by LJ Andrews
The Djinn Kingdom
Pirate’s Vengeance
By: LJ Andrews
Other Books by LJ Andrews
The Djinn Kingdom
Pirate’s Atlas
Island of Bones
The Lost Relics
Rise of a Guardian (book one)
Trinity Rises (book two)
Rise of the Black Dawn (book three)
Fire and Ice (A Lost Relics Story)
The Gateway (The Lost Relics Prequel)
Box Sets
The Lost Relics Trilogy
Rise of a Guardian/ Gateway
Trinity Rises/Fire and Ice
Short Story Box Set
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Ship
Chapter 2: Taken
Chapter 3: Runaway
Chapter 4: Finding Phoenix
Chapter 5: Stowaway
Chapter 6: The Prison Ship
Chapter 7: Black Sails
Chapter 8: Captain Smythe
Chapter 9: A Worthy Mate
Chapter 10: A Pirate’s Life
Chapter 11: The Mutiny
Chapter 12: The Djinn Temple
Chapter 13:The Navy’s Treasury
Chapter 14: A Familiar Prisoner
Chapter 15: A Dead Man
Chapter 16: The Dagger
Chapter 17: Pierata Island
Chapter 18: Sky of Monsters
Chapter 19: Koning
Chapter 20: The Queen’s Escape
Chapter 21: The Task
Chapter 22: A New Ally
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedicated to my kids, you are my greatest adventure
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Copyright © 2017 LJ Andrews
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion cannot be used without express or written permission by the publisher/author except for brief quotations in a book review
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real life events or individuals is purely coincidence.
Prologue
Pygmy darts whistled past his ear, one nicking his cheek and drawing blood. The pearl white temple glittered in the setting sun as Captain Phoenix darted through thick darkness blanketing the cursed jungle. Swinging his ruby-hilted sword, he batted the small darts back toward the miniature temple guardians.
The stolen treasure weighed heavy in his breast pocket, but the rush of the plunder filled his feet with agility and speed as he ran toward his ship. Leaping over the final ancient stone wall, Phoenix found himself on the coast with the Scarlet Moon just beyond the clouds. But all along the white beach were the dark knights of the temple pointing burning arrows at his heart, ready to set him aflame. Without hesitation Captain Phoenix lifted his sword, signaling from the beach for the Scarlet Moon to set aim. And with a blast heard through the skies, his forty guns swallowed the beach in a storm of fire…
“Then what happened, Uncle Briggs?” Nova whispered as she listened to the exciting tale. She hugged her thin legs against her chest and licked an apple-mango sweet stick. Her curly pig-tails bounced over the peach dress her mother had forced her to wear. Briggs tugged on one of the corn-silk curls and chuckled, plopping into a creaky wooden chair next to her.
“Well, just as the cap’n was about to meet his maker, his loyal first mate sailed the Scarlet Moon—while she was still shootin’, mind you—and the cap’n jumped, see. He jumped clean over them magic guardians and caught hold of the rigging hanging from off the hull; then they sailed away into the clouds, sacred temple treasure and all. And Cap’n Phoenix went on to become the sneakiest pirate ye ever seen, always takin’ what he wanted without killin’ a soul. See, the guns are aimed perfectly, never hittin’ a being, just puttin’ some fire in their feet. Makin’ ‘em jump around like patsies waltzin’ a ballroom,” Briggs said, spinning around as if dancing.
Nova sighed when he’d finished and stared dreamily out his dirty window. She saw the distant islands floating peacefully amongst the pillow-like clouds. “Captain Phoenix,” she whispered. “Now that was a man who knew how to have an adventure. Is it true, Uncle Briggs? Did you really see Captain Phoenix when you were a sailor?”
Briggs shuffled his feet across the grimy floor and added more leaves to his pipe. Taking in a heavy breath, he blew out a thick cloud of smoke and joined her by the window. “I did, lass. I seen him in the flesh, flying that magnificent ship, gatherin’ any treasure he wanted. No one could stop him.”
