Chapter 20 Truths and Lies
Calla
“You know we’ll follow you anywhere, but the Desolate Sea, captain?” Merrow asked, perching on a chair.
They’d retreated from the chill of the night to the mess hall, and lantern light lent his dark skin a golden glow, deepening his wrinkles, making him seem older.
Wiser. Maybe he was old now, and Calla had simply failed to notice.
She frowned at him. Had his eyes always been this…
pale? As if the suns had leeched the color from them.
But his gaze remained sharp, focused, and he was looking right at her. “No one comes back whole from those waters.”
“One could argue no one comes back at all,” Venn grumbled, elbows braced on his knees as he sat on one of the tables, his feet propped on the bench below.
“Oh, and you’re suddenly such an expert on what happens beyond the confines of Vareth, after… what?” Gadrielle made a slow count of her fingers. “Three months of being a real sailor?”
Venn bristled. “Just because people don’t die on the Quiet Sea didn’t make me a fake sailor.
” He took a sharp breath, visibly calming himself.
“And I heard stories enough to know it’s smart we steered clear of the Graveyard, and that we should keep being smart.
The Desolate Sea is a leviathan breeding ground, for fuck’s sake! ”
Several of the pirates shifted uneasily. Some seemed surprised, even though the man was right. It wasn’t just stories. Most of Calla’s maps had ominous warnings on them hinting at the same thing.
Calla leaned against the table at her back, suddenly too tired to stand upright.
The day had been long already, and it was shaping up to become longer still.
Flashes of the duel plagued her, making the dull echo of fear and pain flare in her chest every time she thought of it.
She’d nearly lost Riley today, and she’d never known such abject fear.
The more she was giving into her feelings, the more terrifying they grew in their intensity, the more consuming.
It had taken everything in her not to put a bullet between Neera’s eyes as soon as she’d stepped foot on deck.
Rowe had had to physically hold her back when Riley had offered herself as contingency.
‘I know that look in her eye,’ she’d told her. ‘She needs to do this. You need to let her.’
Even now, with Riley sitting inches from her, safe, Calla felt compelled to close the distance.
She’d thought that giving in this morning, touching her to her heart’s content, would make the cravings more manageable, that she’d be able to focus on other things with a clearer head.
But the bond felt more intense now rather than less, and Calla found herself attuned to everything Riley was communicating, verbally or otherwise.
Right now she was being too quiet. Jumpy.
The visions again? Or fear of them. But Riley had insisted on attending.
As if Calla would allow the plan to change.
Something else nagged at the back of her mind, though.
Every step forward–the storm on the horizon, the Graveyard, the Desolate Sea–her pirates grew more and more spooked.
The only destination that wasn’t spooking them was the Cradle Isles.
They’d become unusually resistant to dangerous ventures ever since the hunt for Virelai’s Hoard had started, ever since–
Calla eyed Venn warily. “Where did you hear those stories?” she asked.
Venn startled, and just now Calla realized this was the first time she’d addressed him directly since Draven’s death.
He pressed his lips together and didn’t reply, but he didn’t need to, because his eyes betrayed him.
Calla followed his surreptitious glance to Haddock.
The old man sat next to Merrow, and he stared at Calla unblinking for far longer than comfortable.
“I would thank you to stop spooking my pirates, old man,” Calla said, her fingers curling against the edge of the table. The bite of the scarred wood against her palms was grounding. “One could take it as sedition.”
A hush fell over the mess hall, punctuated by the creaking metal of the lanterns as they swung with the lazy motions of the ship.
Haddock raised his palms in a pacifying gesture.
“Apologies, captain. They’re just an old man’s ramblings to pass the time.
” His lips curled in a mild smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“I never meant to be stepping on any toes. If you wish me to stop…” he trailed off, and he glanced at the other pirates.
Calla tilted her head, observing the sudden change in the air. It was subtle, but she knew her crew well enough to notice.
The silence grew charged. Shoulders stiffened. Displeased frowns and twists of mouths all around.
Her pirates liked the stories.
There wasn’t much reprieve from the hard everyday life of being a pirate.
To rid her sailors of one such reprieve would not come without consequences, especially with the ventures she was leading them on lately.
