Seasparrow (Graceling Realm, #5)

by Kristin Cashore

If you could eavesdrop without anyone knowing—if you could turn yourself into a barrel, or a coil of lines, or a clump of canvas on deck where two people are standing together, whispering secrets to each other—are you sure you wouldn’t?

A Keepish bird, adventurous and plain, with flashes of color like my eyes and a name like mine? She’d meant the word habpva as a gift.

Safe too to think about habpvas, which sounded nice to me, as long as no one was mocking me with them.

Then I went upstairs again, because I can never resist the outdoors for long. On deck, Annet shouted, sailors grunted, the lines creaked, and the sails snapped. I like being outside when they’re adjusting the sails. It isn’t that I don’t get dizzy sometimes; I do. But the dizziness thrills me to my fingertips. It’s hard to worry about big, stupid problems, like how to defend your sister from greedy, violent nations, when your house is bucking its way across the sea. I wish I could always live in a house that’s moving.

I believe in Annet’s laughter. I haven’t decided yet if I believe in Jacky’s.

“Would you show me how to climb? Really?” He wrote a word in the snow. Yes. “Why are you writing instead of speaking?” “I’m not sure,” he said. “Sometimes I like to see my ideas big. What word would you write, if you were writing in the snow?” I studied his expression again, looking for mockery. Finding none. Not yes, I thought. Not eavesdrop. Not consort. Nothing from inside me. “Cold,” I said, because it gave nothing away.

In the afternoon, standing at the rail, I watched Ozul, Sorit, Noa, and Lisa, all Keepish girls, patching the ratlines on the port foremast. Definitions: (1) The foremast is the mast at the front of the ship. (2) Port means “left,” so they were working on the left side of the foremast. (3) The ratlines, pronounced RAT-lins, are the short, tight ropes that form a kind of ladder to the top of a mast, so sailors can climb up into the rigging. (4) The rigging is every part of the ship’s web: the fixed system of ropes that support the masts, and all the ropes that move to control the sails. Keepish girls climb and swear, carry knives unhidden, wear pants, walk straight-shouldered, don’t hide.

“It’s just the way we are,” she said. “Are Keepish girls given knives?” “Keepish sailors are given knives.” “Are Keepish girls encouraged to be sailors?” “Of course. Aren’t Monsean girls encouraged to be sailors? Annet rose all the way to captain.”

A thrill of exhilaration ran through me. Once I become comfortable with this climb, it’ll be a new place for me to hide and spy.

I tried to swallow the words down, but I couldn’t stop myself. “You’re very encouraging,” I said. “Don’t you think you’re unusually encouraging?” She laughed. “I guess I learned it from the uncle who raised me. My big sister too. And my first captain.” She laughed again. “I guess I had a lot of people teaching me. Didn’t you?” How could I explain it to her? In my childhood, only one person knew I existed. And the only thing she ever taught me to do was disappear. “There was nothing to climb where I grew up,” I said, pretending to misunderstand the question.

Chest heaving, I stared at the sky behind us. It was knit with ugly clouds that flashed a peculiar orange brown whenever lightning struck. I wondered if that storm on our tail would follow us all the way to land, then break against us as we crossed the Dells on Dellian horses, riding through forests thick as fur, to the tunnels that take us to Monsea. I prefer a ship to a caravan of horses. A ship doesn’t hurt my back and my neck, my legs and my bottom. A ship smells like woodsmoke and snow and salt. And it has masts I can climb.

I’m going to have to do some more detailed reconnoitering if I want to figure out the best time to climb without an audience. (Reconnoitering: That’s a word I’ve always liked, maybe because it’s something I’m good at.)

I’m good at waiting. It’s the sister of hiding. When I hid as a child, I was waiting for my mother to return. Waiting for the king to go away. Waiting for a part of the castle to empty so I could sneak through without being seen. Tucking myself in some corner somewhere in plain sight but hidden with my Grace, waiting for someone to walk by, or people to speak, or something to happen to break the monotony. When I’m waiting, I make my focus small and particular. Listening for the creak of an opening hatch. Watching for a flash of light. Small changes and surprises are the only things that matter. I can turn everything else off, tune everything out. Waiting is a way of making yourself as empty, small, nonexistent, and safe as possible. I waited.

