The Storyteller

by Traci Chee

  Once, long ago, the rarest of talents could rewrite the fabric of the world itself. But skilled as Sefia was, that power was beyond her.

  As she wound her fingers into the fine golden threads, the fibers of the Illuminated world bent and rippled, cascading toward Archer and nudging him gently back onto the bunk.

  “Hey!” he cried.

  For good measure, she also flung the blanket over his head.

  “Stay here.” Shrugging into her oilskin coat, she glanced up and opened her arms wide. Under her hands, the waves of light parted as if they were curtains. Details of her surroundings whirled past as she used her magic to peer through the ceiling to the main deck, the outlaws racing across the ship, the downpour streaming out of the sky, the sails flapping madly in the storm. But she ignored these. For Teleportation, she needed to locate a place she knew so well it had been burned into her memory.

  Ah, yes, there—the edge of the quarterdeck, where she used to read the Book on their first voyage with the Current.

  With that image fixed in her mind, she waved her hands and transported herself through the Illuminated world—out of the sick bay, through the timbers of the ship—appearing on deck to the rain on her face, her feet skidding on the slick planks.

  Marmalade caught her by the arm. “Seven out of ten for the entrance,” she said.

  “Just need to stick the landing.” Blinking, Sefia allowed the world of light to ebb from her vision, leaving her in the dark of the storm with the other sailors. Overhead, long trails of water dripped from the sails like icicles.

  The alarm bell went silent as Captain Cannek Reed appeared on deck, looking wild as the sea with his coat flaring behind him and his eyes glinting like sapphires in the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat. As if on cue, lightning lanced through the clouds behind him, crackling as it dissipated.

  “Ten out of ten for dramatic lighting,” Sefia muttered.

  Marmalade let out a peal of laughter, which she stifled when the chief mate glared in their direction with his dead gray eyes.

  “I sensed this wreck in the water during the night,” the captain began in his weatherworn voice. “Thought they might be outlaws, so we came to investigate.”

  According to legend, Captain Reed was the only man alive who could talk to the water. It told him all sorts of things about its tides, its currents, its deep-sea creatures. Some people said it had even told him how he was going to die—with one last breath of salty wet air, a black gun in his hand, and a white dandelion floating above the deck.

  Sefia glanced over the rail. The water was full of splintered crates and kegs emptied of their contents, scraps of sails, and corpses, their hair rising and falling around their heads like kelp. In the dark seas, their crimson uniforms appeared the same bruised mulberry as Archer’s stained bandages. Among the wreckage were two narrow longboats crammed with survivors.

  Redcoats—soldiers of the Oxscinian Navy—there were redcoats in the water.

  Once, crouching on the edge of the forest with her aunt Nin, Sefia had been afraid of the Red Navy soldiers. But that was back when she could imagine nothing worse than being apprehended by the authorities. Now she knew there were worse things than redcoats out there—Serakeen, the Guard, war.

  “They ain’t outlaws,” continued Reed, “but we ain’t leavin’ ’em out here to die.”

  “What of the Crux?” someone asked.

  Sefia glanced around, but the great golden pirate ship that had been accompanying them was nowhere to be seen.

  “The Crux went on to Jahara to arrange for provisions,” Captain Reed answered. Then, with a nod, he dismissed them. “Go on, do some good out there.”

  There was no cheering, no chorus of huzzahs, but Sefia felt a wave of determination go through them as Meeks and the chief mate began sending the crew into the rescue boats.

  She ended up on the first boat with Reed and the doc. The oar was slippery in her hands as the waves brought the corpses crashing into the hull.

  She wanted to teleport; it would have been faster. But she needed a clear referent—a strong memory or an unobstructed view—and she couldn’t see through the rain and the waves to get a good look.

  As they pulled up, one of the redcoats tossed her a line and she hauled them in, lashing the boats together. Brusquely motioning Sefia aside, Doc climbed in among the wounded, bearing her black bag.

