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tamingthemuseTitle: The Secret Road pt. 4
Fandom: Exalted/Original
Prompt: Cuisine
Warnings: Read the whole of it at The Secret Road @ Fictionpress.com
Rating: G
Summary: Sari, a sailor, just like her father was, learns that he may still be alive. Now she just has to find him in the vastness of the whole of the world.
As soon as they were hoisted up, Lucky was gone. Sari laughed as Serik’s crew tried to stop him from scrambling up the ropes and getting lost among the clouds of sails.
Serik watched on with a smile on his lips, his hand hovering at the small of Sari’s back. Feeling reckless, Sari leaned back into his hold and let him lead her to his own cabin. As they walked the length of the Regicide, Sari kept a careful eye to its layout, very similar to the Green Tear, and their weapons. She couldn’t see the cannons, as they were more than likely below decks.
The crew seemed relaxed, none watching her overtly, nor aggressively, beyond the usual superstition of having a woman on board. At the same time, they seemed to watch her as if they knew her secret and were in awe of it. That was impossible, and yet at the same time, it was discerning. She kept her eyes forward, on Serik’s back as he lead her into his cabin.
Serik’s cabin was very well appointed. Along the far wall a wide bed took the main stage in bright glory. Curtains of gold thread hung from the ceiling, gathering on the ground in thick piles, hiding the bed beyond. The walls were painted red with gilt gathered in the corners and boarders. Smiling, Sari allowed Serik to pull out a chair for her.
“Do you seek to woo me again?”
Still leaning over her should, Serik put a hand on her shoulder, smiling. “I do.”
Startled, Sari caught his gaze and held it for a moment. In his eyes she couldn’t see any deceit. Her heart suddenly began pounding loudly in her ears and she forced her eyes away.
“Silly, boy. I’m an old sailor.” She smiled sardonically, “An old salt. What would you want with an wretch like me?”
Sitting before her, he smiled. “You’re beautiful.”
Nonplussed, Sari hesitated in the middle of reaching for her napkin. Again she caught his gaze and realized that he really did think she was beautiful. Blinking, she brought the napkin to her lap and forced a carefree smile to her lips.
“Really? Thank you, but I still maintain that you’re too young for me.”
“As you said, but you can’t be older than me. You look very young.”
She grinned. “Did Rik not tell you my birth year?”
“He told me no dates. He couldn’t tell me any. When he spoke of his family, his mind was still suffering from his attack.”
“His attack?”
“He wouldn’t speak of that to me either. When I reached my majority, and asked for a quest from him, he gave me the quest of finding you in the west.”
Sari rested her cheek on her fisted hand, propped on the table. “So, no dates, and no other information save for my name and appearance.”
“You look like your father.”
“How well did you know him?”
“I told you that he raised me, yes? I was a son of one of his sailors. When my father died, I signed on and was with him when he came back from . . . Wherever it was he had gone. When he spoke to me as an equal for the first time, it was about his family, you.”
Just then there was a knock on the door and the ship’s cook entered. He smiled at Sari and walked in, his hands full of plates and delicious smelling food. Sari sat up, recognizing the man from her youth.
“Sasj?”
“You remember me, child?”
Sari stood and carefully warped her arms around the old man. “How could I forget? Mother thought of you as her own blood.” She laughed. “Look at you! Not a day over fifty if you’re a day.”
The old man joined her in her laughter. “Aye, lass, you know I’m much older than that.” He reached out and tasseled her hair. “You are a sight for sore eyes, you are. Do you know how devastated we were to learn of your mother’s death and your kidnapping?”
“My kidnapping?” She chuckled. “Your Serik has said as much. What lies have you been told?”
“You were not kidnapped by a Dragon Blooded warrior?” Serik leaned forward on the table, eyes intent. “Then why did you leave Dortagi?”
“A quest,” she said with a shrug, resuming her seat as Sasj’s urging. As he served the food, she continued. “I meant a group that came from the far east. I left with them after my mother died. I traveled nearly the whole of Creation with them. While I did leave with a Dragon Blooded warrior, it wasn’t me that had been kidnapped.”
