I think Kostelius sensed that I had a lot to think about, because he told me to take a walk around the boat deck and stretch my legs before we all reconvened to discuss our next steps.

Probably, I should’ve spent that time figuring out how to help get their ritual approved and all, but I kept thinking about my relationship with the Tripartite, and with [Deceiver], who shared one of their Iyirian names.

I’d been capable of reaching out to [Deceiver]; theoretically, it would be possible to have a more harmonious relationship with the Tripartite, too. If they were as interested in me as Isul always said, then I’d be better off finding a way to get along with them. I guess I’d just never considered it before because they were so difficult to understand, and they made me feel so… unsafe and out of control.

But thinking about it a little bit longer, the world was always unsafe and out of control, so wasn’t the Tripartite just reflecting what was already true?

Or maybe they were just reflecting what I believed about the world. I did that to others a lot. I wasn’t particularly interested in being easy to understand, either, so that could be a reflection too…

Was that similarity a contributing factor to getting a World Proof like [Deceiver]?

Lost in thought, I leaned on the deck railings, staring out at the distant waves.

Heralded by footsteps upon the wooden deck, Thais appeared in my peripheral vision to lean on the railings as well. Her wild mane of wiry blonde hair shone brightly under the afternoon sun.

“Lots to think about, I see.”

I made a sound of acknowledgment. She nodded. Retrieving a box of cigarettes from inside her vest, she shook out a stick and placed it in her mouth. “You mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead.”

She used a silver lighter carved like a beast’s jaws to light the end of her cigarette. After a deep inhale, she blew out a cloud of smoke into the wind.

“So, what do you think so far?”

“Of what?”

“The [Red Flood]. The chances of seeing this through. Anything.”

Fishing for information? I felt like it was too straightforward to say I supported their cause, so I went at it a bit sideways.

“It seems like you guys already know what you’re doing, and it’s for a good reason. It seems perfectly sensible to me to support the ritual, rather than ignoring it and risking your story being true. So I suppose it’s hard for me to understand the obstacles placed in your way.”

Thais huffed. “Managing the storms generated by the ritual would cost time, manpower, and taxpayer money. Isn’t it normal for the government to reduce costs where they can?”

“Then call it a maintenance fee to keep a harmonious relationship with neighbors who can affect the weather. Simple.”

“Heh, if only everyone thought that way.” She took another long drag of her cigarette. “We have a representative committee to communicate with the Iyirian government. The Farzan-Sattari alliance keeps killing our efforts to negotiate with the Atmospheric Chancery, though.”

“What’s their motive?”

“The Sattaris are incidental; they support the Farzans occasionally because they want to check the Baschets’ mercantile influence. As for the Farzans, well.” Thais shrugs. “They administrate the territory where the ritual would take place, and they invest heavily in transportation and naval trade. A week of scheduled storms is a week of disrupted profit across the coast.”

“Couldn’t they just coordinate with you about shipping routes and schedules, then?”

“They could,” said Thais. “If Roshanara Farzan was still active, it might have been possible. However, she’s retired, and neither her father nor her daughter are particularly friendly to us. We’ve had a number of disputes with them over the years.”

I thought back to the dossier on the noble families that I’d originally commissioned from Etienne and Thais. According to the information, Roshanara was the name of Nastaran’s mother, and Sepehr Farzan, the current Patriarch of the family, was Roshanara’s father. Roshanara had once held a more active role in the family’s activities, but had disappeared from public life due to deteriorating health.

“Surely there must be a way to contact Roshanara, still,” I said.

“She hasn’t made an appearance in nearly eight years.”

Huh. Was she even still alive?

“So how do you think we should move forward from here?” Thais asked.

I glanced at her askance. “Wouldn’t you know better than me?”

“You want to defer all the decision making to us?”

“Leave expert matters in expert hands.”

Thais smiled crookedly. “If it were that simple, we wouldn’t have gone looking for supporters in the Iyirian government. Besides, it’s always good to get new ideas.”

“I suppose we could always try using the Duval name to get a meeting with someone important,” I said after a moment of thought. “Though I’d want to think of some bargaining chips that can be put on the table first. Since the Atmospheric Chancery is so unhappy with the sacrificial flow frame lately, then if we could give them new information on it or a way to inhibit it, I’m sure they’d be more open to compromise… But it would be up to you what you’re able and willing to concede.”

Thais nodded thoughtfully. She tapped her cigarette on the side of the boat, where the ash fell down into the water.

