Sins of the Sea

by Laila Winters

  Sol scratched the beast beneath the chin. “Did those nasty thorns hurt you, little one? That’s all right. We’ll get you all fixed up.”

  “We?” Fynn did not leave his stump. “Don’t you know what that thing is?”

  The Princess glared at him, her eyes raging with such unusual ire. “Of course I do.”

  Footsteps thudded over stone, and both Amael and Riel emerged from behind a small building. “What’s going on?” Riel panted, knives gripped in each hand. “We heard Sol scream.”

  Sol snorted. “That wasn’t me,” she told them, glancing pointedly at Fynn. “It was your Captain.”

  His cheeks reddened, heating with such humiliation that the tips of his ears burned.

  The creature in Sol’s arms whined at her, pawing at her chest with talons sharp as razor blades. It shredded through her tunic with unintentional brutality, twisting in her grasp before nuzzling into the bend of her elbow. His spiked tail curled over her wrist and clung to her.

  “Is that—is that a hatchling?”

  Amael shoved Riel aside and scrambled towards Sol, his dark eyes wide with wonder. He traced his fingers down the length of the dragon’s spine, pulled gently at its wings and studied the silky skin between each arched bone and claw.

  “We found him in that thorn bush,” Sol told him. “I think he was trying to eat the berries.”

  He hummed his acknowledgement. “I can’t believe it,” Amael said, more to himself than to Sol. She watched him with bated breath, preparing herself for the same grim diagnosis Fynn prayed for. “He’s only a few weeks old, and his wings aren’t clipped. They must have left him behind before he even hatched.”

  Sol frowned, fumbling with the dragon and holding him out in front of her. “Have you been out here all on your own?”

  His back legs kicked at the air, and he squirmed until he was secure in Sol’s arms again. From the safety of his stump, Fynn realized that the dragon was shaking with the very same fear that rattled the Captain to his core.

  “Shame,” he said stiffly, sheathing his sword. “Put that thing back, and let’s get out of here.”

  Both Sol and Amael turned to him, and the shock that contorted their faces, the outrage… Fynn had already lost some predetermined battle. A fight he knew they would wage before they opened their mouths.

  “I’m not leaving him.” They made the declaration together.

  Riel’s laughter echoed off the nearby stones. She wiggled her fingers in the dragon’s face, grinning when he snapped his teeth at her. “Fynn’s afraid of dragons,” she informed them lightly, tapping the dragon on the nose. “Feel free to point out the irony.”

  Sol looked at him incredulously, ready to do just that. “Seriously?” she said. “You dragged us all the way here for a dragon scale, Fynn.”

  “That’s different,” he argued. “The dragon it came from is dead, and it’s magical. I didn’t need nor want the whole thing.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, adjusting the creature in her arms. His pale, crystalline scales were like sparkling shards of ice, shining in the sunlight as he wriggled in Sol’s embrace. “Well,” she said, raising her chin as if the Captain were beneath her. The stance and poise of a Princess, he knew. A role she had not played since stepping foot on his ship. “This one is just a baby, and he’s hurt. I can heal him once we’re back on the beach.”

  The Captain laughed harshly, bridled beneath such indignation. “Heal him all you’d like,” he said. “But then that thing stays on this island. Don’t you think for even a moment he’s coming with us.”

  Sol lurched back as surely as if Fynn had slapped her. “You’re serious.”

  “Very.”

  He was not expecting the tears that welled in Sol’s eyes. “I can’t believe you’d be so cruel.”

  Riel snickered, her arm slung low around Amael’s waist. “This should be good.”

  But the Captain barely heard her over the blood roaring in his ears. “Excuse me?” Fynn stepped off the tree stump. “Cruel? That thing is a monster, Sol. A threat to my—”

  “Indyr is no more a threat than I am.”

  Fynn stilled, and it was no longer his blood that roared in his ears, but his heartbeat.

  Indyr, the first dragon.

  Indyr, the strongest of them all.

  Indyr, the giver of Magic.

  “What did you call it?”