If we must be trapped, let there be something we can do about it. Even if it hurts.

“Are we someplace very bad?” She searched my eyes before she spoke. I was searching hers too, because there’s a flat honesty to moonlight. She wasn’t flinching from my gaze, and I saw weariness there, and grief. “Though we’ve been rowing day and night,” she said, “we’re a lot farther north than when we started. There’s a current, Hava. It’s dragging us north, along with all the icebergs.”

I’ve lost hold of Linta’s theory of indivisible particles. I know it’s about minuscule building blocks of nature, not some fox kits who are fundamental to me, and I’m sure that when I apply it haphazardly to everything in life, she would tell me I’m misusing it. But she made it a metaphor too. Silbercows chasing their tailfins; foxes bumping chocolate along.

“The theory of tiny objects that can’t be divided.” “Ahsoken?” “What?” I said, not understanding. “Tiny, tiny particles, too small to see,” he said. “Indivisible and indestructible. Our bodies are made of them. This ice is made of them. Even the air is made of them. I don’t know what they’re called in Lingian, but in Dellian, we call them ‘ahsoken.’ ” AH-sok-en. He pronounced it like a sigh, then like the word soak, then the en appendage that usually makes things plural in Dellian. “One particle is an ahsok?” “Yes, and there are different kinds, with different properties and purposes. A fox is different from a rock because of what kinds of ahsoken it’s made of, and how they combine.” Linny was squinting at me. “Right? That’s what you mean?” “Yes,” I said, repeating the word in my mind again, ahsoken. It was like a breath, and a hiccup. It was a gift. I’d wanted to give Linny something, but instead, he’d given me a gift of this word. “I don’t know what they’re called in Lingian.” “It’s funny to talk about it out here,” he said, his smile coming into his voice. “Don’t you think?” Chemistry, said Hope in my lap, apparently opening the thought to both of us, because Linny responded. “Yes,” he said. “Chemistry. A perfectly normal topic while awaiting one’s tiny dinner in the cold.” What we are made of, said Hope. I was looking around our camp at all the distinct, moving people, each indivisible, each with their own properties and their own particular purposes. Annet, our captai...

I think I would have started sobbing right then, even screaming, about how much I hated every part of this. I hadn’t been prepared; Grella never wrote about anything like this. I hated Grella for not warning me. I hated the snow and my cold feet and my squishy boots. I hated my smelly fur coat and the way the fox kits peed and pooped inside my clothes. I hated being wet. I hated cold grains. I hated my hunger and my burning pee. I hated the sledge. I hated the goat. I hated carrying things on my back, raising the tent, and sleeping with other people. I wanted to kill the wind, and I knew we were never going to get home. But Hope appeared over a ridge of snow nearby. She stopped there, her silhouette small and quiet against the backdrop of stars. And that reminded me of the kits in my coat, and my responsibility. I must not despair inside any fox’s mind. I took a breath. I did what I’ve always done: made myself and my feelings small, smaller, invisible. I closed them in a wardrobe and forbade them from making a sound.

Adventure? I called. I need to talk to you. Right now? It’s about the kits, I said. Froggatt has potty-trained Cornsilk, which means they might be starting to communicate. Froggatt’s even wondering if he and Cornsilk are bonded. Are kits born knowing they’re supposed to pretend they can only bond to one person? No, he said. Adult blue foxes teach kits the secrets of foxkind. Well? I said. Are you going to teach them? Certainly not, he said. But, Adventure—this group is full of Keepish people! If they all start realizing that blue foxes can enter anyone’s minds, then the secrets of foxkind will be revealed. Someday they’ll go back to Winterkeep and tell everyone. All your fox brethren will be exposed! We can tell them that when the kits were born on a different shore, he said, they were born with a different kind of mind. Just like that? I said indignantly. Just like that. And I suppose it altered your mind, and Hope’s too? I said. Hope’s talking to any old person she likes, besides me. Just Linny, he said, offended. Linny isn’t any old person. I have to go now. I’m helping. Yes, I know you’re very busy and important, I said, with a flash of sarcasm. I think you’re being pretty cavalier about this. I think you’re the one being cavalier, he said. You don’t know what it’s like to be bonded to a terrible human and feel trapped, unable to warn other humans of the bad things she’s planning to do. I know what that’s like. I don’t want that for these kits. They should be allowed t...