“One more question, if you don’t mind,” she said. “Why are you so willing to help us?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It’s always possible for an outsider to visit us, learn from us, support us, and believe us, but very few actually do — especially if it would require them to risk their social capital with no clear personal gain.” When she said it like that, I really was suspicious. “I believe that people are capable of good, but ultimately, the world runs on material interests, doesn’t it? So there must be something in it for you. Even if it’s impolite to ask the reason, I won’t be at ease until my family receives a satisfactory answer.”

So, she’d given up on tactfully probing for information, huh.

“There are a lot of rumors about the Duval family, and about me,” I said. “Surely you’ve heard some of them?”

“I have.”

“Then I’m sure you can think of a reason why I might be doing what I am.”

“Yes, I can interpret your actions according to my own understanding,” Thais said. “However, you have come to us with the intention of hearing our voices and listening to our story. It’s a sincerity we don’t often receive.”

She inhaled another mouthful from her cigarette, then exhaled with a sigh.

“So, even if your motives are exactly as I suspect, I want to extend the same courtesy to you that you’ve done for us: to listen to your story in your own voice.”

It was hard for me to gauge if she was being sincere, or if this was just another persuasion tactic in her information broker’s handbook.

Still, she had a lot of sway here. And if I wanted to cooperate with the Anthemoessians, then at least, I needed to give them enough trust for us to work together.

I folded my arms together on the ship railing, watching the sun on the water.

“I… am used to people being willfully blind to danger,” I said. “And I have my own reasons for taking your warning about the [Red Flood] seriously. If the ritual is not successfully performed this time… I think a lot of people might die. Not to mention what I would personally stand to lose.”

I didn’t want to explain about my personal trial from the Tripartite or about the possible lead about my old world. As it was, I already felt like I’d implied too much investment in their matters. It felt dangerously like exposing my weaknesses, even though it was one that they had, too — one they’d already bared to me in various ways.

“I could probably live even without the ritual completed,” I said, “but I’d much rather that it was. So, while it still seems possible, I’d like to fight for that chance. How much you believe of that is up to you.”

Thais looked at me for a long while. The silver rings in her eyes flashed, and then nodded. She extinguished her cigarette against the rail.

“I believe you.”

Should an information broker be that easily taken in by the appearance of sincerity?

“As it happens,” Thais said, “if you are truly willing to follow our lead, there is something that you can uniquely help with. This may be the first time we’ve ever met a sacrificial flow user who’s willing to work with us, and who we’re willing to work with, too.”

She smiled.

“We’ve got some things we’d like to test out. If it all works, then we’ll have a new bargaining chip in hand.”

---

Thais and Thunder’s grandmother, Maris, was a tall and slender woman with ruddy skin, neatly trimmed pepper-gray hair, and bright gray eyes. She had on a black sunhat, a pair of fashionable sunglasses, and a colorful silk scarf tied on under her black leather coat. When Thais introduced me, Maris looked me up and down over the rim of her sunglasses and clicked her tongue.

“So you’re the one who used the sacrificial flow frame,” she said, a faint accent dotting her words. “Don’t kill any more people with that frame. You understand why?”

“Because it increases the chances of the Bright One breaking her seal?”

“Good, you listened to the story.” She patted me on the arms. “Not enough fat or muscle on you either, I see. The people of the shore don’t know how to feed their children. Are you staying the night?”

I looked at Thais questioningly.

“It’ll be easier than ferrying back and forth,” Thais said. “That is, if you don’t mind?”

“Alright.”

Maris nodded firmly. “Then we will feed you well tonight. Kostelius! You hear that?”

“I heard,” Kostelius shouted back.

“Good. Now come. We have much to do while the day is bright.”

Half an hour later, I was on Thunder’s skiff once more, accompanied by Thais, their grandmother Maris, and a box stuffed full of artifacts and instruments that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Thunder was foiling the boat above the water again, playing his flute. He’d taken us so far out the ocean that there was nothing on the horizon to orient myself by anymore, but he continued navigating the boat confidently forward as if he was reading straight from a map.

“The Ritual of the Buried Storm is not the only way we manage the Bright One’s seal,” Maris told me. “We have other little rituals too. It is how we have slowed the seal’s degradation, even without performing the most important one. Today, Thais and I will go down into the water and perform some of those little rituals and test the integration of tracking rituals into our song.”

“To find anyone who has offered a ‘sacrifice’ through the sacrificial flow frame, right?” I said.

