Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Calista
“HEAVE!” I shout, pulling on the wet, heavy net until my muscles scream for mercy. “HEAVE!”
Four of us are pulling up the huge net, but it’s still barely moving.
My pulse quickens with excitement. It’s a full one.
We may be able to dock early with the way we’re going.
Our cargo hold is already almost packed with product.
I know the boys would like to celebrate the weekend in town with their pockets full of copper coins.
I just want to see the look on my dad’s face when I sail in early, my ship overflowing with stock.
“HEAVE!” I shout, all of us pulling as one. More men run over, adding their strength to the task.
With grunts and curses, we pull the last of the massive net over the rail and it erupts onto the deck of my ship.
Silverbacks slide across the deck in a living wave of thrashing, wiggling fish, their gorgeous silver scales shining in the early morning light.
There must be two thousand of them. At least.
My crew cheers and hollers, slapping each other’s hands and backs as the whole deck is suddenly alive with slapping, jumping fish.
“We’re going to be rich, lads!” Isen shouts from the rigging up above.
I feel my cheeks burning, I’m smiling so much. There is a fortune here in silverbacks. This must be the hottest spot in the ocean.
“Gods,” Petr shouts over the chaos, ankle deep in silverbacks and grinning like an idiot. “Dats the biggest haul I seen in thirteen seasons.”
While the boys are celebrating, my eyes are moving fast over the writhing mass, looking for the real treasure.
My heart stops when I spot four of them. Tangled deep in the bottom fold of the net, massive and dark against the flash of silverbacks, are four deepjaw. Four. One would have made it a good season. Two would have made it a great one.
Four is… I don’t even know what to say. Every tavern from here to Driftwick will be talking about this.
“Grab the deepjaw,” I shout, pointing them out.
The smiling faces vanish as everyone spots them and gets to work.
Valther grabs the biggest one, holding it by its tail and neck.
Edrik and Briallen each grab another. I carefully untangle a female from the net, whispering soft things to her as we all rush down to the cargo hold.
Deepjaws are long, dark, and heavy as sin. It’s a mean, ugly fish, but it’s also the most savory flavor in the entire kingdom.
She thrashes in my arms, all muscle and mouth and attitude, trying to snap off a finger with those razor-sharp teeth and that powerful jaw.
I’ve heard of fishermen losing digits to these deep-sea monsters.
A missing finger is a badge of honor amongst us sailors, but I’m determined not to lose anything today, so I keep my hand clenched around her thick neck, staying alert to her every movement.
Petr races ahead of us, opening the special vault. It’s filled with iron rich salt water. We each place them in gently, being as careful as we can.
“That’s a sight to see,” Edrik whispers as we watch them swimming around in the tank.
“Four,” Briallen says in disbelief. “Not even the great Captain Malden caught four in one haul. You’re going to be famous, Calista.”
“Let’s get them home alive before we start writing the history books,” I say, taking one last look at them before I close the top of the vault.
They’re not going to be worth anything if they’re dead. The royal palace is the biggest buyer of deepjaw in the whole kingdom. It’s said that King Orren would eat them three times a day if there was enough supply. These four will last him three weeks at least if we can get them to him alive.
I’d love nothing more than to stay here and watch those four fish swim, but we have work to do.
“Let’s get back to the deck,” I order. “The silverbacks are worth a whole lot of copper too.”
We race back up the creaky wooden steps and start collecting the huge silverbacks.
“Isen,” I shout to the tiny old man in the crow’s nest thirty feet over my head. “Mark the coordinates of this spot.”
“Aye, Captain,” he shouts back.
I’m going to have to come back here. If every season is as good as this one, I’ll be the richest merchant on Keldmoor Island before I enter my third decade of life.
My crew has the silverbacks under control, so I roam through the pile, picking out the tiny pebblefish and yellowflicks, admiring their colors before I toss them back into the water.
Drakor looks at me curiously. It’s his first season with us.
I hired him because he was built like a castle wall—thick and strong and practically immovable.
I thought that strength would come in handy on the ship, but he’s slow and he nearly knocked Petr overboard three days ago when he was rushing to the edge of the ship to puke.
He’s from the inland and doesn’t have his sea legs yet.
I think he’s spent more time puking than working.
“Why are you bothering with that?” he asks as I gently pick a tiny yellowflick off the deck and toss it back into the ocean.
“I take no pleasure in killing,” I tell him as I pick up two gasping pebblefish.
He follows me as I hurry to the side of the ship and drop them into the calm water.
