She turned to Ragged Sarah and Seraph.
“Let’s do it.”
Kindred settled herself in front of the hearthfire and pushed the ship below the waves again, feeling the comforting embrace of the Sea close around her, and then they were off, sailing faster than she had ever managed above the waves, the current pushing them along, flowing like a ghost wind through the grass.
They overtook the Once-City, and Kindred dove down deep under it, deeper than the scraggly remains of the Gone Ways, until they were past it.
They rose then, up and up, pushing out in front of and away from the Once-City.
“Sarah,” she said.
Ragged Sarah let the ropes she had been using to control the sails fall and instead scurried up the rope ladder and pushed open the hatch.
“Nearly there. Arcadia is close.”
“Good. Now the doors.”
“Aye,” Sarah said, dropping down and moving to each main door on either side of the cabin. These she pulled open, exposing the inside of the ship to the slipping song of the prairie grasses sliding by. Sarah lashed the doors open so they would stay that way before climbing back up to the open hatch.
“Seraph, get ready.”
“Aye,” he said, kneeling down on the other side of the hearthfire, opposite Kindred, beginning to sing in his quiet voice.
“Nearly there. Nearly,” Sarah said, looking back and forth between Arcadia and the Once-City. Finally, she dropped down into the cabin and said, “Now.”
Kindred reached deep into the hearthfire, calling the flames as she had so long ago on Arcadia, remembering the blaze that she had unlocked, the deep hunger of the fire she had been only too happy to aid. She did not beg and she did not order; she spoke to the flames as a friend, as kin, asking for aid and justice.
And the fire poured out in response.
Gouts of flame, too big for any one person to control or shape, exploded from the hearthfire. But it wasn’t just Kindred—Seraph too reached in, his voice twisting with Kindred’s as they both called to the fire, both called to its mystery, their twin litanies rising like prayers.
The hearthfire split and sent tendrils out in either direction, Seraph guiding one and Kindred the other, ropes of blue and gold and green and grey flame extending out the doors of Kindred’s vessel and spreading among the prairie grasses—untouched by flame for so long, protected against the natural spread of it.
But the Sea longed for the flames just as the flames longed for the Sea, and Kindred was only too happy to oblige. Too long had the Sea surrounding Arcadia been denied the burn, too long had it been kept even and monolithic, flat and still and contained.
Kindred left her place at the fire as her vessel continued to slide forward, leaving twin trails of flame behind it, Seraph nodding when she asked if he could hold both for a moment. The fire was doing its work now, and he only had to watch and shape in small ways. It wanted to burn, and there was plenty to burn.
And Kindred wanted to see her work, to be present for this instead of trapped behind as had so often been her wont in life.
She climbed the ladder and emerged from the hatch, craning around, seeing as much of the surface world as she could.
Seeing it while she could.
Her vessel cut a line between Arcadia and the approaching Once-City, its bulk followed by the outfitted pirate vessels. The blaze she left behind devoured grasses with the hunger of one kept away too long—although it skirted around the swaths of grasses affected by the Greys, their ashen masses remaining like tiny, dying islands. Flames leapt and scurried and ran and roared and plunged, widening the line between the Once-City and Arcadia into a gulf, a blackening chasm that threatened to devour any who would enter it, to send them down to darker depths than any thought possible.
Kindred laughed, her mouth and throat filled with a prairie wind dancing with smoke and heat. In, she breathed the wind; out, she exhaled.
As her vessel sailed, it left behind destruction and, if the legends were true, rejuvenation, the return of beasts and plants impossible to fathom and control.
“Sarah! Come up and see!”
The vessel continued its fast circle around Arcadia, and as her love joined her, Kindred saw the few Arcadian defenders who had rallied suddenly cut off from the Once-City and the ships beyond it. Instead, their massing sails pulled to turn back, away from the waves of flame running toward them, fast on the wind.
“It’s working,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe it’s working.”
Kindred shook her head, just as surprised.
It wasn’t a perfect solution, she knew, but it was something, and that would have to do for now. As she thought of the people living in Arcadia—Mick, Red Alay, and the rest of the Marchess’s crew, Legate, all of them—and those aboard the Once-City vessels, she knew she couldn’t tip the scales toward one side or the other. Was it a crime to want for something so natural as water? Was it evil to want to help your people, to make sure they had enough food to eat, enough water to drink, enough safety from those who would harm them?
Kindred didn’t know, couldn’t think of people and communities with such simple calculations as good and bad.
She was sure the Arcadians would scheme to get around this, just as she was sure the Hanged Council would soon be working on some way to continue with their plan.
But for today, Kindred knew, she had stopped them both. No more killing today; no more good and bad today.
As she watched, the Once-City raced headlong into the widening chasm of the burn as the ships of the armada cut hard away, angling to get clear of the oncoming flames. The Once-City broke apart as it fell, dropping as fast as the fire burned, collapsing through charred plants to descend to the deeps.
“You were right about them,” Kindred said to Sarah, feeling the heaviness of everything ending. “You said they were rotten, and I didn’t believe you, and now all of this.”
Sarah frowned and leaned close to Kindred, catching her downturned eyes.
“It’s all right now. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re here, and there’s a whole world ahead.”
Kindred nodded and looked up.
“Ahead. And below.”
Sarah nodded, then smiled.
“Hey! You never named the ship! It’s bad luck to sail a ship without a name!”
“Indeed!” Seraph said from where he sat before the fire, a wild smile on his face. “What will it be, Captain?”
And Kindred realized they were right. In the push to finish it, and in the complicated chaos of the last few days, she hadn’t even considered a name—a bad omen for her first journey unless she fixed it.
She felt too caught in this moment, the juxtaposition of destruction and beauty, growth and death colliding violently, powerfully, significantly.