Al-Sahira’s dying curse killed anyone who forcefully exposed a prophet. But it wasn’t as if the truth had been forced out of me yet, so what was her title spirit doing here?

“Your sister mentioned interpreting signs and omens from the Tripartite, earlier,” I whispered to Thunder. “She didn’t name any names, but is that enough to get us killed?”

“If you triggered [Blood Omen]’s curse, you’d just melt into a puddle of blood,” Thunder whispered back. “And divination about the present doesn’t count as prophecy, either.” Fuck, so it really was here because of me? “I think it wants something else.”

I glanced down at the bucket of dead fish, then back up.

“Um, did you… want the sacrifice to the Bright One?”

[Blood Omen] continued to stare at me, unblinking.

[…already… sacrificed…]

[…no power…]

[…don’t want…]

“Then would you like a, uh. New sacrifice?”

[…good…]

“Okay,” I said. Then I grabbed Thunder by the shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “Did your grandpa say anything about how to sacrifice something to it? What’s gonna happen if we do?”

“I — I dunno. Is it talking to you?”

Great, another thing that I could hear but others couldn’t. “Yeah. Look, I’m not good with rituals. Any sacrifice to a spirit that you can do is better than what I know.”

“I can’t,” he said, voice strained. “I’m not a prophet, I can’t command it, and [Blood Omen] wouldn’t want anything from me. But—” Crimson light illuminated the darkness of his wide eyes as he stared at me. “If it wants a sacrifice from you—”

The red light deepened as [Blood Omen]’s gaze turned towards him. The back of my neck prickled, and I hurriedly clamped a hand over Thunder’s mouth.

“Thunder, things that might be safe to imply normally are probably a terrible idea here,” I said. “Let’s be really careful about what you say. Okay?”

Thunder shut his mouth and nodded, the whites of his eyes flashing like a terrified deer.

I slowly withdrew my hand, then reached into the cooler to take one of the last remaining fish. Since it was meant for [Blood Omen], I couldn’t kill it with the sacrificial flow frame, so I summoned [Caller] into my hand. [Blood Omen]’s gaze was immediately drawn to the knife; its lower lid curved up into what looked like a smile again. Crap, could it feel [Caller]’s relationship with the future?

“Thunder, I’m not great with rituals. Do you know any sort of etiquette for making an offering?”

“I don’t think it matters that much right now,” Thunder said with a quaver in his voice. “As long as someone recognized by the spirit calls it an offering and means it too.”

“Okay.”

I took a deep breath before meeting [Blood Omen]’s gaze again.

“It’s not much, but… I offer up this sacrifice to you, the [Blood Omen that Connects the End to the Beginning], and hope that it satisfies your desires.”

Gathering black aura on the edge of [Caller]’s blade, I sliced the fish head clean off.

Before the head could fall into the bucket, though, it slowed to a halt mid-air. Then it, and the body still in my hands, melted into streams of blood that flowed up into the air.

It was a minuscule amount compared to [Blood Omen]’s body, but even so, as the blood flowed into the abyss of its eye and disappeared, it sighed in what might have been satisfaction or longing.

[…your… wish?…]

I licked my dry lips.

What did I want that seemed in line with [Blood Omen]’s nature and capabilities?

“…Can you… kill someone?”

[…need… more sacrifices…]

[…for someone… powerful…]

[…much, much more…]

Okay, I guess it was out of the question to exchange for Cyprian Duval’s death with just one fish. Similarly, it might be difficult to directly kill the Order of the Black Sun.

However.

“You’re good with… curses. And tracking down blood. Right?”

[Blood Omen]’s body pulsed with light.

[…curse… the world…]

[…everyone… who killed her…]

[…die…]

If nothing else, it was a sentiment I could understand.

“I hope you can help Maris with her blood tracking ritual. Figuring out how to integrate it, finding those who offered up sacrifices unjustly to the Bright One, or cursing them. Whatever works.”

[Blood Omen]’s upper eyelid drooped in thought.

[…blessing… hard…]

[…cursing… easy…]

It plucked a “feather” from its chest with wickedly curved talons. More symbol than matter, the feather seethed with crimson darkness. When [Blood Omen] released it, it shrank and floated down into my hand.

