Sordid Depths (The Cursed Seas Collection)

by Heather Marie Adkins

  Lesya pocketed the card. “You're under charging your worth again.”

  “Only for you,” Vera said with a tinkling laugh, accepting the money notes from Lesya.

  Rivka’s curiosity got the better of her. “Are you a mage, then?”

  “Yes, dear. Lesya and I are both mages.” Vera smile beatifically at Rivka. “Let me get you some clothes for the road.”

  After she disappeared down the hall, Rivka and Lesya stood in silence, avoiding one another's gaze. A gnawing pit of anxiety had opened up inside her. This mage obviously didn't want her around. Could she ask Vera for help? Probably not. The woman was old and shuffled as if her joints ached.

  Lesya was young, sturdy, built for an adventure. Rivka had to convince the mage to help her.

  Minutes later, Vera returned with a pile of clothing in her arms.

  “Thank you so much,” Rivka said to be polite. Inside, she was already itching at the thought of the clothing on her skin. She unfolded each article of clothing and marveled at them: black jeans, a soft sweater, and a jacket like Lesya's. She didn't even know where to start.

  Vera tapped her on the shoulder, eyebrow arched. “Do you need some help, dear?”

  Sheepishly, Rivka nodded. “Please.”

  Vera guided her into the jeans, and then tugged the sweater over her head. She had also brought socks and boots that were a smidge too big, though Rivka wasn't complaining. Too big meant less constriction.

  “This final piece will help keep you warm.” Vera held out a jacket with a fur lined hood.

  Rivka pushed her arms into it and wrapped it around her midsection. “This is quite warm. Thank you so much for your kindness.”

  “Now, maybe the whole village won’t stare at you.” Lesya brought the hood up around Rivka’s head. “There. That’ll keep others from seeing the scales on your face.”

  Vera passed a bag of black bricks to Lesya. Outside, the wind picked up and the cottage creaked under the force. The old mage turned to face the window, gazing at the sea. “You should get going. A cyclone is coming.”

  “Are you certain?” Lesya asked. “I estimated hours before it struck, at least.”

  “The winds are changing, and danger is coming.” Vera glanced at Rivka. The vibrant green of her eyes had turned white as a clam. “In more ways than one.”

  4

  Lesya

  “Lesya? What did that nice mage mean by the winds ‘changing’? How do winds change? And why did she look at me with such eerie eyes?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.” Lesya sighed, focusing on the steady thump of her boots on the asphalt as she hurried away from the village. “I've got a question for you. Why are you still following me?”

  “Because I need your help! I told you. My people are in trouble. The planet is warming, and the frozen crown at the top of the world is melting into our saltwater oceans, diluting our life-giving salt—”

  “I don’t need a geology lesson,” Lesya snapped, whirling on the obnoxious siren. “I’m well aware of what’s happening to our planet. Trust me. The humans don’t let me forget.” She took a steadying breath, staring at the girl. The siren seemed almost ageless and innocent, Vera’s hand-me-down clothes baggy on her lithe frame. “Look. Rivka, isn’t it? If you’re not going to leave me the hell alone, then you’re going to help.”

  “Help what?”

  Lesya stepped off the road, taking the embankment at a run. Cheese waited just at the edge of the tree line, his feathers ruffling as he squawked his disapproval. She bent over and snatched him up, tucking his body against her side. “If you see a puffin, grab it.”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle at the horror on the siren’s face.

  “But you didn’t answer my question,” Rivka called, her footsteps not quite so elegant in the messy undergrowth. “What’s happening with the winds?”

  “Vera can sense the weather changing. It’s one of her powers. I thought I had more time, but my powers don’t work as well as hers. The cyclone is coming fast.”

  “What is a cyclone?”

  Lesya ripped open a set of double doors built into the ground beside her cottage. She pointed at a puffin turning circles near Rivka's feet. “Grab Fork and put him in the cellar. We don’t have time for a lesson on end-of-the-world weather patterns.”

  “Fork?” Rivka’s nose wrinkled.

  Lesya pointed at the puffin near the siren’s feet. “That’s Fork. Be careful. He bites.”

