Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1)

by Kelly St Clare

  Immediately north of the whirlpool was Syraness, the cliff passage. Together, the whirlpool and cliffs formed a barrier to Selkie’s Cove for larger ships, which sat on the other side.

  If the wind remained high as they headed northwest, Felicity would arrive at the cliff passage in four days. And from there, it would be another four days through the passage, and then only part of a day on the other side to reach the treasure on Portum. Her chest rose and fell, her moss-green eyes set in the direction of Syraness. They’d never ventured into the cliff passage before.

  “All clear up there, Wobbles?” Stubby hollered up.

  Ebba swung over the edge of the crow’s nest and skimmed down the ropes. Her shirt and slops plastered against her with the rush of her descent.

  “All clear,” she answered, landing on the deck. “Nearly out o’ sight o’ the . . . place we left.”

  “Why do you call her Wobbles?” Cosmo called from where he swabbed the decks.

  Ebba grinned at the sight. She knew the fathers would forget her three-moon punishment. But she picked up a broom to help the servant anyway. Perhaps she deserved to swab the decks for a while for worrying her fathers on Maltu.

  Grubby chuckled. “Because she were a bit wobbly up there when she were two.”

  The others chuckled.

  Ebba snorted, though slightly embarrassed her fathers were telling Cosmo such things.

  “You let her climb up there when she was two?” Cosmo had stopped swabbing, and looked between her fathers with wide eyes.

  Stubby wiped a tear away. “Aye, prince slave, we did. Right cute she were, totterin’ around up there in naught but her diaper and the wee eye patch she liked to wear.”

  “Wanted to be just like me,” Locks said proudly, emerald eye blazing.

  “Only until she were three,” Peg-leg spoke. “Then it was me.”

  “I rather think it was me at three.” Barrels frowned. “She liked my quill and ink.”

  Ebba knew where this talk led to. A whole heap of loud voices and angry fathers. Grubby knew it too; he darted his eyes between Locks and Peg-leg, hands twisting.

  Cosmo interceded. “It sounds like all six of you were an integral and loved part of her childhood. It must have been something, to raise her together as you have.”

  “Aye, Cosmo. If ye’re sayin’ what I think ye be, it were at that. Co-parentin’ ain’t always smooth sailin’, but we didn’t do too shabby a job,” Locks said in a mollified voice.

  Barrels passed Ebba some grog, hiding a smile. “A very diplomatic response, Cosmo.”

  The two Exosians shared a grin.

  She was happy to see Cosmo getting on with someone aboard the ship. They’d be together for at least a few weeks. Hopefully, he’d come to see the others weren’t bad either, if a little rougher around the edges than Barrels at first glance.

  “We’re heading to find a treasure, I’ve been told,” Cosmo said haltingly.

  Several pairs of eyes slid toward Ebba.

  “I didn’t tell him where,” she said sheepishly.

  Cosmo chuckled. “No, you said we were heading through razor-sharp rocks, past a giant whirlpool that could suck us to our death.”

  The silence following his comment was lengthy.

  Cosmo licked his lips several times before turning to Barrels. “You cannot be serious,” he said, aghast.

  Barrels cleared his throat, ears turning pink. “Ebba’s answer was quite true, if containing highly graphic details for someone unused to this life.” He shot her a reproving look.

  Ebba snickered and busied herself washing the deck. Wasn’t her fault Cosmo was soft.

  “We head for Syraness,” Plank said, plonking down by the mast.

  Cosmo frowned. “The rock formations south of Kentro?”

  Grubby clapped his hands, and cast Cosmo an approving nod.

  “And we can’t go around because. . . ?” the prince’s servant pressed.

  “Because Malice is headin’ that way and we need to beat them,” Ebba supplied.

  “Who is Malice?” Cosmo asked.

  “Malice be a ship, lad,” said Locks. His voice softened. “The ship that burned the boat ye were on, and killed yer prince.”

  Cosmo’s face firmed. “And . . . you plan to thwart this ship, Malice, by reaching the treasure first?”

  A chorus of ‘aye’s’ answered him. That wasn’t strictly true. Initially they’d only been after the magical fruit. Now, they’d been forced to chase the treasure because Jagger spilled his guts to Pockmark. That was left unsaid—and that the treasure would fund their retirement plan. Their answer was mostly true, and that’s all a pirate owed anyone.