  The Red Navy soldiers were festering and damp, the smell of sickness clinging to them like a fungus. They must have been out there for days.

  “Rotten hulls,” exclaimed the one who’d thrown her the rope. “It is you, isn’t it?”

  Surprised, Sefia blinked water from her eyelashes. The redcoat was easily one of the prettiest boys she’d ever seen, with green eyes, a handsome jaw, a curling forelock of hair wet with rain. His features were so striking, he might have even given Scarza, Archer’s silver-haired second-in-command, a run for his money, but for the flabbergasted expression on his perfectly symmetrical face.

  “Do I know you?” she asked doubtfully. She would’ve remembered a face like his.

  A round-headed boy with narrow eyes popped up beside him. He appeared so suddenly, so comically, it almost made her laugh. Almost. “Don’t think so,” he said. “You were unconscious at the time.”

  “I was what?”

  “Out cold,” the second boy explained matter-of-factly. “On Black Boar Pier.”

  She’d only been at Black Boar Pier, in Epidram, a city on the northeast coast of Oxscini, once in her life. She and Archer had stumbled into a trap. There’d been a fight, and she’d lost consciousness. Later, Archer had told her how Reed and the outlaws had shown up to save them. Had these redcoats been there too?

  “Petty Officer,” said the captain from behind her.

  Still bewildered, Sefia watched Captain Reed clasp hands with the boys. All their paths must have crossed three months ago, like shooting stars in the night. What a coincidence that all of them would meet again.

  Except there were no coincidences, as the Guard was fond of saying.

  This meeting wasn’t happenstance—it was destiny. And it was a net, fine as gossamer and hard as iron, closing in on her and Archer with every passing second.

  “It’s midshipman now, sir,” said the first redcoat, who managed a handsome, waterlogged smile. “Midshipman Haldon Lac.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Second Adventure of Haldon Lac

  For as long as anyone could remember, the Five Islands had been at war. Provinces fought. Colonies revolted. Even the most stable kingdoms had long histories of blood feuds and political assassinations that lent interest to otherwise dull pastoral chronicles of more peaceful times.

  For red-blooded, battle-loving Oxscinians like Midshipman Haldon Lac, war was a source of pride. War brought glory to the Forest Kingdom and Her Majesty Queen Heccata—long may she reign. Expansion, conflict, competition. This had been their way of life for more generations than he could count.

  They had been at war with the kingdom of Everica for five years when the enemy, King Darion Stonegold, made an unprecedented move: he convinced Liccaro, the weaker, impoverished kingdom to the north, to join him in the battle against Oxscini. He turned a legion of pirates into privateers. He formed the Alliance, the first union between kingdoms in Kelannan history.

  To combat the combined force of the two eastern kingdoms, Queen Heccata had commissioned a new fleet of ships. Most of the personnel stationed at Epidram, in northeast Oxscini, were shipped out, among them Haldon Lac, Indira Fox, and Olly Hobs, a trio who had been inseparable since almost apprehending Hatchet and his impressors at Black Boar Pier. They were assigned to the Fire-Eater and tasked with scouring the Central Sea for Alliance vessels.

  The day the fleet left port had been the happiest day of Midshipman Lac’s life. There was a parade, a crowd waving crimson Oxscinian flags embroidered wit
h gold. Though his frigate was easily dwarfed by the bigger ships of the line, Haldon Lac was certain he’d never seen a more majestic ship than the Fire-Eater: her scarlet hull, her crisp white sails, her cannons black as ebony. He puffed out his chest as he stood at the rail, watching as brokenhearted boys and girls waved him off under a sunset red as romance.

  But the rest of Lac’s maiden voyage had fallen woefully short of his expectations.

  They did not tell you, for example, how dirty it would be, how dull, with long, tedious watches interrupted only now and again by the sighting of a sail on the horizon.

  Nor did they tell you that when you did finally spy an enemy ship, the chase could take hours, and more often than not, your quarry would escape as soon as night fell, dousing their lamps and slipping away into the darkness.

