Veritas

by St Clare, Kelly

  Just the bow of her mother was visible now. It was as if a real person drowned before her very eyes.

  Ebba’s chin trembled as she remembered Felicity, the rock of her, the rich worn smell, sitting out on the bowsprit as the sea spray washed over her. She remembered years of happy times, of climbing the rigging, of listening to Plank’s stories, of singing bawdy shanties to pass the time. Of hiding below her hammock when she was sad or afraid or upset.

  Of the first time she navigated the ship.

  Swinging upside-down from the rigging to scare her fathers.

  Believing she was climbing the rigging into the very stars.

  Ebba watched as her home, her memories, and all the warm familiarity that came with it was forced vertical in the black waters of the Dynami. Their home began the final descent, and she looked at the bulwark for the last time, the bilge door, the bow.

  Her beloved rigging.

  She choked on a sob as Felicity went down, down. As the very tip of the bowsprit disappeared.

  Down.

  And when only bubbles remained, Ebba hung her head.

  She hung her head and let the tears fall.

  Eleven

  How quickly the tide turned.

  For hours, they’d taken turns rowing, unspeaking in the shocking wake of their loss. Eventually, they stopped. Their aimlessness felt right, a reflection of their grief, perhaps.

  The kraken swam next to the rowboat. After trying to engage each of them in conversation to no avail, the creature had taken the hint and settled into silence.

  . . . If she’d known upon waking that Felicity would be gone by the day’s end, would she have acted differently? Would she have taken more of her possessions?

  That was useless thinking now.

  Felicity was gone.

  The sun’s rays had disappeared long ago. Ebba doubted anyone had slept. She hadn’t slept a wink.

  Now, as the weak sunlight transformed black to charcoal gray again, Ebba inhaled, twisting to scan the rowboat’s occupants.

  Plank sat in the middle of the boat on the floor, dark circles under his eyes, hardly blinking. Since his crazed words about going down with the ship, he hadn’t made a sound. For the first time in her life, Ebba was afraid of one of her fathers. Or for him—of what he might do. That man back on Felicity. The one willing to drown. She hadn’t known him. Plank had slipped out of her reach in that moment, and Ebba was yet to regain a grip on him. Whatever sat behind his panic and despair was unfathomable—and currently too much to contemplate with her own grief.

  Barrels regained consciousness sometime in the night for a few moments but quickly slipped back into slumber. He had a multitude of cuts on his face and clearly hadn’t fared well in the hold when the kraken first attacked. Caspian was right. Something must have struck Barrels unconscious. Or he would have burst up onto the deck shortly after the initial attack.

  She skimmed her eyes over Stubby, Jagger, and Locks. Caspian lifted his head when she turned his way, but Ebba quickly glanced away, not ready to see whatever might rest in his amber eyes.

  There was a new distance between them. Perhaps just in her mind, but right now, Ebba didn’t want to talk to someone who didn’t understand. And Caspian didn’t, couldn’t truly know how losing Felicity felt. Even when he’d lost his home to the six pillars, he’d worried more about his people. She understood that, having been just as worried for her fathers. But he’d never had a home he depended on for survival. He’d never worked in tandem with a ship to navigate the seas. Ebba didn’t want to look in his eyes or hear his sympathy.

  She wanted empathy. True understanding.

  Grubby lay at the center of the rowboat, under the benches so he could be flat and in relative comfort—as much as could be had while laying atop coils of rope and tools. She pivoted on her bench seat at the front of the rowboat. Grubby’s feet were at her end, and she peered between two of her fathers to the opposite end, trying to see his head. Her part-selkie father hadn’t awoken yet.

  “Is he breathin’?” she whispered to Stubby, seeing his eyes were open.

  Stubby bent down. “His pupils be the same size now. What does that mean?” His voice was hoarse from disuse. Or from hours of crying, like her.

  “Not a clue,” she answered.

  He sighed heavily and straightened. “Could ye pass me some grog?”

  Ebba nodded and swiveled back to the bow. Grabbing one of the four ropes there, she heaved. Moving hand over hand, she pulled in the string of barrels bobbing out over the line. Her fathers had managed to haul ten barrels up from the hold to bring with them. Three contained food, one contained their prized possessions, and the rest were filled with grog.

