Chapter 10 Coral and Sand
Calla
Are you real?
The question looped inside Calla’s head as she carefully pulled Riley into her lap and brushed her curls out of her damp forehead.
Her skin was still too warm, but her chest rose and fell evenly with her breaths, and the pulse at her neck beat steadily.
Calla could not stop touching her. It was the only thing keeping the panic at bay, because this reminded her too much of the cave where the Heart had nearly killed Riley.
Are you real?
The question sliced through her like a sharpened blade.
Riley’s voice had been shaking, hopeful, so small as if she’d barely dared hope at all.
She’d looked at Calla as if the possibility of her not being real would shatter the sky above her head into jagged pieces.
Calla checked the pulse at Riley’s neck again, ensuring herself it was still there, still steady.
Why would Riley think she was not real?
Was it the Heart, reaching out to her as it did to Calla? But Calla had never seen things. Just heard them, and she’d thought them her own thoughts for the better part of it.
Calla had also never worn the Heart’s marks on her skin.
A hand gripped Riley’s shoulder, and Calla flashed her teeth, snapping, “Don’t.
” The hand flinched away, and something settled in her chest as she straightened her back against the Moonshadow’s mainmast. Her eyes raised from Riley’s twitching eyebrows to Nyxen, who had taken a cautious step back from them and proceeded to frown at Calla rather than Riley.
Only now did Calla wonder. Since when was she flashing her teeth at people?
But more than that, a growing suspicion crawled up her throat until Calla had to know. Slowly, she reached for Riley’s hands, and pulled off her gloves, then pushed up her sleeves. Ice flowed in her veins at the sight.
“Fuck,” Nyxen swore out loud, shoving a hand through his hair. “Is that–were they like this before?”
A ripple went through the pirates who had gathered around them, while Calla just stared. “Get me Haddock,” she said quietly. “Now.”
After the cave collapse, the marks on Riley’s hands had been dark, thin slithers wrapping around her fingers, reaching out to her wrists.
Calla remembered it well, because she’d spent the time Riley had been passed out in her bed trying to wash them off her hands, finger by finger. But they would not go away.
And now, they’d grown. The marks had completely swallowed her fingers, and Riley’s paler skin only peeked out near her wrists. The slithers reached to her elbows.
“Captain, you asked for me?” Haddock asked, pushing through the gathered crowd.
His steps faltered at the sight of them.
The lines in his face dug deeper as he frowned at the state of Riley’s hands.
“Oh.” Without prompting, the old man reached for one of the pouches at his waist, and took out a small bundle of cloth.
He knelt by them with a pained groan, and he must’ve seen something on Calla’s face, because he said, pacifying, as he opened the cloth and wafted it beneath Riley’s nose, “Salts from the southern caves, captain. It should help wake her up.”
Moments later, Riley stirred in her hold, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. Calla held her closer, forgetting all about Haddock and the crowd of pirates staring at them. “Riley?” she asked quietly.
Riley’s eyebrows twitched, and she peered up at Calla, blinking. Then her lips curled into a small smile that made Calla’s chest flutter. “Captain,” she said playfully, and Calla could’ve kissed that word off her rum-stained lips.
The thought startled her so much her hands slipped from Riley’s face, and Riley’s smile twisted into a frown.
Her expression sobered as she noticed Haddock hovering, and the others. “What happened?”
Calla helped Riley sit up and settle against a barrel, while Haddock took her hands in his gloved ones–since when did he wear gloves?
–and turned them over, studying the marks.
He didn’t look worried, but curious, and something about that sat wrong in Calla’s chest. Riley didn’t seem in the least surprised as she glanced at her own hands, and that made it worse.
She clearly hadn’t seen fit to tell anyone else.
“You passed out,” Nyxen said from where he was standing, still a respectful step away from them. “Do you remember anything?”
Riley pursed her lips, and Calla followed her gaze to the barrel where she and Nyxen had been playing cards just before, with the others. Her fingers curled into fists in her lap, but something shuttered in her face as she shook her head, slowly.
Before she could think better, Calla reached to grip Riley’s chin, and she made Riley look at her. “None of that, Riley. Tell me what you’ve seen.”
