Page 37 (1/2)

Prologue

Nothing could co tens of feet in the air—fresh sea air in your face—while looking across an infinite plane of shi blue water The vast ocean was an open roadway An individual invitation to explore

People feared the sea, but Yalb had never understood that The sea was so open, so welco Pay her a little respect, and she would carry you anywhere you wished to go She’d even feed you along the way and lull you to sleep with her songs at night

He took a deep, full breath—tasting the salt, watching windspren dance past—and grinned ear to ear Yes, nothing could compare to these uywell, that did come close

Dok clung to the rigging with the tight grip of a man who didn’t want to fall—rather than the loose control of one who kneouldn’t The felloas competent, for an Alethi Most of them never set foot on ships except to cross particularly wide ponds This guy, however, not only knew his port froiti himself

But he held on too tightly And he grabbed the rail when the ship swayed And he had fallen seasick on the third day So while Dok was close to being a real sailor, he wasn’t quite there And since Yalban eye on new sailors these days, it fell to hi If the Alethi queen wantedtraditions, they’d need to learn this part too It was educational

“There!” Yalb said, leaning out and pointing with one hand as he swayed in the breeze “You see it?”

“Where?” Dok cli the horizon

“Right there!” Yalb pointed again “Big spren, eht reflects”

“No,” Dok said

“Huh It’s right there, Dok Enormous sailorspren Guess you ain’t—”

“Wait!” Dok shaded his eyes “I see it!”

“Really?” Yalb said “What does it look like?”

“A vast yellow spren?” Dok said “Rising out of the water? It has big tentacles, waving in the air Andand a bright red stripe on its back”

“Well toss me overboard and call uess you are a real sailor! You win the bet, then”

Of course, they’dwhen they’d discussed these supposed “sailorspren,” so he knehat description to give Yalb fished a few chips fros to facilitate Dok’s playing along more and more He’d see manifestations of the “sailorspren” everywhere until—after putting a huge bet on the table that he could catch one—it was revealed that there was no such thing as a sailorspren, and everyone would have a big laugh

Way Yalb saw it, if a felloas naive enough to get pranked, then he’d lose all his spheres eventually Why not lose them to mates? Besides, they’d keep the spheres to buy everyone—Dok included—rounds on shore leave After all, once you got your mates drunk, that hen you becah, ht yellow spren with tentacles

Dok settled into the rigging “Is it true you sank once, Yalb?”

“The ship sank,” Yalb said “I merely happened to be a resident thereon”

“Not what I heard,” Dok said, his voice lightly spiced with an Alethi accent “Didn’t you tell people the whole stor ship vanished underneath you?”

“Yeah, well, I sed half the ocean before someone fished me out,” Yalb said “I wasn’t exactly a reliable witness at that point, was I?”

And he’d find the sailor as repeating that story, then sew his haht the Wind’s Pleasure had gone down It had been a good ship, with a better crew Of them, only three had survived