3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
I do not close my eyes all night.
After they set the sails, the crew falls silent again, likely returning to their cabins.
According to the snoring sounds, some even sleep in the orlop above me.
Now and then, I hear one man murmur to another, likely when they change shifts, or laughter drifting from above.
The night lasts forever, so I am relieved when a blade of light slips through the orlop above.
I spent the night curled on the hard planks beneath the draped sail, shifting again and again as every position presses into my bones, leaving no way to rest without pain.
And by the seas, the smell is awful. I do not know what they store down here, but it smells rotten.
My stomach twists at the memory of my last meal.
The last thing I ate was a fig I stole from a market stand yesterday morning.
I scrunch my nose whilst I debate risking searching for something edible.
At some point, I have to leave my hiding place.
I could have told the lad to bring me food now and then, but that would’ve put me at risk.
I am not even sure if my hum was enough to make him keep my secret, or if it will fade.
I can’t help but wonder what it must feel like to come back to yourself and realize your will was never your own, and something inside me tightens at the thought.
Desperate for something to quieten my hunger, I rise and peer around the caskets.
I brace my palms on the planks and tiptoe toward the barrels.
I squint, trying to make sense of the swirls of letters on the wood, but then give up.
Shame pricks at me for not being able to read, though it is not my fault.
My mother taught me a little before the swarm abandoned me, but a few words are not much help now.
I sigh, opting to use my nose to choose a barrel.
The air surrounding the first one smells like nothing, so I try my luck.
I glance at the steps after every movement and hold my breath to be sure no one hears, then I ease the barrel head free and look inside.
Water.
I whisper a quick thanks to the sea and drink a few mouthfuls from my cupped hands. The cool water slips down my throat, easing the dryness with every swallow. I am about to drink more when footsteps thud above me and come to a halt.
“Nightglass,” a voice calls above, cutting through the boards. Boots strike the deck as the crewmember he called for hurries over.
“Captain.”
“Can we sail...-” The rest is swallowed by the wood. “..intermaria…storm..”
The timbers creak above me. I press myself against the barrel, trying to hide, heart hammering.
“...currents…against us,” Nightglass answers, his words carrying in broken pieces. “The sea…tear us apart.”
Silence follows.
“Captain…orders?” another voice asks, letting the title linger so that I catch it.
The pause is long enough to make my chest tighten. Then the captain speaks, his voice authoritative but calm – controlled. “... follow…the bloody Glim.”
A chill ripples through me. If they choose to sail through the intermaria, the ship is doomed.
The Intermaria is where two seas meet, constantly fighting for the upper hand.
The result is strong currents and – less commonly but still a very real possibility – maelstroms that swallow ships whole.
Only those who live beneath the sea know the safe route through.
The thought of being trapped down here while the ship sinks makes my stomach twist with fear.
“You’ll be the death of us, Sable,” the doubter spits, loud enough for me to hear. “The Glim has disappeared. We don't know if it's the right route.”
“It’s Captain to you, Ash,” he replies, the words sharp, though only parts of it reach me. “...what do we have to lose…don’t follow it…sea will claim us…”
The deck groans with their steps. I have to know what they’re saying. Before I can stop myself, I move, climbing the ladder as quietly as possible, until I stop just beneath the hatch. Up here, the voices are clearer.
The Captain – Sable – lowers his voice. “If you mean to revolt against my orders, then speak. I would take great pleasure in watching you walk the plank. Until then, obey.”
The steps move away at last, fading into silence, and I release a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My muscles ache from keeping still. I climb down as carefully as I can and fumble for my hiding place.
Suddenly, pain spears through my right foot.
I bite down on the scream, teeth grinding together, and hunch over to look at the affected area.
A rusty nail pierces through my foot, driven clean through flesh.
The acidic sting of nausea rises up my throat, threatening vomit.
I have never experienced such searing, violent pain.
My hands shake as I grip the wood for balance, every nerve screaming out against the iron intruder.
Tears blur my vision as I force myself to lift my foot free.
The sound of my flesh clinging to the metal is wet, and the pain nearly knocks me flat.
Blood wells fast, hot against my skin, spilling over my toes and pooling on the boards.
I press my palm against the wound, breath stuttering.
I count to ten, the way my mother taught me to prepare for when she pulled me under the water.
Slowly, I limp back to my hiding place, my injured foot dragging behind me, leaving a glistening smear of red across the planks in my wake.
I clamp my teeth together and scan the hold.
I need to stop the bleeding. Fast. Cauterizing the wound is not an option, and I do not have any alcohol on hand to sterilize it either.
My only choice here is to apply pressure with whatever fabric I can get my hands on.
I catch the loose end of the sail and pull it free, the coarse weave biting my palms, then I tear off a strip with my sharp canines.
They are not nearly as sharp as a true siren’s, but they cut cloth and skin well enough.
I brace against a casket and wrap the strip around my foot.
Once. Twice. I pull it tight until the throb jumps in time with my pulse against the taut fabric, tucking the loose end underneath the binding to hold it in place.
Another tear trickles down my cheek as I let my back slide down the stacked caskets, the uneven wood catching on the bumps in my spine.
I keep my hand on the bandage and close my eyes, gathering myself for a moment.
I blink them open again at the evidence I have left, the crimson mark I have made on the dark wooden boards.
Should anyone come down here and notice the trail of blood, I am finished.
Worse yet, once the pirates realize what I am, I’ll be thrown overboard or sold on the markets before dawn.
