Sins of the Sea

by Laila Winters

  “I will. Good tides, Ezra.”

  Fynn emerged from the alley the same way he’d gone in, with his head down and eyes on the toes of his boots. Fynn kept the bag of crystals tucked close to his chest, praying that no one inquired about the contents of his hoard. He did not feel like ripping the air from someone’s lungs should they decide that the stones were worth more than his life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOL

  Valestorm was worse than she’d expected.

  Silas had warned her that she would not find a friendly face amongst the merchants. He’d warned her about the blood-smeared cobblestones and the rotting fish in the quay. And the smell. He’d warned her about that, too, and yet she had not been prepared.

  She could not believe Quint had left her here.

  After a night of traveling to the port, Sol was meant to be gone by day’s end, before the worst of Valestorm came crawling into the streets to hunt for their evening entertainment. Should the Princess linger in the market, Silas had given her one final warning: she would become their muse, and she would not like what they would do to her.

  But she did not know where to go.

  Was she to find a Captain somewhere in the market, brave the withering dock and stumble amongst the planks until someone offered her asylum? Her brother had not told her, and Quint hadn’t uttered a single word on their venture down to the port.

  Draven pressed his head beneath Sol’s palm.

  She threaded her fingers through the coarse fur jutting from the nape of his neck. “I know,” Sol sighed. Her breath was a crystalized cloud on the wind. “Just give me a moment to think.”

  She tugged at the hood of her cloak, pulling it further around her face. Her betrothal to the Crown Prince was finally beginning to appeal to her. Silas would have escorted her to Dyn, and he could have warmed her hands with his Magic. Her own Magic needed to be thawed, the water in her veins frozen like the icy fjords webbing across Irica’s northern tundra. But it would not have done her any good. She had promised Silas that she would not use it.

  Draven sank onto his haunches.

  “The market or the dock?” Sol questioned quietly. “The market or the dock.”

  She angled herself towards the market.

  The squared plaza was lined with ramshackle stalls. Sol was certain they’d collapse should a strong gust of wind blow through Valestorm with Thymis’ unsightly wrath. Their merchants fared no better, their haggard faces drawn and stout against the brutal cold of winter.

  Sol shied from the market entirely as a brutish man plunged his knife into the wooden counter of a merchant’s stall. She chose not to hear the filthy curse that spewed between his blackened teeth, and nor did she watch as the merchant punched him in the nose.

  “The dock it is.”

  Draven escorted her through Valestorm.

  He bared his teeth and snarled at all those brazen enough to look at her, and he snapped at a man whose breath reeked of wine.

  But he did not heed Draven’s warning.

  “Such a pretty thing,” the man slurred. He grabbed for the sleeve of Sol’s cloak and yanked her into the circle of his arms. They locked around her waist and trapped her there. “How much do you think you’re worth?”

  Sol beat her hands against his chest. “Let me go!” she demanded. Terror licked up her spine, coiled like a serpent in her belly, and settled like a stone inside her chest. She could not shove him away, did not have that kind of strength. His barreled torso pressed into her front, his clothes as putrid as his breath as he panted against her cheek. “Draven—”

  Draven was already there, sinking his teeth into the drunk man’s arm. His grimy skin furled like ribbons beneath the sharp points of Draven’s canines. “You filthy beast!” he cried. A rivulet of ruby blood splashed against the ground at his feet. “I’ll carve you into pieces and sell your hide in the market! Let go of me!”

  Calloused fingers gripped Sol’s wrist and pulled her free. She stumbled over the slick flagstones. “Come with me,” a voice whispered in her ear. Sol’s heart leapt into her throat. Such lilting, beautiful words in a port so vile and crude. “When your friend lets go of his arm, it’s best that you and I are long gone. He’ll find you again, I’m sure. They won’t catch him.”

  Sol whirled on her heels and tugged herself free. “I will not leave without Draven,” she snapped. She met the gaze of a boy perhaps her own age, his dark eyes guarded as he studied her face. “And I most certainly won’t go anywhere with you.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “Here,” he said, thrusting a heavy sack into her arms. Sol grunted and nearly dropped it. “I just bought these, and they’re valuable. Take them to the dock and wait for me there. Your wolf and I will come for you when it’s safe. If you don’t believe me—”

  “I don’t.”

