He reached down toward the bed ash, pinching some of the blackened dust in his fingers before bringing it out. He took some and rubbed it inside his lower lip before pointing first at his ear and then the fire. The ash was a small pull of black in his fingers as he held it out to her.
Kindred took the pinch of ash and, after a moment’s hesitation, rubbed it along the inside of her lower lip. The bitterness flashed against her tongue and teeth, drying out her mouth and filling it with the taste of smoke and age.
And just as quickly, the melody of the hearthfires fell away in her mind, fading to nothing more than a gentle hum tripping along her horizon. Memories of these hearthfires’ past journeys moved through her mind: sailing through the Forever Sea, farther out than any map could understand; grinding to a horrifying halt there; the slow creep of age pulling at the Once-City, breaking down walls and slowly hardening the hearthfires; wyrms and other deep-Sea creatures moving about the stalled city, creeping closer.
All of this and more Kindred saw in a flash as the ash touched her tongue and the song of the hearthfires quieted.
“. . . a moment to work. I’m sure you’ll be able to hear me in just a little bit,” Seraph was saying, his voice loud and harsh next to her. Kindred stumbled back, still working her mouth to alleviate the dryness.
“Ah. There we are, I guess. So sorry to not warn you—to be honest, I’ve never met another hearthfire keeper who could hear them as well as I can!”
Kindred shook her head, still letting the chaos of the music disappear.
“The other keepers here can’t hear the fires?”
Seraph laughed and leaned in close, as if sharing a private joke.
“Not like that, Kindred. They hear something, of course, but only little whispers from the fires. But you—you can actually hear and understand them, can’t you? You know what the fires sing of, don’t you?”
Kindred could only nod, and Seraph let out a mighty laugh, all joy and excitement.
“Kindred! You’re like me! I’ve never met another hearthfire keeper who could truly sing with and understand the fire. I suspected you might be different from the start, but I never hoped for this. Oh, my, Kindred!”
Kindred found herself smiling, too, despite the continued echoes of the chaos in her mind. She thought back to Rhabdus, to the school-trained keepers from Arcadia, all of those who treated the hearthfire like an animal to be broken, an animal they couldn’t understand and could only shout nonsense orders at. The Marchess had understood the hearthfire, but she was the only other Kindred had ever met. Until now. Until Seraph.
He stood before her, a goofy smile on his face, eyes wide, hands clasped together in excitement.
“What happened to them?” Kindred asked. She looked out over the field of hearthfires, each one host to its own unmoving grey flames, each another voice in the dulled cacophony still moving at the back of Kindred’s mind, lessened but not gone.
“Age,” Seraph said, shaking his head. “These hearthfires have been burning since the Once-City was built. Which, based on the few histories the really old citizens can remember, is somewhere beyond eleven hundred years.”
“Eleven hundred . . .” Kindred said, trying to think of the longest voyage she’d ever been on. Certainly, during her time aboard Revenger; the Marchess was infamous among Arcadian captains for being absent from port for huge swaths of time. But even on their longest hauls, skirting the edge of the Roughs and living off of skimmed-up dew and caught bugs and going mad with time away from port, time away from cooked food and firm ground—even then they hadn’t lasted more than twenty or thirty days, and after sailing so long, a ship’s hearthfire, even one well-tended as Kindred’s always were, its flames would be sluggish, the fire slower to respond to changes in build or song.
And to sail for a year? Ten years? A hundred? More? Kindred looked down at the viscous, grey sludge of the flames and found herself at once horrified and unsurprised.
“Don’t worry,” Seraph said, seeing the recognition and shock run across her face. “They’re still steady. We’re in no danger of diving.”
“How long have they been like this?” She let her eyes drift up and over the field of hearthfires before her.
“Hard to say,” Seraph said, some of the excitement coming back into his voice now that they were talking specifics again. “Thirty years. Maybe a bit more. But certainly no fewer.”
“Stuck in this place for thirty years,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Without the stories about the Once-City always moving, I suspect those like your Cantrev would have spent time looking and found us long ago.”
Kindred nodded, her mind whirring with possibilities, falling back into old patterns. Questions rose like ghosts: What kind of builds? Age of bones? Changes in the flames based on time of the year? Quality of grass?
And then there were all the new questions, those she had only recently begun to consider: what happened if you burned twists of grass? Strands of hoar flower or thrice-root? She thought of Seraph’s builds on the ships above, his strange and mysterious and exciting and dangerous and horrifying experiments.
“Can I . . .” Kindred finally asked, gesturing at the nearest first.
Seraph nodded, his eyes alive with joy.
“Bones?”
“Just a few fragments—they take very little in the way of fuel to keep their current state.”
Kindred nodded, studying the slow-fire as closely as she could, kneeling before it, shifting from side to side. The lazy arc of the flames was mesmerizing, like nothing she had ever seen.
“That’s good,” she said. “I imagine if they needed more, the Once-City would have sunk years ago.”
Seraph laughed.
“Exactly right! We only need a very few bones each year to stay afloat—I fragment them myself and mete them out when needed.”
“Builds?”
“I’ve tried it all—more bones, fewer, plants only, plants and bones, braids, everything I could think of. But perhaps not everything you can think of!”
Seraph beamed at her from across the hearthfire.
“We’ve never had anyone with Arcadian knowledge down here, Kindred! It was a chore to convince the rest of the Council to grant you access, but I pushed and pushed because, well, we need some fresh ideas. You can help me figure out how to unlock these fires, to rejuvenate them and get us moving again—efficiently, effectively, to escape before Cantrev returns. Or before, well . . .” Seraph trailed off, looking around, and Kindred imagined she knew the end of that sentence. Before it sinks.
“How much longer do the hearthfires have, do you think?” she asked quietly, looking around at the scattering of grey blazes.