Ruler, Rival, Exile

“I choose you too,” Ceres assured him, but at the same time she pulled back. “I should go catch up with my brother and my father.”

She went over to where Berin stood with Sartes and Leyana. A family, all looking happy together. A part of Thanos wished that he could simply go there to be a part of it. He wanted to be a part of Ceres’s life, and he suspected that she wanted him to be too, but Thanos knew it would take time to heal things between them.

Because of that, he didn’t rush over to her. Instead, Thanos stood considering the rest of the boat’s inhabitants. For such a small boat, there were a lot. The three combatlords Ceres had saved were doing most of the rowing, although now that they were clear of the harbor, they would be able to get the boat’s small sail up. Akila lay to one side, a conscript Sartes had freed keeping pressure on the wound.

Jeva was coming toward him.

“You’re an idiot if you’re going to let her walk away,” Jeva said.

“An idiot?” Thanos countered. “Is that any way to thank someone who just saved you?”

He saw the Bone Folk woman shrug. “You’re an idiot for doing that too. Risking yourself to help another is stupid.”

Thanos cocked his head to one side. He wasn’t sure that he would ever understand her. Then again, he thought with a glance across to Ceres, that was something that applied to more than one person.

“Risking yourself is what you do for friends,” Thanos said.

Jeva shook her head. “I wouldn’t have put myself in danger for you. If it is your time to join with the spirits of your ancestors, it is your time. It is even an honor.”

Thanos wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was she serious? If so, it seemed a little ungrateful given the risk he and Ceres had taken in order to save her.

“If I’d known it was such an honor to be a figurehead for one of the First Stone’s ships, I would have left you to it,” Thanos said.

Jeva looked at him with a slight frown. It seemed to be her turn to try to work out if he was serious or not.

“You’re joking,” she said, “but you should have left me. I told you, only a fool risks his life for others.”

It was too harsh a philosophy for Thanos.

“Well,” he said. “I’m glad you’re alive, at least.”

Jeva seemed to think for a moment or two. “I’m glad too. Which is strange. The dead will be displeased with me. Perhaps I have more to do. I will follow you until I find out what.”

She said it evenly, as though it was already a settled thing in which Thanos got no say. He wondered what it must be like, walking through the world with the certainty that the dead were in charge.

“Isn’t it strange?” he asked her.

“What is strange?” Jeva replied.

“Living your life assuming that the dead make all the decisions.”

She shook her head. “Not all of them. But they know more than we do. There are more of them than us. When they speak, we should listen. Look at you.”

That made Thanos frown. He wasn’t one of the Bone Folk, to be ordered about by their speakers of the dead.

“Me?”

“Would you be in the circumstances you are if it weren’t for decisions your parents and your parents’ parents made?” Jeva asked. “You are a prince. Your whole power rests on the dead.”

She had a point, but Thanos wasn’t sure that it was the same thing.

“I’ll be deciding what to do next for the living, not the dead,” he said.

Jeva laughed as though it was a particularly fine joke, then narrowed her eyes slightly. “Oh, you’re serious. We have people who say that too. Mostly, they are madmen. But then, this is a world for the mad, so who am I to judge? Where will we go next?”

Thanos didn’t have an answer for her when it came to that.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “My father told me where I might find out about my real mother, then the former queen told me that she was somewhere else.”

“Well then,” Jeva said. “We should go. Such news from the dead should not be ignored. Or we could return to the lands of my people. They would welcome us with the news of what happened to our fleet.”

She didn’t seem daunted by the prospect of reporting so many deaths to her people. She also seemed to be looking over at Ceres every so often, glancing at her with obvious awe.

“She is everything you said she would be. Whatever stands between you, solve it.”

She made it sound so simple and direct, as if it were as simple as saying it. Thanos doubted that things were ever that easy.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” she said.

Thanos wanted to. He wanted to go to Ceres and declare his love. More than that, he wanted to ask her to be his. It seemed as though they’d been waiting forever for that to happen.

She waved him away. “Go, go to her.”

Thanos wasn’t sure about being dismissed like that, but he had to admit that Jeva had the right idea when it came to going after Ceres. He went over to her and the others, finding her looking more serious than he’d expected.

Her father turned, clasping Thanos’s hand.

“It’s good to see you again, boy,” he said. “If you hadn’t come, things might have been difficult.”

“You’d have found a way,” Thanos guessed.

“Now, we need to find our way,” Berin replied. “It seems everyone here wants to go somewhere different.”

Thanos saw Ceres nod at that.

“The combatlords think we should go out to the free wastes to become mercenaries,” she said. “Sartes is talking about slipping into the countryside around the Empire. I thought about maybe going back to the Isle of Mists.”

“Jeva was talking about going back to her people,” Thanos said.

“And you?” Ceres asked.

He thought about telling her about the lands of the cloud mountains, about his missing mother, and the chance to find her. He thought of living anywhere, anywhere with Ceres. But then he looked over to Akila.

“I’ll go wherever you go,” he said, “but I don’t think Akila will survive a long journey.”

“I don’t either,” Ceres said.