Then she hauled Tress to her feet, restraining the girl by means of a death grip on her shoulder. “You,” Crow said, “are going to go with me quietly and willingly, or I’ll have Laggart start executing your friends. This is another ultimatum.”
Tress nodded, because she still hadn’t gotten her breath back. Her first real fight, and she’d lasted exactly one punch. Her eyes were still watering, her stomach aching. She felt useless—at least until she saw Salay looking at her.
Then Tress felt worthless instead.
Salay was holding her thigh, where blood was seeping through the makeshift bandage. Through her pain, she was looking to Tress, pleadingly.
Tress turned away.
At that moment, Salay finally understood. She finally believed. “You were never one, were you?”
“No,” Tress whispered. “I…tried to tell you…”
Salay slumped to the deck, defeated.
Beyond the ship, the spores began to undulate, then spin in a whirlpool as if draining from below. The Dougs and I rushed to the side, watching as a large tunnel appeared in the spores, the sides of it solid despite the seethe. It led down into darkness. Xisis had received the message.
“Prepare the launch,” Crow shouted. Once the small rowboat was ready, hanging beside the deck, she forced Tress in.
Crow climbed in next and nodded to Laggart, who held a pistol on Ann. “If we don’t come back in an hour,” Crow shouted, “kill one of them.”
Tress slumped down into her seat. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked to see me reaching across the railing to her.
“You still have,” I whispered, “everything you need.”
I backed away at a bark from the captain, and the Dougs lowered the boat like a makeshift elevator to get them down to sea level.
Crow pushed Tress in front as they stepped out onto the strangely firm spores, then started down into the tunnel.
THE DRAGON
The spore seas aren’t that deep, relatively speaking. Compared, for example, to the depth of the Lilting Abyss on Threnody, the spore seas are practically ponds.
But when you have to hike to the bottom—all the while being cuffed and shoved by an impatient pirate with a terminal disease—a few hundred yards can feel far, far longer. Nonetheless, it did beat the traditional method of reaching the bottom of an ocean.
Crow carried a lantern, and the way the light glistened off the crimson tunnel made it seem as if they were climbing down the dragon’s own gullet. Tress wondered what would happen if the stiff walls were exposed to water. Would spikes grow out of them, or did the dragon’s strange power prevent the aether from expressing itself? It says more than I could ever explain about the changes in Tress that she briefly considered licking the wall, just to see.
Eventually the tunnel leveled out, then opened into a vast chamber—also made completely out of solidified spores. Tress had been expecting to reach the bottom and find out what was down there. Was it stone, soil, or merely piles and piles of aether spines sunken from thousands of years of rain? She supposed she would have a lifetime down here to learn.
That was when the true weight of it all hit her. She’d spend her life down here. She had failed Charlie. Equally bad, and somehow more terrifying in the moment, she might never see the moons again. The prospect of never again seeing the sky, never again feeling the sunlight, never being bathed in the Verdant Moon’s glow…it made her knees grow weak.
Crow shoved her forward anyway, causing Tress to stumble into the vast crimson chamber, then fall to her knees. She choked back her emotions, as tears could be fatal if those spores could indeed express their aethers. But she couldn’t help curling up, trembling. For a time, she was insensate to Crow’s cursing, even her none-too-gentle kicks.
It was all so very much to carry. The weight of the day’s emotions stacked upon Tress in a heap, heavy as the ocean itself. Had it only been earlier that afternoon when she’d felt vibrant, relieved, and triumphant as she was pulled up through the rain?
Could a day contain too many moments? Yes, the hours and minutes had been the same today as every day, but each of the moments inside had been fat, like a wineskin filled to bursting. Tress felt as if she were going to leak it all out, vomit emotion all over the place—there wasn’t enough Tress to contain it.
You still have everything you need…
Did he mean the flare gun? Crow was carrying that, wasn’t she? But Tress could not best Crow in a physical contest; she had conclusive empirical evidence of that.
“On your feet, girl,” Crow said, hauling her up, then shoving her forward.