| |
Thankfully, once the lusca attack is over, the seas remain calm for The Heartbreak. Pogue treats his wounds and gives Seaton the funeral he deserves, then promotes one of the merchant crew members to rigger. More and more, watching Kenz and Henley together makes him miss Wayke, and he vows to himself that if they survive the coming task, he’ll drop everything else in favor of a trip to the Haven.
If they survive.
Warring thoughts vie for Pogue’s attention as he tries to pick the best course. They’re less than a day out from the island known for sirens and selkies, and he’s not looking forward to tangling with either one.
“Tell me what yeh need, Captain,” Henley says with her arms crossed. “Yeh look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“There are almost a hundred and fifty people between our two ships, Hen. We might all be ghosts soon.”
“Then why are we doin’ this? For some coin? Or because yeh hold a grudge against every siren in Qadia?”
He glares at her as fury sparks in his system and barely fades. “Do yeh know what Gnash’ll do to us if we don’t? Do yeh have any idea the deals I had to make with that bilge rat just to keep our ships afloat when me father went missin’?”
“No. Far as I know, yeh never even told Kenz what happened in that room.”
Yet again, the reminder that he’s kept things from his brother makes him nauseous. “It’s no one’s business but me own what happened in that room, Morrow.”
“It is our business! It’s our feckin’ necks on the line out there, not just yers. Yeh want me to sail me crew into siren territory, yer gonna tell me why.”
Pogue bites his tongue. He can’t afford to lose Henley or The Anguish, and he knows damned well that her crew is loyal enough to her to leave his fleet without a second thought if she commands it. He’d decided a long time ago that he didn’t want to be a captain that ruled by fear, but one that ruled by respect. Telling them the truth might jeopardize that, but he doesn’t see a choice. “Go get him, then. Yeh wanna know, I’ll tell yeh both. But yeh best be prepared to captain two ships, Hen. He’s gonna throw me arse overboard.”
“Yer his brother. He’s more understandin’ then yeh think.”
She excuses herself to go get Kenz, and Pogue takes the few minutes he has to drink heavily and pray to any god that’ll listen that Henley has satisfied his brother enough that he won’t do exactly what he fears.
When they come back in, Pogue is leaning on the edge of his desk, and it’s obvious Henley has told Kenz what this little meet is about because nothing witty comes out of his mouth as he takes a seat and eyes Pogue. “What is it, P?”
“Yer girlfriend is a nosy quim, that’s what it’s about,” Pogue mutters. “She wants to know why we’re not taking on the entire Three Kingdoms Trading Company, as if that question isn’t an answer to itself. D’yeh remember my first meeting with Arley Gnash?”
“Aye, she is, and aye, I do.” Kenz reaches out and slaps her ass before pulling her onto his lap. “Spit it out, Captain.”
“I was a boy when I took the helm. Barely fourteen with a captain’s hat, I had no business being chosen. The ship was broken and in dire need of repairs we couldn’t afford, and then... Gnash stepped in.” His expression sours as he skips over some rather unsavory parts of this story, then clears his throat. “He made me a deal. He’d shell out the coin to fix The Heartbreak and keep her seaworthy if we ran a couple errands for him.”
Henley scoffs. “So? We’ve run dozens of jobs for that quim. Surely yeh’ve more than repaid him.”
“Aye, I have. But Gnash doesn’t abide by our codes. During the repairs, he—” Pogue clenches his jaw “— he had a mage. There’s a spell on The Heartbreak. If anyone that sails under her flag, which includes The Anguish, harms a hair on his pretty quim head, The Heartbreak and her crew will sink to the depths.”
Kenz stands so fast Henley has to catch her footing. “A fecking mage. And yeh never thought this was somethin’ I should know? I’ve almost gutted that quim half a dozen bloody times!”
“But yeh didn’t, cause there’s at least half a brain in that head of yers,” Pogue responds as he gets up to join him. “I knew yeh wouldn’t do it without me blessing.”
“Aye. Cause I’m nothin’ more than Pogue Hallam’s bitch, eh?” Kenz spits on his brother’s floor and meets his gaze, and the challenge in Kenz’s eyes is apparent.
“Yer nobody’s bitch, Kenz,” Pogue says as his hands curl into fists at his sides. “Not mine, not Henley’s, nobody’s. But yeh will respect yer Captain. Yeh don’t have any idea the things I tried before acceptin’ that deal, now do yeh? If there woulda been another choice, I’d have taken it.”
“Kenz.” Henley reaches for his arm but he pulls it away.
“Don’t yeh know I’d follow yeh to the bottom of the bloody ocean? Why keep fecking secrets from me? Feck the crew; why not tell me?”
The question smacks Pogue in the face even if Kenz doesn’t. The truth is, he could’ve told Kenz the very same thing he just had without going into the details he’d rather keep to himself. The thought just hadn’t occurred to him. “‘Cause the burden was mine, Kenz. The rest of yeh... yer free to leave The Heartbreak whenever yeh want. He took certain precautions to make sure I couldn’t say the same.”
