The Bright and Breaking Sea

by Chloe Neill

  Mr. Jones tried to keep the sailors busy during the long hot day. They touched up paint that had been scraped off during the battle with the gun brig, tarred the rigging. And to keep morale from disintegrating completely, she allowed the crew breaks to swim, to cool themselves in the water.

  While Kit paced, Grant kept mostly to himself, staring across the flat sea or reading in his quarters, his pent-up energy almost palpable. It was ironic, Kit thought, how much of the Diana was absorbed in working off excess energy, and the sea’s own was lacking.

  And still, there was no wind.

  They waited through a sticky night, and into a dawn that blossomed brilliantly red. Terrifyingly red.

  “Well,” Jin said as they watched the coloring horizon. “I suppose the pendulum would swing.”

  “What is it?” Grant asked, and the question marked him as a soldier, not a sailor.

  “Red dawn,” Kit said. “It means a storm is coming.”

  “It will bring wind, at least?” Grant asked, looking back at Kit.

  “Given the color of the sky, more than we’d want,” she said, and glanced to the mast, watched as Tamlin flew down a line to land on the deck. She ran toward them, looked at Kit.

  “She’ll blow fierce,” Tamlin said.

  “How large?” Grant asked.

  Kit looked back to the west, still touched by darkness and stars. “We won’t know until it hits us.” She looked back at Tamlin, forced herself to ask the question. “Does your head ache?”

  Tamlin’s eyes went wide. “Aye, a bit. Yours?”

  “Aye. Weather or magic?”

  Tamlin lifted a shoulder. “Who’s to say? All manner of strange things afoot.”

  * * *

  The next strange thing, a message from the frigates, came twenty minutes later.

  A boat approached: Preston, Thornberry, Smith, and four sailors who pumped the oars while the captains sat, stiff-necked and prideful. She made them come to her. She waited, and she watched.

  “Captain,” Preston said, when they’d crossed the gunwale, distaste in the curl of his lips.

  “Captains,” she said. “Let’s adjourn to my quarters.” She turned on her heel without looking back. “Jin and Grant, with me. Simon, you have the helm.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  She climbed down and walked into her cabin, presumed the other captains would at best find it quaint, and more likely shabby and stifling. But they were poor strategists, and they’d come to her ship, tails between their legs. So she didn’t much care about their opinions.

  They walked inside, Jin last, and he closed the door. The heat began to build immediately. She gestured at the table, but no one sat. Grant and Jin waited at the door, stone-faced. The captains looked miserable and angry. And a little bit afraid. Good, Kit thought. That was the first sensible emotion they’d displayed since this mission began.

  Thornberry, cheeks red and beads of sweat on his face, looked mutinous. “You did this.”

  Kit lifted her brows. “I beg your pardon?” That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear.

  “You used some charm, some spell, to affect the sea. You will fix this immediately so we can be on our way.” He actually pounded a fist on the table.

  “You were angry, and the wind diminished,” Preston said. “There’s an obvious connection.”

  She couldn’t help it. She’d intended to keep a straight face, but the possibility, the theory, was so ludicrous that she couldn’t stop the rolling laughter. That they looked violently insulted by her amusement just amused her further.

  “So,” she began, when she managed to control herself, brushing away an errant tear and straightening the hem of her jacket. “Rather than admitting you were simply wrong, you’ve decided I have the ability to stop the wind using the magic you don’t really believe in. And I used that ability so we can sit here, dead in the water and working through our provisions, just to irritate you?”

  “You reacted poorly to our concerns,” Thornberry said, a defensive snit in his voice.

  “I was furious at your ignorant comments,” Kit clarified. “And with ample justification. You ignored my warning.”

  “We made an educated decision.”

  “All evidence to the contrary,” she said, gesturing to the becalmed sea. “You made a decision based on your own prejudices against magic, against female captains, against me. But, at present, that’s beside the point. A storm is coming.”

  “We can see the sky very well. We’re prepared for a spot of rain and thunder.” Thornberry’s tone was that of a parent to a naive child.

  “Not a spot of rain and thunder,” Kit said. “You’re aware there’s nearly no magic in our present position? That it became weaker as we moved from the Isles—as we’ve moved toward Forstadt?”

  “Nonsense,” Preston said.

  “Its strength—and absence—is measurable and verifiable. The effect of the island? Admittedly conjecture,” she said. “It may be chance, fate, that we’ve swung from doldrums to looming storm in a matter of hours, or they may be connected to that magic, to something that’s happening at Forstadt, or in Forstadt’s direction.”

  Smith, frowning, crossed her arms. “There is precedent for magic overuse affecting storms.”

  “There is,” Kit agreed. “But it takes much to affect the currents to the degree we’ve seen, much less the weather.”

  “So you admit you did this,” Thornberry boomed, and Smith rolled her eyes.

  “Enough, William,” Smith snapped. “That’s enough. Captain Brightling didn’t create this situation any more than you or I.”

  “You suspect the storm will be severe,” Preston said.

  “I do,” Kit said. “I think its formation was not wholly natural, that there are too many connections to ignore. I think we must be prepared.”

  “We could turn back,” Preston said. “Seek shelter.”