“Yes. It would be a mutually beneficial arrangement for the Atmospheric Chancery, would it not? Especially if they are so worried about recent usage of the frame, as Thais has said. We have always had issues testing our ritual integration ideas before, but,” she raised her eyebrows, “with a test subject like you, things will be much easier.”

“What kind of issues?”

Maris sighed. “It is simply that ritual integration is not a simple matter, especially if we want to integrate one from a foreign frame. The results must be something that the Atmospheric Chancery can both understand and trust, yes? Best to use a tracking ritual that everyone can accept. I have theorized on and tested some concepts throughout the years. Frame integration techniques have advanced much since I was a child; the School of Katsouli was exceptional in this regard. It is a pity what happened to them.”

If I remembered correctly, one of Professor Raoul’s titles was [Crucible of Katsouli]. What had happened there?

“In my testing,” Maris continued, “I have confirmed up to the point that the rituals integrate without interference. Whether the tracking ritual would successfully find what I want to find is a different matter.

“The tracking rituals I have used are based on blood. Theoretically, as one drains the resentment of the Bright One from the seal, one can therefore track the sacrifices made to Her; however, sacrifices are not the only form of resentment that make it to the Bright One’s seal, and so we need a way to filter specifically for blood that came from a sacrificial offering. To have you here to aid in our testing is truly wonderful.”

“Has there really never been anyone else you could collaborate with who’s used the sacrificial flow frame?” I asked. “I mean, in the long history of the world…”

“Until now, the only known way to be initiated in the frame was to deliberately arrange a ritual mass murder under the guidance of someone who had also done the same, all for the sake of gaining personal power,” said Thais. “You don’t trust or collaborate with people like that. What’s actually amazing is that you accessed the sacrificial flow frame through ignorance and a heretofore unknown frame interaction.”

“But, given the Duval family history, aren’t you worried that I also met some condition of previous mass murder? I could still be a bad person.”

I mean, I felt pretty justified in why I’d done what I’d done, but I was self-aware enough to know that not everyone who knew the whole story would feel that way.

“That could be true,” Thais agreed. “But you have also been sincere with us so far, haven’t you? And, more than that…”

She glanced at Maris, who gave an approving nod, before turning back to me.

“The First Singer spoke to us, too. I believe that They wouldn’t have sent us to someone we couldn’t accept.”

I felt a faint chill. “…What did they say about me?”

Thais shrugged. “Not much. You know how the First Singer is with Their signs and omens. But still, it’s enough that we’re willing to give this a try.”

Signs and omens? Were there other people with prophetic abilities?

Then again, I wasn’t sure if interpreting a message from the Tripartite counted as true “prophecy,” as compared to literal visions of the future…

Either way, given the fate of prophets in this world, if they really considered themselves prophets they probably wouldn’t have said it so casually to me.

Thunder’s flute playing slowed down, and his boat came gently to rest in the water, rocked by the waves. “We’re here,” he announced, though there was nothing distinguishing this patch of ocean to me.

“Good, good,” said Maris. She hopped up, surprisingly spry for her age, and pulled out a cooler from the supplies. “Acacius, come here.”

I went to stand next to her as she flipped open the cooler lid, revealing seawater and a bunch of fish swimming about inside. Each one had a yellow tag attached to one of their fins, labeling them with a number.

“Thais and I shall descend to conduct my experiments,” Maris announced. “Your job is to use the sacrificial flow frame to kill the corresponding test subject when directed.”

“…That’s it?”

“That’s it. Be clean about it, too. These fish will also be our dinner tonight.”

So I was here to be their overglorified fish processor?

“Now Thunder, Thais,” said Maris, “Since these fish will become our food, come and recite the prayers with me.”

Thunder stuck his bottom lip out. “I already said the prayers before I caught them.”

“We will say another to honor their part in advancing our knowledge.” She beckoned for him vigorously. “Come!”

Thunder sullenly walked over and joined hands with the others.

Maris spoke in their native language, smooth and flowing; occasionally, Thais and Thunder echoed something she said. It was a bit awkward just standing there waiting, but it was probably for the best they didn’t invite me to participate, because to adhere to my no-lying policy, I’d have to decline repeating anything I didn’t understand or believe.

When they were done, Maris burst into a flurry of activity. She set up a clunky radio transmitter, assembled a bag of tools, and packed up a bandolier of blood samples whose labels matched the fish in the cooler.

