Chương 206: 29. You Haven't Asked

The rest of the meeting mostly consists of the elders discussing the details amongst themselves, but I can tell that they like the plan. Even as the talks come to a close and they start to file out, they are already talking about strategies to get the most out of every party involved—the Shaa family, the Empire, and even the Blessed Lands. It reeks of war profiteering and leaves a rotten taste in my mouth, but I stay silent about it.

If that's their way out of the mess we put them in, then who am I to complain about it? Before I can join Talla and the others to return to our own quarters and plan whatever comes next, Jira gestures for me to stay behind. I tell them I'll catch up and until we're alone to speak.

"Yes, captain?" Jira smirks and shakes her head.

"It's cute, the way you try to be so rigid and polite. Just be careful not to turn the legacy you carry into a mockery." I purse my lips and suppress an irritable huff.

"I don't think that's what you kept me here for."

"No, just the meddling of a nosey old woman," she replies shamelessly.

"You did well today. The waters were turbulent and shallow, but you navigated them deftly as any seasoned captain."

"It doesn't feel like a success," I admit. She sighs as she pours herself a cup of wine.

"Hard choices seldom do. Sometimes, the best we can hope for is to avoid failure, or at least fall with grace." Jira holds the jug tentatively over another empty glass and shoots me a questioning glance. I hesitate, recalling that Fa'aun consider it rude to refuse hospitality. She may not care for formality, but she can be quite traditional in her own ways. Ultimately, I still shake my head—Allie's already been indulging enough for one day.

"How many people are going to suffer from this decision?" I ask.

"I've paid my debt to you and your tribe, but I fear what it's going to cost."

"A few less, perhaps," she suggests.

"It wasn't entirely your choice anyway, was it? No one person steers the Great Wheel alone—save the Goddess herself. By trying to bear the entire weight of the world on your shoulders, you put yourself in her place." I shrink back from the admonishment.

"Maybe not, but my word still changed the fates of hundreds, maybe thousands of people." Probably a lot more than that, but I feel like I'll be sick if I admit it out loud.

"It's not the first time," Jira retorts.

"I doubt it will be the last. You are a stranger wherever you go, but you also carry an air of mystique. You have wisdom beyond your years, and a knack for catching the attention of those you speak to. Beyond that... you've started to see them, haven't you? The currents?" The way she says it makes me think she's not talking about the sea.

"I'm not sure what you mean," I admit.

"The way ahead," she says.

"The obstacles in your path, and the ways around them. It's a rare talent, but one can always recognize their own ilk."

"You mean the future," I realize.

"Augury or divination. I do have a spell like that, but I couldn't make any sense of it when I tried." She grunts in acknowledgement.

"Most can't. It takes more than skills or magic to understand fate. But that meeting had the taste of it in the breeze. The current was too far from my own to see for myself, but I felt your wake." Jira's losing me a bit with all the sea metaphors, but I think I get what she means.

"Allie had a sort of," I pause, searching for the word in Fa'aun.

"Revelation, I think? There's a logic to it, but she insists that the idea came first. She thinks we need to go to the Blessed Lands, to do something there, but she doesn't know what." Stop the war? I don't think we could even if we tried. Warn them? Prepare them? Whatever "destiny," if such a thing exists, awaits us there, I can't think of what it might be.

"Mm, no sense trying to steer around the rocks before they're in sight," Jira muses, taking a sip of her wine.

"If that's how the currents of your fate flow, then it behooves you to chart a course before worrying about what to do when you land." I spend another embarrassingly long time trying to pick apart her metaphors before sighing with frustration.

"You mean literally, don't you?" She barks out a sharp laugh.

"Hah! Took you a moment, did it? You haven't asked yet." I purse my lips.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Asked what?"

"An old lady has to find her fun somehow," she replies innocently.

"You haven't asked me to carry you across the sea."

"Who says I was going to?" I ask, crossing my arms. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. She grins and offers me a shrug.

"Perhaps I asked a fortune teller." It's hard to figure her out. Why am I even the one having this conversation instead of Allison? Is this her way of punishing me for letting Shaa win here? I can tell she's still upset about it.

"We've asked enough of you," I sigh, rubbing my temple.

"If Maari hadn't introduced us, we'd be dead a dozen times over. Honestly, it's almost enough to make up for the fact she ended up betraying us."

"She didn't." Jira startles me with the sharp retort.

"I know you respect her," I hedge, "but her testimony claimed that Draga murdered officers of the inquisition, which has to be a lie." She shakes her head.

