Ebba froze and met Sally’s eyes. Dropped into their lives? Did Stubby mean that literally?
The wind sprite made a ‘go on’ gesture.
“When we get there, a couple of us will go to make the trade, and the rest of us will go to see,” Barrels glanced around to check for Locks, “Verity to see if she can heal Cosmo. We want to be in and out of Febribus in the day, Cosmo’s healing allowing.”
“Maybe we should go and steal-trade on Kentro instead and just stop to see Verity,” Grubby said, fidgeting on the spot.
“Produce won’t last that long,” Peg-leg countered.
Barrels consulted a piece of parchment. “It’s a large risk, I agree, but it is the fastest trade possible, and the less time we are at sea, the lower the risk of being sighted by Malice. It would be unlucky indeed for them to be anchored in Febribus at this exact moment. And I calculate that if we can get the right trade for these goods—long-lasting foods, medicine, tools, and the like—we will be able to retreat to Zol for another four months at least.”
Ebba scowled. “Won’t ye be reco’nized when ye go to make the deal?”
The others chuckled.
“What?”
“We haven’t been to Febribus for nearly eighteen years, Ebba,” Plank explained. “I don’t think anyone would reco’nize us now.”
“Shark’s teeth, but I was a handsome lad back then,” Stubby said, flexing his arms.
Ebba wrinkled her nose.
“Do ye recall the time we pissed off Molly Tavernish and had to save Grubby from her brothers and split for the ship like Davy Jones were on our tail?”
Her fathers exploded into laughter.
“Or when Peg-leg lost his peg in a poker game, and we had to steal it back from Spiker Van Puffer?”
Grubby wiped tears from his eyes, chuckling. “I don’t remember anythin’.”
“Aye, lads,” Stubby said, still flexing slightly. “Those were the days, all right.”
Ebba focused on her knees where she sat cross-legged against the mast. Did they regret it, she wondered, giving up all that fun to look after her? Sure sounded like it.
She avoided Sally’s sympathetic gaze, hating the vice-like grip around her heart.
Seven
Locks paced the pebbled shores of Febribus as the others looked on.
“What is he doing?” Cosmo whispered in her ear.
“He be decidin’ if he’s goin’ to come and see the soothsayer or go into town and make the trade.”
“Won’t people recognize him with his eye patch?”
“We’re on a pirate island,” she reminded him.
He graced her with a sheepish smile. “Right.”
Ebba hadn’t been sure which team she wanted to go with either. In truth, she detested when they split up and didn’t want to pick either side, but the soothsayer won out over seeing the Febribus town center. She was far less likely to meet a soothsayer again—plus, Cosmo was sick and might need her there. Plank, Grubby, and Peg-leg would go with her and Cosmo to the soothsayer. That was the majority of the crew; the thought marginally lessened the tightness in her chest.
“I think Locks be more likely to stir up trouble with Verity than help,” Plank said in a loud whisper.
“Aye, we need her aid,” said Peg-leg, the hand that usually wielded his meat cleaver curled into a fist.
Barrels smiled. “Watch this.” He spoke in a loud voice. “Locks, I know you wish to prove to the soothsayer that you no longer harbor feelings toward her—”
“I don’t. Never did.”
“—but don’t you think you’re going there may be seen in the opposite way? Like you do secretly care for her?”
“It would seem that way if I were her,” Stubby voiced.
“It would seem that way if I were her,” repeated Grubby at a nudge from Plank.
Locks drew to a sudden stop, scattering a few pebbles. “Ye think? I wouldn’t want her to believe anythin’ o’ the like.” His mouth pulled down at the sides, and Ebba thought the heavy set of his shoulders was a little forlorn.
“Mayhap it be better to go into town?” Plank suggested.
Locks rubbed his stubbly jaw. “Aye,” he said. “Aye, ye’re right. I best be goin’ to town.”
“That settles it,” Peg-leg blurted. “We’re off. Meet back here afore sundown.” He grabbed Ebba’s arm and propelled Cosmo before him, taking off up the beach at his fastest limp. Ebba looked over her shoulder and saw Locks was wide-eyed and half set to run after them.
