Shadowless: Book 1 of the Ilmaen Quartet by Helen Bell

Author:Helen Bell [Bell, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult
Publisher: Light-Carillon Publishing
Published: 2015-06-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13 – Taking It In Stages

When morning came and the storm had abated, charts could be properly checked. The bad weather had driven them farther west and closer to the coast of Ilmaen than they had realized. With their position re-established, Captain Harrat set a heading to the nearest deep-draft port, Wistram. The Dawn Wind limped towards it under the ragged remains of the storm clouds.

Jesral and Renia called the captain into the cabin as soon as he knocked. They were up and dressed, sitting on their bunk. He looked briefly round at the storm damage and their efforts to repair it. The floor was still wet and the clothes wedged in the hatch dripped slowly. Jesral looked drawn and sallow – ill as well as upset – and Renia knew her own face must show the apprehension she felt.

He came and stood before them, an expression of misery on his face. The stare Renia gave him was piercing before she shut her eyes and turned her head away.

‘Which one?’ she asked. He did not answer, and after a moment she looked back at him in bleak comprehension.

‘Not both of them?’ Harrat looked down in assent. At the edge of her vision she saw Jesral's face folding in distress. Strangely, Renia found she didn’t even have the urge to cry. ‘They can't both be gone. I'd know,’ she said to herself, once out loud but repeatedly in her head.

Harrat sat beside them and quietly described what had happened. Renia found she wasn’t listening, her mind filled with that single repetitive thought she couldn’t shake. With an effort she granted the thought permission to exist, if it would only sit quietly in the back of her mind and let her focus on what he was saying. She heard what he said now, she understood it all, but it was just words to her, not real, not fact. Not until he described the smashing of the yard and mast, and how the rigging and sail must surely have trapped and drowned the two men. It still wasn’t belief, but the words reached out and touched something; a thought older and more compelling still.

‘What did you say?’ Harrat’s voice broke in, startling her. ‘You said something, but I’m afraid I didn’t hear,’ he added kindly. ‘It sounded like “ropes” to me.’

‘I’m sorry. My thoughts were wandering. Please go on.’

He explained where they were in Ilmaen compared to where they had intended to be, and offered to find some lodgings in port for them, at his expense, for a few days while they got over the shock and decided what to do next. Renia heard herself accept the offer in a dull voice. Her concentration was elsewhere, her ‘thank you’ as much a signal for him to go away as any expression of gratitude.

She knew she was being rude. She heard Jesral thanking him volubly as he left. And when she cried afterwards Renia hugged her, understanding her grief but feeling none of it.

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