Chapter 41
I screamed aloud that I was not afraid;
that I never could be afraid;
and others screamed with me for solace.
~ H.P. Lovecraft
I brought Meridan into Mullin’s quarters, navigating the fog-filled passages as the men scurried about, elated at the movement of the ship.
I had never felt Meridan so weak. I searched her body for injuries and found nothing, but she was heavy against me.
Mullins followed us to his quarters where I set her on his bed.
“Meridan,” I said, sitting beside her.
I brushed the backs of my knuckles against her cheek and was met with what felt like pure ice.
Naros were naturally cold, adapted to the frigid depths of the ocean, but this felt different—disquieting.
The once-vibrant freckles that sparkled in the shadows had lost their glow, and her skin appeared pallid, reminiscent of my own, missing the usual radiance that accented her ethereal beauty.
“What happened?” I asked.
Mullins hovered over us with a lantern, his heart beating loudly.
“Rocks ahead,” she said. “There was nothing yesterday. Then, the current captured me. I could not get back until I swam deep, out of its grasp. And… they were watching. So many of them.” I stood to quickly relay the news to Vidar when she reached out, clutching my wrist with chilled fingers.
“They are coming,” she whispered, her eyes wide but surrounded with the shadows of her exhaustion.
“Look after her,” I said to Mullins. “Feed her. Whatever she needs.”
“Right, then,” he said, taking my place beside her on the bed.
I marched back up toward the helm, climbing steps two at a time.
“There are rocks ahead,” I told Vidar. “And enemies in the water. They are coming.”
As if he’d been itching for some excitement outside of aimlessly towing his ship through windless fog, his eyes lit up with determination.
“Man the harpoons!” he commanded. “Arm yourselves, men!”
The men rushed to their stations. Billy and David emerged from below soon after, carrying armfuls of flintlock rifles for the men to begin loading.
There still wasn’t much to see, but as soon as everyone was at their stations, the crew fell silent, listening to the quiet sea.
It was a relief to hear the sails fill with wind again.
We were certainly moving and with purpose, but into what, none of us were certain.
After an hour of accelerating winds and sailing through increasingly angry waters, the fog finally granted us a small mercy and began to thin.
None of us had seen proper shapes in some time.
It was almost blinding when the haze began to clear and a night sky peppered with millions of stars greeted us.
The men began to cheer into the night as the blanket of mist fell away.
Fists beat the air in celebration, but when I looked at Vidar, I could see the realization on his face.
The way his eyes narrowed said he was seeing what I was seeing.
A night sky that wasn’t ours. A sky with far too many colors. Too many stars.
“Where the fuck are we?” he asked.
I rested my hand on my cutlass and tried to find familiar constellations only to be faced with mystery.
“The other side of the world,” I said under my breath.
“Impossible. That journey would have taken us far longer than a few weeks.”
“Perhaps, if we’d sailed any other direction. But we didn’t sail in any direction. We went through the Myre. Like going from one room to another through a curtain no one knew existed.”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out loudly. “Suppose it wouldn’t do any good to have doubt now.”
“Captain!” Aleksi shouted from the crow’s nest. “Rocks! Rocks ahead!”
I pulled the spyglass off the post where it was hanging and skimmed the northeast horizon to find a dark wall of peaks like the teeth of a giant beast about to greet us. I handed the glass to Vidar, taking the wheel for a moment so he could look for himself.
“How long?” I asked.
He hung the spyglass back on its hook and retook the wheel. “Not long. I need men below ready with shores and planks.”
I nodded and rushed down into the belly of the ship again, spreading word to everyone that would listen that we needed to prepare for the ship to take damage.
Men rolled out of their hammocks and staggered in all directions.
Mullins emerged from his room with a clothed and weakened Meridan and extinguished the lantern when he realized how the ship was swaying on the vicious tide.
“Duty calls,” he said, rushing toward the upper deck.
“Meri, we need to get you fed and—”
“I can do it myself,” she said. “Do what you need to do.”
On any other day, I would have insisted that I accompany her and make sure she was getting what she needed, but I could feel the danger approaching like a swarm of bees to its disturbed hive.