  Or perhaps they did tell you, but Midshipman Haldon Lac had chosen only to hear the stories of grand exploits and magnificent naval battles.

  At any rate, one night Lac was roused from sleep by the clanging of the ship’s bell. They had been tailing an Alliance vessel, and, to his surprise, their quarry had not bolted into the night. In fact, the Fire-Eater had almost caught up to their target.

  Soon they would be near enough to engage.

  The crew cleared away their hammocks and chests, secured the shutters, loosed the great twenty-four-pound cannons, and laid out cases of shot. They dampened the decks to prevent stray sparks from catching the tarred timbers and filled tubs with seawater in case of fire.

  Exchanging conspiratorial grins with Fox and Hobs, Lac skipped about his duties filled with a sparkling mixture of excitement and fear. This was what he had been waiting for: adventure, purpose, glory.

  He and Fox were in command of the fighting tops on the fore- and mainmasts. Since their time in Epidram, Fox had caught up to him in rank, and now she was the most trusted of the midshipmen. She deserved it, he admitted freely. She worked harder than he did. She was quicker and smarter and braver. She’d make lieutenant in no time, at the rate she was going.

  Lac found her at the base of the mainmast before she climbed to her position. “Our first engagement!” he declared, somewhat obviously.

  Fox punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Not our first.”

  “You mean that failed ambush on Black Boar Pier?” He rubbed the old bullet wound, a reminder of his foolish attempt to apprehend Hatchet and his criminal crew. “I was so stupid.”

  She grinned at him with that wild coyote smile he’d come to love so much. “Stupid brave, you mean. It’s like your own personal brand of courage.”

  “Or my own personal brand of cologne.”

  Fox laughed. “If we make it through the war, you can bottle it. It’ll smell like starched collars and gunpowder.”

  “What do you mean, ‘if’ we make it?” Lac asked.

  In the low light, her gray eyes flashed like smoky quartz, and she arched one of her naturally perfect brows. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was envious of her brows.

  “Nothing’s for certain,” she said.

  The activity on deck flurried around him—the rattle of cannons being locked into place, the click of bullets being loaded into chambers, the anxious thrum of voices and murmured words of encouragement.

  Bravely, stupidly, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “This is. We are.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Because we’re the heroes, aren’t we?” he said with a wink. “The heroes always live in the stories.”

  “That’s stupid.” She gripped his arm. “But nice stupid.”

  “That’s my other cologne.”

  With a laugh, Fox swung up into the rigging with such lithe grace that Haldon Lac was momentarily dumbstruck by how lucky he was to know her. She’d be a lieutenant by the end of the voyage. He was certain of it.

  He watched her until she was safely in the fighting top, where she leaned over the side, still wearing that coyote smile, and waved at him.

  “Our turn, sir,” said Hobs, appearing suddenly beside him.

  Lac started, clutching his chest dramatically. But the midshipman was glad of the company. If he was being honest with himself, which he certainly was not, he hated the climb to the fighting top. Hated the way the deck seemed to drop away beneath him, hated the way he had to pause and shut his eyes, hooking his arms through the ropes like they’d come undone at any second.

  By some miracle Lac made it, shaking, to the platform where his men were waiting. He must have looked more anxious than he realized, because Hobs patted him on the shoulder, a broad smile on his round face. “Don’t worry, sir.”

  “I’m not worried!” Lac protested. Too loudly.

  Some of the men cackled, and he had the good sense to blush.

  “It’s okay,” Hobs said. “Everyone’s worried. Everyone’s got something to fear.”

  The topmen agreed as they loaded rounds into their rifles.

  “Death, capture, drowning . . .” Hobs ticked off each word on his fingers.

  “Enemy fire,” one of the sailors added.

  “Shrapnel,” said another.

  “Impalement.”

  “Falling,” Lac ventured, with a glance down at the swaying decks.

  Hobs nodded his nearly spherical head. “That’s the spirit, sir.”