“Uncle Briggs, tell me the stories again.” She ignored his comment and pouted her lips.
“Now, ye know I’m not yer uncle, kid,” he said, with a twinkle in his cloudy eyes as he rubbed his thick gray mustache.
“Father said I could call you that.” Nova crossed her legs and folded her arms over her chest, never dropping her eye from him.
Briggs took in a big puff of his pipe and coughed when she narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her small hips. “Yer somethin’, girl, and stubborn to boot. Why ye so interested in the Phoenix stories? Yer pap don’t like me fillin’ yer head with such tales. And what ye wearin’ that dress fur?” he asked. “People are gonna think ye some kinda girl.”
Nova sighed again, ignoring his blabber. “I’d love to meet Captain Phoenix. I can’t believe he really did all that you say.”
“Well if ye don’t believe me, then I’m done tellin’ such tales,” Briggs glanced at her playfully. “But yes, lass, nothin’ could stop that cap’n and his crew.”
“Except the temple treasure, right, Briggs?” a deep voice came from the front doorway.
Nova spun around and smiled at her father. He winked, but kept his lips turned down in a disappointed smile. Her father’s shoulders spanned the entire width of the doorway and he had to turn slightly to enter the house. “Come on, man. Is it necessary to fill my nine-year-old daughter’s head with such wild stories?”
“Oh, Papa, I love hearing about them. And I believe they’re true. Uncle Briggs wrote them down, so they can’t be made up.”
Her father laughed and pulled her against his hip with one of his muscular arms. “I assure you little miss, Captain Phoenix is a legend. You really believe, with that logical brain of yours, that there was an invincible captain who scuttled his magical ship to keep his mutinous crew from taking it?”
Nova nodded furiously, making her pigtails whip her face over and over.
“Now it’s not my fault, Varick, what the young lassy hears when ye drop ‘er off. Besides I only get to see ‘er a little longer before ye take her away to Mollem,” Briggs said. His shoulders slumped and a bit of twinkle left his eye.
Varick smiled and shook Briggs’s hand. “We’ll be back to visit, Briggsy. But I have to go where the jobs are. Tough times, you know that.”
Briggs nodded, and then looked down at Nova’s bright eyes. “Now ye listen, lass, take good care of yer mother, and never stop fightin’ swords with yer pap, hear?”
Nova wrapped her small arms around Briggs’s thick waist and fought back the tears in her eyes. Slowly, she turned out the doorway, followed closely by her father.
“Oh, and Varick,” Briggs shouted from his broken doorway. “Tell Kamali to keep that girl out of them dresses.”
Chapter One
The Ship
Mollem Island- seven years later
Warm water splashed across Nova’s cheeks and the slow rush of gravity pulling her downward filled her with a sense of exhilaration. As she plummeted, she saw the edge of her island bobbing amongst the peachy c
louds. The floating island was surrounded with waterfalls spilling over its coasts into the vast sky, and as she flowed over the edge with the rest of the water, she imagined she actually had wings.
As she fell through the open sky, the neighboring rocky land of Felsig came into view behind the hazy clouds. The underbelly of Felsig Island reminded her of a beet pulled from the soil, with muddy roots dangling freely in the sky.
The setting sun glimmered through the waterfalls and cast a glare across the shimmering, silver manu carving long scars beneath Mollem and Felsig. The buoyant mineral shone brightest at sunset, creating a mystical glow across the skies and forming a rainbow of beautiful silver which connected the islands of Launi.
Through the waves of clouds, ships floated amongst the world with bright manu nailed to their keels keeping them afloat; some were big, some only small skiffs. Nova smiled at her world, closed her eyes, and breathed in the humid, comforting air.
As she fell faster, her blonde curls billowed furiously behind her like a golden cape in the wind, and the water droplets from the surrounding waterfalls whipped her smooth face. The faint darkness of the stormy cloud line at the horizon came into view. The barrier separating Launi Kingdom from the unknown darkness of the Below sent a thrilling shiver down her spine.
