Leading Aegis

Chapter 1

Carolina pressed her bloodied hands harder against the mangled flesh beneath them, ignoring the shouts, gunshots, and steel on steel of the dying fight around her. Nadine gritted her teeth, stifling a scream as Carolina bore down on the axe wound, and knocked her head back against the ship’s wooden deck while her fingers clawed at Carolina’s arm.

“Hold on, Captain,” Carolina said, bracing against the nails digging into her flesh. She looked around to check on the fight and, finding it nearly over as the crew subdued the last of the Sovereign soldiers, yelled, “Get the doctor!”

Berkeley rushed to her side, already pulling off his belt. “He died in the fight,” he panted, wrapping the belt around Nadine’s leg. His arms were covered in blood too, but a quick glance let Carolina know that most of it wasn’t his.

“Radford?” she asked, and added, “Draw it tighter.”

He tightened the belt as much as he possibly could while Nadine finally released an agonized wail, and shook his head. Their doctor, dead. Their quartermaster, dead. It appeared that half of Sky Shadow’s crew had been killed in the engagement with their Sovereign hunters, and even more of the hunters were dead.

Carolina stood and stomped over to where the four Sovereign survivors were bound and kneeling in front of the remaining crew. “Your doctor,” she demanded, “where is he?”

One of the soldiers spat on Sky Shadow’s deck. “Go drop yourself, pirate.”

She drew one of her bloodstained daggers and held it to his throat. “Care to change your mind? ”

“He’s dead,” another soldier offered, scooting forward on his knees in plea. “Please, let us go. Take our medicines if you wish.”

Carolina glanced around at the crew and then at Berkeley, who was doing his best to care for Nadine. At twenty, she wasn’t nearly the oldest or most experienced pirate on Sky Shadow, but she’d been training closely with Nadine, and with the captain gravely injured and their quartermaster dead, the rest of the crew was looking at her.

“Drop them,” she commanded.

“No!” one of the soldiers begged, but the crew had already responded and begun dragging the soldiers toward the side of the ship. “Please! Stop!”

They didn’t usually kill everyone on enemy ships, but Sky Shadow was nowhere near a neutral or pirate island. All Carolina could think to do was take them to the nearest Sovereign-held island and pass themselves as merchants while Nadine got the care that she needed. That meant that they couldn’t risk these soldiers following or finding them. So her crew pulled them to the bulwark to stare out at the empty sky, and the first screaming soldier was tipped overboard, thrown into that empty sky to drop to the melted, burning wasteland of a surface over a mile below them.

“Ellison,” Carolina called, and their helmsman hurried to her. She pointed upward and east at the distant shadow of the Sovereign island they’d been passing by. “Take us there. Make haste.” She turned to the rest of the crew. “Hoist the Mineral Reserves flag and dump the Sovereign bodies!”

She returned to Berkeley’s side to examine Nadine’s wound. The belt tourniquet had stopped a lot of the bleeding, but aside from the gash, the bone beneath was broken, and Nadine desperately needed a surgeon. “We’re going to get you help,” she said.

“I heard,” Nadine said with a pained chuckle, and gave a weak pat to Carolina’s arm. “The crew? How many dead?”

“Too many,” Carolina admitted, looking around at her peers. “And more injured, but you’re the worst.”

“Damn soldiers,” Nadine groaned, “and we were only just minding our business.”

“I guess they didn’t like the look of us,” Carolina huffed, moving aside as two other crewmates brought a stretcher and set it beside Nadine. “I’m taking from the treasury,” she told Nadine. “We’ll need it.”

Nadine nodded, and despite her paleness and trembling with pain, she waved away grabbing hands that tried to help her onto the cot as she struggled to move onto it herself. “Only you and Berkeley come,” she said. “Have Ellison take the rest of the crew to Cinder to wait for word. We can’t risk too many of us on a Sovereign island.”

“Understood.”

Nadine sighed as she rested back on the cot to let the crew carry her to the infirmary, and Carolina stared after them for a moment before telling Berkeley, “Keep an eye on her, I’ll be there soon.”

He nodded once and followed after them, and Carolina hurried across the deck and went into the Captain’s cabin. There was a small chest stored under Nadine’s bed that was full of copper, silver, and gold coins, which were usually reserved for large repairs on the ship. She pulled it out and filled a coin sack with funds, which she secured to her belt. After that, she made her way below deck to her own bunk in the crew’s quarters to stuff a few articles of clothing into another larger sack. She put some of Berkeley’s belongings into it as well, and then removed her dagger belt and pistol holster to stow it with the rest of the items.

Once she’d returned above, she made a quick trip to the quarterdeck to give Ellison his additional instructions, and then met Berkeley and Nadine in the infirmary. She handed him the bag, saying, “All but your pistol in.” She then pulled several pieces of copper from the coin sack and gave them to him. “Once we’ve taken her to a surgeon, you go and find us some lodgings. As discreetly as possible.”

