Seafire

by Natalie C. Parker

  “Do they work?” Caledonia asked, prompting the boy to flex his stiff fingers and prove they still functioned. “Good. You’re going to need them.”

  Redtooth grinned, and his face fell.

  “Throw him over.”

  The boy struggled violently for the first time. He aimed a kick at Redtooth’s knee, neatly knocking her to the ground. The only crew left topside were the few on watch. They knew better than to abandon their duties, but when Redtooth went down all five of them turned.

  Caledonia had her pistol out, ready to shoot him and be done with it. She pulled the trigger just as her hand was forced up at an angle. The shot barely missed the boy, and her gun was snatched from her grip.

  The face that appeared before her was Pisces’s, lips tight and eyes wide. She threw the gun down, once again putting her body between Caledonia and the boy.

  Caledonia didn’t give her time to settle. She stepped in and knocked her to the ground with a punch to her gut. Pisces was strong, she was tall, and she was fierce, but when it came to combat, Caledonia bested her every time because Pisces couldn’t bear to hurt the ones she loved.

  No matter how many years they spent sparring together, Caledonia could never quite explain to Pisces what it felt like to let your heart turn to stone and fight as if your life depended on it even when it didn’t.

  Pisces knelt now, one hand clutching the new pain in her belly. It had been a kind hit—nothing was broken—but kind could still hurt.

  “I’ll go with him,” Pisces warned. “I owe him a debt.”

  “You owe him nothing.” Caledonia fought to keep the anger from her voice. “The only people you owe anything to are your crew. Your family.” Her eyes flicked up to the boy, standing behind Pisces. “He is the reason our blood died. He’s the reason Lace died. All you owe him is a bullet.”

  “He saved my life. That has to mean something.” She looked at the boy, once again kneeling on the deck beneath Redtooth’s watchful eye. “We spent years wishing someone had stood up for our family, for our mothers or fathers or brothers. Well, he did! The thing we’ve always hoped a Bullet would do, and I won’t let you kill him for it.”

  Drawn by the sound of gunfire, the crew was slowly emerging from belowdecks as Caledonia stood poised over Pisces. The boy was braced on his knees, his hands held out before him in a show of submission. He kept his eyes pinned to Caledonia, but he was sharp. She was sure he’d paced his distance to either railing and marked every new girl that joined the growing crowd.

  Caught between the desire to ease her gentle friend through this and the urge to toss the boy, Caledonia took a few precious seconds for herself. It was impossible to ignore the similarity of this moment and the one four years ago on the beach. Only now it was Pisces treading in the deep-water eyes of a Bullet and their new crew at risk. She wanted Pisces to come to her senses and see this for the trap it was, she wanted the challenges to stop, she wanted this crew to rally around a single point of focus as they’d done for so long. They were nearly all here now, her crew, forming a dense ring around their captain.

  “On the back of the sea, who do we trust?” she called.

  Her crew answered together, “Our sisters.”

  Caledonia raised her voice a little more. “When our ship falters, who do we trust?”

  “Our sisters.”

  She saw Amina and Hime and Tin move to the front of the gathering crowd. She shouted, “In a storm of Bullets, who do we trust?”

  The voice of the crew rose to its highest peak. “Our sisters!”

  And now Caledonia lowered her voice, speaking only to Pisces, who was still kneeling on the ground. “In the face of a known enemy, who do you owe?”

  Slowly, Pisces lifted her head. Tears lay across her brown eyes, but she had too much practice to let them fall. She looked from the boy to the ring of her crew and answered, “My sisters.”

  Caledonia pulled Pisces to her feet and pressed a quiet kiss against her mouth. “He must go.”

  Finally, Pisces nodded.

  It was all the invitation Caledonia needed. She moved around Pisces, collected her gun from the deck, and strode forward. The boy scrambled to his feet, but instead of fighting, he stopped and faced Caledonia. “I know where they are.”

  “I don’t think you understand how little I care to hear you speak.”

