She couldn’t help but remark upon the sea’s beauty. Spores, vibrant in the sunlight, shimmered as they seethed. An endless expanse of lush death, waiting to explode with life. Like with the zephyr spores earlier, this beauty transfixed her. Our minds want dangerous things to be ugly, yet Tress found those rolling waves inviting. In the moment, she imagined those rippling spores upon her skin, but rather than cringing, she was curious.
Danger doesn’t make a thing less beautiful—in fact, there’s a magnifying influence. Like how a candle seems brightest on the darkest night. Deadly beauty is the starkest variety. And you will never find a murderess more intoxicating, more entrancing, than the sea.
“North,” the captain said, holding up a compass. “North, Salay. Toward the Seven Straits.”
“Into the shipping lanes?” Salay asked.
“Best place to find our next target,” the captain said, tucking away her compass.
Tress sensed her opportunity. She settled down, scrubbing hard, then muttered, “You’ll kill more, will you?”
She heard the captain shift behind her. Tress kept her head lowered. After a moment though, she muttered, “They were good people you killed. Poor Kaplan. And Marple. And Mallory. Fed to the spores.”
The deck creaked as Captain Crow stepped over. This was a dangerous ploy, but…well, Tress was surrounded by pirates sailing the spore sea. She hadn’t grown up knowing danger, but they were quickly becoming acquainted.
“You muttering something, girl?” Crow asked. “Ungrateful, maybe, for the kindness this here crew showed you?”
Tress froze as if frightened, and dropped her brush as she looked up. “Captain! I didn’t know you… I mean…”
“Are you ungrateful?” Crow asked.
“I appreciate my life,” Tress whispered, her eyes down.
“But?”
“But that ship carried my family, Captain. I loved them.”
“You’re a royal inspector. Why were you traveling with your family?”
“That?” Tress scoffed. “An inspector left this coat at a tavern we stopped by, and I started wearing it because it made my family laugh. And now…now they’re all dead…”
She let it linger. Then she glanced up and saw thoughtfulness on the captain’s expression. Understanding.
No, you didn’t kill everyone on the Oot’s Dream, Tress thought. You left one alive. And if she were to escape, then tell everyone how the Crow’s Song killed her family…
The captain turned toward Salay and unscrewed her canteen. According to what Tress had overheard from the crew, it was common water, which explained why the woman wasn’t drunk all the time.
“Changed my mind, Helmswoman,” Crow said, then took a drink. “Take us east, toward Shimmerbay. We should restock on water.”
“If you say so, Captain,” Salay said. “I thought we had enough though.”
“Never can have enough water,” the captain said. “Can’t let my canteen go dry, can we? Besides, we’ve got rats on board. Need to pick up a ship’s cat.”
Quick as that, Salay called orders to the crew in the rigging and spun the ship’s wheel, and they turned toward freedom. Tress felt a surge of excitement.
Now, most people would agree that humans are not telepathic. We can’t directly send our thoughts or emotions into the minds of others. Nevertheless, you can hear my story and imagine the things I describe—the same as I picture them in my own mind. What is that, if not a form of telepathy?
Beyond that, there are those among us who have the uncanny ability to read another’s emotions. Not through magic, or mystical Connection, or any such figgldygrak. No, they are simply students of human nature. They can pick up on people’s moods through subtle cues of body language—in the way their eyes move, the way their muscles twitch.
Some of these are doctors interested in healing the mind. Others find their way to the clergy, in search of ways to help the human soul. Then there are the ones like Captain Crow, for whom their ability to read others provides a…different kind of advantage.
That moment on the deck, a part of Crow’s mind picked up that Tress was excited. That Tress was happy the ship had turned toward Shimmerbay. Crow wasn’t conscious of what she knew, or how she knew it, but—like one might feel an oncoming bout of indigestion—she knew that she wasn’t pleased and that Tress was the reason. If you want to ruin Captain Crow’s day, point out that she made someone happy. If you want to ruin her entire week, point out that she did it by accident.
Crow didn’t reconsider her decision to sail for the port. She wasn’t the type to second-guess herself. Instead Crow just pulled her foot back and planted a solid be-booted kick right in Tress’s stomach.
The unexpected blow left Tress groaning, tears leaking from her eyes as she curled up in a puddle of soapy water. Crow sauntered off, whistling casually and screwing closed the top on her canteen. She was, it might be noted, a perfect example of why the word jerk needs so many off-color synonyms. One could exhaust all available options, invent a few apt new ones, and still not be able to completely describe her. Truly an inspiration to the vulgar poet.
Salay now, she was another story. People considered the short helmswoman stern, but she’d been on the business end of a few unearned kicks herself. After barely a moment of thought, she locked the ship’s wheel in place—something she wasn’t supposed to do save for emergencies—and stepped over to check on Tress.
“Hey,” Salay said softly, rolling Tress to her side. “Let me feel at it. If you’ve cracked a rib, we’ll want to take you to visit the ship’s surgeon.”
“No!” Tress said. “He wants to cut pieces of me off!”
“Nonsense. Ulaam wouldn’t hurt a dove.”
“…He wouldn’t?”
“Nope. They don’t have hands he can embalm.” She winked at Tress, who—after a moment—managed a grin despite the pain.
Salay prodded at Tress’s lower ribs and listened to Tress explain what hurt and what didn’t. That persuaded both that the kick hadn’t broken anything other than Tress’s mood, so Salay returned to her post and unlocked the wheel.
She continued to watch Tress sitting in a morose lump on the deck. Eventually Salay called, “You ever worked a ship’s wheel before?”
Tress hesitantly stood and looked over at her, questioningly. Salay stepped back and gestured to the wheel.
Now, I know that on your planet, steering a ship isn’t that big a deal. In many places, they’ll hand the ship’s wheel to any kid with a standard number of fingers and a habit of leaving at least one out of their nose for extended stretches of time. But on the spore seas they treat it differently. Guiding the ship is a privilege, and the helmsperson is an officer tasked with a serious duty.
So even if Tress had often been on ships—as she’d been pretending— it was likely she wouldn’t ever have taken the wheel. Awed, she stepped over, double-checking with Salay before fixing her hands on the wheel in the positions the helmswoman indicated.
“Good,” Salay said. “Now, hold it firm. You feel those vibrations? That’s the seethe shaking the rudder. You need to be careful to not let that shake the entire ship. Hold the wheel firm, and take any movements slowly and smoothly.”