  The first barrel on the line was grog. She worked at the cork, holding the barrel still with her arm. She swiped up a goblet from the bottom of the rowboat and carefully rolled the barrel, holding the goblet flush so the nutmeg mixture could trickle in.

  She passed the goblet back to Stubby.

  “Want one?” she asked Plank.

  He didn’t reply.

  “I will,” Jagger croaked from the bench next to hers.

  She filled another goblet for him and then Peg-leg and Locks before grabbing one for herself. She corked the barrel again and let it drift back out to join the others.

  “Where are we?” Caspian asked as everyone began to shift in acknowledgment of morning.

  Everyone glanced to the sky, but the Dynami always had been dark and cloudy, and it was no different just because they now needed the stars to navigate.

  “What’s that you’re drinking?” the kraken called from where it swam lazily twenty paces to their right.

  Ebba held up her goblet, finally feeling sorry enough for him to answer. “Grog.”

  The kraken drifted closer. The glow from the creature’s red eyes had faded entirely, and Ebba watched as he observed their exhausted and dispirited group.

  “You’re all so sad,” the creature said, his tentacles drooping. “I really made a mess of things.”

  Allowing her sadness to become anger would be easy, but Ebba wouldn’t resent the kraken. She’d regret what they could’ve done differently. She’d play the ‘maybe’ game. But they’d cornered a live being. If cornered, Ebba would fight too. The kraken wasn’t to blame. None of them were. Was that why she felt so unsettled inside? She wanted to rant and rave but had no real outlet for her anger.

  “It weren’t yer fault,” she said. Reaching out a hand, she patted a tentacle drifting by.

  The creature sniffed, blinking rapidly. “You’re just being nice,” he said, harsh clicks punctuating the words. “You probably don’t want me around anymore.”

  The ocean didn’t belong to their crew, and she’d never felt any right to tell the beings within it, fish or otherwise, that they couldn’t live in certain parts. “Nay, that ain’t the case at all, matey,” she replied. “Ye’re welcome to keep us company. Just don’t destroy this rowboat. It be the last vessel we have.”

  “I want to stay. But do you want me here?” he asked.

  Ebba glanced at her fathers.

  Locks replied after peering at Plank. “We don’t begrudge ye for the ship. Ebba-Viva be right. There ain’t no one to blame for what happened. Just a . . . misunderstandin’.”

  The rest of her fathers, barring Plank, mumbled their assent—Stubby’s more of a choke.

  “Thank you,” the immortal said, his eyes shimmering. “I never knew people on ships could be nice. I might’ve stopped to get to know a few before devouring them.”

  “Uh, ye’re welcome,” she said weakly.

  “I’m so glad I met you, Ebba-Viva Fairisles.”

  “Me too,” she grunted.

  The kraken held the tip of a tentacle to his chest. “In fact, I’m so very glad I’m going to tow you all to the nearest island.”

  They stared at the creature.

  Stubby blew out a breath. “That’d be right good o’ ye. We have no idea where anythin’
be in these seas and only so much grog and food.” His eyes narrowed. “But what would ye be wishin’ in return?”

  “Nothin’, nothin’,” the immortal assured them with flapping tentacles.

  The crew relaxed.

  “. . . But now that you mention it, there are a couple of things.”

  Ebba withheld her groan. Great. The offer was too good to be true.

  The kraken held up two tentacles either side of his head, sucker side up. “The truth is: I eat ships. And a lot of other things. But my temper has been worse recently. I have some debris stuck in my teeth, and I’ve tried everything to get it out.”

  Caspian said, “You want us to get it out? How did it get in there?”

  “I was swimming along, thinking about devouring ships—I get carried away sometimes when that happens. Makes me really mad. I was distracted and mistook a bit of debris for a fish. So, here’s my deal with your crew: take the debris out of my mouth, and I’ll take you wherever you want.”

  She exchanged a long glance with the others.

  “And you have to give me a name, just whatever you think suits me,” he gushed.