And they do not kill you quickly there. They meticulously pluck the scales, one by one, with a tool they call the flute, then put them in those wretched little cloth bags to sell.
I have seen the stains of life on the planks in Cantora, and the buckets of its waste emptied into the sea.
Perhaps they’ll take their sweet time, torturing me, killing me slowly, the way they believe most sirens enjoy doing to them. They won’t care that I’m not truly one of them. That I’ve never killed–that I never mean to kill. Every pirate has lost someone to a siren. I know my father certainly did.
But I can’t lie to myself. The hunger is there.
It courses through my veins and takes shape in my dreams. A version of me I don’t recognize, dragging a man beneath the waves, tearing him apart, offering him to the sea.
I shiver at the thought of doing something so violent, so unlike me, and apply more pressure to my still-bleeding foot.
I glance at the steps leading to the orlop, weighing up my options, when the hatch is thrown open with a bang, and someone rushes down.
Down into the hold, where the iron of my blood hangs heavy in the air.
Where I sit, hunched over, desperately trying to make myself smaller.
My body stiffens, and I swallow down the bile at the thought of being discovered in my current state.
“Carpenter, you’d best earn your keep! Stitch my ship up before we reach the strong currents!” the captain bellows from above.
I hold my breath, fear washing over me once again as I stare at the threat in front of me.
The carpenter strides toward a damaged part of the hull with a sloshing bucket in hand, cursing under his breath, too intent on his work to notice me crouched in the shadows between caskets.
He drops beside what looks like a crack in the hull, plunges a hand into the bucket he brought, and begins ramming a coarse, fibrous mass into it.
Oakum, if I had to guess. In calmer times, I might marvel at the speed and certainty of his craft.
He turns, probably spotting another fracture.
I freeze, my breath vanishing from my lungs as his gaze sweeps over my hiding spot.
For a moment, his bushy eyebrows knit together as though a confusing thought has entered his head, and then thankfully, he returns to his task.
He did not see me. But it's only a matter of time before he does.
When I am sure he is fully focused once again on fixing the hull, I gather my skirt in one hand and push myself upright.
The world blurs when I put weight on my injured foot, and I swallow the cry that claws up my throat and shift to the other leg, fingers digging into the edge of a nearby crate.
He is only a few paces away, kneeling beside the breach. If he turns fully, if he takes two steps to the left, he will see the blood. The blood of a siren. On the planks between us, the dark smear glistens in the thin light from above. I have to make my escape now.
The steps could lead me upward, away from him.
But I must be cautious not to let the sound of my movement give me away.
Waves batter the wood of the ship, threatening destruction.
If I move with the sound of the waves, there’s a chance their noise might swallow mine.
When the next wave rushes against the hull, I move.
The pain that courses through me only propels me forward, each step aligned to the beating of the sea.
Wave. Step. Wave. Step. I slip past the edge of the casks, and reach the steps.
By the time I reach the top, sweat slicks my palms from the effort.
Peering through the opening, I can make out a few lanterns that hang from the beams above, their glow barely fending off the dark.
Hammocks sway lazily between them, but no pirates lie in rest. I bunch my skirt and hurry deeper into the belly of the ship, stars flickering at the edges of my vision, exhaustion and pain shadowing my movements.
Footsteps echo behind me, but I do not dare to look back.
Looking back would only slow me down. It would only provide me with reason to panic.
At the far end of the orlop, I find a ladder leading upward.
There’s no telling where it goes, and I can only blindly hope it leads to a place they will not think to search for whoever left their mark on the floor of the hold.
At least until we reach the isles of the Sea of Renewal, because if they truly mean to cross the intermaria, there is no other course they could be taking, not with the cliffs hemming in the far edge of the Sea of Crowns, though I have no wish to throw myself overboard there either.
Healing my foot would mean giving up another memory, and I am unsure whether I have any I am willing to part with.
The Sea of Renewal always takes one in return for a mended wound.
Biting down on my lip, I hone my focus on the present task and start climbing.
What lies at the top of the ladder is not quite what I had expected.
It’s the galley, the ship’s kitchen. I stand as straight as I am able, and cannot help but notice how much easier the movement feels in the warm air of the room.
There is an iron stove bolted to the deck, a steady fire crackling inside.
A long worktable runs down the center of the narrow room, and from the wear in the wood, I can tell it’s been here a long time.
Pots and ladles hang from hooks along a beam, and racks fixed to the wooden wall hold onions, citrus, and a net of dried herbs.
I would have expected something filthier from a pirates’ galley.
Whoever works here clearly loves their craft and cares deeply for the space.
I snuff out the fiery hunger in my stomach and force myself past the food, moving sternward.
The door at the end is framed in oak and hangs half open, its glass panes clouded.
Salt air slips through, and I inhale deeply, finding comfort in the familiar scent.
The thought of clean sea air and a short moment of rest pulls me forward, beckons me out into the open.
I press my hand to the cool wood of the door, and step onto a little balcony.
The sea stretches grey and endless, broken only by the churn of white foam trailing behind the ship.
In the distance, the cliffs of Aurelith loom, storm light still flashing above them while the waters here lie calmer now.
The cold wind bites into my cheeks, stinging the skin red, but for the first time since I fled the hunters, I can breathe.
The balcony is a temporary reprieve, but danger still snatches at me behind my back. “There you are.”
I flinch as the familiar voice cuts through me. I close my eyes, draw a breath, and turn straight into a solid wall of man.
Into the Captain himself.
Sable.