  Lesya turned, grinning to herself as she dropped Cheese into the cellar. She tucked two fingers in her mouth and whistled, three short, sharp bursts. Her puffins appeared from all sides, flying and waddling, but not exactly hauling ass.

  “Guys! Cyclone!” Lesya barked, pointing at the cellar. “Get inside, you idiots!”

  She stooped and snatched up Egg and Wheat, tossing them into the darkness beneath the cottage. From behind her, Rivka let out a squeal.

  “Ow! How are you picking them up? They’re vicious little things, aren’t they?” Rivka stuck her wounded finger in her mouth.

  Lesya rolled her eyes. “Well, you are a fish. Maybe they think you taste good. I wouldn’t close my eyes if I were you.”

  “What?” Rivka’s eyes widened in horror.

  “I’m kidding, you lunatic. Get downstairs.” Lesya gestured to the cellar, and then walked away to gather the rest of her puffins.

  The already uneasy sky had become a chaos of shifting clouds, drawing ever closer. Lesya sniffed the air as rain began to fall.

  It was here.

  She gave another series of sharp whistles, and the remaining puffins appeared from the edge of the cliff.

  “Cutting it close, aren’t we?” Lesya said disapprovingly. She trailed the birds into the cellar and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Rivka sat rigidly in the center of the small storeroom, her gaze leaping from bird to bird as they roosted comfortably on top of the root vegetables, preening.

  “They’ve, uh, done this before?” Rivka asked.

  “Anytime there’s a cyclone.” Lesya stopped and counted birds; all forty-eight puffins accounted for. She grabbed the old rusted chain she used to lock the cellar doors and wove it through the door handles before locking it into place. “You’d think they’d be used to it by now, but they’re stubborn animals.”

  “Why do you have these things? More importantly, why are they named after food?”

  Lesya chuckled, throwing herself into an old camping chair by the back wall. “Inside joke. The villagers would eat them if they caught them.”

  “That seems… wrong.”

  Lesya shrugged. “I get my amusement where I can.”

  “So what are we hiding from?”

  “A cyclone.”

  “And that is…”

  Lesya rolled her eyes. “It’s a giant swirling vortex of sea and sky. It picks up anything in its path and throws it into the ocean.”

  “That doesn’t sound so awful.”

  “For you, maybe. You can survive underwater. We can’t.” Lesya waved at her puffins to indicate them, too.

  “We can breathe down there. But we aren’t doing much surviving, if we’re being honest.” Rivka pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, exposing her scales. She gently traced a finger over each pearlescent scale. “With the salt being depleted so much, we’re all in danger.”

  “What makes you think finding salt will help your people?”

  “Not having enough salt is what’s killing us.”

  “Or the planet is poisoned, and we’re all slowly dying because of it. Sirens included.” Lesya met the siren's eye and said firmly, “Nobody is immortal.”

  “Please. Help me.”

  “No. I like my life.” Lesya propped her legs up on a barrel of potatoes. “When the cyclone is over, you need to leave.”

  “And go where?”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Sirens are dying.” Rivka's voice broke on the last word.

  “Humans are dying
. Mages are dying. Everything is dying. It is what it is. Eventually, there won't be anything left to die, anyway.” Lesya lifted her hands to make room for Cheese on her lap. The puffin leapt onto her lap with an affectionate chirp. “I suggest you go right back to the ocean and your little siren family and make the most of whatever life you have left with them.”

  “I don't have a family.”

  “Well, that makes two of us, then.”

  To her relief, the siren didn't speak again.

  Distant thunder shook the ground beneath Lesya's boots. She could sense the waves crashing on the rocks below her peninsula, could feel the way the sky pressed down from above. And through it all, the dull roar of the cyclone moved closer.

  “What is that sound?” Rivka asked.

  Lesya turned to look at the padlocked doors. They knocked viciously in their frame. “The roar? That's the cyclone.”

  “I've never heard anything like it.”

  “Do you hear much at all a thousand leagues under the sea?”

