Bela was floating, adrift. And warm. Truly warm.
Her hand moved against the fur that enwrapped her. It felt comforting and real.
She opened her eyes to find she was on a slung bed in a room of wood. It was spare, as a ship’s cabin ought to be, and for a moment she thought she’d somehow dreamt an impossibly long dream, that she was still aboard the Sandcrow, that they were still under sail at sea.
But then she saw that the skin around her had the pale fur of a white bear. Her right arm, when she pulled it free, ended just below her elbow.
And the cabin, though familiar in its ways, had fittings she’d never seen, like a lamp affixed to the ceiling that burned with a steady, unflickering glow.
She tried to get up, but pain shot through her. She winced and groaned. Her head was swimming, too, as if she’d had far too much of the barrel.
Glass window ports showed circles of sky, and she steadied herself by focusing on them.
Working carefully to get her feet to the floor, she realized that she was naked beneath the bearskin. Her chest was striped with wounds, but they appeared to have been cleaned and even sewn in a few places. Not the finest work she’d ever seen, but it had done its job.
She was alive.
Making it upright, standing, she scooted her way across the little room to lean on the wall and look out through one of the circular ports.
She wasn’t just looking out at the sky. She was in it. Below her was a city of stone around a deep, circular bay.
Her head spun out into a wobble, and she felt the pit of her stomach rise up.
She braced herself against the wood wall of the room, focusing on its solidity, trying to push from her mind the worry that the wood of the wall or floor might give way and she’d fall, for long, horrible seconds, to her death.
When the room stopped spinning, she turned back to the bed. The scraps of her sealskins were in a corner, but new clothes had been left in a neat pile atop a nearby trunk. She went to the strange clothing, gingerly began to put it on. It took time, as she fought the pains of her body and her instinct to reach for things with her missing hand.
The garments were black cloth beneath black leather, with straps for tightening to fit. The upper garment was tight across her chest when she finally managed to get it on, but she gritted her teeth and used her one hand to pull the strap of the buckles down even farther, cinching it to stabilize her aching ribs.
Once everything was on, she pulled the polar bear cloak over her shoulders. White on black.
Then she stepped outside.
Tewrick was there. Standing mid-deck. Like her, he was dressed all in black. And he didn’t seem so little anymore. He was fiddling with one of the lines that ran up to the gray shape floating above them.
“You’re alive,” she said.
The reader looked up. He was surprised, but he was pleased. And he didn’t need to ask what she was talking about. He just raised his chin at her. “You too,” he said.
It was true. She’d inhaled the Char. She’d convulsed. But here she was. “I don’t understand why. I ought to be dead.”
He stopped what he was doing. “We’ve been thinking about that for a while now.”
“We?”
“Time for discussion has been plentiful,” Kolum said from behind her.
Bela looked back. The metal man was standing at the helm. “So closing the portal didn’t kill you.”
“It did not.”
“I admit, I wondered if it might.”
One metal hand lifted slightly. Some kind of shrug, perhaps? “I wondered the same.”
Bela smiled. “I’m glad it didn’t.”
“I am equally glad of this.”
“And the others?” she asked.
“The Stream is closed. Asryth is cut off from me, just as she is cut off from the others she made. Much madness is there in the world now, I conclude.”
Always eloquent. Bela considered for a moment how she would like to read the metal man’s speech as Tew would have written it. He would surely be easier to understand that way. “Thank you for all you did,” she said.
“It was not I who used the magick,” Kolum said.
“That’s right,” Tew said. “From what Kolum told me, you not only survived the Char but were a natural at using it. Had the evokers never tested you before?”
Bela shook her head. “I never wanted to be an evoker.”
“We do not always get the things we want,” Kolum said, and then he turned and walked past them. There was a ramp leading to the dock of the white tower beside them, and she could see crates there. Supplies.
“He’s a good man,” Tew said after the aluman left. “As much as he is a man.”
Bela nodded. Looking at the rope in his hands, she could see that he’d been trying for a knot and failing. “Can I help you?”
