Wielder's Prize

by Elle Cardy

  “If the job ain’t done by morning, he’ll get worse than a beating.” He was about to leave then stopped. “And you, Seaman Brusan, aren’t to help him neither. If you continue to coddle him, he’ll never turn into a man.”

  Cook watched Roberts’ back as he stalked off. When he was gone, her father crouched beside her. “You have to hold yer tongue, boy. That man wants to kill you for some reason. I can read it in his eyes.”

  Jasmine nodded. She could breathe again, at least.

  “Be sure to finish this netting before dawn. There’s only so much I can protect you from on this ship.”

  She reached out and rested her hand on his large arm. “Thank you.” She still couldn’t look him in the eye. He patted her hand and moved off.

  Jasmine collected the bundle of knotted netting and took the lot to the fore. She settled in a place out of sight and out of the way where no one could trouble her and where she wouldn’t trouble anyone else. It was where the wind blew the strongest off the sea. It was the position she loved best on the Prize when she wasn’t in the rigging. She could watch the ever-changing colors of the ocean, feel the pitch and roll of the ship beneath her, smell the salt in the cold air.

  Jasmine’s long fingers worked the knots and tangles of netting. This was going to take a while. Without thinking about it, she closed her eyes and worked the net. She felt the chill in the air against her face. It was a good kind of cold. It numbed her fingers, it goose-bumped her skin, and it frosted her mind, keeping her thoughts from turning inward. She didn’t think about the implications of wielding, or the agony of losing her home on the Prize. She didn’t think of the guilt and confusion over her father. She only thought of her love of the sea, of the unknown depths beneath her, of the power that surged through the waters and skimmed across the waves, of the wind and its dance with the clouds and the sails.

  Jasmine opened her eyes again when the sun began to set into the western sea. It was a burning coal that tinged everything it touched with fire. She watched it sink into the ocean like a drowning man. It reached for the clouds as if to gain purchase to pull itself up, but the forces on its demise were too great for it to fight. The sun disappeared and left the world in gloom. No moon would shine that night — the blanket of clouds made sure of that.

  She closed her eyes again. The bitterness in the air cut through her. She ignored it. She listened to the surge of the waves against the ship. She marked the rasp of the ropes in the rigging as they strained against their knots. She paid attention to the soft clink of metal against metal, the quiet creak of the wood around her. These made the music of the Seahawk. They were different to the Prize. They sang while the Prize spoke. She’d have to get used to these sounds and this life.

  “You’ll catch yourself a fever out here.”

  Jasmine frowned at Finn’s approach. Few could find her on the Prize but it seemed there was no hiding aboard the Seahawk. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He carried a lantern and an extra cloak. Without asking, he wrapped the cloak around her shoulders then set the lantern on a crate between them. He put his back to the sea and sat on the deck in front of her. By sitting there, he forced her to look at him.

  “You’re looking more…alive,” she said.

  Finn chuckled. It didn’t sound like there was a lot of humor there. “Even a wielder with a talisman can reach his limits.”

  She didn’t say anything. She wanted him to fail when he went against the Prize. She wanted her home back. Every time he won, he separated her from the place she needed to be.

  She pushed those thoughts aside and continued to work the netting. The job was three quarters of the way done. She’d easily finish before dawn. Finn watched her for a while in silence.

  “For someone untrained, you have a remarkable focus.”

  She looked up at him and grimaced. “Am I doing it again?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed and lifted her fingers from the knots. A new wave of weariness rushed through her which told her he’d been right. She took a deep breath and worked the netting again. The mesh snagged and tightened. She pulled at the fibers, and they refused to obey.

  Finn smiled, not saying a word.

  She paused to rub her temples. She felt spent. “Does it get easier?”

  His smile slipped. “I don’t know. I’ve never encountered one such as you.”

  “An untrained wielder? Or a girl disguised as a boy?”

  Finn didn’t laugh at her feeble attempt at a joke. He seemed to be watching her in a similar way Roberts watched her. Like Roberts, he seemed to wait for her to slip up. She didn’t know why. Something brewed behind those dark eyes of his. She couldn’t be certain what it could be. Whatever it was, it made her nervous.

  “You could train me,” she said. It was the obvious answer. If Finn trained her then she’d no longer be untrained. She’d gain the control he seemed to think she needed. She’d be able to fight the weakness that kept blanketing her limbs like knotted seaweed threatening to hold her below water until she drowned.

  What she read in Finn’s face wasn’t enthusiasm or agreement. She saw instead regret. “You won’t?”

  His anguish seemed to deepen. “I can’t. A child can be taught, but not an adult. A child’s imagination allows his mind to go places that have long been cordoned off to the adult mind. To train a child is merely to point him to the places he would naturally go. It’s too late for you, Jasmine.”

  “You won’t even try?”

  “I did try and you almost lost a hand.”

  She looked down at the bloodied bandage. She felt the sting of the injury when she flexed her fingers.

  “Instead of exploring the shell,” he said, “you destroyed it.”

  “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”

  “Exactly. A child wielder would’ve known.”

  Anger flared in her. “Then you should’ve explained it to me.”