  He studied her intently, eyes locking on the tattoo at her temple. “Your brothers. You both have brothers. I know where they are.”

  It was the last thing she’d expected him to say, and she drove the muzzle of her pistol into the soft underside of his chin. Redtooth stepped up behind him, becoming a wall holding the boy in place. He didn’t try to escape.

  “The marks on your temples?” he asked. “I’ve seen them before.”

  Caledonia gnashed her teeth. Pisces came to stand just behind her elbow, brushing fingertips along Caledonia’s back. Even with violence between them, they were bound together by cords of trust. Caledonia nodded to the boy, trying not to reveal the depth of her own anxiety. “Go on.”

  He spoke softly, urgently. “Two boys captured years ago and brought into the family.”

  Caledonia barely stopped her hand from rising to her tattoo. Barely stopped the sudden press of tears. Pisces gasped so near that Caledonia thought the sound came from her own mouth. The fingers that had brushed her back now fisted in her shirt.

  “Lies will only make your death more painful.” Caledonia felt the words move through her lips, but her mind was cool and distant, as if muted by an icy rain. She couldn’t let herself entertain the idea that the boy told the truth. Their brothers had died along with the rest of their family. She’d seen Donnally’s gray coat at the end of a metal spit. They were dead.

  He shook his head. “I told you, I won’t lie. Two boys. One white, one brown, both perhaps twelve turns when they arrived, sixteen now.”

  In the year after the attack, Caledonia and Pisces had frequently found themselves hoping that they hadn’t been the only ones to survive. They’d imagined someone—mother, father, friend—took a tow and a blue lung and submerged for so long, traveled so far that by the time they surfaced again they were long lost. They imagined their parents knocked unconscious and set adrift on some scrap of ship, scooped up by Amina’s people, the Hands of the River, in the Braids far to the north. They imagined their brothers stowed away on the attacking ship and made a clever escape later.

  But these were middle of the night ramblings, words neither of them meant to say aloud until it was too late, ideas they soon realized were weapons carving again and again into their hearts until one night, they agreed to never speak of the dead again.

  “They may live in our hearts but not cloud our minds,” Caledonia had said, doing her best to be brave and strong.

  And tears had rolled down Pisces’s cheeks as she agreed in a voice so much smaller than her friend’s, “Our first family shall not be our last.”

  At these words from this hell of a boy, Caledonia felt her mind flood with thoughts of Donnally. His unruly black curls, his unfathomable stories, his insistence on splitting his portion of bread with her. Had he been alive all these years? Had she abandoned him twice? The thought was sharp as a dagger in her gut.

  “Lies,” she said again, but she found it difficult to force an edge into the word.

  The boy before her licked his lips, pushing his chin down against Caledonia’s pistol to meet her eyes. “The one with your mark liked to sing. At least . . . at first.”

  Donnally.

  “The one with yours is strong as the tides.” His eyes moved briefly to Pisces and back.

  “Cala.” Pisces’s voice was little more than breath and pain.

  “I—I know where they sail. I can help you find them.” This time, the boy’s voice took on an edge of distress. “I can help you find them, but . . . you have bigge
r problems.”

  “Be explicit,” she demanded.

  “Aric’s placed a bounty on you, on this ship. That barge you sank? It was a trap. They were drawing you out, had a dozen ships within a day’s sail of that mark. They’re all on their way by now.”

  The crew was a silent wall, watching and listening to every word. Wondering if he told the truth. If he did, then every ship in all the Bullet Seas would soon be hunting them.

  She had to acknowledge that he’d been terribly smart. If he’d fought harder than he had, against her or Redtooth, he’d be dead. And now here he was offering crucial information. Calculating, she decided. She must never forget that Bullets could be calculating.

  “You’re just a Bullet,” Caledonia said, letting her words drip with derision. “How can you help us?”

  Wind tugged the boy’s hair across his eyes and pressed his shirt tight to his body. He shivered. “I’ve been on the inside since I was seven,” he said without hesitation. “Your brothers are on the Northwater conscription routes, and I know where they’re most vulnerable.”