[…gift… curse…]

I gingerly grasped the feather by its stem. It was strange; I knew I was holding onto something, but it somehow still felt like holding nothing at all.

[Blood Omen] lowered its head towards me.

[…happy?…]

[…satisfied?…]

“I think so,” I said. “Thank you for your goodwill.”

[…sacrifice… to me…]

[…superior…]

[…agree?…]

“You are better than anyone I’ve sacrificed to before,” I agreed.

[…then…]

[…from now on…]

[…blood sacrifice…]

[…only… give me…]

It hovered there insistently, waiting for my answer.

I swallowed.

“I… probably need to keep making sacrifices to others, at least for a few more days…” The sky darkened. I hastily added, “But I can make a bigger sacrifice for you than to them. Is that okay?”

[Blood Omen] hovered ponderously.

[…best… for me…]

“That’s right. So there’s no need to be jealous, okay?”

The sky slowly lightened. Its eye curved up in a smile once more.

[…good… child…]

Folding its wings, it rose up into the air, into the dark vortex in the clouds. The bottom layer of blood-red clouds gathered, covering the opening, and the red tint over the world slowly faded. When the clouds finally dispersed, sound finally returned to our surroundings, and the bright sun overhead shone gently down upon the sea.

I let out a breath and sat down heavily next to the cooler, feeling weak in the knees.

Thunder followed suit next to me. He stared up at the now-clear sky.

“Is it really gone?”

As if responding to his question, the speaker finally crackled to life. Thais was speaking in rapid Anthemoessian. She called for Acacius a few times, too.

I extended my leg around Thunder and pressed the speaker pedal. “Hey, Thais. We’re okay.”

“Acacius! What happened? Thunder said the weather was changing, and then all signal cut out—”

“A spirit came by. I sorted it out, I think. Things are back to normal.”

“What kind of spirit?”

Thunder and I looked at each other. After a moment of hesitation, he shook his head.

I wasn’t sure what his exact message was, but since he wasn’t speaking up, then at least, he was fine with not sharing the specifics, right?

“I know this is not a reassuring statement,” I said, “but in order to avoid anything terrible happening, I think it would be best if neither Thunder nor I described anything more.”

There was a long silence from the other side.

“We will be back in fifteen minutes,” Maris’ voice finally came from a distance. “Don’t do anything rash, and stay safe.”

As it happened, Kostelius arrived on a skiff around the same time that Maris and Thais resurfaced with their supplies. The three of them looked us over to check that we were okay. Thunder got extra attention, being the youngest of us, a fact which snapped him out of his daze and had him batting away everyone’s hands and hugs with annoyance.

Then there was the feather in my hand, which everyone regarded with deep wariness, and which I felt leery of holding for too long.

“Is that a gift from the spirit?” Thais asked.

“Something like that. It… will help Maris with the ritual research, probably.”

“What does it do?”

I held in a grimace. “It’s good with blood, sacrifices, and curses. And it was presented with goodwill. I don’t know anything more specific than that.”

Gingerly, I held it out to Maris.

“I don’t know what will happen if we don’t use it, but… I think it’s better not to risk that spirit’s displeasure. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

If I’d known how ambiguous [Blood Omen]’s form of help would be, I probably wouldn’t have asked for this at all.

Maris studied the feather. She made a gesture of prayer and said something in Anthemoessian before taking it from my hands. “Kostelius, do you recognize it?”

Kostelius’ brows had come down in a great furrow. His gaze moved slowly from the feather to me. I stared back at him wordlessly.

“If it is what I think it is,” he said slowly, “then confirming it — or perhaps even speaking it aloud — could be very dangerous to us all.”

“Then should we get rid of the feather?” Thais asked.

Kostelius shook his head.

“Take it and trust in the First Singer’s mystery. Not everything in the world needs to be understood.”

I think it was a mark of the trust and respect they had for Kostelius that they did as he said.

By the time we made it back to the Pearl Singer clan’s main fleet, the tense and somber mood had mostly lifted. The encounter with [Blood Omen] hadn’t deterred Thunder from talking to me; if anything, he was sticking to my side more firmly. On the ride back, he pulled me over to learn how to identify seabirds, and once we dropped everyone off on the main fleet, he made me pinky promise to wake up early to accompany him to go cormorant fishing.