“Nova, swing around quick!” Dria laughed above.
Smiling, Nova braced her shoulders, getting ready to end the free fall through the sky. The ropes dangled off the sides of Mollem Island, placed there strategically by brave climbers. If she missed the mark, the dark clouds of the Below would swallow her up and she’d be lost forever, but the risk was part of the excitement.
She reached out through the current of the falling water until she grabbed the thick, scratchy rope. The rope gave a little against her weight before ripping her backward and swinging her up over the edge of the island like a bungee.
Nova landed in the fresh pool of sapphire water and let her body float weightlessly as she reveled in the adrenaline filtering through her veins.
“That was amazing,” Dria said once she surfaced. Dria’s long brown hair was suctioned with water against her heart-shaped face, but she didn’t seem to mind. Dria’s green eyes sparkled as she bobbed up and down in the warm pool. “I’ve never seen you go so fast. It was almost as if you were flying. She’s beaten your record I’d wager, Jovany.”
Jovany brushed his black hair from his dark eyes and shrugged. Jovany was lanky and the pool of water only reached his mid-chest, while it splashed around Nova’s neck.
“I wouldn’t go that far, Dria, but I did think you were going to fall right into the Below for a bit. Didn’t you get the announcement of no more island jumping ever since that kid from Rand Island missed the mark? Poor sap just fell right through the barrier into the Below,” he said, spraying a stream of water at Nova. “I’m curious, though—how did you soar so…flawlessly? It was like you weren’t even falling.”
“As I said, like she was flying,” Dria insisted.
Nova wrung the cold water from her hair and batted the droplets off her thick eyelashes. “Oh, the way you two go on, you’d think we’ve never island jumped before. I feel for the kid on Rand, but who’s to say he died? Maybe there’s some invisible net under the barrier we can’t see.”
Dria and Jovany laughed. “Right. That’s why no one has ever returned after falling into the Below,” Dria scoffed, peering into the distance of the gray line of clouds cutting along the bright, happy sky.
“Yes, just take our praise, Nova. Your smooth jump today was probably just a fluke, I doubt you’ll beat me next time.” Jovany narrowed his eyes as if to show his seriousness, though the corners of his mouth quickly pulled up into a smile no matter how hard he resisted.
“If we can get away to have a next time. When your father finds out you came out here again, he’s going to lose his head,” Dria said nonchalantly.
Nova rolled her eyes. “He will not. He might behave as if he doesn’t want me doing such things, but the man instilled adventure in me since I could walk. I think his reprimands are more for show than in earnest.”
Dria raised an eyebrow and a playful twinkle passed across her green eyes. “If believing that helps you justify disobeying, then good for you.”
Nova laughed and dunked Dria’s head under the pool.
“Hey, look, you two,” Jovany said quietly as if his mind had drifted away. “Have you ever seen such a ship before?”
Nova peered curiously through the cloud cover to where Jovany pointed his bony finger. Just off their island, maybe two miles away, a dark ship bobbed between two swirling clouds. The wood was a dreary gray with a chipped figurehead of a woman with chains from her wrists to her neck on the bow. The ship’s sails were ashen gray and stood out against the bright sky.
Jovany and Dria talked hurriedly to one another about the vastness of the vessel, the enormity of its hull, and expansive sails. But Nova’s eyes drifted upward toward the large crow’s nest. A black flag fluttered in the wind as the ship bounced eerily between Mollem and Felsig Islands.
Her heart beat against her chest like a taut drum. She didn’t see the definitive marking of the skull, but the flag was black, the ship brought a strange anxiety to her soul, and the way it sailed the sky seemed different. Her father had taught her about such things, such dangers in their skies. She knew what kind of ship it was, and its crew. Pirates.
“I…uh…I think we should be getting back,” she said, backing to the edge of the pool nervously.
