Before the Broken Star

by King, Emily R.

  “I’m coming.”

  I tie on my cloak so my front is layered several times and slip into my boots. Quinn is still asleep as I step out.

  Rainy gales lash at me, soaking my back and head in seconds. The thick wool at my front protects my clock heart. I follow the crewman through rushing waves that flow out again, emptying through the scuttles. We grip anything we can for security. The chill of the driving tempest numbs my bare fingers. I long for my gloves.

  Shadows slide across the ship from the lanterns swinging wildly. Captain Dabney mans the helm on the quarterdeck, navigating our path through the starless night. Without my uncle’s chronometer, we would surely be lost.

  Ahead, men and women are tugging at a snared sail. Orders are shouted from above, half-eaten by the wind. I peer up the main mast into the deluge. Dangling in the lines, high above near the yardarm, Jamison works to tie down the mainsail.

  The canvas snaps and strikes the workers. I grab a rope slithering about and hang on. The blasting cold winds are blistering. Crewmen untangle the mass of ropes, wary of the swinging boom. We each stretch out the rigging shrouds to prevent further knots.

  Jamison loses his grasp and slips down the mast. He grabs the yardarm and pulls himself back up to the high corner of the mainsail. He ties it down, his progress slow. The abrasive rope drags through my palms. At last, when the rope has nearly burned from my grasp, he finishes.

  “Release!” he yells.

  We all let go. The rigging snaps straight, locking the sail in place. Though my hands and feet are numb, my clock heart beats on task. Soaked from the knees down, I stumble across the slick deck for the cabin. A wave surges over the rail, catching my legs and sweeping me sideways. Someone grabs me before I hit the gunwale.

  Jamison has hold of my forearm. We skid across the planking, steadying each other. Passengers flee the racing waves to the decks below.

  “Dorcha!” the captain shouts from the helm.

  Jamison and I halt near the rail. A great gray hump has risen in the choppy sea—swimming right for us. We brace against each other as the whale collides with our hull. The ship creaks and howls as the monstrous whale rams us again.

  Sailors clamber to arm the harpoon cannon with a dry powder sack, an almost impossible task in the storm. Water drips down my front as the ship pitches portside. Jamison holds on to a line. I slip from his grasp and ride the downslope, hitting the end of the deck and hugging the rail. The mega whale thrashes beneath me. Dorcha is almost as long as the ship and half as wide. Except for his ugly white scars from harpoon wounds, he is as gray as the sea.

  A series of sweeping waves rights the ship. I find my footing while Jamison and others fire their flintlock pistols at the monster. The Terrible Dorcha swipes its tail, sending a monumental splash over the sailors and throwing them down. The cannon crew aims the harpoon at our assailant. They stock the cannon barrel with a spear, light the fuse—and fire.

  I cover my ears to the blast. The spear impales the whale’s side, a shallow strike. Dorcha groans and rolls free of the harpoon. The cannon crew reloads, but Dorcha dives and disappears under the waves.

  Jamison lurches across the deck to me. I duck behind him as a wall of water crashes over us. My front comes away damp, my back drenched. The cannon crew finish reloading the harpoon and watch for Dorcha’s return.

  Even more speedily than the tempest came, the gales and swells level. The captain faithfully guides his battered ship to safety. We climb out of the storm, and the clouds part to a glittering midnight reigned by a pearl moon.

  If I were superstitious, I might blame Dorcha for the vicious squall.

  Everyone but the cannon crew and captain clear the deck. Jamison and I shut ourselves inside our cabin. I lean against the wall, winded and shivering. He strips off my cloak. He lost his hat, his hair strewn wildly about his cross face.

  “Of all the asinine things,” he says.

  “You needed help.”

  “Help be damned. You were nearly swept away!”

  “Shh.” I cast a glance at Quinn sleeping.

  He took the only layer that he could off me without risking my modesty, so he proceeds to undress himself. Closing my eyes, I listen to my heart ticking sharply inside my skull. I reopen them and discover he’s shirtless.

  “Is Dorcha gone?” I ask, teeth chattering.

