Marrill pointed. “I think the mountains are… uh… melting.”
“What does that mean?” Remy asked.
Serth spun toward her. “It means we are leaving. Now!”
Behind them the Salt Sand King laughed, the sound echoing off the metal mountains. “Do you think you can escape my wrath???”
“Right. Leaving. Got it.” Remy’s cheeks glistened with sweat as she hauled at the wheel, turning them sharply.
Below them the liquid iron churned, forming waves that crashed against the dissolving hills, eating away at them like sand castles being swallowed by the sea.
As Marrill watched, the waves grew larger, more volatile, rising higher. Just ahead, one crashed into a mountain, sending a stream of molten metal spiraling upward. The tip of it splattered toward the Kraken, as if it were trying to bat the ship from the air.
Remy pushed them into a steep dive, just barely avoiding the volley. But this sent them even closer to the threatening tide.
“Where will you sail to, yunh? Where can you go? When all the Stream is metal, fire is the only life!”
The Kraken practically skated over the churning iron surface, bobbing and weaving as metal waves formed into hands, reaching for them.
Marrill screamed, wrapping her arms around the nearest mast to keep from being thrown overboard. Remy pulled back hard, slingshotting them into the air. But there seemed to be nowhere they could go to escape the roiling sea below. In a molten world, the Salt Sand King was more powerful than ever before.
Throughout it all, Vell remained remarkably calm. Exasperatingly so. Beside Marrill, Fin’s patience reached its limit. “Are you headsoft?” he shouted at Vell.
Marrill was having the same thought, but Vell didn’t seem particularly swayed. “What Fin is saying is, if the Salt Sand King sets fire to the Kraken, then we’ll all die.” She leveled a finger at the boy. “Including you.”
Fin growled under his breath. “Remember: I die, you die. So maybe you want to help out a little?”
Vell’s icy exterior suddenly cracked. “Why do you think I’m not helping him kill you?” he snapped. But then he leaned back, shaking his head. Clearly, thinking for himself was not something he was used to. “I can’t,” he said. “I exist to serve the Salt Sand King. No matter what. If it is his pleasure that I die, so be it.”
That’s when it hit Marrill—they’d been going about this all wrong. Vell was nothing but a servant. He would never turn on the Salt Sand King. And even if they got away, he would never abandon the King. He would never help on his own.
Vell wasn’t the one they had to convince. The Salt Sand King was.
Their only hope, she realized, was the one thing least likely to work. They had to talk the Salt Sand King into sparing them—and into helping them.
The burning figure at the heart of the maelstrom cackled as a massive iron fist formed nearby and swung toward them. The Kraken dodged, but the fist wound up for another shot.
“Nowhere left to hide, troublesome fly,” the Salt Sand King hissed. “All the Stream may be metal, but you will still burn!” The blazing fist shot toward them.
“Wait! Wait!” Marrill called. “We can save you! We can give you back your kingdom!”
The fist paused in midair, barely a few feet from the bow of the ship. Slowly, it unclenched, iron fingers revealing the figure of the Salt Sand King standing in its palm. Flames flickered around him, sending waves of heat across the Kraken’s deck.
Marrill swallowed, painfully aware of how close he was to the bowsprit. How easy it would be for him to leap on board and send them plunging to the valley of molten iron below.
“What are you doing?” Fin hissed under his breath.
“Trying to bargain,” Marrill whispered.
“With what?”
Unfortunately, Marrill was still trying to figure that out. “Don’t break my flow.” She gulped. “But, you know, if you think of something, tell me.”
Fin regarded her skeptically for a moment. Then he gave her a big grin and a thumbs-up. “This is my kind of plan!”
Marrill didn’t feel terribly reassured by that. But it was all she had, so she decided to be encouraged by it. Slowly, she eased her grip from the mast and moved forward until she faced the molten avatar across from her.
“My kingdom, yunh?” the Salt Sand King asked when she approached. His voice, like his form, had shrunk. It squealed through the metal like a low whistle of steam. “I have my kingdom. Look around you. Everything you see belongs to me.”