“Wasn’t you?”
She grinned. “Indeed. We kidnapped him.” Sasj gaped at her.
“You really are Rik’s daughter. Kidnapping a Dragon Blooded.” He shook his head and finished his task. Once done, he covered her hand with his own. “It’s good to see you again, child.”
“And you too, Sasj.”
He left and she turned her attention back to Serik. She bit her tongue rather than say what was on the tip of it. Instead, she tugged the plate of exotic food toward her. She smiled down at the plate, recognizing the Southern flare Sasj had added. Spices rarely found this far west wafted off the hot fish and filled her nose, bringing back memories of the hot savanna and dry desert. Briefly her mind’s eye showed her the place she had thought of as her second home, the tall obsidian tower a monolith in the flat plains of the savanna. Her heart reminded her of her dear friends she had left behind when she had decided to move on.
Sometimes she really wondered if that yellow eyed bastard was her father, as much as she had the yearning for travel in her blood. Smiling, she brought a bite of the tender flesh to her lips and flavor blossomed in her mouth. It was stronger, as if Sasj hadn’t had a proper recipe to follow. It was still quite enjoyable, if not top notch.
“You’ve sailed down south?”
Swallowing before speaking, Sarik nodded. “We did. About five years ago.” He then caught her gaze. “Where were you, then?”
Sari sipped at the crystal goblet set at her right. “Let’s see, five years ago.” She closed her eyes and imagined where she was five years ago. Instantly the image of her manse returned to her. Just beyond her manse, the smaller, paler one of her past incarnation’s. Five years ago, the temple was still being finished and they were uncovering the strange things hidden in her pervious life’s manse. Her hand went to the necklace her father had given her years ago that now held two very small stones of power, one from each manse.
“I was in the south as well, although far from any coast. Myself and some friends had journeyed from beyond Nexus to Chiaroscuro. With them, I lived in the southern savanna for these past five years.” Then she grinned. “I left Dortagi over ten years ago.”
“I knew that.”
“Did you? What about my age, then?”
Serik smiled sheepishly, continuing to eat rather than answer. Sari followed suit and was surprised when Sasj knocked on the door again. He entered without waiting and quickly served a second course. Grinning, Sari folded her hands over her plate and leaned her chin on them. “Trying to show how rich you are?”
“Do you not remember me?”
Startled, Sari blinked at him. “What?” she said, rather ungracefully.
His lips tightened and he refused to meet her gaze. “I asked if you really didn’t remember me?”
Frowning, she sat back in her chair, studying his features. His hair was light, the color of the ocean at rest, all green and blue at the same time. His eyes were dark, with only the barest hint of blue to give it any color at all. His skin was marginally darker than her own, but she chalked that up to her time spent in the east, under the shade of thousands of trees. His face wasn’t familiar to her at all.
“Obviously not,” she finally said. “Should I?”
“I guess not,” he said, his voice tight. “I really couldn’t compete with Tag for your attention back then.”
“Tag,” she said through a laugh.
Sasj beamed at her. “I remember that young scamp. He was going to be a ship builder.” Then he frowned, setting a bowl of dark soup with thick chunks of meat swimming in it before her. “He wasn‘t on the island either. Where‘d he disappear to?”
She grinned. “He left with us. He and Sage, and Gourd and some others.”
Sasj laughed loudly, holding his gut. “Gourd! That old beast of a man went of adventuring? With you young ones.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Where’d he wind up?”
Memories best left to rest in peace rose to her mind and her smile slipped away. “We fought in a war. He died there.”
“That’s too bad. He was a good sort.” Hand scratching his head, Sasj took the dirtied plates out of the cabin, leaving the two of them alone once again. Sari turned her eyes back to Serik.
“You knew Tag as well?”
“Not as well as you did.”
“I hated him growing up.” Her smile returned as she remembered their youth together, how the two of them fought over everything.
Serik had an odd smile on his lips. “It really didn’t seem that way. Did you two stay together long?”
Sudden realization hit her and she was near doubled over with laughter. “You,” she finally gasped out, “You think that Tag and I?” She brought her fist up to cover her laughter. Finally, as he turned red, she calmed long enough to speak clearly. “Tag married Sage and the last I heard they had two little ones ruling their lives, plus my own little one.”
