Free Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) by Will Wight Page A

it. She could have hidden a pet dog under her hat, and she kept one hand resting on her cutlass as though she meant to draw at the slightest provocation.
    Only in the smallest, most important ways was she different. She didn’t wear a smile when she thought no one was looking, she moved more carefully, and she waited before beginning the conversation. Usually, she treated every exchange like a competition.
    “Guild Head,” Calder said, when the silence had become too much.
    “Calder.” The pause stretched longer, and for the first time, Calder got the uncomfortable impression that she didn’t know what to say. “I’ll be able to fix her, given time. If it takes half a forest’s worth of time and I have to go in debt to an alchemist, I’ll get it done.”
    “You won’t shake the Reader’s burn for months.” It was an observation that meant nothing, a non-statement, simply to give her time to say whatever she needed to say.
    “She’s worth it. I called her eternal for a reason, and I won’t give up on her until we both go down to Kelarac.” Even when talking about the Emperor and the future of the Empire, Cheska had never looked so serious.
    He gave her a grin she was supposed to share. “I wouldn’t recognize you if you gave up. You wouldn’t be the Head of the Navigator’s Guild, that’s for certain.”
    “I was out during the crash, you know. Hit my head or took too much of a shock when The Eternal was ripped apart, I don’t know. But when I woke up, all I could think was, ‘I lost my ship. I lost my ship. What kind of a captain loses her ship?’
    “Then I saw your monster, and he had it. You kept it safe for me. That’s...that was more than I expected. More than I had any right to expect.”
    Cheska was uncharacteristically somber, so he matched her tone. “I can only imagine what it would be like. If it was The Testament, I couldn’t have left it there. How could I do less for you?”
    She moved so that her hat shaded her face. Which, given that the hat was bigger than her head, didn’t take much. “Just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you did. It’ll take a while to get back up and running, but once we are...well, you just let me know what you need. I wouldn’t be on the water if it weren’t for you.”
    “I’ll hold you to that,” he said. She would feel more comfortable if she owed him.
    She thumped him on the back with a fist, a little harder than necessary. “Keep it up, and I might decide you’re not such a bad fit for the job.” When he realized what she meant, he smiled all the way into Candle Bay.
    Then they went ashore, and his pleasant mood stayed behind.
    They were ambushed almost as soon as their feet hit dry land. Not because of anything he’d done, but because of his companions: three Guild Heads would certainly make a stir in the Capital. Cheska and Teach were swallowed up by a crowd of citizens pleading, demanding, or explaining one thing or another. Calder couldn’t understand what they were so excited about, but he took the opportunity to gather his crew. “A forgotten man is invisible,” as Loreli once put it. With the people focused on the Guild Heads, he brought Andel, Foster, and even Petal together and started uphill toward the Imperial Palace. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to lose track of the crew.
    He’d only taken a few steps when he noticed the one Guild Head who wasn’t surrounded by a flock of petitioners. Bliss stood in the middle of the pack, frowning at a brown leaf she pinched between two fingers. People avoided her as though someone had traced an invisible ten-foot barrier around her.
    Calder broke that barrier as if he hadn’t noticed, though his crew stayed back with the crowd. Cowards or sages, he wasn’t sure which.
    “I’m needed urgently at the palace,” Bliss said, in a voice that was anything but urgent. “But I need the Imperial Guard to admit me, which requires Jarelys Teach. And Teach is being distracted.