"You only know what her mother twisted her words into. I vouch for Maari Shaa Baanu. I would not have accepted her request if I didn't trust her, and I wouldn't accept yours if I didn't trust you, even if you still haven't asked."

"We can't!" I insist.

"Not when your tribe needs you here. We've barely settled the debt as it is." Jira scoffs.

"What debt? Who ever said you owe me anything?"

"The elders—""Are they here?" she asks sarcastically.

"Because I thought this was a conversation between Jira Faa Degala and Maev Violet. Shall I call them back?"

"Your ship needs to be maintained," I press.

"Your crew paid and fed, your tribe provided for—now more than ever! I'm grateful for all you've done, but you can't afford charity right now." She laughs.

"I've offered nothing—least of all charity. You speak of debt and cost, as though you've weighed the scales and made my decision for me. What do you need, Vi? And how can I help you attain it?" I draw my knees up to my chest, feeling oddly defeated. Why am I even arguing about this?

"It doesn't matter," I mutter.

"We owe too many people too much." Some of those debts can never be repaid—their costs too heavy to even consider aside from when Allie recites a list that concludes with an unknown number of Fa'aun aboard a burning ship.

"You owe me nothing, Maev, for true friends do not count cost or balance favors," she sighs.

"Do you know how I am so certain that Lady Maari did not betray you?" I glance up curiously.

"You said you trusted her."

"That is why I believe," she replies, "but not how I know. It's not mere passage that she bargained for you. You'd been attacked once already, right under her nose and while under her aegis. She charged me to ensure it did not happen again. To shelter you, if need be." I blink.

"Wait, that's why you invited us to leave the city with you?" Jira waves me off dismissively.

"One of many. I saw that you were adrift, carried by dangerous currents. She did too, in her own way, and both of us knew that the payment she offered was not enough to match the request."

"But you accepted anyway."

"I did," she agrees, finishing her cup and casually pouring another.

"Because she is a trusted friend—one of mine. And thus, by her request, so are you. One of mine. Crew, friend, family, tribe—what does the nature of the connection matter, beyond that it is so? Let the old women in the cities, squabbling over scepters and blood, worry about that. Yet, it seems that my trust is not returned." Hesitating, I glance to the side, feeling slightly ashamed.

"Allie trusts you."

"Allison trusts everyone she meets, until they give her reason to do otherwise," she says patiently.

"But unless you've switched without me realizing, it's not her I address." I hug my knees tighter and sigh.

"It's not that I don't believe you. I'm sure you care about us, but how much? Is a promise to a friend worth more than your ship? Your tribe? Your granddaughter? They need you more than I do, and they are more important." Jira cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Do they? I have spent less time in these lands than nearly anyone living here. Remi has managed just fine without me so far, and I expect she will do so long after I return to the Goddess' embrace."

"That's different," I insist, shaking my head.

"You're in a crisis, right now."

"And you aren't?" she retorts.

"There hasn't been a moment since we met when you weren't in grave danger. Lost in an unfamiliar world, with nothing to your name and nowhere to go. Your crisis is one without end."

"We'll manage," I sigh.

"We always do."

"You don't need to do so alone."

"We aren't," I assure her.

"And not just because we never are. Talla is with us, and while I'm still not sure why they came along, we've got Msshi and Fargo too."

"Indeed?" she says, as if surprised.

"And none of them have families or obligations that they might put before you?" I furrow my brow. Of course they do. Msshi has a partner back home, Talla is the heiress to a noble family, and Fargo... Okay, Fargo might actually be a vagrant with nothing to tie him down, but he's the exception. In a way, I actually understand him best out of all our companions. He's here because we're strange and novel, and following us lets him sate his thirst for adventure and discovery.

"I suppose they do," I admit.

"But even Talla isn't the matriarch of her family yet. It's just not the same." She nods sagely.

"Indeed it isn't. For I am no matriarch. I am the chieftain of my tribe, and the captain of my ship. You presume much, Vi, and still— still— you do not ask." I rub my temples and groan. She's really not going to let this go until I relent, is she?

"Fine!" I huff.

"Jira, can you get us a ship to the Blessed Lands? We have to leave and have nowhere else to go."

"Oh, is that all?" she asks, a mischievous grin spreading across her face.

"You can just join mine—I'm going there anyway." I level my most unimpressed glare on her, but she only laughs.

"What was the point of all that?" I huff.

"A lesson, of course," she replies.

"Which would be what?" She shrugs.

"That's for you to learn, not for me to tell. Come along, now—we've got a long journey to prepare for, and I won't have a member of my crew slacking." Jira sweeps out of the room, dragging me along in her wake, and I'm left with the disconcerting feeling that I've been tricked into something without any idea what.