The wind didn’t groan; it whistled high in a breathless scream. The sun was far overhead, but the rays of light brushing the backs of her hands felt strangled of heat. Normally, in the middle of the day, rivulets of sweat would be running down her neck and back, yet she was barely perspiring.
The sea spray was like shards of ice as the ocean waves slapped against Felicity’s bow.
They’d entered the Dynami Sea.
Peg-leg eyed the ocean ahead, shuddering. “We need to be walkin’ on tiptoes here, lass.”
She nodded absently. If they could sneak in and out of the Dynami with the next piece, all the better. “Aye, it makes me want to have my pistol out and cocked. Like somethin’ be ready to jump out at us. Or like Felicity is bein’ watched by things deep underwater.”
“I hear ye,” her father said. “Ye know better than to cock a pistol ye ain’t sure to use, though.”
Ebba shot him a look. “I was just sayin’.”
“Aye, aye, I know. But while we’re talkin’ of such things, I’ve been meanin’ to say that the next time ye hold a dagger to a man’s throat who be fair taller than ye, hold a second dagger to his inner thigh. There be a fat artery there, as ye know, and the two daggers’ll deter him compl’tely where the one dagger might not.”
Ebba glanced at the cook who was rubbing his knee. “Ye think Jagger could’ve gotten free yest’rday?”
“Aye, I do. He’s a freakish tall fellow.”
That he was. No wonder he slept on deck—he’d need to dangle his legs over the side of the hammocks, anyway. But Ebba wondered if that was the only reason Jagger had opted to caulk up here. Down in the sleeping quarters the other day, he’d been so cagey. And long ago, he’d once told her that fresh air and staying above deck helped him evade the taint.
Was Jagger coping with the taint still within him? He seemed outwardly okay. And even if he wasn’t, Jagger didn’t strike her as the kind of person who’d want to sit down and chat about his dark feelings.
More importantly, she wasn’t impressed by the notion that he might have humored her yesterday by not turning the tables and extinguishing her attempt to put him in his place. Peg-leg was right. Next time—because she had zero doubts there would be a next time with that pirate—she’d use the second dagger. If he moved, she’d open up his artery and let all his grog spill out.
She cackled aloud, drawing Peg-leg’s curious gaze.
Water burst upward and, despite knowing Grubby had gone for a swim, Ebba had to force a squeal down as he flopped on deck, soaking wet and clothed in just his slops. This sea had her sails pulled too tight.
“Find anything?” Plank shouted from the mast.
Her selkie father always took a minute to stand after a swim. Ebba thought it might be his skull reminding his body it was human and not seal—even though he didn’t have enough selkie in him to transform.
When he stood, Grubby’s face was ashen.
She rushed to him alongside Plank and Peg-leg. Her fathers gripped each of his arms, steadying her selkie parent.
“What happened, matey?” Ebba bit her lip, insides twisting. “What did yer selkie kin say?”
“Th-they said to turn around.”
Peg-leg huffed. “Did ye tell ‘em we had to go in? They already knew that we were goin’ to the Dynami Sea.”
Grubby’s face screwed up even as his teeth chattered. “N-nay, they didn’t,” he said. “Forgot to mention it afore we left.”
Plank ambled over from the opposite bulwark, carrying Grubby’s discarded tunic from before the swim. “They say why we can’t go in?”
“Nay, I could only just hear ‘em,” Grubby said, accepting the tunic from Plank. “They were sayin’ not to go in and then cut out.”
“Was Jerry there?” Peg-leg asked.
Grubby shook his head, teeth chattering. “Nay, he’ll take a bit to catch up. Said he might turn followin’ us into a family trip—smooth things over with his wife after the affair with Roger.”
They took a moment to absorb that.
Plank raised his brows. “What else did ye see down there, Grubs? What has ye so shaken?”
Her selkie father paled all over again. “Uh . . . uh. . . .”
“Spit it out,” Peg-leg pressed.
“Red eyes,” he blurted, trembling.
. . . Red eyes. Ebba shared a glance with the others.
Grubby’s lip trembled. “Tentacles.”
“Like yer octopus friends?” she asked. The smile faded as her father frantically shook his head.