Once everyone was informed of the coming chaos, I returned to the deck and found myself staring at those jagged peaks with my own eyes.
They were already closer, inviting us into the labyrinth of sharp rocks and even sharper currents, and at the speed we were suddenly moving, I wondered if Vidar could get us through.
“Furl the sails!” he bellowed as if our thoughts were the same.
The crew moved with hurried determination, yet the relentless current was more than eager to toss us about. Waves crashed against the hull, throwing icy spray across the air and soaking the deck beneath my feet. I staggered towards the shroud, gripping it tightly before I was thrown off my feet.
I was frustrated over the fact that even with my eyes, I could not see past the surface of the water into the dark depths beneath us.
I didn’t know how many enemies were down there or what they were planning.
I only knew that they were present, stalking us through the night toward whatever dangers waited ahead.
As the rocks drew closer, the men worked with more urgency, rushing about.
Some of them were crawling along the deck, surrendering their footing so they did not lose themselves to the rocking of the ship.
At the helm, Nikolai was holding tight to the railings, ready to aid Vidar if anything should happen.
“We’re approaching too fast!” I yelled.
Above me, crawling along the main mast, was Aleksi, his legs wrapped around the thick poles like a monkey and tying off the remaining sails.
One of the other men pushed past me to climb the shroud, a coil of heavy ropes secured across his chest, but before he was able to get anywhere, the Weaver hit a wave, throwing her bow high and tossing the crewman off the ropes.
I lunged for him, pulling him back over the railing onto the deck.
“Can’t do it!” he shouted over the wind.
I looked up at Aleksi again as he rode the mast and then snatched the ropes from the other crewman. I could vaguely hear Vidar shouting as I leapt onto the shroud and began to climb. Likely he was telling me to stay put, but there was no time to obey an order I couldn’t hear.
I ascended the shroud with speed, coming to the poles where Aleksi was pulling up the sails and making an effort to secure them on a mast that was swaying like a tree in a hurricane.
“Aleksi!” I screamed over the roaring wind.
I gripped the pole, extending the ropes to him, my hair whipping across my face and skewing my vision. I felt him snatch the ropes out of my hand and then began to furl the sails as Vidar had ordered, following Aleksi’s hand gestures and the sound of his muffled words.
Looking down, I could see the first peak of sharp rocks jutting out of the sea on the starboard side. The ship narrowly missed it. Another rock on the port side scraped against the hull, jostling us. I hugged the pole and, when Aleksi gave the ok, began to descend back down the ropes.
The moment I landed back on the deck, Vidar was barking orders.
“Get below! Aid with repairs!”
I nodded and rushed toward the companionway.
“Port side!” Aleksi bellowed from above as he reestablished himself in the crow’s nest.
I turned to see a towering arch of black stone rising from the swelling waves like a monstrous sea creature unveiling itself.
The ship suddenly pitched sideways, crashing hard against the rock.
My feet flew out from under me, and as water gushed over the deck, it swept me toward the edge.
I clung desperately to the grate over the hold as the ship stabilized, but just as we righted ourselves, the opposite side scraped against another jagged stone.
“Come on, then!” Mullins said, his balance impeccable as he reached for my arm.
I rolled to my side, getting a glimpse of the hold beneath me to see water spilling through and the animals in a frenzy.
“The hold!” I shouted over the noise. “The hold is flooding!”
I crawled toward the stairs, struggling to descend them only to find that there were multiple hull breaches, all of them spraying water.
Cathal charged into the main passage with a hammer in his hand, his clothes soaked through.
He slid to a stop when he saw us and immediately registered the water pouring into the room.
When we entered and got a better look, all three of us noticed the areas of damage were confined to the walls of Lyla’s cell.
Mullins shoved back through the door while Cathal and I rushed to the gate.
“Small leaks, but they’ll get bigger,” he said. “They need to be patched.”
We were both thinking the same thing when we glimpsed Lyla sitting in the corner, unbothered as the water wept down the walls.
I turned, searching for something, anything, to secure her with.
When all I could find was rope, I was little hesitant, but with no time to be picky, I moved toward Lyla and pulled her arms behind her back through the bars.
Her fists tightened, but she didn’t fight me when I began wrapping the ropes around her.