  Rivka's smile was fleeting. “We do not live so far down, mage. But I suppose not.” She eyed the shuddering doors. “Will those hold?”

  “They've held for years,” Lesya scoffed, but she was unsure. Everything about this day, from the confrontation with Yuri, the siren killing the young man, the meeting with Vera, now the cyclone threatening to rip her house down… Nothing felt right. And though she'd avoided the subject with Rivka, she too had noticed the way Vera's eyes had paled and locked onto the siren when she warned of danger.

  All she wanted to do was get through the cyclone and then send Rivka back into the water where she belonged. She had no room for change or danger in her world.

  “Is that… getting louder?” Rivka asked.

  Lesya stood and crossed to the cellar doors. Outside, the wind and rain tore at the old planks of wood, and the roar of the cyclone grew closer.

  Okay, so she had to admit Rivka had a point. She had never heard a cyclone sound quite like this before. They weren't exactly whisper quiet, but they also didn't usually sound like the whole of the ocean was about to crash down on her cabin.

  “It's just a strong one,” Lesya assured the siren as she double checked the sturdy chain bolting the doors. “It should be over soon.”

  Rivka didn't respond. Lesya returned to her chair, unable to hide her smirk at the way the siren had collapsed in on herself, at the fear in her eyes.

  If the girl wasn’t ready for the harsh realities of land, she should have stayed in the water.

  She killed Yuri to save you, Lesya's voice of reason reminded her. She's obviously not a weakling.

  And that was a whole other situation—dealing with the fall out of Yuri's death. The whole village knew they hated each other. Suspicion would fall squarely on Lesya, and she didn't have an alibi. Shit, if Rivka hadn't barged in and done the dirty work, Lesya herself might have killed him anyway. Despite his bluster, he had been on the verge of firing that gun.

  Yuri had been a cyclone in human form, one good storm away from ultimate destruction.

  The cellar doors shuddered harder, the chain clanking against the force of the wind. The ceiling creaked, the whole house seeming to shift on its foundation. Lesya eyed the wooden boards above her head, her heart pounding.

  More creaking. The roar of wind from above like constant, destructive white noise. The doors pounded in their frame, straining against the chain.

  Lesya jumped as one of the doors cracked, the wood splitting right down the middle. A split second later, the cottage shifted again, and dust rained from the ceiling.

  Then through the noise of the storm, a new sound—the sharp crack of the cabin giving way. Lesya launched across the room and took Rivka down to the floor as the ceiling collapsed.

  5

  Rivka

  “Oof!” Lesya weighed more than she had expected. Rikva threw her arms over her head protectively as more dust and debris rained down. “Oh, crap. What was that?”

  The puffins squawked and fluffed themselves around the cellar, slightly perturbed by the debris. Lesya sat up and lovingly patted one on the head before she looked down to regard Rivka. “Shit. You can say shit. It’s not as bad of a word as people make it out to be.”

  “Fine. Oh, shit, what was that?” Rivka forced out sarcastically.

  Lesya nodded. “Better. Words only have the power we give them.”

  “Are you going to answer the question? Get off me.” Rivka pushed at Lesya, shoving the mage off her legs. Once free from the mage’s bulk, she stood but shrank back when something above her head groaned and snapped. “Now, what was that?”

  “Probably my house collapsing...again.” Lesya shrugged nonchalantly. “No big deal.”

  “No big deal?” Rivka pressed herself into the corner of the cellar. “Are we going to get crushed?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, but like I said, all things are dying. Death will come for us sooner or later.”

  “I would much rather it be later,” Rivka snapped. “Aren’t you concerned about your house?”

  Lesya’s brow wrinkled. “It’s just a house. It can be fixed.”

  “You have a very simple outlook on life.”

  “If you keep things simple, nothing can hurt you.”

  Rivka’s curiosity wanted to dig deep into that statement. Something in the mage’s life had hurt her, which had resulted in this grouchy woman obsessed with her birds and solitude. But she’d known the girl all of two hours, and if she tried to ask probing questions, Lesya would probably punch her.

  “Ah. See?” Lesya cocked an ear to the doors. “No more wind.”

