The next few days were focused on more of the same. It was a mixture of relaxing, finally allowing themselves to unwind and not feel like the world was going to end, and practice. Sparring and working out were the main focuses, with Aren acting as an impressive slave driver.

Perhaps unfortunate wording, but regardless.

Several hours every day was focused on cardio. That meant lots of running and lots of ‘steps’. The latter was supposed to help as much with muscle memory as with stamina, but Liora still had her doubts. She didn’t care enough to argue, but she certainly didn’t like it. At least it got more complicated. Aren taught them several new counters beyond simply turning away the initial punch, and they even moved into techniques that involved throwing the opponent.

That much, at the least, seemed useful to Liora. She’d been tossed around and pinned too many times already in the short span of adventuring she’d participated in, and she was rapidly growing sick of it. As it turned out, unfortunately, she wasn’t actually that good at stopping it.

Evie flipped Liora up into the air, bringing her down hard onto the deck. If there hadn’t been a thin layer of umbral silk, generously supplied by Aren, to help dampen the fall, it might have seriously injured the girl. Evie wasn’t very good at being gentle.

“Sorry about that,” the former pit fighter winced.

“It’s okay,” Liora grunted. She lay on the deck, basking in her defeat. “Maybe just, not quite so hard next time?”

“The enemy won’t go easy on you,” Aren admonished. “If anything, young Evelyn is being too nice.”

“Beating the knowledge out of my head before it can sink in isn’t going to help, Aren,” Liora growled.

“A fair point,” Aren conceded. “Which is why I encourage her to continue using exactly this much force. A nice balance.”

Evie helped Liora to her feet, offering her an apologetic shrug. She then proceeded to knock her right back to the ground.

All throughout the exercises, Aren seemed tense. Liora was beginning to understand, and accept, how intensely Aren was committed to keeping the twins safe. As severe as the woman was, she wasn’t truly a sadist. She’d never enjoyed being mean to Liora, but she’d truly felt it was important to do so to keep her safe.

It occurred to Liora that the training, as dramatic as it seemed to her, probably wouldn’t help nearly as much as Aren wanted. They only had a week, after all. There was only so much they could do, and Aren was probably compensating by pushing them harder than she otherwise might have.

When Liora realized that, she just grit her teeth and sighed. The least she could do was put in the same amount of effort. So she rolled over, got to her feet, and prepared for Evie to knock her down again.

Physical practice wasn’t the only way the youth were trained aboard the ship. When they weren’t focused on strengthening their bodies, both Cade and Liora spent time with their protectors learning more in the way of sculpting. For Cade that meant yet more time with Aren, and Liora had never been happier to have zero access to void magic. The relationship between the two may have been slowly improving, but it wasn’t at the point where Liora was eager to spend every hour of the day with her.

Instead, Liora spent her time in the bridge cabin with Louis. The pilot could apparently set the ship to an automated function, locking the wheel in place and telling it to simply go forward without need of further input.

“Can’t really get too far away,” he explained. “Sudden gust of wind or something and she’ll need righting again. But there’s fairly little to get in our way out here, and we’re going in a straight line. Long as I’m paying attention, we’ll be fine.”

The actual practice they did was both simple and, if Liora was willing to admit it, fun. When it came to sculpting arc, the only thing she had immediately to work on was consistency and speed. She wanted to get faster, and she wanted to be able to control it without potentially face planting into a wall.

“Again,” Louis added dryly.

To that end, they set up a fairly simple test. Louis would hold out a rock while standing on the other side of the room, and Liora would try to run over and get it. Of course he could move to, and the fact that he was an expert with arc and had a lot more practice with it meant her odds of grabbing the stone were slim. But it was still fun to try.

The first few times Liora had tried, Louis basically taunted her. He’d kept the rock in plain view, barely holding it between two fingers. When she came rocketing in, trying to reach out and grab it from him, he would simply step to the side. A subtle move, but fast enough that she couldn’t change her path and intercept him.

On the one hand, it was frustrating to see him so casually dismiss her attempts. Liora was trying with everything she had, unlike the level of effort she admittedly put into Aren’s training. But Louis was basically ignoring her. The man was fast enough that it didn’t seem to even require effort on his part.