“We have to kill silverbacks to survive, but these guys are too small to eat or sell. I don’t want to kill them for no reason.
Every creature deserves to have a life.”
“Even Sea Wraiths?” Edrik asks, laughing.
I notice Drakor’s face going pale. He’s terrified of Sea Wraiths. Luckily, we haven’t crossed any on this trip yet. I touch the emerald sword hanging from my waist just to make sure it’s still there.
“Sea Wraiths have no life,” I say. “That’s what makes them so dangerous.”
“Are we going to see any?” Drakor asks, looking like he’s about to start trembling.
“Oh ya,” Petr says in a creepy voice. “Tons of dem. They’s gonna be coming at night, while you’s sleeping, and feast on your heart while it’s still beating inside ya chest.”
Drakor’s big brown eyes dart to me. I shake my head.
“If they come,” I tell him softly. “We’ll deal with them like we always do.”
“How do you deal with a ghost?” Drakor asks. He still hasn’t blinked. Or taken a breath.
“We feed dem tha new guy,” Petr says in that ghastly voice. “Why you think you’s here, inlander?”
The crew all snicker and laugh as Drakor backs up, looking terrified.
“You’ll be fine, Drakor,” I say in a firm tone. “Let’s get back to work. The faster we fill up that cargo hold, the faster we get back onto land where the Sea Wraiths can’t get us.”
“And the faster I get to go to the brothel with my pockets full of copper,” Valther says with a booming laugh.
“And the faster you have those pockets emptied,” Briallen adds.
“At least I’ll have my balls emptied too,” he says, and the guys all start laughing crudely.
Briallen shakes her head. “Disgusting.” She’s my younger cousin and the only girl on my crew. She’s one of the toughest girls I’ve ever met, and you have to be to work on the Evermere Ocean with this surly group of men.
“Back to work!” I shout, clapping my hands.
The guys start moving at once, grabbing silverbacks and carrying them down to the cargo hold. It’s lunchtime by the time they’re done and their appetites are ravenous. They descend on the food that Zephan prepared like savage beasts.
Good. They’re going to need their energy. They don’t know it yet, but this afternoon, we’re headed to the rougher waters near the coast of the Stormfur Kingdom. We have enough silverbacks for this haul. What we need now are some bouldercrabs to round out the menu.
They live on the bottom of the sea floor in the coldest, roughest waters. They’re as big as Drakor’s hands and will fetch a pretty coin.
This will be Drakor’s worst nightmare. Not only is the water violent and rocky. It’s where the Sea Wraiths wander. They like it cold.
It’s time to test the inlander and see if he’s man enough for my crew.
I don’t have high hopes for him. I’ve seen tougher men than him quit as soon as they set foot on shore after their first trek onto the ocean.
But I’ve also seen weaker men stick with it and become fine sailors.
Edrik being one of them. He was the son of a shepherd, as thin as a twig, and he begged me for a job.
I refused, but he was as clever as he was determined.
When we were out at sea, far from the shore, he emerged from his hiding spot in the vault and told me he’d work for free to prove himself.
Valther wanted to toss him overboard. But I was impressed with his boldness, so I gave him a chance. He proved himself worthy and I paid him in full for the voyage. Now, Edrik has a spot on my crew as long as he wants it.
“Isen,” I shout after the boys are finished eating.
His wrinkly head pops over the crow’s nest. I think he’s been up there since before I was born.
After I purchased the ship from a Nesalisse merchant, I had sailed halfway to Crepotoase when he popped his weathered head out and introduced himself, scaring me halfway to Ulissa.
He never asked to stay or offered to leave, so I just kind of figured he came with the ship.
“Set sail for the North East.”
“Aye, Captain.”
His tiny head disappears.
“Stormfur Kingdom?” Valther asks, wiping his greasy mouth with the back of his hand. “You looking for a wolf boyfriend?”
“Like any of dem could handle our Captain,” Petr says with a laugh. “I reckon she’d bite they head off and shove it up they ass if they’s tried to mark her neck.”
“We’re gonna catch us some bouldercrabs,” I tell them. “A whole lot of bouldercrabs.”
Edrik whistles low. “You’re going to be richer than the king after this haul.”
Valther wraps his hand around the back of Edrik’s skinny neck. “We’re all going to be richer than the king.”
“Stormfur Kingdom?” Drakor says with a gulp. “Isn’t that where the Sea Wraiths live?”
“They live in the shadow realm,” Briallen says.
