"Mother fucker."
Aurelion leaned against the railing beside Kael on the quarterdeck, searching through a drenched cigarette packet.
"Just my luck." He tossed it into the ocean. "I came here to relax. Of course it turns to shit."
Kael didn't bother responding. He raised the sextant toward a distant star.
The damage the arms had caused wasn't negligible. The ship had been nearly cut in half, more than two thirds of the Luminaires were gone, and every mortal aboard had been taken with them. Including Alfred. And annoyingly, that left Kael the most capable person to steer what remained.
"Go back to your cabin." He said eventually, pulling out what was left of a map.
"Can't be bothered." Aurelion sighed. "If these worthless gambling types had a shred of self respect the ship wouldn't be in this state. Besides." He yawned. "You threw a girl through my room."
A young man suddenly appeared, walked past Aurelion and came straight for Kael.
"You bastard." he grabbed his collar. "You killed my—"
Before he could finish Kael grabbed his head and slammed it against the helm, then tossed him overboard.
Aurelion watched his body disappear into the darkness with an indifferent expression.
"Do you know what you're doing, Valerian?"
"I do. But the sails took enough damage that going windward would be a problem."
"Is that so." Aurelion had produced a fragment of wood and placed it between his lips as a substitute. "Well. It's up to you, Captain."
Kael snickered under his breath. "You had more business than just telling me I had a patron, didn't you?"
"Yeah. I was also assigned to look into the leviathan decline in this region. Turned out easier than anticipated, so now I've got nothing left to do."
"So your assignment was to investigate the cause? We saw it for a moment. That hardly explains everything."
Aurelion bit the tip off the wood. "True. But enough that the client would be satisfied. It's not a Dreadborne. Tyrant sized. Endless arms, corrosive blood, yada yada. They knew what they were paying for when they hired me." He paused. "How about you? I'm fairly sure I've read that you did mercenary work at some point."
Kael said nothing.
"Though I'll say this." Aurelion continued. "There are few people with as little information available about them as you. It's almost like you just appeared one day."
Kael glanced at him. Was he testing?
"It would be negligence for a noble family to make their records easily accessible."
"Good point. But no matter what they do they can't erase history entirely." Aurelion rolled his shoulder. "Valerian, you're either a very big deal or a complete nobody. I genuinely can't tell which."
'Dead on.'
Kael turned the wheel and watched the ruined ship shift course.
"You're awfully interested in me."
"Call it professional courtesy. It's not like I have anything better to do." Aurelion turned towards the bow. "Thankfully we didn't get attacked too far from the destination."
It was true. The trip had already run almost a week longer than planned because of the unforeseen weather. One could say Alfred had done the heavy lifting and all that remained was for Kael to steer it over the finish line.
It had been three days since his conversation with Aurelion. By now the surviving Luminaires had cleaned the ship as well as circumstances allowed. Bodies no longer lay scattered across the decks, and the burnt smell was gone. They had located empty cabins when their own were destroyed and decided to divide the remaining belongings among themselves.
Kael stood behind the wheel with Keiran and Yvette keeping him company.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, nobody had raised complaints about Kael taking the helm. Expected, given his status, but more than that, when it came to practical matters most of these Luminaires had left that part of their lives behind long ago. "A mote can do that" was essentially their entire relationship with anything that required skill or knowledge.
"Thank you." Yvette said quietly. "For saving us."
Kael looked at her and shook his head.
"Can't watch my friends burn, can I?"
Of course he didn't care about them in any sentimental sense. But like so many people in his life they were worth considerably more to him alive than otherwise. Not only were they indirectly indebted to him now, the gesture had also cast a very bright light on the name Valerian Eireindaile.
"Yeah… Thanks." Keiran cleared his throat. "Anyway. I suppose you were right about the decline."
"More or less."
"This fog though." Keiran squinted at the horizon. "Any idea where it's coming from?"
Somewhere above them the sun was supposedly still present, but a fog so thick it turned the sky into nothing but a diffuse grey blanket that had swallowed everything around the ship. And to answer Keiran's question, yes. Kael knew exactly where it was coming from. He simply wasn't going to say so. Not yet.
