“Fyre, forgive me for voicing my dissent,” he says as we head down the tunnel, smoked fish in hand. “But I’m not convinced the prisoners deserve the mercy you’re giving them.”
“I know,” I say. “And I understand the optics of offering Jorrians any degree of kindness. But I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t believe in second chances. That isn’t to say I trust them,” I add, noting Nek’s scowl and flattened ears. “And it’s not to say I believe they will change their ways. But they deserve the chance, regardless of what they choose to do with it.”
Nek sighs heavily, shaking his head, but doesn’t argue the point. Mirzayael and I have already gone in circles around this anyway.
The cell guard nods to me and Nek, stepping aside to let us through. Ragna and Gardi look up as we duck inside. Both their gazes flicker over me—by now a familiar appearance—then quickly shift to Nek. I’m sure they’ve heard his voice outside before, but I don’t know if he’s ever spoken with them. In fact, it’s likely none of the guards have.
They’re huddled close to one another, as if they had been in the middle of talking, and they’re sitting on one of the folded blankets I’d given them last time. I’m glad to see them actually using the blankets. I wasn’t sure if they would snub the olive branch. And the one I’ve brought today will be far more tempting than the last.
“This is Nek,” I tell the Jorrians. “He’s accompanying me today because he’s quickly and inadvertently becoming our Master Treasurer. I wanted to speak with you both about commerce.”
Both the Jorrians seem caught off guard by today’s topic of conversation.
“Commerce?” Ragna asks skeptically.
“Indeed.” I sit down across from the Jorrians, gesturing for Nek to join me, and he reluctantly settles by my side. The floor is hard, cold, and more than a little dirty, but I ignore it. I set the small bundle of food between us.
“More bribery?” I think I can detect a note of humor in Gardi’s voice.
“Think of it as a show of thanks,” I say, pushing it forward. “We’ve recently been able to acquire official maps of the region. The ones you detailed for us were both helpful and accurate. I appreciate your assistance.”
Ragna squints suspiciously at the bundle until Gardi leans forward to grab it and pull it back to them. They undo the twine, and Ragna leans over to look.
The smell of smoked fish fills the air between us, and my mouth waters. I haven’t had any of the fish yet, myself, but I heard the chefs were planning to share a few of their new recipes tonight as a test for the upcoming Festival. These two pieces had been deemed a failed recipe and were going to be re-used in a stew until I intervened. I doubt the Jorrians would mind that it was butchered improperly by one of the young helpers.
“It must be poisoned,” Ragna says. “This is a trick.”
A low growl rumbles from Nek, and I put a hand on his knee, silencing him. Before I can reply, however, Gardi snorts.
“They wouldn’t keep us around this long just to poison us now.” They hook some of the meat with a claw and pull it from the bones, then pop it in their mouth. Gardi closes their eyes for a moment, letting out a small sigh. They pass it to Ragna next. “There. If I die, you’ll know it’s poison.”
She glares at them for a moment, and it seems like she really is about to wait and see. The smell of the cooked meat is too much for her willpower to overcome, however. She lasts three seconds before hungrily digging in.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of better meals for all of us,” I say as the two pass the fish back and forth. “I imagine at least as long as we drift along the coastline, seafood will become an abundant commodity. However, what we could use your help with is learning more about who we might encounter and what it is they might want.”
I unroll a hastily drawn replica of one of the maps the fishing boats traded us. We didn’t want to risk the original copy being damaged or destroyed, so it’s still in the red room, but we already have a scribe working on several more copies to be safe.
I point out a spot on the map. “We are here. We believe we will come within range of this town tomorrow. Deltablue. Do you know anything about it?”
Ragna glances at the map, then shrugs. “Haven’t heard of it.”
Gardi also shakes their head. “I’m also unfamiliar. Neither of us will likely know much about any of these cities.”
“Of course,” Nek says dryly. “They will accept our gifts but offer nothing in return. As to be expected from Jorrians.”
“Nek,” I start. Ragna jerks forward with a hiss, but her chain goes taut. Both Nek and Gardi’s hair are on-end, their tails flicking back and forth.
“Enough,” I snap at all of them. “This bickering gets none of us anywhere.”
Everyone continues to stare at one another, and the air feels tense between us.
Nek is the first one to deflate. “My apologies, Lord Fyre.” His hair settles back down a little, but not all the way. Gardi also leans back, arms folded, hair still partially puffed up. Ragna tears her gaze away from all of us, glaring at the wall instead.