“But what good is a land of iron?” Marrill countered.
The King’s flames dimmed, morphing from blazing blue to a dull yellow. “About as good as your empty promises.”
“They’re not empty promises,” Marrill argued.
“All promises are empty,” the King interrupted. “My existence is proof of that. The Dawn Wizard promised me three wishes and look what happened.” He threw his arms wide. “I am the ruler of nothing.”
And then his hands fell to his side. His chin dropped. “I am the ruler of nothing,” he said again, almost to himself.
Marrill felt a stab of pity for the creature. “Help us and you can have it all back: your land, your army, your dreams.”
“You would save the Stream only to unleash my destruction upon it once more?” the Salt Sand King snarled. He shook his head. “I find that difficult to believe. You’re just here to trick me like the Dawn Wizard.”
Fin stepped forward. “The Dawn Wizard didn’t trick you, King. He gave you what you wanted—he let you use your own ambition against yourself.”
The flames pouring from the Salt Sand King’s frame grew in intensity as his fists curled in rage.
But Fin pressed the point. “Desire and ambition were always your worst enemies. You cheated the Dawn Wizard in the first place because you wanted to rule everything. You fell for his trap because your desire blinded you to it. You destroyed your own kingdom in order to rule it. Now you have a chance to make up for that.”
Marrill felt the struggle shifting. The Salt Sand King was listening for once. “The Dawn Wizard gave you an option long ago,” she said. “Help someone else selflessly and be free. Help us now, and you live up to that.” She swallowed as the flames danced along the molten sea. “Or,” she said, “take our ship, complete your domination, and live eternally as the King of Molten Iron. Once we’re gone, Vell will be, too, and you’ll have zero subjects. Your choice.”
Marrill watched as the Salt Sand King flexed, sending flames streaming in every direction. She dropped to the deck, throwing her hands over her head as heat singed the hair along her arms. She waited to hear the sound of the sails catching fire, for acrid smoke to choke her lungs.
But there was only silence.
Marrill peeked open one eye. Beside her, Fin was frozen in a crouch; Remy stared wide eyed.
The temperature had dropped; the crashing molten waves ceased. And the iron hand where the Salt Sand King had stood only moments before was now empty. The hot metal had cooled and solidified into dull iron.
There was no evidence of the King or his fire anywhere.
Except there was one thing. One small memento, forged from the iron, resting in the palm of the hand he’d been standing on. Marrill shuddered as Vell leapt the railing to pick it up. He sauntered back, as if he owned the whole world himself.
From his fingers, a lantern swung casually. The flame inside it flickered. He strolled to the center of the forecastle and slowly held the lantern aloft. The Salt Sand King’s voice sizzled from the tiny fire within.
“Meet your new captain,” it said.
A cruel smile danced across Vell’s lips as his eyes swept over the ship.
Remy let out a low growl. Serth shook his head. Fin just looked away. Marrill gulped, praying they’d made the right decision.
CHAPTER 18
Baby Steps
Vell seemed to relish the moment of shocked silence that surrounded him. Fin swallowed. A bit
ter taste had suddenly filled his mouth, and he wasn’t sure how to get rid of it.
Not that long ago, Fin had stood up to Vell and turned his own people against him. Now Vell was taking over the Enterprising Kraken and was clearly enjoying it.
Like Fin, Remy was having none of it. She stormed down the quarterdeck stairs, heading straight for Vell. “New captain?” she snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“You asked for our help,” Vell said. “These are our terms.”
Remy crossed her arms. “Then we officially unask. We don’t need your help.”
Marrill held up a hand. “Remy, wait,” she said. “This is our only chance to save the Stream. We need them.”
Remy whirled on her. “Coll left this ship in my care. She is my responsibility.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed several times. “I’m not letting someone else take his ship.”
Fin looked to Serth. He seemed utterly uninterested in the argument. Instead his dark eyes were fixed on the lantern in Vell’s hand.
The lantern that was made of iron.
“Uh-oh,” Fin muttered.
Vell smirked. “You know what happens if I drop this?”