  “—My ship is anchored in the quay, right on the end. You’re free to set fire to it if I’m lying.”

  Sol blinked and took a step back. “You’re a Captain?’

  “Indeed I am. Now get moving.” He nudged her along with a gentle push to her shoulder. “Your friend will be slaughtered if he kills that man, and he’s causing quite the scene.”

  He nodded pointedly to their left.

  Sol turned to the spectators gathering in the plaza; their ruddy faces were bright with the prospect of a bounty. A direwolf was worth its weight in gold, and Draven was unusually large. Merchants were already reaching for their weapons as if preparing to hack him into pieces.

  Sol paled. “You’ll bring him to me?’

  “I promise.”

  Draven’s snarl tore through the plaza. Sol’s captor thrashed beneath the direwolf’s massive paws as he sank his teeth deep into the man’s throat. He screamed and tried to shake him loose, tried to kick and punch and wrap his bloodied fingers around Draven’s neck. But Draven would not be deterred, and with a roar Sol felt in her bones, he bit down hard and ripped.

  Draven spat a chunk of flesh and bone onto the cobblestones.

  “Shit,” the Captain breathed. “Shit.”

  He took Sol’s hand and reached for the sack he had given her. It slipped through Sol’s fingers as she stared at Draven, at the blood that dripped from his maw. Sol knew he’d been trained to protect her, to kill should the occasion ever call for it. But Draven had never so much as nipped her skin when she offered him scraps of her food. She had never truly believed him capable of the violence he had been trained for.

  He padded to her on bloody feet, his unsheathed claws clicking over the flagstones. Draven pressed his head beneath Sol’s trembling fingers and whined at her, a sorrowful sound that rumbled deep in his throat. Sol scratched behind his ear.

  “That thing killed Leven!”

  The crowd pressed in, forming a tight circle around Sol, the Captain, and her direwolf. Swords scrapped against scabbards, and spears were drawn and raised with Draven as their primary target. Sol gripped the scruff of his neck and pulled him close, and even Draven seemed to balk at the weapons.

  “Run,” the Captain commanded softly. Sol looked up at him. He did not take his eyes off the approaching mob as he gripped her hand and squeezed. “To the ship at the end of the dock. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Draven whirled as the first spear was launched at him. He sank his teeth into Sol’s cloak and pulled, taking her with him as he began to race for the dock. Sol scrambled alongside him, his paws splashing through foul-smelling puddles of yellow and red and chunks of human waste. She would need to bathe him later.

  The Captain grabbed Sol’s arm and wrenched her in front of him. An arrow pierced the air where her spine had been.

  Tarnished grey stones gave way to a beach littered with trash. Sol staggered through the dull sand and did not look behind her when the Captain cursed and groaned, arrows zinging through the air. “Keep going!” he barked. “My ship—it’s that one. On the end.” He flung out a hand and pointed to the massive three-mast ship, bigger than Sol had ev
er seen. A beautiful siren reached over the sea with a slender hand, her body carved into the vessel’s tapered prow.

  The Captain shoved Sol onto the rickety boardwalk, white-foamed waves lapping at the weather-beaten staves. Their feet pounded against the rotting planks, arrows jutting into the wood as bows fired at their backs. Sol stumbled as the bridge swayed beneath her, swallowing the surge of Magic that swarmed beneath her skin like bees. She very nearly unleashed it, nearly washed away the mob trying to kill them. She nearly lost control.

  But she’d promised. She had promised Silas to keep it secret.

  “It’s all right,” she heard the Captain say. A spear dove between his legs and skittered down the walkway. He yelped. “It’ll hold.”

  Silas had told her that Thymis cursed this port, that the Goddess of the Emerald Sea had plunged her own hands into these waters. She had carved cavernous ruts into the ocean floor with her fingernails, had drafted treacherous currents that could sink any ship in this quay.