Darkness, perched on the railing of Kostelius’ ship, let out a series of sharp cries. Thunder jumped up and scooped Darkness onto his shoulder. “I gotta go. Bye.”

He dashed nimbly away, across the inter-ship nets and out of sight, as Thais chuckled. “Would you believe that he’s trained his bird to warn him when our mother is returning?”

“Why would he need a warning for that?”

“Because she’ll check his homework.”

“As long as she doesn’t check mine,” I joked.

Moments later, an albatross soared down to the deck, transforming into a tall, slender woman with glossy black hair, skin like terracotta, and dark eyes. She wore a dark dress adorned with subtly embroidered bead patterns and black feathers, and her feathered white shawl unfolded like a bird’s wings when moved her arms.

“Thais,” she greeted us. “And this is?”

“Acacius Duval. Grandfather’s guest,” Thais said. “Acacius, this is my mother, Threnody.”

I nodded in greeting. “How do you do.”

“Wouldn’t you know, but Thunder and Acacius have been getting along quite well,” Thais added with a smile.

Threnody raised her eyebrows. “Is that so? Then do persuade him to attend to his schooling more seriously. He needs to learn more than just what he’s interested in.”

“Perhaps he’d be better motivated if you promised to share more cormorant fishing techniques.”

Threnody sniffed. “He’ll learn them when he’s willing to learn some of my dances, too.” She cast an assessing gaze over us and the fleet. “Nothing went awry today, I hope? There was a tizzy ashore about some weather fluctuation off the coast; they said it might have been caused by a spirit. It just about cut the audience for my afternoon performances in half.”

“We’re all fine,” Thais said smoothly. “Grandma’s research was unaffected; she thinks she’s close to a breakthrough. She’s optimistic about getting everything sorted out tomorrow… well, at least she was until she got that unexpected boon from you, Acacius. That might add another day.”

“A boon?” Threnody looked at me with interest.

“Secret,” I said. “If you’re that curious, you can ask Kostelius.”

Thankfully, I managed to brush things off with just that.

At dinner, Kostelius’ family gathered together in the first floor of the cabin to eat. As expected, much of it was seafood: fish, shrimp, kelp, and some varieties of cultivated algae that they assured me were quite safe to eat. However, they also had plenty of fruit and vegetables they’d traded for from the mainland. The food was served in deep bowls with heavy bases and tall sides, which made it easier to prevent spills. I avoided speaking too much about myself during the small talk, mostly listening to the others chatting about their days.

After our meal, Thais showed me below the deck to a small but comfortable guest room with a window view out to the ocean. Perhaps sensing that I was tired, she told me to rest well and warned me that Thunder would definitely come knocking early the next day.

Finally, I was alone. I cleaned myself and got ready to sleep for the night. then, sitting down on the bed, I retrieved Clover from where it had been hidden away in my bag all day.

Considering [Blood Omen]’s behavior, I had some things to take care of before tomorrow.

First, I sent a message my overseer at the Department of Interjurisdictional Affairs informing him that I’d be absent tomorrow. I’d only ever seen him during my first fifteen minutes at the department, when he’d given me his contact information, shown me how to fill out the form, and then left the building entirely; I suspected that he’d taken my presence there as a free vacation to leave the office. I quickly got a message back asking me why I couldn’t be there, which I didn’t answer, since I felt I’d already done my job by letting him know what to expect.

Next, I opened up the group chat I had with Luka, Roxana, and Veric. It felt a little awkward to be talking in a group with Luka, actually, but with what I planned to ask, if he had an answer, maybe I could count that towards paying off my favor to him.

There had been some activity in the chat since I’d last looked, talking about where they’d gone for their work-study assignments. Apparently, Roxana had snagged a place with the Atmospheric Chancery; Luka had gone with the Department of Fantasm Management, and Veric had gone with the Bureau of Disaster Planning and Relief that Roxana had suggested to me before. Roxana had also mentioned me, asking where I was, but since I never answered, the conversation had moved on.

