With an effort of will that pulled veins from her neck like swollen rivers, Little Wing turned back to Ragged Sarah.
“So, we burn hard,” Little Wing said. “The Errant can outrun any ship if we push her, even with the damage. We reach the pass through the reef before Cantrev catches up and then—”
“No.” Ragged Sarah’s voice was pained and sharp as she interrupted. Kindred realized she was holding her breath.
“Sorry, it’s worse than that. Even if we could make it through the reef without being caught or damaged enough to sink us—even then, we won’t be safe. Cantrev’s ships aren’t the only ones with an interest in our path.” Sarah took a breath and then said, “Our position has been noted by a group of pirates, and I’m told they have three cutters converging on us now from the Roughs this side of the reef and a dreadnought waiting for us where the pass through the reef terminates.”
“The birds told you all that?” Kindred asked. It was her turn to be amazed at Sarah’s abilities.
Ragged Sarah nodded, her eyes far away, one hand pulling at the edge of her jacket.
“Cantrev’s ships burning hard behind, three cutters closing from the side, a needle-thin pass through an enormous thistle reef, and a dreadnought waiting for us on the other side if we make it through. No time or space to turn around. Herded into the pass and that cursed city beyond. Is that the truth of it?” Little Wing spoke in a monotone as she glared at Ragged Sarah.
Ragged Sarah nodded.
“Pushed where we should never have been in the first place,” Little Wing said, flicking her eyes to Kindred before making her decision. “We make for the pass. Keeper, ready for the Roughs. Sarah, back in the nest. Now.”
They scattered, each to their own place.
Except Kindred, who was pulled backward by Little Wing as she tried to move back to the fire.
“If I didn’t need you for the Roughs,” Little Wing said through mostly gritted teeth, “I would kill you here and now. I don’t know why you lied, but it’s clear you’ve put yourself and whatever childish ideas you have about the Once-City ahead of crew and captain. Any injuries, any deaths—they’re on your hands. You understand? This is your doing.”
Little Wing shoved her back, hard enough that Kindred spilled onto the deck hard.
“Get back to the fucking fire and do your job.”
Little Wing was off before Kindred could get to her feet, shouting orders to the crew, directing action to prepare for the Roughs, to ready aft and fore defenses.
Kindred joined in the chaos of the ship, feeling the residue of Little Wing’s anger, of her own betrayal. She thought of the Marchess leaving her crew to the tangled terror of the Roughs because she stayed true to her own desires. Could she follow her own path without betraying someone? Could she follow her own dreams without burning someone else’s?
Head spinning with these thoughts, Kindred moved through those running about the deck until she reached the hearthfire. Scindapse was already there waiting for her.
Before settling down, she pulled an armful of bones from the closet, enough for an extended run, and dropped them between where she and Scindapse sat.
“Don’t let those go anywhere,” she said.
“Speed, keepers! Get us up to speed!” came Little Wing’s voice through the tumult and movement aboard.
“Aye” was the only appropriate response, though Kindred felt some of the familiar annoyance. The hearthfire could not, would not respond immediately to the whims of its keeper. Little Wing knew this, Kindred imagined, and just chose to push for the impossible.
Kindred thought of stories she’d heard from other keepers of captains demanding a dead halt from a speeding run or an exact map of the Sea—“Draw it using the coals of the fire; maybe that will work,” one keeper had said, laughing and imitating her captain, though quietly and with looks about before and after.
“What should I do?” Scindapse asked, eyes wide, hands restless.
“Sit still and pray this works,” Kindred said.
Bones arrayed beside her like the fragments of a forgotten language, Kindred leaned toward the fire, whispering a soft song of beginnings.
“Arise, begin, reach sky with flame,
We race for Sea, the endless line,
We go, we go, arise, arise.”
With her one unburned hand, Kindred reached into the flames and pulled one long rib bone from her build of preparation. If she and Scindapse had done their work well, the removal of the rib bone, which had been stopping up the flow of air and heat in the build and forcing the fire to burn only around the outside, would awaken the structure. No longer a closed mansion of bone, the build would light with heat and air and power, channeling the magic of the hearthfire through its various caverns and hallways, a wonder of Kindred’s own making.
Instead, when she removed the rib bone, the entire structure slouched and crumpled, like a child’s tower built too high with unsteady hands.
It tipped.
It fell.
And with it, the speed of The Errant fell away too.
Scindapse let out a guttural groan as the whole of the structure collapsed into an ugly pile of bones at the base of the now-roiling fire.
“Dammit, Kindred! Speed!” Little Wing’s roar sparked the crew back to action, and Kindred returned her attention to the fire.
“Let me think, let me think,” Kindred said, holding up her hand to forestall Scindapse’s questions.
Kindred conjured in her mind the structure she wanted to create as she cleared away the mess of her failed attempt: a design of her own she’d named Centicipitous, after the children’s stories of X’Niar, the hundred-headed beast guarding the caverns below the Forever Sea. The structure was a simple one: a central stalk of bone buried into the coals and several—perhaps ten or twelve, an approximation of X’Niar’s many more heads—extensions reaching up and out from the central stalk, extensions either pulled from the stalk itself or flicks of other bones grafted on. One by one, the extensions would burn away, hard and hot, building the speed of the ship with a steady increase. When it was finished, the structure looked more like a bouquet of flowers than any of the drawings she’d seen done of X’Niar, but Kindred preferred her imaginative name still.
But she’d never created Centicipitous with only a single hand before, and she didn’t have time to explain it to Scindapse. It was worlds beyond what the young keeper was currently capable of.
Kindred ground her teeth together, feeling more than ever the inability to use both her hands. She breathed—in through her nose, out through her mouth. This would not beat her.