  “It’s not something that can be explained.” Finn fiddled with his ring. “And if you continue to wield you will damage yourself. You may even kill yourself.”

  “You said that.”

  “Then stop it.”

  “I’m not wielding!”

  Finn gave a pointed look at the netting. Her fingers worked in agitated motions across its surface. She loosened the knots and tangles in a single pass.

  Jasmine cursed at the net and then she cursed at Finn.

  A cold wind blew across them. The strong scent of salt filled her nostrils.

  “I feel sick,” she said.

  “No doubt.”

  All she wanted was to put her head down on the timbers and sleep until end of the age. She knew no one would let her, of course. There had to be something she could do. A stabbing pain danced a jig behind her eyes. She couldn’t live this way.

  “Can you at least teach me enough control to never wield again?” The dim lantern light grew too bright and she shaded her eyes.

  “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  More hollow words.

  “A lie would’ve been nice,” she muttered. She would have liked some encouragement. Her head felt like it was going to split in two. She suspected encouragement would shine like a precious gem right about now.

  “Would you really prefer false hope over the truth?”

  “Aye. False hope works for me.” Her stomach turned.

  “Very well. You will find a talisman. I will train you. You’ll learn to control your power. You won’t be a danger to anyone ever again.”

  Jasmine smiled through the pain. “Much better.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you threw up over the side of the ship rather than in my lap.”

  “You’re safe. I don’t think I have the strength to throw up.” She wanted to laugh but that wasn’t going to happen either. She had to finish the wretched net before dawn. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it.

  “Let me finish this before you kil
l yourself.”

  He took the netting from her limp fingers. Using a coiled rope as a pillow, she laid her head down and watched him work. She knew he had to be wielding. He didn’t work the net as she had. He simply ran his hand over the fibers and they untangled beneath his touch. She couldn’t feel his power as she thought she might. He could always sense when she used her power but she could never feel it when he used his. She envied him. She envied his control and his lack of pain.

  “Why are you helping me?” She had barely spoken above a whisper but she knew he had heard her because his expression clouded over.

  When he didn’t answer, she sat up. The lantern light burned into her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He seemed surprised. Still he didn’t say anything. He set the netting down. “It’s finished.”

  She was sure he was trying to distract her. “What are you hiding?”

  “You said you wanted false hope?”

  “Aye.”

  He smiled. It was a dazzling smile that immediately put her at ease. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  Jasmine returned the smile with one of her own. A lop-sided one was all she could manage. She laid her head back down and closed her eyes.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Finn said. “Doc would thrash me if he discovered I let you sleep out here. You’re coming back to the infirmary with me.”

  She mumbled incoherent words of complaint but didn’t fight him.

  Chapter 8

  The next few weeks aboard the Seahawk became a blur of hard work, pain, and exhaustion. Because of Jasmine’s sickly complexion, Doc wouldn’t allow her to sleep anywhere but in the infirmary. After the first week, her father had returned to the crew’s sleeping quarters. His back was healing well enough that it no longer needed extra care. She suspected he only visited Doc as an excuse to check up on her.

  Finn spent much of his time on deck. He rarely spoke to her. He only ever sought her out when she wielded. When she felt at her worst, she could almost always guarantee she’d find Finn watching her. She’d sit back to catch her breath and look up and there he was. He wasn’t good at hiding his brewing nervousness.

  Jasmine glanced up at the rigging with longing. She had only been assigned to menial jobs aboard the Seahawk. She didn’t prove strong enough or fast enough for anything but swabbing, and other various forms of cleaning. Roberts knew she wanted to spend her time in the rigging so probably kept her from it on purpose.

  She watched the wind catch in the sails and wondered what Finn would do if she tried to stop the wind. She chuckled to herself. Stopping the wind seemed like an impossible feat. Of course, wielding had seemed like an impossible feat not so long ago too.

  “You day dreaming, boy?” a voice rasped behind her.

  “No, sir!” She hadn’t noticed First Mate Rogahm approach. She quickly went back to washing down the decks. She worked her swab with vigor and hoped she’d escaped a beating.

  When the first mate moved on, she relaxed. She had to be more careful. If it had been Roberts who’d caught her standing idle, he would have beaten her. She still felt the sting on her jaw from his heavy hand the day before. Roberts could usually only get one or two punches in before her father intervened. He never fought Brusan even though she’d seen him fight with other crew members.

  The sails rustled above her like the flap of a bird’s wings. Her thoughts drifted back to the fanciful puzzle of how to stop the wind. It kept her mind from the drudgery of endless swabbing. She wondered how Finn might do it. She stole a glance his way. He stood at the quarterdeck with the captain, engaged in conversation.

  Finn might build a wall with his power, she thought. Walls worked as great shelter from the wind. She imagined a wall made of stone and light as air. Even though it was an invisible wall, she adorned it with castle-like battlements because she thought Finn would do the same. She decided he was a man who took pride in the details. Jasmine smiled as she worked.

  By the time her swabbing took her to the middle of the ship, she spotted a flaw in her imagination. If the wall were light as air, it would blow away in the wind. So she anchored it to the ship and built it as high as the tallest mast. No, wait, if she did that then the sails might go slack, but her invisible wall would carry the ship faster through the water because it would become the ship’s new sails.