And did her crew not forgive her, and accept her as she was after so many years of lying to them?
This was nothing. Just a day stretching past its welcome.
Calla sighed and waved a hand. “No, no, old man. Just pick your stories more carefully from now on.”
Haddock inclined his head. “As you wish, captain.”
“Is he wrong, though?” Merrow challenged her with a frown.
Calla looked at him for a long moment. He knew very well the Desolate Sea was a leviathan breeding ground, but he’d never challenged her like this in front of her whole crew. Usually he did it in the privacy of the chart room, and he always dropped it when asked.
“No,” she said eventually. “No, he’s not wrong. That doesn’t change what we must do.”
“How do we know they’re not dead?” Nyxen asked this time, not unkindly.
Calla wished his question hadn’t been so soft-spoken, wished she didn’t know how badly he wanted his friend back. Otherwise, his words wouldn’t have hit like such a blow to the ribs.
“The compass shows they’re still on the move,” Eryx said quietly, drawing several glances from the crew, and a frown from Haddock.
“Does that even mean anything?” Venn asked. “Someone could’ve slit their throats and taken the Heart.”
Eryx shook their head. “The Heart wouldn’t allow it.”
Quiet settled again. Nyxen’s shoulders drooped in something like relief.
There was a time the crew would’ve scoffed at Eryx pretending to know anything, but after they’d gotten Pip back, even the most cynical pirate knew better than to disagree with them.
Calla was particularly grateful for that at this moment.
“We’re on track to reach the Cradle Isles?” she asked Merrow.
“In the morning,” he said.
“Then we’re heading for the Desolate Sea full speed right after. We don’t have time to waste.”
Several unenthusiastic, aye, captains, followed her statement, but at least no one argued. Calla took it as a win as she watched everyone disperse from the room.
Everyone but Pip.
He lingered until the last pirate was gone, then he approached her and Riley with a troubled frown. Calla braced herself. She already knew what was plaguing him.
The question fell from his lips as soon as they looked at him. “Why did Neera want me so badly?” He looked at Riley, his frown deepening into something hurt. “And don’t lie to me. I can tell you know. It’s on your face.”
Riley scoffed a bitter laugh. “You’re too smart for your own good, Pip. Did you know that?”
Pip folded his arms across his chest, scowling. “You’re changing the subject.”
Calla and Riley exchanged defeated looks. They’d agreed it was best to keep what Riley had learned in her vision from the rest of the crew, including Pip, but they hadn’t anticipated this.
“Are you sure you want to know?” Calla asked with a sigh.
Pip nodded once, sharply, and in this moment, with the lantern light playing shadows on his face, he did look like he’d grown. A fondness settled in her chest, even as she dreaded breaking the news to him. It would hurt him, one way or another.
“Do you remember earlier? When I… grabbed you?” Riley asked quietly, drawing a surprised look from Calla.
Calla had been prepared to take the brunt of this. It was what was expected of her as captain. Riley didn’t need to step forward like this.
Pip shifted on his feet. “Yeah,” he said.
Riley didn’t look at either of them, but somewhere off in the distance, her voice calm and even as she talked. “It was one of my visions. You and Neera were in it. She called you her little brother. I’m sorry.”
Pip blinked at her, then looked at Calla. When Calla didn’t refute the plainly stated facts, he drew a step back as if struck. “You’re saying she was my sister?”
Riley very pointedly kept not looking at him, even as pain flashed on her face. “I’m sorry, Pip. You shouldn’t have seen–”
“Don’t,” Pip said, pointing a finger at her. “I’m not a child.” And then he left, before either of them could say anything else.
A long moment of silence followed as Calla stared at the door swinging in his wake, frowning. She hadn’t even thought of Pip when slicing Neera’s throat. She’d thought of nothing but Riley’s hand on hers and the ice-cold fury piercing through her chest.
Riley’s knee knocked against her leg. It was gentle, barely more than a touch, as if only making sure Calla was really there.
“What if we’re too late?” Riley asked quietly. Then, even quieter, “Because of me?”
Something about her question was so broken Calla had to swallow a choked-up feeling in her own throat, and she knew she had to do something before this became another demon Riley had to battle.