  “We aren’t turning back,” Thornberry said.

  “And in what wind?” Smith asked. “The wind may not return until the storm is upon us.”

  “So we wait out the storm, or we continue to Forstadt,” Preston said. “I believe—”

  “You’ve had more than enough time to provide your opinion,” Smith said, her tone cutting, and Kit wondered how much blathering the woman had been forced to endure.

  “When the wind returns,” Smith said to Kit, “you can select the course. We will follow.”

  Preston prepared to argue, but Smith held up a hand. “It is time,” she said, and with some authority. “Had we been attentive to the magic in the first instance, we may not be facing this hardship.”

  Kit waited, looked at her. “You will follow without argument?”

  “Discussion is to be expected,” Thornberry mumbled.

  “Not any longer,” Kit said, and made her decision. “We won’t have time to get ashore before the storm breaks. We’ve already lost valuable time while someone, it appears, is manipulating very substantial magic. If there’s any hope of stopping the Guild, this ship, more chaos and ruin, we have no choice but to make for Forstadt.” And gods willing, the cost of that decision wouldn’t be higher than she could bear.

  “But I’ll warn you,” she continued. “If what we believe is accurate, the path will not be easy. You should prepare your boats and your crew for the worst. And rest assured that if anyone on the Diana is injured because of further idiocy from these vessels, I will personally see that you never set foot on a Crown ship again. Now,” she added, “get off my ship.”

  * * *

  “Do you think they believed you?” Jin asked when they returned to the deck to watch the captains ride back to their ships.

  “I think Smith believes me. I suspect Preston and Thornberry are incapable of believing I’m correct about anything. Probably because I have breasts.”

 
“Do you?” Grant asked, brows lifted in an expression of perfect innocence. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Amusing,” Kit said.

  “Preston and Thornberry are pigs,” Jin agreed.

  “Pigs, at least, provide ham, which affords them some merit. I can’t say the same for the captains. Ring the bell, please, Commander. We need to alert the crew.”

  She waited at the helm while they assembled, sailors experienced and new, from the Isles and beyond. And she hoped she could keep them all alive.

  “We can all see a storm is coming,” she called out, and several of them looked to the northern horizon, to the dark clouds that hovered there, grew. “The sea’s magic’s been disturbed. Broken, for lack of a better word. We don’t know what’s affected the magic, what’s broken the sky. But we suspect they’re connected by Forstadt.”

  There were whispers and grumbles across the deck.

  “The storm is north of us,” she continued, “and moving east. Forstadt is to our northeast, which presents a certain . . . dilemma.” Some of the crew chuckled, as she’d meant them to. If the wind wouldn’t break the tension, she’d have to.

  “We must get to the island,” she said. “We must find the ship. And if they are manipulating magic, harming the current, we must stop them. We cannot wait for the storm to pass. When the wind returns, we will sail northwest, and hope the storm will pass us by. But we’ll almost certainly catch the edge, and the edge is likely to be bad enough.

  “We’re all frustrated and angry, but we have to stay alert, and we have to be prepared. When the weather turns, it will turn quickly, and it will turn hard.”

  She glanced at Cook, who’d taken time from his stove to join the crew above deck. “Did you hold back brandy taken from the Amelie?”

  Cook’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why do you say that?”

  She gave him her flattest stare. “How much?”

  He chewed on the answer for five full seconds. “Four bottles.”

  “You keep one,” she said. “The other three are for them.” She looked at the crew. “A round for everyone at dinner.”

  “Back to work,” Jin called out as sailors cheered their good luck.

  She looked back at Cook. “We’ll need Tamlin above. Can you keep Louisa safe below?”

  There was no argument, no sarcasm. Just honesty, gravity. “I will,” he said, and she nodded. When he returned below, she found Grant. “Can we speak?”

  He nodded, followed her into the companionway, and then downstairs. Sailors who weren’t on watch were still moving belowdecks, so she gestured him into her cabin.

  “You’re in pain,” he said, when they were inside and the door shut behind them.

  She looked back at him, brows lifted. “Pardon?”

  “You’re in pain. I heard your question to Tamlin, and I can see it in the set of your shoulders. The magic?”

  “I don’t know.” And it hardly mattered. “Can you swim?”

  “If need be.”

  “Need may be,” she said. “The sea will be high, and the wind will blow. You’re going to need to find a spot—preferably below—and stick to it.”

  He just shook his head. “All hands, you said. I’m one of the hands, and I’ll stay above.”

  “That’s more than you’re obliged to do,” she said.

  “I believe I deserve better than that insult, Brightling. Why do you think so lightly of soldiers?”

  “Because Sutherland was an ass,” she said without hesitation.

  And for the first time, she saw Rian Grant’s full grin, and was nearly bowled over by the power of it.

  “Is that amusing?” she asked.

  “No. It’s accurate. He’s a fine soldier. And an ass.”

  She bit back a smile. “And why don’t you trust sailors?”

  “Because Worsley was an ass.”

  Admiral Worsley had led the Isles fleet at Barbata, the decisive naval battle in the war, and had succumbed to injuries he sustained during the fight. She’d never met him, but knew him as an excellent strategist, good commander, and philandering husband.