His jaw visibly dropped. “Your little one?”
Sipping from her spoon, Sari shot him a look, her eyes dancing with laughter. She licked her lips. “Indeed. Rikai is his name. Unlike you, he didn’t choose to be named after my father, but myself and that dreaded Dragon Blooded that ‘kidnapped’ me.”
“He was your foster child?”
“He was. We found him in a village nearly abandoned due to the Fair Folk. He was all alone and, well, he adopted us more than the other way around.”
She loved the soup. It, too, was a dish from the south, meat being soaked in the broth before being cooked into the soup and spiced with herbs from far away. There were even bits of vegetables she hadn’t seen since she first set sail away from the mainland of the south. She savored each bite.
For a moment, Serik was silent, chewing slowly in contemplation. Then he looked up. “You left him with Tag?”
She smiled sadly. “He wasn’t my child, not really. When we returned with him to our home, and I was moved to follow a path different than Kidow’s, Rikai chose to remain behind with the friends he had made there. It was better for him in the long run. I shudder to think of what might have happened to him had he chosen to follow me.”
“You lived a dangerous life?”
Finishing the soup, Sari smacked her lips and wiped at it with the napkin. “Anybody who travels Creation lives a dangerous life. You ought to know that.”
He nodded. “That I do.” For a moment he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, his eyes distant. She reached out and snapped her fingers under his nose, startling him.
“You knew me, then, when we were younger?” She grinned. “You must have been naught but a babe.”
He slowly smiled. “Old enough to remember you.”
“And fancy me, even then?”
His grin didn’t distract her from the flush that tinted his ears. She matched his grin and leaned back in her chair, hooking her knee over the arm and dangling her goblet from her fingers. “What have you been doing, while my father was … lost?”
“Do you remember Fire Leg?”
“My father’s first mate?”
He nodded. “He had charge of your father’s ship at that time. Rik had left us, gone out to the ocean on his own in a dingy in the dead of night. Some had said that the Fair Folk had sung to him, but Fire Leg believed that Rik was on a quest. It wasn’t until nearly six years ago, that he found us somehow.” He shrugged. “He was fevered and weak for quite a while after that. Fire Leg felt that we should return him to his home. By the time we reached Dortagi, he was well enough. You were gone and he left in search of you.”
Sari had a sudden thought that maybe she had inherited her wonder lust from her father after all. If he was anything like her, then he couldn’t stand the thought of staying still when he could be out there, searching, doing something. She drank to that.
Sasj entered then with desert. Smiling, Sari recognized the treat. This was no southern fare. She sat upright in her chair and eyed the wet cake with something akin to lust. Sasj chuckled.
“I thought you might still like this best of all.”
“Indeed so.” Quickly, she tucked into the cake, letting the flavor rest on her tongue a moment before she swallowed. “Still the best in all of Creation.” The icing was thick and white and full of sugar. She used her finger to wipe up some left on the plate and sucked her finger clean, her eyes sliding closed.
Then her eyes snapped open and she slanted a look to Sasj. “It’s good, but nothing like I remember Mother making it.”
Sasj laughed loudly and gathered the dishes from their last course. After he left, Serik chose to watch Sari eat, his plate ignored before him. She caught him watching and smiled. “It has always been my weakness.”
“Must be why he made so much.” He motioned to the full cake sitting on the table.
After the cake, Sari let her eyes wonder to the desk set against one wall. Small cubes had been carved out and scrolls stuffed into each one above the desk and around the side. Maps and letters and rolled up scrolls littered the desk just as messily as it had in the warehouse. Then she noticed the little rock sitting so negligently on the desk. Frowning, she shot to her feet and reached for the stone.
In her hand, if felt warm, and far too heavy for its size. She turned to Serik. “Where did you get this?”
His look of surprise turned to a gentle smile. “From Rik. It’s how he found us before, and how we’ll find him.” He stood and joined her at the desk. “He has the sister to that stone. They always point to each other.”
