Chapter 10
The Wind's Favor
5 Years Ago - The Sea of Ghosts
Ri'shai could feel a headache coming on. Her eyes couldn't follow the lines of the text. She felt like she was getting no closer to finishing "Dark Exchanges." She wasn't making bad progress with the tomb per say, but she imagined that she would of finished absorbing it's contents already if not for this voyage. She could hear the crashing of waves against the hull of "The Wind's Favor."
Ri'shai thought it an appropriate name for a ship as fast as this one. Though Ri'shai got all of her information concerning the boat second hand. The boat only had one room below deck, where Ri'shai had spent the majority of the voyage. The Altmer had crafted it in such a way that it could be manned by two or three men. In this case, two.
Ri'shai shouldn't of been so surprised by Tolan's knowledge of traversing the seas, but she was. The moment they had gotten onto the ship, after cleaning up the blood of course, Tolan had placed on his sailor's mask. The ship became his slave, and he became it's master.
Ri'shai eventually pieced together what had prompted the boys to wake her in the middle of the night. They had told her that they were leaving. From what Ri'shai could gather -- which was difficult to do, the dar'kir brothers never spoke much about their dirtier work -- Tolan and Faradin had murdered the ship's inhabitants. Stealing back to their hideout to grab Ri'shai, before heading back to the ship. They then boarded the ship, a stolen vessel to be sure, and used it to leave Mournehold.
The ship had several corpses on it, a few high elf men dressed in golden armor. One bosmer woman had been laying in a pool of blood in the very cabin Ri'shai sat now. She had helped scrub the deck while the dar'kir brothers reeled in the anchor. Once the ship reached the vast open ocean, Faradin simply threw the corpses overboard, their own armor causing the altmer to sink. However they tied swords around the ankle of the bosmer woman, to ensure that she found a permanent watery grave.
Ri'shai wasn't sure how she felt about the murders. It had obviously been Tolan and Faradin who executed the lot. Was she supposed to feel something? Anger? Disgust? She could honestly say she felt none of those things. She understood that sometimes hard choices had to be made. Tolan and Faradin had always shielded her from that side of their life, but she was not blind to their nocturnal activities. She knew they were killers. Faradin worst of all, she had seen the kha'jiit return home many times doused in the blood of a fallen enemy.
When Ri'shai queried where they were headed they had told her. Auridon, located on the other side of Tamriel, one of the high elven isles. Presumably to save the father of the Dar'kir. Ri'shai suspected more. She didn't think Tolan would risk his life and family to save his father. Faradin, she was sure, did not care. He didn't seem to care about much of anything.
The ship rocked again, hard. Ri'shai planted her feet, and grabbed the side of the chair to stop it from slipping. She mostly preserved her location. Ri'shai gave a heavy sigh, before lifting herself to her feet. She started toward the door, as soon as she took a single a step she heard a great crash of thunder.
Perfect. I hate the ocean.
She unlatched the lock on room's door, which was set into the floor of the deck. As soon as she opened the hatch she felt the light rain that was falling. She continued to pull herself onto the deck, spotting Tolan shouting orders to Faradin.
"Take in that Line, we have to tie down the sails!"
Faradin grunted, heaving on the rope tied to the sail mechanism. Looming in the sky ahead were great black clouds. Almost directly over the ship. Ri'shai gasped, watching the lightning dart between the behemoths above.
"By Mafala's wretched web!" Ri'shai shouted, she wasn't sure when she started calling upon the mistress, but now it felt as natural as breathing.
Tolan and Faradin spared her alarming glances while trying to tie down the sails. They managed to get one of the three magnificient white wind catchers strapped. Then Faradin grunted again, working on the next. Tolan headed to take the helm of the ship.
All at once rain began to fall in drenching torrents. The cacophony of sound rang in Ri'shai's ears, coupled with the cold water, it did little to help her splitting headache. The waves on the water were churning, growing in height, making the ship bob and weave. Ri'shai struggled to keep her balance, as waves began to splash upon the deck.