  Working on the problem took her mind off any weakness and aches that continually weighed her down. Although her mind was elsewhere, her strokes with the swab became swift and sure. So, if she couldn’t anchor her make-believe wall to the ship where could she secure it? Then she wondered why she needed to secure it anywhere. This was an impossible dream with an impossible wall. Her wall could float in front of the sails if she decided it could.

  The sound of flapping canvas pulled her attention to the rigging. The sails had gone slack. No wind blew in them. Dread filled her thoughts at the consequence of the timing. Was she wielding? She braced herself for the inevitable weakness and pain to follow but nothing happened.

  The captain bellowed a command she didn’t hear. The sound of running footsteps rumbled toward her. She turned in time to see Finn’s furious expression in her face.

  “Not now, Midge,” he said in a lowered voice. He glanced westward as if something were coming for him. It wasn’t fury in his features, but fear. Did she frighten him?

  Something slammed into her back. She didn’t realize it was the decking until she looked past Finn and saw the still slack sails. She must have collapsed.

  “Was that me?” she asked, meaning the wind. She sounded stupid to her own ears. Of course it was her. The dredging weakness that plastered her to the timbers was her answer. She couldn’t move. She could barely speak.

  “And it still is,” he said. “Let it go.”

  “I…I don’t know how.”

  Finn raised his hand. She read his intention straight away. She didn’t want him to do what he’d done to her before in his cabin. He hadn’t struck her but he had used his power against her. She never wanted that to happen ever again. “No wait,” she said. “I can do this.”

  Finn hesitated and gave her the moment she needed to picture her invisible wall again. She imagined it hanging above the ship and then she imagined it turning to smoke. The wind brushed it aside and filled the sails once more.

  Finn didn’t relax as she thought he would. “Can you stand?” He seemed distracted.

  “No.”

  Now he seemed annoyed. He glanced again to the west and frowned. “That’s odd,” he said to himself. A moment later he swore and spun to the north. Fear emanated out of him. He roughly hauled Jasmine to her feet. Without a word, he dragged her below decks.

  Finn kicked open the infirmary door and half carried her to the far end of the room where he dumped her onto the berth furthest from the door. She gave a weak protest, but the softness of the bed whispered promises of rest.

  “What’s happened now?” Doc asked. “Did Midge get into another fight?”

  Finn turned his back to her so she couldn’t read his expression when he said to Doc, “I need you to put the boy under.”

  If she’d felt stronger she may have panicked. She decided she hadn’t heard him right. She tried to read Doc’s expression and he seemed as dubious.

  “Firstly, did I hear you right?”

  “Yes, you heard me.” Finn sounded like he was in a hurry.

  “Secondly, are you mad?”

  “You have to trust me on this.”

  Doc crossed his arms over his chest. “As a doctor, there are some things I can’t allow to pass on trust alone. I can’t afford mistakes and neither can my patient.”

  “What are you talking about, old man? Just do as I ask.”

  “For instance,” Doc continued as if Finn hadn’t spoken. “Do you realize how dangerous it is to drug a girl with a boy’s dose?”

  Jasmine’s eyes widened. Finn’s shoulders tensed.

 
Doc muttered something angry. “Yes, I thought you knew, but you weren’t going to tell me. This leads me to wonder what else you know that may be crucial to Midge’s health.”

  “What I’m asking you to do is crucial to her health.” Finn paced and Jasmine caught a glimpse of his face when he turned around. He looked anxious, frightened. “I can incapacitate her with my power, but it won’t last long enough and it won’t be deep enough. I’m afraid of what might happen if I go too deep.” He stopped in front of Doc. “That’s why I need you. You have to put her into a dreamless sleep. And you must do it quickly.”

  “I need to know why.”

  “We don’t have time for this!”

  Doc shrugged. “I have all the time I want.”

  “No you don’t. None of us do. What I’m asking you to do will not only save her life but it’s crucial to the safety of the Seahawk.”

  “Melodrama won’t make me put this child in danger.”

  “Listen to me, Doc.” Finn seemed about to burst with frustration. “She is already in danger. We all are. Some visitors will soon board the Seahawk. They are powerful and they are dangerous. If they find Jasmine here they will kill her.”

  “Why? And why not just hide her in the lower decks?”

  “Because they will find her. They are wielders and they won’t hesitate to rip this ship apart to find her. Because she is a wielder also. It’s her power we must hide.”

  Doc blanched. “Wielder business then.” He went to his desk and mixed together a potion. “How long will she need to be under?”

  “A day, at least.”

  “A whole day?” Doc and Jasmine said in unison.

  Panic welled inside her. She pulled on Finn’s sleeve. “I can control myself. You don’t need to do this.”

  He unlatched her fingers and let her weak hands drop. He didn’t even have the decency to look at her.

  When Doc returned, he carried with him a flask filled with a milky white liquid. Jasmine wondered what he planned to do with it because there was no chance in all the oceans of Erenna she was going to make it easy for them.