She laughed along with Seraph and set about the work but without any real focus. Instead, she thought of plans coming to fruition, of a race in which only one could win.
* * *
“There’s still no sign of a mounting attack,” Ragged Sarah said one night, the two of them flopped next to each other in bed.
Kindred frowned, staring down at the spare strands of grass she was braiding and rebraiding. She enjoyed the feel of weaving the blades together, but it was also good practice for her healing hand, good training to return some of its nimbleness and strength.
“None?” Kindred asked.
“None. A raiding party sailing on one of The Word’s ships just returned yesterday. Captain Norn was talking with Ebb-La-Kem and Morrow Laze and saying something about how they were able to get within visible distance of Arcadia. No sign of a growing navy, apparently. No signs of Cantrev’s next attack.”
“That can’t be,” Kindred said, thinking back to Cantrev’s slick smile, his calculating eyes. “He wouldn’t let this go.”
Ragged Sarah shrugged and snuggled in to Kindred, burrowing her face into the curve of Kindred’s neck.
“Captain Norn said, if anything, there seemed to be fewer ships than ever at port. He could only count three. Ebb-La-Kem all but claimed victory. He thinks that last attack was everything Cantrev had.”
“Idiocy,” Kindred said, shaking her head.
Ragged Sarah laughed.
“Morrow Laze said the exact same thing. Called them all a pack of idiots and walked away to continue preparing defenses.”
Kindred nodded and the two of them fell again into a comfortable silence.
“Funny thing is,” Sarah said after a time, picking up the conversation, “I’m not sure who I’d like to win if another fight does happen.”
Kindred nodded but didn’t respond.
Images of those people and places she had come to know—both in the Once-City and on Arcadia—rose in her mind.
Mick, his wheezing and scheming and good heart.
The Forest, the kindred strangeness of it.
Legate, his broad shoulders taking on the weight of resisting Cantrev at home.
Ragged Sarah, who had somehow become Kindred’s person on the way to the Once-City.
Yllstra, walking along the paths in the ever-encroaching Forest.
Red Alay and the other crew members of Revenger, keeping the Marchess’s memory alive with their every breath.
“I’m not sure either,” Kindred finally said, working at the grass in her hands.
After another moment of silence, Kindred spoke, venturing into what had been worrying her.
“Maybe it’s time to think about leaving.” After the excitement of telling Sarah and their agreement to go, they hadn’t talked much about it, not in any real way. Sarah looked at Kindred’s sketches, and they talked about stealing away some food and water rations, but when Kindred pushed Sarah to think about a day to leave, the conversations always seemed to die away.
Sarah was too tired to talk. Or too busy. Or she needed to really think about it.
“Maybe,” Sarah said, her breath hot on Kindred’s neck.
“You still want to, don’t you?” Kindred asked, voice small.
“I . . .” Sarah said. She pushed herself up on one elbow and looked down at Kindred. “I do, Kindred. I’m just—scared. What if something goes wrong? What if you can’t get the hearthfire to burn right in the boat and we drop to the bottom and die? What if we don’t find anything down there? Or what if we find something terrible?
“I know,” she said, holding up a hand against Kindred’s protestations. “Seraph told you about the bits of evidence that there are people down there, and you have your intuition that the Marchess is still alive down there.
“It’s just thin, Kindred. It’s not much to go on, and I still don’t really understand what you want down there, and I don’t know if we’re going to be okay. You want to take this leap, but you don’t even know if there’s anything to catch you.”
“Are you saying no?” Kindred asked. Everything Sarah had said, all of her doubts, hurt, not because Kindred felt some betrayal in them, but because they were the doubts that reached for her in the quiet moments, in the moments when her confidence flagged and a more reasonable, more rational part of her wondered if any of this was a good idea.
“No, I’m not saying that,” Sarah said, though she didn’t look up to meet Kindred’s eyes. “I’m just saying I want to think about it more. And I want to understand why you’re so set on going below.”
Kindred searched for the words, for the reasoning, but it was late, and she was tired, and she had lost the lift of Sarah’s confidence.
“I just . . .” she began, closing her eyes and thinking of her grandmother’s letter. “The Sea is dying, and all anyone can do up here is squabble after power. I want to leave this place behind. Maybe I won’t find the Marchess down there, but I have to try. And maybe I won’t figure out what’s been happening to the Sea, but I have to try.
“Boats have never been my home, Sarah, not really.” She opened her eyes and looked into Sarah’s, falling into the green there. “The Sea has been my home, the wind and the grasses and the way it’s always moving in some dance that seems too profound and too beautiful for this world. If there are worlds below, and some answer to this sickness can be found in them, I want to be there. And if no answer can be found, I want to be there anyway.”
Kindred rolled over onto her side.
“I can’t explain it better than that. I don’t know why I’m pulled into the unknown, but I am.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The prairie burned in the sunlight of early morning.
Expanding out from where Kindred stood on the root dock, the prairie became itself in that early morning light, the sun peeking over a horizon onto a clear day. It was as if every bloom, every leaf, every strand of green and red and yellow and purple hoped to catch the sunlight as it streamed by, each plant lifting seeking fingers high. Feather grass moved in a gentle sway of impossibly fine yellow-white strands caught in the wind; plants Kindred had not even known existed before her time in the Once-City jigged and bobbed and danced their joy to that early morning. She whispered their names like a prairie litany, calling to the Sea in names at once true and false, names that somehow both captured and freed the prairie. On Kindred’s face, the sun and wind played, healing the worry and pain of her conversation with Ragged Sarah the night before.