They improvise their music together until Allia feels fully recovered, taking about two more hours, then head to the bridge where they find Alex and Emil discussing the course with the captain. Naturally, their faces brighten upon seeing the girls.

  Alex starts. “Ah, Allia! We were talking about the shipping forecast that just went out. It looks like the wind will be with us sooner than we thought. We’ll still be cruising on the water for most of our way up the chain, but we might be able to shift to air mode a few hours sooner than we thought.”

  “Oh, good,” Allia says, a little distractedly as her gaze goes over the horizon. “Will that save us much time?”

  Alex shrugs. “Maybe half an hour, but every bit counts, right?”

  “…Yeah, probably.” A glint of light coming over the horizon draws her attention. “Is that the shrine? I’ve always wanted to see one.”

  The group looks in the direction of her gaze. “Oh, um… yeah, I guess it should be,” Allex says with clear disinterest.

  Sarrah side eyes her. “Wasn’t there one on the route when you first came to Newflor?”

  “Um… yeah, I think so. But I um… I wasn’t feeling well on that trip. Nerves from leaving home, I guess. I mostly stayed in my cabin.”

  “Really?” Emil says, eyebrow raised. “I just can’t imagine you not being one to explore the ship. You must have been seriously ill. It’s not something you think will repeat itself, is it?”

  Allia hesitates. “Oh, um… probably not. It’s not something I’ve been prone to for a while.”

  Sarrah glances at her friend, clearly connecting her statement with the experience of a few hours prior, and seems about to say something when details of the structure begin to come into view. Dozens of silver metal fluted tubes twist hundreds of feet into the air, culminating in a fifty-foot-wide hovering crystal emitting glaring light.

  “It’s pretty,” Allia says, her gaze transfixed.

  Sarrah shrugs. “Yeah… it is pretty… and completely worthless.”

  Allia’s head snaps towards her friend, her expression befuddled. “What do you mean? It’s a major cultural heritage.”

  Sarrah scoffs. “Yeah, now it is. But it doesn’t do what was promised. It was supposed to provide safety as a last resort, but the design is awful for that. It was a complete fraud. Some group of construction mages thought they could grift more money by using uselessly expensive materials, then rebranded it as something spiritual.”

  Emil grins sardonically. “You’re saying you don’t believe that the light focused through the crystal burns away the miasma?”

  “Hah! How would we know? If it did, why would they put it where the miasma was already weakest? Why do we only have seven of them, all on tiny islands, instead of one in every city? Sure, miasma levels have gone down in the area in the couple hundred years since they were made, but not more than anyplace else.”

  “Do they have to have a function?” Allia snaps, not turning her transfixed gaze from the window. “Isn’t beauty enough for worth?”

  Sarrah stares at her friend, withdrawing into herself at the slight rebuke, but puffs herself back up a moment later. “Of course art is worthy for its own sake. The issue is when people claim it’s more. When they say it’ll bring salvation. Do recall, there were originally 8 shrines, until one got eaten by a kraken… it and everyone who fled to it for shelter. The issue is how people still think the things work, and make excuses for their failure. Meaning that it’ll just happen again.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “A bit of a pessimistic outlook on the MDC’s efficacy, don’t you think?” Emil chimes, all smiles. “No kraken has made landfall on a populated island in nearly 20 years, and our defences are only getting better. Does it matter if the shelter doesn’t work if it’s never needed?”

  Sarrah scoffs. “And if people oppose increasing the MDC’s funding because in the back of their mind they still think the shrines will save them?” she counters.

  “I think that’s a bit of a farfetched scenario,” Emil says, still smiling. “I mean, the MDC has proven themselves time and time again ever since the first dreadnaughts sailed. I doubt there’s that many people who still believe in these things. Especially not among those who decide budgets.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Sarrah half mutters.

