Chapter 6 Unmoored
Calla
Calla’s hand stilled halfway through writing her captain’s log as a noise reverberated around the corridor outside her cabin.
She tilted her head, listening in. No one was supposed to be there.
She’d expressly instructed her officers to go on land-leave, and the guards she’d appointed to survey the deck had no reason to come to the officers’ quarters.
Unless there was an issue, and they needed her, but the intruder wasn’t approaching.
A door slammed shut, and something in Calla’s chest shifted painfully, because she knew that faulty hatch. Lately Sable had resorted to slamming the door to her quarters twice before it closed–she must not have had the time to fix it before… everything.
Captain’s log forgotten, Calla stood abruptly from her desk, gripping the edge tightly as she took in a sharp breath. No one was allowed in Sable’s quarters. If her crew thought she would let an intrusion like this slip, they had another thing coming.
It took only a moment for Calla to pull her door open and stride across the corridor, pushing her way inside Sable’s room. She was debating between demanding explanations and skipping directly to punishments, because there was no plausible reason for anyone to be in here. Then she froze.
For one heart-stopping moment, she saw the silhouette in Sable’s bed and thought it might be her first mate. But they were too small. And they didn’t smell like Sable.
They smelled like Riley. Wild fennel and freshly crushed spices from the kitchen, with a hint of steel beneath.
Calla gritted her teeth. The door’s handle creaked under her grip. Was Riley taking a nap in Sable’s bed? The nerve. She didn’t belong–
A shuddery breath speared through Calla’s anger, and she blinked, stopping to take in the details she’d skirted over.
The boots and coat, discarded along the path to the bed as if Riley had stumbled out of them in a drunken haze.
Sable’s sheets, bundled up in Riley’s still-gloved fists.
Deep, uneven breaths stuttering across the room as Riley seemed to drink in their smell. And Riley’s shoulders. Shaking.
Something raw and alien replaced the anger in her chest. Another shuddery breath made Calla’s own breath hitch in her throat, and before she could think to stop herself she was standing right at the edge of Sable’s bed, reaching out.
Then she saw her own hand, blue skin and black nails and webbed fingers, and she flinched to a still.
What was she doing?
She was angry. Riley was a little menace.
She’d done the worst thing anyone could’ve done to her–brought her worst fears to the surface and thrown them at everybody’s feet to gawk at–twice.
And since then she’d teased and grinned and poked at Calla as if it had all been a bad joke that they could just sweep over and forget.
She’d turned Calla into–whatever it was she was now, and nearly died for it, and lost them Sable in the process.
Ever since she’d stepped foot on this ship, Riley had been nothing but trouble.
Calla inhaled deeply and saw Riley stiffen with awareness, saw her hands grip the bundle of blankets tighter.
She’d never stopped wearing Calla’s gloves.
The air smelled of salt and grief and Riley, and that unfamiliar weight shifted in her chest again.
None of it was anger. Every shudder in Riley’s breaths pulled at it, and Calla was powerless to stop it.
Because shoulds and reason did not matter right now. Riley needed her. Riley’s pain pulsed hot and sharp beneath her own ribs. Calla needed to soothe her.
Her knee sank into the mattress. Riley did not move.
So slowly her muscles ached with the strain, Calla laid down next to her.
Her arm went around Riley’s waist of its own accord, and she ignored Riley’s flinch and pulled her close, settling against her back, feeling her warmth, the way her whole body was shaking, not just her shoulders.
It stirred that thing–that feeling–in her chest, and Calla gripped tightly, held close, did not speak, because she somehow knew this was what Riley needed right now.
Riley didn’t speak either. She didn’t pull back.
And after a few breath-stilling moments, the shaking eased.
Riley relaxed. Pressed back against Calla, hugged Sable’s sheets tighter to her chest, and let out a long, shuddering breath.
Calla did not relax. She held painfully still, her whole body tense with conflict, rigid as stone.
She could relax. Lean in further, press her cheek against Riley’s curls, inhale the heady mix of Riley’s and Sable’s mingled scents.
