70

Marcus

There’s a chasm of darkness at the edge of my mind, briefly held at bay while I focus on Tyche. It roils back up once she falls asleep in her bunk. I pull the blanket up to her chin and turn away. If there is any chance this darkness is contagious, I don’t want to infect her dreams.

As I walk away, the ship lurches and I stumble.

“What’s the sailor doing now?” It feels like we’re heading in a different direction.

I pull on my coat and climb the ladder. As my foot rests on the bottom rung, I hear a snap and the hiss of water spraying. I hurry down to the darkness of the hold to check the patched hull. My stomach drops. It might as well be Aku’s fountain, water spurting everywhere! I go topside as quickly as my aching body will move. “The hull’s breached!”

“Man the bilge!” Kaylin shouts.

I turn to go back down then stop and come back. “Man the what?”

“Landlubbers,” Kaylin curses. “Below, in the aft bulkhead. A pump. Use it.” Kaylin signals Piper. “Help him.”

I hurry down the hatch and knock Belair over at the bottom of the ladder. The Tangeen is up but glassy-eyed and hunched, cut and bruised, a chunk of his earlobe missing. A phantom cure won’t regrow that. But he pushes up his sleeves, ready to work. “There’s a leak in the ship, I hear.” How does he stay so calm?

Piper follows us below, her serpent rearing up over her head and swaying back and forth. “It’s flooded already.”

We slosh through the galley, knee-deep in ice-cold water, and past the high bunks where Tyche sleeps. I make a mental note of the quickest way to get her up on deck if the time comes.

“Here!” Piper says. She releases the pump locks and works the handles up and down. I go to the other side of the two-man pump and Belair braces it with his boot.

“Is it helping?” Piper asks. Water sprays her face from the growing crack.

I keep a close eye on my legs, watching for the water to recede. It doesn’t, but then it isn’t rising anymore, either. “Keep at it.”

After an hour, I’m completely exhausted. My hand wounds have reopened, though Piper stops long enough to kneel beside me in the water. Her serpent is hard-pressed to find a vein that has not been punctured, but it manages to latch on to my right wrist and inject a restorative serum. When it releases me, my hands drip blood.

“Wait!” Piper says and pushes back from the pump. Belair takes a short turn on his own while she bandages my palms. “You have to rest. Let the healing take hold.” The sloop rocks with the swell. “You too, Belair. Rest. I’ve got this.” As she speaks, her phantom sinks its teeth into her own neck and her eyes widen, pupils dilate.

“Kaylin needs one of you on the deck,” Samsen yells down the hatch.

“Dead bones, he does,” Piper mumbles. She tries to hold me back. “Is he sailing us straight to our death?”

“I can do it.” I pull out of her grip. It’s a long climb out of the hold, but the fresh air slaps me awake. That, and the serpent’s elixir. “What do you need?” I ask as I find Kaylin waiting at the prow. The sun is lowering in front of us and the water turns to gold.

“Watch for land.”

Did I hear right? “Land?”

“Reefs, too, but you’ll likely not spot any until we’re right on them.” Kaylin starts to walk away.

I catch him by the arm. “Why are we heading for land?”

“Ship’s taking too much water. You best hope we find land quick. The enemy will surely catch us in a rowboat.”

“And what then, when we reach land?”

“That would be your domain, Heir.” He turns to go, but I stop him again.

“I don’t know who you serve, and right now I don’t care, but the safety of all on this ship does concern me.” I push my voice low and threatening. “And I’ll not see you hurt Ash, in any way.”

Kaylin looks down at his arm where I grip him.

I let go but don’t step back.

His expression changes suddenly, as if he’d heard something. “Keep watch.” He leaves me to my new task and the sloop carries on, sails full and lines tight. I glare after the sailor, then face the horizon, doing as I’m told, scanning for land. What choice do I have?

Before long I hear the familiar cry of gulls, squint, and see the reef. “Stop the ship!” I wave toward the helm. “There’s a reef. Coming up fast! Turn away!”

Kaylin is at my side. “Perfect. Well done.”

“Perfect? Look at the depth. It’s a child’s bath.” I don’t even try to keep the alarm out of my voice. “It’ll tear her bottom right out.”

Kaylin laughs aloud. “That’s what I like to hear, talking of this vessel as if she has a heart. You’ll make a sailor yet.”

“Bones be damned about making me a sailor, Kaylin. The reef!”

“I think we’ll just skim over it, but I know they won’t.” He sticks his thumb out behind him.

I turn around. Not a quarter of a league away is a tall, double-mast warship bearing down on us.

“They’re running with full sails,” Kaylin says as if that explains it all.

It doesn’t. “So?”

“There’s not a crew in all the realms that can drop enough cloth in time to stop. She’s going to rip over the reef if they can’t turn her about. Either way, we slip through and lose ourselves in the shoals, abandon ship, and row to shore.”

There is no part of this plan that I like, save for the Aturnian ship going down. A moment later, our hull scrapes the reef and Kaylin’s smile fades.

“What’s happening?” Ash shouts from the helm.

“The extra water in the hull’s made us draw a touch deeper than I’d hoped.” He heads for the hatch. “Bilge!” he hollers. “Keep pumping!” Then to me he says, “Marcus, find us land!”

All I can do is watch the horizon as we skate over the shallow reef, gulls crying above. Shading my eyes, I finally see it. “Land ahoy!” Relief washes over me. Safety’s ahead, but really, I should say distant land ahoy. The hazy cliffs and long white beaches are much too far away.

If I believed in the old gods, I’d be on my knees praying.

Pity they are no longer among us.