Chapter 8 The Captain’s Reckoning
Calla
Sable was alive.
Calla listened through the rest of Nyxen’s report with a deepening frown, and then she sent for Pip, who halted in place for one long moment to stare, wide-eyed, before rushing to hug her.
She looked down at his nest of copper-red curls, startled, and caught Nyxen’s amused smile.
A flare of warmth flickered in her chest at Pip’s sheer happiness to see her, even after her change.
It seemed not everyone would hate her on sight, then.
Before the flicker of warmth threatened to overtake her, Calla reminded herself that he was young, and he’d known her for years.
That would not be the case for others. She allowed herself one thing, though.
Lightly, she wrapped her arms around Pip, reveling in the sudden display of affection while it lasted.
When the boy pulled back, his eyes shone bright with questions, but he just grinned at her, bobbing on his heels as he waited for her to speak in what must’ve been his very own interpretation of patience.
“Welcome back aboard, Pip,” Calla said, and she smiled for the first time in cycles. “We missed you.”
Pip’s cheeks flared at that, and he turned bashful, his gaze dropping to the floor, his boot scuffing against the wood. Nyxen’s smile threatened to break into a grin, and Calla motioned for the boy to sit.
“Tell me everything,” she said once he was seated in front of her desk. “From the beginning.”
Pip grinned and saluted her. “Aye, captain!” He puffed his chest up, as if he’d been waiting for cycles for the opportunity.
And then he talked.
Both she and Nyxen listened quietly, only interrupting when they needed clarification. There was not much need of that, as Pip was very thorough in his report. He must’ve prepared himself for this, Calla realized, and another flare of warmth flickered in her chest.
Once Pip fell quiet, Calla and Nyxen stayed silent for a few moments, processing. With a frown, Calla leaned back in her chair, and Nyxen crossed his arms, thoughtful.
It was good news, mostly, but troubling.
As of four days ago, Sable and Kittredge were alive and well and claiming to be headed for Korrava.
That was a lie, but it reinforced the other thing they’d told Pip–they were on a mission and did not want to be followed.
That much was clearly true. Calla could very well imagine what that mission was.
She’d been suspecting it ever since Sable had ripped the Heart out of Riley’s hands and fled to the seas with it.
Her noble, obstinate first mate wanted to destroy it.
There was no other reasonable explanation for her actions, nothing else that fit with what she knew of Sable.
If Pip hadn’t inadvertently revealed the lie, Calla might’ve believed it, too. That Sable’s plan was to throw the Heart into an active volcano, and risk her own life doing so.
If the volcano was a lie, then what was she really trying to do?
It had to be something worse, which made Calla’s heart clench in her chest.
She brought her hand over to her temple, massaging the impending headache away. If Sable had just stopped for a moment, Calla could’ve told her the Heart was indestructible, and now they wouldn’t be forced to chase her across the seas. They could’ve come up with another plan, together.
“Captain?” Nyxen probed, peering at her with something like concern.
Calla let her arm fall back to the desk, and she waved the both of them away. “We set sail tomorrow,” she told them. “Inform the rest of the crew and see if you can find out anything else until then.”
The two nodded sharply, and then they left Calla to her thoughts.
Her sailors wouldn’t be happy about their land leave getting cut short, if they deigned to come back aboard at all. But Calla didn’t think they’d learn anything else from the Gullet, and if they were to follow Sable’s tracks, they had to leave as soon as possible.
Now that they weren’t lost anymore, they might figure out her real destination with Merrow’s help, and find some way to intercept her.
Despite the worry gnawing at her chest, Calla was grateful. Sable was alive. Alive and foolish. But alive.
Everything else came second.
***
The next morning, Calla was roused from her maps by noise coming from outside her quarters.
It was a thudding and shuffling of boots, and Calla went still all over, dread settling in her chest as her mind jumped to the worst conclusions.
This was her crew, she could tell by the muffled voices and familiar smells wafting from beneath her door, but she couldn’t tell how many of them there were.
Just that it was most of them, and they had no business being here.
This could mean only one thing.
Thorian had been right.
They were to mutiny after all. They would drag her away from her desk and slit her throat right here, in the middle of her rooms, without even the decency of a proper trial.
