Chapter 6
The Serpent
One boot propped on the rail, I leaned onto my elbow over my knee, waiting.
“How long?” I snapped.
Tait removed a watch made of gold and silver with cogs that ticked swifter if danger was near, a tell that our time was running short. “Three chimes.”
Teeth clenched, I faced the empty sea again. Night had been thick when we arrived and hid the ship in a deep, empty cove near the Chasm border. Now a sliver of pale dawn was cresting over the horizon, and two of my crew had yet to return from their small reconnaissance of the shore.
They were sly. Patient. It would take time.
Still, the desire to act scorched a hole through my insides. The risk of losing my opportunity to impatience grew closer to a reality with every passing breath.
“Oi! There they be.” A thick-necked man with bone rings in his ears pointed into the murk of clouds from the stern.
I didn’t fight the limp in my leg, for the crew had seen it. I merely stepped with it to quicken my pace across the deck. The crewman handed over the black-and-gold spyglass. One eye closed, I peered through until I found the shadow of the rowboat breaking through the waves.
I slammed the spyglass shut. “Pull them aboard. Move your asses, you wretches!”
Boots pounded over the damp wood. Heaves and grunts raised the heavy bone grate over the lower deck. Half a dozen men slid down the ladder rungs through the hatch to meet them belowdecks.
Palms flat on the rail, I peered over the edge and waited for the hidden door to heave open from the fattest bulge in the hull.
Ships of the Sea Folk were masterpieces.
Even the simplest fishing sloop was shaped from the rib cages of powerful whales or corpses of ancient sea snakes.
The cracks and crevices were filled with sea oak, a soft wood that bent and gave with the violence of the tides and resisted damp for nigh a hundred turns before barnacles and rot needed to be careened away.
With a skeleton of bone and sea oak, ships carved through tides with speed, agility, and silence.
But the Ever Ship was a vessel made for gods.
A vessel powerful enough to sail through the Chasm without snapping a mast. The red sails were stitched with thick canvas, and petrified scales from deep-sea serpents were staked in the hull. Impenetrable.
The most convenient piece of the king’s ship was the stowaway door in the hull. It opened to take on our hauls and rowboats without the delay of cranks and rigging. The door could open, swallow half a hull of water, then lock in place and spit out the tide it took on as we sailed away.
Larsson rowed, and Celine held a lantern through the dark, guiding him into the hull.
They were the two members of the crew who blended best with the earth fae.
Celine with her green eyes instead of the pale or red of most sea fae, and Larsson with his lack of a sea voice.
The magic of the Ever lived in the voices of its people.
Some, like Larsson, had no ability of the sea.
Celine emerged from the hatch and tossed the hood from her head. I dug my fingernails into the meat of my palm until crescents carved into my flesh, all to keep from rushing across the ship to greet them.
Celine crossed the distance over the main deck in long strides. Her dark curls whipped about the frustrated grimace on her face.
“What?” I gritted through my teeth before she even reached me. Patience wore thin, and I only had so much to give in the first place.
“When you cease looking at me like you will tear out my eyes, I will tell you what we found.” Celine arched a brow. She was the only soul who could get away with speaking to me like that, yet she still had the brains to speak it under her breath.
My throat was thick, but I managed to speak without spitting the words. “What did you learn?”
“There are countless people here. The ship will be at risk of being overtaken by their warriors if we draw too close. We should take the skiffs to the docks on the north side of the isle. There seems to be a festival in full bloom, but with it is also an open trade market.” Celine let out a quick breath.
“We’ll be able to dock there and enter as tradesmen. ”
If this day ever came, I’d always imagined screams and terror when the crimson sails broke through the mist. I wanted the earth fae to know their reckoning had come. I closed my eyes against the wind. What mattered more was finding my father’s mantle and winning it back from the Night Folk king.
It called to me, and I wasn’t leaving without it.
“Leave me at the helm, Erik,” Tait said, voice low. “I’ll keep her hidden.”
My cheek flinched. I didn’t look at my cousin, but I didn’t need to. He already knew the answer. I might not trust easily, but there was no denying Tait held a deep-rooted loyalty to the ship, to our kingdom.
Not to mention he was bound by blood, the way his father had been bound to mine, to see to it the Ever King never met his destruction.
Without turning around, I waved a hand and said, “Ready the boats.”
