Chapter 15 The Crowded Deck
Riley
This was worse than the Stingers. As soon as the lookout recognized the ship on the horizon, Riley’s stomach fell through the floor, because it was Neera’s.
For a few blissful bells, Riley had managed not to think of her once, and now here she was, looming on the horizon, and suddenly she was all Riley could think about.
She stared into the distance numbly as Calla asked Pip, “You said you know her?”
“Yup!”
Riley didn’t want to look at him, but hearing his voice was just as bad. Chipper. Excited. He liked Neera. And she couldn’t fault him for it. She’d fallen for the act, too.
“Any ideas about why she’s following us?”
Riley did glance at Pip then, who frowned thoughtfully. “We asked her to look into Sable? Back at the Gullet? Maybe she knows something about that?”
Calla raised her eyebrows. “We?”
“Me and Riley! They knew each other! Right, Riley?”
Calla turned to her questioningly, and Riley’s stomach twisted.
She was going to be sick. If she had to tell Calla about how they knew each other, she–No, she couldn’t.
Her heart beat fast in her chest, and she drew a step back before the captain even said a word, then she realized what she was doing and froze in place.
She couldn’t run away from this. It would just make things worse.
“Yeah,” she said, fighting to keep her voice and face casual. She had to act like it was nothing. Then no one would make her tell them anything. The memories were already humiliating enough. She didn’t want to share them. “Back in Vareth.”
The look Calla gave her was searching, and for a moment, Riley was sure she would press. She braced herself for it. Tried to come up with something to say, anything but the truth.
“What do you think she wants?” Calla asked instead, her eyes never leaving Riley’s.
Her skin prickled, because Calla looked like she already knew something was off and was just choosing not to press. When had Riley gotten so fucking bad at pretending?
“Nothing good,” Riley said in the end, ignoring the confused frown Pip threw at her.
It already felt like giving out too much information, but they needed to be prepared.
She had to warn them somehow, without unveiling the pit of worms that was her own past. Riley’s gaze slid back to the water.
The ship was barely a smudge on the horizon, hazy through the distance and mist and rain, but her skin crawled as if Neera were breathing down her neck.
The Moonshadow suddenly felt too small, too crowded.
Riley was trapped here, with nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to.
Why did it have to be her? Why now, after all these years, when Riley thought she was finally rid of the memories?
Ever since the Gullet, more of them rose from the depths she’d shoved them into.
They caught her unaware while she was working, while she was eating, while she was talking to other people.
Intrusive. Unwelcome. She wished she could cleave them out of her own head.
But what if Pip was right, and Neera had found out something they could use? Fat chance of her chasing them across the seas to give them the information for free, though. She wanted something. What did she want?
Riley gritted her teeth, staring at Neera’s ship, trying to think, think, think.
Then cold dread seized her lungs, wrapping around her ribcage with sharp, clawed fingers.
Was it… her? No, Neera had tossed her out like a filthy rag doll, back when they were both little more than kids.
What would she want with her now? Except to taunt her.
Torture her. She would waste cycles out at sea just to see Riley cower under her gaze one more time.
See if Riley was still willing to flop belly up at her feet for a pat on the head and a couple of scraps.
Something inside her bristled. She was better than that now. But what if those scraps helped them gain on Sable?
“I don’t know what she’s going to ask for,” Riley said quietly, defeat creeping into her voice, into her shoulders.
Because she’d have to come face to face with Neera again, didn’t she?
For Sable, she had to. “But she wouldn’t come here empty-handed.
So I think Pip is right. She might know something useful. ”
Calla studied her for a long moment. Riley felt the weight of her gaze, though she refused to meet it.
And then the captain gave the word to halt the Moonshadow’s advance.
After that, they waited. And they waited. And they waited.
Neera would not approach.
Her ship’s silhouette remained on the horizon, looming, mocking.
When they tried advancing towards her, the ship retreated in the distance. It was smaller and faster than the Moonshadow, so even if they tried, they wouldn’t be able to catch up with her unless Neera let them. Clearly she had no intention of letting them.
Riley could feel Calla’s frustration rolling off her in waves when, after an entire day of this, she eventually gave the word to keep going towards the Cradle Isles, and keep an eye out on the damn ship at all times.