  A wooden dock would not hold against Thymis’ fury if the Goddess willed it to perish.

  Draven barreled ahead as if to test the planks for himself. The Captain ushered Sol along behind him, his heavy burlap sack tucked into the bend of his arm. Sol wondered what was so important that he could not abandon it to flee.

  An arrow whizzed over their heads, spearing for Draven’s backside. Dread struck Sol still, sank into her core with the weight of a ship’s anchor. She opened her mouth to scream at him, to beg him to move, to duck, to dodge. Too late—she’d seen the arrow too late—

  The arrow shattered into splinters.

  His hand was still raised as the Captain said, “Keep going!”

  Sol should thank him, should get on her knees and kiss the planks beneath his feet. But her mouth would not move, her tongue like lead behind her teeth. Her heart raced, a frantic, sputtering cadence in her chest, a symphony of drums without a conductor to keep their tempo. She feared it would burst through her ribcage.

  This boy—this Captain—was a Magic-Wielder. The thing Sol was not supposed to be.

  The dock gave way to an open stretch of sea, and Draven slid to a stop. He paced along the narrow piece of wood that led onto the marvelous ship, one more beautiful than even her father’s warships. The Captain thrust her towards it. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Sol turned to Draven and grimaced. “You first. It’s not me they’re after.”

  Draven bolted up the gangplank if only so his charge would follow him. His paws thudded against the bowing wood, and as Draven leapt over the ship’s exquisitely carved railings, shouts erupted from the deck.

  The Captain huffed. “You next. And keep your hood up. That hair of yours paints a target on your head.”

  Sol gripped her hood and hesitated for the briefest moment. She did not know this boy. She did not know his crew, where they’d come from, or where they might be going. She did not even know his name.

  A spear clattered to the walkway at her feet.

  Perhaps she could ask him later.

  Sol stumbled up the gangplank with the Captain close on her heels. He gripped her elbow to steady her. “Go!” he urged. An arrow shot over his shoulder. “Amael!”

  A dark-skinned boy with the kindest eyes leaned over the side of the ship. “Shit. Another one? Gods, I hate this port.”

  Amael offered Sol his hand as she reached the top of the gangplank. He hauled her onto the deck, then nudged her aside and helped pull his Captain over the banister. Amael gripped his shoulder as he panted. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “Where’s Riel?” He bent at the waist and grabbed the gangplank. “Is she on board?”

  “She’s with Gray at the helm, waiting for you. What happened?”

  “Same shit, different port. Raise the anchor, preferably before that mob boards my ship.”

  Amael dipped his chin at the order. “Aye, Cap.” He turned to Sol and grinned, as if this were nothing new for him. “I’m Amael. Nice direwolf. Welcome aboard.”

  “Now, Amael!”

  He shot across the deck and flitted through a crowd of deckhands.

  The Captain tossed the gangplank onto the deck and kicked it against the hull with his foot. He spun to look at Sol and raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever been on a ship before?”

  Sol wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling small on a ship so large as this. “No.”

  “Then you’d better find something to hold on to.”

  Draven padded to her side, and there was nothing Sol could do but drop to her knees and hold him close to her chest. He nuzzled her cheek with his nose as the ship lurched beneath them, taking Sol’s stomach with it; she nearly vomited into Draven’s fur.

  The Captain drew a shuddering breath as the anchor was lifted from the water. A gust of wind pushed against the billowing white sails, and Sol wretched as the ship spun out from the dock. She was thankful she had not eaten.

  “Riel, take the helm!” the Captain commanded, side-stepping Sol as if she were little more than a speck of something on his deck. “Amael, get your ass into the rigging and loosen those lines before they snap! How many times have I told you—”

  Sol did not listen to him, did not care what he demanded of his crew. She buried her face into the broad swell of Draven’s chest, muscle and fur warming her stinging nose. He was tense, his body stock-still as Sol curled into him. Draven rested his head on her shoulder, tucking Sol even further into the safety that had always been the direwolf.

