Grubby stared at her in confusion before his eyes widened. He grabbed her arm, tugging her down the pier. “I was s’posed to get ye on an urgent-like crew matter.”
Ebba increased her pace to run beside him. “What matter?”
He shrugged. “Can’t rightly remember.”
She concealed her smile, but impatience drove her to run down the pier in the direction of the shacks, Grubby hard on her heels.
“Finally,” Stubby reprimanded as they jogged into the pit space by the shacks. Ebba’s back straightened of its own accord, as it tended to do around the strictest of her fathers.
“Now, now, we just got to talkin’ and I forgot I was meant to hurry,” Grubby said in her defense. “It be my fault.” He patted Ebba, probably in case her feelings were hurt.
“Yeah, yeah. It be no one’s fault, and we’re all happy. Now sit down,” Stubby said.
Ebba took a seat beside Cosmo. “What’s the matter?”
Stubby jerked his head at the young man. “Show her. Just the shoulder, mind.”
Cosmo cast his eyes around the group of her six fathers and unlaced the neck of his tunic to expose his shoulder.
Ebba gasped. The black mark had spread. Two of the tendrils had stretched an inch or so inward, over his collarbone. “It’s gotten bigger.” She glanced around the circle of her six fathers. “It’s only been two days.”
Plank craned to get a better look. “I ain’t never seen a wound like that, mateys.” Excitement flooded his voice. “It be magic, I’m sure o’ it.” His face firmed as he glanced around the circle. “We have to get to the bottom of why the magic wall be crumblin’. I’ve said it once, and I’ll keep sayin’ it until ye listen.”
Stubby shooed him back. “Not that shite—”
“Swear jar,” Barrels quipped.
“—again. We’re not goin’ looking for trouble. The return o’ magic has naught to do with us.”
“Aye, I couldn’t agree more,” Peg-leg muttered. “But we need to find help, lads. I won’t see him lose his arm over the black magic gunk.”
No one disagreed with that.
“But who can help?” Cosmo asked. “I doubt even the physicians on Exosia could aid me. We don’t know what it is.”
He looked at her in question, and Ebba shrugged. She had no idea.
. . . But Stubby looked at Locks, thick gray brows raised. All of her fathers looked at Locks.
He sat scowling, his single emerald eye flinting dangerously, the empty socket on the other side concealed by a black patch.
“A normal medicine man can’t help with this,” Stubby said. “If only one o’ us knew another who might have the answer.”
Locks grimaced, stretching the thin scars on his cheeks.
“Ye got anythin’ ye wish to offer, Locks?” Peg-leg pressed. “Anyone ye know who could help?”
Locks burst to his feet. “I swore never to go callin’ on her again. Not after the things she said to me. I’d rather go to Davy Jones’ Locker than accept her help.”
“I think you doth protest too much,” Barrels said.
Ebba glanced between them. “Who are ye talkin’ o’?”
Plank spoke out the corner of his mouth. “The woman who told Locks she’d never touch him with a ten-foot pole with another ten-foot pole latched onto the end o’ it.”
“I didn’t want her anyway,” Locks snarled, overhearing Plank’s words. “She slammed the damn door in my face afore I could tell her so, but I was goin’ to.”
Locks had a different girlfriend on each island, and Ebba thought it might have served him right to have a woman tell him where to go for once.
Peg-leg said, “She ain’t just a woman, though, is she? She be a soothsayer, and our best chance at figurin’ out what ails Cosmo.”
Sink her. Her fathers knew a soothsayer? Ebba quietened to listen.
“I want no part o’ it.” Locks flung up his hands. “I won’t talk to her. If she wants to apologize to me, I’m willin’ to listen. But I won’t be caterin’ to her female whims.”
“It kind of sounds like ye do want to speak to her, Locks,” Ebba said shrewdly.
Cosmo laughed, but cut off suddenly when Locks’ emerald eye splintered in his direction.
“I don’t.” Locks folded his arms. “She be . . . ugly. I don’t like her.” With that, he stalked off.
Her other five fathers erupted into hoots of laughter before he was out of hearing range. Locks’ back stiffened, but he didn’t turn back.
“He’s still got it bad,” Stubby said, wiping at his eyes, still chuckling.