“Skulk,” he said. “Huh?” His eyes, hazel in a pleasant, lopsided face, brightened further. “I believe a group of foxes is called a skulk,” he said. “Or an earth.” “An earth! As in, an earth of foxes?”

The foyer of the library is huge, with rows of bookshelves reaching so high that ladders run on tracks to access mezzanine levels connected by bridges. Linny was sitting on a bench on one of the mezzanines, reading. I could see him from the doors.

As I moved toward him, he glanced up from his book, saw me, and smiled. It was one of his world-shifting smiles and I stopped for a moment, overcome by confusion. He was sitting on a bench I used to sit on as a child. It’s cut from an enormous tree trunk laid on its side, with some of its branches left intact, so that thick, woody protrusions extend from it in places. When I was small, it was easy to pretend to be part of the tree, and watch the entrance. Bitterblue, almost as small as me, came in sometimes with her mother. Other times she came in holding Leck’s hand.

Finally I looked back at him too, but I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The features of Linny’s face contain a sensitivity I’m pretty sure I’m not capable of, in any part of me. His nose, his mouth, his eyes are more appealing than anything anyone would ever see, looking at me. His hands are broad, with long, calloused fingers, a sailor’s hands, but no doubt gentle, whatever they touched. He has a gentleness I could never have. And he could stay for a while, if he was building something.

I had the sense suddenly that even if I’m not sure who Linny is, Linny knows. He’s a person entire, who knows what he likes and chooses his occupations. And though he spoke the words “building something” in Dellian, they have the same meaning as the Lingian words Bitterblue used when she talked about “building the world.” Both Linny and Bitterblue know what they’re here for. If Linny is building ships and Bitterblue is building the entire world, what am I building? Linta? You knew what you were building too. But what am I building? And what am I building it out of? What am I made of? Also, if Linny is always this physical person, my height, my breadth, gentle and amber-eyed with a face I like to look at—he is always that person—what does it mean that my greatest power is to disappear? If I can blend into this bench and become a tree, how can I be anything, to anybody? Can a person be made of nothing? “Do you ever feel like you don’t exist?” I said. “Oh, Hava,” he said, in a different voice. “Do you feel that way?”

Somewhere in the course of the conversation, I’d turned myself back into myself. He was still holding my hand—and I his, I suppose. I was confused about what to do about it; did he want me to let go? How would we end it, or wouldn’t we end it? Were we stuck on this bench forever now, because of how awkward it would be for either of us to extricate an appendage? Then he did let my hand go and it was the most natural thing. Not a rejection, not an extrication. Just a gentle easing of pressure, so simple that it inspired me to do the most shocking thing I’ve ever done in my life: I took his hand back. I don’t do things like that. It’s the opposite of disappearing. But something came over me.

Walking to lower ground, I found a flat, dry rock and sat, looking around at the landscape that should have been familiar but only felt alien, because it was the wrong color. There were no glaciers, no ice; I could see too many trees. I was sweating inside my Keepish furs. When I opened my bag, then pulled out the food I’d brought for myself—buttered bread and cheese, a jar of preserves, a sausage, a slice of cake wrapped in a cloth, a flask of bright, hot Keepish tea—I suddenly burst into tears, bewildered to have such a bounty all for myself; grieving the suffering the survivors of the Monsea had endured; and desperately lonely. I ate, then sat for a bit, my head achy from crying. Curious, I turned myself into a rock the same color and texture as the rock I sat on. Rocklike, I listened to the breeze, and smelled the grass, and watched the sky. I’m not sure why I did it, but it felt better than turning into the prison steps. Out here, it was almost as if I could imagine I was part of the earth.

On my way back to the castle, I paid less attention to the sky and more attention to the ground. That’s how I began to notice the patches of flowers pushing their stalks up through cold dirt, unfurling pink and white sails. And where there were flowers, there were butterflies: bright, tiny flashes of yellow, orange, blue, floating on papery wings. I thought of Moth, who’s only ever known winter. I decided I would come back tomorrow, and invite her.

