Tress of the Emerald Sea

by Brandon Sanderson

They’d teach their children this ever-so-important

rule: salt and silver halt the killer. An acceptable little poem, if you’re the sort of barbarian who enjoys slant rhymes.

The place was so inhospitable, even the smog found it depressing. Ships visited periodically for repairs, to drop off waste for the compost vats, and to take on new water. But each strictly obeyed the king’s rules: no locals were to be taken from Diggen’s Point. Ever.

Well, this isn’t the part of the story where you ask questions. So kindly keep them to yourself.

Tress considered herself categorically boring. She liked her tea lukewarm. She went to bed on time. She loved her parents, occasionally squabbled with her little brother, and didn’t litter. She was fair at needlepoint and had a talent for baking, but had no other noteworthy skills.

Tress was generally more thoughtful than most people, and she didn’t like to impose by asking for what she wanted. She’d remain quiet when the other girls were laughing or telling jokes about her.

Sometimes the more boisterous youths talked of seeking adventure in foreign oceans. Tress found that notion frightening. How could she leave her parents and brother? Besides, she had her cup collection.

Each time Tress acquired a new cup, she brought it to Charlie to show it off.

Charlie claimed to be the groundskeeper at the duke’s mansion at the top of the Rock, but Tress knew he was actually the duke’s son.

He wasn’t a good liar, but that was part of what Tress liked about him. Charlie was genuine. He even lied in an authentic way. And seeing how bad he was at telling them, the lies couldn’t be held against him. They were so obvious, they were better than many a person’s truths.

Charlie said, then put aside the pie and took the cup reverently in both hands. “Now this is special.” “Do you know anything about that writing?” she asked, eager. “It’s old Iriali,” he said. “They vanished, you know. The entire people: poof. There one day, gone the next, their island left uninhabited. Now, that was three hundred years ago, so no one alive has ever met one of them, but they supposedly had golden hair. Like yours, the color of sunlight.” “My hair is not the color of sunlight, Charlie.” “Your hair is the color of sunlight, if sunlight were light brown,”

Tress smiled as he spoke. While washing the mansion’s windows, she’d occasionally hear Charlie’s parents berate him for talking so much; they thought it silly and unbecoming of his station. They rarely let him finish. She found that a shame. For while yes, he did ramble sometimes, she’d come to understand it was because Charlie liked stories the way Tress liked cups.

“Always what you want, Tress. And you can always tell me what it is. I know you don’t usually do that, with others.”

“If I weren’t a coward,” he said, “I’d be able to tell you things I cannot. But Tress, if you did get captured, I’d help anyway. I’d put on armor, Tress. Shining armor. Or maybe dull armor.

And Charlie was like a good set of gloves. The longer she spent with him, the more right their time together felt. The brighter even the moonshadows were, and the easier her burdens became. She did love interesting cups, but a part of that was because each one gave her an excuse to come and visit him.

“I think I love you, Tress,

“You are a special case,” Charlie said. “You are…well, this is kind of silly…but you’re like a pair of gloves, Tress.” “I am?” she said, choking up. “Yes. Don’t be offended. I mean, when I have to practice the sword, I wear these gloves and—” “I understand,” she whispered.

Charlie squeezed her hands. “Listen, Tress. I promise you. I’m not going to get married. I’m going to go to those kingdoms, and I’m going to be so insufferably boring that none of the girls will have me.

Fight on, my loquacious love,

The fourth package’s card included no letter, only a small drawing: two gloved hands holding to one another.

“I should have said,” Tress whispered, “that I loved him.”

“Yes, but what happened to Charlie?” Tress asked. Flik looked away. “Please,” Tress asked. “Where is he?” “He sailed the Midnight Sea, Miss Tress,” he said. “Beneath Thanasmia’s own moon. The Sorceress took him.”

Tress was not hiding at all. Tress was the inspector.

This last part was a side effect of the poison the captain had ordered put in Tress’s drink. There are, unfortunately, no talking pigeons in this story. Merely talking rats.

In case you have a more limited imagination, it begins with a feeling like hands forcing your jaws apart. Then vines fill your throat, growing wherever they can find space, snaking down into your lungs. They knock loose teeth, and drill up through your soft palate and into your sinuses. They don’t usually reach your brain though, so you get the pleasure of suffocating to death as you feel the vines rip your eyes out of their sockets.

You’re welcome.

“The name is…” The rat coughed. “The name is…Huck. That’ll do, as I don’t think my real name will work.”

The other humans smelled of sweat and sweet flesh. Not Crow. Crow wasn’t a person, not entirely. The parasite was winning.

Xisis the dragon is real.

The dragon. Crow thought the dragon was real. And she wanted to force her crew to sail the Crimson Sea to find the dragon and heal her affliction.

It should be noted that Tress would have made an excellent philosopher. In fact, she had already determined that philosophy wasn’t as valuable as she’d assumed—something that takes most great philosophers at least three decades to realize.

the spores living in Crow’s blood will protect her from any weapon that tries to break her skin. So I figure I’ll stop her without hurting her.”

Curiously, she felt something similar at that moment with the vine. A Connection. She thought she could feel it searching. It was empty, but looking. Wanting.

She found it remarkable. How could this be? The entire world interacted with spores—at least dead ones—every day. People feared them with just cause. Yet this one felt more like a puppy than a deadly force of destruction.

Enjoy memories, yes, but don’t be a slave to who you wish you once had been. Those memories aren’t alive. You are.

(Fun tip: Being told “I kept you in the dark to protect you” is not only frustrating, but condescending as well. It’s a truly economical

way to demean someone; if you’re looking to fit more denigration into an already busy schedule, give it a try.)

If you want to create heroes, don’t give them something to fight for. Give them someone to fight for.

Oh yes. I’ve said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact.

You might be too, as it was mentioned earlier in the story as clever foreshadowing. But Tress had been distracted during that conversation, and had missed the point.

“Charlie,” Tress whispered. “You sent me cups.” He looked at her. “That was a lifetime ago, Tress.”

“I love them. Particularly the one with the butterfly on the sea. Like us, Charlie. Soaring over places we never thought to go. And the one made of pewter. Like us, Charlie. Stronger and more straightforward than we have a right to be.”