“He’ll be a bloody misery on the journey there,” Plank agreed. “Remember how bad he was when it happened. How long ago was it, now? Seventeen years?”
Peg-leg nodded. “Aye, it were at that. He was a bloody mopey bugger.”
Even Grubby groaned with the others.
“We’re goin’ to see a soothsayer?” Ebba asked, voice tight. She’d never seen a soothsayer—which wasn’t surprising as her fathers refused to take her anywhere but the safest islands. She’d only heard rumors of the medicine hermits who dabbled in potions and looking at the future.
“Aye, Ebba. We be goin’ to find our answers on Febribus,” Peg-leg answered.
“Febribus?” she screeched. The others winced, but Ebba burst upward and began to dance around the fire pit, her arms raised above her head. The wooden beads in her dreads rattled as she shook her hair back, the layers of her many shell necklaces clanged as she leaped and twisted, and the bright green material length tied around her hips swished in time to her swaying.
“Febribus,” she sang, wiggling her hips.
“The notorious pirate island, Febribus?” Cosmo asked weakly.
Peg-leg hit him upside the head for the second time in as many days. “What other Febribus do ye know o’?” Muttering about soft Exosians, the cook hobbled away.
Ebba came to a breathless halt. “Febribus,” she panted. “I’ve wanted to go there my whole life. And a soothsayer, too.”
“And to fix Cosmo’s shoulder, little nymph,” Plank reminded her, a black brow quirked.
She cast Cosmo a sheepish look, and his eyes took on a mischievous light. “I do hope we can be gettin’ the black out o’ ye,” she amended.
Cosmo did his best to bow from his seated position. “Mistress Fairisles, I do believe you’re about to go back to sea.”
A month in Zol away from her beloved ocean. Ebba forgot her sheepishness and grinned brightly, peering in the direction they’d take through the hidden tunnel on the southern end of the inlet. For weeks she’d been torn up about secrets and questions and whether to ask them. Everything that a pirate shouldn’t be concerning themselves over.
Aye, returning to sea was just what she needed.
Three
“If ye scratch her, I’ll chuck ye to Davy Jones’,” Stubby bellowed as Felicity bobbed through the tunnel leading out to the ocean. He threw his hands up, ranting to no one in particular. “Chunks taken out o’ her mast. Broken bowsprit. We’re damn lucky the figurehead was still on her, or we would’ve been goners.” He sat on the step leading down into the stern, sunk in remembered misery.
Stubby was their boatswain and took any damage to the ship as an insult to his very being. That often caused him to remind the crew of basic pirate superstitions, such as the crucial role of the figurehead in keeping Felicity safe. Ebba wasn’t born yesterday.
“Five port,” Locks yelled from the front.
Ebba spun the wheel, feeling Felicity shift to accommodate the new demand. “Don’t worry yerself, Stubby. Felicity got banged up because o’ special circ’mstances last time.”
“If I see a single manta ray, I swear to the powers o’ oblivion, we’ll be turnin’ straight around to return to Zol.”
Manta rays were fierce bad luck, Ebba couldn’t blame him. Last time she’d seen a manta ray, Grubby’s toe gained magical navigation properties and a cave filled with seals turned into naked m
en. “Aye, Stubs. We’ll be doin’ that. Don’t ye fret. Now let me focus.”
The tunnel only allowed six feet either side of Felicity.
As it was, they had a ship specially designed by Stubby. The mast was removable, which allowed them to navigate the low ceilings of the tunnel. It was also why no one else knew the inlet existed—except for the tribespeople of Zol, who couldn’t scale down the inner cliffs to the inlet.
She knew the tunnel well enough to not really need Locks’ shouted instructions, but she could feel that each of her fathers were excited to be back on the ocean, just as Ebba was. That relieved her in no short measure. For a moment, they’d seemed too content to be landlubbers for the rest of their lives. Ebba wouldn’t ever be a landlubber. She’d been found by water nymphs, delivered to her fathers by pelicans, and she’d stay on the sea forever, even with the magic bursting out of the crumbling wall. That was the story she’d stick with, anyway.
A better part of an hour later, Felicity burst from the mouth of the tunnel.
