“You will. After you rest.”
“You can lie to me but not her?” Grey opened his mouth, but the captain continued. “Take care of her. Be better to her than I ever was.”
“I will. But she is strong. She takes care of herself.”
He nodded gravely. “I know. She has so much of her—her mother—in her.” He blinked back more tears. “Let’s get this over with, I feel like I have half the ship piercing my chest.”
Grey nodded to the healer, who said, “As soon as I remove the shard, push these cloths in from the sides as quickly as you can. Put pressure on the wound. If we can slow the tide, perhaps I can stitch the flaps of skin back together.”
Grey held the cloth on one side with his hand, tasting blood in his own mouth, where he’d bitten the side of his cheek hard enough to break through.
“On three. One. Two. Three!” The man pulled and at first nothing happened, save for another howl from Smithers as he jammed his eyes closed. Then there was a sucking, squelching sound and the shard reversed from the captain’s flesh amidst more screaming. Blood bubbled from the wound as quickly as Grey could shove the towels into his flesh, which gaped like a sinkhole. He pushed more in, but soon they were saturated too. It was like fighting a deluge with only a cap and a cape.
Grey’s final shreds of hope vanished as the captain’s scream descended into ragged breaths and then the slow breathing of unconsciousness. The healer’s hands pressed around his, helping to add towels to the mass already in the wound.
It was a losing battle.
The blood continued to flow like water through a breached dam.
Grey was no longer covered in blood, having changed his clothes. But he still felt it on him, and he kept checking, expecting to find his fresh linens soaked through. Each time he looked, however, his clothes were dry. The soiled ones were balled up in a corner of cabin, smeared with blood. Not his own; not that it mattered.
Stop thinking like that, he thought. Right now. It does matter. You are alive and so are they.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to enter the room, watching from the shadows. The cabin flickered with light from a lantern.
Erric was propped up in bed, but still sleeping. Shae spooned small amounts of soup into the pirate king’s mouth, gently tipping his chin back to force him to swallow. Kyla dabbed a wet washcloth on his forehead, but even from this distance Grey could see her hand shaking.
How do I do this? How does one give this kind of news? Against the monster—Wrathos, he remembered Shae had called it—he’d felt courageous, determined, a warrior. But against this monster, this grief and pain, he felt powerless.
He shifted his stance slightly and a board creaked.
Kyla’s eyes darted to where he stood. “Grey?” She abandoned her post as he stepped forward into the light. He felt his own body begin to shake, but willed it to stop. He had to be strong. For her.
In the end, he didn’t have to say anything at all, because the truth was etched as clearly in his expression as a torrent of tears would’ve been. “Oh Wrath,” Kyla said, falling into his arms. He pulled her against him, held her as her strength flagged, scooped her up with one arm and carried her as she wept against his neck.
I’ll return soon, he mouthed to Shae, who was watching him. She nodded gravely and went back to spooning soup.
Grey carried Kyla to her cabin, laid her on her bed. She turned away, toward the wall, and he crawled in beside her, wrapping an arm around her chest, his knee touching the back of hers, like they were a twin set of spoons nestled together.
I am not powerless, he thought. She just needs me to be with her, even if I can’t change the past.
So he stayed with her for a long time, absorbing the tremors of her body as she wept, soaking the sheets with tears of sorrow.
Kyla was finally sleeping. Grey had checked on Shae, but she was sleeping too, sitting upright in a chair next to Erric’s bed, a half-empty bowl of thin soup still in her lap.
He’d quietly stolen away, above decks, where The Jewel II bobbed and shifted on the waves. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, shooting lines of silver-orange across the waters. Those seamen who were uninjured in the attack were industriously patching damage to the ship, which apparently would survive the day. Unlike her captain.
In some ways, Grey felt like the ship should be purposely sunk, taking Captain Smithers with her. In some ways, he thought maybe the captain would’ve wanted that.
He paced past the sailors, ignoring their dark stares as they took in his grim expression. He couldn’t speak of the dead—not now.
He leaned on a section of the railing that was chipped and splintered, but still, remarkably, intact. Staring out over the sea, he assessed the damage. Three ships were gone altogether, replaced by naught but wreckage being spread across the waters by wind and currents. Where would it wash up? Would the people who found a barrel here or a piece of rope there wonder where it had come from? Would they care?
Nine ships remained, including The Jewel II.
Men and women trolled the waters in rowboats, seeking to recover the bodies of the dead.
How did this happen? he wondered. No. He knew how. But why? What was the meaning of so much needless destruction? He’d been avoiding these very thoughts from the moment the sea monster was blinded, shrieking and sinking beneath the surface. Because the monster’s name wasn’t the only one Kyla had uttered. No, she’d said another:
Rhea.
A cleared throat behind him made Grey flinch.
Shae was several steps away, watching him. “Erric will live,” she said.
Grey nodded. He was glad for it. Despite the rocky start to their acquaintance, the man was good for Shae. Bound to her by a power greater than even blood.
“He will need your help,” Shae said next.
Grey frowned. Help with what? “I don’t understand.”