“You’re unfamiliar with this coast, correct?” I ask Gardi, as they seem the most likely to cooperate. “That’s why you can’t tell us much about these cities.”
“Correct,” they say stiffly.
“But not nothing.” I wait.
They hold my gaze for a moment, then sigh, looking down at the map. “I don’t know the names of any of the cities here. They’re too small, and I didn’t work in the trade business. All I know is that the foreign goods we received from Dunmora tended to be metal. Armor, weapons, tools.”
“Spices,” Ragna ads, glaring at the map. Glaring seems to have become her default expression. “Fruit and vegetables.”
“Ah, right.” Gardi nods. “I tried some of that ‘cactus’ once. Didn’t much care for it. Too expensive, anyway. Probably the royals could afford better produce than the rest of us.”
None of this is as illuminating as I had hoped. The real question is, what do the people of Dunmora want? What do we have that they might need?
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“What did you trade in return?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Ragna says. “We’re not merchants.”
Gardi shrugs in agreement. “Probably furs. Oilskins. Oh, Master Teloc sold spells to the traders, sometimes. Perhaps those were passed along.”
I try not to show my excitement at this breadcrumb he’s just dropped for me. “You performed spells for them?”
“No, sold them,” they repeat. “Small things, like freeze resistant spells for their ships. One time they asked Master Teloc to draw something for producing small blocks of ice.” They pinch their fingers together. “It was so small it couldn’t have been useful for much of anything. But they liked that one.”
Drawing spells. They’re talking about spell circles. But all the spell circles in Fyreneth’s fortress are carved into the stone. How would one sell such a thing?
You draw it on something mobile. Like paper.
I want to smack myself in the forehead. Of course! It’s obvious in retrospect. The Fyrethians didn’t put their spells on paper because that was a scarce resource; stone, meanwhile, was in abundance. Even Dizzi etches all her work onto her artificing inventions. It’s not that you can’t do spell circles any other way, it’s simply that carving the spells has historically been the most practical option for Fyrethians. I’d become so used to how they do things that I’d never even considered it was one application of a broader technique.
We don’t have paper in the traditional sense—not made of wood and pulp. But we do have vellum made from thin, dried, animal skin, which is what we’ve been using for our maps.
Unfortunately, most of the parchment we have was made recently, in the weeks since we had begun hunting above ground. Though we have more now than we had in years prior, it’s still a rare commodity and not nearly enough to act as a viable export. But we could trade for paper, turn them into spells, and trade them back.
Oh, Dizzi is going to love this.
I look to Nek. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask about?”
He’s barely engaged in the conversation at all. Not that I had really expected any different. I can’t fault him for the feelings he harbors toward the Jorrians.
But he surprises me.
“The merchants asked you for these spells directly?” Nek asks Gardi.
The two felis stare at each other for a moment, their tails flicking in agitation.
“We don’t have to tell them anything,” Ragna tells them.
This seems to break Gardi out of their thoughts. “No,” they agree. “Though I don’t see the harm in this, at least.” They look back to Nek. “The dockmaster would create a list of desired commodities that the traders would bring back to the city. Sometimes they’d be posted so you could approach the traders and let them know you had what they were looking for. My master never sought them out; we had too much other work to do. But one day they found our shop, and since she was too busy, I did the spellwork for her on the side. The pay wasn’t bad, I think.”
Nek grunts, and his head twitches in the smallest fraction of a nod.
When Nek gives no further indication that he has more questions, I step in once more. “I think that’s about all we wanted to talk with you about today. Thank you again for being so helpful. Oh,” I add as I recall something. “Though I do have one last question before I leave. Unrelated to all the trade discussion. Have either of you heard of the Drifting Isles?”
Both the Jorrians immediately sit up straight, tense and alarmed.
“Is it close?” Gardi asks.
“We’re not going to hit it or anything, are we?” Ragna asks.
I exchange a surprised and baffled look with Nek.
“No,” he says. “We have never heard of such a place.”
“One of the fishing boats mistook us for the Drifting Isles,” I add. “No one I’ve spoken to has heard of it before.”
Both Jorrians slump once more, clearly relieved. “It’s a Ruin,” Ragna said. “Dangerous. Shit. You better not run into it and get us killed.”
“Run into it in the sky?” I clarify.
“It’s a floating city,” Gardi says. “Well, the remains of a city. Like Ragna said, it’s dangerous. If you see it, steer clear.”
I smile faintly. “I appreciate your concern.”
