by E. S. Bell
We’re flying, Selena thought as the ship hung on the edge of nothing. Exhaustion infused her to the core but her bleary mind grasped what was happening when the ship canted downward.
We’re atop a wave. My wave…
The Black Storm teetered for a one horrifying second, and then the bow dipped down. Selena held on with failing strength and watched the rest of crew do the same, clinging to lines or rails or each other as the ship cut downward. It sped down the face of the wave and then jounced across the calm sea that had not been disrupted with the magic, but was stubbornly flat with doldrums. Barrels and broken spars and crewmen clinging to anything they could, surged up and slammed back down again. Then the Black Storm settled and raced along the water that was smooth as ice. Selena cherished the smallest flicker of hope that they’d live.
Then her wave came down behind the ship.
Icy white sprays of water crashed over the Black Storm’s quarterdeck, drenching her again. She barely hung onto the shrouds. The ship was propelled forward, galloping like a startled horse. The stern lifted up and the bow was forced down as the wave carried it from behind. Half of the bowsprit broke off as it nosed under the surface, snapping lines, and taking two of its three of its unfurled staysails into the water. Lines from the foremast’s topsail were tied to the bowsprit. When those snapped, the topsail came crashing down, raining timber and rope all over the main deck. The prow was swamped and Selena thought she had wrecked the Black Storm even as she tried to save it, that it was going to dive under and break apart. An agonizing handful of moments later, the ship righted itself and the Black Storm coasted along the flat sea, riding the wave of Selena’s creation.
Relief and unimaginable exhaustion washed over her. Her hands slipped. She started to fall. Ilior was there but she stumbled out of his reach on trembling legs. A shadow fell over her and she turned in time to see the spanker boom swoop toward her. A heartbeat later, pain exploded across her face. She staggered as starbursts filled her vision. And then she was falling, falling…
She hit the water hard. It felt like a slab of ice that grew hands and arms and tentacles that dragged her under. A cold almost as deep as the wound infused her every fiber and she wailed in grief for the Two-Faced God must hate her so for having the hubris to call the tide again.
Seawater rushed into her open mouth. The icy water surged down her gullet, into her lungs, wrapping itself around her and squeezing until she knew only pain and cold and then, mercifully, nothing.
Blood Oath
Sebastian clung to a stray line. The deck was sodden and cold beneath him, blood and water swirling across the planks. My blood. My ship. My Storm.
The wind howled in his ear and icy seawater crashed over the rail. More and more would come and then the Black Storm would capsize. The brigantine would break apart in the merkind maelstrom and they would all die.
My ship.
Unless…
Selena was up on the quarterdeck. Ilior had hold of her by the belt. Her arms were raised, her lips moved, tears streamed down her cheeks. Sebastian couldn’t hear her cast her spell under the roar of the maelstrom, but he felt the magic. His ship began to rise, and with it a relief in his heart so fierce he thought he might weep himself. He clung tighter to the line as his ship was lifted out of spinning whorl and rode the crest of an enormous wave. Selena’s wave.
Such power, he thought and then fear stole his air as the ship dipped down when the wave lifted the stern. The bowsprit snapped and was lost and Sebastian was sure they would be too. But the Black Storm would not be swamped. It righted itself and raced along flat seas, driven by Selena’s spell and nothing else.
Sebastian climbed to his feet and his gaze swept across his deck that was awash in seawater and cluttered with broken planks of wood, torn and sodden sails, and loose rigging. Bloodied and drenched crewmen were finding their balance on the ship that cut water with no wind to propel it. But for Grunt. Grunt held his leg that was bent at sickening angle.
Sebastian looked for Selena or Niven. He turned in time to see the spanker boom that had almost knocked him overboard earlier come loose from Cur’s knot that tied it down. The boom swept across the quarterdeck and struck Selena across the face. Her head snapped to the side and she reeled toward the port rail.
She’ll catch herself, Sebastian thought and for a second she did; she caught the railing and held on. But the spell must have drained her. Or perhaps the cold was finally too much. The ship bucked and Selena was thrown over the side, the blue of her tunic flapped in the wind and then gone. She was gone.