“I believe you can, shipmistress.” He held up the rope with a look of exasperation. “I found a book in the library on the basics of such things, but, I confess, I don’t have hands-on experience.”
“Experience does help,” Bela said. She came up and, with her one hand, guided his in the proper motions. “You’ll have to be my hands, you know.”
“I will do all I can, shipmis—”
“Bela,” she said. “Call me Bela, Tew.”
He blushed, but he nodded.
Bela looked around the deck. The airship was in remarkable condition for its age, but she could see that Tew had been working hard to swap out some of the old lines for new ones.
Apparently, Kolum, with his clawed hands, hadn’t been any good with rope-tying either.
The reader followed her gaze. “We’ve been gathering supplies for a while. You slept for a few days.”
“And you read books.”
“There are a lot of them.” He beamed. “Kolum wasn’t lying when he said he’d saved some. I brought every one I could aboard.”
Bela lightly patted her side. “I’m glad that some explained healing.”
“Me too.”
“I just—” Bela cut herself off, ashamed at her own astonishment that they’d survived. “I’m glad to see you, Tew. I’m thinking this should make for a good story one day.”
“I’ll teach you how to write it,” he said. “If you’ll teach me how to fly this thing.”
“Deal.”
Bela limped to the side away from the tower and looked over. Her head swam a bit at the sight, but already she was getting used to it. She remembered how the threads were like waves when she’d taken the Char. That made the sky a kind of sea, she supposed. Sailing was sailing, after all.
Tew had followed her. “Kolum gathered a lot of the Char. He said you’ll need it.”
Bela shook her head in astonishment. “Bela, the one-handed evoker. Not sure if that’s better than the Hero of the Harbor or not.”
For a minute, they looked out over the city. Seabirds were calling as they circled and dove for surface-feeding fish on its warm-watered bay. Despite the height of the ship, the air didn’t seem as cold as it had been before. Bela found herself thinking of Oni’s face.
“It’s what you are now,” Tew said. “A hero of two worlds. That’s how I’ll write it, anyway.”
Bela grinned. “If I’m to be a one-armed shipmistress, then you can be sure I’ll tell everyone you’re a reader who can kill a bear.”
He smiled. “I could imagine some fine songs about such a man.”
“At least a few.”
He laughed a little at the thought, then seemed to settle himself. His face was one of determination, and it made her wonder how much strength they had in the Fair Isles that they’d never tapped. “Orders, then?”
She peered out at the line of mists that edged the bay, and the encircling sea beyond them.
“Well, tracing the shore should be simple enough. Let’s see how she sails.”
“We’re going back to the cave, Bela?”
He’d used her name, and she was glad for it. She smiled. “For supplies, aye. Fresh seal meat. Fresh oil. Kolum might not need it, but we will.”
“Certainly easier than the fishing I’ve been attempting,” he said. “And what then?”
“Then south to open waters, Tew.” She could almost smell the salt already. “Then to the home of the Windborn, I suppose.”
“The Windborn?”
“I made a promise, remember? Kolum said there’s a Seaborn fleet headed for the Windborn lands, and Asryth will be with them.”
Kolum had walked back across the deck to join them. “I am glad indeed this was remembered.”
Tew took a deep breath. “So we’re sailing into the middle of a war.”
Bela nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“She’ll definitely need a name for that.”
“What will?”
“This ship,” Tew said.
Bela looked to Kolum. “Has this ship a name?”
The metal man’s torso turned from side to side as if he were looking for it. “This is not something it has.”
“She,” Bela corrected with a smile. “Ships are always fine ladies.” She took in the wood around them, dark against the sky, their black outfits, and their white fur cloaks. “Snowraven,” she said. “I name her Snowraven.”
“A fine name,” Tew said.
Kolum made a kind of bow, then lifted a metal hand to point to the helm.
Bela gathered herself with a deep breath, then turned to where a brass steering wheel sat waiting on what passed for the airship’s quarterdeck. It beckoned her.
Tew was at her side. She could feel his strength. “Helm to the end?” he asked.
“Together,” Bela replied, looking from the reader to the aluman to the sea. “Helm to the end.”