“Hello, Mouse. I surrender.” Feldrin grinned in response to the sprite’s elaborate bow. The little fellow had taken on quite a swashbuckler affectation since aiding in the demise of the most notorious pirate of the Shattered Isles.
“Have you seen Cynthia?” Feldrin asked as the sprite lighted on his knee and sheathed his tiny cutlass, a gift from Dura for his bravery. He nodded vigorously, pointing to the lagoon and pantomiming holding his breath and swimming under water. “Aye, that’s what I thought. Out with her new fish-folk friends, ay?” The sprite nodded again and sighed. Feldrin knew how he felt.
A splash and a flash of silver at the shallow cut through the reef caught his eye.
Tarpon, he thought, but another splash and a glimpse of bright orange changed his mind. The water rippled with wakes as several submerged bodies charged through the gap into the shallow lagoon. They swirled around one another like a pod of playful dolphins, a streak of silver occasionally breaking the surface, and less often, a flash of orange. Feldrin stood as the cavorting merfolk approached the beach.
When they reached the shallows, Cynthia left her mer escort and broke the surface to wade ashore. Feldrin waved and left the shade, walking slowly to mask the eagerness he felt at the sight of her. He marveled how the sea had changed her; not much outwardly, though the sun had darkened her skin and lightened her hair, but inwardly. The sea had enriched her, giving not just power, but confidence and peace as well. Cynthia had become a different woman from the one he’d fallen in love with, the woman he had risked his and others’ lives to rescue, but he found he loved this new Cynthia even more.
He watched as the water rippled away from her, leaving hair, skin and clothing perfectly dry. He never tired of that spectacle, though he’d seen it dozens of times now. Her sarong, the flash of orange he’d seen from afar, flapped in the wind, exposing enough long, tan leg to warrant indecency had they been on the mainland. But they were on Plume Isle, Cynthia’s home, and she dressed how she liked, when she dressed at all.
“Hello, Feldrin.” She stopped a stride before him, then stepped up to give him an awkward kiss and quick hug before stepping back again. The clean scent of the ocean in her hair made him wish he could touch its silken waves.
“Cynthia,” he said, letting her name linger on his tongue. The silence between them spoke volumes. As if to break that tension, Mouse flew to her shoulder to tickle her ear, and streaked away with a peal of high-pitched laughter.
“How is Orin’s Pride treating you?”
“Well enough, thank you, or should I say, thanks to you.” Cynthia had given him the ship outright as a prize for coming to her rescue. Feldrin was his own master, a truly independent merchant—though he still flew the new Flaxal pennant, a white scimitar moon on a field of blue—and captain of one of the fastest ships riding the seas.
None begrudged Cynthia’s gift to Feldrin, nor her claim to the island, especially since she had been so generous in her rewards. She had granted a large portion of Bloodwind’s vast fortune to the captains and crews of the three ships engaged in the assault of the pirate stronghold. Syren Song and Winter Gale sailed away with their hulls full to bursting with contraband, as well as an embarrassing bit of gold. Feldrin had refused both gold and plunder, having an entirely different reward in mind. When that failed to materialize, he’d accepted Orin’s Pride.
Not quite a fair trade, he thought, nodding to the lagoon behind her. “Your friends are waving goodbye.”
“Thank you.” She smiled and turned, raising a hand to the school of five merfolk who bobbed head and shoulders out of the water, each holding a webbed hand high in farewell. The small troop dove, their broad tails lashing the water into a white froth. “They’re a possessive bunch, but they mean well.”
“Possessive? You mean they’d keep you down there if they could?”
“Meaning, they’re jealous.” She turned and reached out to take his huge hand in hers for a brief eternity. He caressed her odd grip, bereft of the finger that the merfolk could not renew. “Like many of my friends.”
“I’m not jealous, Cynthia,” he lied as their hands parted. “I’m just not comfortable with ’em, that’s all.”
“Few are,” she admitted, shrugging. To the local sailors, her friendship with the mer merely added to her growing mystique as seamage. For Cynthia, there were other benefits. She withdrew a red-leather book from the folds of her sarong to show him. “But they are good friends, and they’ve helped me immeasurably in understanding this!”
“Orin’s log? I thought you could read it fine now.” Feldrin turned up the beach toward the long climb back over the ridge.
“Read it, yes,” she said, keeping pace with him as she flipped through the pages. “Understanding it is something else entirely. The language is theirs; just because I can read the letters doesn’t mean I can translate it.”
“Why’d yer father write a journal in the merfolk language?”
“Tradition, I think. That and to make doubly sure no one else could read it.” Cynthia gave him a sidelong, conspiratorial glance. “It’s more than just a log, Feldrin, and more than just a bunch of spells, though there’s a good bit of both in it. Most of it,” she shrugged, “I can’t even begin to tell you about, not because it’s a secret, but because you just wouldn’t understand. I wouldn’t have understood it myself a few months ago.”
“No need,” he said. Magic held no lure for him. Feldrin was a man of the sea, a sailor—his interests lay in the natural, not the supernatural. He didn’t give a damn about anything he could not hold in his hands, read on a nautical chart, or see in the sky.