Eyes wide, Sari traced the thin white lines in the blue of the stone. Although she had never see the stone’s like before, she knew what it was. Had two of them attached to her necklace under her blouse, in fact.
For a wild moment she fancied that her father was the same as her. That he’d been called away from his family by a duty far greater than that of blood. Then reality slammed home and she remembered the things she had been taught. There had been three of them born so close together, and that was more than enough. In that alone, it meant that there was no possible way that her father had become Chosen as well.
She forced herself to put the hearthstone down and moved her hand away from it. Even from this distance could she fell the essence pouring off the stone, fading as she walked further across the room.
Then she hated herself for revealing so much about herself with that one outburst. Recovering, she smiled at Serik, liking they way his eyes went to her lips and became unfocused. She propped her fist on her hip and leaned against the dinner table.
“Well then, mate. What’s next?”
He shook himself out of his stupor and opened his mouth to speak, but just then the door burst open and Lucky came barreling in. He launched into Sari, hugging his thin arms around her waist.
He turned wide green eyes full of mirth up to her. Around his lips was the evidence of the same cake Sari had so enjoyed moments before. “Tha’ cook is almost as good as Ol’ Salt.”
Sari let one grey brow rise gracefully. “Almost? Don’t let Old Salt hear you say that. He’ll tan your hide.”
Lucky grinned and looked at Serik, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. A smile played about his lips as he watched Sari with the youth.
“You’ve a fine ship, sir,” Lucky said.
His brows high, Serik nodded. “Thanks.”
They boy turned back to Sari. “Watch is nearly over. We have to go back, Cap’in. Else Kelp will tan your hide.”
Serik laughed outright at that and Sari nodded, knowing that the old man would give her grief if she missed her turn at watch. Taking Lucky by the collar, she turned him out the door and paused next to Serik.
“Thank you for the meal, and thank Sasj.” She caught his eye and smiled softly. “And you do have a good ship. It served my father well.”
Surprise filled his eyes. “You recognized it?”
“I always will. For nine years I sat on the beach, watching the horizon for this ship. It’s burnt into my memory. Good night, Commodore.”
Fandom: Exalted/Original
Prompt: Cuisine
Warnings: Read the whole of it at The Secret Road @ Fictionpress.com
Rating: G
Summary: Sari, a sailor, just like her father was, learns that he may still be alive. Now she just has to find him in the vastness of the whole of the world.
As soon as they were hoisted up, Lucky was gone. Sari laughed as Serik’s crew tried to stop him from scrambling up the ropes and getting lost among the clouds of sails.
Serik watched on with a smile on his lips, his hand hovering at the small of Sari’s back. Feeling reckless, Sari leaned back into his hold and let him lead her to his own cabin. As they walked the length of the Regicide, Sari kept a careful eye to its layout, very similar to the Green Tear, and their weapons. She couldn’t see the cannons, as they were more than likely below decks.
The crew seemed relaxed, none watching her overtly, nor aggressively, beyond the usual superstition of having a woman on board. At the same time, they seemed to watch her as if they knew her secret and were in awe of it. That was impossible, and yet at the same time, it was discerning. She kept her eyes forward, on Serik’s back as he lead her into his cabin.
Serik’s cabin was very well appointed. Along the far wall a wide bed took the main stage in bright glory. Curtains of gold thread hung from the ceiling, gathering on the ground in thick piles, hiding the bed beyond. The walls were painted red with gilt gathered in the corners and boarders. Smiling, Sari allowed Serik to pull out a chair for her.
“Do you seek to woo me again?”
Still leaning over her should, Serik put a hand on her shoulder, smiling. “I do.”
Startled, Sari caught his gaze and held it for a moment. In his eyes she couldn’t see any deceit. Her heart suddenly began pounding loudly in her ears and she forced her eyes away.
“Silly, boy. I’m an old sailor.” She smiled sardonically, “An old salt. What would you want with an wretch like me?”
Sitting before her, he smiled. “You’re beautiful.”
Nonplussed, Sari hesitated in the middle of reaching for her napkin. Again she caught his gaze and realized that he really did think she was beautiful. Blinking, she brought the napkin to her lap and forced a carefree smile to her lips.
