~TIEN LYN~

Ships only loomed large in the harbour. Once fully crewed, and sailing the expanse of the Jade Sea, they felt more like a wood chip crawling with ants in the middle of a pond. Privacy was at a premium, so Finch and she had to wedge themselves between some barrels by the stern and pretend to not be overheard. A third of the crew started to settle to sleep in the cargo hold, and Finch looked like he should find a corner for a nap as well.

Tien Lyn told him so.

"I will," he replied, "after you tell me what happened in Zhushulin. Everything that happened in Zhushulin."

The name brought tears to her eyes. She had been happy in Zhushulin once, but now it was a place of grief. She turned away from Finch, leaned against a barrel and counted the rolling waves. Finally, when she was in control of her voice, she told him all that her memory had not blotted out to preserve her sanity.

When she came to Ho's final moments, she discovered that the eternal procession of waves was not enough to keep her sadness at bay. Tearful, she asked Finch the question that nobody else could answer, "What did he do in the end? Was it a spell?"

Finch replied without a moment's hesitation. "Yes, it was a side-effect of him Understanding one of the Laws. It is an uncommon one, but he was an unusual man."

She counted out twelve hundred more waves. "He was," she whispered then. "Ancestors, he was...."

Finch stifled a yawn and explained apologetically to the back of her head, "I kept ready to cast for days on end. It's tiring me out, Lady."

Tien Lyn turned her head round to see him, looking ready to collapse. Relentlessly, she pressed on, "Ho was a mage?"

"Not quite." It was his turn now to consider the view.

She followed suit. It did not change at all, pretty but monotonous. Watching the endless gray swells and the billowing clouds on the horizon, fringed with distant rain, did not displace the sight of Ho's burning corpse from her mind's eyes.

"Finch?"

He exhaled and cleared his throat, but his voice remained hoarse with fatigue. "Magic affinity like every other talent can be minuscule. The less significant it is, the easier it is to find a harmless outlet for it. I first encountered Chong Ho when he'd just manifested, and gave him a nudge in the right direction."

The mage's face was as blank as ever, but Tien Lyn thought she saw a shadow of a smile. Was this 'manifesting' something that held sentimental value for them? A rite of passage?

Whatever the case, he was less listless now, visibly warming up to the subject, "Sometimes even a stronger magic can be rerouted. My Master could not deter your mother from her social conquest constructs—-"

Her mother was the last person she expected to be mentioned in this conversation. Surprised, Tien Lyn blurted out, "But... she gave birth! To me!"

"She'd manifested just after she delivered you," Finch explained patiently.

"And that does not count in your lineage charts?" Tien Lyn wanted to know. It sounded like cheating. "My mother's name was not written in the golden script."

"She was not receptive to training by then," Finch shrugged in the 'it's just how it is' way. "Her mind was fully consumed by politics and social advancement. She shut the magic off without ever knowing she did it, perhaps."

"I can't begrudge her this," Tien Lyn said. Her father would have remarried, but still. "I love my mother."

"I suspect that she uses Compulsion, intentionally or not," Finch mused, "but that's faery magic, not human. Some mysteries are just that, Lady. Mysteries."

Tien Lyn was about to nod sagely and let him be, but an unpleasant possibility occurred to her as she mulled over the growing number of mages that did not become mages in her life. "Ancestors, Finch! When you asked me if I fancied being bred, you did not mean to an Imperial Prince, did you?"

Finch yawned openly this time, "A man with nascent magic, and a girl of your bloodline and the persistent horoscope that strongly suggested living offspring. You can see how we were tempted."

She wanted to shake him till his eyes rattled in his head. "Is my son everything you hoped him to be?"

Finch looked wounded, "Chong Ho was the gentlest of men, and you looked forlorn."

That much was true, but she still felt like a little wax figurine the mages moved on their map. She hated that, hated being betrayed. Her mother warned her once against trusting the mages. Perhaps her mother knew more of it than she let on.

"If you tire of flinging lightning bolts, do not fall back on matchmaking," Tien Lyn snapped. Ancestors, it sounded so childish!

"You said 'maybe'," Finch replied defensively. It was not a response to her words, it was a response to her meaning. Did he always talk like that, to her thoughts and feelings? Was she only seeing it now because he was exhausted?

"I know what I've said!" Her arms flew back to her chest, balled into fists. "You taught me to!"