“How long are we staying?” he asked as he undid his sword belt to put it in the bag.

“Long as we need to,” she answered.

And they sat there for thirty more minutes while Sky Shadow ascended and flew to the nearest island. She’d searched the cabinets and found something to help Nadine with the pain, but it did very little to numb the gaping slash and openly fractured bone in her thigh. Nadine groaned through it, letting out yelps with every jostle of the ship, especially as they pulled into port.

It was some blessing that their stolen flag was enough not to rouse suspicion as they docked, and she rushed out to meet the port master before he could speak to anyone else. His eyes were wide with horror as she met him at the end of the ramp, with her black hair wild and her clothing stained red.

“We were set on by pirates,” she told him hastily, pulling out a silver coin with one hand while gesturing up the ramp at where crew members were carrying Nadine down with the other. “She needs a surgeon. ”

He looked from the silver coin to Nadine, speechless at the gore of it all. “You- I- I need your papers.”

“The ship is leaving,” she said, and he continued to stare in shock. “Quickly, sir, I beg you.”

He pointed. “Just in town in the main square. Spring Haven Medical.”

“Thank you.”

She took one end of the stretcher from a crewmate while Berkeley took the other, and together they trooped into town as fast as they could, ignoring gawking and stares from passersby, and avoiding eye contact with any soldiers. Spring Haven was easy enough to find, and they burst through the doors, surprising the single waiting patient and the staff, all of whom had been conversing around a counter.

“She needs immediate attention,” Carolina announced.

There was a bustle as the staff responded, one of them checking on Nadine while the other ushered Carolina and Berkeley with the stretcher into a back room. They held the cot near a bed while the doctors transferred her over, and then the doctors forced them out and closed the door behind them.

They stood helpless in the front room, staring at the door for several long seconds before Berkeley sighed and said, “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve found somewhere.”

Carolina nodded, patting his shoulder gratefully before he left with their sack of belongings on his back. She let out a heavy breath and turned away from the door to scan the room, barely sparing a glance at the young woman who’d taken a seat as she searched for something to busy herself. There was nothing but some chairs, a counter, and a tall cabinet of medicines behind it. She rubbed her caked hands over her face, nose crinkling at the overwhelming scent of rust, and dropped her hands to her sides as her shoulders slumped.

“You alright?” the young woman asked, pulling Carolina’s gaze back to her. Carolina responded with a weak hum as her focus returned to the door, and there were a few moments of silence before the woman said, “No doubt they’ve sedated her so she’s not in pain. The surgeons here are exceptional, and she seems tough. She’ll pull through.”

Carolina nodded, leaning over and setting her arms on the counter to rest her head on her hands. She hadn’t shut her eyes but three seconds before the woman spoke again.

“You’re bleeding. ”

Carolina straightened up and looked down at herself. At her bloodied hands and shirt, and shook her head. “It’s not mine.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, nodding toward Carolina’s arm.

Carolina angled her shoulder inward and pulled aside a scrap of torn shirt, groaning at the shallow but long cut on her arm that she’d been too worked up to notice. “I suppose some of it is mine.”

“What happened?”

“Uh…” Carolina finally looked at the inquisitive woman again, and only then truly saw her for the first time.

She looked to be almost equal to Carolina’s twenty years, and was wearing a dark red dress and hooded gray cloak with an embroidered, fiery yellow bird on the shoulder. Her black hair would’ve been long enough to fall past her shoulders if it weren’t suspended, silky and nebulous, by its natural curl. It framed her beautiful brown face just like the perfect arch of her thick brows framed her bright, zircon brown eyes. They were curious eyes too, as they watched Carolina with interest while waiting for an answer, and every moment that passed by without one, her full lips pulled into a more amused smirk at the length of Carolina’s dumb stare.

But Carolina remembered herself and glanced again at the yellow bird. A phoenix: the symbol of a war witch. Or, at least, one in training.

“Pirates,” she answered eventually.

“Ah.” And the woman continued to watch her for a few more seconds before she stood and headed into a second examination room. She reappeared soon after, asking, “Are you merchant crew?”

Carolina eyed the bottle, gauze, and clean rag in the woman’s hands. “Are you a healer?”

“I asked first,” she said, motioning to a chair.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m a healer,” she replied with a coy smile, and returned Carolina’s intrigued look with an additional glint of challenge — for the truth, Carolina assumed, though she wouldn’t give it. “Well? Would you like my help or not?”

And seeing as the doctors were busy with Nadine, she’d take whatever assistance she could get, so she finally moved to the chair and sat down. The woman pulled a second chair closer and sat beside her, pushing around the tear in her shirt with one finger to get a better look at the wound. Then she grabbed either side of it with both hands and made the hole bigger with a loud rip .