It’s done. My last job…
Time seemed to slow down even as his ship tore across the placid sea. Niven emerged from somewhere, sodden and shouting and waving his arms at him like a madman, though Sebastian couldn’t hear what he said. Cat appeared and Sebastian wondered absently who was at the wheel. Blood streamed from her brow and she made the sign for “man overboard” over and over. Distantly, the wave roared. Or maybe it was Ilior. Sebastian held his breath like a drowning man in a black abyss, trying to hold back the water that sought to choke him. His lungs felt ready to burst and finally he gasped. Time lurched forward again and Sebastian took another breath, and with it he screamed.
“Svoz!”
The sirrak appeared to him in his usual cloud of foul stench that was blown away by the wind of the ship’s unnatural motion. Sebastian clutched his side and staggered to the port rail.
The shape-shifter peered overboard. “Have you lost my master?”
“Get her.” Sebastian seethed through clenched teeth. “Get her now!”
Svoz examined his immaculate black claws with agonizing slowness and an infuriating lack of concern. “Do you know what it means if I do this for you?”
“She’s under the bloody godsdamn water!”
“Blood oath.”
“Blood oath? What…” And then Sebastian felt another icy sliver join the nest of shards that pierced his heart.
A cantina on Isle Juskara. A jug of spice wine and his mark, a sand baron, and his sorrowful tale; a pact with a sirrak, a blood oath made and fulfilled years ago. The baron’s crimson, bejeweled hands—one of them scarred along the palm— had shook as he spoke of slipping a knife into his own wife’s heart as she slept. “What else could I do? The sirrak and I had the oath. The consequences for failure…” He shuddered and tried to drown the thought in wine. “I had no choice,” he had cried piteously to Sebastian Vaas, and of course Sebastian Vaas had no pity when he opened the sand baron’s throat later that night.
The memory flashed in his mind like the glint of fire on a blade and then was gone again. “Svoz,” Sebastian said in a strangled voice.
The sirrak was immovable. “Blood oath. Do you accept?”
Zolin. His hood a black cave. Do you accept?
Svoz withdrew a black-bladed dagger from his belt.
No! It’s my last job. It’s done. I can find Accora myself. There’s no blood on my hands. None…
“I’ll use my own,” Sebastian heard himself say, and found he had already taken his dagger to hand. He swiped the blade across his palm. The pain flared and was numbed as Svoz licked at the blood with his great forked tongue. Sebastian let the sirrak drink for a handful of moments, then tore his hand away from the repulsive sensation.
“Go!”
Svoz smiled a twisted smile made worse by the secret pleasure it harbored. “As you wish, Master…”
Sebastian gripped the gunwale to steady himself as the sirrak disappeared. He found Cat staring at him through narrowed eyes, as if she couldn’t quite understand what she was looking at.
“What are you doing? Get on the bloody wheel, damn you!” he ordered, and turned to watch the churning water that was dark green and laced with white foam.
Ilior staggered beside him. “Is Svoz…is he…?”
Sebastian made a fist. Blood seeped from between his fingers. “He’s gone to get her.”
The Vai’Ensai’s skin was pal
e white and he shuddered with cold. “Gods, please…”
Sebastian itched to push him overboard. The moments were adding up in his head.
Too long. She’s been under too long…
A shadow flew overhead. A huge, black-taloned sea hawk, water streaming off its sleek feathers, hovered, flapping wings that were as long as a man. Selena lay clutched in its claws. The giant bird dumped her inert body onto the planking and then landed beside her. Its talons scratched the wood as he ruffled his feathers, raining seawater over the stupefied crew. The hawk loosed a deafening scream and then folded its wings close to its body where they vanished into blood red skin. Horns protruded from its crown, the enormous beak became a mouth, and then Svoz was there, his skin hissing and steaming like a blacksmith’s iron dipped in water.
Sebastian stumbled to kneel beside Selena. Her face was a pale shade of blue and she wasn’t breathing, nor moving at all, not shivering for the first time in days. Her clothing was sodden with frigid water; it pooled around her and leaked out of her sealskin coat. She looked dead.