  She was right. The wind no longer whistled through the cellar. From what Rivka could see of the outside beyond the broken cellar doors, the sky had begun to clear.

  As one, the puffins all began to leap from their boxes and barrels and waddle towards the doors. Lesya stood to brush dust off her clothes but seemed unconcerned about the exodus.

  Rivka jumped and ran to the door, blocking the puffins from exiting. “You did all that work to get them in here, and you’re just going to let them out?” The bird closest to her pecked at her ankles, eliciting a shriek. She wiggled her foot at the bird to ward it off. “Go. Get away.” She waved her hands, mumbling, “Stupid bird.”

  “Stupid siren,” Lesya countered as she moved Rivka out of the doorway none-too-gently. “Don’t get in Pepper’s way. She’s feisty. They’re birds. They know it’s safe to go out now.”

  Rivka earned one final peck from Pepper, and then the bird hopped up the stairs and out of sight.

  “Ow!” Rivka wrenched her foot away from the line of exiting puffins.

  Lesya chuckled. “You deserved that.”

  The scent of ozone and rain drifted through the cellar’s opening. Rivka raised her nose and took in a lungful of air. The storm had wiped out the scent of death and decay from the earth, leaving behind a crisp, clean smell for the moment. The thinner, clearer air helped her breathe easier.

  Lesya brushed past Rivka. “Smells great, doesn’t it?”

  “It does—” Rivka stopped short at the top of the stairs, struck by the destruction waiting for them. “Oh my goodness. Do all these pieces belong to your house?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Lesya kicked a plank of wood out of the way. She walked several paces beyond that and turned to look at the house, her hands on her hips, but her face giving nothing away.

  Puffins waddled around the debris, pecking at objects on the ground. Several helped themselves to pieces of the broken cottage, then took flight, coasting toward the cliff on the breeze.

  Rivka’s eyes widened. “Lesya, uh… The birds are stealing bits of your house.”

  “They can have them. Broken shit anyway.” The dying wind carried her words away.

  Rivka turned to find the once proud structure looking rather disheveled. Parts of the roof had been torn off by the cyclone, and a few of the boards along the sides of the house were missing. Two puffins argued i
n a broken window.

  A sharp pain in Rivka’s calf buckled her leg. “What the…” She caught herself before she fell. “Why you little—”

  Lesya grabbed Rivka’s hand before she could smack the bird away. “You had something stuck to your leg. Fork was only trying to get it off for you. Chill.”

  “But that hurt!” Rivka brushed off her pants to make sure she didn’t get a repeat attack from Fork or any other the other food-named birds. “What are you going to do about your house?”

  Lesya ignored her question and walked away to the cliff’s edge, her face still unreadable.

  Rivka wasn’t sure she wanted to follow Lesya out there. The puffins were friendly to the mage, but not so much to her. There might have been some credibility to the idea that they saw her as a fish. With hesitant steps, she followed Lesya and settled into an uneasy stance next to the mage. The puffins milled about but paid no attention to her.

  Just when the silence had dragged on to an unbearable point, Lesya spoke. “If you need salt, you’ll need to head up to the next seaport. Nordvik Bay.”

  “How far is that?”

  “At least a day’s journey. Two if the weather gets bad. There are merchants there that trade in salt. I think they work out of a nearby city. Salt mines.”

  “A whole day?” Rivka murmured. She’d be traveling even farther away from her home. The crash of the ocean against the rocks called to something primal inside of her, beckoning the siren to dive back in. It pained her to deny its call.

  “Unfortunately.” Lesya turned on her heel and trudged past the broken shards of her house. “I’m going to need supplies and shit to fix up my house anyways. I’ll take you.”

  Rivka tried to hide her elation. She tucked her hands behind her back and squeezed one hand in the other. She wouldn’t be making this journey alone. The mage knew more about land than Rivka, so she could act as her guide to the seaport.

  Then another thought hit her: How would she trade for salt? She had no coin. The mob expected her to steal the salt, but Rivka had no experience in thievery. How in the seven seas was she going to steal enough salt to help her clan?