6. Rebirth

Enra and Chonib held each other upright on the deck of a ship. They made good speed, thanks to Enra’s navigation using the sun at daytime and Chonib’s navigation using the moon at night. She tried to teach him Sunreading, but all her own knowledge of Moonreading appeared useless. Until the realized everything was obviously the opposite for him, after which he was a quick student.

She also taught him how to paint the sun during the day, but Enra was a hopeless artist. After Chonib had laughed at his attempts at a drawing for three days straight, he gave up.

Their first stop was Vennis. This harbor city in Itta had grown incredibly wealthy from their trade with Ottojon. They were just outside Ottojon—knowing Otto, though, that wouldn’t be true for long.

Their riches allowed them to pay attention to the arts too. They could spend money on gigantic temples, unnecessarily tall buildings, and artists like Da Vennisi who used math and formulas to create inventions.

The Krystan Church was not happy about it. But then again, the folk in Vennis also wasn’t happy with them anymore. And they now had enough money to turn that dissatisfaction into actions, such as abolishing witch hunts and freedom to practice science. They called it the Renaissance, or Rebirth.

Unfortunately, Chonib had to visit and ruin their life.

The traders already awaited the ship. Hundreds of her moon paintings were stored in the ship’s hold, each worth a fortune. At moments like these, Enra did wish for more artistical talent. But maybe he could make statues of the sun or something; the animals in Vennis would buy anything that seemed luxurious.

“Ah! The muse herself!” they said cheerfully. “Please tell us this message from Otto is a joke?”

“Afraid not,” she said, as she jumped on shore. They could’ve sailed much further—Vennis was built on water and had many little canals for boats—but Chonib didn’t want to delay their actual mission.

The traders, predominantly wolves, looked sour. “So this is the last one? Otto is ending all trade, forever?”

“This is the last one,” she confirmed. Only ten paintings were hauled to deck, as if that was all they had. The traders paid well and kept their promise, but their excitement had clearly dropped.

“I am sorry, really. I’ve been telling Otto for months that the Moon clearly says it’s a bad idea.” Enra helped her back onto the ship. “Less and less, he listens to me.”

“A hundred voices that state you’re invincible,” said an older wolf, “drown out the one voice telling of your demise.”

Chonib’s whiskers curled up. “You’ve read the works of Ardex and Bella too, I hear?”

The older wolf smiled. “Officially, I know nothing about those blasphemous works, of course. But unofficially …”

They sailed onwards to their second stop: Esprante. The country that pushed against Ottojon’s borders and had the most to lose if trade died. Also the land where Enra was born and hoped to find his parents again—if they were still alive.

“What will you tell Otto?” Enra asked at night, when Esprante was just a fleck on the horizon. “That you lost me to the sea?”

Chonib sighed. “When will you learn? If you stay behind, then I stay behind. If we find your family, then Otto has lost his Moonreader.”

Enra glowed again. They’d convinced the other sailors that it was a symptom of sea sickness.

“You would do that for me?”

“I would die for you.”

His face contorted. “Why? You’ll gain nothing from it. I am just one person without power—and you’d be dead. It’s illogical.”

“Must it be?”

“Yes! We might live in groups, but even that is selfish. If we’re kind to the group, they are kind to us. If we fight for the empire, the empire fights for us. But die for me? You won’t help yourself by doing that, obviously! So why?”

She grabbed his paws and pulled them to her body.

“Love.”

Enra stepped away to lean against the mast. Chonib followed to stay within his warmth.

“Love is the only exception,” she said. “It allows animals to achieve greatness or help others without ever thinking about themselves.”

“Then I don’t understand why love exists,” Enra mumbled. “It’s illogical.”

They’d reached Esprante’s shoreline. Enra was sweating, uncomfortable and light-headed. After all these years, he’d grown accustomed to the climate in Ottojon, not that of Esprante, and he wanted to get off the ship before he actually became sea sick.

This time, they were awaited by a royal delegation and the impressive sight of a military fleet. Enra couldn’t believe his eyes. These ships were far larger than whatever Ottojon made and—how many cannons did the big one have? More than twenty?

“That’s why we’re here,” Chonib whispered. “As expected, cutting off trade made the other empires angry. They put all their money into building the best possible fleet to finally take the oceans out of Otto’s chokehold. When Otto heard he was losing sea battles to Esprante now, I had to come here and negotiate peace.”