“Really? Thank you, but I still maintain that you’re too young for me.”
“As you said, but you can’t be older than me. You look very young.”
She grinned. “Did Rik not tell you my birth year?”
“He told me no dates. He couldn’t tell me any. When he spoke of his family, his mind was still suffering from his attack.”
“His attack?”
“He wouldn’t speak of that to me either. When I reached my majority, and asked for a quest from him, he gave me the quest of finding you in the west.”
Sari rested her cheek on her fisted hand, propped on the table. “So, no dates, and no other information save for my name and appearance.”
“You look like your father.”
“How well did you know him?”
“I told you that he raised me, yes? I was a son of one of his sailors. When my father died, I signed on and was with him when he came back from . . . Wherever it was he had gone. When he spoke to me as an equal for the first time, it was about his family, you.”
Just then there was a knock on the door and the ship’s cook entered. He smiled at Sari and walked in, his hands full of plates and delicious smelling food. Sari sat up, recognizing the man from her youth.
“Sasj?”
“You remember me, child?”
Sari stood and carefully warped her arms around the old man. “How could I forget? Mother thought of you as her own blood.” She laughed. “Look at you! Not a day over fifty if you’re a day.”
The old man joined her in her laughter. “Aye, lass, you know I’m much older than that.” He reached out and tasseled her hair. “You are a sight for sore eyes, you are. Do you know how devastated we were to learn of your mother’s death and your kidnapping?”
“My kidnapping?” She chuckled. “Your Serik has said as much. What lies have you been told?”
“You were not kidnapped by a Dragon Blooded warrior?” Serik leaned forward on the table, eyes intent. “Then why did you leave Dortagi?”
“A quest,” she said with a shrug, resuming her seat as Sasj’s urging. As he served the food, she continued. “I meant a group that came from the far east. I left with them after my mother died. I traveled nearly the whole of Creation with them. While I did leave with a Dragon Blooded warrior, it wasn’t me that had been kidnapped.”
“Wasn’t you?”
She grinned. “Indeed. We kidnapped him.” Sasj gaped at her.
“You really are Rik’s daughter. Kidnapping a Dragon Blooded.” He shook his head and finished his task. Once done, he covered her hand with his own. “It’s good to see you again, child.”
“And you too, Sasj.”
He left and she turned her attention back to Serik. She bit her tongue rather than say what was on the tip of it. Instead, she tugged the plate of exotic food toward her. She smiled down at the plate, recognizing the Southern flare Sasj had added. Spices rarely found this far west wafted off the hot fish and filled her nose, bringing back memories of the hot savanna and dry desert. Briefly her mind’s eye showed her the place she had thought of as her second home, the tall obsidian tower a monolith in the flat plains of the savanna. Her heart reminded her of her dear friends she had left behind when she had decided to move on.
Sometimes she really wondered if that yellow eyed bastard was her father, as much as she had the yearning for travel in her blood. Smiling, she brought a bite of the tender flesh to her lips and flavor blossomed in her mouth. It was stronger, as if Sasj hadn’t had a proper recipe to follow. It was still quite enjoyable, if not top notch.
“You’ve sailed down south?”
Swallowing before speaking, Sarik nodded. “We did. About five years ago.” He then caught her gaze. “Where were you, then?”
Sari sipped at the crystal goblet set at her right. “Let’s see, five years ago.” She closed her eyes and imagined where she was five years ago. Instantly the image of her manse returned to her. Just beyond her manse, the smaller, paler one of her past incarnation’s. Five years ago, the temple was still being finished and they were uncovering the strange things hidden in her pervious life’s manse. Her hand went to the necklace her father had given her years ago that now held two very small stones of power, one from each manse.
“I was in the south as well, although far from any coast. Myself and some friends had journeyed from beyond Nexus to Chiaroscuro. With them, I lived in the southern savanna for these past five years.” Then she grinned. “I left Dortagi over ten years ago.”
“I knew that.”
“Did you? What about my age, then?”
