Chapter 27 Dirty Rags and Little Talks
Calla
The island appeared to them as an oasis amidst the chaos of the storm.
As they reached it, the clouds parted for Nivros’ caressing rays to fall upon the rain-soaked deck and the dripping shreds of what remained of their sails.
Despite the choking grief tangled up in her chest, the sight of a functional, old dock flooded Calla with relief so strong she could cry.
They would stop here for the night. They would go far enough into the trees to rid themselves of the sight and sounds of the storm and pretend everything hadn’t just gone to shit.
Her crew needed it. Even as they prepared the Moonshadow for docking, her pirates worked at the ropes with trembling fingers, and they twitched at every strike of distant thunder. They were at their breaking point.
Calla was, too.
“Do you think we’re going to find any ruins?” Pip asked Eryx as they crossed the sandy shore, and he kicked at a tuft of grass. “Or! Or! Maybe there’s people? The island looks nice. Do we know what it’s called?”
Eryx lifted their shoulders under the strain of their backpack, while Merrow’s white brows furrowed.
“This shouldn’t be here,” their older navigator said as they came upon an old beaten path leading into the forest. Eryx took it, and Merrow followed along without hesitation, as did the rest of the crew. “Not according to the maps we have, anyhow.”
Pip halted in place, or meant to–Gadrielle nudged him forward and he nearly stumbled before jogging to catch up to Eryx again.
“This won’t be like that Wraithspine Isle you told me about, right?
” He looked over his shoulder, catching Gadrielle’s eye, and then Calla’s.
“Right?” he asked, voice pitching high in sudden worry.
Draven’s face flashed through Calla’s mind, and she held in a shudder.
The way he’d been convinced the trees were following them.
His full-belly laughter as the rotting hands dragged him under the surface of the lake, as if he’d just heard the funniest joke of his life.
And Calla, driven too mad with the need for water to spare him any kindness at all. The Heart’s voice in her head.
Eryx’s quiet voice cut through the memories. “We’re safe.” They said nothing else as they led the way, and soon they came upon a clearing, a–
“Ruins! I was right!” Pip announced, thrusting his chest out in pride as if he’d led them here.
Calla squinted her eyes. She wouldn’t describe what she saw as ruins. What lay before them was a small village. Her steps faltered at the sight of it, but she caught herself in the next breath. She was the captain. She could not falter.
Eryx walked into the village as if they’d expected to find it here.
“We can rest here tonight,” they told Calla over their shoulder.
“The drakes can’t see this island, and they can’t find what drew them here either.
So they’ll be gone in the morning.” They frowned right after saying that and faced forward again, seemingly startled by their own words.
Calla knew better than to prod. She studied the village instead.
Wooden houses littered the ground around a large campfire area, with a shack occupying the space just in front of it.
Her pirates unloaded their heavy packs around the charred, spent campfire, and they stopped to look around, gawking.
The buildings were sturdy and well-maintained against the passage of time, and for a spine-chilling moment, she wondered if someone might come out of one of those doors to greet them.
No one did.
Calla admonished herself. People hadn’t lived beyond the Quiet Sea in a long time, and from the little she knew of other species, they wouldn’t sully themselves by inhabiting human-made houses.
But clearly she wasn’t the only one confused about the state of this place.
Nyxen looped around the campfire area and knocked on one of the doors. After a beat of silence, he nudged it ajar and peeked his head in. “It’s empty,” he said, bemused, as if he felt like a fool for even checking. “Picked clean.”
The rest of the houses were, too. They found furniture and beds and stored linens, all in good condition–if a little dusty–but no sign of living beings, or any scraps of food.
Lastly, Thorian walked to the shack, pulling the heavy wooden doors open wide.
From outside, Calla spied the shadowed outline of a wooden counter, tables and chairs, and the glint of shelved bottles in the last of Nivros’ rays.
A tavern. Thorian whistled, and there was a sound of jostling glass.
“I’ll be damned,” he called out. “They left the alcohol. Guess we’re having a party tonight. ”
“Are we? That alcohol must be a few centuries old,” Calla said, leaning against the doorframe as she watched her quartermaster survey the shelves. At her back, the crew took their silent cue to unpack and search the edge of the clearing for wood to burn.
Thorian shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Under Calla’s unimpressed gaze, he picked the dustiest bottle he could find.
His fingers left trails through the grime, revealing thick amber glass ringed with pitch stains.
He warmed the bottle’s neck between his palms, then scored his dagger around the cork until the seal gave with a crack.
He pulled the cork out with his teeth, like a show-off, and a ribbon of warm, baked-fruit scent rolled out.
Port, or something like it. In the next breath, Thorian brought the bottle to his lips and glugged a mouthful.
He lowered it with a performative, “Ahh,” and grinned at her. “Better than our stash.”
Calla cocked her head in skepticism.
Thorian smirked. “Come get a taste for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
Calla shook her head. “I think I’ll leave the honor to the others for now. Maybe later.”
She made to go, but Thorian’s face went serious, and that was a rare enough occurrence to make her pause.
He waved her over. The clack of her boots resounded in the empty tavern, each step stirring a faint haze from the floorboards.
Calla leaned her hip against the counter’s edge and swiped her finger across the wood, wrinkling her nose at the thick layer of dust. The village might be well-preserved, but clearly no one had been here for a long, long time.
Something soft thumped into her chest, startling Calla into catching it.
A rag, old and fraying at the edges. She looked up in question.
Thorian shot her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Help me out for a while?” he asked.
Calla glanced at the rag, then at the dust-coated tables and chairs, the dirt-streaked floor.
Silently, they got to work, with Thorian hunting a few bottles of soured wine for the task–as if he could smell the damn stuff through the glass.
