by AB Bradley
After the first few days, conversation ran short. Today—however many days later this was—their thirst drowned what little conversation they had beneath a tide of silence. And so Iron and his shipmates floated in their pitiful skiff, silence thick and chill as frozen butter despite the raging heat.
Iron glanced at Sander. The man’s eyes had retreated into his skull, and his skin sunk over his sharp cheeks before disappearing in a wash of salty beard where his chin hid. It took his master a few moments to register Iron’s gaze. Once he did, he grinned. His lip split and bled.
Cursed gods, send us wind! Iron sighed and flopped his head back against the boat, which he’d affectionately named the Sapphire Shithole. He stared at the blazing sun, not caring to blink as it threw burning light upon his brow. Eventually, the sun won, and Iron closed his eyes.
A minute could have passed, or it might have been an hour. Iron didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted water.
Soft, cool wind sighed into the boat and chilled the sweat on his burned forehead. The chill kiss brought a smile. He opened his eyes and blinked at the bird perched on the boom above him.
It wasn’t a large bird. He could probably hold it comfortably in one hand. Like Caspran’s swifts, feathers white as snow covered its chest and wings. But this bird, unlike the swifts, had a small, sharp beak black as obsidian. Round eyes the same pitch black considered Iron with something deeper than an animal’s innocent curiosity.
Those eyes are intense. I’ve seen eyes like them. Where have I seen them before?
Those eyes tugged him gently from his stupor. Those eyes. He knew those eyes. In the doe, in the fish, and now, in the bird.
He reached for the bird, but it took flight, darting into a line of clouds black in their belly and muted grey on their backs. The rolling storm arched toward their ship like a wave crashing on a beach.
Wind whooshed in a deep yawn, and the sail flapped angrily in reply. The Shithole tilted up, the prow pointing at the storm before flying down a wave.
“Seems the wind’s lost its gentle touch,” Sander said, rubbing his temples.
Iron wiped the dead skin from his lips. “It scared the bird off.”
Another gale collided against the sail. The sea rolled the vessel up another wave, then sent them crashing down. Kalila moaned and wrapped her thick arms around the mast, pressing her forehead against the wood pillar.
“Wait. A bird?” Sander frowned at his words. “This far out at sea?”
Ayska shook her daze away, and her distant eyes gained an excited sparkle. “You saw a bird? Iron, did you really see a bird? I’d almost kiss you if you did.”
“Oh, I definitely saw a bird. It landed on the boom.” He flashed a toothy grin and pointed to his cheek. “Kiss?”
Ayska ignored him, instead bending to her sister. “Land, Kalila!”
Sander laughed and slapped his hip. “By the gods, we’ve made it to Rosvoi! You still want that kiss, boy? I’m in the mood to give one.”
“No.”
“Well, fine. See if I ask again.”
Iron rolled his eyes.
“Finally,” Ayska said. “And despite the help of any of your damned gods.”
The ship rocked violently. Ayska wobbled to her feet, grabbing a rope for support. Sander nearly toppled overboard but hooked his foot beneath his seat and saved himself at the last second. Iron sunk into the hull and grabbed either side of the skiff.
His master’s knuckles whitened on the lip of his seat. “Storm’s coming over the islands. Seas might get rough before we make the beach.”
Ayska’s braids flapped wildly behind her as the wind coursed over her shoulders. “The seas are about to get very rough. Best keep a tight hold on the ship.”
Sander peered toward the storm and cursed. “You can barely see a thing through that beast!”
Iron scrambled to his master’s side and kneeled toward the prow. He glared into the storm and took a mouthful of wind. Bulbous clouds belched a rumble over the water. Serpentine backs of mighty waves wore caps of briny foam. A lancet of jagged lightning struck the largest of a chain of islands peeking from the torrent loosed from a churning sky.
Despite the maelstrom, Iron smiled at the sight of land. Brilliant green textured high peaks soaring over the sea. Those mountains sheared the storm like a titan’s teeth in a soft belly. Long, thin lines of sand hinted at a beach preventing a jungle from spilling into the waves.