  That was easy enough. It was the first part of the deal that seemed dangerous.

  “Oh, and you all have to be my friends.”

  They didn’t really have a choice. After checking in with the others, Ebba turned to the kraken. “Ye have yerself a deal.”

  “Let’s get to it then,” Jagger said.

  Everyone turned to watch him, including the kraken.

  Their ship had just sunk. There wasn’t anything wrong with getting down to business, per se, but it just came across as so . . . so cold.

  “We don’t need to do that just yet, I think,” Caspian said to the pirate in undertones.

  Jagger shrugged. “No time like the present. Not like we’re doin’ anythin’ else.”

  Ebba sucked in a breath.

  “Have some decency,” the prince scolded him. “They just lost their home.”

  And here she’d convinced herself that a mainlander couldn’t understand. Ebba met the prince’s gaze, and they stared at each other, his amber eyes filled with sorrow and regret—hers no doubt bloodshot and red-rimmed.

  “Aye, they did. And they’ll find another.”

  Her fathers stirred, and Ebba clenched her teeth alongside their low rumblings of disapproval.

  “Do ye hear yerself?” Peg-leg asked him. “There be strength, lad, and then there be plain cruelty.”

  Her father had twisted on the third bench so only a few handspans separated his face from Jagger’s.

  Jagger didn’t shift back from the cook’s harsh expression.

  “I be hearin’ myself just fine. But ye listen, all o’ ye. Do ye know how many people don’t have a home at all? Do ye know how many spend their life searchin’ for one, never content with what they find? Do ye know how easily a person may be ripped from everythin’ they know? What yer feelin’, that deep achin’ loss, that can be a madness, too. That urge to remake what ye once had, to never be happy without it. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve felt it more times than I can count. And so aye, be sad. Felicity was yer home for a long time. But don’t let it become madness because walls don’t be makin’ a home; the people inside the walls be the essence. If ye lose sight of why we’re here, then ye’ll risk yer home in truth because ye’re playin’ with the lives of yer loved ones.”

  Ebba couldn’t tear her eyes off Jagger in the wake of his speech. Oddly, despite the harshness of his demeanor and initial comments, his words righted something within her.

  A quick glance around told her the others were as affected as she was. Plank’s face was wet again.

  Jagger’s lips were pressed together so hard they were drained white in some places. His shoulders moved with his impassioned breaths.

  She leaned forward and touched his knee. He’d opened his mouth to continue, but whatever he’d been ready to say halted on his lips at her touch.

  “Ye’re right,” Ebba said softly.

  The pirate closed his mouth and jerked his head in a shallow nod.

  Barrels groaned, and Locks leaned over to pull the older man’s hands from the cuts on his head.

  “None o’ that, matey,” he scolded.

  “I feel like shite,” Barrels moaned.

  If he was speaking pirate, he really felt bad.

  Locks helped him sit and, in short succession, helped her father chunder over the side. Ebba didn’t envy the nausea or the headache he likely had from whatever had struck him.

  Her eldest father leaned away from the water after, wincing, his eyes crinkled in pain. He reached into the top pocket of his vest and drew out a handkerchief.

  The simplicity of the action tickled her fancy and Ebba cracked a smile. “Only ye would bring a handkerchief along with the ship sinkin’ behind ye.”

  She chuckled, Peg-leg and Stubby adding a few quiet chortles as well.

  Barrels didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. “It was on me, my dear. I got hurt retrieving your scrapbook when I realized the ship was sinking.”

  Ebba was glad to have it. But her crew’s safety was the most important thing. “Thank ye,” she said. “But I don’t like that ye got hurt gettin’ it.”

  “It was a tad foolish,” he replied. The boat rocked gently as Barrels tied his peppered hair in a fresh ponytail and tucked his handkerchief away.

  “Sit tight, now,” Locks told him. “Let’s look at yer cuts.”

  Barrels sat still as Locks prodded at his head. “What did I miss? I only remember snatches. Did we run into an outcrop or something?”

  The kraken groaned, and Barrels peered over his shoulder. The color remaining in his face drained in an instant. Barrels swayed where he sat, and Locks wrapped an arm about his shoulders to stop him toppling backward out of the rowboat.