Fin waved his hand frantically at Marrill and Remy, who were getting ready to plunge into a full-blown argument. “Guys,” he said. “Guys!”
“What is it, Plus One?” Remy snapped. The two girls paused, just long enough for him to motion to the lantern. It took them a second. Then their jaws dropped open.
“Oh,” Marrill whispered. “The Iron Tide.”
Vell nodded. If that lantern so much as touched anything on the ship other than Vell himself, the Tide would spread and take them all. “Now that we’ve established you are my hostages…”
Fin’s anger boiled in his veins. All the hate he felt toward Vell rushed back at once, nearly overwhelming him. Being at his Rise’s mercy was too much after all they’d been through. He couldn’t deal with it.
But then, he didn’t have to deal with it, he realized. He’d stared Vell down before. He wasn’t going to stop now.
“Drop it,” he said. Vell’s eyebrows lifted, a strange mirror of Fin’s own expression. “Go ahead,” Fin pressed. He crossed his arms. “It’ll kill me, but it’ll kill you, too. So do it, if you think you’re in charge.”
His twin didn’t speak. But the look of shock on his face was so priceless that Fin half wanted to snatch the lantern and turn them both to iron, just so it would be frozen there forever.
“Well then,” Serth pronounced. “Now that we have established we are all each other’s hostages, perhaps we can move to the next order of business?”
“Yeah, like where are we going?” Remy asked. “Not that I don’t want to enjoy our time with Sparky and The Evil Twin, but we need a little bit of direction here.”
Fin opened his mouth, then closed it. He had no clue where they were headed. “Rose was flying ea—”
“NOBODY BETTER SAY EAST!” Remy snapped. “I know she went east, that’s why we’re headed east. I need something more specific!”
Vell snorted approvingly. “That one is… tougher than I expected.”
“Fiery,” the Salt Sand King added from his lantern. Fin and Marrill let out a groan. “What?” the Salt Sand King asked. “What did I say?”
Marrill stepped forward. Fin had been waiting for this. He knew she would have a plan. Or at least, she would know how to make a plan.
“So,” she said. Then she pivoted toward Serth. “How do we find Rose?”
“What an excellent question!” the wizard declared with a smile. It vanished instantly. His eyes jumped from her to Fin to Vell to the tiny lantern. “And I’m sure the four of you will work it out. In the meantime, I’ll be in my cabin. The Naysayer and I have a card game.”
And without another word, he blew right past them. The cabin door slammed behind him.
A moment later the main hatch popped open, and the Naysayer lurched out, Karnelius perched on one shoulder. He stopped halfway across the deck and eyed Vell. He looked at Fin. Then back at Vell.
“Oh, good,” he said. “That replacement I ordered finally came in.”
Fin felt a wicked smile cross his lips. He had long ago learned not to get offended by the Naysayer’s jabs. And he couldn’t wait to see how these two hit it off.
Vell puffed out his chest. “I am Vell, Crest of the Rise, First Servant of the Salt Sand King and Marshal of the Army Unstoppable.”
The Naysayer grunted. “This one’s defective, too.” He looked at Fin. “Must be a design flaw.”
“Defective?” Vell scoffed. “You fool. I am Rise. I cannot be beaten. I cannot be harmed.…”
As Vell droned on, the Naysayer reached up, slowly, with one thick hand.
“…I am invincible—ow!”
A fat Naysayer finger flicked right on the tip of Vell’s nose. The creature rumbled with a low belly laugh, then made his way to Serth’s cabin.
Fin laughed. Vell frowned.
“No one’s immune to Naysayer snark,” said Marrill. “Now if you guys are done, we have a bird to catch.”
A few hours later, with an uneasy truce struck, Marrill and Fin sat at a table on deck as the sun drifted low on the horizon. Across from them, the Salt Sand King’s flame flickered in its lantern, dangling from Vell’s fingertip. It cast sharp shadows across the ship as the crew discussed their next step.
Fin and Vell stared each other down. Both of them wanted to fight, but both knew better than to make the first move. Mirror images of each other, they were evenly matched, and both of them knew it.