  In four years, Caledonia had never considered sparing the life of a Bullet. But she wanted this hope he offered, and that desire stayed her anger long enough that he shifted from a devious Bullet to just a boy. He breathed in and out through his nose, trying not to look like he was trembling, but Caledonia saw the slight shudder in his shoulders. Shiver, she corrected herself. He’d need Silt before long, and when he hit that threshold, he might prefer the deep to her hold.

  “They’re together?” Pisces pressed. “You know the ship?”

  The hope in Pisces’s voice was what did it. Caledonia’s heart squeezed. She held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Pisces choked as though Caledonia’s fist had once again landed in her belly. “What do you mean? Of course it matters. They’re alive and they’re our brothers. We have to go for them.”

  For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind in their ears. Caledonia let the scenario play out in her mind—the Mors Navis heading directly into the Bullet Seas, and dozens of ships folding around them like a fist. Fifty-one more deaths she could have prevented.

  No. If what he said was true and their brothers were alive, Caledonia would go after them alone if she had to.

  “Red, give me some room,” she said quietly.

  Redtooth frowned at the order, but stepped away from the boy and turned her irritation on the crew. “Back it up!” she cried, herding the group out of earshot.

  Caledonia holstered her weapon and stepped even closer to the boy, until all that might fit between them was wind. His breath was hot and unsteady, his jaw tight. Caledonia made her voice a hard-edged whisper. “I hate what you are more than anything in this world.”

  The boy flinched at that and answered, “I promise you, I hate it more.”

  Her first instinct was to dismiss the comment. She didn’t care what he did or didn’t hate, but there was a note of sincerity in his voice that she couldn’t ignore. “What do they know about this ship?”

  “Not much. A general description. They suspect you shelter in the Bone Mouth. But I guarantee they don’t know you’re girls. Or they didn’t when I left.”

  “And if they did?”

  A frown flashed across his face. “They’d send more after you than a dozen ships. Aric would never let it be said that any of his fleet might be bested by a clip of girls.”

  “Crew,” Caledonia bit back.

  The boy almost smiled. “Crew,” he repeated.

  It was true. With a few legendary exceptions, the Bullet fleet was predominantly male, all except for the Scythes, who were mostly female. Aric preferred that women spend their time adding children to his fighting forces rather than fighting in them directly.

  Caledonia studied the boy for a moment longer. She couldn’t trust a word that left his mouth, but neither could she discount what he’d said.

  “If you’re lying about our brothers to save your skin, I will make sure you spend a very long time suffering for it.”

  He nodded, locking his eyes with hers as he answered, “I believe you, Caledonia Styx.”

  Again, she fought the urge to throw him over. Looking at him was bad enough, but when he was agreeable, it was somehow worse. She stepped back, turning to face her crew. “If there’s a bounty on this ship, we need to lay low for a while.”

  “Lay low?” Pisces asked, horrified. “What about our brothers? We can save them, Cala. We can get them back!”

  “We’ve just lost one of our number, and that was taking on a single ship. Sailing directly into the Bullet Seas? Even for our brothers, it’s too great of a risk.”

  “But he knows where they are.” Pisces’s voice carried easily across the deck. Dozens of eyes looked between the girls, anxious, curious, and hearing every word.

  Caledonia didn’t want to have this discussion here in the open. She needed time to think, to consider all possible options. She couldn’t leave her ship and her crew when they were being hunted, and she couldn’t ask them to follow her into even more danger. But she also couldn’t ignore that their brothers were possibly alive.

  “It’s not so simple,” she said.

  “Seems pretty simple to me.” Redtooth locked her hands on her hips, towering above everyone. “Your brothers are alive. We go for them. We get them. We bring them home.”

  A murmur moved through the crew. There was a whistle of approval, a scatter of applause, all signs that Redtooth’s opinion had traction. For a brief second, Caledonia wanted to take advantage of it and rally her girls to sail straight into danger and save Donnally and Ares. But it was foolish. And it was selfish.