Then they’d take the Moonshadow for themselves.
No wild chases across the seas, no butchered treasure hunts, no sea freak for a captain.
With that realization came a cold, all-encompassing calm.
She did not grab her gun as she stood from her desk.
If her life was going to end at the hands of her own crew, she would not give them the satisfaction of fighting back, of acting like the wild beast they believed her to be. And she would not run away.
Perhaps a part of her believed she deserved this.
With a deep, steadying breath, Calla walked to her door and pulled it open.
She would face them head-on and dare them to at least look her in the eye as she breathed her last. Calla was so preoccupied with that thought, imagining how her last moments would play out, that she blinked to see the corridor outside her quarters empty.
Had she made it all up?
But no, the shuffling was still there, close. Calla made to step over the threshold to take a better look outside, and nearly stumbled.
There were… objects on the ground. A… trap? Calla blinked at the items strewn before her, trying to make sense of what she saw and struggling to make it fit with her mutiny expectations.
She spotted a jar of salt-preserved sweets she liked.
A carved token of a seal. A spool of fresh thread that reminded her of Gadrielle’s first lesson to the new recruits, when she always made it a point to tell them that the whole ship was held together by this thin, weak thing, made strong when woven together.
An ugly scrap of patchwork from someone who clearly couldn’t sew but tried.
A charm made of twigs and pebbles and something sticky.
Calla’s breath caught in her throat. She bent down to pick up the carved token, turning it slowly in her palm. Merrow’s work.
This wasn’t a mutiny.
What was this?
A throat being cleared was the only warning she received before the hallway in front of her open door swarmed with pirates.
Gadrielle, Merrow, deckhands and gunners and lookouts.
Pip was there too, near the front, with a cheek-splitting grin on his face.
The others weren’t smiling, but they all looked at her.
They really looked at her, square in the eye, and none of them flinched or averted their gazes as she looked back.
“You asked us before if you were still our captain,” Gadrielle said, drawing her attention from the others.
Her boatswain stood tall and proud, her eyes piercing.
“And we didn’t give you an answer then, or after.
We were still angry, and scared, and unsure about what your…
” she hesitated, looking her over, “changes meant for us. It was a lot to take in.” At her pause, several of the others nodded.
After taking in a sharp breath, Gadrielle continued, “It was hard for us to see you stumble, because you’ve always been there, steadfast like the Moonshadow’s mainmast.” Her palm slapped the wood of the corridor’s wall, punctuating her words.
“But that’s the thing. Every time we cracked, you never threw us aside.
Every time we’ve made a mistake, you’ve given us the chance to make up for those mistakes.
And we didn’t do the same for you. We expected you to be perfect.
That’s an impossible thing to be. We’re all a fucking mess, but you’ve been holding us together all of this time, and you’ve never asked for anything in return.
Not even to forgive you for stumbling. But you should.
” Her boatswain straightened her back, searched her eyes.
“Ask us.” Only then did Gadrielle tear her gaze away, and Calla followed her line of sight to Eryx, who stepped out right beside her. “Ask them.”
Calla’s jaw tightened. Her throat worked. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and her hands were clammy with sweat. She studied Eryx’s smooth features, void of any hint of emotion as they looked back at her, waiting.
Her hand tightened around the wooden seal in her hand.
Her crew was right. She’d never asked for forgiveness.
Because she didn’t think what she’d done was forgivable.
But that did not mean she shouldn’t apologize.
It was the right thing to do. Eryx deserved that much.
Even if sacrificing them had been the only way to save the rest of her crew, she shouldn’t have made that choice by herself.
She should’ve talked to them. She should’ve admitted she was out of her depth.
She should’ve trusted her crew enough to let them in, instead of shouldering the weight of problems too big to fit on one set of shoulders.
Calla drew in a sharp breath, and then she let it out slowly. When she spoke, her voice was rough, uneven, the words almost too hard to push out. “I’m sorry, Eryx. And to the rest of you. I apologize. I don’t expect you to forgive me–”
Gadrielle held a hand up in the air, halting her with a raise of her eyebrows. “Let us decide on that, will you?”