At least, that’s how Fin hoped it looked. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he was well aware that his other half was a soulless monster without fear or remorse, and utterly invulnerable to boot. Fin, meanwhile, was fairly soft and vulnerable to all manner of cutting, stabbing, beating, falling, burning, and general maiming. Not to mention emotional torture.
He snapped himself away from thinking of all the terrible things Vell could do without killing him.
“So to undo all of this,” Marrill was saying, wrapping up an explanation about the Mirrorweb and how they intended to stop the Iron Tide, “we need to get back into the Mirrorweb, and uh…”
Fin caught her eye. She caught his. For a moment, they were locked in a silent battle of wills, struggling over Ardent’s fate. “Deal with the Master,” she said at last. “But to do that, we need to get Rose, and to do that, we need a way to occupy the Master. Which is where you come in.”
“Distraction, then,” smoldered the Salt Sand King.
“What happens to us when you do kill the Master?” Vell asked.
Marrill cringed at the use of the k word. Fin tried to smile reassuringly, as if to say maybe they would find this mirror of hers. But they both knew he couldn’t promise that.
The problem was he didn’t have an answer for Vell, either. He hadn’t even thought about what would happen after this was over. He shrugged. “You can come with us into the Mirrorweb, I guess.”
“Perhaps,” said the Salt Sand King. “Perhaps I will find the possibility of raising my lost land so that I may conquer it once more.”
Marrill shifted uncomfortably. Fin turned his head sideways, staring at the little flame. He remembered the devastation the Salt Sand King had wrought on his boundless empire. It burned to ash and then endlessly regrew, only to be burned down once again.
He sighed. The King had traded his kingdom, his people, and his humanity for the sake of conquest. Couldn’t expect him to give up the habit all at once, he supposed. “At least you’re not talking about burning the whole Stream anymore.”
The little flame fizzled. “I only want to rule everything. Is that so wrong?”
“It’s a little wrong,” Marrill said quickly. Fin nodded his agreement.
Remy snapped her fingers from the ship’s wheel. “Guys,” she said. “Focus. You’ve been going at this for hours. There’s got to be a way to figure out where Rose went.”
But
time passed, and nothing. Fin lay down, stood up, paced up and down the deck. Vell paced along the other side, a reflection of Fin but different in every way. Clothes, posture, demeanor. The way his black hair parted neatly across his forehead while Fin’s hung disheveled.
Fin stopped at the port railing. He was too focused on his Rise. He needed to think about something else. He took a deep breath. The air here was cold, clear—it purged his lungs. Down below, the world was an endless sheet of gray. As though a storm had come through and washed the color straight out of it.
It reminded him of Rose in a way. Not of Rose, really, but of Annalessa. Fin had scarcely known her, but she had been full of color, full of life. That color had drained out of her, literally, when she drank Pirate Stream water and turned into the scribbled bird.
He pushed himself up. “Annalessa,” he murmured. She was the key to everything.
“Marrill, I think I’ve got something,” he said.
Marrill kicked herself up from the table where she’d been idly doodling on her sketch pad and half jogged over to him. Unfortunately, Vell heard, too—he was there just behind her, the lantern swinging lazily from his fingers.
Fin did his best to ignore his Rise. “So here’s the thing,” he said. “You know how Serth said the Master wasn’t exactly Ardent, but he was influenced by Ardent’s desires?”
She nodded.
He held out a moment for maximum dramatic effect. “What if Rose and Annalessa work the same way?” he said. “What if Rose wants what Annalessa wanted when she became Rose?”
“Which is?” Vell asked skeptically.
Marrill ignored him. “There was a letter,” she said, following Fin’s train of thought. “Annalessa left Ardent a letter, with the Sheshefesh… she said she couldn’t stop the Meressian Prophecy, but she might be able to influence how it came true.”
“Right,” Fin added. “But how?”
“Did the letter say anything else?” Vell pressed.
Marrill bit her lip. “She mentioned she was being chased by a walking shadow of the man she once knew and that…” She trailed off, her eyes widening. “How did we not see it before?” she breathed.