No! Sebastian grabbed her ankles and drove her knees to chest three times, trying to pump the water out of her lungs. Nothing happened. Sebastian crawled to Selena’s head. He tilted her head back and pried open her jaw with his cut hand, smearing his blood over her chin. He laid his mouth over hers. Her lips were as ice. He blew air into her three times, and then started back to her ankles.
“I will…” Ilior said. The dragonman looked half-dead himself but he took hold of Selena’s boots and drove her knees up to her chin.
Sebastian put his mouth to Selena’s again and breathed for her. Ilior pumped her legs. Nothing.
“Niven! Are you a healer or not?”
Sebastian realized that Niven had knelt beside them was praying for healing magic; his little flask at hand pouring seawater—as if there wasn’t enough on Selena already—his other hand on her shoulder. An orange glow emanated from his hands and spread across her chest. And then faded away.
“I can’t,” Niven said tearfully. “There’s too much water in her.”
“Then get the fuck out of my way.” Sebastian shoved Niven aside and took Selena’s face in his hands. He put his lips to hers, breathed, and then Ilior drove her legs up.
Svoz circled them leisurely and lit a stinking cigarillo. “Keep it up, Master,” he said. “A life for a life.”
The words stabbed Sebastian with fear all over again and he breathed into Selena’s mouth. But it’s too much time. It’s been too long…
And then her body shuddered. She curled to her side and retched out what seemed a lake’s worth of water onto his deck. Her lips drew back in a horrid rictus, and she drew in a wheezing breath, and then coughed until Sebastian thought her insides would spill out of her like the seawater. When the spasm subsided, she lay very still.
She’s beyond shivering.
Svoz had pulled her from the water but the danger wasn’t over. Sebastian stripped off her seal fur coat; it slapped onto the deck like a bloated jellyfish. Ilior cradled Selena in his arms. The crew, those that could, had gathered around to watch.
“Take her to her cabin,” Sebastian ordered. “Spit, get on the wheel. Cat!” He called up to the quarterdeck. “Get down here!”
Cat slinked down the ladder.
“Get her out of those wet clothes before she freezes to death.”
Cat nodded, still staring at him with that peculiar, curious look, and then started belowdecks with Ilior. But the Vai’Ensai took two steps and fell to his knees.
“I…can’t…” he moaned. “Help her…” His head lolled and Selena tumbled out of his grasp.
“Bugger me.” Sebastian strode to the fallen dragonman and lifted Selena of his slack arms. “Niven, get Ilior to the galley. Build a fire in the oven and set him by it. Then get back up on deck and heal Grunt. We’ll take her to my cabin,” he told Cat. “The rest of you, keep watch for the merkind.”
Cat led them across the debris-strewn main deck and yanked the captain’s cabin door. She rattled the handle. Locked.
Sebastian ground his teeth. “Bloody fucking Deeps...”
Selena seemed to weigh a thousand stones in her sodden clothes He needed a third arm but he’d be bloody pricked before he let Cat dig around in his black coat. He hefted Selena awkwardly and fished his cabin key out of an inner pocket. Cat took it and turned it in the lock. Sebastian kicked open the door.
Inside, he shut it behind them and lay Selena down on the floor. Then he and Cat hurried to undress her. Buckles stuck, her overtunic tangled in her long damp hair, and her boots seemed welded to her feet. Sebastian had run out of profanities by the time they had her stripped down to her underclothes, sure that she would cease breathing at any moment. Then Selena’s eyes fluttered open and she moaned.
“N-no…” she struggled through clattering teeth, her voice hoarse from swallowing the sea. “D-Don’t….l-look …”
Sebastian thought she meant her nakedness, but her hands covered left side of her chest, over her heart.
“I won’t look at the wound,” he said. “We won’t look, I swear it.”
He laid Selena on his bunk and she rolled onto her left side, clutching her shoulders. Her shivering began again, and he was relieved to see it. He kicked off his boots, and tore off his own wet long coat and shirt.
