Gyon informed Jareen that the trip might take anywhere from ten days to twenty, depending on the winds. When she’d made her first trip to Nosh on a Noshian sloop, it had taken forty days, but she knew that the winds prevailed from the south and east in the summer, shortening the journey dramatically. The Vien vessel cut through the water with far greater speed than a lumbering Noshian ships built for cargo. The deck of their ship heeled to the side as the sails swelled tight in the wind.

  Jareen was given a private corner in a section of the pavilion, separated by a foldable screen of patterned silks painted with an intricate scene of a mango grove. There she slept in a hammock extended from two of the pavilion poles. It was the first time she’d slept in a hammock since leaving Findeluvié. The gentle creak of ropes, the movement of the deck beneath her, and the coolness of the sea air lulled her to sleep.

  A week passed with little difference between the days. The shipping season was in its prime, with fine south-easterly winds and high clear skies. The sun set in blazing goodbyes and rose over open seas. Little did the Vien speak, but the tireless sailors—only three of whom kept the sleek ship cutting through the waves—sang songs while they worked and while they kept watch night and day. Their clear voices joined the wind that swept them along.

  As a Voiceless Sister, Jareen had never enjoyed much time to herself, especially after the plague had thinned the Order’s numbers. There were always too many Departing to care for, and the Sisters worked unceasingly. For the first two days, Jareen relished the time to rest and think, but after a week, the waiting and sitting weighed on her. She felt more tired from inactivity than she would have had she been working the Wards. The days dragged in silence, despite the wind and the songs of the sailors. Had she grown so used to the ways of humans? It certainly felt that she had more in common with her Noshian Sisters—her former Sisters—than with the Vien. The embassy vien sat cross-legged on the deck, staring at the sea in silence for many hours at a time. Had Jareen ever known such a capacity for stillness?

  The fresh fruits lasted only a few days after they departed Nosh, but the sailors had great store of dried fruits, nuts, vegetables, wine, and unleavened breads, and Jareen could not help feeling her spirits lifted by the wholesome fare. A rash that had long bothered the base of her neck where her sister’s wimple used to rub faded within days. She had grown so used to its presence for so long that she only thought of it once it faded away.

  One morning, Jareen awoke to hear one of the embassy vien speaking with a sailor on the other side of the pavilion canvas:

  “I feel life in my eyes again as we near the Wellspring. My strength will be renewed.”

  “I do not envy you the years spent in that land. I love the sea, but even it grows dim far from home.”

  “I have served the Synod.”

  “As is right. Now rest again in Findel’s Embrace and worry not over the humans. They are a passing shadow, a breath that is exhaled and gone. Forget them.”

  As she lay there, she saw the faces of the humans she had known so well. The Sisters who had died during the last great plague, and those few like Noreen who had survived. She thought of Silesh with her troubled eyes, and she thought of Coir and wondered if he had fled, or if he yet lived. Should she have done more for him? Even to one as short-lived as she, whose own life would be thought fleeting to her people, the humans were like passing shadows. Many born when she first arrived in Nosh had become old or had Departed. Yet she felt for them. They were not shadows. She knew better than anyone who had not long tended the dying that their sufferings were real. Realer, perhaps, than any trouble known to the Vien. She unrolled Tirlav’s letter once again. It was hardly necessary to read the words; she could practically recite them.

  Partway through, she lowered the letter. Coir had said that perhaps he would find Vah’tane. Could a human find Vah’tane? If it were real, that was. Maybe she did not know her people’s traditions as well as she thought, or maybe her people had not considered the question. If Vah’tane was real, what did that mean for all those she had watched die? Did humans and Vien meet the same fate? Vah’tane was supposed to be rest for the weary, refreshing for those whose life had grown grey. Did humans live long enough for such a thing? She had seen weariness, in them, yes, but by that time they were so frail.

  She shook her head as if to shake out the thoughts and returned to her reading. Why think there was anything at all? They were the idle beliefs of ignorance.

