I had a job to do, her mother had said.
"Listen!" Kira screamed again. "We need to go up there and bring in the mainsail!"
"It's death to go up there in this!" a sailor roared back.
"It's death not to go!" Kira yelled. There was no helping it, she knew, even as fear froze her insides. "I'm going up!" Rain pummeled her face, momentarily clouding her vision. When it cleared, she could see everyone watching her. "I'm going up!" she repeated. "Come on, all of you! Follow me! We're bringing in the mainsail!"
She never knew where she found the strength to let go of the mast and throw herself at the shrouds leading upward. Her hands grasped the rough rope and Kira swung herself up onto the ratlines, trying not to look around or think about what she was doing. Another wave swept across the deck, snatching hungrily at her lower body as it passed, then Kira began pulling herself up, step by step on the ratlines, her eyes locked on the sections of rope just before her eyes.
The ship heeled far over and her feet slipped, leaving Kira dangling over the water with only her grip on the rigging between her and the voracious sea. Then the ship swung back and Kira was thrown against the shrouds and ratlines with painful force.
She kept moving, trying not to think, just focusing on the next handhold and then the next after that.
Kira realized that Jason was climbing beside her, then spotted other figures in the shrouds on the other side of the mast. They were following her up.
She reached the spar, needing another burst of effort to release her grip on the rigging so she could slowly move out along the spar, her arms gripping it for dear life and her bare feet finding a perilous hold on the rigging set below the spar for that purpose. The vibration of the mainsail, thrumming under the force of the winds, could be felt even through the fury of the storm. The mast groaned again and another massive wave hit with a mighty crash, almost paralyzing Kira for a moment with fear that the ship had begun coming apart beneath them. Focusing again on the area just before her as Jason and the rest of the crew joined her on the spar, she began bringing in the rough, soaked canvas. The sail bucked under the wind's blows, its coarse fabric tearing at the skin of Kira's hands as she punched and wrestled one-handed to help get it furled and tied down. Red blood swirled across the wet canvas, then vanished under the driving rain, but Kira felt only mild stings on her numbed hands.
At some point Kira realized that she was tightening the rope that tied the sail to the spar, quivering with reaction and praying the ordeal was almost over. The ship pitched and bucked, jerking the mast through the sky and threatening to hurl everyone in the rigging down to the angry water or, just as bad, to the solid deck to be broken before being swept over the side.
Someone else was yelling, but the voice wasn't clear enough for Kira to make out. She looked to the sailor next over on the spar, whose face reflected the same terror and exhaustion Kira felt. The sailor stared at Kira. "The captain says the mast's still under too much strain!" he yelled, his voice barely able to be heard over the storm. "We need to reef the topsail."
"The topsail?" Kira braced herself and looked upward. At the end of the pendulum formed by the mast, the spars of the topsail seemed impossibly higher and even more dangerous than where the crew now clung. Kira looked down again, gasping with fear. She gazed to one side along the spar and then the other, looking for the person who would lead them up to the topsail.
But everyone else was looking at her.
The wind and rain tore at her. The spar bucked beneath her like a living thing determined to throw her off. Kira gritted her teeth, feeling a stubborn resolve rising from somewhere, battling against the fear that threatened to paralyze her. This is what you wanted, right? For everybody to see you, to look at you and not at your mother. What are you going to do about it? "All right," she whispered to herself. Then she raised her head and yelled. "Let's go! Reef the topsail! Everyone up there now with me!"
The slow progress back along the spar was a nightmare, then Kira had to grasp the shrouds leading higher up even as the pitching of the ship tried to throw her into space. The rigging was slick with water and blood from the torn hands of the crew, but everyone went, feeling the motion getting worse the higher they climbed.
Kira knew her hands were trembling with fatigue and fear, but she kept moving. Her mother had told her that. Sometimes the worst thing you could do was stop, because then you'd never get moving again. And her mother should certainly know. The part of Kira that had envied her mother's adventures looked out upon the raging seas, blinked away the wind-driven sheets of rain, and realized that her mother had spoken the truth when she'd denied enjoying them. "Sometimes I've been so scared I couldn't breathe." Knowing the things her mother had done, Kira had never believed her mother could truly have been afraid, but now Kira watched herself climbing higher while the storm tore at her, while icy claws of fear dug into her guts, and realized just how frightened her mother must have been at such times.
Along the spar again, Kira's temper rose at the blind fury of the storm, somehow warming her and giving her the strength to keep working to help reef the topsail, reducing its area enough to bring down the strain on the mast to bearable levels.
Done. The mast swung in a wild arc, almost pitching her off again. Kira clung to her holds and yelled once more. "Everyone back down! Get on deck! Be careful!"
The absurdity of her last comment was lost in a surging wave of terror as the mast whipped around again. Kira tried to move her hands and couldn't. They were locked onto their holds and refused to release. She clung there, frozen with fear, wondering how long it would be before the strength in her hands failed and she was hurled out into the sky.
Someone was tugging at her. Kira turned her head and saw Jason there, one hand pulling at her arm. He was shouting, looking at her with a puzzled expression. "Come on, Kira!"