At the same time, as her first few attempts spiraled into her first few dozen, she began to notice improvements. Running with arc was all about chasing the lightning, as Liora began to think of it. Lightning moved faster than was remotely possible by human beings, but if you could follow after it you could get moving fast enough that people had a hard time tracking you.

Suddenly Louis wasn’t easily sidestepping her. The evasion on his part became quicker, smaller. He’d lean away and turn to avoid her, sometimes even simply close his hand. It didn’t entirely seem fair to Liora, since she didn’t know that she’d ever be fast enough to grab the rock before his fingers could curl. But it also meant she was getting better, and that made her unreasonably pleased with herself.

“What kind of incarnum does arc have?” she asked eventually, after they’d decided to take a break. “Voids use umbral silk all the time, and rages can pull out blightsteel in tense moments. I’ve even used brightglass to save my life on a few occasions. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you create incarnum. I don’t even know what it would look like for arc.”

“Well,” Louis began slowly, adjusting the controls on the console. “There’s actually a couple of very good reasons for that. First off, because voltaic thread is invisible. Well, not invisible so much as it is translucent. Most people can’t see it, but if you can channel arc energy you can make out the outlines of it.”

“Thread,” Liora repeated. “Like the umbral silk? Is it similar?”

“Not even a little bit,” he chuckled. “Umbral silk basically is actual silk. It functions pretty much the same way and you can weave it into things on the fly just like you would with actual silk. Voltaic thread on the other hand is basically just a fancy name. Lightning tentacles wasn’t really pithy enough, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. Lightning tentacles?”

“Yeah, that’s basically what it is. Arc’s can create incarnum in the form of tendrils that extend out of their hands. Usually only a couple feet long. They’re made of pure static charge, electrical energy shaped and shifted into what amounts to a tentacle of pure force. They can use it to pick things up from slightly farther away. You can think of them as weak, invisible hands that are longer than normal hands.”

“That sounds useful, all things considered.”

“It is. They are. Not exactly the spectacular combat applicative magic most people think of and hope for, but the threads certainly have their uses. Makes it harder to keep arcs imprisoned. Helps with pickpocketing too.”

“I still haven’t seen you use them,” Liora pointed out. “Obviously I wouldn’t have seen them for a while after we met, but I’m an arc now. I have seen anything like that.”

“That’s because sculpting arc incarnum is actually a very rare talent. All incarnum is, after a fashion, but it’s even more true for arc. Being able to tap into one of the five sources does not mean you’ll be able to use that source’s incarnum. On one end of the spectrum you have constructs. In their case, all of them can make puresilver. It’s an important element of their craft. Next you have voids, and most of them can make umbral silk. After that is rages, and probably two-thirds are able to make blightsteel. Radiants that can make brightglass are less common than you’d think. And last arcs, who almost universally can’t make voltaic thread. Maybe one in twenty actually can. Sadly, I am not one of them.”

“That is kind of sad,” Liora frowned. “I thought that was just another element to the magic. But you’re locked out of it.”

“It’s not that bad,” Louis smiled. “Like I said, voltaic thread isn’t exactly the most overtly useful. And besides, I make up for it with speed and grace.”

“And shooting electricity,” Liora chuckled.

“That’s also slightly rarer than you might think,” Louis pointed out. “But I guess you being a prodigy is going to be par for the course when it comes to magic.”

“Wait until I get void,” Liora smiled. “I’ll be able to pull off a whole shadow in the night vibe. Blasting tendrils of darkness to envelop my foes!”

“Well you certainly get points for enthusiasm,” Louis shook his head. “And optimism, for that matter. You know most people don’t get more sources after their first one or two. For that matter, pretty much nobody gets more than two.”

“Maybe. I’m just in a good mood lately..”

“Maybe you’re starting to accept your parentage.”

“No, definitely not that,” Liora shook her head.

“Why are you so against the idea?” Louis asked, waving his hand.

Liora didn’t answer right away. She didn’t answer at all. Instead, she lunged forward. Lighting raced ahead of her, forcefully enough that the lights in the room even flickered. Her hand stretched out in front of her, fingers splayed as she reached out for the stone Louis idly held in his hand.

