The god of souls cast her a baffled look, cutting off whatever he was saying.
“That sprite right there?” Ebba jerked a thumb at Sally. “Queen of the wind sprites? Yer skull be half emptied o’ rum, matey. She ain’t nothin’ but a boozin’ midget with wings.”
Ebba turned to glance at Sally, half expecting to be bitten or kicked for the remark. Instead, Sally sat straight, arms folded and chin tilted high. Almost regally.
This had to be a joke. Sally. The queen of the wind sprites.
Plank, on Jagger’s other side, was the next to break the stunned silence, aside from the hiss and slap of the waves. “We never realized,” he said.
“Then she did not wish you to know,” the god of souls answered, still glaring at Jagger.
“No kiddin’,” Ebba muttered. The pink tinge on Sally’s cheeks deepened.
The thunderbird surveyed them dispassionately. “The queen has informed me that you already possess three pieces of the root, and that the slayer of souls aboard your ship is needed to help guide you to the rest of the parts.”
Jagger asked, “Will ye let me pass then?”
The god ignored him. “That is not what interests me, evil infant of the original people.”
Ha! She wasn’t the only infant.
“The queen has also spoken of your past. Of the ship you sailed upon and resisted. Tell me, mortal. How long were you aboard the pillars’ ship?”
“One year, eleven months, and twenty-one days.”
That was specific. Ebba guessed when each day was horrible, a person would end up counting them. She glanced at Jagger who tensed but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her inquiring look.
The thunderbird’s rainbow eyes swirled, their light brighter than his brilliant feathers. “And yet, here you stand with your will intact. You also show great resistance to my powers. It is almost unprecedented. Almost.”
Jagger didn’t reply, and the thunderbird didn’t seem to expect one.
“Immune,” the god of souls breathed, his feathered head flattening to rest against his chest as though an instinctive reaction to his intrigue.
Ebba straightened. What did that mean?
“What is an immune?” Barrels asked, shifting to sit straighter. “We’ve never heard the term.”
The creature didn’t answer, his gaze not erring from where it fixed on the pirate at Ebba’s side. Sweat broke out on Jagger’s forehead, and he panted under the immortal’s intense regard. A pained puff left his lips as the thunderbird continued to pin him with his swirling rainbow eyes.
Ebba was glad Jagger was showing some kind of pain. There wasn’t any way Jagger was a nicer person than her.
The god of souls ruffled his feathers, and Ebba was glad she hadn’t stood.
Grubby managed to brace himself as the gust shoved across the deck. Caspian thudded to the deck again with a muted oof.
“What to do with you,” the thunderbird mused, tilting its head once more. “You have killed my vessels. Torn the very souls from them so that they will always be lost in the abyss, dead and gone in truth.”
“I did not know that was what I was doing,” Jagger said hoarsely.
“You speak truth, yet did you not pause to hear the rich warble of forest birds or stop to smile as they took flight? You beheld the colors under their wings and wondered at their beauty. Still, you sought to kill the thing that brought you gladness.”
Jagger bowed his head. “I did.”
“Yet you are an immune. The immune, and much rests on your fate. There must be consequences, but . . . I find myself uncertain for the first time in eons.” He muttered lower, “The Earth Mother would never let me hear the end of it.”
Ebba knew the big bird had a serious hang up about his vessels being slaughtered. That was kind of understandable, but she wasn’t going to die because he was in a pissing contest with the Earth Mother.
Caspian staggered to his feet, clutching his side, and gasped. “Have you encountered many twisted souls of late?”
“Yes,” the creature said, shifting his focus to the prince. “Too much darkness. The place I hold the devoid is only so large. As light souls fly free, the space where I contain twisted souls expands so there is more space to contain them and maintain balance. There must always be balance. If I cannot fill the skies with lightness through my birds, room will run out to hold the others.”
“What will happen then?” Grubby asked from the prince’s side, his Monmouth cap gripped tight in both hands.
“Then darkness roams free again,” the god said with a snap of his beak.