When we got to the open grass, she began to dash back and forth, overwhelmed by her directional choices. What’s that? she screamed, spotting the distant castle, then bolting toward it. It’s far away! I cried after her. Much farther than it looks! Foxes have excellent depth perception! she screamed, tripping suddenly, spinning through the air in a series of unplanned somersaults, then continuing on as if nothing had happened. I watched her go with that sense again that she might never come back to me. I love you, Moth, I called after her weakly. I love you. She crested the rise of a hill and disappeared down the other side. I love you.

“Well, thank you for nudging me about the marriage law. Annet came to me yesterday to talk about her wish to resign and return to Winterkeep with Navi, but I was able to show her my progress. I spoke to King Nash about it too, while we were in the Dells. It helps that we can follow their precedent. My new law will open marriage and its benefits to any consenting couple regardless of gender, as is legal in the Dells, Pikkia, and most of Torla.”

Bitterblue was still watching me closely. “I’m defying a number of conventions in marrying Giddon,” she said. “So many people are going to tell me I shouldn’t, and I’m going to do it anyway. How can I marry whomever I want, then tell the women who kept us alive in the north that they’re not allowed to do the same? How can I say that to any of my people? A large contingent of my office has been making time, and will continue to do so as we sort out the details. I’m going to sign something very soon, today or tomorrow. I’ve sent messages to the other kingdoms too, giving them the news.” “That’s really good,” I said, impressed despite myself.

I also think it might serve as a bridge to communication with my uncle Ror again. Don’t you think he might want to do the same in Lienid, once he considers it? Skye could marry!” Prince Skye is Ror’s sixth son and Po’s dearest brother, and he’s somewhere on a ship in the eastern Torlan seas right now with his boyfriend. More importantly, I was beginning to understand Bitterblue’s urgency better. “You’re prioritizing it because it suits you,” I said. “It’s one of the cogs in the wheels while you build the world.”

Hava! said Owlet. Moth showed us your mother! I was unprepared for what happened next, both Owlet and Cornsilk bombarding me with my own memories of my mother. They were so excited to share with me, there was so much delight in their knowledge of something personal and dear to me that I was overwhelmed by their love for me, in the same moment they gutted my heart. I found myself kneeling on the cold stone floor while they threw their little bodies into my lap, trying to find purchase around Hope, who was still in my arms. I remembered that I used to hold all of them at once, sleep every night with them tucked against me, share them with Linny while we fought to keep believing we’d find a way home. They’d kept me alive. Caring for them had forced me to go on. Well, hello, I said to them now. I love you, Owlet. I love you, Cornsilk. I love you, Hope. I glanced at Moth, who was still standing before us, exuding the contempt of the eye-rolling teenager who can’t believe her family is so embarrassing. I love you, Moth, I said, which made her soften, and come to us. You too, Adventure, I said, noticing that he was watching us primly. And you too, Blueberry.

The kits barreled ahead, then circled back, zooming down every side street, screaming hellos to people, startling horses, tripping pedestrians, an entire earth of foxes spinning around me, their sun. I felt as gigantic and conspicuous as the sun.

I asked Linny to explain everything about the work he was doing. What were the boards he was attaching to the ribs, lengthwise along the hull? “Ribbands,” he said, switching into Lingian. “Ribbands,” I repeated, liking the unfamiliar word on my tongue. “They band the ribs?” “Oh,” he said, with the light of dawning comprehension. “I didn’t make that connection. It’s hard, learning all these new words in Lingian.” “It makes me think of ahsoken,” I said, switching us back into Dellian again. “It does?” he said. “The ribbands?” “The different parts that come together to form a ship,” I said, then admitted, “Everything makes me think of ahsoken. I know I’m misapplying it. A ribband is far too big to be an ahsok.” “But it’s made of ahsoken,” he said, “like everything is. Have you figured out the Lingian word for ahsoken?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For what?” “For changing,” I said, “whenever we touch.” “It’s all right,” he said, with a hint of something like laughter in his voice. “You don’t feel like a sculpture.” “We must be making a scene.” “Oh, who cares. Anyway, you don’t need to worry, because I’m the one making a scene. Everyone’ll think I brought my sculpture to the boardwalk so I could sit there hugging it.”