She could close her eyes and welcome the feeling of Riley’s body molding against hers, as if they were meant to fit together.
All Calla could do to stop those impulses was focus on the growing anger filling her up from the inside.
Not at Riley, but at whoever had done this to her.
Who would dare? Calla choked on her demands to know what had brought Riley to such a state, but instead she waited, listening as Riley’s breathing shifted into something deeper, steadier.
If it was one of her crew, she would skewer them.
If it wasn’t, then all the better. She would take her time crushing their windpipe, inch by inch until they knelt at both their feet and begged for their life.
Calla stirred herself out of her thoughts, blinking. Where had that come from? This wasn’t her. She shouldn’t be here. Riley could handle herself. She was better now, her breathing deep and even, and the shaking was gone. Calla couldn’t stay here. She needed to leave.
Slowly, careful not to jostle her, Calla uncurled her arm from around Riley’s waist. Every movement ached, and she had to fight for every inch of distance. The thing in her chest didn’t want to let go.
“Don’t leave.”
Calla stilled, staring at the back of Riley’s head. The words had been murmured, her voice small and soft with sleep. Riley probably hadn’t even known she’d spoken them. For a baffling moment, all Calla wanted to do was curl up in those words.
Then she remembered the mutiny. The Heart. The cave collapsing. Sable. The way her crew looked at her. And stepping back became just easy enough to be bearable. And when Calla shut the door at her back, slowly, without a sound, she was back in control.
She still felt the imprint of Riley’s body against hers.
Still felt the imprint of her betrayal in her chest.
***
“There’s something off with you tonight,” Thorian rumbled, smoke billowing out from between his lips and wasting off in the quiet of the night.
Calla didn’t reply. She sipped from her flask and handed it over, never taking her eyes off the water as her thoughts drifted to Riley.
Again. The urge to go check on her had been relentless throughout the day, and even now Calla felt like she was sitting on pinpricks.
Riley still hadn’t come out of Sable’s quarters.
Whatever this was–this misplaced… worry that had made her think and do and feel things she shouldn’t be feeling–it wasn’t her.
It was one of those instincts she’d spent a lifetime learning how to push down and keep hidden, and it shouldn’t be this hard to do the same thing now.
Ignore it, just like she’d ignored the pull to Sable for so many years, only to become aware of it once it was too late.
Once the change had taken place. And now everything was too intense.
There seemed to be no room left for sensible thoughts anymore, with all that she was suddenly feeling.
“Anyone look at you weird? Do I need to punch someone?” Thorian pushed, and her unimpressed stare set him grinning. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, captain. Keep your secrets.”
Calla sighed. Looked up at the cavern walls, shimmering with the water’s reflections.
She and Thorian were on deck alone. The crew was out drinking, or fucking, or whatever humans who did not need to fear for their safety around others did.
She’d relieved the lookouts of their duties and sent them away until morning, because she knew sleep wouldn’t come to her tonight.
Her mind was whirring too fast, and her chest was tight with the memory of Riley shivering against her.
Her scent mingling with Sable’s. How that shivering had eased the tighter Calla had held her.
“But it’s Riley again, isn’t it? What did she do this time?”
Calla flinched. Her fingers tightened around the flask as Thorian handed it to her again.
“You know, I can still throw her overboard. You won’t even have to feel guilty about it. We’re right by the docks. She’ll be fine. I bet it’ll stop you from brooding so hard.”
Calla stiffened in her chair. “I’m not brooding,” she said.
Why did everyone always accuse her of that?
“And you’re going to leave Riley alone. Like I already told you to.
Many times.” Keeping her tone cool and collected was a struggle, even as she knew Thorian was merely teasing.
He never went against her when it came to the crew.
Thorian shrugged his broad shoulders. “Doesn’t hurt to try.”
Calla sighed again. “Did you hear anything useful today?” she asked.
Every moment, she expected Nyxen to come back on deck and bring news, any kind of news at all.
Thorian gave her a sidelong look. “You know I would’ve told you if I had.”