  With a sigh, Lac looked over to the mainmast, where Fox was gathered with her own topmen. He doubted she was afraid of anything.

  There was a deep breath of calm.

  Then the Alliance vessel came about to meet them, flying blue-and-gold flags from the yardarms. Fire shot from the mouths of her cannons.

  “Brace yourselves!” the captain of the Fire-Eater yelled.

  A shot struck their frigate’s bow, splintering their red hull, and there came a great roar from the crew—a sound Midshipman Haldon Lac had only ever heard about in stories—full of blood and rage and pride.

  The great guns flashed. Cannonballs sailed through the smoke. Men screamed. The Fire-Eater plunged up and down in the swells as they fired broadside after broadside. On the fighting tops, the sailors manned the swivel guns, sending iron into the enemy ranks. They took up their rifles, the muzzle flashes brightening the air. In the smoke, the Alliance soldiers crumpled to the fire of Lac and his topmen.

  For over an hour it went on like this: the gunfire, the shrieking of the wounded, the ships circling each other like sharks.

  Then a series of cannon fire erupted from the Alliance ship.

  “Incoming!” someone shouted.

  The Fire-Eater shuddered. Timbers fractured. The mainmast shook. A great crack! rent the air as the base of the mainmast splintered. Frightened cries went up around the ship as the main topsail quivered, losing wind. The mast was going to fall.

  “Fox is over there,” Lac said in a horrified whisper.

  Beside him, Hobs nodded. “I know, sir.”

  But from the foremast, there was nothing they could do for their friend. They watched helplessly as the sailors scrambled into the rigging. Racks of guns toppled.

  As if in slow motion, the length of timber began to fall. The sails wavered in midair.

  Then she appeared—between the rippling canvas, running across the yardarm as the mast tipped toward them.

  “Fox!” Lac cried. He dashed to the edge of the foretop, clinging to the rigging as he leaned out over the chaos below.

  Fox reached the end of the yard. She leapt, arms and legs pumping, hand outstretched.

  Her palm struck his. Her fingers dug into his skin. Locking his hand, he held fast as she dangled beneath him. Below, tiny redcoats screamed and scrambled back and forth like ants.

  Lac managed what he hoped was a rakish smile. “What’d I tell you?” he asked. “Heroes.”

  Fox grinned up at him.

  But then there was a burst of blood at her chest
. A stain. The report of a distant rifle.

  And Fox went limp in his hand.

  He couldn’t understand it at first, couldn’t fathom why she was so heavy all of a sudden, why she didn’t lift herself up.

  It wasn’t until Hobs helped him drag her body onto the platform that Lac realized Fox was dead.

  No.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He was supposed to heave her safely onto the foretop. She was supposed to stand, testing her wrenched shoulder, and smile that wild coyote smile.

  There was another round of fire from the gun deck, and the explosions lit them from below. Across the sea, the rudder of the Alliance ship snapped. Glass shattered at the stern. The enemy was dead in the water.

  In other circumstances, the redcoats would have cheered.

  But they had not won.

  Behind their broken enemy, the towering, monstrous forms of three-decker ships appeared out of the night—blue hulls, bristling with guns, their rails outlined with lanterns like hundreds of flaming eyes.

  The Alliance. The collective might of Stonegold’s Everican Navy and Serakeen’s pirates from Liccaro.

  Lac fell to his knees, cradling Fox’s body in his arms. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to live. She was supposed to have captained her own ship, one day—she’d been quick enough, smart enough, brave enough—with Lac and Hobs as her lieutenants.

  They were supposed to have lived long and happy lives together, and told this story—the story of their second adventure—over and over, so many times it became legend, not belonging to them at all but to the lives of some far-off heroes.

  But Fox was dead.

  And the Alliance fleet loomed over them.

  Below, the captain of the Fire-Eater was shouting, her voice desperate and defiant. The crew was stamping their feet, pounding the butts of their rifles and the hammers of their fists, as the massive Alliance warships loosed their broadsides like blue dragons breathing fire in the night.