Riley’s eyes widened. “How do you–”
“No more lies,” Calla said, her voice softening.
Riley studied her, startled, and then she nodded slowly, gaze falling to her lap when Calla let go of her chin. “I…” Her fingers rubbed against the leather of her gloves as she took in a deep breath and said, “I saw Maren.”
Calla flinched at the mention of his name. He’d died on her quest to disaster, and regret sat like bile in the back of her throat.
Riley didn’t give her the time to recover. “It wasn’t the first time.” Pain flashed across her features, there and gone in a blink, and then she shrugged. “He’s dead, so it wasn’t real. None of it was real.”
Her voice sounded so lost that Calla itched to reach out again, nearly forgetting her own pain. “Tell me everything,” she demanded instead.
After a moment of hesitation, Riley did, not looking at anyone as she talked.
When she was done, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as the silence of the night settled on deck.
Calla studied Riley quietly, something unpleasant twisting in her chest, and she resisted the urge to shiver, too.
Nothing but the lapping of waves at the hull and the creak of wood and swinging lanterns pierced that silence until Calla addressed the old man. “What do you think of this?” she asked.
Haddock asked for a hand up, pulling himself back on his feet with a pained groan.
“I cannot tell for sure,” he said after someone offered him a rickety chair.
“It might be nothing.” He frowned, shaking his head.
“But just because it’s not real in this life, it doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been, though I don’t know why the Heart would show her this, or whether it’s on purpose at all.
” He licked his lips and looked out at the sea, pensive.
A gust of wind tore through the deck, making the pirates huddle deeper inside their coats.
“When the link between her and the Heart broke, something must’ve passed from it to Riley.
A shred of its power, maybe. All I know is that this will get worse if we do nothing. ”
Calla inhaled sharply. She didn’t want to think about what worse might look like. “Can you help?”
“I could concoct a potion of sorts, but I’ll need ingredients,” he said quietly, more to himself, never tearing his gaze off the deep of night. “A white coral. It grows at the bottom of the sea. Its powder should counteract the visions, though I cannot say about the Heart’s growing claim on her.”
Calla stiffened. She hadn’t been to the sea since–
It did not matter.
“A coral?” she specified as she rose to her feet, already looking out at the water. The sea was calm tonight, and she didn’t think it ran too deep. She wouldn’t have to be in there for long.
“Yes,” Haddock said. “Someone will need to dive for it.”
Calla nodded. “Very well, then.” She turned to Gadrielle. “Reef the sails and throw the anchor. Keep ready to sail again as soon as I’m back.” She shed her captain’s coat, throwing it to Nyxen. “You’ll keep an eye on her until then.”
Riley stumbled to her feet, catching her sleeve.
“Wait, captain,” she said, panic laced in her voice and in her eyes.
Her grip was firm, and Calla glanced down, frowning at the way their skin didn’t touch, how she itched for the contact.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, quiet enough to keep it between them.
“I–we need to get to Sable. This can wait.”
Calla gave her a blank look. “No. It can’t.” Before Riley could protest again, she slipped out of her hold and strode towards the railing.
She passed Thorian on the way, who opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off with a look. “I don’t want to hear it.”
And then she stepped up and dived beneath the waters.
The sea’s gentle ripples felt like mockery when Calla broke past the surface.
The water’s caress against her skin a condescending insult.
Because here she was again, in the sea’s arms, and she’d been fooling herself if she thought she’d ever be able to escape it.
That was what the sea whispered in her ears, in her bones, and Calla gritted her teeth as she stopped to look around.
Everything was quiet, and empty. Moonlight penetrated the surface just enough to make the dust in the water glint as it floated, driven by the gently lapping waves.
Beneath, the sea was dark and impenetrable, and Calla itched to swim as deep as her limbs could take her.
The water flowing through her lungs felt immediately addictive, and it only made the dread in her chest worsen. Because she wanted none of this. But the pull she’d thought gone was here, tugging at her chest, at her awkward human limbs, uncaring of how hard Calla had been trying to sever it.
Calla wanted nothing more than to go back to the surface and never break her way into these cursed waters again. But this was the only thing she could do to help Riley. And so it was necessary.
She dived deeper.