Louis’ thumb flicked, straightening so quickly the rock launched out of his hand and across the room. Liora stopped short, whipping her head around to try and track the stone. It ricocheted off the ceiling before continuing, landing squarely in the palm of Louis’ hand as he casually stood on the other side of the room.

Scrunching up her face in confusion, Liora spun in place trying to figure out how the man had gotten across the room so quickly.

“How the hell did you do that?” Liora shouted in frustration. “I thought I was getting better, but you were just holding back!”

“I wasn’t so much holding back,” Louis laughed. He made a point to toss her the stone, which she caught despite her anger. “You did quite well. I had to push myself more than usual. It’s like the difference between running and sprinting.”

“Regardless!” Liora huffed. “That’s cheating.”

Louis raised an eyebrow. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

“Starting to sound a lot like a princess,” Louis pointed out.

“Don’t call me that!”

_____________________

The days weren’t completely full, of course. Some time had to be given to letting people relax, especially for Liora. Not because she was still suffering particularly from the aftereffect of the fighting, but because she was stubborn and impatient. A day of nothing but training and practice from the moment she awoke to the moment she fell asleep would have driven her insane, and Aren was savvy enough to avoid such a situation.

Not that there was much to do aboard the ship, unfortunately. Other than fairly basic games, many of which were simply variations on the training regime anyway, their only real option was to continue exploring the large vessel.

It was definitely a smuggler’s ship. Liora could tell that much after only a few moments. There were plenty of nooks and crannies where things could be hidden away. Some were relatively obvious, like depressions under the beds that were covert drawers. Others were far harder to spot.

One of the latter they spotted a few days into the journey, and even then, only because of Koi. The blind woman ‘saw’ entirely through with the voidsense her magic abilities granted her.

“Aren said she’s done it around you guys before,” Koi pointed out.

“She has,” Cade nodded. “But it’s not quite the same. She’s pretty tight lipped about it, and I’m not able to do it yet.”

“I’m guessing she’s tight lipped about basically everything,” Koi whispered to herself, shaking her head.

“I heard that,” Aren called out from the opposite side of the mess hall. She still didn’t like Koi going anywhere unguarded, although the act of watching was becoming noticeably less important. Koi was much friendlier than anyone seemed to have expected. She was also only slightly older than most of them. Her demeanor was that of someone weary of the world, but she was only a handful of years older than the twins.

The blind girl didn’t really have a reason to dislike them. By all accounts, Kezza had been a horrible boss, and the opportunity to get far away from Ventress agreed with Koi far more than the gang lord’s next paycheck. Plus, she really didn’t have anywhere to go. Short of jumping ship miles above an inland sea, her options were zero.

“Sorry!” Koi called back. “Just a joke.”

“Hm.”

“Anywho. She’s not stopping me so I’m guessing she doesn’t actually mind that much. What has she told you about it?”

“That voids can basically sense where things aren’t,” Cade explained. “Creating a sort of negative image of the world around them.”

“That’s actually a really good way to think of,” Koi nodded.

“Not if it still doesn’t make sense,” Liora grumbled. “How can you see nothing?”

“How do you see water?” Koi countered. “It’s the same kind of concept. You see the edges of the thing, and use that to construct an image in your head of what the thing actually looks like. Imagine you’re walking with your eyes closed, guided only by voidsense. My everyday, for the record. You’re focusing on the ground, and you don’t sense any nothingness. What does that mean?”

“I have no idea?” Liora shook her head.

“That it’s just flat ground,” Cade offered. “If I’m not sensing any nothing, that means there is something there. I could just walk forward. Although wouldn’t I sense the nothing in the empty air directly above it?”

“Exactly!” Koi nodded. “You sense the emptiness all around you, and as you look down and find the point where the emptiness stops, you’ve found the ground.”

“Like walking on the surface of water, upside down,” Cade commented.

“That is an utterly bizarre way of phrasing it, but it’s also technically correct. What would it look like if there were a hole in front of you?”

Cade considered that for a moment. Liora looked back and forth between her brother and the former gangster.

“It would look,” Cade started. “Like the emptiness suddenly plunges downward. Kind of like a reverse waterfall, to continue our analogy.”