“I don’t believe any of that,” Enra whispered back.

Chonib nodded. “And then I had to steal their blueprints for the ships and immediately break the peace.”

They left the ship, and its hundred paintings, behind under guard. Only a small selection of paintings was carried out of the hold, as a sign of their good intentions. With those, they walked to a small building.

Inside the building, a fat swine plead before the king of Esprante.

“Give me a fleet,” he begged. “I swear I will find a sea route that does not pass through Ottojon territory. A safe route to Schola directly, so we can keep trading with them!”

“By simply sailing the other way?” the king said, laughing. “That is your entire plan, Krystoph Olombos?”

“Give me that fleet and I will prove myself.”

Chonib walked past the swine and raised her voice. “He is right. Ottojon is large, but not the entire world yet. He’ll find a sea route around us.”

The king of Esprante, a lion, laughed even harder. “Why should I believe you? The highest advisor of Otto tells us this … out of the goodness of her heart?”

“Yes,” both bears said.

“No use discussing or blaming,” said the lion. Two Gosti carried a heavy chest filled with golden coins and dropped it before Chonib. “Give us the paintings, as agreed.”

Chonib frowned. “We came her for peace negotiations. To seal the peace, I suggest trading ships. You get our ship—including all paintings, of course—and we sail back on yours.”

Enra thought this was a clever approach to solve everything at once and smiled at her.

“Unnecessary. The paintings will do.”

The king of Esprante studied the selection of ten paintings and ordered someone to carry them to a nearby room.

Enra stepped forward. He didn’t know why he was saying this, but he felt he had to. “Let’s not spill more blood. If you think your fleet can defeat ours, you are wrong.”

“I don’t need to defeat you,” the lion said. “If I don’t win, one of the other countries you angered will. You’ve put your fingers in too many pies—so pull your hand back or be prepared to lose them all.”

Enra stepped closer, until the lion guards pushed him back. It allowed him to see what happened in the little room off to the side.

A bear was reading the paintings. He drew lines, shapes and numbers on top of the moon that Chonib had painted with such precision.

They’d been oh so stupid.

The enemy could also Moonread by now and used the paintings to get an advantage, all while Otto stopped listening to its advice. Moonreading was extremely rare, and perhaps this bear was distant family of Chonib, but it could be learned, just like Otto tried.

Chonib sunk to her knees at the same realization.

Visions of an Esprante attack messed with Enra’s brain. A destruction of the beautiful Ottojon capital, the blue dome of the mosque turned to rubble, all his Devirme boys enslaved again by another Empire, even more beings ripped from their home again.

He grabbed the shard of the vase that he still carried in his uniform, ever since that first meeting with Chonib long ago. And he made a play.

“Do you know who I am?” Enra spoke softly, so that only the king would hear. “I am the being who led a revolution against our sultan and almost won. We have no love for Ottojon. We see your strength is far greater than his. The paintings are yours and we even offer our ship to Olombos for his voyage of discovery.”

His message was relayed to the room. The Moonreading bear tried to discern if there was any truth to Enra’s words.

A while later, they were back on their ship. With all their paintings, their Moonreader, the King of Esprante and Olombos. A test voyage, as a sign of friendship, towards the village where Enra used to live. He smiled as he briefly imagined seeing Himnib’s and Solong’s faces, running up to them and hugging them—then dropped his smile.

“Ah,” the swine said. “I’ve always wanted to know how Otto’s ships control the seas and move so swiftly. I trust that, thanks to you, I will find that alternative route in no time!”

“Erm, well, this is the truth,” Chonib said. She hadn’t expected Enra’s sudden play and was now lagging behind. “I am Goddess of Luck, yes, that’s me. And he is, erm, the Demigod of Good Eyes.”

They played along for the remainder of the day. They sailed quite a distance, at least out of range of the war fleet. But they couldn’t wait for too long. The treasure on this ship was too precious to keep alive. And Enra wasn’t just thinking about the paintings that could be Moonread by the enemy.

They felt little loyalty to Ottojon.

They felt even less loyalty to any other empire where they hadn’t lived their entire life, to any other king they didn’t know and who didn’t feed them.

Chonib grabbed Enra tightly, longer than she’d ever done. She could hardly find the words.

“Are we really doing this?”

Enra was confident now.

“And the Demigod of the Sun said: let there be sea storms.”