“Giant tentacles,” he clarified.
That . . . didn’t sound great.
Plank wrapped an arm around Grubby, throwing them a worried look over his head. “Come on then, matey. Let’s get ye dry and put some grog in ye.”
When Grubby got like this, it was best to give him time to settle.
“Did I help?” her selkie father asked, glancing at them.
“I can’t be the only one who sees how much yer selkie blood helps us survive, m’hearty,” Peg-leg answered drily.
He beamed and walked off to the hold with Plank.
Ebba whacked Peg-leg’s gut once they were gone. “His selkie blood has helped us, ye know—to get out of Selkie Cove and to help me get away from Malice.”
The cook shrugged. “Aye, I know. Be nice to know more about what we were headed into is all. I don’t like puttin’ ye in danger.”
“And I don’t like puttin’ any of ye in danger. But we’ve been in danger and always pulled through.” Not that they’d ever been in the Dynami Sea. And not that any pirate had ever come out. But she kept silent on those counts.
He smiled, ruddy cheeks pushing up as he did so.
“Do ye want me to get the turmeric salve?” Ebba asked Peg-leg as he grimaced and rubbed his knees again.
Peg-leg sighed, extending his leg with a heartfelt groan. “Nay, lass. I’ll be fine. Ye know the limb don’t do well in the humidity, but it does worse in the cold.” He glanced up at the seemingly blazing sun, a wrinkle between his brows as he continued rubbing.
Ebba glanced around the deck.
Caspian, Barrels, and Stubby were absent, down in the office studying the map further. Jagger was up in the crow’s nest, healing his face and making sinister plans. Plank and Grubby were in the hold, and Locks was hammering away down at the helm, fixing something that likely didn’t require fixing to keep Stubby off his back. And better for Locks to be kept busy—or he’d break into one of his ballads about how much he missed Verity and the curves of her body and drinking copious amounts of tea.
She wrinkled her nose.
“I lost my leg in a sea battle against the navy while on Eternal,” Peg-leg said suddenly.
Ebba turned back to him, eyes rounding.
Peg-leg smiled at her surprise, saying, “I be thinkin’ it’s about my turn to be tellin’ ye my past, nay?”
Did she want to know? Aye. Though her reasons had changed. Before, Ebba demanded her fathers come clean because they’d broken her trust—or so she’d thought at the time. Now, after Malice and everything since, Ebba understood, really understood, why they couldn’t tell her the whole of their time sailing with Mutinous Cannon. The taint was still within them, dealing out all its dark whisperings of self-hatred and doubt.
“Ye can, if that’s what ye feel like. But ye don’t have to,” she answered, watching him for any sign of real reluctance. She wouldn’t put it past her other fathers to be blackmailing Peg-leg into talking.
“It be time,” he said, taking a deep breath. “As I was sayin’, ye know a cannon shard caught me below the left knee. The Battle for the Seas had been goin’ on for twenty years by that point, and King Montcroix was slowly winning. But where most other pirates had fallen or were scamperin’ inland to wait for a change in tide, Mutinous refused. He’d never lost a fight, and this was no different. We lost many lives that day, though sink me if I even gave a single thought to them at the time, so gone to the blackness I wa
s—”
“It was the taint,” Ebba reminded him firmly.
He lifted his gaze to her. “Aye, lass. I know.”
Ebba interpreted the tone to mean his mind knew, but not his heart and not his soul.
“My leg was about fifty-fifty as to whether it’d heal or need chopped off,” Peg-leg continued. “But when I was wounded, the pain knocked me clean out. I’d been operatin’ a cannon, and when I blacked out, it left a gap in our defenses. Those we lost were lost because of that, including the captain’s first mate.”
Ebba had a feeling what happened next was going to be about as sickening as Locks’ and Barrels’ stories.
“Aye, the odds were fifty-fifty, but Mutinous took matters into his own hands and ordered my leg amputated.”
She gasped, covering her mouth.
“He made Locks do it, and thank the oblivion he did, lass, for there were others onboard who wouldn’t have cared half so much about the job they did.”