How could he think she could do this?
But Jason wasn't going to move until she did.
Kira made a tremendous effort and one of her hands came free to reach for the next hand hold. Jason backed along the spar with her until they reached the shrouds, then they started down the ratlines, the water thrown into their faces beginning to taste of salt again as wind-driven spray from the sea mixed with the rain.
Kira made it down far enough to fall to the deck safely and stumbled to the mast, gripping it as another wave roared past and tugged eagerly at her. Her arms shaking with exhaustion, Kira felt like throwing up, but her stomach couldn't manage the effort. Still feeling half-stunned, Kira looked to make sure that Jason had made it to the mast.
Something felt wrong, Kira realized. The ship felt more sluggish. Had they taken in too much sail? She looked at the nearest one of the crew. "Why does the ship feel like this?" she shouted to be heard over the storm.
The sailor pointed downward. "We've taken on a lot of water!" she yelled back.
Taken on water. All of those waves across the deck, the pummeling of the seas, driving water between the planks of the hull. "The bilge pumps. We need to work the bilge pumps." Kira turned to the other sailors. "Get below and start working the pumps!" She looked back at the quarterdeck, where the shape of the captain and the other two sailors lashed to the helm could barely be made out through the murk of the storm. "Someone has to tell the captain."
"I'll do it," Jason volunteered, then lunged away before she could object. Kira watched Jason stagger across the deck as it pitched and rolled, breathing a gasp of relief as he reached the base of the quarterdeck before another wave washed across the deck. She felt a sense of amazement that the boy from Urth had agreed to run that risk. What had become of the sullen Jason who had alternated complaints with a superior attitude?
Jason came back, moving frantically as another wave rose, reaching the safety of the mast just before another deluge swept across them. "The captain says we need to keep those pumps going! No letup!"
She thought of the labor involved in driving the pumps, feeling the ache of weariness alre
ady filling her. "Let's get going."
The other crew members were already below. Kira and Jason rushed to the hatch and tumbled through together, pulling it closed after them. She had a moment of realization how much she and Jason were touching each other and how little it bothered her, how much in fact that contact was reassuring.
Belowdecks offered less a refuge than a different kind of terror as they stumbled through the darkness of the hold to the dim lanterns illuminating the sailors working the pumps. Inside, with the waves crashing against the hull, the ship groaning and planks cracking under the strain, everything tossing and jerking around, and the howl of the wind still easy to hear, it felt as though the entire world was coming to an end and about to collapse about them. When Kira reached the pumps, two sailors were working them slowly while staring around the badly lit hold, the rest of the crew huddled nearby.
Kira's temper went off again, giving her strength she hadn't imagined she still had. "Don't you want to live? Get working! I want two lines, one for each pump. Work it as hard as you can for the count of twenty, then let the next in line take over and go to the end of the line. Move it!"
They jumped in response to her words, doing exactly as she said.
"I told you so," Jason gasped as he stood next to her, holding on to a fitting as the ship lurched wildly.
She had no idea what he was talking about and no time or energy to pursue it. Kira kept the crew going, alternately encouraging, berating, and threatening them, finding herself using a lot of the words she had heard the sailors use, words that she would get in a whole lot of trouble for if she was ever foolish enough to use them in the hearing of her parents.
The pumps were all of the agony she had expected. When it was her turn she forced the pump handle through twenty up and down yanks, then reeled back so the next sailor could take over, staggering to the end of the line, her arms feeling like useless weights as the motion of the ship threw her against objects to either side. The water inside the ship sloshed below them and more came trickling down from above or along the planks of the hull. But they kept pumping, trying by hand to overcome the efforts of the sea to sink the ship by slow measures if it couldn't destroy it quickly with the fury of wind and wave.
This, surely, was the eternal punishment some people spoke of, Kira thought. The darkness would never end, the world would never stop pitching and heeling, and the work would go on and on while her muscles burned in the cold, wet place of her torment. But she kept going, and if anyone faltered she got them going again. Because that was what needed to be done, and she would do it if no one else could.
* * *
The endless dark night finally gave way to a dreary day. Kira sat, more exhausted than she ever would've believed possible, her back to the gunwale, looking up at the gray clouds scudding by low overhead. The wind was chill on her soaking-wet clothing, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Her body hurt with one big, dull ache and her hands felt numb and swollen. The sea salt that coated almost everything stung the rips and cuts in her hands. Occasionally a rent would appear in the clouds, showing blue sky beyond like a promise of deliverance. The wind, still strong but no longer dangerous, propelled The Son of Taris through seas which had subsided to merely rolling and choppy. Whitecaps sprinkled the water like an endless field of dark horses with bright manes and tails.
Jason slumped beside Kira, looking stunned with tiredness, or perhaps surprised that they were still alive. They were sitting so close their hips touched, but that was all right, that was comforting.