  “Captain!” a girl cried, her accented voice shrill with unabashed terror. “Fynn, we’re being followed!”

  He must have still been close by, because Sol heard him spit a string of curse words that even Silas would have balked at. “I hate this port. I hate every godsdamned inch of it. Gracia, get below deck. Take Nyx and the younger deckhands with you.”

  Sol recoiled. How old was the crew of this ship if the Captain, who did not look a day older than Sol, was not the youngest? Sol’s insides writhed with warning. Mistake—following this man and boarding his ship had been a terrible mistake. If children were on this ship, it was far too likely that the Captain intended to sell them—to sell Sol.

  She needed off this ship, would swim back to shore if she had to.

  Sol lifted her head and peaked around Draven’s shoulder. She blanched. Valestorm was a speck on the horizon, a stain on the edge of her empire. Sol could not go back, could not get there, not even with the use of Magic. She’d freeze to death in the icy water long before she ever reached the harbor.

  And there, closing in on her and the crew and this ship, was another. It was not unlike her father’s monstrous warships, the ones that he and Silas had sailed to Dyn all those years ago. Its tattered sails were taught against the ocean breeze, and billowing black flags hung from the tops of every mast. The ship wasn’t as big as the one she escaped on now, but it was fast, cleaving through the Emerald like Thymis herself was at the helm.

  Sol squinted against the sunlight, shimmering like stars off the water, bright enough to blind her if she stared too long or too hard. She wanted to observe the other ship, to see if perhaps there was someone on board who could save her, who would not sell her to the highest bidder.

  What she found instead was more gruesome, more awful.

  She shrieked.

  Human bones were fastened to the rails with rope; femurs and rib bones and tibias, fractured skulls and bits and pieces of pelvic bones. Polished teeth hung from clear fishing lines, rattling in the wind like the mouths they’d been pulled from were still capable of speech. And there, hanging from the bowsprit like Silas had told her in his stories, was the severed head of someone, their skin still rotting away to expose the ivory underneath.

  Sol hunched over her knees and heaved, gagging until her own bones hurt. Stomach acid bit at the back of her tongue, and tears began to gather along her lashes. Until now, Sol could not remember a time in her life when Silas had ever miscalculated. He was perf
ect, always had been, and her parents and their kingdom loved him for it. But this—this was a mistake. Sending her away was the stupidest decision she’d ever seen him make.

  She felt a nudge from behind. A boot, she realized, kicking at her bottom. “Hey,” the Captain said, and Sol looked up at him and whimpered. Sweat glistened at his brow, above and below his lips. The air around him raged, was charged with the metallic bite of Magic. He smiled grimly. “Don’t you dare puke on my deck.”

  “I won’t,” Sol swore. She would tell him anything he wanted to hear if it meant he let her live. “I promise.”

  The Captain chuckled as if she’d said something funny. He braced his feet behind her, hovering over Sol and placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’d better hold onto that dog of yours tight,” he said. “Because if you think a high-seas chase is anything to vomit about…”

  Sol wrapped her arms around Draven, her fingers threading through his fur. “Please,” Sol rasped. “Please don’t kill us.”

  The Captain laughed. Laughed and grinned like he stole girls like Sol every day. “I’ll try.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FYNN

  They had dealt with the bounty hunters before; had fought them in the heart of the Emerald before plundering their ships for every ounce they were worth. It was only fair, Fynn thought, to steal their supplies after the hunters threatened his crew, and they always threatened his crew. It was the biggest insult to any captain, but especially to Fynn Cardinal who regarded his crew as family.

  But these hunters, the ones who waved obsidian flags to show their allegiance to the royal family of Dyn, were persistent. Fynn had never been chased from a port before, had never escaped Valestorm quite by the skin of his teeth. And if he didn’t think that the bloody beast would rip his arm from his body, Fynn would toss his direwolf fugitive overboard.

  Because surely, that’s what they were after, this monstrous creature whose hide alone could pay for Fynn’s retirement. The direwolf, not the Captain with half a dozen bounties, nor the stranger who lay crying at his feet.