Such green, he’d never seen such green. The gardens of Spineshell were a manicured beauty. This wild wave of life blanketing the islands promised a world unlike anything Iron ever studied. Hells, if Rosvoi was truly as isolated as they believed, he might actually be one of the first to explore it. The storm suddenly seemed less frightening now that his excitement beat his fear into the back of his mind.
The tempest hurled a gust at the ship. The storm wall clasped the sun and choked them with shade. A single drop struck Iron’s cheek and rolled onto his lips. He licked it greedily, his heartbeat coming to a rapid rhythm.
“The islands are beautiful, Sander! How could anything be so green?”
They crested a wave and angled downward. Sander grabbed his collar and threw him to the bottom of the ship. “You’ll be wondering how the sea could be so blue while you’re drowning in it if you don’t brace yourself!”
The boat tipped, racing down the wave’s back. They slammed into the sea in a spray of saltwater that blinded him.
Ayska grabbed his hand and forced it onto the hull’s lip. “Sander’s right,” she shouted through the screaming winds. “The sea’s turning on us. Keep hold and don’t let go, no matter what.” She whipped around to Kalila, smiling and cooing sweet words Iron couldn’t catch through the din.
Their ship once again veered skyward, but this time the wave’s crest towered over them. They sailed to the peak, and a tranquil moment passed, suspended there on a mountain made by the sea. The boat tipped down and raced like a boulder down an icy mountain. The Sapphire Sea smashed into the skiff and soaked Iron through.
Water poured in rivers from his hair into his eyes. He wiped it from his brow and ignored the sting of the sea. Lightning flashed and thunder clapped, bringing with it a torrent that pelted him with angry raindrops.
“I hate sailing!” Sander roared. His master’s form was a grey blur in the rainy sheets thundering from the sky. Iron thought he made out the man twist around. “Are you strong enough to swim?”
The wooden lip bit into Iron’s trembling hand. “But we’re here! We’ll make it!”
A shadow slipped over the skiff. Iron’s eyes widened as his gaze rose from Sander to the titan wave rolling toward them.
“Oh gods,” Iron gasped.
At first they climbed the wave. Their ship stalled near its peak, but somehow, the current snagged it and yanked it to the summit despite gravity begging them down. They reached the crest, and Iron wondered if he reached up he might touch a cloud.
“Iron!” Ayska roared.
He yanked his bewildered stare to her. She had Kalila in a white-knuckled grip. She looked to him, her braids sopping ropes framing her pale face. “Swim, Iron. I need you to swim.”
Her chest swelled with her deep breath. Kalila sucked in a breath of her own and pinched her nose. Gravity grasped the prow, and hurled them down the wave’s back.
A smash rocked his world. Splintering wood. Water everywhere. In his throat, his eyes. The storm grew distant, muffled as he spun beneath the sea. Slippery bubbles slithered up his cheeks as air forced itself from his lungs. He reached out, swimming blindly, wildly, through a tempest of water and thunder.
Ayska needs me.
Iron cupped his hands and pulled his body through the sea.
You will not take me.
He pulled and he pulled again. His lungs roared in protest as he gasped and swallowed seawater instead of air.
Ayska. Ayska!
His fist broke the surface and clasped empty air. His open mouth tore through
the sea next, and with it, so did his scream. Iron fought one wave after another, a single soldier battling legions of unthinking giants. He screamed Ayska’s name, but no answers came.
His arms tired as his doubts intensified. They would never survive this storm. Hells, he barely had. A wave approached, and he considered just letting it take him.
No, you fool. You rode the thundersnow. You were a god of the skies. Now you’ll ride this storm into oblivion and back like a god of seas, magic or no.
He took a deep breath and stared down the wave. This was no thundersnow, but if he took himself back to that day, he could ride this just the same. And so Iron relaxed and listened to the maelstrom, recognized its power, accepted its might. Now it would accept his.
A cadence appeared in the chaos, and if he timed his breaths and movements properly, he kept his head above the waves.
