Jane had scant seen her mother after her condition worsened, and none of them were good memories. They spoke without emotion, asking questions and giving answers as if they were checking out a list. She would never visit when Frederick was there, and both would question Jane about what the other said. It was hard to pinpoint moments, specific conversations they had. It all dissolved into a blur of emotions, most of them negative, with long stretches of nothingness between each visit.

  Those stretches extended until it felt like they were tearing. Awareness returned to her in those moments, but slowly, and at some point, she realized she was dreaming, waking up and falling asleep repeatedly.

  Until one of those moments didn’t stop extending, and the whiteness of her mind gave way to sensations. A dark room, the stench of sweat, the sound of snoring, and an emptiness to her stomach that felt as if it was verging on deadly.

  Kaye made to stand up but didn’t manage to. Her body was weak like it had never been before. She had to breathe in deeply and cw at the walls to stand on her feet, and when she tried to walk the only thing that kept her up was leaning against the closest wall.

  The space around her was filled with mats, hanged nets and cushions. At least ten people were sleeping and there was room for tens more, all far away from each other. She didn’t recognize any of them. Close enough to her own bedding to be touching it there was another mattress, but it was empty.

  The void in her belly groaned and Kaye turned away, found an exit and dragged herself towards it. She needed to eat something, anything, the first thing she id her eyes on. It was a desperate hunger that dragged everything else out of focus.

  Feeling as if the walls themselves were moving, Kaye stumbled through a dark corridor, past locked doors and others that opened to equally dark pces. The first light she saw was that of a window but she ignored it, pursuing distant sounds. They turned to voices, occasional ughter and something tinkling. Kaye followed them to a door from where a tiny ray of sunlight was shining in.

  Three long tables occupied the room, with a counter at the end and a small, circur window to its side. In one of the tables a trio of men were sitting and pying some game with dice, none of which she recognized either.

  They turned at noticing her.

  “The ss is alive after all,” one of them said, turning to the youngest among the group, a boy that couldn’t be older than fourteen. “Go grab her uncle. He’s at the briefing.”

  Kaye gave the boy room to leave through the entrance before slumping down in the nearest bench, the farthest away from where the men were.

  “Can I have something to eat?”

  The men were about to resume their game, and the one who had spoken clicked his tongue before standing up. He grabbed a bowl from the table and walked towards Kaye.

  “You’re lucky the d’s stomach is acting up, but don’t get used to it. You get served three meals a day, four depending on your shift, and the really filling ones come sparingly,” with that he set the bowl in front of her and turned.

  A half-eaten piece of brown bread and a tiny sb of cheese, which she was shoving in her mouth before the man reached his table again. Her tongue felt like sandpaper and the cheese was drier than that, but she ate without compint.

  It wasn’t nearly enough to sate her hunger. She still felt dizzy, as if the world was moving around her.

  “Can I get more?” she risked.

  The same man spoke without taking his eyes off their game, “I’ve told you already. You get served three meals a day, four depending on your shift, and the really filling ones come sparingly. The sooner you drill that into your tiny head, the better. You’re not going to starve, ss, you just missed the second meal.” His expression grew sourer as he spoke, and Kaye decided it was better to not interrupt their game again.

  Kaye turned to the entrance upon hearing approaching footsteps. Hogog entered the room, looked around and found her, then rushed to her side.

  “Thank the gods, Kaye. I knew you would wake up.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “A whole day, maybe a little more,” Hogog said. Kaye noticed he had deep dark bags under his eyes.

  A whole day did not feel like enough to justify her hunger. Was she ill?

  She leaned closer to him. “Who are those men?” she whispered.

  “They’re part of the crew, don’t know their names.”

  “Crew?”

  “Of The Sea Spear. Captain Mavis’ ship.”

  Hogog did not try to stop her as Kaye stood up, walked to the end of the room, rethinking the nausea she felt and pulling a bench closer to stand on it.

  Through the small, round window she saw the sea, waves rolling around and no nd in sight. They couldn’t be far from Kakinse, not in just a day, even if she was looking in the wrong direction.

  “Don’t forget to put that bench back in pce. I don’t mind, but some do,” the man from the game spoke again. The boy had come back and was asking the other one what happened with his food.

  Kaye did as he said, then sat down in front of Hogog again.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” Hogog asked.

  “Why did you drag me out of Kakinse? How am I going to go back now?”

  “Because I knew you would say that.”

  “So you don’t care about what happened with mother and father? Your own brother?”

  Hogog stared at her for a moment, moving his mouth as if unsure of what to say. The image of him madly bringing down the bde fshed in her mind.

  He eventually found the words. “I’m not letting you throw your life away.”

  “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “Then tell me what you were going to do, huh? After what happened, after the fight the other day, don’t you think the people of Kakinse are going to have a problem with us? You were going to walk up to Korok’Kan, killing everyone in your way until you found the Urcan. And after that? What?”

  “It could only have been him. He thinks the Nagra are weak and need to change, and I was a threat to him.”

  “You got all of that by speaking to the man once?”

  “I asked Chief Yorog about it.”

  “You’re not thinking about this straight, Kaye. You may think I don’t care about what happened, but how do you think I felt while you were out? You’re my family, the only family that I have left, and if I break here and now, who's going to take care of you?”

  “I’ve proved that I can handle myself alone.”