“Feck that!” Kenz growls. “We will find a way to end him. Did yeh see the mage yerself? We’ll find him and end him too.”
“Look, yeh don’t understand. Killin’ the mage or Gnash won’t help. The spell is woven into the damned ship. If any one of us kills Gnash, she’ll sink with me aboard it. And this is exactly why I never told yeh.” He steps into his brother’s space and takes a steadying breath. “Yer instinct is violence. Makes yeh one helluva pirate, but a terrible diplomat. I didn’t tell yeh ‘cause I need yeh to stand down, and I knew yeh wouldn’t.”
Kenz softens slightly. “I would. For yer life, I would. But I’d also look for a way to get us out of this. Are yeh really tellin’ me not ta try?”
“He’s covered the whole damned thing. We hire someone, she sinks. We convince someone, she sinks. We do it, she sinks. If yeh can find a way around all that, then go for it. If not, I need yeh topside. We’ve got a siren ta catch.”
“Aye, Captain.” Kenz leaves the room without a look back, leaving Henley behind with Pogue.
“Fecking pirates.”
He chuckles. “Yeh includin’ yerself in that, Hen?”
“Course I am. Nearly decked him meself. Quims out there question us all fecking day, but when our Quartermaster does it, we’re in trouble. He’ll come around, Captain. Yeh know he will.”
Whether or not Kenz comes around isn’t the point. Kenz has every right to be upset, and had Henley not been there, that conversation might have gone differently. He should’ve apologized properly to his brother, but with her there, he had to be a Captain talking to a member of his crew, instead. “Aye. Yeh might wanna head back to yer own ship, Hen. Gonna need that distraction soon.”
She nods and heads up after Kenz, leaving Pogue to collect himself and prepare for what’s to come. Hours pass as The Anguish gets into position and The Heartbreak’s gunners get ready, but as they approach the shores of the small, unnamed island, Pogue gets a foreboding feeling deep in his gut. “Somethin’s amiss.”
“Aye, Captain,” Gresh agrees. “Quims should be all over these shores.” His grip tightens on his weapon as his eyes dart all over, looking for any sort of movement, but there’s none to be seen.
“Well then, I guess we’ll just need to draw them out, won’t we now?” Pogue growls. The moment they drop the anchor and The Heartbreak’s progress stops, Pogue grabs his brother and Astaryn and boards a jolly boat, leaving the other gunners behind with orders to kill anything that comes near them. “Yeh’ve both got yer plugs, right?”
“Aye,” they say in unison. Astaryn shoves hers in her ears a second later, but Kenz still holds his in his palm as he takes in the island.
“Kenz,” Pogue warns sharply. “Put the fecking things in yer ears. Now!”
“They’re fecking uncomfortable. We’re not even there.” Kenz narrows his gaze as he shoves them in and huffs indignantly, but those old fears have Pogue on edge. He nearly wishes he’d have convinced Kenz to stay behind.
With all of their ears plugged, none of them speak again as they bank and take their first steps on the hot sand. Pogue waits for the rest of his crew to do the same and stays alert for any movement in the trees, but when he sees none, he gives the signal to advance.
They barely make it to the treeline before Renton starts waving his arms wildly and pointing behind them. Pogue whirls, and confusion hits him like a brick as he sees dozens of seals coming out of the water and wiggling onto the land. His bewildered curse is lost to the ear plugs as he draws his cutlass and braces himself — and then it hits him. “Draw!” he yells uselessly, racing forward and tripping twice in the sand. He’s sure his crew is laughing, but they shouldn’t be. Nothing about this is funny.
He beheads the first seal he gets to mid-swing and gags from the feeling, then slips again in the mess as he turns to find the others. But as he does, he sees what’s waiting behind them now and nearly drops his sword.
As the seals around him start to change and shed their skin and he does a rough count of the creatures now surfacing out of the trees, he realizes two terrible things:
This beach wasn’t empty, and Henley’s distraction didn’t do much at all for them. They’re trapped between selkies and sirens.
~
THE SECOND KENZ REALIZES how trapped they are, he smiles. If there was ever a way to go that wasn’t out at sea, this would be it: surrounded by enemies, blades in his hands, his brother by his side.
When he looks around and sees how many of them there are, he knows they’re coming at them with all they have. Kenz cackles so loudly he hears it, making him wonder how reliable the wretched ear plugs are, but he leaves them where they are and yells, “Come on!” at the nearest selkie. It charges at him, but he lets his knife fly, hitting home straight between the creature’s eyes, and he yanks it out to move onto the next.
They charge much quicker after that, and he completely loses count of the bodies falling around him. His brother and Astaryn are both covered in thick, dark red blood just like he is, and Pogue is busy yelling commands no one can hear.
When they finally cut a hole in the line around them, Pogue grabs Kenz’s bloody shirt and plucks one of his earplugs out. “I’m going to find Abesti. Hold the damned beach. If a single one of these quims gets aboard me ship, I’ll be blamin’ you.”