Again and again the waves crashed upon The Wind's Favor. Ri'shai had spent very little time on the ocean, but she understood storms. This storm was immense, she could see that they were heading right toward the epicenter. She turned to see Tolan struggling at the helm. He was putting his entire body weight into keep the wheel steady. His arms were trembling with pressure. He locked gaze's with Ri'shai for a moment.
"Get Be-" Tolan continued to shout but the crashing waves cut off his plea.
Ri'shai turned to see Faradin, his back was turned to her, he was rapidly trying to latch down the last of the sails. Ri'shai looked toward the Storms. It was going to get worse. She wanted to go below deck. She wanted to hide. She wanted to be back in the wardrobe. Even with the pain, even with the fear, even with the hunger.
She could feel the fear swelling again. Was she still that little girl? Was she still a captured beast, hardly worth her fur. She had been drowning her whole life. It was her soul, not her dress that was drenched this moment.
Faradin noticed her presence on the deck, curtly pointing toward the entrance to the inner ship.
"Go!" Faradin said. Pain wracking his face.
Maybe that isn't pain, maybe that is concern. She realized Faradin was scared for her. He wanted her to be safe. Then she remembered the last year, how these two kha'jiit had kept her sheltered. Safe from harm. Safe from the harsh truths of Mournhold. Safe from their true identities. They were killers, and Ri'shai loved them both. Ri'shai would protect them.
Ri'shai turned toward the epicenter. It was coming quickly. She felt the waves pummel, and crash upon the hull. She could hear the groaning of the ship itself. She had a sick intuition that the ship would shatter if they withstood the storm much longer.
She struggled to stand on the deck of the ship. Rain was sloshing across the deck. She lifted her hands high. She was a master of storm calling. If she could call a storm, could she not repel it? She pulled upon the sky. Grasping for a tendril of the clouds above. She wove her magic toward the clouds above. Feeling for the heart of the storm.
The storm was building, it was growing, churning like a machine. She grasped the heart in her magic. She pulled. Pulled as hard as she could. It would not budge. It would not answer her call. It was if she only hard a string of yarn to pull an entire wardrobe. She kept grasping but her line was breaking.
Determined. She closed her eyes. She was dimly aware of Faradin and Tolan's screams, but it was caught up in the torrent of the storm. She pulled in the wind. Feeling her feet leave the hull of the ship as a great gust picked her up into the sky. She channeled all of her will, all of her pain, all of her love, and all of the storm. She ascended higher into the sky. She was barely aware of the ship hundred of feet below. She could feel the storm rushing into her. Filling her with power.
Lightning crashed into her body. A thousand lightning strikes, infusing her flesh. Making her cry out from the heat. She thought her body, her vessel, it was breaking. It was too much. too much power. Too much magic. She stretched out her hand. Shooting Storm magic about the sky. Pillars of lightning began floating all around her. The lightning began to strike the pillars, diffusing the storm's blast.
She gathered the tempest, all of the wind in the sky. Even the gust holding her aloft into the sky she channeled. She realized she was screaming out her life. She brought more of the power into herself. Pulling upon her own storm pillars to channel. The natural power of the storm flowed through her very veins. She continued to cry out.
The pain... It does not matter. She tried to focus, tried to stay conscious from the onslaught of lightning crashing all about her in the sky. The tempest enveloped her. She let it go. Let it go in a single heart wrenching push. She pushed upon the storm itself. It wouldn't budge. Instead, she was pushed away from the storm. The drenching rainfall abated slightly as she was thrown away from heavy black storm clouds. She looked back to the ship, from her perch in the sky, her storm pillars were keeping the lightning from striking the small vessel.
She cried out in frustration and anger. She began to channel the tempest to buffet her back. It was as if she was now leaning against a wall of wind. Using the wind-wall as an anchor. She gathered more power from the storm-pillars. Some of them dissipating in the process.
She channeled a great gust in her hands before her. In one great soul-breaking push, she released the gust upon the storm ahead. Maphala, let me save my family, let me save my saviors. She felt something in her break, as the storm began to move. Slowly at first - she was losing consciousness - Then more quickly.
She felt power flow from her in great tempests. Wave after wave of unstoppable gusts. She expended every ounce of power in her veins. The tempest around her calmed. She vaguely felt herself falling through the air as blackness took her.