The docks were one pace away. Already, Celine, Larsson, and a few more of the crew were shouting like freshly arrived traders. I was paralyzed.
“Erik.” Larsson cocked his head. “Find a way to blend in before you’re recognized.”
Recognized. Because I’d been here too many bleeding times. Battled these people. Felt their blades on my skin.
My jaw pulsed. This weight in my blood was nothing more than weak, pathetic fear. The crew was blood-bound to serve the Ever Ship. Still, if my men saw me trembling like a boy about to piss in his trousers, no mistake, they’d find a way to mutiny.
“You’ve the right to be here.” It wasn’t Larsson.
He’d melted into the crowd ten paces away.
Celine had her hat pulled low on her brow, and she played the part of a boat hand tethering the already tethered skiff to the dock.
“You have fought for this moment. Now claim what is yours before they get another chance to take you.”
My eyes narrowed in a tight glare. Not out of anger for Celine. More that she was right, and I hated that she needed to say it at all.
With a tug, I used the rigging of the skiff to haul me onto the dock.
For another breath, then two, I drew in the air of the land.
Different than the Ever, yet the same in many ways.
Sweet and fragrant. Not with the cool winds of my realm; there was more heat here.
More savory herbs and cloyingly sweet scents.
I’d left my tricorn hat on the ship and covered the black scarf on my head with a knitted wool cap. The gold hoop I wore in my ear was tucked in my trousers, and the ruby-hilted cutlass was in the hands of Tait with a hefty threat he’d lose those hands if a scratch were to be found on the blade.
We’d armed ourselves through the pirated supplies from old battles with earth fae—seax swords, axes, daggers, and a few of the strangely captivating blacksteel weapons had been pillaged across the centuries before the Chasm closed.
“Here.” Celine handed me a small glass vial with murky fluid inside. “For the eyes.”
She motioned sprinkling a few drops of the vial over her eyes. Teeth hidden, dressed in simple clothes, without my blade, the most notable indication that I did not belong here were my eyes.
I blinked through a sting from the drops, then tossed the vial into the waves.
“Well?” I opened my arms, facing Celine.
“Nothing but a common earth fae.” She adjusted her thick belt around a tattered dress. No mistake, she’d burn the thing the moment she could.
With a sack of stolen grain slung over my shoulder, I stepped into the flow of crowd.
Larsson drifted back to us, taking a place on my left.
Head down, he had a bit of straw between his teeth, and a black strip of leather tied his dark hair off his neck.
Celine took my other side. She played her role well.
A woman overwhelmed by the vastness of a place.
More than one man stopped to help her retrieve the linens she kept dropping.
They were so taken by her praise, they never took note of her hand swiping purses from belts or knives from sheaths.
“Gods, did every bleeding soul on land convene in one damn place?” Larsson frowned when we trekked a slope to the top of a wooden staircase that would lead us into the trade square. Bodies packed the space, haggling, chattering, and utterly unaware the sea had returned.
“Come on. We need to find where he sleeps.”
“How do you know the earth bender will have it with him?”
“The call drew us here, didn’t it? Means it’s here.” I spoke briskly, but my mouth twisted in a grin. The deeper reason was my little songbird wouldn’t break a promise, and she had promised to look after it always.
Tall buildings shaded the square. Some made of wood, others of pale stone.
Moss and a few shelled creatures dotted the crags.
There were carts and tables lining the cobbled paths, stacked with all manners of trade.
Pelts from their mammoth forest creatures, gutted eels and fish, bangles made of wood and jade, and bright masks with feathers and ribbons decorating the neutral features.
A wooden spear handle shot out in front of me.
Without lifting my chin, I rolled my eyes to meet those of a girthy man in a black gambeson.
Two swords hung at his waist, one a bronze blade with a raven hilt.
By his side was another man dressed the same, with two scars like fingernail marks on either cheek.
“State your trade,” the first said.
“Grains,” Larsson muttered. His accent had shifted to something refined and strange. Aboard the ship, he spoke with a constant hum of revelry and a touch of darkness.
“At the festival?” The two guards glanced at each other.
“Folk need feed even at festivals, do they not?”
The guards scoffed. The first poked at the sacks in our hands. Little time went by before they gestured us forward.
“Welcome to the Crimson Festival, grain sellers.”