  “For now. Good sin, you’re frozen.” Jamison drapes a quilt over my shoulders and rubs my arms briskly. I cover my chest with my arms, protecting my heart, and lean into his warmth. I stay against him as my shivers decline and the numbness relents. Though he touches me little, his warmth awakens the sensation of his nearness.

  “You aren’t like him.”

  Jamison’s fingers tense. I assumed he was like Markham, but Jamison is not a monster.

  “I don’t know who hurt you, but you don’t have to relive it.” He bends down, compelling me to heed his gaze. “After my mother passed away, my father drank night and day. The whisky helped him forget his sorrow, but it also loosened his temper. The last time he beat me, he tore through my knee with a riding crop. I tolerated his anger for the good of Tarah, but after he damaged my knee, I couldn’t stay. I enlisted in the navy as soon as I was recovered enough to walk out. Sometimes when my knee aches, the memories of that time return, so I think of something else.”

  “What do you think of?”

  “Daisies. My mother picked them and put them in vases around our home.” Jamison strokes my arms. “What do you think of when you want to forget?”

  He expects that I will peel away another layer of distance between us, but I have already given him more of myself than I can bear.

  “I don’t think of anything,” I say, breaking the chain of his arms.

  He watches me in confusion as I shift away and then extends his gentle voice to me. “Who hurt you, Everley?”

  He waits for my answer, my honest answer. I could regale him with the story of my past and deepen his sympathy, unload my secrets and let myself be seen. Even though I sense he sincerely wants to know, I won’t tell him. He may not be a monster, but he still works for one.

  “Good night, Jamison.”

  He mashes his lips together. As I turn down the lantern and slip into bed beside Quinn, Jamison does not move. A long moment later, he releases a profound sigh and lies down on the floor. I tunnel in the blankets and stare at the ceiling, my mind ripe for nightmares.

  On the morrow, we will set foot on Dagger Island.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fog floats like a ghost over the placid sea. After last night’s storm, I do not trust the eerie quiet. We are sailing headlong into a forsaken world.

  Not long ago, around midday, a sailor knocked on my door to say the captain permitted me to come out. I hurried into the fog for a glimpse of the island.

  The women line the prow, Quinn pressed between Claret and Laverick. I stay back near Harlow. I would apologize for her husband’s death, but she abhorred the man and any admission of guilt would encourage her to nettle me more.

  Captain Dabney guides the ship through the ominous haze. Silence grips every person aboard as the Lady Regina cuts through the mist. The first view of Dagger Island materializes, a slice of green amid a canvas of gray. The island has three distinct sides much like the tip of a blade. That was, in fact, what inspired my father to name the isle after a dagger. The pointy northern shore is stony and lacks vegetation. The rocky terrain gives way to a midland of dense forests and two mountain ranges that run parallel to each other. On the western leeward corner, a large cove is notched into the coastline. We cruise into the clear-watered bay under a cloud-washed sky, and in the center of the crescent beach, pillars of smoke rise from the settlement. A flag of the realm flies, visible from offshore. Snatches of the western mountains peek through the low-moving clouds, their hundreds of ridges like the spine of a sleeping sea monster.

  The Cadeyrn of the Seas, the flagship vessel of the queen’s first fleet, is anchored in the i
nlet. I step forward for a better view of Markham’s ship, and Vevina spots me. She smiles in greeting. Quinn told me before she left the cabin this morning that the women agree Cuthbert’s death was an accident. Still, as far as I am aware, I am the only prisoner aboard who has taken a life.

  The crew hustles to lower the sails and drop anchor. Their shouts outrival the cawing seagulls overhead. Settlers ashore run out of their tents and wave. We are too far away to spot Markham among them.

  Jamison descends from the upper deck in his gray uniform. He oiled his wavy hair and tied it at the nape of his neck. His clean-shaven jawline is accentuated by short whiskers below his ears, sideburns that add a refined polish to his straight carriage. Should he always look this dapper, it would be impossible to forget he’s an earl, not just a lieutenant.

  “Someone vandalized my blue jacket,” he says. “I put it on this morning and the buttons were missing. I found this in my breast pocket.” He holds up the bell from my broken regulator.

