Joslyn pressed her lips together and turned her gaze towards the mist-shrouded sea.
“I’m not one to advocate for seers and witches,” Akella said, still not facing them. “But the priests and priestesses of Preyla, they have visions of the future sometimes, too. And when it’s blessed by the goddess, I wouldn’t call that sorcery. My grandfather was a priest of Preyla, and when boys and girls came of age in our village, he communed with the goddess and then gave them a glimpse of their future. For my future, he said that one day, I would help carry a sword to a faraway land.” She looked back, and at last spoke directly to Joslyn. “I never understood what it meant. Everyone else got prophecies about being fishermen or basket weavers or how many children they would sire. But my prophecy… Commander, I think that sword of yours… I think helping you get it to Persopos is the destiny given to me by Preyla.”
Joslyn snorted to let the pirate know what she thought of the superstitious prophecy. But she didn’t argue. And when Tasia turned those perceptive green eyes onto Joslyn, Joslyn looked away.
When it became clear that Joslyn would not reply, Tasia spoke. “It makes sense that the king would be afraid of Ku-sai’s sword. If he is separated from the undatai inside him, he will lose his immortality. And if the undatai has no form to return to in the Shadowlands because we destroyed it… and still lacks the strength to possess another mortal body…”
“Then the moment the blade cuts the king’s body, they both die,” Joslyn finished for her.
Akella nodded. “That’s what it wants. Your body, yes, but maybe even more importantly, it wants the sword.”
Joslyn stood up and turned back towards the sailboat’s little cabin.
“Where are you going?” Tasia asked, brow furrowing.
“To put the sword somewhere the king and the undatai cannot find it, just like Ku-sai did,” Joslyn answered.
Tasia sucked in a breath. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to toss it into the sea.”
“Of course not.”
“Then… I don’t understand.”
“Ku-sai hid the sword within the Shadowlands to keep it away from the undatai until I could find it and use it,” Joslyn said. “I’m going to do the same.”
“You’re going to hide the one weapon that can put an end to all of this?” Akella called over her shoulder.
It might have been petty, but Joslyn enjoyed walking away from them without answering as though Akella had never spoken.
Ku-sai had shown her it was possible. Before he’d died in the physical realm, he’d created a self-sustaining q’isson in the Shadowlands, where he hid away an echo of himself alongside his most precious possession – the sword that was the key to defeating the deathless king and the undatai once and for all. And that q’isson waited there, waited until Joslyn found it and the sword inside it.
Joslyn laid back down in the narrow bed and closed her eyes, letting the rocking of the sailboat lull her.
It might take her the rest of the journey to Persopos to figure out how to make a self-sustaining q’isson like Ku-sai had, but she would follow in her teacher’s footsteps one last time. She would hide the sword, because unlike Tasia and Akella, she had no illusions about a victory in the Kingdom of Persopos. They were sailing straight into the open maw of the monster, and she would not deliver into the monster’s hands the key to its defeat. No, she would hide the sword so that the monster could not take it from her. Then, when the conditions were right, she would come back for it and slay the monster once and for all.
And if she died before she could slay the monster, like Ku-sai had? If she never came back to the q’isson to retrieve the sword?
Well, there was still Linna. Ku-sai had trusted his kuna-shi to finish the task if he could not. Joslyn would have to trust that her own kuna-shi was as worthy to carry the shaman’s blade as she was.