“Correct again!” Koi smiled. “Very good job.”

“Thanks. You know, you’re not a half bad teacher. For someone who knocked my sister unconscious and tried to help kill everyone I know.”

“Wow, that’s a great way to undermine your compliment.”

Later that day, as Koi was showing them more of how voidsense worked, they managed to spot another smuggling compartment. They’d been rooting around in the cargo hold, examining the boxes that had already been loaded onto the Bleak in hopes of finding something useful.

Most of the contents had been disappointingly mundane. Lots of spices and preserved foodstuffs, but nothing of exceptional note. It made sense, of course. The overwhelming majority of the smuggling they did had to have been large hauls of simple goods delivered illicitly to avoid tariffs and taxes. It still left Liora somewhat depressed that they hadn’t found anything more exciting.

“There’s another section of the cargo hold by that wall,” Koi commented. Liora perked up, hope for excitement having suddenly returned.

“How do you know?” Evie frowned in confusion.

“Voidsense,” Koi said, as if it were obvious. “Oh, it can go through walls.”

“You can see through walls?” Evie blinked in surprise.

“Yes and no. Voidsense isn’t hampered in any way by solid objects, but it can be disorienting. Technically it also extends in all directions.”

“Makes sense,” Cade nodded. “I mean, you’re not actually using your eyes. There’s really no reason it would have to go in front of you.”

“But the details aren’t great,” Koi continued. “Ever. I can function pretty dang well, and you guys are different enough I can tell you apart without too much trouble. But voidsense is still like looking at a weird fuzzy copy of everything. A lot of stuff looks really wrong, and small objects are easy to miss because the details get completely lost.”

“But backing up to your initial comment,” Liora interrupted. “There’s a secret room on the other side of that wall?”

“Yep,” Koi said. “There’s a box in there too. Just the one. No idea how we’re supposed to get inside though.”

Evie responded by walking up the indicated wall and hurling a fist through it. The hit connected with the wood like a small explosion, shattering a hole through the wall. She swung her other fist through slightly to the side, then wrent her hands back outward, tearing away a large chunk of the intervening wall as she went. The small rage repeated the process a few more times as the others watched in stunned silence. At the end of it all, they had a hole easily big enough to step through.

“Hey look,” Evie said when she’d finished. “I opened it.”

Without waiting for the others, the girl stepped through into the secret area. Liora laughed, quickly following after her friend.

“You know that could have been trapped,” Cade pointed out as he peered through the hole. “The entire room could be.” A moment later he tentatively stepped through and joined them.

“We seem to be okay,” Liora noted. Her eyes were locked on the single object in the room, though. It was a box, but nothing like the others they’d found in the cargo hold. Those had been simple wooden crates, the kind you’d find littering a warehouse or alleyway. This was something entirely different.

It reminded her somewhat of a sarcophagus, although it wasn’t the right size for such a thing. The box was a dark, polished looking stone, maybe four feet wide and half that deep and tall. Intricate carvings covered the top of it, and they eventually swept up into artistic looking protrusions Liora assumed were handles.

If the box had been designed to open, they couldn’t see how. The container had no visible lid, or seams or hinges of any kind. Looking at it, Liora was tempted to think it was simply a piece of carved stone, but somehow she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was hollow.

“Is there something inside of it?” Liora asked, turning to Koi. The blind woman shook her head.

“Maybe?” Koi offered. “I can’t see inside. It must be lined with puresilver. Voidsense doesn’t go through that. Not really sure why, before you ask.”

“There’s something in there,” Liora said anyway.

“How are you so sure?” Cade asked. “It looks like a big rock.”

“It’s not. It’s a box. I can just tell.”

Liora moved her hand out to touch the box. It was freezing, strangely enough. The ship was fairly cold, even on the inside, but the box felt like it was ice. It didn’t hurt, but it was definitely colder than the air around it.

“Sure,” Koi nodded. “Touch the creepy box. There’s no way that could end badly.”

“There’s no lid,” Liora ignored Koi. She tried to give the container a shove, but it wouldn’t budge. “I can’t move it, it’s way too heavy. Evie?”