Her mouth hung ajar, and she could only stare at Peg-leg at that startling piece of information. Locks had taken his leg off? “How is it ye don’t hate him for that?”
Peg-leg paused in rubbing his knees to stare at the enlarged and worn left joint that bore his weight through the wooden peg strapped in place under his slops.
“I wouldn’t have put it past the other men in the crew to take off much more o’ my leg than was needed,” he said. “They might’ve even missed and murdered me on the sickbed. Nay, if I was black against Locks it was for a short while only. Maybe only one or two years.”
Ebba snorted and Peg-leg winked at her.
“Then what happened?” she urged, leaning forward to prop her elbows on her knees.
Peg-leg thought a moment. “Well, then Stubby was promoted to first mate. And another pirate became second mate, a position I was bein’ vetted for afore.”
“Is that why the two o’ ye are so comp’titive?” Her eyes narrowed.
He lifted a shoulder. “We were always buttin’ heads, lass. It don’t mean he ain’t my crew. And compared to how we were on Eternal, the odd spat we have now ain’t nothin’. Truth be told, I wouldn’t’ve been a lot of use in those first months after my leg was takin’. Mutinous thought I’d died, and I likely have Locks to thank for that too. When I limped out onto deck for the first time, Cannon’s ire was quick-like to recall what I’d done.”
Ebba gritted her teeth. “Ye didn’t do anything but black out because ye were wounded.”
“Aye, but ye can’t be reasonin’ with a madman. My pos’tion on the ship went from one o’ his top crewmates to bottom o’ the barrel. He made it known I was the low of the low and any job the other mates didn’t want to be doin’ could be mine. I was lost to the taint long afore that moment; my mind all a haze, like I was always drunk and stumblin’ about, my head ringin’ so hard I couldn’t recall what was good or bad, just that I should keep breathin’. But whatever I’d done afore that moment—and there was a lot o’ bad—I’d never lost pride in myself and what I could do. After losin’ my leg, and when Cannon began humiliatin’ me, my pride was taken, lass. I couldn’t climb the riggin’ anymore, which didn’t help, but a pirate can only take so much brutality afore they crack-like.” He broke off to swallow, blinking several times.
He hung his head. “I cracked, and the whole crew were witness to it. I cried. I’d be cleanin’ out the poop at the back of the ship or scrubbin’ the deck or throwin’ dead bodies over the side of the ship, some o’ them so decayed they fell apart in my hands, and I’d cry and cry and cry. My body would shake; great sobs that built in my chest and came out as wailing sounds. The crew thought it were right funny. They’d laugh and jeer, Mutinous joinin’ in when he liked, and for the life o’ me, lass, I could never fight back or think o’ a word to hurl at their heads.”
Ebba reached out her hands to grip his trembling ones. She could barely look at her father’s hurt straight on, but he was talking, and she would listen. Her fathers had carried their burdens for far too long, and Ebba was determined to relieve them of all the sadness she could. They’d never forget, but she’d settle for their memories fading. If something happened to her, her crew couldn’t fall apart. She wanted to know they were okay enough within themselves to continue being a family in her absence. Who knew what awaited them in the Dynami.
He wiped at his eyes. “When Ladon said Mutinous broke my pride, he was right. It was broken long ago, and try as I might, I can never be rid o’ the doubt I’ll ever get it back.”
“That be the taint talkin’,” she replied. “Ye said no person could take endless brutality. I would’ve cracked as surely as ye did; so would any o’ our crew, or any pirate. Ye put too much shame on yerself for yer reaction to their cruelty. When I cry, my tongue gets tangled up, too. And so what if ye cried and shook? I can’t be thinkin’ ye care what any o’ that crew, barrin’ those who left with ye, thought.”
Peg-leg held her hand and her gaze. He appeared faintly bemused. “Aye, I guess I don’t. They be dead and gone anyway. Though in the early days, it was hard that my co-parents had seen me at my lowest.”
“If it were yer lowest, then there only be one direction to go,” Ebba quipped, smiling at him. Another idea came to her. “What about Mutinous?” she asked. “Did ye care what he thought?”
He stilled, his grip tightening on her hands. She glanced up and saw the downward turn of his mouth.