  “I wonder how that got there.”

  The corners of his mouth twitch. “If you prefer that I not wear the blue jacket, you need only say so.”

  “Wear what you like, Lieutenant.”

  He tips his head back dubiously. “The captain will stay to direct the offloading. I’m rowing ashore to greet the commander. You and Quinn will come with me.”

  Crewmen carry the longboats to the starboard side and suspend them over the bay. Jamison climbs in first and then assists Quinn and me. A dozen members of the crew get in, and then we are lowered into the water. Jamison sits at the prow while four sailors man the oars and row us to land. I grip the bench, blisters building along my palms. The summertime water is vivid aqua, so clear I spot fish in the shallows.

  Crouched up to the pebble beach dabbed with sand, tents and log cabins compose the settlement. Between the tents and forest are crop fields for tobacco, wheat, flax, corn, and more. Jamison jumps into the shallows and pulls the boat to the shoreline. While he lifts Quinn out, I jump into the low surf, cold water up to my shins.

  “I would have carried you,” he says.

  “I have legs too.” I disliked my uncle coddling my clock heart. Jamison might feel the same way about his bad knee, but he really shouldn’t be hefting me around.

  We slosh to shore. More longboats full of people row from the ship across the cove. The second my feet meet dry land, my heart gives a kick. I press down on my sternum until the pulsation abates. Markham is not among the soldiers and convicts in our greeting party. The shaggy-haired prisoners wear plain work clothes versus the soldiers’ uniforms, guns, and swords. Their gazes rake over me. I feel sectioned apart, like an apple sliced up for consumption.

  Jamison shakes hands with an officer. “Commander Flynn, this is my wife, Lady Callahan.”

  “A pleasure,” he says. The young commander, perhaps in his midtwenties, wears a bushy beard. “I was concerned the storm would drive you off course. We were hit hard by the winds. Half our livestock were set free from their pens. Governor Markham took a crew inland to find them.”

  A knot between my shoulders unwinds. Markham isn’t in camp. I’m both grateful for the time to assess my surroundings and irritated that I must wait to see him.

  I wipe away perspiration along my brow. The summer day swelters, the air thick and sticky. Misshapen tents keel partway over, and broken branches litter the beach. Even before the storm, I cannot imagine this settlement was an accomplishment. Less than a handful of the shelters are cabins, and of those, only the largest appears habitable. The outpost lacks signs of intended permanency. Even by minimal parameters, after ten years under the rule of Wyeth and two years under occupancy, it’s a threadbare conquest.

  “Do the convicts roam free?” Jamison asks.

  “The Thornwoods are the only place to run to, and no one is that daft or desperate,” says Commander Flynn. “We reserved your lodging near the women’s end of camp. What of the lass, Lieutenant?”

  “She’s to serve as the governor’s maid,” Jamison replies, motioning at Quinn drawing in the sand. “For the time being, she’ll stay with my wife and me.”

  The commander guides us into camp, pointing out the latrine, the cookery, and the dining tent. Sheep, goats, and pigs are penned near a grassy opening in the woods while chickens mill about pecking at sand fleas. Pails for collecting drinking water are set out along a stream that flows from the forest and empties into the inlet. We enter the main encampment, and the stench of unwashed flesh nearly sends me back to the beach. At the far end of the tents, trees have been sheared down and the logs chopped into woodpiles. The standing evergreens are tall, taller than my uncle’s two-story shop. Nothing has been built in the clearing, nor are tents pitched.

  “Why haven’t you occupied the cleared land?” I ask.

  “We don’t linger near to the Thornwoods.” Commander Flynn stops at the last canvas tent before the clearing. The interior has a carpeted floor, two cots, and a small vestibule. “This is yours. Dinner will be served soon.”

  Quinn goes inside to test the comfort of the cots. The commander pulls Jamison aside and they speak in low voices. Jamison nods grimly and they part ways.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “Men have been going missing. Strange beasts have been sighted in the trees, otherworldly creatures.” Jamison shakes his head, dismissing the report as outrageous. My fingers twitch at my hip where my sword should be. Unexplained sightings or not, I want my weapon. “Neither you nor Quinn should go near the forest until I know more. I need to return to the ship for our belongings.”