They hadn’t worked side by side like this since they’d rebuilt the Moonshadow nearly from scratch with nothing more than their bare hands and grim determination.
This was how they worked now, too, except last time Sable had been right by their side, and now she wasn’t.
The weight of her absence thumped in the back of Calla’s mind with every fatigued breath and heartbeat.
By the time she slumped on a rickety stool, leaning against a shining counter, night had fallen, and she peered at the way the lantern light flickered off the scar splitting Thorian’s beard.
He liked to tell people he’d gotten it during a brawl, but it had happened while bringing their ship into shape.
He’d stumbled and fallen face first onto a rusted nail, which missed his eye by some miracle but caught a stupidly long line across his nose and cheek and jaw instead.
Calla had been the one stuck with caring for the infection.
They knew each other better than anyone. And so she knew Thorian hadn’t wanted her here because he’d needed help with cleaning.
“Just say it, Thorian, whatever it is you have to say,” Calla said, too tired to dance around it any longer.
Thorian held her gaze for a long moment, and then he grabbed the old bottle of port from earlier, filled a chipped wooden cup to the brim, and slid it her way. “Drink,” he said. “You need a drink before you can hear this.”
It turned out Calla was too tired to argue either. She tipped the cup back, pausing as the surprisingly rich, leathery taste hit her tongue. This was better than their stash. She finished the rest in two gulps, which was undignified for a captain, but no one other than Thorian was here to see.
She leveled an expectant look at him.
Thorian pulled a face and brought the whole bottle to his lips, sucking several heavy gulps in one go before slamming it down on the counter.
Calla pressed her lips together. “That bad?”
He shot her a tired smile. “You need to let her go, Calla. She’s gone,” he said, and no, the alcohol hadn’t been enough to shield her from the way those words struck her.
A punch to the gut would’ve been better.
Thorian sighed, as if he knew, and yet he still kept going.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, and it fucking sucks, but shitty things happen to better people than us, and that’s just how things are.
You still got me. And you got Riley. And you got the rest of the crew, who all put their necks on the line back there to prove they’re loyal to you.
Don’t push them away now that you’ve got them. Let it go. Let her go.”
He was right about one thing. She didn’t want to hear this. But she owed the man more than storming out on him, so Calla sat there, allowing the words and the ache to settle heavily in her chest. Some of them hurt less than others, though, and Calla focused on those.
Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “So you don’t want to hurl Riley overboard anymore?”
Thorian snorted. “I didn’t say that.”
Calla raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh, but you did.” And then, “Since when?”
“I know what you’re doing,” Thorian said, crossing his arms.
Calla shrugged one shoulder, then nudged her cup in his direction with the tip of her fingers. He had to uncross his arms to pour her another drink, and the pleased smile slipping onto her lips earned her a half-hearted glare.
“Humor me,” she said, raising her cup in mock salute. “I listened to what you had to say, didn’t I?”
“I’m not sure you did,” Thorian grumbled, then he rolled his eyes.
“Since the Gullet. And since that little lovely speech she gave your door when you were so busy brooding in your cabin.” At Calla’s surprised look, he grinned.
“She should’ve been quieter if she didn’t want every officer on the floor to hear her. ”
The warmth that settled in her belly didn’t dispel the snarling, twisting ache in her chest, but Calla clung to it all the same. “What about the Gullet?” she asked, turning the cup around in her fingers.
“After you told me to keep an eye on her, I followed her to one of the pubs.” Thorian settled on the stool behind the counter.
The wood creaked under his weight. “A bunch of the crew was there, too. She was in a corner, drinking, feeling all sorry for herself, and on the other side were Venn, Haddock, and some others, talking the crew into leaving your ship.”
Haddock? The old man had been stirring trouble on purpose, then, and not just with stories.
Before Calla could inquire further, Thorian pulled a face, his fingers tightening into fists as if he meant to go back into time and bash some heads in.
“She heard them, right? And she stood up for you.” A scowl accompanied those words, as if he’d been forced to drink a bottle of that sour wine they used to clean the tavern.
“Gave a slurred speech about how good they had it going with you and how they’re all ungrateful fools for even entertaining that sort of talk before storming off in a huff.
” He fell quiet for a moment, his fists relaxing against the counter.
“That cute little gift-giving they got going for you before we set sail? It was her doing.” He drummed his fingers against the wood, growing pensive.
“So yeah, you still have your crew thanks to her. Guess I decided I’m cutting her some slack. ”
This was the freest admission of being wrong Calla had ever seen from the man, and she stared at him, incredulous.
To say that she was surprised might’ve been a little of an understatement, but it tracked, didn’t it?
She’d been so certain at least half her crew would leave her for another captain, a human captain, but everyone had come back. Everyone.
“Why not tell me then?” she asked quietly.
Thorian shrugged. “I thought it was another one of her plays, but… Even I can see she cares about you. She might not be Sable, but you could do worse.”
Calla scoffed, even as the warmth turned into a pleasant tingle.
It felt wrong to lean into it. So she didn’t.
“I’m not letting her go, Thorian,” she said, seizing the ache in her chest until she felt nothing but the hurt once more.
“I’ll search every inch of these waters if I have to, but I’m not letting her go. ”
“I know,” Thorian said, his voice a sad, gentle rumble. “It was worth a try.”
Outside, laughter rose with the crackle of the campfire.
Pirates poked their heads in, and Thorian’s head snapped in their direction.
Before they could flinch away, he shot them a mischievous grin.
“Which one of you fuckers is feeling brave tonight? Got something of a game in mind.” At their dubious looks, he sweetened the deal. “If you win, you get drunk.”
And suddenly they weren’t alone anymore.
But Calla felt lonelier than ever in her grief.