  Cosmo smiled tightly. “Then I heartily approve of this quest.”

  Ebba didn’t blame him for wanting revenge. Out of all of them, Cosmo had the most reason to want Pockmark to suffer. Revenge started the whole quest in the first place, after all. Well, not exactly. Her foolish slip of the tongue had started it, really. Ebba frowned at the thought.

  “Ye know,” started Plank, “Syraness orig’nally came from the term siren’s nest. And—”

  Peg-leg groaned. “Here we go.”

  Ebba dug her elbow into his rotund gut. She wanted to hear.

  “I’d have thought ye’d all be a sight more inter’sted after what happened on Neos Mountain.” Plank sniffed.

  The other men grumbled, but didn’t retort.

  Cosmo watched the exchange with fascination. Was he fascinated by everything? “What about Syraness?” he asked, perching on a barrel.

  Plank retied his pale green bandana over the front of his raven curls. “It was said that one day a warrior out fishing with his young daughter caught sight of a magn’ficent bird. Its song was so beautiful, he knew he had to have it for his own, so he wounded the great bird with his harpoon.”

  Ebba gasped. Shooting a bird was a sure ticket to Davy Jones’s Locker. To do so was to kill the soul of someone passed from this life.

  “But his harpoon missed its mark.” Plank’s eyes flared dramatically. “Instead of the wing, the arrow pierced the bird through the side. The warrior caught the bird as it fell, lamenting as it sang its dying song. The song wrenched at the warrior’s heart so, he called upon the old magic and wished the bird’s spirit into his daughter’s body and mind. The beautiful bird was savagely ripped from its body as it drew its last breath, and thrust into that of the warrior’s daughter.”

  Spray hit them as a larger wave split over Felicity’s bow.

  The only sound was the rhythmic drop of the ship over each wave.

  “The bird’s spirit was too powerful for the girl. Her soul fled to the bird’s empty carcass and she died instantly. The warrior drew his bow and arrow, seeing all semblance of his daughter had disappeared and a voluptuous woman rivaling the beauty of the dead bird now perched in his daughter’s place.” Plank paused. “But as he did so the woman opened her silken lips, and such sound poured from her, the warrior lowered his weapon, forgetting why he’d raised it to begin with. The bird-turned-woman, realizing her new power and enraged by the loss of her wings, vowed she would kill any man who dared cross her path from that moment forward. Spotting jagged rocks close by, she sang to the warrior:

  Handsome warrior, to the rocks I bid thee,

  For you are weary, and there you can rest your weary head.

  Come with me, mighty warrior to the rocks, I bid,

  Together we will rest, together we will be.

  Ebba croaked, “But . . . surely he didn’t go to the rocks.”

  Plank turned his solemn gaze upon her. “Aye, Ebba-Viva. That he did. And happily, too. Even as his body dashed over the rocks as sharp as daggers and blood poured from a hundred different punctures in his body, he smiled.”

  Plank had told stories before, but never this good. Or maybe, after Ladon, knowing that magic truly existed, Ebba listened a little harder. They all did; even Cosmo’s eyes shone with sadness.

  Plank lowered his voice
and they leaned forward. “The siren claimed her first victim that day, and made her nest in those very rocks.” He looked ahead. “The rocks we know today as Syraness.”

  The ship rolled side to side and no one spoke until Locks laughed nervously, eye patch lifting with his cheeks. “Aye, Plank. Ye tell the story well. But Ladon was a one-off magical creature; there ain’t nothin’ in the cliffs to be sweatin’ about.”

  “Plank and his stories.” Peg-leg slapped his thigh, though it lacked its usual gusto.

  Ebba peered at the tense set to her fathers’ shoulders and their dark eyes, and was unable to brush away the foreboding creeping up her spine.

  They’d entered Neos and found Ladon.

  Was something waiting for them in the hazardous Syraness?

  Fourteen

  “Rocks ahoy!”

  The distant call startled Ebba from her swinging slumber.

  “Rocks ahoy!” the watch repeated.

