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Teigra lay amongst a pile of seafaring tools at the back of the long ship—thick coils of scratchy rope, evil-hooked harpoons in racks, and huge fishing nets, caked in dried salt down to their bronze weights—the metal no doubt a form of worship for those who lived in service to the god of the oceans.
She’d been in that pile for half an hour now, holding herself low. Fighting off the stomach-twisting dizziness and the creeping sense of shame.
What was I thinking?
She’d never been on a boat before—apart from the tiny fishing ones that sailed a few dozen yards out from Mestibes’s jagged shoreline, and only then to help with exercises for the hippocamps. She barely even knew how to swim. And now? Now she was heading out into a world of water, surrounded by people who sure as Dimethan didn’t want her there.
She was lucky that none of the half-dozen sailors had ventured in her direction. The tales of what Ondocians did to stowaways was legendary. If you were lucky, they turned you into their plaything until the next port, then they tossed you out into an alien city to fend for yourself.
And that was on a normal merchant vessel. But this?
She pushed her face against the rough wood as a spray slapped up from the side.
A team of Sisters hiding on a normal-looking boat, on a secret mission to follow Xiber down from Vaticily? The whole thing set up so as few people as possible know the truth? If they find me... I probably won’t live long enough to end up back on land.
As the spray got heavier and the sun grew brighter, Teigra looked regretfully toward the shore, now distant stretches of white and pale green, made blurry by a haze of salt.
She shook her head in silent frustration. Jumping into the boat was madness. But there was no going back now. She’d come here to confront Zosime. And that was what she was going to do.
All through the rest of the hot day she studied the movements of the crew across the deck. There was the driver up front steering the team of thrashing hippocamps, with the rest of the sailors tending to the supplementary sails at midships. Behind them, halfway between the mast and her, was a hatch down to the lower deck.
On occasions, she tried to convince herself to just duck below deck, screaming the princess’s name. That would mean she’d completed her job—she could say she’d confronted her. And then, it would ensure her inevitable capture, rather than just waiting in dread.
But she resisted, convincing herself that it was better to wait. Convincing herself that she could do this properly.
After all, she’d proven that with Calix. Even though it hadn’t worked out, she’d proven herself more cunning than she thought.
What she really needed was to find some way of catching Zosime alone. And to do that, she had to wait, and she had to learn.
And so she did.
She waited all day among the ropes, hour after thirsty hour under a baking sun, her clothing and face soaked in drying crust. The ship bore north all through the day, past an even wider headland that she faintly recalled as being near Gonimos—the mid polity that held the five-yearly, Dynosia-wide sporting spectacle of the Paliad Games.
Then they were out in the sea proper, continuing north before turning east. She drew a map in her mind. They were intending to navigate around Ardora and get to the woods of Vaticily from the Antimos Gulf.
When night at last fell, the tension of waiting and the thirst in her throat forced her into action. She had the cover of darkness now, the deck emptied, save one sailor on watch at the stern, facing the opposite direction.
There were no more excuses.
She rose when the nearly full moon was high overhead, on limbs aching from inactivity, trying hard to keep her balance as the evening breeze rocked the ship. Each step made the deck groan beneath her, causing her heart to stutter. But she forced herself on and reached the hatch.
Below deck was a medley of guttural snores and the stink of sweat. It was dark, but time soon brought clarity to the gloom.
Between the stairs and the front of the boat were the living quarters of the sailors, such as they were—occupied hammocks hung over low tables and the rubbish of life at sea. They rocked with the sway of the swell.
As her eyes grew even more accustomed, she spotted the cabin at the far end, right below where the whip-man would have stood.
That was where the Sisters would be. But sneaking past the sailors? To a room where Zosime would surely be with Pikra and Elexis? No. That seemed like a stupid move.
Behind her, rows of amphorae were stacked from wall to ceiling in the main cargo hold, stuffed with hay at their bases, such that they barely moved as the ship rocked. The only gap between them was a narrow path that led to some pitch-black pen at the very back of the ship.
Though there were no windows to provide any light, she caught the familiar, comforting smell.
Horses.
And an idea crept over her.
Pegasi stocked for transport needed to have their legs massaged and wings manipulated at least once a day. And she doubted that one of these Sisters, so reliant on their steeds at the best of times—and somehow possessing the only pegasi she had seen in all of Ardora—would allow a sailor to do that job.
