Call of the Bone Ships (The Tide Child #2)

by R.J. Barker

“You make it sound so simple.” “Ey boy, most things are, till others try and ruin it. That’s when problems start.

“Sometimes, Aelerin, I am wrong, and know I am wrong, and still I do not act because it is easier not to act.”

“Look in the mirror when you return to your cabin. Ask yourself if people can change, ask yourself if people can surprise you.”

“Eventually I became numb. Mabberlin said I needed to be hard, but I do not think she could tell the difference between hard and numb.”

“We are nothing, Shipwife,” she said. “If we do not try we are nothing. You are right there. Better to lose it all for what is right than to live in fear.”

enough that it appeared to be a tourniquet. That done she looked up and nodded at Jennil who artfully splashed blood around him on the deck, then, with an apology, over his clothes, spattering them with the mixture of blood and seawater. What better to baptise a shipwife, he thought, than with the two elements that would soak their command.

“You wish to do something dark, Deckkeeper, then you do it in darkness.”