Page 184 of The Space Between Stars

“Same as when you came out here.”

Fankalo rolled her lips over her teeth, recrossed her legs, and closed her eyes.

“The crew’s concerned. How do you feel about keeping him sedated until he pulls himself back together?” Mitek said from behind her.

“And would you sedate me, were I struggling? Or would you try to help me?”

“You and your brother share nothing in common, Brat.”

“Except a womb.”

“He’s screaming. Digging out his own nails against the wood of your door.”

She had thought they were finally past this. She closed her eyes tighter, gulping against the swelling of her throat. “Fine,” she managed. “Just enough to help him sleep.”

“Do you want to be the one?” Mitek asked, almost sounding empathetic.

“No. I—it’s alright. You take care of it. I’ll just be a little while longer. I’m still working on the best way forward.”

“Aye.” Mitek squeezed her shoulder and moved below deck.

Fankalo settled back into the familiar trance of sifting through Fate lines, but it was worse now than before. Long minutes passed, her frustration mounting. She had been growing stronger, seeing further and more precisely into the future. Drogus had thought she was close to a breakthrough. That her powers were at the precipice of true manifestation… only for this block.

“A conduit cannot distort.”

She searched for a way over the cloud. Around it. She followed each thread, pulling at them only as fast as they disintegrated into an occluded mass. Still, the same outcome sat on the far side of it. Victory. Wealth. Opportunity to build and grow, but… impressions of Calver kept flitting into her path. Even those slipped away as she tried to focus on them.

How refreshing. More Calver problems.

“What’s the word, Captain? Still set for disembarkment?” Mitek again, but he’d said ‘Captain’ in his ‘command voice’ and not ‘Brat’ like an idiot. Fankalo opened her eyes to a bustling upper deck. There were too many crew members—important crew members, new crew members—around for familiarity.

She disconnected from her trance, letting the Luck lines slip from her conscious mind. It was hard to determine how long had passed, but a light mist peppered the air.

“Yes.” She found her feet and, spotting Drogus several paces away, moved to where both of her Hands could receive command. “We will disembark with the crew, keep our army in sight, and fleets in reserve.” Years of treaties, trades, and alliances, and she had amassed nearly two hundred ships under her allegiance for this particular stunt. Just for today, they all flew the same banner, they all obeyed her command—and, of course, if anything went wrong, they would abandon her on the beach in Yalusa faster than a stone fell through aether—just for today. Tomorrow would be a different story. “Drogus, what word do you have from reconnaissance?”

Drogus cleared his throat and rumbled, “Zeb says we can anticipate a small opposition from Prince Zafeen on our arrival.”

Pazir’s estranged youngest prince was a Tera’thian sympathizer. He had long since been on his father’s shit-list for trying to turn the crown towards subservience. “He will try at all costs to keep his father’s purse strings in Ani’s court. His men plan to storm the beach to prevent your arrival to the capital.”

“What do you think?” Mitek asked, hands wringing—from nerves or excitement, she couldn’t tell.

Disinherited or not, Pazir’s crown prince had resources. Given enough supplement from the Tera’thians, his ‘opposition’ could be worrisome, though she doubted it could match even her farce of a fleet. Would they surrender? She reflected on her Luck. If they advanced, she still felt a positive outcome. But what happened between now and then had as much clarity as the impending downpour.

Everyone waited on her answer. Their time stretched thin. She wouldn’t get another shot at this.

Fankalo lifted her chin in false confidence. “What is a prince to a deity?”

Drogus bowed his head. “We sail for you, queen.”

Mitek cackled and began loading the bit strip on his tanka. “I love it when you talk in delusions of grandeur. If you’re in, I’m in.”

CALVEROUS

When Calver woke, the smell of smoke punched through the familiar dank and rot of Fankalo’s room. The deck of the Rogue’s Rapture tilted beneath him, following the sway of the ocean, but the world kept spinning far beyond it. He might have surfaced over the Survivor, but a different fog dampened the corners of his mind.

Killari sat at the window, her feathers glinting bronze in the low light. A haze of rain clouded the air beyond her. She tilted her head at him in a way that struck him as terribly uncaring, considering the… smoke.

Calver struggled to put mind to matter. Smoke meant fire. Fire on the Rogue’s Rapture meant only land or death. Screams sounded in the distance, and Calver’s spine stretched dagger-straight. There came a faint clanging of steel, the whinnying of horses.