  It’s Emil’s turn to scoff. “Now you’re just being paranoid. The council…”

  “She’s right,” Allia says suddenly, still staring out the window and having grown more and more pensive during the conversation. “It’s dangerous to think that beauty can provide physical security. That it can defeat the danger qua beauty. But I don’t think it’s a fraud either. There’s a madness to it, don’t you see? An earnest seeking. The silvery tubes that make up the structure. They’re like hands, abstracted and removed of all recognizable features save for the reaching… Reaching for the light. There is a salvation there, just not the one people think… and I don’t know if it was ever reached.”

  A quiet descends on the cabin as the occupants side eye her. Eventually, Allex scoots over to her and nervously coughs. “They just look like tubes to me. I don’t see hands, or reaching.”

  Allia blushes. “I guess it’s just an impression. I don’t know. They just look like hands to me.”

  Sarah laughs nervously exactly once. “Heh, they don’t have fingers, Allia. They just taper to a point. How can they be hands?”

  “They just are, okay!?” Allia squirms with evident embarrassment.

  Sarrah refuses to let up. “Allia, I’ve read several books that mentioned the shrines. None of them described the tubes as ‘hand-like’.”

  “Well, they should have!” Allia squeaks in indignation. “I mean, just look at them! They’re obviously hands reaching for the light. Can’t you see? They’re so desperate! Doesn’t it move your heart wanting to help them!?”

  Her three friends look among themselves and shake their heads. “I always assumed they were supposed to be kraken tentacles,” Emill admits.

  Sarrah scoffs. “Why would a shrine made to ward off krakens' entire structure be made to represent them? It’s supposed be their antithesis. Besides, they don’t look anything like kraken tentacles. They’re much too smooth.”

  Emil scoffs back. “As if anyone who saw it back when it was built could tell the difference. It’s not like they’d manage to kill one yet, or had accurate recordings to distribute. Besides, they’re much less abstract as tentacles than they are as hands. As for why the kraken ward is made to look like krakens? Maybe it was supposed to scare them off?”

  “How would it scare one off. It’s way smaller than one. It’s not like it would think we had killed one, and it should stay away. It would only look like a juvenile, and that would just make them angry.”

  Emil blushes. “How am I supposed know what the artist was thinking? They were insane, remember?”

  Allex ahems, “Only Allia thought a madperson designed it. Most historical texts describe the artist as fairly normal.”

  “You’re saying you disagree with her assessment?” Emil snaps back, almost gleeful as Allex nervously glances to Allia and faintly blushes.

  “Er, well, you know.” He blushes as he looks at an expectant Allia, clearly not wanting to disparage her perspective, but not finding it in him to agree with it either. “It’s an interesting insight, but not one I’ve seen supported elsewhere. Maybe you could get a paper published if you developed the idea.”

  Allia sighs and turns away from the window, disappointed and suddenly uninterested as she plops down on a chair. “It was just a passing impression. I’m not seeing it anymore. Projection, probably.”

  The friends glance around, the obvious question dancing across their faces, but left unsaid.

  “Well,” Allex says, sitting beside her, “we’ll be getting a fair bit closer as we pass. Plenty of time to form more settled opinions.”

  Allia shrugs. “No, I think I’ve seen what I need to. Any more and I’ll start getting echoes… er… you know what I mean.” From their expressions, they do not. “Anyways, I think I’ll rest some more. I’m still tired after… everything, I guess. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  Allex nods, concern etched on his face and a smile that tries to be light. “Well, be sure to be up in about 3 hours. We’ll be putting into Kelfest to pick up the last of J’s requests. It would be a shame if you missed one of the ‘jewels’ of the chain.”

  Allia smiles and thanks him before standing and leaving with Sarrah in tow. She pauses in the hall and turns to her, a haunted expression as she whispers. “Do you think it’s a sign of madness to see it falsely in the work of others?”

  Sarrah shakes no. “I think it’s normal. I mean, it’s useful to detect it, so we develop a tendency for false positives.”

  Allia smiles faintly, then shakes her head, chuckling to herself. “Then what does it say about me that I thought it was reason for praise?”

  Sarrah stands silently, so Allia just walks away.