  Sol stepped back, clutching him close to her chest. She gripped him hard enough that he writhed in her arms and whined at her. “Indyr,” she repeated. “We came here looking for the Dragon’s Heart, Fynn, but we found a dragon instead. I don’t think that that’s a coincidence.”

  Amael hummed his agreement, rubbing one of the horns protruding from Indyr’s skull. “I think it’s fitting.”

  “Me too,” Riel added, grinning wickedly at Fynn. “I vote we keep him.”

  Fynn shook his head at the betrayal. “No,” he said. “No. It’s bad enough I let Draven on board. Did you even stop to consider that? What your direwolf would do to it?”

  Sol bristled. “Draven does nothing without my orders.”

  “He’s already taken to Sol,” Amael intervened, observing the way Indyr nuzzled into the bend of her arm. “He’s a Nevis Thorntail, a gentle sort until the affection and kindness are beaten out of them.” Shadows dimmed his eyes. “If we let them, they’d bond with their trainers like a dog bonds with its owner.”

  The smile that lit Sol’s face was blinding. “If we found him this young,” she started. “Does that mean we could train him to be good?”

  Amael huffed. “Dragons are born good, just like you and me. It’s us—people—that make them bad.”

  Sol whirled to Fynn, a look in her eyes that told him she’d already won. “Fynn, please,” she begged. “I can’t just leave him here, and you’ll only have to deal with him until you drop me off in Nedros.”

  Fynn was wrong—this was worse than a spear to the chest, Sol using her departure to sway his decision in her favor. “And what will you do with him in Nedros?” he asked mildly. “Having Draven will be dangerous enough.”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” Sol dismissed impatiently. “Fynn, please.”

  Wind crackled in his veins, snapping at his insides as if to mock his resolve. “We barely have enough food to sustain us,” he tried. “That thing is just another mouth to feed.”

  “Actually,” Amael cut in. “Nevis’ are an aquatic type of dragon. They prefer fish.”

  Fynn gritted his teeth. “Of course they do.”

  Sol bounced on the heels of her feet, Indyr rattling in her arms. “If you teach me how, I’ll fish for his food.”

  Regarding the beast with wary eyes, Fynn took a single step closer. “Sol,” he strained, dropping his voice as if his friends might not hear. “I am terrified of dragons.”

  The Princess frowned. “I know,” she said, and not without sympathy. “But Indyr is nothing to be afraid of. I’ll keep him away from you. Please don’t make me abandon him here alone.”

  He breathed with the aid of his wind, a gentle draft stirring the space around him. Indyr lifted his head, sniffing at the air as if he could sense the Captain’s Magic. Fynn cringed and looked at Sol, at her jutted bottom lip and the plea in her eyes. He knew that if she weren’t holding the dragon, she’d drop to her knees and beg.

  Fynn shuddered with resignation. “Opposite sides of the ship,” he conceded grimly. “At all times. And if it bites a single person on my crew, I’ll chain it to the anchor and toss it to the bottom of the—”

  A solid, would-be blissful weight crashed into the Captain’s chest as Sol hugged him around his middle. She’d thrust Indyr into Amael’s arms, then threw her own around Fynn’s neck to squeeze the air back out of him. “Thank you,” she cried, and didn’t care that Fynn did not embrace her. “I promise, he won’t be a bother.”

  “I’m glad my suffering will be worth it to you.”

  It may have been a half-hearted
jab, but Sol didn’t care about that, either.

  He waited until she let him go, until she scooped Indyr from Amael’s arms and twirled the dragon in a circle. And as she cooed at the beast and spoke to it like one would a child, Fynn turned to his friends and pointed his finger in accusation. “You’re both going to burn for this,” he said dismally. “For stabbing me in the back. You know how much I hate dragons.”

  Riel snorted. “Stop being so dramatic,” she replied. “At the very most, we staged a mutiny.”

  Amael smiled thinly before lumbering after Sol, the Princess of Sonamire chatting victoriously with Indyr. It tugged at something in Fynn’s heart, her vibrant eyes and the unabashed happiness she exuded. He’d felt that same way the day he’d rescued her in Valestorm.

  His Quartermaster clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you’re afraid of them,” she said meaningfully. “But this will be good for her—for both of them. Amael is gutted.”