  Ebba scrambled out of bed, fully dressed, only stopping to secure her bandana and weapons.

  “Where’re we?” mumbled Cosmo from the opposite end of the sleeping quarters, lifting Pillage from his chest.

  Peg-leg, who slept in the middle of the room, answered, “We’ve reached Syraness, lad.”

  Ebba dashed for the ladder, flinging the bilge door open and racing to the bulwark to look over the side.

  A thick fog surrounded Felicity. Ebba could only see ten yards from the side. Grubby and Locks perched at the bow of the ship, shouting back directions to Stubby at the helm.

  Plank had them sailing at a creeping pace.

  “I’m o’ half a mind to take everything down but the foresail,” he said as she crossed to him. “The current is pushin’ us along just fine, and too much speed be our worst enemy here.”

  She glanced up as a shadow crept over the deck. Felicity was passing between two towering rock faces. Plank had hoisted the small foresail windward to help them maneuver the ship. No wonder—the rocks peeking just above the surface of the water would only allow them a couple of yards’ error. Not to mention the cliffs to each side. “No problem to have the others down—unless the current be movin’ us where we don’t wish to go later on.”

  “That’s what I be worried about,” Plank said softly.

  The morning passed gratingly slow, the fog not abating in the slightest. Early into the afternoon, the open water and rocks lurking nearly unseen in the dim light began to increase in number.

  Felicity inched through the water, bobbing side to side.

  Ebba kept her chin tilted up as the crow’s nest drew within a breath’s whisper of another jutting rock face. The top of their mast was getting too close to the cliffs either side for her comfort.

  Stubby waved her over, not shifting his eyes from the devices in front of him as he spoke. One showed the water’s depth beneath them. Ebba squinted at the device. Felicity’s hull was shallow; she only needed a few yards, and the depth on the device showed the number six.

  “Take the helm, Ebba,” he instructed. “Listen out for Grubby and Locks, mind. Ye be keepin’ yer focus.”

  “Aye, Stubs.” She straightened and took the closest spoke on the wheel tight in hand. She stepped in front of the wheel’s pedestal as Stubby moved away to check on whatever plagued him. He wouldn’t be worth talking to for weeks after this adventure if Felicity got damaged.

  “Ten starboard!” Locks hollered.

  Ebba adjusted the wheel without delay. The water ahead sprayed high over whatever rocky obstacle lay in its path.

  She winced as the crow’s nest just inched past a jutting rock. She released her breath as they swung by the spraying water, indicating a hidden rock.

  Ebba completed three more maneuvers before Stubby returned with a pile of oars in his hands.

  “I’ve a feelin’ we’ll be needin’ these afore long.” He passed her one. “Off with ye up to the crow’s nest. Use it to push off the cliffs.”

  Ebba nodded and made for the mast.

  Cosmo was up on deck, his russet hair disheveled from sleep. She found hammocks as comfortable as a cloud looked. Clearly, the same wasn’t true for the servant.

  “Syraness doesn’t seem so bad.” Cosmo said the words tentatively, like a question.

  Peg-leg slapped him upside the head, scowling. “Don’t be temptin’ fate, boy. That’s ship law one.”

  Intrigue lit Cosmo’s eyes. “Pirates have rules?”

  “Aye, but every ship be dif’erent.”

  Cosmo glanced around the ship. “What are the rules of Felicity? I’d hate to overstep the boundaries.”

  Their rules? Ebba bit back a grin. “Our two main laws be simple, don’t put the crew in harm’s way, and don’t fuss about what ye can’t understand.”

  “And what about tempting fate?” Cosmo still rubbed the back of his head where Peg-leg had hit him.

  “That be a subclause o’ ship law one.” Ebba rolled her eyes. Was he daft?

  Peg-leg rubbed his right knee. It tended to ache when the temperature dropped. “All I be knowin’ is we could do with an albatross right about now,” he remarked.

  Ebba hummed in agreement.

  Cosmo looked between them, his brown brows raised in bafflement. “Will it violate any subclauses if I ask what an albatross would do?”

  Peg-leg and Ebba shared a look before shaking their heads in unison.

  “Sightin’ an albatross would mean the end o’ the fog,” Ebba explained.