"Not sure, actually. It's unusually thick for a normal fog. Can't see past it at all."
Keiran and Yvette glanced at each other. Had the captain just admitted he was lost?
"Wait, so how do you know where we're going?" Yvette grabbed his arm.
Kael raised a hand and let a small pendant sway from his fingers.
"We're close enough to the destination that a sextant isn't necessary anymore. A compass is sufficient." He said with a smile.
"Thank God." She exhaled. "Umm… what's the difference? I thought they did the same thing?"
"Common misconception. The sextant tells you where you are on the map. The compass tells you which direction you're heading. They complement each other perfectly, but they're not interchangeable."
"Interesting." Yvette tilted her head. "So what if the fog stayed? Not just a few days but for lets saaayyy… weeks?"
"Hmm." Kael released the wheel and crossed his arms. "Highly unlikely. But a good question."
He was genuinely amenable to answering it. Hypothetical questions were among his favourite things, not just because most of his internal life operated through them, but because the most detailed and useful planning almost always began with one.
"Well, first they would reduce sailing speed considerably. Give themselves more time to react and plan. Without a sextant they'd be navigating by compass alone, which would inevitably push them off course by a margin that compounds with every passing hour." He rubbed his chin. "To avoid other vessels they'd rely on sound. Listening for breaking waves, unusual noises, voices, lights from other ships. Though I suppose lights aren't sound. But still."
Yvette pouted thoughtfully. "So it would be almost impossible?"
"Close to almost, at least. Experienced sailors can track currents to get a rough sense of direction, but rough is the operative word. If they suspected they were near a coastline they'd use a lead line to measure depth, which narrows things down somewhat. There's probably one on this ship somewhere." He paused. "Days of fog and navigation stays reasonably accurate if you're calculating speed and heading carefully. Weeks of fog and even that flies out the window. For a mortal navigator without other tools, at that point you'd be genuinely lost."
Keiran looked at the two discussing, wondering where to jump in. "Guess it would be different for a Luminaire then?"
"You'd think so. But look at the Luminaires onboard." Kael nodded toward a hole in the floor. "The moment Alfred died they were completely at the mercy of fate. I doubt a single one of them could navigate this ship without a mote. And look at us. Nobles with the best education available, and still shaking like lambs the moment we're put in a situation nobody planned for."
Keiran leaned against the rail and gave him a sideways look. "Learning to sail is a little beneath us, don't you think, Valerian?"
"Is it?" Kael said without glancing his way.
Keiran scoffed but didn't argue.
The idea that any category of knowledge could be beneath a person was not something Kael had ever been able to take seriously.
In his understanding, knowledge didn't have inherent rank. It had context. A mote recipe and a tea recipe weren't equal in every situation, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. If he had to choose between the two he would choose the mote recipe without hesitation. But that calculation was situational, not philosophical. It said nothing about the tea recipe's value in itself. It only said something about what he needed more urgently at that specific moment.
The deeper point was this. Knowledge had a way of connecting to other knowledge through paths that couldn't always be anticipated in advance. Something learned in one context surfaced as relevant in another context where its usefulness was completely unexpected. Alfred's navigation was a perfect example. Nobody aboard had considered it worth learning because a mote could approximate the same result. And then Alfred died and the approximation died with him and the knowledge turned out to matter enormously in a situation nobody had planned for.
This was the specific cost of deciding in advance that something wasn't worth knowing. You couldn't always predict which thread, when pulled, would unravel into something essential. The only way to avoid that cost entirely was to treat every thread as worth holding onto.
Which was why, if he ever found himself having learned every mote recipe in the world, he would still eventually go looking for that tea recipe.
Not because it was equally important.
Because you never quite knew when it would be.
"Ughh." Yvette groaned. "How much further? The blood took the entire restaurant with it. I would genuinely kill for a sandwich right now."
"No more than a day, assuming I navigated correctly."
Yvette threw both hands toward the sky.
"Merciful heavens above us, THANK YOU!"