The Hidden Icon by Jillian Kuhlmann

deflated my spirit in one breath. I looked down and could see the water churning underneath the warped planks.
    “Should I worry?” I was sure that if I could see them, Gannet would have quirked a brow.
    “You should exercise caution. If you must make yourself anxious to do so, then by all means, worry.”
    The response I felt his was owed died in my throat when Antares came striding down the dock, behind him the last of the soldiers who would be accompanying us and several Cascari servants. I couldn’t brood over Gannet’s words for they began to load our provisions onto the ship, and the soldiers urged us to follow. Nor could I keep my eyes on their spears when the blue unfolding before me demanded two, and both of them wide open. In the waters that lapped at the boat’s sides there was a delicacy and a play of light and foam that belied the great expanse beyond the capability of my eye to focus. I thought of the stories of sirens who lived in the deep, whose eyes bounded upon the waves to the shore and bewitched those foolish enough to gaze too longingly out to sea.
    “I should go with Han’dra Eiren.”
    “I won’t have an icon on my vessel.”
    “You won’t have a choice.”
    Gannet was arguing with the man who had greeted us, his passage to the deck where I now stood with Morainn and Triss blocked by the man’s bulk. The heat wavered over his dark clothing, but Gannet would not be dissuaded. Neither, it seemed, would the man be. If I’d felt Gannet’s will even moderately oppressive, it was nothing compared to the battle that was brewing before me.
    “I will go with Han’dra Eiren, if you are concerned for her safety.” Antares strode forward, dodging expertly between the two without seeming to slight either of them. An impressive feat, for an armored man. I could see in Gannet’s face that this would not satisfy him, but now it was Morainn who interceded.
    “We’ll be but one night and one day out, Gannet. We can manage without you.”
    Her words were cold, but I didn’t need to see her face to know that she didn’t mean them to be. Morainn’s station demanded such a response. Whatever Gannet had been about to say, he swallowed it, his face taking on the sour look of having eaten something spoilt. He turned his back on all of us and walked to the second craft to quarter with the greater portion of the soldiers. They were even less happy with this arrangement than he was, their discomfort a wave to rival those that pounded the far shore. I was surprised by the little anxiety I felt at the thought of not seeing him for a night and a day, and told myself it was because as irritating as he could be, he was the only one like me.
    Even if I didn’t like who that was.
    The vessel that carried us settled low in the water, but not so low that I did not have to stretch to plunge a finger’s depth into the waves we created as we sped forward, the sail blown back like a belly fat with feasting. The water was cold, and a chill raced from my hand down the whole length of my body. I wondered why Aleynians kept to the dry vapors of the desert when there was so much shore to house us. Did we not have tales of fishermen? Had they come from the Cascari?
    “Would you like me to take you to your quarters now, dresha ?”
    Antares hovered at Morainn’s elbow, and she waved him off, just as she had so many sand flies from her lounge on the barge.
    “Not yet. I want to see Aleyn behind us before I go below.”
    She caught my eyes when she said it, and I was sure I imagined the apology I saw there. Her mind was a tangle, or perhaps I was too distracted to see.
    There were men and women crawling over the deck, tugging at ropes and turning great gears that I could only assume contributed to the speed we gathered as we moved into deeper waters. The man who had greeted us, who must have been the captain, gestured for Morainn to come forward, and as though I were another one of her shadows, I followed Triss and Imke. But