“Quickly.” Plank urged them on, peeking back.
Her fathers didn’t slow until they were out of sight in the mangroves.
“Phew, we got away,” Grubby said. Ebba shot her father a veiled look, surprised at his uncharacteristic response.
“Wouldn’t it be better for him to see her and get whatever troubles him out of his system?” Cosmo asked Plank.
He groaned. “We’ve had to listen to his whinin’ for nearly eighteen years. There’s no way I’m hearin’ him grumble until I die.”
Grubby grunted in agreement.
“So where does she live?” As Ebba asked the question, something crunched underfoot. She blinked through the dim light of dawn and saw she stood on a rat skeleton.
“There be yer answer,” Peg-leg said drily. “Just follow the bones.”
Ebba glanced around as the sparse mangroves gave way to low trees. The branches overhead were knotted and woven together into a thorny ceiling.
“Is that a skull on a pike?” Cosmo asked, somewhat breathless. Ebba followed his line of sight and her brows climbed into her hairline. It was.
Plank pursed his lips. “I like what she’s done with the place.”
Her fathers continued down the darkening path to the soothsayer, seemingly unbothered by the grim display. She and Cosmo exchanged a look.
“I can’t help but think a skull generally conveys a warning not to enter,” he mused.
“Aye,” Ebba echoed, starting after her fathers. “I can’t be helpin’ but think the same.”
Her fathers strolled down the pathway, talking and joking, while Ebba followed, taking note of the increasing number of skeletons littering the clearing. The soothsayer had even hung dried seaweed and rib cages from the thorny forest ceiling.
They wove between the obstacles, her fathers maintaining a cheerful banter. Seriously, were they seeing the critter massacre around them?
The path tapered, forcing their group into single file. Ebba glanced back as Cosmo lagged farther behind, his steps dragging as the walk progressed. The sooner they got the black gunk out of his shoulder, the better. She stole another peek at the young man, noting the shadows beneath his amber eyes and the way he nursed his left arm slightly, holding it across his body.
“Ah, here we are,” said Peg-leg from the front.
Ebba poked her head out and spotted a door made of driftwood. The door sat in the middle of a wall of dense thorns that barred the way forward for as far as she could see left and right. Red words were painted across the door.
“What does that sign say?” Ebba asked. She could only make out an F and a U from here.
Plank cleared his throat. “Never you be mindin’, little nymph.”
Lifting his peg, Peg-leg knocked three times on the rickety door.
At a screech from behind, Ebba lunged for Cosmo to pull him out of harm’s way. A monkey hung upside-down at their backs. The swinging critter’s eyes flicked over the five of them before the creature furled upwards and disappeared into the thorny lattice overhead.
“Still has the same monkey,” Grubby said fondly.
“I’d think the monkey would look at the other skeletons and wonder if it were next,” Ebba said, shaking her head.
The driftwood door cracked open, and an ominous voice rang out from within. “If that one-eyed son-of-a-breasted man is with you, I command you to leave. Now!” A wave of what Ebba could only describe as raw power burst out from the door. Like a wind, the
burst lifted the ends of Ebba’s dreads, forcing her back. She dug in her toes to keep from falling on her butt.
“The . . . one-eyed son-of-a, uh, breasted man isn’t with us,” Plank said, clearing his throat. “It’s just me, Grubby, Peg-leg, our daughter Ebba, and a young man we saved, Cosmo. We’ve come seekin’ yer aid.”
“Daughter?” the voice faltered on the word. “Whose daughter?”
Ebba tensed, straining to hear her father’s answer, but Plank only replied, “All o’ ours.”
She wasn’t sure what expression was on his face, but the soothsayer didn’t press the issue. What did the woman look like? Did she have snakes coming out of her head? A forked tongue? Four arms?
“Why have you risked coming here?” the woman continued. “The entire pirate population is hunting you.”
Grubby swallowed audibly.
They’d assumed Malice would be searching for them and the dynami. And that Pockmark would put up a reward for their capture, but the soothsayer’s confirmation of the hunt for their crew still sent a shiver down Ebba’s spine.
