Worlds 2 - The King and the Criminal by Ashe Charlotte

Author:Ashe Charlotte [Charlotte, Ashe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

By their third day at sea, Firae was convinced that he would go mad before the journey was through.

The ship’s captain had told them that the journey to Merdeshe would take approximately eight days—half a cycle of the dwarf moon—and perhaps even fewer if the wind remained in their favor. It wasn’t such a terribly long time, really; he had spent longer sailing from Laesi, before his ship was demolished. But that had been different. That had been aboard a living vessel, not a dead wooden ship, blocked from any direct contact with the life force of the earth or ocean.

To be fair, the human crew aboard the ship, as well as the queen herself, did their best to see to his every comfort. A large structure at the stern of the ship, which looked like a tiny human castle with a flat roof, contained quarters for Brissa, Firae, and Tash, as well as the ship’s captain, Larpsa, a gruff old woman with dark leathery skin, wispy gray hair, and a shrewd eye. The rest of the crew slept in the more modest quarters of the forecastle and the lower deck. Firae’s room was large, second in size only to Brissa’s. It contained two round windows, a soft bed, and a small table and two chairs, as well as chests full of clothes, dried fruits, and scrolls and books that he struggled to understand. All of the furniture was bolted to the floor, and from the low ceiling swung a simple bronze chandelier containing six lanterns, their round glass encasements slightly darkened with soot.

The room was stuffy, but the windows opened slightly, allowing Firae to let in fresh air and an occasional salty spray of ocean water. The roof of the little castle consisted of a split-level deck, the slightly lower one in front holding the whipstaff that allowed the crew to steer the vessel, and a smaller raised deck at the very stern of the boat that housed a leisure area with a partial canopy where Brissa spent most of her time.

Though she remained gracious, the queen had grown melancholy. She had lost people she cared about in the battle. Ryovni was her home; she was happy there. From what Firae could gather, the prospect of returning to her throne in Miknauvripal grave her little pleasure. She spoke little and fell into brooding silences that sometimes lasted for hours.

Firae enjoyed her company regardless, even when Tash wasn’t there to translate. With little else to do, Firae struggled with reading some of the simpler texts he found in his cabin and conversed with Brissa to the best of his ability in Villaluan when she seemed receptive to conversation. But he found himself too restless to sit still for long; he was easily distracted and excessively frustrated by tiny inconveniences.

But the real source of Firae’s mounting madness, the thing that kept him pacing about the ship like a caged beast, was Tash.

Tash had become cool and distant toward Firae again,

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