Caspian was deep in thought, a furrow between his brows.
“The taint is spreading unchecked through the realm as we speak,” the prince said, glancing up. “More and more dark souls will come to you, and eventually, no good souls at all. We are on a quest to rid the world of the taint. Perhaps, God of Souls, our interests are aligned more than either of us suspected. We are also working to restore balance of a sort.”
She shot a look at Stubby on the starboard side. He lifted a finger to his lips.
Aye, Caspian sounded like he was on to something.
“If we are successful in removing the taint, then your balance of light and dark will also be restored,” the prince continued. “If you will not let Jagger continue with us because he is the immune,” Caspian stumbled over the term, “please allow him to continue for that reason. As the queen said, we need Jagger to succeed.”
“Well of course you do. He’s the immune,” the god said impatiently, tilting his giant head again. “You forget I know the path your ship is destined to take. Yet the root brought you here, knowing of the judgment I have always dealt to those who killed my vessels. That is my dilemma. I do not wish to err and go against the root of magic’s design. I could adversely affect the fate of this realm myself.”
“Ye know,” Peg-leg spoke, “If this be about what other immortals would think, then if we ever came across the Earth Mother, we wouldn’t be mentionin’ a thing about what happened today. It’d stay secret-like.”
“I am not concerned with what she thinks.”
Sounded like he was. In fact, it sounded like he held this in higher regard than saving the realm. Ebba held her breath, sensing their fate was in his hands. Or his wings.
“However, I shall allow you passage into immortal waters,” the god of souls decreed.
The sigh of relief from the crew was audible. Ebba shot Caspian a triumphant look, and he smiled in return, straightening his shoulders.
“Immortal waters, ye say?” Stubby asked.
The thunderbird tilted its head. “Marine immortals have long preferred the quieter and more rugged sea floor of the Dynami. Many have returned here since the wall crumbled. Is that no longer known?”
Another immortal out of touch with the current state of the realm after being locked away. How surprising.
“Nay,” she answered. “Sailin’ into these parts be considered bad luck by our kind.”
“Bad luck,” the thunderbird repeated, blinking twice. “In times gone by, mortals passed my checkpoint without fear.”
Well, she could assume that was a lie. No human who saw the sheer size of the Thunderbird could remain calm.
Locks cleared his throat. “If it be all right with ye, we’ll just be on our way then. Out o’ yer. . .uh, feathers.”
“I was not finished,” the thunderbird boomed, “I grant your passage. But on behalf of the Jagger, you will all answer the call of justice. That is the condition of your passage.”
They all turned to glare at the flaxen-haired pirate, who shrugged a shoulder.
“Three days and three nights of storm,” the god of souls said, eyes swirling faster. “Survive that, and you may enter the Dynami whenever you should choose. Make haste to set sail, pirates, for soon I shall start the beating of my wings, and you will not wish to be near this place when that happens.”
Her fathers didn’t need further encouragement. They leape
d into action, racing to their stations aboard deck to ready the ship for a magical storm unlike any they’d seen.
Too soon as it turned out.
The thunderbird swept back his right wing, and the sudden motion dragged the ship forward with a violent lurch. Her fathers were thrown to the deck once more as Felicity was dragged forward by the pull of the immortal’s movement.
The shadows covering the ship gradually receded as the ship floated farther away.
She stood, Caspian and Jagger not far behind, and Ebba didn’t pause in running to the helm to peer back at the gigantic god of souls.
“Kill another bird, Immune,” the god of souls called after them, his feathered back to Felicity, “and I do not care who you are or what you are meant for. Next time, your soul is mine.”
Twelve
Ebba held steady to the bulwark, blinking rain out of her eyes as Locks hurried to the port side and emptied the contents of his stomach.
Dashing away the water on her face again, she returned her attention to the dark and monstrous swell.
The thunderbird hadn’t been wrong. They were one day into the storm, and it still grew. She’d never experienced anything of the like. Though no one spoke of drowning or dying before the storm relented, the constant groaning and shrieking of the ship reminded them how much duress the elements were piling upon them. The torrent of rain pounding the deck was barely managing to flood out through the scuppers.