Serik smiled sheepishly, continuing to eat rather than answer. Sari followed suit and was surprised when Sasj knocked on the door again. He entered without waiting and quickly served a second course. Grinning, Sari folded her hands over her plate and leaned her chin on them. “Trying to show how rich you are?”
“Do you not remember me?”
Startled, Sari blinked at him. “What?” she said, rather ungracefully.
His lips tightened and he refused to meet her gaze. “I asked if you really didn’t remember me?”
Frowning, she sat back in her chair, studying his features. His hair was light, the color of the ocean at rest, all green and blue at the same time. His eyes were dark, with only the barest hint of blue to give it any color at all. His skin was marginally darker than her own, but she chalked that up to her time spent in the east, under the shade of thousands of trees. His face wasn’t familiar to her at all.
“Obviously not,” she finally said. “Should I?”
“I guess not,” he said, his voice tight. “I really couldn’t compete with Tag for your attention back then.”
“Tag,” she said through a laugh.
Sasj beamed at her. “I remember that young scamp. He was going to be a ship builder.” Then he frowned, setting a bowl of dark soup with thick chunks of meat swimming in it before her. “He wasn‘t on the island either. Where‘d he disappear to?”
She grinned. “He left with us. He and Sage, and Gourd and some others.”
Sasj laughed loudly, holding his gut. “Gourd! That old beast of a man went of adventuring? With you young ones.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Where’d he wind up?”
Memories best left to rest in peace rose to her mind and her smile slipped away. “We fought in a war. He died there.”
“That’s too bad. He was a good sort.” Hand scratching his head, Sasj took the dirtied plates out of the cabin, leaving the two of them alone once again. Sari turned her eyes back to Serik.
“You knew Tag as well?”
“Not as well as you did.”
“I hated him growing up.” Her smile returned as she remembered their youth together, how the two of them fought over everything.
Serik had an odd smile on his lips. “It really didn’t seem that way. Did you two stay together long?”
Sudden realization hit her and she was near doubled over with laughter. “You,” she finally gasped out, “You think that Tag and I?” She brought her fist up to cover her laughter. Finally, as he turned red, she calmed long enough to speak clearly. “Tag married Sage and the last I heard they had two little ones ruling their lives, plus my own little one.”
His jaw visibly dropped. “Your little one?”
Sipping from her spoon, Sari shot him a look, her eyes dancing with laughter. She licked her lips. “Indeed. Rikai is his name. Unlike you, he didn’t choose to be named after my father, but myself and that dreaded Dragon Blooded that ‘kidnapped’ me.”
“He was your foster child?”
“He was. We found him in a village nearly abandoned due to the Fair Folk. He was all alone and, well, he adopted us more than the other way around.”
She loved the soup. It, too, was a dish from the south, meat being soaked in the broth before being cooked into the soup and spiced with herbs from far away. There were even bits of vegetables she hadn’t seen since she first set sail away from the mainland of the south. She savored each bite.
For a moment, Serik was silent, chewing slowly in contemplation. Then he looked up. “You left him with Tag?”
She smiled sadly. “He wasn’t my child, not really. When we returned with him to our home, and I was moved to follow a path different than Kidow’s, Rikai chose to remain behind with the friends he had made there. It was better for him in the long run. I shudder to think of what might have happened to him had he chosen to follow me.”
“You lived a dangerous life?”
Finishing the soup, Sari smacked her lips and wiped at it with the napkin. “Anybody who travels Creation lives a dangerous life. You ought to know that.”
He nodded. “That I do.” For a moment he seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, his eyes distant. She reached out and snapped her fingers under his nose, startling him.
“You knew me, then, when we were younger?” She grinned. “You must have been naught but a babe.”
He slowly smiled. “Old enough to remember you.”
“And fancy me, even then?”
His grin didn’t distract her from the flush that tinted his ears. She matched his grin and leaned back in her chair, hooking her knee over the arm and dangling her goblet from her fingers. “What have you been doing, while my father was … lost?”
“Do you remember Fire Leg?”
“My father’s first mate?”