She did. That didn’t mean she liked his reply.
The compass was pointing away from the Gullet now, so if Sable had been through here, she wasn’t anymore, but she must’ve come this way.
Someone must’ve seen her. And if she’d come here, it meant she’d been looking for something, that she’d needed something. What?
This would all be easier if Calla could go out there and do her own digging, if only so that she wouldn’t have to sit here, powerless and useless. But she couldn’t. They would slit her throat as soon as they saw the color of her skin, the fins she had for ears, the gills on her neck.
“Do you know how many of them are thinking of leaving?” Calla asked quietly. She immediately regretted it, because she wasn’t entirely sure she truly wanted to know.
She couldn’t get her crew the gold she’d promised, nor the lavish life she’d wanted for them.
She’d failed them. That didn’t stop her from hoping they would come back.
At least enough of them to keep her ship sailing.
If the situation was too desperate, she supposed she could trade for something smaller, faster.
She loved the Moonshadow. The thought of parting with her tore her up from the inside.
But there were things more important. People more important.
The Moonshadow was just a ship. She couldn’t fail Sable, too.
She wouldn’t. She’d swim to her if she had to, as much as her skin crawled at the thought.
Thorian made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat.
“Several. They don’t trust you. They’re unhappy about the gold.
Venn is actively trying to turn the crew against you.
Are you sure you don’t want me to at least take care of him?
I can make it look like an accident. There’s lots of dark, dangerous corners around the Gullet. No one would know.”
“His brother died on my watch, Thorian. Of course he hates me. And no. I would know. Until he decides to leave, he’s still crew. And he hasn’t been hurting anyone.”
Thorian looked at her as if that were the dumbest thing she’d ever said. “He’s hurting you. He’s trying to start another mutiny. I’m sorry, Calla, but letting him run wild is really fucking stupid.”
Calla leaned back in her chair, tapping a nail against the flask in her hand. “They won’t mutiny.”
“You can’t know that.”
“They’ll either stay or leave, but they won’t mutiny. You said it yourself, the sea is tolerating them because of me. No one else can give them that.”
A noisy breath blew out of his nose. “That’s not why you’re captain, Calla. You earned better than this. Everyone makes mistakes.”
Calla sighed. All she’d wanted was to serve her crew.
Get them to see her for who she was, not what she was.
But that would never happen now. Not when what she was slapped them in the face every time she stepped in their midst. And maybe they were right.
What she was had made her weak, susceptible to the Heart’s influence.
She’d lost control of herself. She’d nearly killed Eryx.
That wasn’t the kind of thing that could be forgiven.
It would stay with her, a dark stain on her soul.
“Why are you here?” Calla asked eventually. “You should be out there drinking with the others.”
There was a glint in his eye as he glanced at her. “Don’t like the place. Walking around those tunnels feels like being buried alive.”
For the dozenth time that night, Calla’s gaze slid to the quarterdeck hatch, and she blinked in surprise to meet a pair of wide, hazel eyes.
Riley froze halfway out the hatch and, for a moment, they stared at each other.
That unnamed feeling in her chest shifted.
Riley was red-eyed and pale under the flicker of the lantern light, and Calla’s heart twisted beneath her ribs in something like regret.
Then Riley snatched her gaze away and skulked off into the night.
No signature smirk, no teasing, no poking.
It was all wrong. Calla remained stuck in her seat as she watched her go.
“Are you gonna tell me what she did?” Thorian asked, his voice a gentle rumble in the night.
Calla ignored the question. “Can you make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble?” she asked.
Thorian frowned. Then he laughed.
She just looked at him.
The laughter cut off sharply. He frowned deeper than before. “You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You’re really appointing me to be her guard dog?”
“Yes.”
“You’re aware it’s impossible to keep her out of trouble.”
Calla’s lips twitched. “Yes.”
A beat of silence followed. For a moment, she thought he’d ask why, and Calla braced herself for the question, because she didn’t know why. The silence stretched. Then Thorian sighed. “You owe me for this.”
Calla smiled thinly. “Very well.”