32. THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-TWO
FANKALO
Location: North Sea
Two ten-days passed, during which Calver never left the room.
Life aboard the Rogue’s Rapture settled into a state of semi-normalcy.
Fankalo took eight-hour rounds at the helm, trading off with Drogus and the navigator.
The crew had started arguing and laughing and singing again.
Following a tip-off at port in Seraphinden the week prior, they pulled off their first heist since she’d taken the title of Captain.
It was one of the best hauls they had ever brought in.
Nearly every interaction she’d had with the crew since glowed with their approval.
That gave Fankalo more relief than pride.
She had no doubt she could run this ship as a perfect echo of Captain Keane.
What she doubted was the fragile egos of men.
She still kept her father’s dagger on her at all times.
When Fankalo woke, the sun had already stretched midway into the sky. That was normal—she preferred the highsun shift. What was not normal was the absence of a large body from the floorboards in front of her door.
Fankalo launched from her hammock and stumbled into boots.
She darted from the room without bothering to lace them, half expecting to hear blood-curdling screams. She reached out with her Luck, sure that disaster would flood the threads of possibility.
But the world around her had all the turbulence of a drought-drained lagoon.
And Calver’s spark had appeared in her mind again.
She slowed as she climbed the ladder through the hatch. The breeze across her cheeks helped to carry away her nerves as she surfaced to the main deck. All was well. She just needed to find Calver and—
He was as impossible to unsee as drunken Cam without pants on.
He was at the bough of the ship: shirtless, planking his body across the rail, doing pushups, running about, kicking, flailing, punching.
Her mouth opened. He just kept going, steady as the damn tide.
Several other crew members watched. Some pretended to be busy.
Others openly gawked. Calver didn’t seem to notice.
Fankalo spotted Mitek at the center mast, sitting on a stack of cargo crates, rolling calamus and datura into paper.
He also studied her brother’s erratic movements, amusement painted across his face.
She stepped beside him, then back to the crate below him, trying not to think about the blood that had been spilled in this space not long ago.
“How long has he been…”
“Doing that?” Mitek’s brows rose, and he flipped his long mane out of his eyes.
“An hour. Maybe three?” He lit the end of the paper and pulled from it.
“A really long fucking time.” They both ogled at Calver.
The longer she watched, the more she felt like she couldn’t look away. “How much stimulant did you give him?”
A laugh bubbled from her throat. “I didn’t give him anything.”
“You’re telling me he’s doing that on jerky and pickles?”
She ran a hand through her cropped curls. “He hardly eats. Doesn’t seem to like food.”
“Chaos behave. That ent right.” Mitek passed her the paper and she took a long drag. Smoke curled from her lips to lift away in the breeze. A buzz blossomed behind her eyes, furthering her from the day’s initial anxiety. “I don’t think he’s slowed down once. Your brother is a creature.”
Drogus stepped up beside them. “Rapture’s all yours, Captain.
We have a nice pull coming from the east. Should hit port in Seraphinden by highsun.
” He frowned at the paper between her fingers and snipped it from them, throwing it to the boards to smother with his boot.
“A twelve-year-old girl should not do these things.”
That had to be the most violent thing she’d ever seen Drogus do. “Kill-joy.”
Drogus patted her on the back with a hand so large it nearly winded her. “Your lungs have many seas yet to sail.”
Fates, how she loved this man who respected her as an adult but fought to preserve her childhood.
She looked at Calver, still at the bow, who had moved on to slicing at phantoms with the blades of his hands.
It was a childhood she was learning more and more to appreciate, considering what might have been the alternative.
She crossed her arms. Perhaps it was a sign he was improving. What else could she do to help rehabilitate him?
“Actually, Drogus, I need another few minutes, if you would?”
“Of course, Captain.”
She gave Drogus’s arm a squeeze and stepped to the center of the main deck, gaining the eyes of several of Calver’s onlookers. “Ay!” she belted. “We’re not getting any closer to port this way. Back to stations!”
The crew obeyed. She fought to restrain the corners of her mouth from looking anything but firm. Even Calver faltered, his brown eyes meeting hers from the crouch he’d fallen into.
Fankalo clenched her fists as she approached him. She needed to treat him like he was normal. At least, if she ever wanted him to be normal.
“That’s enough.” She held out her hand.