  “Home,” Caledonia repeated. “There’s nothing I’d like more than to have our brothers here, safe aboard this ship. But I can’t—I won’t ask any of you to risk your lives on something so dangerous. Especially with a bounty on our heads.” She turned her gaze to Pisces. “If we go for them, we’ll go for them alone.”

  “Apologies, Captain, but I don’t think so.” Redtooth shrugged, eyes falling on the lace now balled in her captain’s hand. “The thing about family is sometimes you don’t have to ask us to do stupid things, and sometimes you don’t get to tell us we can’t. Going after your brothers? Worth the risk, if you ask me.”

  Rhona’s voice was brisk in her ear. Loss is inevitable. Some losses will be harder than others. So remember this: Never risk more than you’re willing to lose.

  “We’d be risking all our lives for only two.” Caledonia imagined her heart a stone, heavy enough to sink through the tumultuous waves of the ocean. But then Tin stood out from the ring, her four sisters at her back. “Red’s right. We’re all here because that bastard took something from us. If we can’t fight to get any of it back, then what are we fighting for?”

  Heads nodded, not a single note of dissention among them.

  “It isn’t the mission,” Caledonia protested. “We sink barges and get out fast. There’s an entire ocean between us and the Northwater. There’s no getting out fast up there.”

  She sought Amina for support and found that though her expression was conflicted, even she didn’t look convinced. With a scowl, Amina raised her voice. “Sisters, how many of us had siblings taken by Aric Athair?” Hands rose across the deck, and Amina continued. “I saw my own brother murdered before my eyes. If he’d lived, nothing could stop me from going after him. Just as nothing should stop you, Captain. Let us use this Bullet to save them.”

  Hime stood forward next, hands moving smoothly. We are your sisters, you’ve said so many times. If we are your sisters, then they are our brothers. Let us do this. Let us save them.

  Caledonia didn’t know what to do with the tremor in her blood. She felt Pisces’s hand slip inside her own and squeeze.

  She turned again to the boy. It helped her to focus somewhere she could di
rect her fury. His shoulders twitched and he blinked hard. He needed a drug they would not supply. “You’re about to go through a hell fight as the Silt leaves your blood. Survive it, and you might survive me.”

  He didn’t smile. Caledonia thought she might have hit him if he did. But he breathed in relief. Nodding without speaking.

  “Cala?” Pisces asked, daring to sound hopeful. “Your orders?”

  “We need supplies and repair,” she said, tasting salt on her lips and disbelief on her tongue. She drew a deep breath and began wrapping the long band of lace around her left hand. The Bone Mouth was within sight, but they needed more than they would find scattered across those islands. They needed a port. “We sail for Cloudbreak.”

  The crew held still until Caledonia finished threading the lace between each of her fingers and around her wrist. She made a fist as she tied it off. It was the smallest piece of Lace she could carry, but it was the part that was always ready for a fight. There was no doubt in Caledonia’s mind that Lace would have agreed with her brave-hearted crew. And she’d have done it with a smile.

  Caledonia lifted her eyes again to her girls. They waited, hopeful and ready.

  “There’s a storm on our tail, ladies. Not a small one. But we’re fire on water.” She paused, turning to meet Pisces’s eyes. “Let’s go save our brothers.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Caledonia spent the rest of the night wrestling with the ghost of her mother.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that Rhona sat on the trunk across from her bed, back pressed against the wall, one knee folded beneath her, with a critical expression on her face that seemed to say, What do you think you’re doing, Caledonia?

  The answer felt selfish. She wanted to believe she was doing the right thing. More than that, she wanted to believe Rhona would have done the same thing. But Caledonia knew what her mother would have done. She’d have stood resolute in the face of her crew and set them on a course that increased their chances of survival. She never would have endangered the rest of the crew if there was a chance to escape. She’d say, It’s a captain’s job to hold the line and make decisions that will keep her crew safe, even when their hearts cry out for something else. And here Caledonia was doing the exact opposite.