“But they’s love to vacation where we’s going,” Petr says in that creepy voice, scaring poor Drakor to death. “And feast on fat little boys’ juicy hearts.”
“Petr,” I say, shaking my head. “Leave the kid alone.”
I know he’s been missing home desperately. We don’t need to make it any worse.
With a groan, Drakor turns green and runs to the edge of the ship, heaving up the lunch he just ate.
“Fucking inlanders,” Petr says, shaking his head. “What a useless bunch of twats.”
It gets dark fast around here. We’re barely finished dinner—silverback steaks and boiled moonbarley—when the stars come out.
It’s a beautiful night. Rain clouds hover over the land, drenching the wolves in their kingdom, but out here on the ocean, it’s perfect.
I take a deep breath as I lean on the rail, looking up at the stars and thinking of my father. He’s on the ocean somewhere and I imagine his face looking up at the same stars too, thinking of me.
I grew up on ships, plastered to his side, learning everything I know from him. He’s my favorite person in the whole world.
I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees my haul. Four deepjaws. Even my father never found four deepjaws in one trip. He’s going to hug me so hard and spin me around, saying “Calista, you got the sea in your veins, girl!” I love it when he does that.
The night is quiet and chilly. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering as my mind wanders to other things.
Lately, I’ve been having a nagging thought in my head that won’t seem to go away no matter how hard I try to banish it.
Persistent thoughts of babies and toddlers keep entering my mind out of nowhere. As soon as I had my twenty-fifth birthday, the thoughts came rushing forward like an unstoppable tsunami and they refuse to go away and leave me alone.
You’ll need a man first, that annoying voice in my head says, like I don’t know that already.
Despite my life being surrounded by men, I haven’t been with anybody. Not even a kiss. Not even a romantic word.
I’m not attracted to crude salty men, and the sophisticated men in town aren’t attracted to a woman who can out-arm wrestle and out-curse them at the same time. Sometimes I think I’m living life on an island all by myself. In my lower moments, I think it might always be like this.
A chill ripples up my skin and I hold myself a little tighter, although it does nothing to stop the cold. How nice would it be to have a man to wrap his warm arms around me, to smile down at me, to whisper sweet things into my ear? I think I would like that very much.
“What are you smiling about?” Briallen says with a grin as she walks over in the dark. The sun is almost fully set now, just casting the lightest rays across the ocean.
“Just thinking of those deepjaws,” I lie. “A couple more hauls like this and you’ll have your own ship.”
Briallen gets that dreamy look in her eyes. “I can’t imagine…”
We’re both lost in thought, imagining dreamy futures that may or may not come when Isen hollers.
“Captain! Body in the water, port side!”
I burst over, rushing to the edge of the ship. The rest of the crew joins me.
There’s someone down there about a hundred yards out.
“Keep your eye on him!” I shout to Isen.
“Aye, Captain!” he hollers back.
“What’s he holding onto?” I ask, squinting to see in the darkness.
“Looks like a tree,” Edrik says. He has the best eyesight of us all.
“I don’t like this,” Drakor says nervously. “It could be a trap.”
“He looks dead, Captain,” Edrik says, squinting. “His head is lolled back and his eyes are closed.”
“Prolly a wolf shifter,” Petr says, spitting overboard. “This here is dem parts.”
“Let’s pick him up and kill him,” Valther says, grinning.
“We’re not doing that,” I snap. The humans and the wolves have a treaty. I’m not about to break two centuries of peace for a half-dead floater.
“Lower the skiff,” I order.
Valther turns to me in disbelief. “For a fucking wolf? Let the fucker drown.”
I step up to him, getting right in his face. He’s about a foot taller than me and probably about double my size, but I don’t care.
“The skiff,” I snap, standing on my toes. “Now.”
He takes a deep breath and lowers his gaze. “Aye, Captain.”
“And for the insolence,” I say, “you get to paddle.”
“Aye, Captain,” he grunts.
I point at Drakor and Petr. “What are you two gaping at? Go help him!”
They rush to unload the skiff while I hurry back to the edge, keeping my eyes on the floating man as we drift closer. He’s out of it. He may be dead already.
A small spark in my gut hopes that’s not the case. I can’t take my eyes off him. He seems to be naked and his arm looks pinned to the crook of a branch, his shoulder twisted in an unnatural position.
“I’m coming,” I whisper to him.
“Skiff is ready, Captain!” Valther bellows.
I take one last look at him and hurry to the rowboat.