The clomp of heavy boots along the deck announced the approach of the captain. He stopped in front of Kira and Jason, looking down at them, his clothing thoroughly soaked like that of everyone else on board, his face haggard behind the stubble of an unshaven beard, white salt crystals shining amid the dark stubble. The captain eyed the two for a moment, then spat over the side before speaking. "Don't get up, you two. You've earned some rest. I'll not deny when they first brought you both out of the hold that I thought you no better than unneeded ballast," he said, his voice hoarse with weariness. "Useless weight, I thought. But I'll admit I was wrong." He nodded to Jason. "You've toughened up well, lad, and yesterday you showed your courage when it counted. You did a man's work and you did it well. As for you, girl," he shifted his gaze to Kira, "you don't belong in the crew."
Kira looked up at him, bewildered. "I…I don't?"
"No. You're a ship's officer, you are." He inclined his head toward the forward part of the ship. "The first mate owes her life to you, and we all owe our lives to you for getting the crew up that mast. Many a seasoned sailor would've run below to hide while those sails tore this ship apart rather than face climbing the rigging in that weather, but you led them up and you got the job done. Then you got them on the pumps and kept them going through the night. Very well done, I say. You're brave and smart, girl, and more to the point a leader to be counted on when it's needed most. I'm happy indeed to have you on my ship. I give you my hand on it." He leaned forward and solemnly shook Kira's hand while she gazed up at the captain, astonished. "You'll be rated second mate on the ship from the day we left Caer Lyn and draw the pay a ship's officer merits. If you stick with the sea you'll be captain of your own ship before you're twenty, or I'm no judge of sailors. Now, if the pair of you want to stay on after Kelsi, you're more than welcome in my crew. Or if you want to move to another ship I'll be pleased to provide you references."
With a gruff nod, the captain moved on.
Kira just stared after him, unable to find words.
She heard Jason laugh softly and briefly. "I can't believe he offered me a job. Because of what I did. I earned it."
"You did," she said, remembering Jason following her up into the rigging.
"So did you. You're a ship's officer now."
"Yeah. Right." Kira leaned back, sighing, too tired to think clearly. "He's just saying that because of my mother. It doesn't really mean anything. People are always saying nice things to me because of her, because they think I must be like her."
"Kira, he has no idea who your mother is."
It took a moment to sink in, then Kira fixed a shocked look on Jason. "He doesn't. He doesn't know who my mother is."
Jason nodded. "And he thinks you did a good job. A real good job."
"Jason, this is the first time in my entire life that I know someone is saying something nice to me because of me and not because of who my mother is." She felt tears starting and blinked furiously, wiping her eyes with one soggy sleeve, flinching as the salt on the cloth stung her eyes.
"Why are you crying?" Jason asked, worried.
"Never mind. I'm fine." She breathed deeply several times and took control of herself. Jason was right. She had gone up that mast, and those other sailors hadn't followed because she was Lady Mari's daughter. They'd seen something in her, Kira, that made them listen to her, made them follow her. Something Kira had never believed she possessed. And she had been scared, more scared than she had ever been, but somehow she had done what was needed. It seemed impossible, but there were the captain's words, and the ship still floated. What did it mean? If she wasn't who she had always thought, a small figure lost in the shadow of the daughter, who was she?
She looked over at Jason, who was haggard with tiredness but gazing into the distance again. Who was he? Not the guy she had thought when they first met. He was smart. He'd shown himself to be kind. He respected her. And yesterday he had proven his bravery. Kira had a flashback of herself going over the side of the ship, helpless against the force of the wave, Jason appearing over the gunwale, his hand reaching to grasp hers in a grip of iron that did not relax until he had pulled her back aboard to safety.
And he had said nothing today about that, about risking his own life to save hers. Had not asked for thanks or praise. Had not expected any reward.
Kira reached out to grasp Jason's chin and turn his face toward her. He was still looking at her in surprise when she kissed him, tasting the
sea salt on his lips mingling with that on her own.
When she pulled back, the expression on Jason's face made her laugh. "What? Didn't you like it?" Kira teased, feeling breathless.
"Yeah," Jason finally managed to say, "I liked it. I liked it a lot."
"Good. So did I."
Jason rubbed his face as if trying to convince himself that he was awake. "What does it mean, Kira?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm not sure of anything right now. Is that all right? But I might kiss you again sometime. If that's all right."
"Any time you want to kiss me is fine with me!"
Kira's laughter was interrupted by the arrival of the first mate, a large bruise visible on one side of her forehead.
"That's enough cuddling, you lovebirds. I hope you're not expecting easy treatment for saving my life," she added with a sharp look at Kira.
"Not from you," Kira said, smiling. "You don't do easy."
"Maybe you are as smart as the captain says. You might make a decent second mate," the first mate said. "Supervise the foremast. I'll take the main." She raised her voice to yell to the rest of the crew. "Everyone on your feet! The wind is slackening! Make sail! And give a hand for the ship's new second mate!"
* * *
Kira and the first mate leaned on the railing as The Son of Taris approached the harbor of Kelsi. The sun shone brightly on the waves, sparking golden glints from the water, while the breeze played with their hair and filled the sails of the ship. It was as if the angry sea they had fought a few days before had never been, and for a few moments, there was no call for work. "Are you sure you wish to leave us?" the first mate asked her. "The captain would be pleased to have you stay on with the crew. The boy, too. You'd likely be safer from whatever it is you're running from."