Page 30 of The Exile's Curse

That would hardly be an auspicious start to her journey to Andalyssia.

Andalyssia.

It still seemed unreal. Imogene had told her as much as she knew of the place while Chloe was engulfed in a whirlwind of fittings. Though Imogene had tried her best to stay neutral, occasionally Chloe caught a worried expression on her friend’s face, and her commentary had leaned heavily to the history of Illvya's tense relationship with the Andalyssians.

Of all the countries that made up the empire, the Andalyssians had been the most fractious for over a decade now. They hadn't outright rebelled since one of the Ashmeisters had attempted treason, but they still did their best to maintain as much secrecy and autonomy over their country as they could.

She didn’t blame them for that. Empires came from conquest, after all, and even if that conquest had been long ago, and even if the empire did seem to operate to benefit everyone these days, she understood the resentment that came with having choices taken away or life turned on a whim so that the ground crumbled beneath your feet.

When it came to a whole country, she could understand that that hurt would not dissolve quickly. Particularly if there were those within the country who still wanted to keep it fresh, as apparently the older generations of Andalyssians did.

"Lieutenant de Montesse, welcome aboard," Captain Theisse said as she crested the gangplank and stepped onto the deck itself. "You're in cabin 10. You're sharing with Lieutenant Olivier." He pointed behind him at an open doorway situated beneath the upper deck where, like on a ship, the wheel used to steer the navire was housed.

The sight of it set a fresh wave of nerves loose in her gut.

Goddess. She didn't even know all the terminology for a ship's parts. What was she doing? But too late to change her mind now. “Lieutenant Olivier. Yes, sir.”

She'd met Giane Olivier on her first day.

A fresh-faced twenty-three-year-old, who'd only been in the mages six months herself. She'd seemed smart and keen and boundlessly cheerful.

Chloe had once been smart and keen and boundlessly cheerful, too. Maybe Giane would rub off on her. She was going to have to get used to bright young things in the mages outranking and out-experiencing her at every turn.

"You're not scheduled to be one of the navire crew,” Captain Theisse continued. “Colonel Brodier wants you focused on learning the briefing materials. So get yourself settled and stay put while we get underway. That's scheduled for about an hour for now. Once we're underway, dinner will be in the mess hall at six."

In other words, make herself scarce until then. Fine with her. She had no particular desire to watch the ship lift off. Something about it just seemed unnatural, despite Imogene's reassurances.

"Yes, sir," she said again.

Skirting around him, she made her way across the deck, moving carefully as the navire swayed slightly in the water. They were designed to land in water or on land, and the changes to their keels to enable that meant they sat heavy in the water. Or so Imogene had said.

Chloe had been too busy with everything else she'd needed to do in the last four days, not to mention fighting her headache, to take in the technical explanations. She'd just nodded at Imogene and focused on not being stabbed with too many pins while trying to practice Andalyssian in her head.

Having a language poured into one's mind by magic was an odd experience. Strange words floated across her thoughts regularly, but she didn't know what all of them meant. She had the vocabulary but not yet the context.

Which seemed to also neatly sum up her current feelings about the mission overall. She knew some of the theory of what she was supposed to do, but she was about to sink or swim when it came to putting it into practice.

If only Imogene was coming with her.

But no. Imogene had her own duties, and Chloe had wanted adventure and to see the empire. A journey all the way across it met that definition, even if she hadn't been expecting to cover so much of the continent at once.

She made her way across the deck, avoiding the black-clad crew who all seemed intent on doing various tasks with practiced efficiency.

Chloe's experience of ships was limited, most of it gained on her journeys to and from Anglion. Her father had taken them on vacations over the years, but they'd usually traveled overland to Kesseret or Sasskine. And that had been before her mother fell ill. There'd been no pleasure travel after that. Ana had been too frail. There had been trips to various temples and retreats for treatment, but those were accomplished by slow, cautious carriage rides rather than by ship.

Imogene warned her that some people could get airsick as they did seasick. Chloe's stomach hadn't much been bothered by sea travel, but she'd prepared some stomach soothing teas just in case. And hunted through her earth magic textbooks for the section on charms against such things.

The door that led below deck was narrow and not much taller than her. The men on the mission would spend half their days ducking to go in and out. Inside, the ceiling was low and the light came from earth lamps, which was one reassuring thing. Safer than naked flames on a wooden ship flying through the air. She followed the stenciled signs on the wooden walls down a steep short staircase to the first of the lower decks and, from there, along to her cabin.

Cabin 10 was small, with a set of small bunk beds. Giane wasn’t there, nor was there any sign of any of her things, so Chloe claimed the lower bunk. Let the younger woman clamber up and down. She might have more time in the corps than Chloe, but Chloe had the experience to know that sometimes it was better to take what you wanted.

She unpacked her bags into one of the wooden chests bolted to the floor by the foot of the bunks and hung a few things in the small armoire likewise bolted to the wall. There was a small table similarly fastened to the floor with lockable drawers underneath the single round window, or porthole, maybe. She put her notebook and leather folder of briefing papers into the top one, locked it, and pocketed the key.

There being little else to do, given she didn't want to look out the window and her trunk was still somewhere else, she sat on the bed and tried to calm her nerves.

The journey wasn't going to take more than a week, if the winds cooperated. They would make several overnight stops for rest and to deliver mail and other official news and such before they eventually landed in Elenia, the country bordering Andalyssia.

Elenians were more friendly toward the empire than the mountain nation, so it had been deemed safer to leave the navire there. The last stage of the journey into the Eissgora would involve the charguerres Imogene disliked so much.

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