  . . . Her eldest father was yet to glimpse the kraken. Oops.

  “Don’t panic. This be. . . . Well, we need to name him yet, but this be the immortal who sank our ship.” She trailed off into a mumble.

  “Oh.” Barrels puffed the word, swaying again.

  The kraken lifted a tentacle out of the water and waved.

  She released her pent-up exhale, wondering if her father would collapse in a dead faint. But despite his pallor and clear horror, Barrels wheezed, “A pleasure.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” the creature replied.

  Ebba glanced at him. “How is it ye speak our tongue? Some immortals we meet don’t.”

  “Depends how much magic you have, but I taught myself,” he said, lifting up in the water. “It gets boring out here. Not many people visit, and those that do, I eat. But you can only listen to the smaller creatures under the surface for so long before craving some change. The rest of my kind were pretty stodgy and refused to speak in the mortal tongue, so I used to sneak up and listen to mortals. Took a while to perfect,” the creature clicked, and Ebba focused to separate the words. “But,” the kraken continued, snapping away, “I barely have an accent anymore.”

  Stubby cleared his throat. “Ye know the Dynami Sea fair well then, matey?”

  Jagger perked up and Ebba glanced at him.

  The kraken inspected his tentacle, brushing it on his vast octopus head. “I may know a few places.”

  “Where are we?” Jagger pressed.

  “In the water.”

  “Aye, but where in the water?”

  The kraken’s tentacles drooped. “I mainly specialize in what’s under the surface.”

  There was a collective sigh from the boat. He’d kept that quiet during their negotiations. But maybe he could still dive down and get his bearings.

  Jagger stood, knees bent as the boat rocked. She watched the muscles in his legs move to keep him stable. He wasn’t overly muscular, erring more on the side of sleek grace than brute strength, but no one could think Jagger’s body was anything other than powerful.

  Ebba blinked, realizing what she was doing.

&nbs
p; “Right,” the flaxen-haired pirate said, silver eyes gleaming. “The sooner we get to land, the better. So open yer mouth, and give us a look at this debris.”

  “My mouth?” the kraken said. “Like, just one?”

  Ebba’s mouth dried.

  Caspian asked, “. . . How many mouths do you have?”

  The creature’s beak opened slightly. She glimpsed his massive blue tongue feeling around as he checked. “Hmm, four? Five? I’m all teeth inside aside from my tongue, so it’s hard to put a definitive number on it. All just feels pointy to me.”

  Peg-leg laughed. Without a speck of humor.

  She’d cursed the deal by thinking of how easy it would be.

  She shot a look at Plank, waiting for him to interrogate the kraken further. Her daydreaming father didn’t utter a word; he wasn’t even looking at the kraken. He sat facing in the opposite direction, staring at the vast black sea.

  Jagger paused and then shrugged. “Well, open all o’ them, I suppose.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  The kraken reached out and stilled their sideways drift with a tentacle at either end of the rowboat.

  “Gentle with her,” Locks said. “This be our last ride. I know ye’re only haltin’ us, but break this one, and we’re goners.”

  The kraken drooped. “I promise to be careful.”

  They didn’t have much of a choice but to accept that as the immense magical being lowered his head until his beak was directly before Barrels and Stubby. The kraken opened his beak, and Ebba craned to see. She stared in mounting disbelief as, like the petals of a Venus fly trap, the first mouth unlocked. Through it, the second mouth unlocked in the same manner, and then the third, fourth . . . fifth . . . sixth.

  Six mouths! Her jaw dropped.

  Between the first and second mouths was enough space for a small person to stand, but the space between the mouths grew smaller and smaller as they disappeared into the kraken’s beak. The inside of the creature’s cheeks—at least that’s what Ebba assumed the inner walls of his mouth were called—were embedded with the dagger-like teeth, too. In fact, only the kraken’s flat blue tongue interrupted the pointy daggers he used to chew who knew what.

  The kraken’s oral cavity was like a dark, wet cave embedded with daggers, with six trapdoors made of swords that could scissor shut at any time. His tongue was the only pathway to the back.