  He glanced at her from the corners of his eyes. “You didn’t find anything?”

  Riel shook her head. “Nothing. He’s got no idea where they went, or why they might have left.” She paused before adding, “Supposedly.”

  Fynn angled himself towards her entirely. “You think he’s lying?”

  “I think he might be.”

  He rubbed at the tension in his jaw.

  To Hell with the godsdamned Dragon’s Heart, and to Hell with Amael and Sol. He could not get off this island fast enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SOL

  In all the weeks the Princess of Sonamire had spent on the Refuge, she had never seen the crew refuse to tend to their morning duties. They had always done so without complaint, without any hesitation at all. But this morning, when the first of them had risen from the planks, it’d been different.

  Much to her own chagrin, Riel had roused Sol into consciousness with a swift kick to her shoulder. She’d groaned and swatted her away, Draven snarling at them both for the disturbance, but Riel had only laughed and booted Sol onto her back. “Give me the dragon,” she’d demanded, and before Sol’s eyes had even had the chance to snap open, Riel had yanked Indyr from her arms.

  “Riel, wait—”

  “It’s time for breakfast,” Riel had cooed, ignoring Sol entirely. “Who’s a hungry little dragon?”

  He was still with her now at midday, stumbling across the deck and chasing after the Quartermaster with a forked tongue lolling from his mouth. Riel jogged backwards, an apple held in one hand to lure Indyr into following her. His clawed feet carved gouges into the planks as he tried and failed to run against the Emerald’s current.

  Indyr’s crystalline scales were bright beneath the sun, fracturing the rays into beams of colorful light. A living sculpture of ice, Sol thought, his pale blue scales like shining shards of beautifully frosted glass. Indeed, Amael had explained that if dragons still possessed their Magic, Indyr would have likely been a Water-Wielder. He’d have likely had a fondness for ice.

  She and the boatswain sat together against the mizzenmast, Draven sprawled between them as Amael sliced the skin from an apple. He cut the fruit in half, handing Sol the bigger piece. “He’s settling in well, don’t you think?”

  Sol nodded, nibbling at her cut of apple and savoring the bitter sweetness. “The crew enjoys him.”

  Enough to ignore their morning duties and play fetch with him, it seemed. Gracia had abandoned her post at the helm to feed him bits of fish that Amael had caught that morning, and even Luca had ventured up from below deck to tote the dragon in his arms. He’d introduced him like a child to the deckhands still wary of what he was.

  “Everyone except Fynn.” Amael pointed to the helm with his knife, the blade sticky with the apple juice dripping from its tip. “It’s been three days and he’s made sure to stay clear of both of you.”

  Sol frowned. She tipped back her head and squinted against the sunlight.

  The Captain was perched at the helm, his mouth still twisted with that same scowl he’d donned since the day they’d left Dryu. Fynn did not look beneath him as he steered, did not watch the members of his crew romp about the deck and play with Indyr. The dragon was waddling after Arden now.

  “I didn’t mean to upset him,” Sol murmured. “Is he truly so afraid of Indyr?”

  Amael shrugged and licked his fingers. “Apparently so,” he said. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. He’ll come around. Fynn is the type of man to face his fears head-on just to say he conquered them.”

  Sol scoffed, finishing off her apple slice. “Indyr is harmless,” she insisted. “Draven was far more likely to rip off his arm when we first met, and Fynn barely batted an eye at him.”

  “Indyr is harmless now,” Amael agreed. “But fully grown, there’s no telling what his temperament might be. He’ll likely be as big as this ship, and I pity the people who cross you. Fynn, as dumb as he might be, is right enough to fear that.”

  Quirking her head, Sol pulled her knees into her chest. “Why do you pity those who cross me?” she asked. “If you’re uncertain of his temperament, who’s to say he won’t turn on me, too?”

  “He came right to you on the island,” Amael answered. “You’re probably the first creature he’s seen that didn’t try to kill him for what he is. As far as Indyr is concerned, you’re his mother. He’d never hurt you.” Amael’s eyes darkened with a barely subdued fury. “The Dryuans take entire clutches of eggs from their mothers, then pair them with a trainer. They’re the first thing the dragons see when they hatch, and no matter what they do to them, they’ll always obey their trainer. They’ll always submit and defend.”