Felicity lurched over the side of another crest and plummeted down into the trough, barely leveling out before the next swell was upon them. The waves towered high over her mast and were becoming steadily higher. There wasn’t much point worrying whether the waves would eventually become so high they’d flip Felicity back on herself, but that didn’t stop Ebba eyeing the constant black wall of water in front of them with an apprehensive lurch in her stomach.
The barrels and buckets on deck were latched down or had been tossed into the hold, Pillage included. The sheets were down and the sails furled. Stubby and Locks were on the wheel, trying to direct the ship straight into the swell.
On the whole, they were at the utter mercy of the thunderbird’s storm, adrift to wherever the swell pushed them. Which hopefully wasn’t into a nice pile of rocks.
“Time for us to rest, Wobbles,” Peg-leg called to Ebba, limping over, one hand clutching the bulwark. “Can ye wake the others when ye go down?”
They were taking the three-day storm in rotations; the rest of her fathers and Caspian already slept below.
“Aye,” she said.
Ebba looked up in the direction of the crow’s nest where she knew Jagger to be. No pirate enjoyed climbing the shrouds in a storm, let alone a magical bird storm, but Jagger had leaped at the chance. Yet again. . . .
She jumped as lightning struck in the distance and thunder clapped its massive hands overhead. The charcoal clouds churned and swirled, the wind howled and whistled, and the water sucked and shoved in never-ending repetition.
Ebba planted her feet either side of the bilge door. Her legs worked overtime to steady herself as she wrung what water she could from her dreadlocks and clothing.
Sopping wet, with two days to go, but no good would come from whining about it.
She clambered in a water-logged mess down the ladder instead of her usual graceful slide.
Moving to Grubby first, she gently shook his shoulder and then Plank’s and Barrels’, smirking as she dislodged Pillage from where he was napping on her eldest father.
“Time for yer shift, mateys,” she said.
As her fathers climbed up the ladder to the deck, Ebba picked her way to Caspian’s hammock. She stopped, scanning the prince’s peaceful face. He’d never been in much of a storm. Rain and high wind, but not a fierce storm whose only intention was to send you as a shattered mess to Davy Jones’. Should she wake him?
“Aren’t you going to wake me?”
Ebba dragged her eyes to his amber gaze which was fixed on her. She’d been staring at him like a bloody nufty. Had he been awake the entire time? The shadows beneath his eyes and the red streak within them said aye. And even in the soft light of the sleeping quarters, illuminated by the sole lantern fixed in the midst of the hammocks, a green tinge was visible on his skin.
“Ye feel sick?” she asked. “I’ve lost my stomach twice today. Damn sea got into my boots.”
His expression didn’t shift. “Ebba, were you going to wake me?”
She blew out a breath. “Aye, I was. If ye’d given me half a minute.” Caspian needed to be woken for more reasons than he’d needed to remain asleep. She was worried about his safety on deck now that his balance was going through a rough patch. Yet Ebba didn’t want him to feel inadequate or feel that any of the crew felt that way.
Caspian sat, avoiding her eyes. “I gave you half a minute. I gave you two. I won’t get in the way. I’ll help.”
“I know.”
He shoved his feet into his boots, tucking in the ends of his tunic single-handedly in short jabbing motions designed not to accidentally push his slops to the deck.
“Good,” he said, finally looking at her. “Then I guess you were just staring at me because you find me handsome?”
Caspian half-grinned at her.
Ebba quirked her brows. “Is it flattery ye’re after then?”
“You are well aware what I’m after, Mistress Pirate.” He stepped closer.
She was. And wasn’t. That Caspian held something for her had been established. That he smiled more since they’d kissed also seemed fairly certain. That she thought of his lips too much these days was in that mix as well. The prince teased her right now in a flirty way, not in the way a person teased their friend. The thing was, Ebba might not be opposed to exploring the new waters between them. She was a pirate after all. Except Caspian already felt something for her and had for a while. Even if she wanted to, Ebba wasn’t willing to explore the waters and get his hopes up only to maybe decide no and leave him hurting.