"I stand by my lesson. It was excellent." He closed his eyes and thought for a few moments before continuing soothingly. "Tien Lyn, mages can plan and cast horoscopes. We could not foresee Jung Hwa's raid, your demonic friend's involvement or Weynala's inexplicable vendetta against him. We did not know you were in danger, neither did we place you in danger's way."

"Shan Jiang was here..." Tien Lyn murmured. "With Jung Hwa."

"Jung Hwa must have been on the mainland when Weynala found her ear," Finch shook his head tiredly, and repeated irritably, "we did not know."

His crestfallen look when he admitted his ignorance convinced her more than his words. Or, perhaps, she was just desperate for it to be true. Things could have gone terribly wrong. She, herself, asked Yu for something she shouldn't have asked for. She... she needed time to think about it.

But there was one more question that Finch sidestepped, the most painful of them all, "Is Xi going to be one of you?"

"Magic takes years to manifest. We'll know in time." That was all he'd give her before bidding her good night, but she guessed at what remained unsaid. Her son survived the blaze and days of being buried under the ash. There was no telling how he would turn out.

Maybe Xi will grow up to be the most boring man in the Empire. I'll pray for it nightly.

***

They were almost safe. The Jade Sea turned muddy-brown from the silt carried by the Tumultuous River. Flocks of gulls circled overhead this near to the shoreline.

Captain Zyed climbed around, measuring angles, testing the water, and the wind. The lookout scouted the horizon endlessly. He called out from high overhead to Zyed. She stopped, shielded her eyes with the calloused hand, squinted for a few moments, counting, then sounded the alarm.

Tien Lyn sat up in her tangled blanket and looked in the same direction as everyone else. A tall swirling column was racing on the intercept course.

"This is not a regular waterspout. We will not outrun it," Captain Zyed shouted, "She will catch us before we escape into the estuary." Then her voice grew even louder: "Heave, precious!"

Yu ran past Tien Lyn to the stern, his hair tousled, massaging an imprint of whatever he was resting his cheek on while asleep. Despite the danger, Tien Lyn's heart filled with tenderness at the sight of him. She followed, pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders like a scared child.

They joined Finch who was already up, frowning at the cloud, and for a good reason. The vortex was topped with the silhouette of a ship. She did not spin as she should have been, but rested easily inside the eye of the storm, and was drawn forth by the waterspout at a frightful speed.

"Faeries," Finch said, all emotions gone from his voice and face. She, on the opposite, had enough and to spare for the entire Coven. Weynala had guided Jung Hwa's hand, Weynala wanted Yu dead. Tien Lyn stared at the faery ship with hatred.

"Two?" Yu asked.

"Agreed," Finch replied, and his lips kept on moving soundlessly, reciting something known only to him.

"You said you can take down their vortex shields." Yu persisted.

Finch squinted, and moved his fingers in front of his eyes, measuring the enemy like Ho used to measure out his tree before drawing it. "I can, but this one is a beauty."

"Break her vortex, Finch."

Tien Lyn glanced his way surprised by the note of command in his voice. Then she strained again to see through the spray. She could make out two too tall, too thin figures in the mist, faeries, for certain, but it was impossible to say if one of them was Weynala.

Finch did not hurl a warning lightning bolt across the bow this time. Instead, he created a shimmering, pulsating sphere far off the starboard. It continued to grow in size, sucking the heat out of the air, until the rain started falling in fast chilly drops.

Now Tien Lyn was really glad to have the blanket around her. The faery waterspout slowed its progress, then dissipated into the rain. To Tien Lyn's huge disappointment, the vortex did not break up violently but set the pursuing ship gently on the surface of the Jade Sea.

With the obscuring spray gone, she recognized not just Weynala but the second faery as well. It was Sayewa, the honest one, the one who merely betrayed Yu, not tried to kill him.

Weynala acted exactly the same as the last time she saw her - gesturing furiously, pointing Yu and her out to the archers. Only this time Chong Ho was not by her side. Tien Lyn wiped both rain and tears out of her eyes. "Kill them, please," she asked everyone.

"Your turn," Finch said to Captain Zyed and Yu, before falling into the fighting stance. The lightning was coming, Tien Lyn guessed.

The first volley of arrows from the faery ship impaled itself in the wood or fell short of the 'Waverunner'.

"Defend my crew, mages, and I will beat them to the estuary. We will lose them there!" Zyed shouted.

Finch stepped forward, made a chopping motion, slipped back. The lightning jolted Weynala, shutting up the faery song. "I will keep them from turning the wind in their favour."