“Ever since we left the north,” I said, “I’ve been having trouble figuring out who I am.” “Mm,” he said, still holding me. “But you can make yourself whatever you want, right?” “On the outside,” I said scornfully. “Not on the inside.” “Mm,” he said again. I liked the noises he made, especially when he was making them so close to my ear. Was it safe to admit that to myself? “The inside is harder,” he said. “It takes longer to figure out. But you will.” “How do you know?” “Because there’s beautiful stuff in there,” he said, which was no kind of answer, because even if it’s true, it has no bearing on what I know about myself. So why does it make me feel like my heart is a bird, riding on a current of air?

It occurred to me at that moment to think of myself, my whole life even, as a ship. If my life is a ship, then the things I’m most scared of and want most are at the top of the foremast, on the highest platform in the rigging. Maybe leaving my sister and setting out on my own is up there. Maybe Linny is. Maybe my own clearest feelings—mine, all mine, no one else’s—are up there too. I can meet myself up there. I also have parts down below, keeping me balanced on the skin of the sea. Giddon is my ballast. Hope and Moth are my spine and my ribbands. And Bitterblue is my anchor. She always will be; she’s not going to break free. “I’ll return,” I said. “That’s the best news of all,” she said. “What will you do?” I took a breath, remembering the feeling of the wind at my back. “I’d like to try being a sailor,” I said.

The front and middle masts carry square sails that drop down from above. The back mast carries triangle sails that we raise from below, with lines I know the names of. And she’s beautiful, she’s so, so completely beautiful with the wind in her sails. She’s tried and true; she has barnacles clinging to her once-crimson hull that’s been burnished by sun and sea into something more weathered. Annet bought her from a wine merchant in Monport, on behalf of the queen. Bitterblue wanted to rename her something boring, but Annet and Navi both cried out in alarm that it was bad luck to rename a ship. I was relieved, because her name is the Fledgling. “Silly name for a ship that’s sailed many seas,” said Bitterblue, but I like to imagine a grown bird that’s only just now learning to fly.

LV! Luta Voma! I was trying to wake up, trying to form thoughts around why the words luta voma should be dropping into my consciousness with a splash of what sleepily felt like surprise. Isn’t luta voma a Keepish expression for hope? I finally managed. No, she said. Tova voma is hope. But isn’t it almost a Keepish expression for hope? Luta voma is something else, she said. Trust. So, your prior name was Trust and your new name is Hope? I said. Isn’t that a strange coincidence, that they’re so similar? No, she said. Girl tried many names before Hope agreed. Remember? Before, Hope liked Luta Voma. Now, Hope likes Hope.

It made me wonder, wish, that something essential remains, no matter how much we are hurt.

I notice myself not wanting her to learn any private things about me, because what if then she was able to look inside me and find those parts of me, like Linta observing ahsoken? What if she can find thoughts and feelings? I don’t think she can, but it crosses my mind. And then I start thinking about my own Grace. A Grace isn’t always what you think it is, even your own. My mother told me my Grace was hiding, because she wanted me to live. But my Grace is other things too.

I’m not sure what yet. But I’m using it more when I’m alone, to turn into whatever I want to try the feeling of. Water. The aurora borealis. A part of the ship. Sometimes when I’m in the rigging, I give myself gigantic wings that lie flat against my back, ready to unfurl, and I don’t really care if anyone sees me.

relaxed against him, but didn’t turn. Listened to his quiet words as he told me about his day, asked me about mine. When he smiled, I felt his lips on my skin. We are moving; we’re not stuck. But we’re taking this more slowly than anyone ever has. We’re thinking about now, not where we’re going. We’re paying attention to what we’re building. That’s the way we choose.

The days are long on this voyage. The sun sets late. I went up to lie in one of the lifeboats, where Hope and Moth found me after a time. We chatted, and looked for birds. As the clouds turned to puffs of pink and orange, they left me in search of Ladybug and Bir. I stayed there on my back, turning briefly into one of the sunset clouds. It felt like flying. I lay there for a while, watching the white sails above me catch the wind and propel our ship across the changing sky.