The silence extended between them, hardening into a thrumming tension.
She licked her lips, tilting her head back. “I’d like ye to wear a rope out there.”
Caspian’s face closed down. “Because I have one arm.”
Ebba groaned. “No, because ye’re harder, but ye’re still a flamin’ landlubber, Caspian. I don’t wish to lose ye over the side.”
“Is anyone else wearing a rope?”
“Any o’ the pirates? Nay.”
“Jagger isn’t a pirate. He’s tribe.”
Being a pirate wasn’t so much about where a person was from, it was about their instincts and their movement, and about understanding the sea. Some people got it quick, some slow, and some never. Some people were just royal landlubbers.
“Please, Caspian,” she said, holding his gaze.
His amber eyes burned. “No, I won’t do that. I don’t need to.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Then ye’re a fool.”
“That’s really what you think of me?” he said, frowning.
“Nay, o’ course it ain’t.” Ebba stomped to her hammock and ignored the prince as he drew alongside her space.
He sighed. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” Ebba grunted back.
He quietly left, and she shucked her wet outer layers and, lacking any dry ones, wrapped a blanket around herself before falling into the hammock face first.
Sally whirred in question, glancing up to the ceiling.
“Still bad out there, your majesty,” Ebba said sarcastically.
The thunderbird had to have that wrong. Royalty didn’t behave like her pet sprite. She’d met a king and a selkie leader, plus two powers of oblivion, and she knew a prince-turned-king. There just wasn’t any way.
Sally remained silent, swinging in her mini-hammock over Ebba’s head. Surprisingly, though the sprite harbored a flame for Jagger, she hadn’t set up her hammock above deck to be near him. Maybe, being a queen, Sally was used to certain
comforts—such as being out of the elements and close to entire barrels of spiced grog, jars of pickled mangoes. And champagne fountains.
“Why did ye never tell me, Sal?” she asked, safe in knowing Locks, Stubby, and Peg-leg were yet to come down. “After the last month, I feel I don’t know ye at all. Do you even like me? Or have ye just laughed behind my back the whole time, turning on me when you liked?”
Sally floated from her hammock to sit cross-legged on Ebba’s chest.
She began whirring and squeaking, waving her arms.
“I can’t understand ye,” Ebba said in frustration. “But I know ye can get a point across when ye wish. How hard is it to mime a crown or sumpin’?”
The sprite looked down at her hands and lifted them to hide her face.
“The thunderbird was right. Ye really didn’t wish us to know.” Ebba shook her head. “Queen or not, it weren’t decent to lead us on. Then again, ye’ve been doin’ a whole heap o’ things that ain’t decent lately.”
Sally’s shoulders slumped, but when Ebba didn’t relent in the heaviness of her disapproving gaze, the sprite drifted up and hugged her face, delivering the realm’s tiniest kiss on her cheek. She lifted back and pointed at her eye, then her heart, and then to Ebba.
I love you.
Ebba sniffed. Damn, that was really, really cute, but she hardened herself against the gesture.
Ebba wanted to give her friend the benefit of the doubt again. In some ways, the sprite was her only confidant, especially now that Caspian was frothing over her. That was why Sally’s fickle loyalty hurt so much, perhaps. When Ebba loved a person, she loved them completely and for all time. For whatever reason, Sally didn’t have the same standards. Or she didn’t love Ebba in the same way.
If the sprite turned tail again, Ebba didn’t want to be hurt again.
She didn’t return Sally’s message, just gazed at her in silence.
The sprite whirred sadly and flew back to her mini-hammock.
Ebba closed her eyes, bitterness singeing her insides. Caspian was angry at her; Sally was disappointed in her. She heaved onto her side and stared at the bottom of the ladder, willing blessed sleep to come.
Dynami’s Wrath Page 11