by H. N. Klett
“No, young lady, I said the Queen would let them go if you went with us,” he said mockingly and leaned towards the two, pointing at her with his pistol. “You were the one who altered the agreement, and then they”—he swirled his pistol in the air pointing out the deck full of people fighting on the other ship—“decided to alter it more.”
“So what are you going to do now? You can’t open it without me, and you are running out of marines.” Hailey hooked a thumb back towards the deck.
Those marines who weren’t dead from fighting were succumbing to the effects of the chemicals in the mists.
Graver smirked at the girl. “Oh, I think we will manage.”
He motioned with his head to the Queen, who stood on the bridge, book in hand. The book’s latches fell away and the Queen slowly opened it, a smile appearing on her bright red lips. The map floated before her veiled face.
Hailey stood there, stunned.
“If she can open the book, then why did you need me?” she cried.
“Well, we weren’t quite sure she could open it. I guess she can,” he said nonchalantly.
Graver looked at Hailey almost sympathetically and leveled his pistol at her. “We won’t be needing your services anymore.”
Orin gave a shout and lunged forward, axe in hand.
Hailey was too busy screaming to hear the shot. Her father’s body fell forward and collapsed on the gangway. Hailey ran to him and dropped to her knees, wailing and shaking him as if he were only sleeping. He did not respond.
A storm of dark emotions washed over her in an instant, washing away the world around her as she clung to her father. From the back of his chest she could hear his heart was no longer beating. His lungs no longer took air. The man she knew and loved was gone. Lost. Taken from her just like her mother was, and there was nothing she nor anyone else could do. She sat with him there, sobbing for her loss, clinging to him on the gangway.
Bishop Graver regarded them only for a moment and then turned and walked up to the deck as the Virtuous began to pull away. The gangplank slid off the edge of the ship, dumping Hailey and the body of her father into the water below.
They crashed into the water, sinking quickly. Hailey still clung to her father, his eyes wide open, frozen in the last look of surprise in death. His leg became snared by the rope of the gangway, whose heavy weight began to drag them down, a dark visceral red ribbon wafted from the hole in the center of his forehead and curled around them in the water.
It was all too much to take in. The book, the kidnapping, the pirates, and now her father was dead. As they sunk deeper in the water, the light began to fade and the darkness almost looked welcoming to her. It was better for her to surrender herself to the darkness of the ocean’s depths.
Above her, flashes of fire arced across the surface of the water, and there was a chest-shaking rumble, but none of that mattered to Hailey anymore. All was lost.
As she bowed her head in surrender, an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her upwards. Hailey clung desperately to her father’s corpse. She didn’t want to let him go. Orin’s body was still snared by the ropes and continued to pull them downwards. Hailey tried to hold on, but her grip slipped, and Orin’s body dropped away into the deeper darkness of the ocean.
When Hailey and her rescuer crested the water, she gave a desperate gasp for air. She was angry at being rescued. She flailed to free herself from whoever rescued her and turned to shout at her savior. In the water with her was Hadyn. Looking into his almost hypnotic eyes, the hot anger melted away and all she was left with was the cold feeling of loss. He swam over to her and gently put his arm around her and swam, guiding them both towards the Arrow.
Behind them, there was a terrible wet crunching and snapping and the final long moan of surrender that was the creaking death rattle of the Dark Star. Its hull was shattered and full of holes from the Queen’s cannons. Slowly, as if a hand was pulling it under, the Dark Star slipped beneath the water like the ghost ship it was. The only trace it left was the belching bubbles of mists and it joined Hailey’s father in the dark depths below.
Chapter 17
Still holding Hailey above water, Hadyn floated beside the Arrow. He had dropped his cutlass and dove in after her when he saw the gangway drop.
Hailey’s heart wanted to sink into the water. To join her father below. Instead Hadyn had pulled her up. Saved her. She was grateful to him for that, but some small part of her couldn’t help but resent him a little for doing it.
Hadyn grabbed a line someone tossed over the side and wrapped it around the two of them. Hailey didn’t say a word as he pulled her close and looped the rope under their arms. Slowly they were hoisted out of the water and onto the deck where they were greeted by the surviving crew of the Dark Star. The crew wrapped blankets about them, and the doctor pushed his way through to check them over.
Hailey sat there staring into nothing. She didn’t know if it was water in her ears or if she’d hit her head, but the world seemed slow and muted. The crew around her were talking to each other, but she didn’t know what any of them were saying. In fact, at that moment she didn’t care. Her father was dead. She was alone.
Everyone looked exhausted from the fight. The Dark Star was gone, sunken beneath the sea. All the people that were left from the fight huddled on the deck.
Hadyn stood next to Hailey as the survivors crowded around. Captain Zordebran stood there, resting on a crutch. Olau stood quietly next to him, his right eye covered with bandages.
The doctor knelt down to check Hailey’s pulse and she caught a glimpse of a scorched face behind him she thought looked like Malik, but with no hair. Beside him stood Kyra, who had her hand on her hip while she spoke to the group.