  If she didn’t know how Barrels struggled with all these things, she’d think Cosmo had been hit across the head with a boom, like Grubby. Such things were basic sea survival knowledge.

  Cosmo’s face remained smooth. His gaze flicked between them as if waiting for one of them to dissolve into laughter. He cleared his throat. “Oh, I see. Right.”

  Peg-leg shook his head again and Ebba shrugged at him. Cosmo’s ignorance didn’t make sense to her either.

  Slinging the oar under the sash across her back, she shimmied up the rigging, keeping an eye on the cliffs either side. Kicking into the crow’s nest, Ebba pulled the oar free.

  It had been difficult to see from the main deck, but from the crow’s nest, visibility was almost zero. As the ship leaned to one side, Ebba readied the oar. The cliff faces came into view a few seconds before nearly impacting with the ship. She dug the end into the cliff and pushed with all her might, her feet spread as far apart as the nest would allow.

  She kept this up until her arms began to shake and then called for a replacement.

  Grubby ascended the shrouds for a shift with the oar in the crow’s nest and Ebba slid down, taking a plate of meat and bread from Peg-leg. She shoved the crusty bread in her mouth without ceremony, wiping away the crumbs on her lips with her sleeve.

  The only sign the afternoon had passed while she was up in the nest was the disappearance of what little light had been filtering through the fog. Locks and Barrels shouted back orders to Stubby from the bow while Plank likely rested below.

  Cosmo sat beside her, passing over a goblet of grog.

  “I feel a little useless,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  Ebba shrugged, stuffing another slice of salted pork in her mouth. “Don’t see how ye’d be knowin’ how to sail a ship after a week.”

  “But is there anything I can do to help?”

  Ebba handed him her plate. “Ye can take that to the wash bucket for me.”

  He took it with a wry smile.

  “And,” she added, “I’m sure everyone would appreciate ye doing the rounds with some grog to keep the thirst at bay. Aside from that, ye be knowin’ how to swab the decks.”

  Cosmo tilted his head. “I did that yesterday.”

  “We do it every day.” She arched a brow. “Sometimes more than once.” She glanced down at Cosmo’s hands. The palms faced up and several large blisters were forming on them. “I thought ye used a sword with fencin’. Why’re yer palms torn?”

  His voice was amused. �
�Another sign of my softness, I’m afraid, Mistress Fairisles.”

  “Just Ebba.”

  “You seem to have several names,” Cosmo noted. “I’ve heard you called Wobbles, little nymph, Ebba, and Ebba-Viva.”

  Heat rose to her cheek, and she broke eye contact with him to look at the cliffs. “Aye, the first just be a childhood name. And Plank has always called me little nymph. He says that the cheeky water nymphs must’ve handed me over to the pelicans.”

  “The pelicans?” he asked.

  “The ones who dropped me off,” she said, an edge to her voice.

  “A . . . pelican dropped you to your fathers?” Cosmo said carefully.

  She’d certainly believed that to be the case for a long time, though she’d long since outgrown the notion. To admit that out loud meant that she’d have to look for another reason for having six adoptive fathers, though, and that wasn’t something Ebba was willing to do, yet, no matter what Cosmo thought of her. Ebba nodded curtly. “That’s what I said. Near on seventeen years ago. Pelicans.”

  Cosmo’s silence dragged on too long. She glanced at him, but his expression was closed off.

  Ebba cleared her throat, growing nervous in the silence. “Anyway, my full name be Ebba-Viva Fairisles. They voted on my name; half wanted Ebba, and half wanted Viva. So I got both. For a long time, I got called Viva or Ebba, dependin’ on what name they’d voted for at the start. But in time, they all began to call me Ebba.”

  “What does it mean, your name?”

  Ebba scrunched up her face. “Hey, Barrels, what does my name mean again?”

  He called back, “Ebba means strength. Viva means alive. Five port!”

  “There ye go,” she said to Cosmos. Ebba stood and brushed the crumbs from her frayed slops.

  “Strong and alive,” Cosmo mused. He got to his feet with a graceful movement, picking up her goblet and plate. His eyes settled on her. “It suits you.”

  Ebba’s cheeks burned. She thumped on her chest and belched behind her hand to cover her reaction. “Thank ye.”