She gestured to his arm and he had to look before he caught her meaning. His knife-hand glinted. He felt a fool for not thinking of it himself. He’d grown so accustomed to not having a hand that he rarely gave it a moment’s consideration. But losing a leg… “I will help him come to terms with it. I will remind him that a leg is better than a life, something I wish I’d had someone to remind me of.”
“Thank you.”
“Shae?”
She didn’t answer, taking quick steps over to stand beside him. She peered toward the horizon for a few moments before she spoke. “I held Erric’s hand.”
Grey knew what she meant. “What did you see?”
Her words seemed to come from a faraway place, her eyes as distant as the horizon she was watching. “High cliffs. Red rocks. A long throat, filled with soldiers. They will die. They will all die.”
Grey remembered what she’d said before, about Phanes being central to whatever was happening, the fate of the Four Kingdoms. And what she was describing could only be one place, though he’d never been there. “The Bloody Canyons,” he said. “That’s where the battle will take place.” He thought of something else. “Before the attack…you mentioned Rhea. You said she’d lost control.”
“If she ever had it.”
“Regardless. What did you mean?”
“She summoned Wrathos.”
So many dead...Captain Smithers… “How could she do that? Why?” He didn’t know why he still expected Rhea to be better than she was, especially considering his missing hand was a daily reminder of just how awful she could be. And yet, he did.
“She did it to save her people. She didn’t know the monster would come here.”
“But it did.”
Shae didn’t deny it.
“The battle…” Grey said, stabbing his knife-hand into the railing and trying to vanquish thoughts of Rhea in the same way he’d blinded the monster. Though he’d been unable to recover the dagger Kyla had given him, he’d replaced the blade with another. This is who I am now, half-human, half-blade.
She nodded. “Some of th
e fatemarked will be there.”
“Bane?”
“I sensed a darkness, but cannot be sure. He is the wind. Distance is as narrow as a silk ribbon to the Kings’ Bane.”
“And the others?”
She ran a hand along the chipped railing, seemingly unbothered by the rough surface. “A man, half-Phanecian, half-Teran. He controls many.”
Grey frowned. “Controls?”
“A slave army.”
His jaw locked, salt gritting between his teeth. “We must stop them both.”
“Maybe,” she said. “There is another too. She is…lost, but determined. She is our purpose. I see it now.”
“Who is she?”
“The keeper of souls,” Shae said. She turned and left, leaving Grey as puzzled as ever.
Erric fell. Grey offered his hand to steady him, but the pirate slipped from his grasp and tumbled to the deck, grimacing. “Useless leg,” Erric muttered.
“It’s not your leg,” Grey said, offering him his hand. “Your entire body must get used to the new distribution of weight.”
Erric stared at his hand. Well, not at the hand he was being offered, but at where Grey’s other hand should be, replaced by the dagger. “Because I’m missing a leg. Because you cut it off.”
Grey winced at the reminder. He knew he’d had no choice, but still…he hated the furia for what they’d done to him, how they’d maimed him. He could only imagine what Erric thought of him. And I’m supposed to help him? Yes. I will. For my sister, if not for him.
“I’m only giving you a hard time,” Erric said, grasping his hand and yanking him down to the deck. He barely managed to steady himself by jabbing his knife into the wood. Erric wobbled to his foot and said, “Let’s try again.”
It went on like that for a long time, Erric trying to use the crutch they’d fashioned from driftwood from one of the sunken ships. Failing mostly. Falling a lot. Eventually he grew frustrated and requested a break. Once more, the pirate king eyed Grey’s blade. “I guess a blade-leg wouldn’t be of much use,” he said.
“No, but a wooden peg could help give you balance. As soon as the…as soon as you heal, we’ll give it a try.”
Erric extended his hand, the proper one to shake Grey’s. Surprised, Grey hesitated for a moment before taking it. Both of their grips were strong as they clasped hands. Erric said, “Thank you. You saved my life.”
Grudgingly, Grey had to admit this man was as good as they came. If I lost a leg…
There was no way he’d be thanking the man who’d cut it off, even if it had saved his life. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Now go, rest. We will make landfall soon.”
As soon as Erric was gone, Grey returned to the helm. No one had told him he was the captain of the ship now, but when it was time for a decision to be made, it was he who made it. At least until Erric was well enough to command the fleet once more.
He watched the sailors for a few minutes. They dutifully performed their tasks, but he could see something was missing. Their usual energy. The sound of raucous singing and chesty laughter.
Joy. That’s what is missing. These were men who once relished the voyage, rather than the destination. Now they seemed to complete tasks simply because they needed to be completed.
The sun was already sinking toward the horizon, so Grey made a decision. “Make anchor!” he shouted, stopping all activity in its tracks. Several of the men blinked, staring at him. “Did I stutter?” he said.
The joyless activity resumed, and soon a red flag was hoisted, signaling to the rest of the fleet that their day of sailing was finished. Red flags rose to the top of each ship, and anchors splashed down into the water.
Grey joined his men, helping to rein in the sails, tying them off while the anchor was lowered into the depths. When they finished, he said, “Raise the black flag.”
Though several eyebrows were raised, this time there was no hesitation in carrying out his order.
The black flag meant one thing: fleet meeting.