“Get her up, lads!” Stubby called. The words died on his lips as Grubby picked up the thirty-foot mast with a grunt and placed it into the mast’s setting with the help of Plank’s guiding hands.
Everyone stared at Grubby’s waist. Sure enough, the silver cylinder that was the dynami sat tucked into his belt. A pearly substance swam just under the tarnished exterior, letting everyone know the object wasn’t from this world.
Ebba glared at the cylinder that had caused them so much grief. Grief that Ebba started. Each time she saw the dynami, the guilt over her past actions surged to the fore. And something else. A foreboding of sorts. Super-strength abilities aside, maybe she should have tossed the damn thing in the sea all those weeks ago.
Ebba kept the ship pointing directly into the waves, watching as her fathers attached the mainsail and hoisted it high. The sail snapped as it filled with wind, and with a rolling pitch, Felicity began to glide forward.
“To Febribus we go.” Ebba executed a quick jig on the spot.
“Actually, Ebba,” Stubby said, taking the wheel from her, “we’re headin’ to Neos first. While we be in dangers’ way, we’ll steal-trade fresh produce to sell in Febribus. Then we won’t be needin’ to leave Zol again for a long stint.”
She scrunched her nose for a couple of reasons. “But Neos be where we saw Ladon. What if he’s still there?” She shuddered in remembrance of the huge lizard beast with the snakes about his neck.
Stubby’s expression darkened.
Not only had Ladon shattered all their notions about magic being unbelievable, he’d shattered something within each of her fathers, too. They’d had to answer three riddles, and he’d forced them to dredge up horrible things from long ago.
Things she hadn’t convinced herself to ask about just yet. There was a lot of convincing herself to be done, apparently.
“He was high up on the mountain, Ebba. We’ll only be goin’ to the coastal village. We won’t be enterin’ the rainforest. Not without that guide, Jagger—trait’rous hull slime though he be.”
The moment they turned their backs, Jagger had done a runner back to the black-and-crimson Malice with the information he’d overhead them retrieve from the magic apple. Last she’d seen him, he’d been standing on the Malice captain’s right side.
She grumbled at Stubby. “I guess Neos be on the way.”
“Aye, that it is,” he replied. “Six days east sailin’ to Neos, and then another three and a half days o’ northeast sailin’ to Febribus.”
Ebba left Stubby to his navigating and leaned back against a barrel on the main deck, peering happily out over Felicity. Peg-leg was below, putting the supplies away. She’d had a word to Sally about keeping a low profile while others were in the hold.
Grubby swabbed the deck, and Barrels would be in his small office in the bilge, filling his basket with more mangoes.
Locks had left his perch by the bow to help Plank with the sheets controlling the sails.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle roll of the ship as Felicity parted the deep turquoise waves like a hot dagger in a belly. This was what she loved: the salty breeze on her face and the hollow thud as she crossed the deck; the flicking sails and the creaking ropes.
But her mind was still on Ladon. “Hey, Plank,” she called. “Grubby said his selkie kin have gotten stronger and can talk to him from farther away in the ocean now. Ye don’t think Ladon has gotten stronger, too, do ye?”
Plank left Locks to the sheets and leaned against the barrel next to her.
“I don’t rightly know, little nymph. Ye know it be my opinion that we should be findin’ out more.” He scowled at the others, even though she was among the majority who’d voted against him.
She rested her head on his shoulder and spoke quietly. “Will the magic try to hurt us again?” That was what she was truly worried about. The rest of the crew had their reasons for not figuring out why the magical wall was crumbling. Her reason? Ebba nearly lost everything to Ladon and then the siren, and then the selkies. If not for the wind sprites, Ebba might be terrified of magic. Instead, she was just afraid of what the evil magical creatures might do to her crew—considering what they’d already done. Who knew how many types of immortal beings there were.
Plank put an arm around her and squeezed her into his side. “Ye can’t blame a creature for its nature, little nymph. It was the siren’s nature to try to drag us onto the rocks. And Ladon’s nature to protect the golden apple. Just as it be a mother’s nature to protect her children.”
Ebba pulled away. “I will blame them if they hurt any o’ my crew,” she countered fiercely. “Or Cosmo.”