“Hey!” Carolina protested. “I thought you were helping.”

“I need it out of the way,” she said, grimacing in apology. “Is this your only shirt?”

Carolina picked at the threads around the enlarged tear and sighed. “Only my favorite one.”

Instead of making further apology, the woman pinched one of the many sew-mended holes and laughed, “I see that.” Carolina tsked and swatted away her teasing hand, which made her laugh again.

She had a sweet laugh, a tempting laugh, and for fear of saying anything incriminating, Carolina kept silent while she cleaned and dressed the wound, only risking a sideways glance at the beautiful stranger on occasion.

“There you are,” the woman said happily as she tucked the end of the gauze wrapping in place.

Carolina examined the bandage and then looked up, catching the woman’s eyes and only realizing she was staring again after it had been several long moments. “Carolina.”

The woman failed to hold back a giggle. “Is that how you say ‘thank you’ where you’re from?”

Carolina rolled her eyes, finally letting herself smile. “Is that a favorite pastime of the inhabitants on this island? Harassing poor merchant crew?”

“Only mine,” she said, “and only recently.” And Carolina might have blushed were she given time, but the woman held out her hand. “Devina.” They shook, and Devina stood to return the items she’d taken to the examination room. As she came back out, she said with an all-too-knowing smirk, “And this island is called Harcam, you should know that if you’re to linger.”

Carolina tried to look insulted, but she couldn’t help her amused grin as she watched Devina amble around the counter, and one of her eyebrows lifted as Devina pulled a small vial out of the cabinet and put it in her pocket. She turned around and caught Carolina’s eyes, lips pulling into an equally amused expression while she exchanged the vial in her pocket for a silver coin, which she deliberately placed on the counter while holding Carolina’s gaze.

“Who are you?” Carolina asked.

“I could ask the same of you,” Devina said as she strode with a playful sway to the door.

“Weren’t you waiting for the doctors? ”

“I think they’ve got their hands full now,” she answered, and patted her pocket, “and I got what I came for.” She gestured with her thumb out the door. “There’s a well pump out around back, if you’d like to wash up.” Then she cast a look at the coin she’d placed on the counter and turned her astute, brilliant eyes back on Carolina. “And they best receive those dominions, merchant .”

Carolina laughed and inhaled to give some retort, but Devina was already gone.

Carolina stood on the forecastle deck of her ship, feeling the wet chill of a cloud across her face as Omen sailed the open air. If she glanced overboard and peered through the thin clouds, she’d see the dark crimson of the burning terrain a mile below. As it was, the inhospitable surface of sharp black rock and the glowing rivers of lava that cut through it were of no interest to her.

Her quick brown eyes were ahead, her hands clasped behind her as she ignored the wind tickling her chest-length hair against her neck, keeping a keen watch on the horizon. They were sailing through open sky, and without the signal that they’d entered neutral air within view of port at Cinder, there was still the threat of attack by other pirates. It had been several years since another pirate ship dared skirmish with Omen, but Carolina knew better than to let her guard down.

The whisper of an incomprehensible shout reached her ears from the crow’s nest – the only part of her ship that stretched beyond the clouds they were using as cover – and her hands unfolded as her left fell on the handle of the dagger at her hip. It took a minute before the sound of jogging footsteps thudded up behind her on the wooden deck.

“Captain,” the female voice called, and Carolina turned to peer past the worn leather brim of her tricorn hat at Frona. “We’ve entered impartial air. Docking at Cinder in one hour.”

“Bring the spoils up from the hold,” she instructed, “prepare to unload.” Frona nodded. “Where’s Berkeley?”

“I believe he’s at the helm, ma’am. ”

Carolina leaned to stare past Frona and down the two-hundred-foot vessel, barely making out Berkeley’s familiar outline toward the stern. “Hm. Secure the bounty to main deck… Tightly.”

“Aye,” Frona laughed, and hooked an arm around the foremast to swing off the forecastle instead of taking the stairs, heading to carry out her duties.

Carolina followed, strolling aft along the main deck as her crew prepared for porting, until she reached the end of the ship. She climbed up the steps to quarterdeck and stopped at Berkeley’s side, where she stood for a moment while he steered. He was two inches shorter than her five-foot-nine, even though he liked to joke that he’d be taller without the slight lift in Carolina’s boots. The short sleeves of his shirt had been rolled halfway up his biceps, and his freckled forearms rippled in the sunlight with his vice-like grip on the wheel. His long, curly brown hair was pulled into a knot behind his head, keeping it off his glistening forehead.

“I wondered where my quartermaster was,” Carolina said lightly.

“Just doing my duty.”

She glanced past him at the helmsman standing nearby. “And here I thought steering the ship was Ryland’s duty.”