He shuffled to evade a barely visible vine that sprouted on the deck and launched itself at his feet. Tien Lyn hacked at it with a small hatchet used for cutting the ropes during boarding attempts.

Still chasing the vine, she came close to Yu, and felt the pulse that was building up within him. The smell of blood filled the air. But unlike Finch, he was unsteady and would have lost his feet when Zyed wheeled the ship about. Tien Lyn abandoned her hatchet, and caught him, wrapping her arms firmly around his waist and braced her back against the wooden planks. "I'm here."

He did not reply, but she felt the pulse grow, and it infused her with the unnatural strength he'd given her on the island. She could have probably lifted him up now, like she might have Xi.

The archers onboard the faery ship started to drop their bows, and collapse.

Sayewa rushed to the fallen men's side and sang to lift one back up, then another.

"You will have to contend with the healer." Finch kept moving, his gliding attacks following the rhythm of the long-distance duel with Weynala. Improbably, the vines and arrows aimed at him fell short every time.

Captain Zyed was struck, however. She broke off the shaft and did not stop shouting.

"Later," Tien Lyn whispered into Yu's ear whenever she smelled fresh grass and saw his head turn towards the wounded.

He whimpered and went back to his strange game against Sayewa, where Yu kept trying to disable the men ready to knock their arrows, and the faery kept them standing and shooting. The faery was winning at keeping her men up, but more and more arrows now fell short of the 'Waverunner'.

Finch screamed on top of his lungs, and a bolt of triple-pronged lightning struck the masts of the faery ship setting their sails ablaze.

"As fast as you can now, Captain Zyed," he said his voice dropping to the conversational again, as oddly neutral as ever. At least he did not add 'if it pleases you'.

"You can finish them," Tien Lyn screamed. "Burn down their ship!"

"I am not a match for Weynala yet," Finch responded evenly, "But now she has to extinguish the fires, and she is a firebrand, not a queller. It buys us time to flee."

"You can do it, I am sure you can do it!" Tien Lyn pleaded with the mage. She was not sure if she was angry with Finch or trying to boost his confidence. All she knew was that tears of frustration were stinging her eyes, and she wanted that ship and everyone onboard burn to a crisp.

"You are hurt, and I can take it away if you wish," Yu murmured into her ear, "But Sayewa is there too. She is not our enemy."

Tien Lyn pressed her burning forehead against his back and fought down her disappointment. And a pang of jealousy. She did not realize that Yu counted Sayewa among his friends.

"This pain should not be healed," she told him at last, "I want to remember, and I want to grieve. I am being reshaped by it, and I like myself better."

She let him slip away to the wounded, but kept a watch on him, prepared to intervene if anyone was put off by his abilities.

Jiang tapped her on the shoulder. "Zha Yao has gathered a fanatical following. Nobody expects fidelity from princes, but ladies are another matter. If you keep looking at the boy like that, someone might decide to take offence on Zha Yao's behalf."

Finch watched their exchange, but said nothing. He was slumped against the hull, and save for the spark in his eyes, looked lifeless.

"Whatever had possessed you to write that accursed song, Jiang..." Tien Lyn shook her head in dismay.

"Silver and rice wine," Jiang replied immediately, as if he had the answer ready. He added a sheepish smile to it. "I don't regret it either. I won't go down in history with it, but it might have earned me a place in the appendices somewhere. Say, in the accounts of the last days of the Dynasty of Clear Foresight."

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch," Tien Lyn advised. "Wo Jia still rules." But the storyteller's warning was worth heeding, and she tried to be less obvious when looking at Yu, who scurried after Captain Zyed up and down the ship.

"Not now, precious, not now!" Captain Zyed switched to Shen mid-sentence, without lowering her voice or slowing down. "I can't hear the wind with you here."

Yu threw his arms up in the air: "Your wound needs tending to and I can't do it with you running around."

The captain went right back to her native tongue shouting to her crew. She did not relent until the "Waverunner" hit the mouth of the Turbulent River, without reducing her speed. Then she crooked her finger at Yu, "Now, precious!"

By the time it was fully dark, they emerged from the side channels and went up the main one, without ever touching the banks or leaving the fast, deep center. Now they had truly escaped with their lives.

AN: Thank you for reading this far! On Friday, Shan Jiang picks up the narration, with a bit of his backstory, and an outsider's look at Tien Lyn and Yu.