Thais helped her assemble everything with a practiced hand, hung a round clay whistle around her neck, and pulled on a sealskin coat. “Have fun up here, you two. Don’t get sunburned,” she said, and jumped out the boat. Mid-air, the sealskin coat shimmered with hidden patterns, and by the time she hit the water, she’d transformed into a sleek and graceful seal whose spotted body quickly disappeared into the waves.

“It will take a quarter of an hour for us to reach our destination,” Maris told us. “Wait for our transmissions at that time.”

She leaped nimbly into the water, leather coat shimmering, and moments later, a massive shark was gliding away into the dark depths.

Soon, it was just me and Thunder.

I took a seat next to the cooler and looked over. “So, you caught all of these?” I asked, gesturing. “You seem like a good fisher.”

Thunder’s expression didn’t change much, but he lifted his chin up proudly. “Not just me. Darkness too.”

“Darkness?”

“My cormorant. He helps me fish. I didn’t bring him, so I’ll show you when we go back.”

“Alright. Did you name him yourself?”

“Yeah. It sounds cool, right?”

“It does.”

“It sounds better in Anthemoessian. ‘Darkness sinking between ocean cliffs.’ Iyirian takes too long to say everything.” He sat down across from me. “What about Thunder? It’s also cool, right?”

“It’s really cool.”

Thunder nodded firmly. “That’s what I said when I translated my calling name but my mom said I should pick something more dignified and ‘in line with con-ven-tion’ even though my mom also named herself Threnody in Iyirian which is a funeral song.”

“Calling name?”

“Yeah. We have two names. The first one is private and for people you trust and we don’t translate it. The calling name is how you introduce yourself to the world at large.”

“Oh, kind of like courtesy names.”

He wrinkled his nose. “That’s a Great Zhou thing, right?”

“Something like that. Does Thais’ translated name mean anything?”

“Yeah, my mom picked an Iyirian calling name for her that means you are super loved or something,” his tone made it clear how little he thought of this, “but Thais’ real calling name is ‘cirrus clouds at dawn,’ which is better.”

“Wow, that is cool. Seems a bit more elaborate than ‘Thunder,’ though.”

“Well my real calling name is more like ‘thunder rolling over dark waves’ but I had to shorten it when I was picking something that Iyirians could say.” He leaned forward a little bit. “You should learn to speak a bit of Anthemoessian, then you could understand.”

“Is that okay? I thought you didn’t let outsiders learn your stuff.”

“That’s about big secrets and our really important practices. Anyone can share our food and language. You would probably suck at our dancing though.”

“Hey. What makes you say that? I could be good at dance.”

“‘Cuz you’re so bad at climbing on our walkways is what. Okay, come closer, I’ll teach you how to say hello.”

This proved to be more ambitious than Thunder had anticipated, as he had to explain what tone to use, and then explain how to make the right click with my mouth, and then have me string all of that together with some vowel sounds I wasn’t used to. When I finally got my first complete attempt at “hello” out, he laughed so hard he all but rolled off his seat.

I held back a smile. “Come on, that can’t have been the worst attempt you’ve heard, right?”

“Yeah, but it still sounds terrible.”

I’d thought I’d have a bit of a leg up from the times Chen Xiarui tried to teach me a bit of Chinese, but I guess there was only so much that could’ve helped.

Our conversation was interrupted when the radio transmitter crackled to life. “Hey Thunder, Acacius,” came Thais’ tinny voice. “We’re at the site, and we’re ready to start testing. Get ready to kill Test Subject 01.”

Thunder pressed the pedal connected to the speaker before saying, “Yeah, yeah, okay.” Releasing the pedal, he leaned over me to look in the cooler and pointed. “I think it’s that one.”

During the brief period of rest before boarding the ship, I’d already used [Honest Man’s Deception] to change into my past appearance with the sacrificial flow amulet, so I was ready to go with the frame. I stirred the water in the cooler with my hands, observed the flow ribbons forming within, and used them to separate out Test Subject 01 from the other fish. After that, it was pretty easy to reach in and grab it.

Thunder wrinkled his nose as I conducted my little maneuvers.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Grandpa always said we’d be able to hear a sacrificial flow user if we met them. I get what he’s saying now. It sounds bad.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah, ‘cuz when you play your song you should listen to the world around you and form a harmony with it. I dunno how it feels to you, but it sounds like someone playin’ their own thing without caring one bit what’s going on around it.” He stuck his tongue out. “Ew.”

