“I don’t know,” Seraph said, his voice almost a whisper.
“And what would happen if you pushed them and tried to move anyway?”
Seraph just shook his head for a moment, and Kindred understood. It was impossible—without a willing hearthfire, a vessel simply would not move.
In the silence that followed, Kindred saw the precariousness of her situation: Cantrev almost certainly approached from the west. The ships of his that escaped would return to Arcadia with the news: the Once-City sits where it was. And then it would not be just the collection of raiding ships that had attacked the Once-City before. This time, Cantrev would sail with the remainder of Arcadia’s war fleet, every ship he had remaining.
In the Once-City, the Hanged Council moved to defend themselves and their citizens. Stolen ships built for peaceful purposes—harvest or cargo—outfitted to slide into battle; it was a tactic both sides seemed to have adopted.
And now this hearthfire work, a peaceful solution, one that would leave the battlefield as only another patch of the Roughs. No more boats plunged into the deeps by silent assassins dropping from trees. No more vicious magics burning the air and tearing bodies apart.
Little Wing gone, the crew fractured and broken, her old life only a memory, Kindred thought of now. Ragged Sarah’s lesson still moved through her mind, and she flicked her fingers in the way she’d been taught, interleaving imaginary grasses as she considered this moment, this place, all of this. Conflicts rose and fell around her, pushed by maniacs wanting power, by misery wanting release, by men and women wanting life, water, a place to exist.
The Marchess’s words moved through Kindred’s mind, though it was no longer in the Marchess’s voice that they sounded. It was Kindred now, speaking to herself, for herself.
Remember, the prairie holds worlds.
An idea took shape in Kindred’s mind, barely formed, vague, like a sail barely seen through heavy fog. It was the suggestion of something more, but Kindred held on to it, thinking all the while of a memory, her and Little Wing crawling along the Cradle, looking down on two worlds.
For Little Wing, nothing. An absence of purpose and action and light; an absence of herself in the world and all the fear and worry that came with it.
And for Kindred, everything. A world to be discovered, a mystery to be loved, a darkness to be lit up. And maybe, just maybe, a grandmother to be found.
Kindred’s fingers kept their shuttling, and her mind kept its fascination with that sail slowly appearing through the mist.
Seraph had said something about below-boats near the hearthfire supplies. Something tried before by those brave and wild enough to see a world below the waves.
“Do you keep all of your supplies nearby? The stuff you need for the fires, I mean,” Kindred said, looking around.
“Yes, I’ll show you!” Seraph said, his smile reappearing. He talked excitedly as they walked. “There are exactly one hundred and eleven hearthfires on this level. Although each has its own wonderful peculiarities, I’ve found a certain amount of similarity in each. To begin, the quality of . . .”
She listened as he spoke, but let her eyes drift around to the jagged remains of the wall, the ever-present reach of the dark Sea beyond. Off to the side, Seraph showed her the stores of plants and bones, more than Kindred had ever seen in one place—a treasure vault that he seemed only a bit bashful to show her.
“I’ve been saving for some time, hoping someone might come along to help me,” he said, excited and sheepish all at once.
“It’s incredible,” she said, and though it was, she was interested in more. She looked around and at first saw nothing but more emptiness, more hearthfires, a few buildings, but there, beside a massive morass of plants that had grown in from the Sea, she spied them.
Boats, though like nothing she had ever seen above. Not the sturdy wood that she was used to, and lacking the upright masts boasting sails.
No, they were made of grass. Braided, plaited grass that made up the hull and extended all the way above, creating a ceiling above the deck, with windows fashioned into the sides. Sails that looked more like retractable fins extended off the sides of the boats, operated by what looked like pulley systems a sailor could work from inside.
There were only a few of the boats, and only one or two looked remotely finished, but Kindred felt her breath stop up in her chest all the same when she saw them.
“Ah, yes,” Seraph said, following her gaze. “The boats. Marvels, aren’t they?”
“Did they ever sail?”
“No, not really. They have hearthfire basins inside them, but no one could ever figure out how to make it work. Every build ever tried gave too much lift. And none had the skill to try anything more creative.”
Seraph shook his head.
“No, like much here, they became an abandoned project.”
“Could I look at them sometime?” She tried to keep the sudden hope and nervousness from surfacing in her voice, hoping that her question came out casual, only vaguely interested.
“Of course!” Seraph said, nodding. “So long as you get done with your work here with the hearthfires, you can fiddle with the boats!”
Kindred stared off after them for another moment before turning back to the wonders of Seraph’s hearthfire stores. As she grabbed several handfuls of plants totally strange to her, she smiled at Seraph.
“Let’s work.”
They settled in front of a large hearthfire, its metal basin as far across as Kindred was tall. She thought suddenly about how strange it was to not know the time of day by the light. The Gone Ways, she realized, were too far down for the sun’s light to filter past so much grass and in through the tears and holes and rips in the walls. No shields hung from the ceiling there.
Instead, the whole level was lit by torches thrust upward on stands all around. They pushed back the darkness so much that Kindred had barely noticed right away, but it also meant the passage of time was marked by no diminishment of light.
And so, she had no idea how late it had gotten, whether it was only evening or if they had moved into night. Or perhaps it was even the next morning.
They began experimenting, singing to the flames, asking for permission to enjoin the blaze with their hands. Kindred heard in Seraph’s songs not the fumbling Sea shanties of other hearthfire keepers but honest, real messages of entreaty and communion. She smiled and focused on the flames.
Kindred studied the build—a simple, dilapidated thing—with her eyes and then with her hands, testing for places of tension and weakness, searching for a rationale. She flexed her burned hand in the flame, worried suddenly about the tight furls of golden shoots dotting her skin, but they were just fine. One or two even opened slightly, swaying in and with the movement of the fire. For just a moment, Kindred thought she saw an echo in the sway of the golden grasses and the slow-sludge movement of the fire, as if they danced together, moved by the same music.