  “You were unconscious, Kaye. You would have been dead if I hadn’t dragged you along. Maybe we all would be, if Aien hadn’t shown up. He bought a room in the ship and the captain was kind enough to take us in in the middle of the night, treated our wounds. You think I pnned any of this? That I thought about a ship, where it is going or what we would be leaving behind while carrying you on my back? The only thing on my mind was keeping you alive.”

  Kaye dug her head on the table, her arms wrapped around to hide her face. She knew he was right, had known from the moment she opened her mouth to speak, but that did nothing to get rid of her fury. No matter how bad her retionship was with her first mother, how little freedom she had in the hospital bed, she was still taken from her parents, and now they were taken from her. What was she supposed to do? Wait for the rage to disappear, doing nothing about it? Would it ever go away? She wanted to kill, had no doubt in her mind she would if someone gave her enough of a reason to, and the thought scared her; but it wasn’t worse than the guilt she felt, the shame at all the lies, at telling her uncle he should have left her behind when she had spent all her time pnning to do just that to them.

  She felt Hogog’s hand on her arm, a tug just strong enough to give Kaye the impression he was expecting her to look up at him.

  “You need to be strong, Kaye. This ship has four stops in Saldassa and I think the captain is going to let us go in any of them, but you have to hold out until then. If there is anything I can do to help, you know you can just ask for it.”

  Saldassa is too far east. She had been pnning to go north, but not east. If she didn’t stop walking, it would still take several months to go make the way back.

  “I’m going back as soon as we leave this hole,” Kaye said.

  “You know I can’t let you do that.”

  Kaye looked up through her arms and the mess of her hair, but had nothing else to say to him.

  “Maybe we should talk about this once you’re recovered,” Hogog said.

  “No, I don’t think we should,” saying that, she nested her head within her arms again, looking at the grain in the table’s wood and lines of green.

  Hogog sat there for a good while, saying nothing. He tapped on her arm before leaving quietly. Kaye didn’t move, and wasn’t sure how long she stayed in that position, only that at some point the dice stopped rolling and the men left the room, leaving her alone in the silence.

  Even more time passed until the pce became noisy with sailors. It was time for the third meal of the day and Kaye ate her bread and pea pudding as fast as she could before leaving for the sleeping room. There she found a bag with some of her things, even the unstrung bow and the musical neckce Rogar had gifted her.

  Ignoring all of it, Kaye id down to brood.

  Having finished scrubbing the room of one of the passengers — a merchant from Kakinse that brought with him an enviable cargo of wine and spirits — she moved on to the next.

  Ji had told her to knock four times on every door, to go away if the passenger refused, but to open the door and clean the pce if no one answered, which was what she did. Apparently, every passenger had been warned that the captain liked to keep her ship clean, and that if they had a problem with it then they should keep their quarters and storage rooms tidy themselves.

  It was also a way to keep the crew busy while out at sea. Everything had to at least be brushed every other day, and it was a job that the more experienced sailors would outright refuse.

  Kaye had barely paid any attention to her briefing, but did expect to receive the simple yet taxing jobs, the kind that left her alone with her mind and aching in the bed ter. They had no money on them when boarding the ship, her eighteen silver coins where now either sitting at the bottom of a happy port official’s pouch or on Captain Loshi’s, but Captain Mavis had been more worried that if they were to die it would be a terrible start to a journey that was supposed to be easy and predictable, so they had to work for their stay if they couldn’t pay for it. Kaye was also yet to get used to the nausea, or to remember where every corridor went. She judged she had only seen about half of what the ship carried within her.

  That day she was on cleaning duty again, this time on the passenger’s quarters. Ji, the old sailor who always looked startled at something, had watched her clean and wipe the first empty room before saying he had something else to do, handing her the ring of keys and leaving, reminding her that if she stole anything they would know it had been her.

  Someone answered in the next room. She waited for a few seconds until the man pulled the door open.

  It was Aien, bare-chested, with his bandana tied at a slight angle. He had worked a few droplets of sweat on his face.

  “Ji sent me to clean the passenger rooms.”

  He gave her space to enter and she did so, carrying the box with everything she needed. Aien leaned against the open door as she set about sweeping the pce, catching sight of his hand-and-a-half sword lying on the bed. He had been practicing.

  It was awkward. “I never thanked you,” she said.

  “You had a lot to work through, I understand that.”

  ‘Had?’ I don’t think you understand it at all. Kaye didn’t want to talk or even think about her parents during the day, that belonged to the nights, and the fact that someone had mentioned it meant this would be one of those nights, but if it was with a stranger, she could push a few words out and distance herself enough from them.

  “Did you get hurt too?”

  “Just a ssh, here, in the forearm. Nothing serious, it will turn into a scar soon enough.”

  Kaye gave a quick gnce as he pointed to where the wound was, bandaged, before turning back to the floor. She had a hard time pcing his age. He could either be about her age, maybe a bit older, but who just happened to hit a growth spurt early, or he could also be in his twenties. Aien wasn’t as tall as Hogog was, but perhaps he would be in a few years.

  The guest rooms were cramped, so it didn’t take long for her to finish cleaning. When Kaye straightened her back, Aien stepped to the side, giving her room to leave.

  “Is there anything you need cleaned? Any clothes?”

  He thought about it for a moment, but shook his head. “Not now, but thank you. And take care.”

  Kaye moved to the next room, but the passenger there said he was busy. When she was done with the st one, she started swiping the corridor itself.

  She had her doubts about Aien. The man seemed to always be on guard, and the few times they had seen each other while out on the deck, he made no effort to approach her, in a way not unlike how she was avoiding her uncle.