Once again a mountainous wave pulled him higher. He felt a rush as he raced faster and faster until he reached its peak. There, above the world, soaring over the chaos, he spread his arms and laughed despite the rain and flash and crack of thunder. Then, the wave collapsed with more a whimper than a roar.
If storms could surrender, this one did. Each wave thereafter lost its punch and pull, and soon, Iron grasped sand instead of water.
He scampered from the churning sea and collapsed onto the sopping sands that slurped and gurgled as his weight depressed them. He rolled onto his back and starred into a sky so dark it masqueraded as midnight. He opened his mouth and let the rain soak him. The blessed, freshwater rain. It seeped into his clothes and deep into his bones.
He could have slept in the chaos like a babe in his mother’s arms, but he had work to do. One or two breaths passed before he rolled onto his knees and wobbled to his feet.
A long beach thick with palms, broad ferns, and dripping vines promised shelter a few steps away.
Iron struggled against the storm until he found shelter beneath a wide palm leaf. Shifting lines of raindrops twisted from the leaves. He wiped the water from his brow and peered into the storm. “Ayska? Sander? Kalila?”
Once again, they did not reply.
“Ayska! Sander! Kalila!”
A whack and crash jolted him; he spun. The Sapphire Shitthole—or rather, its carcass—tumbled onto the beach.
“Ay—”
A hand clapped around his mouth and yanked him back. He fought against his assailant, but thirst, hunger, and a wild ride through the chaotic sea depleted his strength. Another hand clasped his wrist and dragged him the few feet remaining between beach and jungle.
Whoever pulled him from the sands used the long fronds and drooping vines crowding them to keep their form masked. Iron stumbled back, falling to a knee. He went for his sword, a wave of relief darting through him as his fingers found Fang’s familiar grip. “I won’t let you have me, monster. Show yourself!”
“Monster?” a woman’s voice with a regal air unbecoming of such a wild place, drifted from the shadows. “I’m no monster, you rude young man. I am in fact your savior, as an idiot like you is trying oh so hard to guarantee his own death after braving this beast of a storm.”
“So…you’re not a monster? Not a demon?”
“How rude. I’m neither, my good boy.”
“Then why’d you drag me from the beach?”
“Why, to keep you safe of course.”
“Safe?”
She laughed and took a step back. “Why yes, safe. Have you been living in an oyster shell your entire life? The Rosvoi Islands are no safe place for civilized folk. It hasn’t been for a long time. Everyone knows they’re haunted. They’re wrong of course, but I must say I’d prefer the company of ghosts to the real inhabitants.”
“Well, you’re here and well enough.” He glared into the shadows. If only he had some light. He squeezed Fang’s grip and edged the weapon from the scabbard.
Her light chuckle filtered through the storm. A hand thrust from the shadows. Stringy rope bit deep cuts and bruises around her wrist. “Well enough, thank the Six. I’m not here on my own accord, though. No one with a grain of common sense would be, which puts you in doubt. Do you really know nothing of this cursed place?”
“It can’t be worse than where we’ve just been. Now, my friends—”
“Were captured. You speak of three, correct? An enormous woman, a smaller one with pretty braids, and a man dressed in black?”
“You saw them!” Iron lurched toward her, prodding the dark.
The woman backed deeper into the jungle. “I did. They’ve already been captured. Poor things, really. At least tonight’s not a feast night. I heard no drums.”
“Feast night?”
“Yes, my ignorant little friend. You’re lucky you’re cute despite looking like a half-drowned rat that just paddled from one end of the Sapphire Sea to the other.” She sighed and headed into the island. “If you want to live, you’ll come with me. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if you end up with spears pointed at your chest and a bunch of smelly cannibals licking their chops at your arms and legs.”
“Cannibals?” Iron wheeled toward the beach. The rain calmed just enough and parted its curtain on shadowy figures creeping toward the shattered skiff.
“Yes, young man, but don’t you worry. You’re free enough if you come with me. If you ever want to see your friends again, then you’ll follow.”
