Free Across the Long Sea by Sarah Remy

come with the title,” Mal said. “And now there are seven.”
    His mother shrugged and lifted her pointed chin, a gesture he recognized as his own. She’d shed her seaman’s garbed and donned instead the black robes of mourning. Her feet were bare, her hair brushed out over her shoulders, curls shining in the light off her bedroom hearth.
    She took the circlet in two hands, studied the twist of wire and sculpted silver flowers with indifference. It reminded him, absurdly, of Liam’s flower crown. He wondered if the boy had snatched another kiss for the keeping of that treasure.
    â€œThe lasses weave crowns every season after bloom,” his mother said. Mal wondered, not for the first time, whether he’d inherited some of his magics from his mam’s line. She had an uncanny talent for reading mind and heart.
    But she’d always matched the Selkirk handily on the water, so perhaps not.
    â€œIt’s a difficult thing to do,” she continued. “With all the thorns.”
    Mal took the circlet from her hands. It was heavier than he thought, the silver tarnished around the rose petals, worn smooth in places. There were indeed thorns, tiny nubs etched into the vines.
    She didn’t move when he set it on her head. Then she sighed, a long gust of resignation and sorrow.
    â€œI know.” Mal also wore the black of mourning; the vocent’s color, if not the vocent’s uniform, and he felt more himself. “It was supposed to be Father’s forever. And if not forever, then Rowan. You know better than I; nothing ever goes as planned.
    Lady Selkirk glanced at the ring on his finger, but said nothing.
    â€œIt looks well on you,” Mal said. “If you can’t wear it with joy, wear it with pride.”
    She took his hand, then, surprising Mal when she pressed his palm to her dry lips. Then she sighed again.
    â€œThe sails are up. Joseph will be waiting, and the rest,” she said. “Shall we go?”
    He nodded, and set his hand on her forearm, and she let him lead her into the dusk.
    A BONFIRE BURNED at the center of the bailey, sweet grass gathered and bolstered with dried driftwood, then lit by flame carried across the courtyard from the temple brazier. The wind had died to a soft breeze; for once the howl of spring against Selkirk’s walls was silenced.
    Smoke rose from the bonfire in lazy flags, breaking apart just above the battlements, joining purple clouds overhead. Biaz and Brother Josef stood together against the fire, somber in their own mourning kit, a shawl emblazoned with the rose across the priest’s stooped shoulders.
    Seamen and merchants alike were come up from the pier to join the keep’s inhabitants. They stood in a loose crowd, waiting, ragged and uneasy, most displaying sincere expressions of grief. Cook and her pantry maids hovered in a knot. The older woman wept openly while her lasses eyed up the youngest sailors.
    Selkirk’s guard stood on the battlements, ringing the courtyard, faces turned to the fire, backs set to the sea.
    â€œIs he here?” Lady Selkirk asked, low.
    Mal glanced around the bailey and along the battlements, sorting the faces of the still living from the faces of the dead.
    â€œHe’s not.”
    â€œI didn’t think so. He was a coward at the end, whittled to nothing by pain and fear.”
    Mal, who couldn’t imagine his father less than imposing, found he had no reassurances to give.
    â€œRed sky,” his mother said, the fishwives’ prediction, then she shrugged off Mal’s hand and strode forward to meet the priest. Past the battlements the setting sun had indeed turned the clouds from purple to scarlet and orange.
    â€œWhat’s it mean?” Liam detached himself from the shadow of the stables, Jacob crouched on his shoulder like a bony growth.
    â€œRed sky in morning, sailors take warning,” Mal quoted. “Red sky at night, sailors delight.