  “But a fine sailor,” Kit said.

  They smiled at each other for a moment, and then the watch bells sounded, drawing them back, and her smile fell away. “Be prepared to swim,” she said, and walked back to the helm.

  * * *

  The wind began to blow at dusk, and that shift was enough to loosen some of the ache in her head.

  Lanterns were lit on the Diana to guide the way, and she led the squadron northwest as clouds continued to swell. Lightning jagged across the sky, and the air chilled, haze covering the stars, so they could see only the bob of lights on the frigates behind them, like seabound fireflies.

  She’d already decided she’d stay on board for the duration; the crew would stand their watches as long as conditions permitted, but it was her burden and responsibility to see them through the storm. And Cook gave her the tin of biscuits. So that helped.

  “It will be soon,” Tamlin said when she’d dropped to the deck, apparently scenting the biscuits on the wind. And stuffing four into her waistcoat before climbing the mast again.

  Kit reached out for the magic. Faint, she thought, and fading. No longer a torrent of power, but a rivulet. No longer a song, but a whisper.

  The rain began at midnight. It was, at first, a relief. Sailors of every watch stood on the deck, letting fresh water rinse salt and sweat and grime from their bodies. But then the rain fell harder, drops that struck skin with punishing intensity. And the wind followed suit, from a breeze to a gale that sent sailors onto the yards, scrambling to lower the square sails. The jibs were furled, the topsails, the staysails, until the foresail was the only canvas still standing, and that only to give them some pretense of control.

  There was too much risk that a lamp might roll and break, fire escaping through the ship. So the lanterns were doused, the cooking fires extinguished on all four ships, leaving them in the blending darkness of water and sky.

  The waves grew higher, the furrows deeper, so the Diana rose twenty feet at each crest, dropped into each trough, water slamming into the bow and flowing back in a torrent with each rise and fall. Sailors held to masts, lines, shrouds, gunwale to keep from washing into the darkness and the deep. The water was frigid, sailors soaked to the bone even beneath oiled canvas.

  Simon worked the wheel, Grant beside as they pushed rudder against ocean to keep the Diana pointed into the waves. If a wave struck her broadside, it could push her over. She’d roll into the cold dark water, and they’d all go under. At the edge of the Northern Sea in the dark of night, the rates of survival would be low.

  Kit reached out to the magic as much as she could, grasping for what whispers of the current remained to pull the boat out of the clutching, white-fingered waves.

  No storm could blow forever, she told herself, over and over again, as if the repetition would give it power.

  The world became visible again each time lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating clouds that seemed thick enough to hold. She watched one of the frigates ride the crest of a wave that seemed high as the palace itself and then drop down and completely disappear from view. She held her breath until she saw its masts, stark against the clouds and whitecaps once more.

  The wind continued to roar, long enough that even the terror, that sickening undulation, became monotonous. It was impossible to determine their position, and she had no way to judge the storm’s spread or their nearness to the island—assuming the tempest hadn’t thrown them completely off course.

  They made it three hours before the lines snapped and the main boom tore free. Canvas flapped, and warnings were shouted as the wooden beam—nearly sixty feet of wood—pulled down lines and rigging.

  And then a shadow and a scream . . . and a splash heard clear against the wailing wind. />
  “Man overboard!” came Tamlin’s voice, the words diving between raindrops toward the deck.

  Kit and Jin ran to the gunwale on the starboard side, nearly hit the water themselves as wind and sea pushed the Diana toward port.

  “It was Watson!” Hobbes screamed over the wind. “She pushed me down and out of the way, but the water hit her and she just went over!”

  Kit felt worn through and hollow, but there was no other choice. She pulled off her belt and scabbard, pushed them into Hobbes’s arms. Then boots and jacket, skin steaming in the frigid wind.

  Then she heard Grant behind her. “What are you—” he began, but she was already up, perched on the gunwale in her stocking feet.

  And then she jumped.

  Twenty

  The water was frigid. Kit’s muscles tightened in response, fighting back against the onslaught of cold. But in the bosom of the sea, the pain was easy to ignore.

  She was surrounded by darkness, but for the faint and shifting lines of milky light at the surface. She turned in a circle, squinting into shadows, and saw nothing. Watson might have been directly in front of her, and Kit wouldn’t have seen her. So she reached out for what current remained.

  It was there, that bare and sickly whisper, but her reach was broader, more refined, underwater. She could feel the crackling now, tingles against her palm and beating at the back of her skull, and tried to ignore the sensations, to focus on what the current told her . . . the dark shadow of the Diana, bobbing above them, wrinkling the blanket of the sea’s surface. And beyond it, a dozen yards away now, the smaller shadow, body still, but not yet buoyant.

  Watson.

  There might still be time. Hope flared, mirrored by the lightning flash above her that turned the dark water turquoise, sparkling like a precious gem.

  Kit was close enough to the surface that the water was still rough, still thick with wind and friction, still frigid with cold. Each kick increased the pressure in her lungs, but she ignored it, made herself focus on Watson. If Kit didn’t manage this, Watson wouldn’t have a chance.