Iron slipped Fang into its scabbard. He cursed and ran after his mysterious rescuer as the jungle closed around them.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nephele Catrona
Iron followed the woman’s murky silhouette through the thick maze of fronds, vines and hissing things lurking in the dripping black. Thick tangles of branches clamoring for the sky wove a roof over the spongy earth, and between it and the dying storm, Iron actually began to dry. He ducked beneath a branch and quickened his pace. His guide had few words for him, and the way she kept scanning the shadows betrayed her fear of the island.
“Where’re we going?” he asked.
“Shh.”
What an odd creature, this woman. To think of it, every woman he’d met had been an enigma to him. From choleric Thyra to frustrating Ayska, quiet Kalila, and stoic Fiolle, how to interact with the other sex eluded him no matter how logically he approached the situation.
Sander spoke of women often, but in his stories they gushed praises and slathered adoration on his master like he’d been one of the Six come to Urum. Iron doubted those stories now, but in a way, he was glad to do so. Real women held so much more in their thoughts and words than the mindless giggling girls of Sander’s fantasies.
He followed the woman between tight-knit palms with exposed roots clawing over a sharp granite wall. He slipped as he grabbed a slick trunk, and his foot caught on the rock. “
Dammit!” he hissed, sucking in a breath at the flash of pain.
“Do you not comprehend the meaning of shh? You’re going to have to learn to follow orders a little better.” She didn’t wait or extend a hand to help him, but melted into the shadows like a wraith.
Iron scrambled up the short climb and through the trees. He stumbled onto a beach peppered with graying rocks speckled with lime moss. The stones ran into a deep lagoon rippling as intermittent raindrops plopped onto its slate surface. On its far end, the mountain spit a wide waterfall that crashed into the lake with a never-ending sigh.
“I assume you can swim,” she said, diving into the pool. The arc of her arms came and went as she cut a path through the water toward the falls.
Iron trudged into the water, and it gurgled into his boots. He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders. His heart sank at the prospect of another swim, and he lingered knee deep in the pool’s embrace.
His shadowy savior paused in the middle of the pool, sending rippling circles across its surface. Long hair pooling around her hooded her face, but even in shadows her eyes glimmered. “Bless the Six, don’t tell me you can’t swim.”
“No, I
can. It’s just—”
“You want me to carry you? Hah! Get in this water now or you’re going to get us killed. You think they don’t have eyes all over this island? You think they aren’t scouring the wild for any other survivors? Come or don’t, but I’ll be sorely disappointed if I went so far out of my way to save you only for you to give up on the edge of safety.”
She slipped beneath the waves and left Iron to his thoughts. With a last roll of his shoulders, he dove after her.
By the time he reached the falls, his arms burned and his head swam. While the waterfall spanned the length of the lagoon, it was barely more than a veil over the cliff. He kicked, the last of his energy fading, and passed through the watery curtain.
His mysterious guide waited on the other side, perched on a rock ledge just above the waterline. She stood when she saw him and headed for a cave carved into the granite. “Glad to see you made it. Now, get yourself out of that pond. I’m sure you’re starving, no? I’ve gathered some nuts and berries and this delightfully delicious thing that grows beneath the palms. It took simply an eternity to crack one open, but once I did, I was just hooked. Just hooked!”
Iron struggled onto the ledge. Water had worn the jagged rock smooth, a fact Iron’s hands and knees greatly appreciated. He flattened on the overhang and pressed his brow against the cool stone.
Cannibals had Sander, Ayska, and Kalila. How was it that every time danger crashed into his life, it always drowned the ones he cared for while sparing him? Ghosts of fallen gods must be spiteful spirits indeed.
“Are you dying?” the woman asked in a slightly inconvenienced tone, like she’d lost a cheap earring.
“I should be. My friends died because of me. Now the ones who survived might be eaten by cannibals.” He wanted to cry. His parched body denied him tears.
“Awww.” Her sopping clothes plopped beside him as she took a seat. “Isn’t your sad little life just so awful. Goodness, it’s almost like no one else has ever suffered hardships like yours. If you’re looking for a pity partner and shoulder to cry on, please make every possible haste and go drown yourself in the pool. Better yet, go do it in the sea. I don’t want any corpses bobbing around my hiding spot.”