He shoves the earplug back in and dashes off into the trees, cutting down more of the selkies and at least two sirens on the way.
The looks on the sirens’ faces are so captivating it’s nearly enough for him to want to pull the earplug back out to hear their song. He knows better than that though, and he slits as many of their throats as he can just on principle. “Fecking singing quims!”
Kenz finds he’s sad he can’t hear the squelching sounds of flesh being pierced, but when two sirens knock him off his feet, he wants those earplugs out for an entirely different reason: he didn’t even hear them closing in. The growl he releases vibrates throughout his body as they pin him down and he kicks a third, keeping it away. “Star!” he yells, knowing she couldn’t hear him even if she were right in front of him.
When she doesn’t appear in his line of sight, Kenz forgets about her entirely. He forgets about everything but what’s right in front of him, and he stares into their strange blue and brown eyes as he shoves back, harder and harder until they’re finally budging.
“That’s right, yeh sons of doxies!” Kenz releases a forceful yell as he breaks out of their hold and snaps one of their arms. He doesn’t let up, slicing it with his blade and jamming the other one straight through its throat.
Victory looks more likely when Kenz stands and looks around. Each pirate is worth five of the creatures and not a single one has fallen, at least none where Kenz can see. Knowing Pogue went for Abesti alone doesn’t sit right with him, so he slowly makes his way further onto the beach, fighting and killing his way with each and every inch.
The sand is dyed red with a mixture of blood and guts and the biggest siren he’s ever seen blocks his path in the direction his brother went. “Feck off, fish quim. Yeh look like a fecking ball sack.”
Kenz can’t hear its response, but he doesn’t have to. The siren’s body language tells Kenz when it’s about to attack, but its fist is quicker than he anticipated — and stronger, too. When it connects with his jaw, his vision flickers, and his weight is almost too heavy to bear.
Being this close to the siren is dangerous. He can feel the vibrations of its song reverberating in his skull, but it reminds him of what he should be aiming for. Kenz drops to his knees, grinning when the siren believes it’s won and lowers its defenses, and then he launches one of his blades into its throat.
Blood splatters down Kenz’s face and chest as the creature claws at its wound, then he makes the mistake of hovering over it as it dies. “Are you dying? So soon?” he taunts, but before he realizes what’s happening, the siren swoops his legs out from under him and knocks him straight on his back.
It’s weak, barely holding onto life, but it has enough strength to reach over and rip Kenz’s earplug from his ear and toss it into the sand. The sounds of war surround him; the screaming, squelching, begging, and crying. All of it is better music than a siren could ever sing, and Kenz takes out three more selkies before he hears for himself how wrong he is.
It starts as a captivating hum, sending a calm through his entire being, and once again, the noises all around slip away. The voice is low — too low for Kenz to enjoy — so he moves closer, and if he were of a mind to think about anything else, he’d see how the remaining sirens simply step aside and allow him passage deeper into the island.
His blades fall from his hands without him realizing. The tune gets louder with each step, and it isn’t until he’s stepping through the trees that he recognizes the song. His mother used to hum it to him every night. The boat rocking and her voice were the only things that made sleeping possible, and now that he’s nearing thirty years old, he can hardly remember the words.
But he would know that melody anywhere.
Kenz wants to ask how whoever is singing knows that song, but he can’t find it in him to say anything as he searches for the culprit. “Ma?” he whispers, deep down knowing it’s impossible — but if he’s dead, maybe it isn’t. Maybe he died out on that bloody beach and this is what Gehenna is truly like, his family whole again. There’s a nagging in the back of his mind, a nagging reminder that if he’s dead, his family still wouldn’t be whole here because his brother still resides in Qadia. It’s enough to bring him back. “Pogue!” he screams, his feet rooting to the spot. It doesn’t matter if that voice is his mother or not, Pogue is the one who needs him. “Pogue!” he repeats louder as he rips out the other earplug, never the wiser that he just sealed his fate.
“Kenz, my boy. I’m here.”
His body twitches as he fights the urge to take another step toward her soothing voice. “How?”
“We’re safe here. I’ve been here all along.”
He knows it’s a lie. He’d seen her stiff, lifeless body the day she passed, watched his father weep for the first time in his life, watched Pogue crumble into the little boy he was. His mother is dead, and yet...
“Kenzie. You always were my hard-headed one.” His mother’s voice catches him again, only this time, it’s changing into something deeper. “Come closer, my love. I’ll prove to you I’m here.”
“No,” he responds, sounding more childish than he has in a very long time. “Who are you?”
The voice bears no trace of his mother when it speaks again. “I am the one you seek... and you cannot have me.”
Before Kenz can respond, the siren begins to sing, luring him forward one heavy step at a time, and he’s powerless to stop it. He’s alive, that much is known now, but he knows deep in his gut that unless Pogue can find him, he won’t be alive for long.