  ***

  Two days later, she was standing along the port-side rail, her hand resting on the graceful woodcarvings, when she heard a voice from the stern:

  “Sail, Liel!”

  A moment later, the shipmaster of the vessel emerged from his pavilion and strode smoothly aft. Jareen followed. Any interest at that point was welcome. Few had spoken to her during the voyage after her conversation with Gyon. Their gazes passed right across her, as if they did not wish to linger on her unsettling face. It was so different from the incessant stares she received in the streets of Nosh.

  Soon, everyone on the ship was gathered upon the narrow open deck before the tiller. The stern was raised in the natural sweeping curves of the ship, so that one could see above the pavilion and to the fore of the ship. One of the sailors held the long curved wooden tiller-handle beneath his armpit, leaning into it as he kept the ship slightly heeled into the wind. Gyon stood next to the shipmaster, whose name was Firnel.

  “It is yet hard to see,” Gyon said. It was true, the small speck on the eastern horizon was miles away.

  “It is a human sail, nevertheless,” Firnel said, extending a telescope of finest Vien lenswork, encrusted in ornate blue beads.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “In these waters, bearing from the east? There is no question. It rides high.”

  “Might a ship have been separated from the armada?”

  “No. There has been no heavy weather to account for that, and besides, I gave the armada wide berth days ago. They are well behind us.”

  “Of course.”

  They stood in silence for a time, hearing the wind vibrate the rigging. Seagulls soared overhead, marking their nearness to the coast of Findeluvié.

  “How many, do you think?” Gyon asked.

  “It is a ketch carrying full canvas, with both top and sprit-sail. It could be as low as ten, but with their ill mind I would say twenty-five or thirty.”

  Gyon looked around at those gathered. All souls were present, amounting to only eleven, counting Jareen.

  “What are your feelings?” he asked the shipmaster.

  Firnel glanced at Jareen and then back to Gyon.

  “Interlopers in our waters, liel.”

  There was another long pause.

  “If we wished to rectify the situation, what would you suggest?” Gyon asked.

  “They have veered to intercept. We hold course for an hour, then tack northwest as if flying, leaking wind to let them gain. This we do until nightfall. The moon will set early tonight, before we enter the mist.”

  Gyon nodded.

  “And then?”

  “I keep an ample distillation of tea-tree oil for such a purpose,” Firnel replied.

  “Let it be so,” Gyon said.

  “I would go within,” Firnel said. “Before they are near enough to count us.”

  “Let us keep in the pavilion today out of sight,” Gyon said to his attendants, “and rest for tonight.”

  “What is it you intend to do?” Jareen asked, fearing she understood all too well.

  “Protect the sanctity of the Embrace,” he said, passing her along the rail.

  Jareen followed him and the others into the main pavilion where the foldable screens provided each of the embassy vien a small bit of privacy. A few took Gyon’s advice literally and went to their hammocks, while one sat down cross-legged upon a mat and closed his eyes. These vien were always quiet; the longer the Vien lived, the fewer words they said, and for all she knew they were each hundreds of years old.

  “Gyon, what is happening?” she asked.

  “We are going to make the korve suffer,” he answered, turning to her. “When the time comes, you will go into the larder in the prow. There will be room enough for you until it is over.”

  “Korve?” she asked. She did not know the word. “What is korve?”

  Gyon hesitated.

  “Pirates,” he said in Noshian. “Slavers.”

  “So near Findeluvié?”

  “Yes. It is illegal in Drennos, but some of the eastern kingdoms will pay dearly for Vien slaves. . . especially vienu. In the summer, ships lurk off our coast, hoping to capture elves, and if not, some of the creatures from the shore of elfland which they hear of in their tales.” Gyon used the Noshian words for their people with obvious disdain. “The boldest raid inland. Others merely wish to capture some shipment of cinnamon or spices bound for Drennos.”

  “They have landed?” Jareen asked, shocked.

  Gyon smiled.

