Farshaun grunted. “Oh, that girl thinks a potion or an ointment is the answer to everything, but she’s just making it up as she goes. It’s age and nothing else.”
“It’s arrows in your chest and arm and loss of blood. You really are a stubborn old man.”
Farshaun laughed weakly. “Always was. Just kept it hidden until I got old enough to admit it.” He coughed, and there was blood on his lips. “You listen to me. That girl, she’s worth a dozen of you or me. She’s got grit and determination that hasn’t even been scratched in other people. She’s got heart. And she loves you.”
Railing stared. “No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t even like me much.”
Farshaun reached out and took hold of his wrist. “You don’t see things the way I do, Railing. Not about this, or about Redden, either. You’ve got no distance from these matters. You’re too close to them. Just step back and take another look.”
“She likes Austrum just now.” He was uncomfortable with this whole discussion. “He’s the one she wants.”
Farshaun released his wrist. “You think that way if you want. No one can tell you anything, can they? Go on and get back to your post. I need to sleep. I’m too tired to think now. We’ll talk again in the morning.”
Railing took the old man’s hand and squeezed gently. Then he lay the hand back on the other’s pallet, rose to his feet, and stood looking down at the already sleeping man.
Come back in the morning? He would be back in an hour. Maybe less. Farshaun was failing.
He climbed the ladder to find Mirai and tell her so.
Five
Sometime just before dawn, Farshaun Req died.
He did so quietly, making no fuss or sounds of distress or efforts to save himself. His passing did not awaken Mirai, who was sleeping right next to him. When she opened her eyes the following morning and looked over at him, his face was calm and peaceful. He seemed, she told Railing, as if he had just decided it was time. As if he had fallen asleep in mute acceptance of the inevitable and drifted away.
All of which did little to assuage her grief. She was inconsolable all that morning, distancing herself from everyone. She took her turn at the helm and worked the lines with the Rovers, but kept herself apart as she did so. She cried constantly and didn’t bother to hide it. Railing saw her in tears more times than he cared to think about, but when he tried to approach her, she quickly turned away.
Later on he saw her with Austrum, standing together near the pilot box, her head buried against his chest while he held her, his arms wrapped tightly about her. Railing felt so helpless and ruined in that moment that he could barely breathe. He turned away at once, but the damage was done. He’d seen enough to know what was happening. He guessed he had always known.
But he was sensible enough not to ask her about it. People handled grief in their own way, and it was mostly a private matter. As it was, he had his own grief to deal with, and it was a complicated and debilitating process. He was riddled with guilt by what he now perceived as his failure to save the old Rover. Farshaun Req had been like a father to him, had mentored him as an airman, and had stood by him through everything that had happened since they had set out from Bakrabru all those weeks ago.
It was his fault, no matter how you looked at it, that Farshaun was dead. It was his insistence on making this journey that was responsible.
He stewed on it for the rest of the morning while going through the motions of whatever his tasks required of him, speaking a few words here and there when necessary, accepting condolences, listening to tributes, all of it a jumble of words that felt more like accusations.
The Rovers had wrapped Farshaun in a section of sailcloth and placed him belowdecks in the cold locker at the stern of the airship. Because they wanted to bury him and mark his grave, they had to fly on for a time to find a spot where this was possible. It might take them until evening, Challa Nand advised. But the body would keep well enough in the cold locker until then.
“You should say something when we lay the old man to rest,” Skint said to Railing at one point. “You were close to him; you meant something to him. He would want you to speak for him. More so, I think, than any of the Rovers.”
Or he would prefer Mirai, Railing had thought at the time. She loved the old man, too—maybe more than Railing did. It seemed to him that she might do the better job of it. At least she wouldn’t be burdened with the guilt he carried. At least she wouldn’t have to speak the words and know she could have done something to prevent the need for them.