Ebba spoke. “We’ve come because my friend, Cosmo, has black gunk in his arm. We be thinkin’ he got it after he were wounded by a splinter from Malice’s cannons.” She held her breath for the answer.
“Is that the girl?” the voice asked. “I want to see her. Show her to me.”
“Come here, little nymph,” Plank beckoned.
This was it. She was about to see a real-life, terrifying person of power. Ebba squeezed past her three fathers and looked straight into the eyes of Locks’ soothsayer.
Blonde hair rippled to the woman’s waist, and guileless blue eyes peeked out from under her bangs. Her dress was made of periwinkle blue and her bones were delicate and finely formed.
“Ye ain’t look like no soothsayer,” Ebba accused. What a letdown. Where were her cloven feet and bulbous goiter?
“And you certainly aren’t their daughter,” the woman muttered. It wasn’t meant for Ebba’s ears, but she heard nevertheless. The soothsayer saw her stricken expression, and her eyes filled with something akin to remorse. She leaned forward and took Ebba’s hand, drawing her through the door. “Come in,” the soothsayer called to the others.
Ebba stared at the skin of their hands; lily white and dark bronze. The soothsayer squeezed her fingers before dropping her hold.
“You weren’t due here for another six months,” the soothsayer spoke, clearing the table.
Ebba gaped, rethinking her snap judgment about the pretty soothsayer. The woman could see the future? No wonder Locks never stood a chance.
The oddness of the comment didn’t seem to register with her fathers. Cosmo only showed polite disbelief at the soothsayer’s remark—typical Exosian.
Ebba stared around the inside of the thorny walls, which weren’t thorny at all on the inside but smooth wood. They stood in a cottage with several rooms. The room where they’d gathered appeared to be the largest, and an old, chunky table sat in the center. Flowers were tied in bunches and hung upside-down from the ceiling. There were no torture devices or stuffed dead animals about. The smell was welcoming and soft but with an underlying sharp tang that made Ebba wonder how many of the flowers were lethal. She surveyed the woman again with fresh eyes. The periwinkle dress didn’t fool her for a second. While she’d hoped the soothsayer would look a little more like a soothsayer should, Ebba knew when someone had survival smarts, and this woman certainly had them.
“We’ve been holed up for a while now after our run-in with Pockmark and his crew,” admitted Plank, rounding the table. “Tryin’ to keep away until the heat dies down.”
Verity gave a light laugh. “That heat from Malice won’t die down. Pockmark won’t rest until he has what he wants, what he is driven to find.”
“He won’t stop?” Plank said, inhaling sharply.
“If he doesn’t find what he seeks, it won’t end in your lifetimes,” she answered, eyes losing their focus. “And not in hers.” She jerked her head to Ebba.
Something akin to horror dawned on the faces of her three fathers. Ebba drew closer to them, glancing between them and the soothsayer.
Peg-leg limped closer to her. “What do ye mean, Verity? Is Ebba unsafe?”
“Of course she is. She’ll be unsafe until the end. Until they have what they want.” She took the last jar—one filled with green beads—off the table and shoved it on a full shelf. The other jars were forced outwards to accommodate it. Verity stopped and faced them as if only then noticing they’d fallen silent. She took in their baffled expressions. Her pink mouth dropped open after a minute. “Can it be you don’t know the battle you’ve started?”
A battle? Ebba edged closer, but Peg-leg wrapped an arm around her.
The woman’s eyes flashed black and the walls creaked. “Can it be you don’t know what you have in your possession? Or why Exosia is changing?”
“That be nothin’ to do with us,” Peg-leg said.
Plank spoke over him. “I’ve been tryin’ to tell the crew we need to know more.”
The soothsayer closed her eyes. “May the powers of the oblivion save me from the idiotic democracy of pirates.”
Cosmo stepped forward. “Can you tell us why the magic wall is crumbling?”
“Aye,” Grubby added. “And why Malice be tryin’ to take the dynami my kin gave me.”
The soothsayer gasped. “You do have it.”
Grubby nodded happily and Plank groaned, shoving him.