  “We put them down, with few exceptions. They are desperate men, but undisciplined. I’m surprised you were as safe as you were in Drennos, though the Noshian commoners do revere the Order as sacred. Had you not been in their care. . . “

  “I have not heard that such trouble had reached our shores.”

  “It grew over the past forty years or so, as the fame of our trade with Drennos spread. You must have found passage to Nosh with a trustworthy captain when first you came, for you may have ended up in the eastern lands wishing you’d never seen a human face.”

  “Is that why I have never seen a vienu in Nosh? Because it is dangerous?”

  “The humans are not worthy to look upon vienu, though I submitted to the Synod when they allowed the Noshian delegates to walk in the Embrace.” Gyon nodded toward the east. “Yet for these slavers and rapists, we reserve death. I would loath pass up the opportunity to do them harm.”

  “They are many more than we,” Jareen said.

  “Yes, and if they could press upon us at once, we would not prevail. But we have an advantage.”

  “What is that?”

  “They wish to capture rather than destroy. We have no such wish.”

  Jareen stared at Gyon, her jaw slack. She had spent so long with her face hidden behind veil and wimple that she had not yet reacclimated to masking her expressions. Gyon chuckled.

  “Worry not. Firnel sailed these waters before the grandfathers of their grandfathers sucked the teats of the human dams, and we have handled bow and sword as long. We were not sent to Nosh because of weakness of spirit or faintness of heart. I and my riders survived our duty in the Mingling.”

  Jareen couldn’t help but be surprised. She had not known that Gyon was a Rider of Findel, one of the most dangerous of duties among those who faced the foes of the Embrace. The Noshians sent pampered officials and rich merchants to negotiate trade or serve as ambassadors. She had not considered that Gyon was anything much different. There was a fell gleam in his eyes that she had not seen there before. He had looked relieved to set sail for Findeluvié, but now he swelled with life, like blue fire burned within him.

  “But they still outnumber us terribly.”

  “Yes,” Gyon said. “If it goes ill, try to throw yourself upon the waves. Do not live to be taken.”

  Jareen stammered, but managed: “Why risk our lives at all?”

  “What is life, if not to risk? Shall I have lived so long to be a coward? Even the humans protect their homes, but our love lives longer and so grows deeper.”

  “What know you of human love?” she asked, her anger rising to mask her fright. “Who cherishes a year, the one with few or the one with many? If today were your last day, would you taste the air differently?” She had watched the desperate gasps of dying men clawing for just one more breath, and others who longed for release she had comforted with the simple word: “soon.” The humans lived with the fervor of urgency.

  Gyon frowned, hesitating for a moment.

  “There is truth in what you say.” His eyes moved to her skin and her hair. “How marvelous it must be,” he said in almost a whisper. “To live like a burning wick.”

  “It is not so marvelous at the end, when dark nothing closes.”

  “That is not what the Noshians call it,” Gyon said. “Do not they call it Departing, like a ship leaving harbor on a moonless sea? Is there not a destination?”

  “Such is the common hope, but it is not mine. If you wish to fight them, go to Talanael and take on more warriors.” And let her off. This was hardly the time when she wanted to ponder deep matters. They had dragged her from Nosh and now they wanted to drag her into a foolish battle for a fool’s honor.

  “What shore awaits, do you think?” Gyon asked, ignoring her suggestion. “Rocky or fair? Did you ever wonder what it might be, as you watched them go?”

  Jareen paused. No one had ever asked her that before.

  “There are things one must stop wondering, in order to stand such a watch.”

  Gyon pressed his lips together and inclined his head in barest acknowledgment.

  “It is not so different in the Mingling.” Gyon glanced over at his companion sitting silently in the center of the pavilion. The vien’s eyes were closed, his hands folded together on his lap.

  “There would be no guarantee of finding them again if we went to Talanael,” Gyon said. “When the fighting starts, hide in the larder. Now, go to your pavilion before they are close enough to see.”

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