Veric: Yeah, it turns out that the recent livestock epidemic might be linked to the Void-Stepping beast that escaped ST-02, so Luka and I will be working together after all

Roxana: wow, i’m jealous! wish i was there. working in the ac is way more boring than i thought it would be. :(

Veric: I don’t know if this situation could be categorized as “fun” either…

Roxana: at least ur having a bigger impact than here :p so far, at least! no telling what will happen next

Roxana: if the shrine sends manpower to support relief efforts, maybe i’ll see u all, too!

There was an indicator at the bottom that showed that the two of them were still typing. However, it disappeared once I started typing a message, too.

Me: Time sensitive question.

Me: Do any of you have someone or something you want to cast a blood curse on?

Hey, they’d been chatting just a moment ago. Why were they taking so long to answer?

Veric: Context, please.

A difficult ask.

Me: For various reasons I probably have to manifest a blood curse tomorrow. Not sure what to use it for, though, so I thought I’d ask here.

Me: Don’t expect it to be at the level of actually killing someone, though. Well, maybe if they’re really weak.

Veric: Define weak?

Me: Like twenty fish’s worth of power? Maybe thirty.

Based on the number of fish I’d killed today, that seemed like a safe margin for a “bigger” and “better” sacrifice for [Blood Omen].

Roxana: what can thirty fishs worth of blood curses do?

Me: Don’t know.

Luka: ?

Roxana: LOL

Me: Just think of it as discharging a buildup of power before something scarier can happen. Even I’m not sure exactly what will happen.

Veric: Don’t you think this attitude of cursing anyone is kind of careless, then?

Me: So you should pick targets that you don’t mind bad things happening to.

Roxana: what will u do if u cant figure out what to use it for?

Me: Maybe I’ll just start cursing people who’ve made me unhappy lately.

I would’ve just carelessly sent the curse to Artunis or Cyprian, except that they were pretty powerful and I didn’t know their full capabilities. What if it came back to bite me later? Maybe I could target the Fellowship instead. Sure, a curse from [Blood Omen] might be a bit disproportional to how unhappy I’d been at the last gathering, but if I spread it out between everyone, maybe it would even out?

Okay, that was a little too careless, even for me.

Luka: could you weaken the escaped void stepping beast.

Veric: That’s a good idea, actually. Or could the curse be used to curtail the livestock epidemic somehow?

Me: Like what, killing all infected cattle?

Veric: It’ll identify what’s infected, if nothing else…

Me: Those aren’t bad ideas.

Me: I’ll see what I can do.

Times like this, it was still good to have connections, huh?

Having settled that, I turned off my seam and set Clover by the window to charge by moonlight. The faint rocking of the boat soon lulled me to sleep.

I was awoken the next morning before the sun rose by loud, rapid knocking on my door. Thunder pulled my muzzy self out of bed and harried me through my morning routine. “We’ll miss the best times if we don’t hurry. Go go go!”

As we climbed across the boats to his skiff, he lit the way with what looked like an electric lamp, which he hung low on the mast before sending us skimming over the dark ocean with his flute. I sat back and admired the stars in the sky, scattering their constellations in luminescent nebulae about the crescent moon.

I didn’t get to enjoy the sight for long; the stars winked out one by one as the sky grew lighter, disappearing altogether as the sun began to rise. Thunder brought the boat to a halt within the line of sight of a small island cutting a hazy silhouette against the dawn. He pulled Darkness off where he’d been perched on the stern and tied a colorful braided string around the base of his throat. “It’s to make sure Darkness doesn’t just eat all the fish he catches,” he explained. Then, with a series of mimicry bird calls and strategic nudges, he urged Darkness into the water.

Darkness dove down, out of sight, as Thunder took up his flute and played a tune. The water rippled, and soon Darkness reemerged with a fish caught in his hooked beak and halfway swallowed down his throat. When he hopped onto the boat, with Thunder’s help, he spat the fish out of his gullet and swiftly returned to the water.

Thunder tossed the fish into the cooler in the middle of the boat. “That’s how I caught all the sacrifices yesterday,” he said proudly. “What do you think?”

“You? Don’t you mean Darkness?” I teased.

He puffed out his cheeks. “I help too! I stir up the currents to encourage fish activity. You think he’d find so much prey without me? And I make all his favorite foods and keep his roost clean.”