Jovany and Dria stopped their chattering and looked at her curiously.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Dria narrowed her eyes and raised an eyebrow as she followed Nova to the side.
“Nothing.” Nova laughed nervously, trying to distract them from her flushed cheeks and frightened expression. “I should get back home before my father is done with his shift is all.”
Jovany glanced at the hazy sun above them that cast the bright orange throughout their sky. “It’s barely late afternoon, Nova. The shipyards don’t close until evening.”
“I know, but he mentioned he may be home early tonight, seeing how it’s my birthday tomorrow. He wanted to help Mother…prepare…things,” she lied.
Dria and Jovany looked at each other with skepticism, but to Nova’s relief chose not to question her further.
Nova pulled herself from the clear pool and wrung out her long blue tunic before strapping her leather belt around her waist again. The brown pants that garnered many disapproving looks from the respectable ladies in town clung to her thin legs.
Dria frowned as she slipped her periwinkle dress over her underclothes. “I wish my mother would see things as yours does. I see no problem with a woman wearing trousers.”
Nova laughed and adjusted the small steel sword on her hip. Her father had given her the harmless weapon for her twelfth birthday, although her mother disapproved. Nova wore it everywhere she went, though compared to the real swords of the naval officers, it was nothing but a toy.
“Dria, if my mother had her way, I would go around wearing corsets and gowns, staying silent beneath a parasol until a young, handsome man came and asked for my hand. A nice, quiet life, as she says.” Nova batted her long eyelashes and rested her chin in her hands as she looked away dreamily. She laughed when Dria nudged her out of her mocking position, but Dria didn’t seem appeased.
She stuck out her lip and pouted as she scrunched her hair into long brown curls. “Still, you’re allowed to wear them.”
“Come off it, Dria,” Jovany interjected. “Nova isn’t a regular girl. She’s more…well…like a…never mind,” he said, clearing his throat.
Nova didn’t hear Jovany bumbling over his words. Her attention had returned to the eerie ship beyond the peaceful cloud cover. The black flag was barely visible as it sailed closer to Felsig. Nova felt a wave of relief pass over her as the frightening ship left their humble island’s coast. Something quickened her heartbeat as if some part of her knew the ship m
eant danger.
Jovany leapt off the tall curb back in town and waved goodbye as he ran to his father’s blacksmith shop.
“I don’t think he’ll ever notice me as a woman. I’ll always just be a friend,” Dria confided after he was well inside the shop.
“Have you ever thought of telling him the truth?” Nova asked.
Dria shook her head furiously, causing her wild curls to wrap around her head like a mane. “No, and you promised you wouldn’t say anything.”
Nova threw her hands in the air in mock offense. “I have kept that promise, have I not?”
“Yes, well, be sure to keep it. I don’t want anything to ever come between our friendship,” she admitted. “Nothing is worth losing that.”
“Well, you may just be surprised if you actually told him,” Nova said rolling her eyes.
The bright sky was dimming and Nova saw the crown of the enormous light blue moon lifting from the dark Below, pushing the white sun out of its hemisphere.
“What brings you lovely ladies to the center of town this late in the evening?” a deep voice asked behind them.
Nova smiled, meeting her father’s bright blue eyes. He stood tall, and his handsome face was smudged from a hard day’s work. The sweat and grime concealed the long scar along his cheek. Every time she asked how he’d gotten it, he would ramble on with terrific tales of swashbuckling battles with sky pirates and forbidden temple guardians; the tales changed every time she asked. Now he had stubble covering his chin from several days without shaving, and his thick brown hair was falling out of the thin leather strap tying most of it in a ponytail behind his neck.
“Hello, Mr. Willock, wonderful to see you so early,” Dria said, curtsying slightly.
“Dria, I’ve told you before you’re allowed to call me Varick. And yes my slave-driver foremen let me off early today. Have you two been behaving?”
Dria smiled. “Yes, sir. I’ll see you tomorrow, Nova,” she said, waving and turning down the lane leading to her parents’ large manor.