“Sorry, bud. You’re gonna have to get used to it.”

“You got it?” Thais asked from the speaker. In the background, I could faintly hear Maris chanting. “Go ahead and kill it now.”

I pressed the speaker’s pedal. “Got it.”

I pulled the fish out of the cooler so I wouldn’t be getting dead fish all over the other test subjects. Thunder helpfully placed an empty bucket before me. I held the fish over it, grasped a wind flow ribbon, and wrapped it around the fish’s head before pulling sharply.

Its head was wrenched off roughly, falling into the bucket in a messy spray. I sighed. I really hadn’t done that cleanly at all.

Thunder had scrunched his face up in a grimace, clamping his hands over his ears, an unusual display of emotion from someone who conveyed his mood more through body language than face.

“It’s done,” I said to the transmitter. “I don’t think Thunder liked it, though. You okay?”

“That was awful. I’m glad this frame is illegal.”

“If only it was so easy to stop people from using it,” I sighed. “I hope the Atmospheric Chancery doesn’t come swooping in while we’re here…”

“The weather monitoring stations they leave in unpopulated areas aren’t that sensitive. You’ll be fine,” said Thais. “It’ll probably be some ten minutes ’til we need to kill the next test subject. I’ll be back in a bit.”

We spent the next couple hours like that. In between fish kills, Thunder and I didn’t have much to do but chat. He taught me a few more words in Anthemoessian, more for his amusement than because of any talent on my part, and we bonded over our shared dislike of sitting in classrooms and going to school. He asked me what my favorite songs were and was shocked when I couldn’t name any of the most popular songs from the last decade, at which point he embarked on a quest to culturally educate me by playing songs from the solid light seam he’d brought along.

I also learned more about his family after asking if he had any other siblings besides Thais, at which point he informed me that his dad was from another clan, so he had some half-siblings on that side, but didn’t know them well. “Thais is my half-sister, too,” he added, “but I actually know her cuz we hang out in the same clan and stuff.”

“And you two have the same mom?”

“Yeah. Thais’ dad is Zephyr, he was Grandma and Grandpa’s kid. Mom wanted kids, but she didn’t want a husband or to get married, so she asked Zephyr about it and he said that was fine but that his side of the family had to be part of the kid’s life no matter what. I think they were planning to have another kid after Thais, but then Zephyr died, so once she was ready, Mom picked someone from the Ocean Forest clan during the annual meet-ups and had me.”

“Sorry for your family’s loss.”

He shrugged. “S’alright. What’s your family like?”

I picked a statement that was true for both myself and Acacius. “I had an older half-brother. He’s dead, though. And now… my relationships with the Duval family aren’t good.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“Family can be like that.”

“Did your parents ever marry?”

Well, my mom had turned to prostitution after my brother’s dad died, which was how she’d ended up with me, and then she died before I could form any clear memories of her, so no.

My brother didn’t know who my father was, so he said since we were family I could share his. I didn’t really care about my parentage but I wanted to share anything that Brother cared about so I’d said yes. After that, Brother would bring me to do all the graveside rites together, since it’d be my responsibility if anything happened to him.

Not that I’d been able to keep that up, in the end…

“I’m a bastard child, you know?” I said. “Marriage is only as important as what it means to the people involved. Some people get married and turn each other into miserable beasts, while others never even call themselves partners but still make each other the happiest person alive.”

“You don’t think it’s weird what my mom did?”

“I guess it’s unusual, but if she’s clear about what she wants and is satisfied with the results, then isn’t it fine? From my perspective, she might actually be better off not relying on a partner to make her happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Before she died, my sister had been dating this girl. I didn’t like her, but my sister said I didn’t like anyone, so it was hardly good reason to break things off. She said that In Seohyun made her happy, but in my opinion, she was just blinding herself to In Seohyun’s faults because she wanted that to be true.

—Do you know how hard it is to find someone who will really see me and treat me as a woman?

—You mean someone who will use you and discard you like one?

Hyeji-nuna had gotten really angry at me for saying that. But what had happened in the end?

I should’ve wrung In Seohyun’s head clean off her neck.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when Thunder scooted closer to me on the boat bench, patting me awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Don’t be sad, okay? I’ll tell you some animal facts.”

I quirked my mouth in a smile. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Did you know that sea snakes can swim as far north as Iyiria’s southern coast? They only do it on years when there’s a warm current over the cold center of the Sentiva Sea, but it can still happen. That’s how Thais’ dad caught the sea snake that gave him one of his skins, even though we don’t sail as far south as some of the other clans.”