“Mutinous was . . . a terrible, cruel man. A man filled with a dark power, as we now know was the taint. But I’d be lyin’ if I didn’t admit I always envied his ambition, his fearlessness, his det’rmination. I s’pose because those were the things I lost when my leg was taken from me. How much I wish I could look Cannon in the eye one last time, defiant, or after bestin’ him in some way. And I wish I could say with cert’inty that I was capable o’ that but,” he said with a frown, “there be a doubt within me, even with him dead these last sixteen years or more. I still don’t know if I’d be strong enough.”
Ebba felt nothing but relief that Mutinous eventually became fish fodder. One Pockmark—if he was still alive after she’d brought a stairwell down on his head—was bad enough. To meet an older version of him would be terrifying.
“Thank ye, Peg-leg. I’m glad ye told me.”
“Aye, Ebba-Viva,” he said quietly, the lines around his eyes never appearing deeper than now. “And I’m glad to have done so.”
The thin strands of Locks’ voice reached them from the helm.
She groaned, recognizing the ditty and Locks’ droning, long-winded rendition of it.
Her golden hair of woven sunlight
Her skin of pearls and clouds
Her eyes of life, forever young
Her voice, hope in fog’s shroud.
Her body be silken happiness
Her toes a pirate’s dream
Her smile, a beam of truth and will
Her anger makes lesser men scream.
“Should’ve left him behind.” Peg-leg grimaced, standing with a moan.
“Bad songs and all, he be part o’ the crew,” Ebba replied. She’d never liked when her fathers were separated from each other, and it was no different now. In fact, the notion of six of them entering the Dynami and the seventh remaining behind made her feel faintly sick.
She jerked violently as a ball of white light bolted from the bilge door straight for her face. Sally. Clutching her chest, Ebba watched the squeaking sprite. They hadn’t spoken yet after the whole ‘help Jagger destroy Ladon’ thing—not that they’d ever spoken, really.
The wind sprite was windmilling her arms, eyes wide as her wings flapped frantically at her back.
Peg-leg spoke to her. “Aye, Sal, I don’t be likin’ Locks’ singin’ either, but better that than speakin’ to him about Verity. The songs are only ten minutes long, the convers’tions at least an hour.”
Sally slapped her forehead. Placing her hands on her hips, the sprite observed them.
Ebba waited
, pushing back an errant dread as it whipped across her face. She slid her red bandana of the day backward from her forehead and wrapped it three times around the middle of her hair to confine her dreads in the swelling wind.
The sprite’s expression brightened, which was saying something when she was a glowing creature to begin with. Sally placed one hand in front of her mouth, moving her hand in a talking motion, and the other arm she extended out to one side to flap.
Peg-leg leaned over, whispering, “Ye hid the brandy, didn’t ye, lass?”
Ebba hummed. “Just marked lines on the bottles.”
Sally moved around in circles, making wave motions. As the sprite pretended to die, Ebba said to her father, “When should we tell Sally we know she means the thunderbird?”
The sprite, hovering in thin air on her back, sat bolt upright, glaring at them.
Ebba snorted with Peg-leg.
But a thud from behind cut their chuckling short. She spun as Jagger unfolded to his full height after jumping off the rigging.
“Giant bird,” he said mildly. “Up ahead.”
Ten
“Do ye have the magic with ye?” Locks asked Ebba.
The shout had gone up. Everyone was on deck now as they sailed closer to where Jagger saw the thunderbird a few minutes before.
She placed a hand over the dynami. “Aye.”
Glancing behind, she saw Caspian and Jagger both had theirs. The dynami seemed like the only part of the weapon that might be helpful for what lay ahead, but maybe the others would be useful—the purgium had with Ladon, after all. Or maybe the thunderbird desperately wanted to know a secret and would let them pass with a short hold of the veritas.
Sally floated over to her, and Ebba narrowed her eyes. Nuh-uh. Jagger had faced his punishment, and the crew had reverted back to treating him as they always had—with wariness bordering on rudeness. However, Sally hadn’t been punished. Ebba wasn’t yet ready to forgive the sprite, even if the realm was free of Ladon.
Dynami’s Wrath Page 9