“Didn’t you know, C?” he asked, stealing the hat off her head and replacing it on his own. “I’m a jack of all trades.”

“Master of none,” she teased. “Is that why you’re sweating?” He stuck his tongue out at her. “I can’t save you from Sly if you add to her list of repairs.”

Berkeley flashed a wide grin. “She’d have to catch me first.”

It wiped the grin off his face when they hit an airstream that jolted the ship a foot downward in the sky. It was enough to rock Carolina on her feet, but Berkeley overcompensated with a jerk on the helm that sent her staggering a few steps sideways. Boxes of cargo already brought up from the hold slid across deck, and several crew members sprang for the nearest support structure or set of toe braces secured around deck to cling for life.

A few didn’t make it in time and hit the ground, and others teasingly yelled, “down-brace!” or “starboard-brace!” as the warnings they didn’t get beforehand.

“ Steady ,” Ryland hissed, knees bent to keep his balance as irritated shouts sounded from others of the jostled crew .

“I got it, I got it,” Berkeley said, a blush creeping down his neck while he regained control of the ship. Carolina stepped back up to his side, shoulders shaking with a laugh. “Shut up.”

“I haven’t said a word.” Carolina stole her hat back, twisting her hair and tucking it up underneath as she put it on. “I need you to meet someone in Cinder tonight and bring her back to the ship for me.”

He hummed curiously. “Who is she? And what’s the rendezvous?”

“Ariane. You’ll find her at Fuzzy Doves Tavern.”

“How will I know her?”

“She’ll find you.”

Berkeley considered the situation silently, blue eyes fixed on the matching blue sky ahead of them, and they stayed focused there while he said, “I thought you were done with witches.”

Carolina glanced down, eyes canting sideways to where her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and looked at the bracelet on her right wrist. No, not a bracelet. A manacle. Brass-colored and without a blemish. There wasn’t a break or crease in the metal except for a single chip at the edge, not even for opening, as if it had been cast around her wrist while still molten.

“I thought so too,” she murmured. “But she’s a Caster.”

“Oh, good,” Berkeley said sarcastically, “bring a powerful witch on board when most of your crew isn’t here to protect you.”

“I trust her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a deserter.”

“And you’re the most wanted pirate in the skies,” he protested. “That’s leverage for Sovereign forgiveness if I ever heard of any.”

“Berkeley,” she warned.

“Fine,” he sighed, turning the helm just slightly. “Why not have Rue meet her?”

Carolina searched the deck for her sister, who was helping the crew bring up cargo. “She hates it when I meet witches even more than you do.”

“Doubt it,” he said. “What’s the price this time?” She reached into the pocket of her leather breeches, pulling out a small, corked glass vial and holding it up. Berkeley took one look at it and his face twisted with disgust. “Is that a fingernail?” She nodded, and he looked over each of her fingers before asking, “Whose is it?”

“Captain of the Scouting Division ship we attacked. ”

“Is that why we went after the military brig?” he asked in realization.

“That and the munitions.”

“And the ale,” he suggested. “Those shits get the best of everything.”

“Aye,” she laughed. “You need anything before port?”

He shook his head. “You need anything during port?”

She said with a smirk, “The tale of an escapade.”

“Like I have time with you running me all over the island.”

“Like you need long anyway,” she countered, and he gasped in exaggerated offense. She patted him on the back and left him to concentrate on docking, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t wreck my ship!”

She traversed the vessel to main deck to busy herself with helping the crew make preparations, hoping it would distract her from the weight of the shackle on her wrist. It didn’t. Every mile closer to port, it seemed to grow heavier, a constant reminder that she was bound to the ship for all but a couple hours at a time. That while the world out there was big and full of adventure and mystery, her world was smaller than ever. It shrank and darkened even as the looming pirate island of Cinder grew before them, green and bustling like a moss-covered ant hill.

“Putting in!” screamed one of the crew. “Berkeley’s at the helm!”

Every crew member on deck reached for something sturdy to hold onto, or managed to secure their feet under the stirrup-shaped toe braces near the bulwark and at their stations as Omen approached the docks with more speed than necessary. Amongst their jesting yells about early deaths, Berkeley’s voice mixed with the booming shouts of the riggers working the sails. Carolina grabbed onto the ratlines, bracing for the impact they all knew would come. Berkeley was steering too close to the docks, coming in at an angle that was disproportionate to the push of the wind. The bowsprit narrowly missed swiping the sail of the small ship on the other side of the dock, and the bow end collided with the stone.

The impact knocked Carolina sideways into the rope as one of the crew screamed, “We’re being attacked!”

She would’ve laughed if not for the wretched grinding that followed. The hull missed the fenders completely and scraped against the dock, filling the air with a grating sound that vibrated the wood beneath their feet. The ship had no choice but to straighten out, and they slammed to a stop as the keel crashed into the edge .