Missing from the group was the slender figure of the sail master, Dan Ellis, who must not have made it. Chloe sat on the deck, looking lost. It was the first time Hailey had not seen her smiling in the short time she had known her. As crew shuffled past after being checked out by the doctor, she asked about Dan. The tone of concern in her voice betrayed her hidden loss. She too had lost someone close to her that day. They all had.
So many losses, and for what, Hailey wondered.
Another merchant ship had finally caught up with the Arrow and pulled up alongside to lend aid to the survivors.
Hadyn and Kyra got Hailey up and helped her across the deck to the captain’s quarters. She sat heavily on one of the chairs and made a point to not look back at her father’s unmade bed or the picture on the wall hiding the cabinet where she’d first found the book.
She closed her eyes and tried to shut it all out. She wanted it all to go away. She wanted it all to be right, to have never happened at all. She had made the choices that led them there, she was the one who had taken the book. She went to Graver’s mansion. She went with the pirates and took them to the cove, where they got the key. She let Graver take the satchel with the book without a fight. The captain’s hand turns the wheel, but it is the navigator that leads them where they are to go.
She opened her eyes to the group hurriedly conversing with each other. The door opened and her father’s first mate, Rufus, entered with the captain of the other ship in tow. It was her father’s best friend, Seamus. Seamus stopped mid-stride when he saw Captain Zordebran standing there leaning against a crutch. The look of fear on Seamus’ face showed that he recognized the form that had haunted his dreams at night.
Rufus placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Relax. They are on our side. How do you think we found them?”
Seamus remembered his last encounter with the pirates. The glowing eyes through the mists, the many skulls searching his ship. When he awoke late the next day on the deck, the cabins and below decks had been ransacked, but he and his crew had not a scratch.
Rufus introduced him. “Captain Seamus Pike, this is my cousin, Captain Telos Zordebran of the pirate ship the Dark Star.”
Hailey’s head whipped around and her eyes went wide. C
ousins? Rufus looked at her with his serpent like gaze and smiled plainly at her as if to tell her Yes, I was sent to watch you. I didn’t like it either.
Captain Zordebran limped forward and extended his hand.
“Former ship, I’m afraid. Nice to meet you. Sorry about before.”
Seamus shook his hand. “Ah, well…” He trailed off, not knowing what else to say. “Say, where is Orin? Is he injured?”
“He is dead.” Rufus lowered his head. “Captain, things did not go as well as we had planned.”
Seamus stood there, stunned. Any man that had been to sea knew there was always a strong chance they would never return. Even though the thought had been evident to him after several years and countless examples of how life on the seas could be cruel, the idea that his best friend was gone pained him. He couldn’t even look at Orin’s daughter, Hailey, who still sat, wet and wrapped in a blanket, on the chair in front of him.
A moment of silence passed and Seamus croaked out, “And the book?” He looked worried.
“The Queen has it,” replied Zordebran.
Seamus’s shoulders slumped and he fought against the waves of despair in his heart.
“At least they can’t open it. Not without the girl,” Seamus said with a modicum of relief.
“She opened it,” Hailey said flatly, and the room quieted. Hailey tried hard to not cry again.
Seamus’s eyes finally met hers. “How?”
“Just before Graver…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, a lump in her throat prevented it. She cleared her throat and continued. “I saw the Queen open the book on her own. It can open for her. She can read it. She can see the map.”
The room sat dumbfounded.
“I thought only the Navigator could open and read the book.” Hadyn looked at his captain, but it was Chloe who answered him.
“Only a direct descendant of Rachel can open that book. That can only mean one thing: she is one as well.”
No one knew much about the Queen. She lived her life behind a veil. She came from nowhere. The story propagated by the Church was that she had been a common girl from one of the colonies who worked her way up the social ranks and won the heart of the King. A wonderful story to tell the masses. It certainly helped to further reinforce their social order and give hope that any lady could advance that high.
The odd thing was that no one outside of the royal family, the high Church officials, or the noble advisors knew her name, only her title. The masses began to circulate a new name for her: the Veiled Queen.
Not long after the Queen’s coronation, her much older husband, the King, died, and she found herself on the throne. There were many who said that she would take a husband and make him King, but she had yet to do so. The Church didn’t press the issue, and when people asked, they gave the excuse that she was still in mourning these many years later, thus the dark veil.
Now they knew something else. She was related to Hailey.
“Did your dad or mom have any sisters?” Kyra asked.
“No, not that I know of, but my mom wasn’t very close with anyone in her family. She never talked about them and we never went to see them. I don’t know.” Hailey shook her head. “Heck, I don’t even know how I’m related to Rachel Feron!”
“Well, they have the book and the way to get the treasure,” Rufus said, sounding frustrated. “What do we do now?”
“If we head to Daden now,” said Seamus, “we might be able to break through the blockade and get some of the townspeople out before the plague hits.” He looked at the pirate captain.
“There aren’t enough ships to get through the blockade, let alone get everyone out,” Captain Zordebran pointed out.
“In all probability, they are already infected,” Dr. Vinkler interjected.
“We don’t know that.” Hadyn rested a hand on Hailey’s shoulder and tried to look at her encouragingly.
“For all we know, they may have just released the plague when they formed the blockade,” said Hailey, trying to cling onto some hope.
