Silver Lines (Sky Forever Volume 2)

Chapter 19: Sea of Steam

After our odd encounter with Niveria and her knowledge drug, we left Highspring and journeyed back across the Coldlands.

"Neo is in Beran." My father had told us once we were out of the bar, "If you don't want to travel that far, I understand."

"Don't worry." I replied, "We're coming."

The others had agreed and so we had left the next morning. The plan was to reach Mirrorfog again and follow the road to the Sea of Steam. Then, we catch one of the ships going across to Beran. It would be expensive, but necessary.

After another couple of day's travelling, with no more Eyes Man encounters, we made it to Mirrorfog, where we immediately headed down to the harbour to the east and searched for a ship. We found one called 'The Lady Seasick' that could take passengers. It cost us four gold pieces each, which we could only just afford. As we boarded, it occurred to me that I'd never been out to sea before, which created a little trepidation within me. 

We were assigned sleeping quarters as soon as we got on. There were about fourteen passengers, including us four (Lonely Soul didn't count obviously), and six passenger rooms. The rooms weren't very spacious; there were two bunk beds, one on either wall, and a small cupboard by the circular window. Amber and I were put in with Storm and a young man who introduced himself as Hensy.

"I'm a carpenter by trade." He told us on the first night, as we sat around our room with drinks, "Our business runs up in Miletowers, in Beran. I was on a delivery mission in Azterak."

"What were you delivering?" Storm asked, gazing at him rather oddly.

"It was a wooden statue of a wolf." Hensy explained, fiddling with his long brown ponytail, "One of my own masterpieces. But enough about me. Tell me about you guys."

"Well," I said, "I'm Jared and this is Amber"

"We're getting married." Amber added, smiling.

"Congratulations!" Hensy said.

He then turned to Storm, "What about you?"

Storm eyes kept flickering to his neck as she spoke, "Storm. My name's Storm. I'm with these guys."

"Huh, I didn't realise you could do three-people marriages these days." Hensy said.

"What?!" Storm replied, as Amber snorted into her drink.

"You can't." I told him, "She's just travelling with us. Not marrying us."

"Oh..." Hensy said, blushing slightly, "Sorry. Anyway, I'm going to get another drink."

He promptly left. As soon as the door shut, Amber burst into hysterics.

"A three-way marriage!" She exclaimed, giggling uncontrollably.

"Poor guy." I said, but couldn't help laughing too.

Storm sat in silence though, deep in thought.

"You okay, Storm?" I asked.

She snapped out of her trance, "What? Uh...yeah. I'm good."

"You seemed to be looking at his neck a lot." I pointed out.

Storm nodded slowly, "There was a symbol branded just under his ear."

"A symbol?" Amber asked, regaining her composure and wiping a small tear from her eye.

"It looked like the letters G and C." Storm said, "But the G was backwards and they were entwined together."

At that point, Hensy returned holding a cup. He sat back down on his bed. There was an awkward silence for a few moments.