Calla had a feeling Riley couldn’t take much more of this.
Even before Neera, she was fraying at the edges, and Calla felt powerless to stop it.
But there was one thing she could do.
So she took hold of Riley’s hand and pulled her to her feet.
Without a word, she led them back up on deck, across the ship, and down to the officers’ quarters.
She didn’t speak until they reached her desk and Calla found one of her smaller maps, covering the area they were navigating right now.
She pulled Riley to stand beside her as she spread the map over her desk and found a pen.
She placed a finger in the middle of the map, then crossed the spot with an X.
“This is where we were when we decided to head to the Cradle Isles,” Calla explained, marking that location as well, and then doing the same for the Graveyard.
She drew two lines from the first X to both locations, and then she crossed a fourth spot.
“This is the Desolate Sea.” The sound of charcoal dragging on paper filled the silence as she drew two more lines, and then she set the pen down with a decisive motion, looking at Riley.
Her eyebrows pinched together as she tracked the two paths drawn on the map. Their length.
“If we’re too late, it won’t be your fault,” Calla punctuated gently.
Riley followed one line with her fingertip along the map, as if convincing herself this was not a trick.
Haddock had presented the witch as a diversion, but none of them had known where Sable would be heading after the Graveyard.
Now that they did, the Cradle Isles could almost be considered a shortcut.
The two paths added to the same length, but sailing through the Graveyard while also trying to avoid the storm would’ve been trickier. Slower.
“But how?” Riley asked, drawing back from the map and tilting her head at it from more of a distance.
Calla sighed, looking towards the porthole.
“The storm was always our biggest issue. We always have to adjust course or risk tearing the ship apart sailing into it, and it’s only growing more vicious the longer we follow them.
If we make good time after tomorrow, we might be able to sidestep it.
” She locked eyes with Riley. “We would’ve been celebrating right now, but–”
“The leviathans,” Riley said, frowning.
“Yes.”
Riley’s frown deepened as she looked down at the desk again. “Did you really ruin your map to show me this?” Her voice went soft with the question, and Calla couldn’t help herself anymore.
She reached out, cupping Riley’s cheek. A gentle stroke of her thumb coaxed a soft sigh out of her lips, and Calla wanted to curl up in it. “I have more maps,” she said with a small smile, then she drew back.
She walked to the porthole, allowing Riley a moment to process.
It was hard to see through the night with the lantern on in the room, but she still picked up the glint of moonlight against the waves.
It didn’t lodge the weight pressing on her chest. “I’ll get her back, Riley.
I promise. I know what she means to you. ”
Silence stretched behind her, adding to the weight, but then–footsteps. Riley joined her side, close enough to touch. “Calla,” she sighed, and she’d never heard her voice so gentle. “You’re not doing all of this for my sake?”
She’d do anything for Riley’s sake. It had become painfully obvious when her dagger’s blade had bitten into Neera’s throat, with no regard for the all-out fight it could’ve provoked, how many losses that one action might’ve cost her.
For any other captain, letting them scurry back to their ship with their tail between their legs would’ve been enough humiliation to pay for the disrespect.
But not Neera. Only blood could begin to pay for what she’d done to Riley.
And… Riley belonged to Sable just like she belonged to Calla. She felt that in her bones.
“Not just for your sake,” she said carefully, tasting the words in her mouth. “Sable is my first mate. She belongs by my side.”
Riley huffed a laugh. “Are you seriously still lying to yourself about this?”
Calla glanced at her in question, stiffening.
“No, no, don’t let me stop you.” Riley shot her a wry smile. “It’s kind of fun to watch.”
Calla was sure she didn’t know what that meant.
Except the selkie’s voice resounded through her head again.
Mates, she’d said.
Plural.
Calla shook her head, dismissing the voice, and the thoughts. Nothing would breach the distance Calla had forced between them, for years. And after the mutiny, that fight in the brig, the distance had just grown colder.
Both Riley and the selkie were wrong. She and Sable were salt and ash. Whatever else it could’ve been, Calla had ground it down long ago.
But Sable was still her first mate. And she still belonged by her side.