“Whoa. Are they poisonous?”

“No, they’re venomous. But if you’re scared we can give you some of Thais’ dad’s old antivenoms. He saved a bunch for his research. Maybe it’s gone bad by now though…”

We talked for a while longer until I noticed that clouds had formed in the sky. I frowned up at the dimming sunlight, bringing our chat to a pause, and pressed the speaker pedal.

“Thais, are you sure the Atmospheric Chancery won’t notice what we’re doing? The clouds…”

“If they found evidence of the sacrificial flow frame in the area, you’d hear their warning announcement,” said Thais. “It’s probably just natural weather. The changes out here can be erratic.”

“If you say so.”

“If something happens, we’ll all get in trouble together. Anyways, you got the next test subject lined up? Go ahead and kill it now.”

I did as asked. Thunder covered his ears. After confirming with Thais, I looked up at the sky again.

“Isn’t it getting kind of…red?”

Thunder followed my gaze.

“That’s weird,” he said. “The sacrificial flow frame doesn’t do that.”

“Wasn’t that incident called the [Red Flood] for a reason?”

“Yeah, cuz of all the people who died. So all their blood was in the water.” He pointed at the bucket. “But we know where all the fish blood is. It wouldn’t change the sky’s color like that.”

Even after discussing with Thais and Maris, none of us could figure out the cause, so they told Thunder to send a message to Kostelius and keep an eye out.

Thunder messaged Kostelius on his seam before pulling out a pearl amulet from under his clothes. He played a long song on his flute that caused the pearl to glow until the music ceased.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“It’s our clan’s specialty. Um… I guess you could call it a song-pearl. It sounds better in Anthemoessian. I put my song into it so that if something happens to us, Grandpa can find us and learn what happened.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“Yeah, Grandpa’s already on his way.”

The clouds continued to gather, darkening to an ominous red.

“Let’s kill one more test subject, and then we’ll be on our way,” Thais said. “You ready, Acacius?”

“Ready.”

With a practiced twist of a flow ribbon, I killed the next fish and tossed its remains into the bucket.

At that moment, the light changed, and the whole world around us was dyed red. A dreadful hush settled over us, silencing the wind and the waves. The ocean turned into a sea of blood. I clutched the railing and stood up, looking around, as Thunder activated the speaker and started shouting rapidly in Anthemoessian.

A heavy pressure bore down as the lowest layer of clouds above us parted to reveal a cavernous dark within. There, a blood-red light gathered to form the body of a giant bird, its edges glowing crimson, its black feathers shimmering with a ruby sheen. It looked strange and out of place, like a projected idea more than a real being, and in place of its head was the symbol of a closed eye drawn in pulsating red.

There was nothing in particular to identify what kind of bird it was, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake the conviction that it was definitely a vulture.

Slowly, ponderously, that vulture’s symbolic eye opened. The bloody whirlpool of its iris drifted about, taking in the area, until it finally settled on me.

A voice like a thousand rustling feathers whispered through my head.

[…sacrifice…]

All the hair on my arms stood on end. And yet, despite every ominous sign, somehow, the vulture’s gaze on me felt… friendly?

The vulture unfurled its wings, each feather easily the length of Thunder’s skiff, and it held those wings there, perfectly still, like a portrait of a bird in flight. As it floated down from the sky, it released such pressure that it stirred up the wind and waves, rocking our boat violently back and forth. Despite that, our surroundings barely made a sound, as if they didn’t dare to speak.

Thunder had gone quiet. He was clutching the back of my suit, half-pulling, as if he wanted to dive into the water with me.

If the vulture’s undivided attention wasn’t on me, I might have chanced it. As it was, however, I didn’t want to provoke it with any sudden activity. I tried to tug Thunder’s hand away; no point in both of us going down together. Thunder, however, refused to let go.

The vulture didn’t do much of anything. It just hovered above the boat, staring at me.

“Hello?” I called uncertainly.

The bottom lid of its eye curved up, as if smiling.

[…child…]

“Acacius,” Thunder whispered urgently.

“What is it?” I whispered back, not quite daring to look away.

“I remembered one of Grandpa’s stories. I think I know what that is.”

His hands tightened on my coat.

“It’s the executor of the prophet al-Sahira’s final curse — the [Blood Omen that Connects the End to the Beginning].”

Chapter 70 Chapter 72