Ebba crept away from her fathers as Verity wandered to a mirror hanging on the wall. Though the soothsayer stood before it, Ebba couldn’t see her reflection. That gave her the flamin’ willies.
“You have the dynami but are yet to join the cause. Probably because you’re six months early, I’d wager,” the woman mused to herself in the mirror. Something moaned deeply, and Ebba’s eyes rounded as she realized it was the house.
This time Plank—apparently undisturbed by the sentient house—asked, “But can ye tell us anythin’?”
“If you do not join the cause, all will perish. I can be no more specific than that.”
Great.
“Is this cause the same thing as magic returnin’?” Ebba asked, a crease between her brows.
“What?” Verity glanced at her. “No. Don’t be silly. Good magic returning is no cause for alarm. It’s what comes with it that will shape your destiny. And that of us all.”
. . . Right.
Peg-leg cast a look at the others. “Well, whatever the cause be, that seems like a lot o’ respons’bility I never signed up for.”
Ebba had to agree though she kept silent, noticing the way Grubby and Plank were nodding at Verity’s words. “Maybe if we knew why it had to be us,” she said to the soothsayer. “I mean there be plenty o’ fish in the sea and all.”
The soothsayer muttered to herself a while longer and then turned to face them. “I cannot tell you more. Older powers than I must decide if you are worthy first.”
“That’s all ye’ve got?” Ebba said, face heating. “I think ye’re stuffed full o’ cravats.”
Verity’s face cooled, and her eyes flashed from blue to black. “I’ve heard that saying before,” she said in a deep, vibrating voice. “And I certainly know that impatient temper.”
“Sure, Locks says it all the time,” Ebba replied. And she’d definitely got her temper off him. But for Verity to know Locks so well told her the story of ‘dinner and a drink’ was greatly downplaying the truth. He and the soothsayer had to have spent a lot of time together.
Peg-leg banged her in the shin with his peg, and she glared at him. “What?” she demanded.
The soothsayer’s blonde hair began to streak with black. The house shuddered violently, and Ebba gripped the table as the floor began to roll and jump. More streaks appeared until the monkey swung down from the ceiling, making all of them jump as he clanged two cymbals together in front of the soothsayer’s face.
The woman frowned, and
the black streaks began to recede until her hair was fair once more. Her eyes were blue when she opened them. Plank gestured Ebba to his side, but she remained staring at the soothsayer.
That was more like it.
“I can tell you this much, and please don’t ask me more because I am bound by those who granted me power,” Verity said in a forced calm voice. “Ten thousand years ago, old magic ruled this world until that magic was overtaken by something darker—an evil unlike anything the realm had ever seen. To cause chaos and terror is in the nature of some immortal beings, but this power,” she said with a shiver, “this power was evilness itself. This darkness reigned for five thousand years until three heroes managed to trap the evil in the blackest, coldest pit of the realm. Except something happened the three heroes didn’t foresee. For when they trapped the darkness, magic was trapped in the pit with it. All magical creatures were torn from the land to share in the punishment. Magic was trapped in this place for over seven hundred years.”
Ebba and the others waited for her to go on.
“That’s it,” the soothsayer finished lamely.
“Ye can’t just drop cannonballs like that and stop,” Peg-leg exploded.
Verity’s eyes flashed black once more, and Ebba’s father held up his hands. “Aye, ye can, ye can.”
The others’ faces were as blank as Ebba felt inside—except for Plank, who stared at Verity, deep in thought.
“I am confined by chains you cannot fathom,” Verity prompted in the quiet that followed.
Aye, and Ebba personally thought Verity shouldn’t be pointing the finger at other people’s tempers when hers caused her eyes and hair to turn black.
“Your friend is injured?” the soothsayer said, eyes flashing.
Oh, right. The reason they came. Ebba dragged Cosmo forward, hoping to see the actual scary soothsayer come out again. “He is. Show her, prince slave.”
“Prince slave?” A smile played around Verity’s lips. “Is that so?” She met Cosmo’s gaze, and he stiffened under her attention.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Stolen Princess (Pirates of Felicity Book 2) Page 8