Plank’s eyes took on a dreamy quality. “And ye do that because that be yer nature. Nature won’t always fall into neat, peaceful lines. Sometimes it will collide and crash and wreak havoc—just like a storm.”
The ship groaned, and Ebba silently joined it. “I’m afraid ye lost me with the last bit.”
Plank didn’t answer, but began to hum his old tune, signaling he was now daydreaming. No point trying to talk to him now; he’d be there for hours.
She huffed and left the helm, eyeing the rope systems above with undisguised glee. A whole month since she’d climbed the shrouds to the crow’s nest, too long for any pirate to go without seeing the world as a bird did. Her arms itched to feel the strain as she pulled her body up the lattice of squares to the top.
But a moan from starboard side caught her attention. A green-faced Cosmo had his arms dangling over the bulwark, letting the spray hit his face.
“Cosmo,” she said. “Ye look like seaweed, and a lot like ye may chunder.”
He moaned again. “I thought I’d gotten used to ships.”
“Aye, but ye spent a month off them again. Ye’ve lost yer sea-legs—and yer sea-gut.”
The prince slave cracked an eye open. “Why do you never get sick?”
She shrugged. “I do get sick. Everyone does. Peg-leg says that the ocean waves get in through yer boots sometimes and make their way into yer belly to make a storm.”
Cosmo smiled weakly. “Is that another pirate superstition?”
Ebba contemplated that and shrugged again. “Makes sense to me.”
He lay his russet-haired head against the bulwark and fell quiet.
She studied him and crossed her arms. “Ye’d feel a lot better if ye got it over and done with, instead of keepin’ it down. Just imagine the fish stew the other day.”
He jerked upright, clamping a hand over his mouth.
She held her palms up when he didn’t follow through. His green color had increased. “Have it yer way, matey.”
Ebba left Cosmo at the bulwark and spotted Peg-leg crossing to Grubby with breakfast. “Don’t worry about any for Cosmo; he’s got waves in his belly,” she said. “I told him to just be done with it, but he’s a bit like Barrels. Doesn’t want to see the stuff come out backward.”
Peg-leg’s eyes took on a gleam. “Is tha
t right?”
She nodded. “I’m off up the shrouds, but I’ll eat me mornin’ meal soon.”
The cook patted her absently, looking at Cosmo. “Aye, lass. Ye get up there and tell me what ye be seein’.”
Not needing any more encouragement, she ran to the nearest lines and leaped up onto the bulwark. She flexed her bare feet in experiment, following the rigging with her eyes all the way up to the crow’s nest—just a tiny bucket from down here.
Sucking in a joyful breath, Ebba began to climb. She relished the sharp digging of the rope in the soles of her feet and held her body close to the rigging as she climbed higher where the rope moved in and out with greater ease. Her heart beat fast as the rigging tapered.
Too soon, she swung both legs into the crow’s nest.
The cold air hit her teeth, and she smiled for no particular reason, other than being up closer to the clouds. The Free Seas stretched before her eyes, and only a few birds interrupted the sky. The Free Seas was a colloquial name the pirates called the section of the Caspian Sea the navy rarely entered. Technically, all the Caspian Seas, the islands within it, and the mainland of Exosia were part of the Exosian Realm ruled by King Forge Montcroix. But his navy only really sailed in the strip of sea closest to Exosia these days. And the governors on the main islands, who were meant to uphold the king’s laws, had been corrupted long ago.
Ebba leaned against the inside of the crow’s nest, facing east toward their next destination: Neos. The place that first shattered her notion of the realm, and of what existed and did not. The island that had first disrupted the familiar dynamic upon Felicity when it pointed out how little she knew of her fathers’ pasts.
The somber tones of song reached her from down on the main deck.
Ebba straightened, recognizing the ballad immediately though . . . the crew hadn’t sung it in years. In fact, they only ever sung it for one reason.
Revenge.
She peered over the side of the nest and saw her fathers gathered at the mast, all of them looking at Cosmo, who still dangled over the bulwark. Grubby and Barrels were the only ones hanging back, deigning not to join in. What the heck had Cosmo done to peeve them off this badly? She’d only been up here for half an hour.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2) Page 3