  Sol worried at her bottom lip. She was tentative as she asked, “Were you ever paired with a dragon?”

  Amael’s shoulders slumped. “Yes,” he said. “A hatchling, like Indyr. We weren’t supposed to name them, but I called her Ryvis.”

  “Is Ryvis the reason you were exiled?” Sol inquired. “Because you refused to hurt her?”

  He nodded. “Nero gave me the whip,” he began. “And said that if I didn’t do it, he would. But I knew that if Nero did it, if he took that whip to Ryvis, he’d inflict more pain than necessary. So, I tried. I lifted the whip and was prepared to swing until that godsdamned creature looked at me.” Amael swallowed. “Nero always said that dragons weren’t capable of feeling emotion beyond fear and rage, but the look in Ryvis’ eyes… It was love, or something close to it, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t do it.”

  “Did Nero?”

  “Until he drew blood.”

  Her Magic surged, flooding into her veins until Sol clenched her fists. “What happened to Ryvis?”

  “I don’t know,” Amael said quietly. “She was probably given to someone else after they banished me. Someone far more cruel that could do what I couldn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sol told him earnestly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind talking about it,” he said. “Not with you. I worry for Ryvis and what became of her, but at least we were able to save Indyr. I’m grateful for that.”

  Sol hummed her appreciation. “Why do you think they left him behind?”

  “I’m not sure,” he confessed. “If he didn’t move much in the egg, they might have thought he was a dud and not worth the trouble.”

  “A dud?”

  “A bad egg,” Amael revised. “Though if that were the case, I’m surprised they didn’t just crush him—”

  “Please,” Sol begged. “Don’t finish that.”

  He smiled apologetically. “Regardless of why they left him, I’m glad they did. I’ll sleep much better at night knowing you’ve got two mythical beasts looking after you in Nedros.”

  Sol patted Draven’s head, his ears twitching in his sleep. “You think Indyr will be as popular in Nedros as he is on the Refuge?”

  “I think you’d do well to find yourself a nice, quiet piece of land somewhere away from the city.”

  She chuckled. �
��I’ve lived in solitude all my life,” she mused. “I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to return to it.”

  Amael lolled his head towards her, his back pressed against the mizzenmast. “You were only kept in solitude so that suitors weren’t beating down your father’s door and asking for your hand in marriage. That’s not a pleasant way to live, and you don’t deserve that.”

  “Perhaps not,” Sol agreed. “But I grew used to it. It was the only life I knew.”

  “Was,” Amael said. “Not anymore. This ship is far from solitude.”

  She playfully elbowed his knee. “Yes, because I had people like you that ruined my plans and didn’t let me hide in the shadows.”

  The boatswain snorted, reaching into the wooden basket beside him and plucking out an orange. He dug his nails into the peel. “Admit it,” he said. “You’ve enjoyed your time with us. You might even consider us friends.”

  A small frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I have,” she admitted. “And you are my friends—you especially. You’ve shown me a kindness I have not known in years, and will likely never find again.”

  Amael handed her an orange wedge. “You could stay, you know.”

  Sol turned to him, her brow creasing as if she did not understand. “Stay?”

  “Stay,” he repeated. “Here. With us.”

  It was a thought that had not crossed her mind, calling this ship home like the rest of them. It struck her like lightning, the silent hand that Amael was offering her, this idea that perhaps she could stay.

  “The crew would have me?”

  “Of course,” he said, starting on a second orange wedge. He slipped the entire piece into his mouth and grinned at her.

  Sol stifled a laugh behind her fingers. “What about Indyr?”

  Amael bit off a chunk of the fruit. “What about him?” he asked. “It’ll be years before he’s bigger than the ship, and if we let him, someday he’ll spend most of his time in the water.”

  Sol chewed on her orange wedge, juice dripping down her chin that she hastily wiped away with the back of her sleeve. Silas would have scolded her for it. “I don’t think Fynn—”