“It’s not concern for you,” Ragna snaps. “It’s cursed. It’s said the Ruins were cities the gods destroyed.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Like Fyreneth’s Kingdom?” I can feel Nek tense beside me.
“Probably,” Ragna says. “Whatever they did to draw the gods’ ire, I’m sure they deserved it.”
“Probably?” I continue to prod. “It doesn’t seem like you know much about these ruins.”
“It was a long time ago,” Gardi says. “A thousand years before Fyreneth’s Fall. There are no records for how the Ruins came to be. But intervention from the pantheon seems likely.”
Interesting. A pattern in truth, or a pattern applied by the Jorrians to explain something they don’t understand?
Echo, what can you tell me about these Ruins? I ask her.
[There are fifteen known Ruins across all of Lusio,] Echo says. [Each is the remains of an ancient civilization which are connected to an arcana source dimension, leaking ambient magic into the surrounding area. This magic has the potential to affect terrain, fauna, and flora alike.]
Intriguing. Though notably there is no explanation of how these Ruins came to be. What led to the destruction of their civilization? I ask.
[
I raise an eyebrow. The only other time Echo has responded to me this way was when I had tried to gather more information about the System, its users, and how it functioned. What would some ancient, magical ruins of an extinct civilization have to do with that? Or perhaps these are unrelated but equally confidential topics.
And who is the one with access to this classified information, I wonder?
More questions. Always more questions.
“Fyre?” Nek prompts.
I realize everyone is watching me. “Excuse me. I was lost in thought.” I flash the group a smile. “Well, if there is nothing else, we’ll be on our way. Thank you for indulging my questions.”
Ragna and Gardi share a perplexed look as Nek and I stand to leave. Nek also seems curious.
“Is there something wrong?” he asks me after we leave.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “But I think I need to start asking more questions and digging for answers. Even if I hit a wall, at least that will start to give me an idea of the shape of the problem I am dealing with. Sometimes, what isn’t said can be as revealing as what is.”
“I… see,” Nek says, clearly perplexed.
I chuckle, patting his arm. “Sorry. Just rambling out loud.”
But I do think it’s past time I dedicated a day or so to grilling Echo and researching deeper into the inner workings of this magic System Ollie and I are entwined in. I’ve just been taking every day as they come. I keep getting caught up in immediate needs and problems to fix. For a long while, I’ve been operating in survival mode.
But I don’t have to do that anymore. I have Mirzayael to carry half the load, and we have our council to help offload tasks and responsibilities. I can step back if I need to—for a little while, anyway—and focus on the longer term and bigger picture. We aren’t in immediate danger. We can allow ourselves to breathe.
“So,” I ask Nek, thinking back on our conversation with the Jorrians. “What did you learn from that exchange?”
Nek scowls. “They are arrogant people.”
“I don’t disagree,” I say. “Ragna especially. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from them. Perhaps even things they didn’t intend to reveal.”
Nek’s ears slowly rise back up. “What Gardi said about trade. It has me thinking about how we are currently handling logistics.”
“Or not handling it,” I tease.
He finally allows himself a small smile. “Yes. We need better organization. And not only should we be tracking what we produce, we should be better tracking needs. We distribute food based on what we have to spare, but this is not sustainable. We will be better able to plan where we should be focusing our efforts if we tracked where we might be lagging.”
“We should create a census,” I agree. “Species, family sizes, what they are lacking, what they are producing. Specialties and skills. Currently we allow anyone to work in any group they please. But it is possible, for instance, we have an overabundance in textiles and are lacking hands in agriculture.”
Nek frowns. “You think we should tell people where to work?”
“I think we should tell people where work is needed,” I say. “I suspect many don’t have strong feelings about where they work, and from what I know of Fyrethians, most are happy to offer their services where it can do the most good. But they can’t do that if we don’t know where the help is needed.”
Nek thoughtfully nods at this. “Yes. This is a wise plan. I will begin to gather this information.”
“Thank you,” I say. “And Nek,” I add, “the same goes to you. I know you’ve fallen into this role naturally because you are good at talking with people and eager to please, but you started as Mirzayael’s second. If that’s the work you prefer, and you’d rather move back to training the city guards, that can absolutely be arranged. I don’t want you doing something you don’t enjoy.”
Nek grins down at me, revealing his feline canines. “On the contrary, Fyre. I think this position suits me much better. I’m very happy with where I’m at.”
His words fill me with warm affection. “Me too.”
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