Cat stared at him.
“She needs heat,” Sebastian snapped. “I’m bigger than you.” The mute woman’s eyes were unblinking. “Take her clothes to the oven to dry and then get back to the wheel.”
Cat gathered up Selena’s clothes but then stood still, looking as if she wanted to ask him something but didn’t know how to form the words.
“Get out,” he bellowed, and she jumped to obey. When she was gone, Sebastian climbed into the bed.
“Selena.” He tried to turn her to face him but she whimpered and would not turn. “Selena, I have to take this undershirt off. It’s wet and will keep you cold.”
“Y-you can’t s-see it. I w-won’t let…you. “
He pulled at her sodden undershirt but it would not give. It was made of linen and fit tightly over her breasts. He peered over her shoulder and saw it was laced up the front.
Bloody gods, what am I doing?
He reached around and undid the laces, his fingers trembling as if he were the one who was freezing to death. He peeled it off of her, and Selena buried herself deeper onto the left side, hiding the wound in the pillows. Sebastian sidled up close to her and pressed his chest against her back.
He was shocked at her cold; like curling around a slab of ice. His own skin broke out in gooseflesh. He drew up the blankets over both of them and hesitantly put his arm around Selena, trying not to think of her nakedness, or the smooth skin of her back pressed to his chest. Her hair was damp and smelled of salt.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said.
She wept softly and her fingers dug deeper into her own shoulders.
He tried again. “No one was lost, Selena. You saved us.”
A sob escaped her. Her cold hand found his and clutched him. A feeble squeeze. Sebastian gripped her hand tightly for her.
After a time, her skin warmed and her shivering abated somewhat. She fell into a fitful sleep, but kept her wound buried in the pillows. Even in sleep, she guarded it and Sebastian wondered what would happen if he were to roll her to her back and look at it. It would be easy enough. She was naked beside him, and weak. She might protest but what could she really do?
She would consider it a violation.
His curiosity died instantly.
Sebastian’s own body began to drift toward sleep. Fear and panic had left him feeling wrung out. Niven would take care of Grunt. He could rest a few minutes, he thought, his eyes drooping. Selena fit perfectly in the curve of his body, and her skin, now that it had warmed, was soft as silk, like the white sand on his atoll. His eyes drifted closed.
The white sand was soft under his feet, and the sun hot o
n his neck. She laughed and threw her arms around him. Her lips on his were sweet and salty. Delicious. Her hair was free of the tight braids she always wore. It billowed like a cloud, brushing his face. He’d waited so long to touch her…
He reached up to bury his fingers in her hair…
… and drove the sword into her. Blood splattered in wide swaths across the sand and spilled into the perfect blue surf. Clouds boiled over the sun and shadows danced around him.
The hooded figured in black and red bent over him as he fell to his knees in the bloody sand.
“You accept.”
Sebastian bolted awake, a scream at the back of his throat. His gaze darted here and there, taking in his cabin, his ship. His breath came in short, harsh gasps. He glanced down.
Selena was beside him, curled in his bed. There was blood. Blood smeared on the blanket that shrouded her. Blood in her hair that was fanned out on his pillow.
I did it. My last job…
He reached out a trembling hand to pull back the covers, to see his handiwork and his breath caught…
But no, it was blood from the wound in his side where the broken pieces of his ship had pierced him that stained the sheet. And more blood from the gash on his palm. The sirrak. The dagger. The blood oath to save her. Selena’s chest rose and fell with steady breaths. She lived.
Because I saved her.
Sebastian withdrew from the bed as quietly as he could and dressed in pair of dry trousers and shirt from his trunk. His long black coat was still wet but he put it on anyway and lingered at the door a moment, watching Selena sleep. With a silent curse he went out, shutting the door behind him.
The spell had left Selena weak, pulled her relentlessly toward blackness. She had fought it with all she had so that she could savor the feeling of Julian’s body against hers, feel his breath against her neck and his hand in hers. But the exhaustion of the spell won out and she had fallen into oblivion.