Well, he thought, following her up the steep trail in silence, there is one thing I can’t hold in my hands that I care about.
When they reached the ridge-crest trail, she stopped, looked up at the sky, then back at him. Turning, she started toward the summit instead of down toward Scimitar Bay.
“Where we goin’?” he asked, though he followed without pause.
“The plume’s low today, and I want to show you something. Something I think might help you understand.”
The trail steepened toward the end, and they were breathing hard when they finally emerged from the jungle and climbed the last bit of bare ground to the long, flat stone at the mountain’s peak.
“Mistress!” a boy called, jumping to his feet and running to her. He knelt, his hand on the dagger at his belt, the other clutched to his chest. “No hostile ships in sight, Mistress. Only Orin’s Pride has approached, but I see her master’s already found you.”
“That’s fine, Tim. Relax. We’re just here to have a look around. Why don’t you show Mouse the trail you found down to the caves on the north shore.”
“Yes, Mistress!” The youth sprang to his feet and dashed away, the seasprite flittering about his head.
Feldrin knew Tim’s story; abducted and seduced by Bloodwind less than a year ago, he’d never really come to grips with being set free. Many of the young ones had fared worse, continuing to fight alongside the pirates even after most had surrendered. Some like Tim had adopted Cynthia as their new mistress, despite her unwillingness to accept their service.
She stood on the flat stone and turned in a slow circle, her eyes scanning the horizon. Feldrin didn’t know what she sought, but he followed suit, turning to take in the vista. A few distant sails dotted the indigo blue between the islands, while arcs of white denoted where reefs lay close to the surface. To the southeast, the smoke from Fire Isle hazed the sky. Minutes passed as they admired the view; when he finally turned to her, he could see the adoration in her face.
“I wanted you to see it, Feldrin, all of it.”
“It’s impressive, all right,” he said, startled at the emotion in her voice. “Yours. All of it.”
“More than I ever wanted. Maybe more than I can manage.”
“Na. You got yer friends to help you with it. The Shattered Isles’re free now. No pirate’d dare ply these waters.”
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I’ve given the ship building over to the Keelsons, Ghelfan and Dura, and Cammy’s a natural for keeping me organized. She’s even learning the books; oh, and she loves the children. Did you know she’s planning to start a school? You should ask her to tell you about it. She’s going to dedicate it to… Koybur…”
They both fell silent, remembering their friends—Finthie Tar, Vulta Kambeo, Rafen Ulbattaer, Morris Keelson, and Koybur—who had not lived to share the dream.
“And what about you?” Feldrin asked as he stared steadily into the distance. “What will you do?”
“Me?” Cynthia snorted a laugh and shook her head. “I have so much to learn! I thought I was doing well on my own, but the mer have shown me how little I really know. Most seamages start learning as children. They tell me my powers are strong, but right now that only makes me dangerous; kind of like a child with a really sharp knife. I’ve got years ahead of me before I can even attempt some of the incantations in my father’s log.”
“Mistress of Ships, Seamage of the Shattered Isles with two whole nations of allies, one above the water and one below, who don’t particularly like one another, and now all this magic to learn, too? Sounds like you’ll be busy.”
“More than busy,” Cynthia admitted. In a quieter tone, she continued. “Do you understand, Feldrin? Do you see why… what I need to do right now?”
Feldrin nodded, not trusting his voice. He had avoided this conversation, knowing how it would play out. Her life held no place for devotion to anything but all those things he’d just listed. No room for family… No time for love.
“We both have so many duties and responsibilities,” Cynthia said as she looked into his eyes. “And we both know the truth of it, don’t we?”
“The truth?”
“The sea, Feldrin. We both know her.”
“Aye, we both know her…and love her.” He turned to gaze at the ocean and took a deep breath of the heavily scented air. They both loved the sea, and that love would always lie between them. He tasted salt on his lips that had nothing to do with the ocean. “She’s a harsh mistress.”
“Harsh, aye, but only a mistress,” Cynthia insisted. She tugged at his hand to bring his attention back to her. “The mer reminded me today of one other responsibility I have, one that I hope you might share with me, once things settle down.”
“What might that be?” he asked skeptically. How could he share her responsibility to them?
Cynthia smiled at him, a mischievous expression that caught him off guard.
“They reminded me that the mer rely on the seamage as much as the seamage relies on the mer, so it’s my responsibility to provide them with something.”
“And what’s that?” he asked, cocking one dark eyebrow.
She pulled him even closer to whisper in his ear.
“An heir.”
About the Author
Chris A. Jackson grew up in southern Oregon, the son of a commercial fisherman. The sea has been his mistress for many years, and now, along with his wife and co-author Anne McMillen-Jackson, he is sailing and writing full-time, seeking warm waters, calm seas and new stories.
He is the author of several works of fantasy and science-fiction satire. Scimitar Moon is his first novel with Dragon Moon Press, with plans for many to follow. The author invites readers to sample all of his novels at www.jaxbooks.com, comment on his writing blog at www.jaxbooks.com/jaxblog/, and follow his sailing journey at www.sailmrmac.blogspot.com/.
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