  Quinn runs out of the tent. “Everley, may we look around?”

  “You should stay here until I come back,” says Jamison.

  “We’ll be careful,” I reply. After the incident with Cuthbert, I promised myself I would keep my distance from Quinn, but our walk is the excuse I need to scout out the camp.

  We wind through the women convicts who have arrived and are settling into their tents. Several of them squabble over who will bunk with whom. Vevina has secured a tent for her, the Fox, and the Cat. She twiddles her fingers at Quinn and ducks inside.

  Quinn and I go around camp to the beach. From there, I can see directly into a large tent. Dr. Huxley is inside tending to men lying on mats. That must be the infirmary. I spot a shirtless man with gore wounds in his back and I pull Quinn along. Something else could have caused his wounds, not necessarily an animal, yet I am more on guard about our whereabouts. The male convicts give us a wide berth, and any attention they do give us is immediately discouraged by one of several armed soldiers on guard.

  We toss rocks into the sea and then stroll on toward a solitary cabin flying our homeland flag. As it is the finest lodging here, I have no doubt it is Governor Markham’s residence.

  A meal bell rings near the center of the settlement.

  “That’s dinner,” Quinn says, pulling me back toward the dining tent. When the wind blows our direction, I smell vegetable mash.

  As we return to the main encampment, we pass a cemetery marked off by driftwood. The rock headstones are numbered by the dozen. My father warned the queen that settling Dagger Island would have a cost, yet she still sent these people and delegated Markham as their protector. The queen was wrong, but what she knows of the isle came from Markham. These people’s deaths, and any more to come, are on him.

  Shouts of the governor’s arrival spread across camp and find us at the dining tent. Soldiers abandon their plates of food and leave to meet the party of men exiting the trees. The extra men help to herd the recovered livestock back into their pens.

  I swallow my final bite of the bland vegetable mash. Even from afar, I can identify Markham. His overconfident gait and pompous smile are unforgettable.

  Jamison has returned from the ship and finished moving our belongings to our tent. He redirects himself from joining Quinn and me for dinner to greet the governor. They shake hands, and then Jamison draws Markham’s attention to us
at the dining tent.

  I push aside my plate. “Let’s go meet the governor, Quinn.”

  She grabs her crust of bread and scurries after me. I set my shoulders and fortify my heart as I do when approaching an opponent in the trench. My ticker obeys, thrumming excitedly. Finally, it is time to meet our monster. We stride right up to the men.

  “Sir,” says Jamison, “this is Lady Callahan.”

  I don a smile, my heart thudding a battle march.

  Markham bows. He looks the same as a decade ago. How has he not aged? “Lady Callahan, you’ve a fine husband.”

  Sweet words from poisonous lips.

  I double the width of my smile. Markham reveals no sign of recognition. The conceited bastard must not remember me from the clock shop. Oh, but I will be of importance soon.

  “Lieutenant, did we run out of frocks for the women?” Markham asks, studying my masculine attire.

  Jamison glances from me to the governor, stumbling for an excuse that does not label me as overly particular. “She, ah . . . we—”

  “None of the dresses were to my taste,” I say.

  Governor Markham answers with a “hmm” and bends over Quinn. I squelch the urge to disarm Jamison of his pistol and knock Markham over the head with it. “Is this the lass you told me about?”

  Quinn stares up at him, her little chin out.

  “This is your serving girl,” Jamison explains. “As I said before, Cuthbert didn’t harm her, thanks to my wife.” He’s generous to defend me, but if he calls me his “wife” one more time, I may boot him.

  Markham nicks Quinn’s chin with a friendly scrape of his knuckles. “You’re stronger for it, aren’t you?” He bestows her with a dazzling smile, and a blush blossoms in her cheeks. “You and I will get along well, lass.”

  His closeness to her person unnerves me. “Please excuse us, sir, I must put Quinn to bed.” Without waiting for permission, I take her by the hand and lead her away.