telekinetics,” she suggested. “Mind magic would be useful too. That can be more powerful even than fire. Fire can make a man run away and scream. Ideas can make him turn his entire army in another direction.”
Mind magic. She meant manipulation. Yanko could see throwing the image of flames into a captor’s mind for self-defense purposes, but he did not care for the idea of manipulating people to do as he wished. He supposed that in some circumstances, it would be better than incinerating someone. “I could stand to improve my telekinetics skills. You said that was one of your specialties?”
“Much more than telepathy and mind-to-mind skills, yes.” She nodded toward the waves. “I need to see where you are. Lift that kelp up and plop it on the deck.”
“Kelp? You trying to get the cook to pull out a new recipe?” Gramon asked, walking back over, a spyglass in his hand. He tilted his head, silently requesting a word with Pey Lu.
“I’ve heard Turgonians will eat anything.”
“Only soldiers, and only if it comes out of a package labeled Military Rations.”
“Such standards.” Pey Lu followed him away, stopping at the railing outside of earshot for Yanko.
The big Turgonian waved behind them with the spyglass, then offered it to her. She shook her head, merely gazing in the direction he had pointed, her eyes closing to slits.
Yanko wrangled the kelp bed with his mind, pulling it after the ship so he wouldn’t lose it, but he also tried to find what Gramon was pointing out. The sea rose and fell, and he didn’t have the view he would have from the crow’s nest, but he had been practicing his magic back here by the railing for the last two hours. If a ship were behind them, he should have seen it. The only ships in sight were the ones flanking the Prey Stalker, other vessels in his mother’s fleet. A pod of whales cruised past in the distance, shooting water from their blowholes. An impressive sight, but he doubted it was what Gramon had pulled Pey Lu aside to discuss.
Yanko shifted his attention slightly, watching the pair with his peripheral vision. He wouldn’t dare try to poke into his mother’s thoughts—even if she had admitted that mind magic was not a specialty of hers, she would surely feel a telepathic intrusion, especially from someone as inexperienced as he. But Gramon? Yanko doubted he’d had Dak’s training at turning aside magical attacks.
He frowned down at the kelp, hoping his mother would think his concentration was focused on the task she’d assigned if she looked over, but he tried to hear the Turgonian’s thoughts, the way he could hear an animal’s thoughts. He didn’t pry in; he just cupped his senses around the man’s head, like a mitt prepared to catch a ball.
An image of an underwater boat came to him. Yanko’s breath caught. Were Dak, Arayevo, and Lakeo following after them? If the craft was deep enough, that could explain why he hadn’t sensed it. Maybe it had surfaced long enough to ensure it was following the fleet and Gramon had glimpsed it then, that periscope popping briefly above the water.
When Yanko stretched out with his senses again, he directed them below the surface of the water. There, at the edge of his range, he detected the cylindrical metal craft, fish and octopuses swimming away from it in alarm. He tried to get a feel for the auras within, wanting to know if Dak and the others were there, or if this was another Kyattese vessel, sent to find the lodestone. The Kyattese presence on that island suggested that even if his mother had spoken truly, that their government was willing to pay her for retrieving it, the Kyattese would prefer to recover it themselves. To avoid the steep payment? Or to avoid being beholden to an infamous pirate?
Despite repeated attempts to sense the occupants, they were too far away for him to identify, and too much other life filled the ocean, nearly overloading his mind. It was unfortunate, because he wanted to assure Dak that he was all right, at least for the moment, and let him know that he and the others should focus on getting to the island ahead of the pirates. If they had the journal, they should know as much as Pey Lu did, and if they could get there first...
“Then the Turgonians get the rock,” he muttered to himself, realizing what he was hoping for. Should