THINGS INVISIBLE TO SEE

Disclaimer: Liam, the Shang and Song of the Lioness all belong to Tamora Pierce.

This story is, as always, for Sally and Fenella.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee;

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me

All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

Nowhere

Lives a woman true, and fair.

--John Donne (1573-1631), "Song"

It was their third day out of port and Alanna was still puking. It was amazing how sick one small woman could be. The first two days Liam tried to be helpful, bringing hot tea and biscuits to the sour-smelling cabin below deck, wiping her face with a damp cloth and saying soothing things. He'd gotten snarled and sworn at for his trouble.

This morning when he'd gone down, Thayet, who was marginally less sick than Alanna and Buri, had taken him aside and kindly suggested that he had more valuable things to do with his time than play nursemaid to three sea-sick women. Recognizing her well-bred double-talk for what it was, he asked her straight out what was more important than seeing his companions well and able to swallow food again. Thayet's lovely lips thinned ever so slightly. Even pinched and worn from sea-sickness, she was still beautiful. She let humour soften her irritation, telling him dryly that he was disgustingly healthy, and his very presence was offensive to women in their state. She said she spoke on behalf of all three of them: Leave us in our misery, or be prepared to dodge sick-pails and all contents there-of when you next visit.

Liam told her he bowed to her superior tactics, and could only hope to one day match her skills as a negotiator. Thayet didn't grin; she was a princess. But her dark eyes held a steely glint of triumph as she went back inside the cabin, head held high.

Liam shrugged and went aloft to the salty spray of the open air. He'd sailed enough in the past that his sea legs hadn't needed to be found so much as remembered. He liked traveling by sea: the clean smell of the breeze that gave him an enormous appetite and the challenge added to his morning workout. It was a game, to see if he could keep his footing without altering a single kick or jump. He tried to anticipate while still falling through space where the moving deck would meet his boots. The jolt he got in his stomach when he misjudged how close the surface was or the force with which it would try to toss him was fun, as were the stakes of the game; it would be embarrassing if he stumbled or fell in front of the sailors.

He didn't fall.

The sailors knew enough to keep their distance, after he'd thrashed three of their toughest the first night out of port. The only one who tried to talk to him was Goldenlake. The man seemed a good sort, for a noble. He had a solid soldier's temperament—down to earth, steady, a man you could count on in a fight. Liam didn't hold his fancy title or fancy armour against him. What he held against him was the way he'd gathered Alanna into a heartfelt embrace on seeing her. Liam knew he was being an idiot. The part of him that was a man with more than three decades of living said that it was too many kinds of ridiculous to count to be jealous over a woman that he'd let go of his own free will. The dragon in him hunched his back, drew in his head and brooded.

He spent hours at the stern, watching the landmass they'd left get further and further away. First the city slid out of sight. Next the contours of the landscape smoothed out into pure colours instead of shapes. The coast seemed to stay the same for hours. Then he'd be distracted by the crew getting yelled at by the first mate or take a meal in the galley. When he came back it would hit him sharp as a loss that the continent was noticeably smaller.

To the bow, port and starboard sides, the ocean waved and glinted under the sun, vast and alluring. Liam ignored it. His eyes were on the disappearing shore. It wasn't the country in front of him he saw. His gaze was several hundred miles further inland, on a green and hidden valley. There was a quiet grey temple in it, and a winding stream, and it was dotted with small wooden dwelling places and vegetable gardens. The one entrance was easy to miss unless you lived there; it was a narrow gap between two cliffs that looked like a dead end. Further in, the blind turn opened up between tree-covered mountains into a place that was both easily defensible and a trap.

Liam couldn't see the valley, but he still watched it go.