“So that’s how it is. What would Darkness do without you?” I watched Darkness emerge with another huge fish in his beak. “Can I count on you both to supply sacrifices for [Blood Omen], then?”

“You mean doubling the catch compared to yesterday, right?”

“More than double. It will want a bigger sacrifice than whatever I’ll be killing for your grandma today.”

“Yeah, okay.” Thunder shimmied the fish out of Darkness’ mouth and trilled at the bird until he went back into the water. He stirred up the waters again with a short tune on his flute. For a while, we spent time like that, not speaking. Then, without looking at me, Thunder spoke again.

“Hey. Does this kinda stuff happen to you a lot?”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Like, dangerous spirits, or doing con-spi-ra-cies.”

“Well,” I said. “The dangers I’ve faced tend to be… unique. I try not to repeat them.”

“See, you’ve done this a lot after all,” he said, which I guess I couldn’t argue with. “What makes you so good at comin’ out the other side?”

I thought about it. “Observation, instinct, determination, and a fair amount of luck?”

Thunder pursed his lips. “I wanna be like that, then.”

“Facing danger all the time?” I said, deliberately misunderstanding. “What’s so good about that?”

“No, I mean…”

He scuffed his foot along the bottom of the boat, thinking, before crouching down next to me. He still wasn’t making eye contact.

“You said you got a bad personality and not a lot of friends and weren’t good at school neither.”

“Right.”

“But Grandpa and Mom and Thais all think you’re super smart and capable and can help them fix a bunch of stuff, and you’re also special cuz of the spirits that wanna help you.”

“So, you want the ability to help your family more?”

“They just send me out on kiddie missions like this. I like catching fish with Darkness but anyone can catch fish and anyways, they don’t really need anything I do.”

“Are you saying that, if you don’t have unique skills, there’s no point in having you around?”

“Um… I dunno. I guess not.”

“It’s true that other people share some of your skills. Maybe someone else could’ve caught the fish for yesterday or identified [Blood Omen] for me. But it wasn’t someone else who did it, right? It was you.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Someone who ‘could have’ helped me is less important than someone who has already helped me. Unless you think the past doesn’t matter like that.” I rested my elbows on my knees, leaning forward. “Honestly, there’s a lot I don’t know. I’m no expert on rituals or weather frames, I haven’t paid much attention to the culture, and I’m bad with history. So my survival, and my accomplishments, aren’t just due to my own skill. It’s because I trusted the right people as well. For that, the person matters just as much as the ability.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take this, for example.”

I gestured out at the boat, at Darkness swimming through the waves to return to us.

“In your clan, there are probably many people who remember the old stories, or can fish with cormorants, or sail a boat. But you are the one who has reached out to me like this and decided to share part of your life with me. That makes me closer to you than to anyone else in the fleet.”

At that, Thunder finally looked up at me, catching the morning light in his deep gray eyes. I offered him a small smile.

“Even if someone else could fish for sacrifices faster and better than you, I’d probably still ask you first. I’m willing to entrust something to you now because of how you have treated me before. It’s probably the same for your family. No matter how unimportant you might think your help is, the fact is that someone else wanted it. Isn’t that a form of closeness worth treasuring?”

Thunder looked out at the ocean for a while, silent.

Then he said, “Wish it wasn’t helping with so many dumb chores, though.”

I laughed. He grinned.

“Hey, Acacius, I got another question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why d’you say you got a bad personality?”

“Because I do. Most of the time when someone approaches me, my first reaction is to act like an asshole until they go away.”

“Really?”

“Ask my classmates and they’ll probably say I’m more trouble than it’s worth dealing with.”

“Huh,” said Thunder. “Guess Nithemoore students can’t be as smart as they say.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Cuz when you came here you didn’t look down on anything or nothing, and you listen when we tell you stuff. And… you listen to me too.”

I looked at his face, still round with baby fat, and his hands tightening on his flute.

Then I knocked the hat off his head and ruffled his hair as hard as I could. He squawked and scrambled away. “Hey!”

“Not a bad person, huh?”

“You better be careful before I take it back!”

I held back a smile.

“Well, damn. What should I do? I guess I’ll have to try not to let you down.”

Chapter 71 Chapter 73