answer.
Below deck, she knew others were in mourning, asking themselves the same questions in teary curses. Their presence was the reason she stood away from them, atop the upper deck, far removed from the humans.
Her belly muttered hungrily.
That was reason enough to be away from them.
None of them would even be able to comprehend hunger at such a time, all choked on emotion and tears they dared not share, just as she was unable to comprehend their grief. No matter how often she attempted to place herself in their position, to understand the people they had lost, the same thought returned to her.
Dozens of humans had died, of course, but only dozens of humans. The world had thousands to spare. Even those who survived the day would likely last only a few more years after. What made these few so special? What if they had been shicts?
She shook her head; they hadn’t been shicts, of course. If they were, she would likely feel otherwise. The fact that they were human, weak, close-minded, prone to death, prevented her from feeling anything else.
Once again, her gaze drifted to Lenk, also human.
The young sailor and Lenk: both human, their differences too trivial to note. Why was it, then, that one made her think of food, while she could not tear her gaze away from the other?
‘Are we so fascinating?’
Kataria turned at the voice, regarding her new company quietly. A tall, black-haired woman stood at the railing beside her, polishing a bright red apple on the chest of her toga. Quillian had discarded her armour, her flesh no more yielding than the bronze she had worn. All the skin exposed was as white as the garment she wore, save for one patch of crimson at her flank.
Oaths, Kataria noted. In bright red script, the Serrant wore her profession, the condemnation that kept her from the very priesthood she protected. Her sins, her crimes were scrawled from her armpit to her waist in angry, mocking tattoos.
Kataria averted her eyes; given the nature of the brand, she thought it would likely be considered rude to stare. Such a thing wouldn’t normally concern her, but she simply had nothing left in her to fight with.
If Quillian had noticed her stare, she didn’t reveal it. Instead, she took a bite of her fruit and, chewing noisily, produced another, offered it to the shict.
Kataria lofted a brow. ‘You think enough of me now to offer food?’
‘No.’ The Serrant didn’t bother to swallow before answering. ‘But I thought to spare these brave men the indignity of hearing your belly rumble.’ She followed the shict’s stare to the young man below. ‘You two are lovers?’
Kataria’s ears flattened against her head and her scowl raked the woman. ‘Are you stupid?’
The Serrant shrugged. ‘It would have been the first I’ve heard of such a thing. Given your mutual lack of morality, however, it wouldn’t surprise me. I know of no adventurer who looks at her boss that way.’
‘Lenk isn’t my “boss”.’
‘I thought briefly about using the term “commander”, but I thought you’d be too unaccustomed to proper terms to recognise it.’
‘He’s my friend.’
‘So you say.’
Quillian’s chewing filled the air as she stared out, dispassionate.
‘You don’t have anyone you worry about?’ Kataria asked.
‘I forsook the privilege of worry when I earned this.’ She ran a hand down her tattooed flank. ‘Those who fight alongside a Serrant can take care of themselves. From the way your “friend and leader” fought today, I’d say he can more than take care of himself, too. Even if he was an idiot when he charged that . . . thing.’
‘He’s not an idiot,’ Kataria snarled. ‘He was trying to protect everyone, you included.’
‘The only one I need protecting from,’ she narrowed her eyes upon the shict, ‘is the one right before me.’
Kataria resisted the urge to retort. There was no need for it now.
‘I’m not calling him anything more than a good killer,’ Quillian continued with a sneer. ‘He and that dragonman charged a creature that, by all rights, shouldn’t exist.’
‘Lenk is different from other humans. He doesn’t think like you.’
‘While I’m thrilled to see a shict stoop so low as to think so highly of a human, I feel compelled to ask . . . how does he think?’
Kataria shook her head; she didn’t know the answer herself. She knew the man well enough to know his patterns, as she knew those of a wolf or a stag. She knew his likes, dislikes, that he wrote in a