He nodded. “He had charge of your father’s ship at that time. Rik had left us, gone out to the ocean on his own in a dingy in the dead of night. Some had said that the Fair Folk had sung to him, but Fire Leg believed that Rik was on a quest. It wasn’t until nearly six years ago, that he found us somehow.” He shrugged. “He was fevered and weak for quite a while after that. Fire Leg felt that we should return him to his home. By the time we reached Dortagi, he was well enough. You were gone and he left in search of you.”
Sari had a sudden thought that maybe she had inherited her wonder lust from her father after all. If he was anything like her, then he couldn’t stand the thought of staying still when he could be out there, searching, doing something. She drank to that.
Sasj entered then with desert. Smiling, Sari recognized the treat. This was no southern fare. She sat upright in her chair and eyed the wet cake with something akin to lust. Sasj chuckled.
“I thought you might still like this best of all.”
“Indeed so.” Quickly, she tucked into the cake, letting the flavor rest on her tongue a moment before she swallowed. “Still the best in all of Creation.” The icing was thick and white and full of sugar. She used her finger to wipe up some left on the plate and sucked her finger clean, her eyes sliding closed.
Then her eyes snapped open and she slanted a look to Sasj. “It’s good, but nothing like I remember Mother making it.”
Sasj laughed loudly and gathered the dishes from their last course. After he left, Serik chose to watch Sari eat, his plate ignored before him. She caught him watching and smiled. “It has always been my weakness.”
“Must be why he made so much.” He motioned to the full cake sitting on the table.
After the cake, Sari let her eyes wonder to the desk set against one wall. Small cubes had been carved out and scrolls stuffed into each one above the desk and around the side. Maps and letters and rolled up scrolls littered the desk just as messily as it had in the warehouse. Then she noticed the little rock sitting so negligently on the desk. Frowning, she shot to her feet and reached for the stone.
In her hand, if felt warm, and far too heavy for its size. She turned to Serik. “Where did you get this?”
His look of surprise turned to a gentle smile. “From Rik. It’s how he found us before, and how we’ll find him.” He stood and joined her at the desk. “He has the sister to that stone. They always point to each other.”
Eyes wide, Sari traced the thin white lines in the blue of the stone. Although she had never see the stone’s like before, she knew what it was. Had two of them attached to her necklace under her blouse, in fact.
For a wild moment she fancied that her father was the same as her. That he’d been called away from his family by a duty far greater than that of blood. Then reality slammed home and she remembered the things she had been taught. There had been three of them born so close together, and that was more than enough. In that alone, it meant that there was no possible way that her father had become Chosen as well.
She forced herself to put the hearthstone down and moved her hand away from it. Even from this distance could she fell the essence pouring off the stone, fading as she walked further across the room.
Then she hated herself for revealing so much about herself with that one outburst. Recovering, she smiled at Serik, liking they way his eyes went to her lips and became unfocused. She propped her fist on her hip and leaned against the dinner table.
“Well then, mate. What’s next?”
He shook himself out of his stupor and opened his mouth to speak, but just then the door burst open and Lucky came barreling in. He launched into Sari, hugging his thin arms around her waist.
He turned wide green eyes full of mirth up to her. Around his lips was the evidence of the same cake Sari had so enjoyed moments before. “Tha’ cook is almost as good as Ol’ Salt.”
Sari let one grey brow rise gracefully. “Almost? Don’t let Old Salt hear you say that. He’ll tan your hide.”
Lucky grinned and looked at Serik, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. A smile played about his lips as he watched Sari with the youth.
“You’ve a fine ship, sir,” Lucky said.
His brows high, Serik nodded. “Thanks.”
They boy turned back to Sari. “Watch is nearly over. We have to go back, Cap’in. Else Kelp will tan your hide.”
Serik laughed outright at that and Sari nodded, knowing that the old man would give her grief if she missed her turn at watch. Taking Lucky by the collar, she turned him out the door and paused next to Serik.
“Thank you for the meal, and thank Sasj.” She caught his eye and smiled softly. “And you do have a good ship. It served my father well.”
Surprise filled his eyes. “You recognized it?”
“I always will. For nine years I sat on the beach, watching the horizon for this ship. It’s burnt into my memory. Good night, Commodore.”