Calver looked at it but did not take it.
She cringed inwardly. He was practically a man, and she was no longer six. She let it fall. “You’re causing a scene, eah? Running a ship is labor enough. The only extracurricular exercise we get around here is running like hell if an ass-kicker is chasing us.”
Calver rose, looming taller, even, than Drogus.
“I have something better for you to do. Come with me.”
He followed her like a shadow to the crew’s resource room, a communal, bookshelf-lined space for education and logistics planning. She gestured towards an armchair at the center table. He looked at it for the time it took to take the helm through a full spin before sitting on the floor.
Progress could not all happen at once.
“I think working on your literacy would be of value. We maintain it on my ship, despite the politics of greater Nelfindar. If you’re not learned, you’re useless.” She pulled a mustard-colored volume from the shelves. “But start with this.”
Calver curled his fingers around A Standard of Nelfinden Signals, face like stone.
She waited for him to write something; the charcoal and paper she’d given him poked out of the pouch at his belt. Calver remained motionless. Ever silent. Ever staring. Never seeing.
“I’ll be at the helm,” she muttered, wishing she could feel something other than loss when she looked at him. She’d had enough loss for a lifetime.
Just as she turned to leave him be, Zeb burst into the room. “Drogus sent me,” he panted. “We’ve got company, and they’re not here for tea.”
They met Drogus at the helm a minute later. Mitek stood by his side. He handed Fankalo his ocular, and she stared through it. He didn’t even need to indicate a direction—the ship on the horizon was nearly as tall as her thumb.
“How did it descend on us so fast?”
“It’s a Tera’thian command ship, premium quality. Must have found a fast current,” Drogus grunted.
She swallowed, as though the action might prevent her heart from beating into her throat. “But we’re in Nelfinden waters. Could it be some sort of ruse?” They had frequent run-ins with other raider vessels. Her father had often pulled similar pranks.
“I’m looking at the same ship as you, Captain. That’s Tera’thian capri wood. And a Command Flag. It’s not something someone could pull off just to get a leg over us.”
She felt out with the gift the Fates had given her; bad Luck emanated from the vessel like the very spirit of death. “That’s blight in boat form.”
“Didn’t need magic to tell you that,” Zeb grumbled.
Fankalo took over the helm and closed her eyes. Her Luck found a better current. Probably the one the Tera’thian vessel was already taking.
She whistled and signaled for the topmen to tilt the fore topsail ten degrees. “We’re going to cut west.”
The minutes passed by. Her knuckles were white on the wheel when her blood brother ascended through the hatch onto the main deck below her. Calver took one look at the Tera’thian vessel, then his eyes met hers from across the ship.
And she saw him.
She saw her Calver. Sorrow and agony and apology, all in one lancing expression. She opened her mouth to assure him everything was going to be fine.
He pivoted and sprinted for the rail.
Her heart careened after. “On him!” she screamed.
Two deckhands, Samad and Nalil, dove for him.
He evaded them like a fish slipping downstream.
It took five crewmen to ultimately restrain him, just an arm’s distance from the rail.
Melner reeled backwards, nose smashed. Zeb and Cam jumped forward with bindings and secured his arms to his sides.
Calver thrashed until Kershee brought a needle to sedate him again.
His light disappeared as they carried him back below deck.
Time did not allow for her to be anxious.
“What is your plan?” Drogus rumbled.
“I think this is Cul’Mon’s vessel.” Fankalo had witnessed the Tera’thian Tohatu’s art firsthand.
If they did not escape, there would be no negotiation.
And with the ship’s current proximity, they wouldn’t be able to outrun it to Seraphinden.
“With their speed, there’s no sense in holding course.
We’ll need to lose them in Solutium.” Their smaller size would be their only advantage.
“Have you manned the helm through Solutium before?” Drogus asked, skepticism written on his brow—and with good reason.
Shallow waters, rock, and reef, Solutium was a fisherman’s net for unskilled sailors.
The navigator’s abilities were rudimentary.
Her father had always been the one to take on difficult waterways.
“No, and I don’t mean to now. But if you can maneuver us through tight quarters, I can read my Luck to give you our best chance.”
“It’s been twenty years since I sailed through Solutium.”
They watched one another for long moments, waiting for the other to present a better option. None came.