Sighing, Evie stepped up and planted herself against the strange container. She growled, the air around her visibly distorting as she channeled her rage. But the box didn’t move an inch.

“How heavy would that have to be?” Cade breathed. “Evie, how much can you lift?”

“No idea,” Evie admitted. “A lot though. Something like that shouldn’t give me this level of trouble.”

“Weird,” Liora thought aloud.

Later that night, with everyone safely tucked in bed, Liora found herself tossing and turning. Hours had passed since she’d gone to bed, and sleep still eluded her. It wasn’t the box, although that was certainly a factor. It was strange, but it didn’t have any sort of siren song captive over her.

Rather, she found herself grappling with the sheer volume of things she’d learned in the last few days. So much that was new and amazing had been injected into her life. She was loathe to admit it, but she loved it. She enjoyed the adventure, despite the danger that inherently came with it. She even secretly hoped that Aren and Louis were right, that she and Cade really were of noble birth.

Maybe she was even beginning to believe it.

Finally giving up on her attempt to find sleep, Liora got up. She threw on a coat and her shoes before padding out into the hall. Evie was snoring soundly. Cade would probably wake up for her, but she didn’t want to interrupt his sleep, especially when she wasn’t even troubled by anything. For once, her sleep was held at bay not by fear, but by wonder.

Instead, Liora made her way up onto the deck of the ship. The cold night air was bracing, especially when magnified by the wind pouring over the deck. Pulling the coat tighter, she pushed the door to the bridge cabin open and stepped inside.

Louis glanced up from where he was sitting in his chair. He’d been reading more of his book, which he happily set aside as he saw Liora.

“And what are you doing up this late at night?” he asked. His smile belied his tone and words.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Liora replied simply. “Still trying to process, you know. Everything?”

“It’s been a busy few days, hasn’t it?” Louis nodded.

“It really has. I’ve seen more of the world in the last two weeks than the last seventeen years. It’s hard to grapple with.”

“I know the feeling,” Louis said. “It took a long time for me to leave the city I’d grown up in. I thought it was big at the time, but once I left? I realized I was so out of my depth I didn’t even know where to begin. It wears off, in time. You get used to it. It helps to have things like this.”

He wrapped his knuckles on the control panel next to him.

“Horses, trains, airships. They make the world a much smaller place.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s a helluva lot easier.”

“I suppose. I don’t think I’d want to the world to shrink down entirely, though. I’d always want some new adventure to be on the horizon.”

“Adventures don’t always have to be new places,” Louis pointed out. “Wait thirty years, there’ll be an entirely new generation of people that think they know the secret to running the entire world. Dealing with that feels like it would be a bigger adventure than anything for someone in a position of royalty.”

“You really don’t doubt who we are, do you?” Liora asked. Louis laughed and shook his head. “Why not?”

“Aren,” Louis shrugged. “She brought me on a few years ago to replace the last partner she had. Dragged me out of a rough situation, but that’s an entirely different story. I’ve only been watching over you a little less than three years now. But Aren? She’s been there since the beginning. She helped physically carry you to Oadway. Woman cares about you more than most mothers care about their actual children.”

“I…” Liora paused. “I guess I didn’t know that.”

“Makes sense. Not the kind of thing she’d broadcast. Especially when we were still in hiding. Had to make it look like you were just a pair of slaves. And even if someone found out who she was, she couldn’t risk them finding you because you were the only kids she liked. Too risky.”

“She told me something similar,” Liora quietly commented.

“That’s the thing… hold up.”

Louis frowned, staring out through the window of the ship. It was difficult to see anything in the dark of the night, especially with lights on inside the room.

“I swear I just saw-”

His sentence was cut off as the window shattered. The glass spontaneously turned into a swarm of knives tossed toward them at lethal speed. Louis reacted faster than Liora could interpret the situation, rushing to her side and lifting his thick coat to keep them from being shredded.

Looking passed him, Liora caught sight of a large metal rod. The end was hooked in multiple places, almost like a wicked looking spear. No, not a spear, she realized as she looked at the other end. The rod was jammed deep in the deck, held fast. The other end held a worn by strong looking cable that railed out the window and up into the night sky, connected to something hidden in the clouds.

Not a spear. A harpoon.