Some of that frustration seemed aimed at Riley, too. As if her knowing Neera made it her fault they’d wasted so much time on a stupid cat-and-mouse game.
And maybe Calla was right to be pissed. Maybe Neera didn’t even know anything, and Riley had just let her get into her head again. Riley didn’t fucking know, and she couldn’t fucking stand it.
Eventually, she couldn’t take staring at that ship anymore.
It was only when she turned to face the deck that she realized–she’d wasted the whole day doing nothing and Gadrielle hadn’t as much as snapped at her.
And the crew was watching her. How hadn’t she noticed?
They weren’t being subtle at all. Riley blinked at a couple of pirates nearby, who startled when they met her gaze and immediately turned their backs to her.
In the next breath, it clicked.
This was ridiculous. And unnecessary. Riley got spending the night in Calla’s cabin, but this was too far. She could take care of herself. She didn’t need special fucking treatment.
Riley stalked towards the helm, planting herself squarely in Calla’s sights, glaring at her. The captain raised her eyebrows in question.
“Did you tell Gadrielle to let me off the hook?” she asked, flinging her question like an accusation. Then she flung her arm at the deckhands around for good measure. “Did you tell them to watch me?”
Calla didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Riley clenched her fists as something rose in her chest, and she didn’t know what it was, but with the vision, her nearly drowning herself last night, Neera looming on the horizon, she was pretty sure it was anger, because she hadn’t asked for this, any of this, and she didn’t want the whole crew feeling sorry for her.
She didn’t want Calla going soft on her because she was feeling sorry for her.
Riley wanted–needed to earn her place here, and how was she going to do that if they were letting her off the hook so easily?
“Why?” she asked, sucking in a sharp breath. “Why did you do that?”
Calla frowned at her as if she didn’t understand the sudden outburst, which only made everything worse. “Because I won’t have you killing yourself under my watch.”
Heat crawled up Riley’s neck. “I didn’t do that on purpose,” she snapped, and it was loud, cutting through the mild chatter on deck.
Some of the pirates nearby fell silent, glancing in their direction, and that was when Calla stiffened. Her gaze went flinty, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “There are still consequences to things you don’t do on purpose.”
Those words fell so flat and so cold at Riley’s feet that they leeched all the heat out of her anger.
What was she doing taking her feelings out on Calla in front of the whole crew?
After what she’d done to her. Calla clearly hadn’t forgotten.
It stood between them now, like a sharp-toothed beast waiting to strike.
Calla breathed in deeply, her webbed fingers tight around the helm, and Riley couldn’t breathe looking at those cold blue eyes, couldn’t speak.
She waited for Calla’s anger to tear into her and rip her to shreds, because it was way past time now, wasn’t it?
But Calla breathed out, and with it, her gaze softened just enough for Riley not to flinch when meeting it.
“I’ll tell Gadrielle you can resume your deckhand duties in the morning, if that’s what you want. But we need to keep an eye on you until the witch. We don’t know what those marks are doing to you, and I won’t risk anything like last night again,” she said, her voice losing some of its coldness.
Riley swallowed, unclenching her fists, and tore her gaze away from Calla.
There are still consequences to things you don’t do on purpose.
“Alright,” she said, stepping back. “Yeah. If you could talk to Gadrielle again, that would be nice,” she muttered. “I need the distraction.” And then she slipped away with a, “Captain,” before Calla could say anything else.
Of course Calla hadn’t forgiven her. She’d have to apologize first to come anywhere near forgiveness, but those words, they’d caught her off-guard. She couldn’t stop thinking of them, just like she couldn’t stop thinking of Neera looming on the horizon.
That one sentence told her Calla understood.
And that she was still angry, no matter how soft her touches, how tender her moments of care, how she looked at Riley as if Riley belonged to her.
She was still… hurt. Riley hadn’t even been able to apologize.
She didn’t know how. She’d wanted Calla to lash out, because then maybe Riley could blurt the words out, in the heat of the moment.
I’m sorry.
But Calla deserved better than that, didn’t she?
***
Calla had been right to worry.
Soon after Riley fled the fight she’d nearly started, she bumped headfirst into another vision.