“If that’s the case, we still might have time to get the device and stop the plague from taking effect,” Dr. Vinkler offered.
Zordebran shifted on his crutch. “We have to go after the Queen. Nowhere will be safe once she is able to control that plague. She could go out and infect everyone in the whole world without anyone knowing it and choose who lives and who dies with the push of a button. I can’t allow that. We have to go after them.”
“But they have the map and a head start. We don’t even know where they are.” Seamus retorted.
Hailey remembered back to a time when she didn’t know where she was. When she was on the Halifax, locked in the hold. She had felt the book’s presence on the ship. In fact, she’d noticed from the second that she touched the book that it was a part of her and she would know where it was. She shut her eyes and tried to feel for the book.
Somewhere in a dark corner of her mind, something pulled at her, like a compass pointing in a direction in which to go. She recognized that feeling, like an itch inside her head. It was the book. It was as if she could almost see it. She knew where it was.
“I know where the book is!” Hailey stood up and announced.
“But how?” Kyra asked.
“I can see it in my head.” Hailey folded her arms. “Just trust me, I know.”
Hadyn looked into her eyes and saw the fire in them. Hailey wanted to save her town, but there was something more. Hailey wanted revenge.
She nodded at him.
“Well, she is the Navigator.” Hadyn shrugged and looked at his captain. “Captain, I think we should go after them. It might be Daden’s only chance.”
“But what will we do when we catch up with them? She’s on the biggest battleship in the fleet.” Seamus was a good man and a good captain, but not a fighting man; he was a merchant.
“Yes, but they don’t have much of a crew left,” Olau said, breaking his silence while he leaned against the wall. The bandage over his right eye had a small dot of dried blood that almost made it look like someone had drawn on an eye over the one that was missing.
They all chuckled and nodded their heads in agreement.
Those of the Queen’s marines that hadn’t succumbed to the gas had fought like lions. The battle was still raging on deck when the Virtuous fired their cannons and rocked their ship. Those that hadn’t died in the volley of iron and wood shrapnel jumped from the listing ship and desperately swam to try and catch their departing vessel. Those that were too wounded or were unconscious joined the Dark Star in its watery grave. Only a handful of marines were recovered by the merchants, and they were now locked in the hold of the Arrow.
Hailey bolted from her chair. “We have to go after them!” She could feel her face growing hot. The need for revenge burned within her. Not just for her father, but for her mother and her townspeople, her grandparents. Too many had suffered because of Jacob Graver and the Queen. She would do whatever it took to stop them, no matter the cost.
“Well then, Navigator, if you can see them, tell us where they are.” Telos Zordebran shuffled forward a little on his crutch and slowly and carefully took a seat in the captain’s chair.
Hailey wove her way around the figures to stand in front of Zordebran. She unrolled the charts on the table and everyone gathered around.
She looked up at both Rufus and Seamus. “Last reading, where were we?” she asked.
Seamus stepped forward and pointed to the map.
“Right here, not too far off the coasts of Eolan and Iconen.”
Hailey placed a finger where Seamus had pointed and looked over the map.
“They were heading north by northeast when they left,” Kyra added.
Hailey nodded and closed her eyes and let herself feel the pull of the book. Hailey was taking a big gamble, but she figured that this was how the Queen tracked them before, so she should be able to do the same. She marked their location on the map and, using a ruler and the
pull of the book, traced her finger up the path along the ruler. She felt for a distance, her finger eventually stopping on an area full of symbols and warnings.
“They are here.” She pointed to the spot on the map and looked around the room. The faces in the room fell on the news.
“She’s already crossed into the Sea of Mists,” Zordebran said.
They had hoped to be able to catch them before they entered the sea. With the book in their possession, they could have navigated through mists easily, instead they would be navigating one of the most treacherous places in the world all based on some internal pull that Hailey alone could feel. She truly would be the navigator once they reached the mists.
“We can overtake them easily,” grunted Rufus. Both he and Hailey knew that nothing on the seas could outrun the Arrow. They may have taken heavy losses, but with the surviving pirate crew they had more than enough hands to get under full sail.
“Yes, but what will we do when we catch them? Even if they are undercrewed, we are still outgunned,” said Seamus.
Hailey, still stooped over the map, looked up at Captain Zordebran. When their eyes met, she cocked an eyebrow and Zordebran could see that a storm brewed behind those eyes.
“Captain, I have an idea.”
Chapter 18
The Virtuous pierced the wall of mists, the lights dotting the ship made it look like a tall lighthouse floating in the gloom. The Queen stood at the rear of the bridge. She studied the map and whispered directions to Jacob Graver at her side, who then relayed the information the captain.
If it weren’t for the lights throughout the ship, Graver wouldn’t have been able to find the captain, who stood mere yards in front of him at the wheel of the enormous ship.
“Her Highness says to adjust course five minutes east, Captain. Steady as she goes.”
Captain Jamal remained quiet but complied. Being a military man, he was used to taking orders, but not from civilians. Bishop Jacob Graver may have been the Queen’s right hand man, but it was the opinion of the captain, as well as the rest of the soldiers, that they were the Queen’s left.