It took the better part of three hours for the other ships to shuttle all their men and women over to The Jewel II, and by the time they were assembled shoulder to shoulder on the decks, night had well and truly fallen, the sky glistening with stars.
They almost look like unshed tears, Grey thought, staring up at them.
Kyla sat nearby on a barrel, playing with something shiny between her fingers. She hadn’t wanted to come above decks, but Grey had insisted.
Shae was there, too, sitting on the steps with Erric, his crutch within reaching distance.
The rest of the group were eerily silent, staring up at where Grey stood. He took a step forward, until he was flush with the upper railing, looking out over them, a collection of longtime pirates and career sailors. They were friends and comrades. Broken several times, but never destroyed. Not on my watch, Grey thought.
After a few moments of silence, Grey spoke. “You are probably wondering why I gathered you here. You are probably expecting a rousing speech, something to get your blood pumping, to push you toward the end of this journey. If so, you will be sorely disappointed.” He shook his head. “No, this is a night of sorrow.”
He let that sink in. He felt Kyla’s eyes on him, and he turned to look at her. The thing she’d been playing with dangled from her fingertips—a silver necklace bearing some kind of bauble. Something in her expression told him she knew why they were here now. And that same something told him she approved, which was important to him.
I can do this.
“We lost many of our ranks—too many. Friends. Loved ones. Family. We should not have to move on like it never happened. It did happen, and tonight we remember. Tomorrow, we bring our sorrow with us, we carry this great burden that is ours. Not on one or two of our shoulders, but on all our shoulders. We bear it together.”
Slowly, heads were nodding, mouths pressed into firm, determined lines.
Grey gestured to a pile of wreckage heaped in one corner of the ship. Before they’d set sail, he’d had as much of it recovered as possible. “This is our funeral pyre. Our dead should not be burned or sunk into the deep. No, they will go together on the same decks they stood strong on, fought on, breathed their last breaths on. They will sail the high seas for the eternities, long after our own bodies have turned to dust. And they will be remembered.” He paused, meeting as many eyes as he could in that short time, settling on Kyla’s last of all. “Who is with me?”
Her eyes sparkled with grief. But not just grief—life too. “I am,” she said, a chorus of agreement following from the rest of the ship.
Late into the night they toiled, using scraps of severed rope and twine to bind the wreckage together, lowering it into the water. Then the bodies were brought up, lowered onto the makeshift barge.
Captain Smithers was last.
Kyla kissed her fingertips and then placed them on his forehead. Fighting back tears, she covered his face with a cloth and helped lower him onto one of the planks below. It shifted under his weight but stayed afloat.
“Go, Father,” she said, her voice trembling. “This shall be your final voyage, and it shall be a glorious one. May you meet Mother again.”
They watched, no one speaking until the shadows had claimed the small vessel and those they’d lost, until, one by one, they departed, returning to their respective ships or below decks to sleep. Grey and Kyla continued to watch long after that, until only they were left.
And then they watched some more, arms around each other, connected by grief and life and a renewed sense of purpose.
“Land ho!” the crow cried, high in his nest. Shortly, the announcement was verified by watchmen from the other ships.
Grey allowed himself a deep sigh of relief. Though getting around the southeastern tip of Phanes had only required an extra day of sailing, his anxiety had grown with each passing minute.
The sea monster is maimed at worst, dead at best, he reminded himself once more. We have nothing to fear from the o
cean.
It was a lie, he knew, but one he needed to cling to for a while longer. Just long enough to keep those he cared about safe.
Men and women pirates who had been off duty and resting were beginning to emerge from below decks, lining the railings of each ship, staring toward the growing line of land against the western horizon.
The excitement in the air was palpable.
Kyla emerged too, and Shae and Erric, the three of them making their way to Grey’s side.
“Are you rested?” Grey asked them.
They nodded in turn, though he knew for a fact Kyla hadn’t been sleeping much.
“We’ll fashion a cart fit for a pirate king,” Grey said to Erric. “I’ll pull it myself if I have to.”
“With one arm?” Erric said, a glint of amusement in his eyes.
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“Indeed. But I won’t need a cart. I will walk.”
Grey appreciated the determination in his voice, even if he knew it was impossible. In fact, he’d already had a cart constructed. When the pirate king grew weary, he would ride.
“What is going to happen?” Kyla asked no one in particular. The arid desert was coming into focus, an empty wasteland devoid of anything but the occasional rock or gnarled plant. Further north were the rocklands, a cluster of red-sheathed boulders intermittently spired with tall, thin rock formations. Grey knew from studying the ship’s maps that a day’s hard march to the west would bring them to the Bloody Canyons.
“It doesn’t matter,” Grey finally answered, when no one else did. “All that matters is that we’ll be there. Fighting for something.”
No one else said anything, not until they reached the rocky shoreline and made anchor. Sailors began preparing the small boats that would ferry them across in groups. Shae and Erric made their way down the steps to gather with the others.
It was only then that Kyla said, “I overheard what you and your sister were talking about. Before.” When Grey looked at her quizzically, she clarified. “When you left me to sleep, I couldn’t. So I came above decks to find you. Shae was there. You were talking about her visions.”