Chapter 2
- Crat'ax -
The skirr slaps its tail against the hull.
Once. Twice. Hard enough to make a real bang.
“What?” I look up. The skirr would not waste strength. It doesn’t warn unless there is a good reason. There must be a Big down there somewhere. Nearby.
I reach for the spear at the bottom of the boat and unwrap it from the leather, then put its shaft within easy reach.
The female is too quiet.
My hand tightens on the paddle as I turn—
“No!”
I am already moving, leaning over the side, already knowing.
Then she screams, ending with a desperate gargling sound. The sound rips through the night and straight through me, sharp and desperate and alive. It lodges in my chest like a barbed hook.
“Stay!”
The paddle hits the bottom of the boat, and I drop to my knees, staring into black, churning water. Something vast moves beneath the surface. The Deep is awake.
The skirr screeches and dives, vanishing under the waves.
I reach into the bottom of the boat and close my hand around my spear.
It is two hands longer than I am tall. Too long for forest paths or caves. Perfect for the Deep.
The shaft is smooth with use. The steel blades catch the moonlight, blue and smooth and cruel, with a pattern that it took me hours to hammer into them. Two long blades jut from the shaft lower down, angled to catch and tear, to keep prey from slipping free.
I have killed monsters with this spear. Things that swallowed men whole.
I brace it against the hull and drive it down into the water, not aiming for flesh but for movement, for the pull that drags her under.
The spear strikes, and the impact shudders up my arms as the blade bites into something thick and rubbery. There is resistance, sudden and furious.
The sea erupts in foam and wild sprays.
Tentacles surge around the shaft, slick and pale beneath the surface. One breaks the water entirely, long and ridged, with suckers the size of a palm.
Callie gives off another scream.
Good. She lives.
I roar with a sound meant to frighten beasts and men, and to give myself courage as I haul back with all my strength.
The spear holds. The creature does not.
Water boils as it thrashes. Dark blood clouds the white foam and turns it black. One limb slams the boat hard enough to rock it. Another coils around my forearm, cold and burning strong.
I snarl and twist, using the lower blade to tear free.
“Mine,” I growl, though I do not know why the word comes to me now.
I plunge the spear again, deeper, driving it toward where the limbs meet, where the Deep hides its heart. The skirr bursts from the water nearby, snapping and shrieking, darting at exposed flesh.
The monster recoils.
The pull on Callie weakens.
“Hold!” I shout, not knowing if she understands. “Hold! Stay!”
I drop the spear and dive.
I cut through the Deep itself, strong strokes driving me down toward her pale shape twisting in the dark. A tentacle coils around her waist, dragging her backward.
She is fighting. But she has no weapon, no spear, and no blade. She can’t win a fight like that.
I reach her and hook an arm around her chest, then slash with the knife I pull from my belt. The blade bites, severing the limb that holds her. The tentacle recoils violently, releasing her.
I kick upward, hauling her with me. My lungs burn and my vision narrows.
We break the surface together.
She coughs and gasps, clawing at me. Little fingers dig into my shoulders, my neck, and my hair. I welcome the pain. It means she lives.
I drag her to the boat and toss her over the side, muscles screaming as I climb in and lift her clear of the water. She collapses onto the planks, shaking, choking, and coughing. Her hair is plastered to her pale face. Her eyes are wild and bright.
The sea churns once more, then goes still as the Big retreats.
I drop to my knees, chest heaving. I press my hand flat against her back, feeling her heart hammer beneath my palm. Too fast. But strong.
She turns her head and looks at me.
Even soaked and shaking and terrified, she overwhelms me. Her skin gleams in the moonlight. Her mouth is parted, lips trembling, breath uneven. Her scent is ocean, fear, and something warm and unknown. It wraps around me like a rope.
“You,” she gasps. “You… came.”
Of course I did. I don’t say it. I grip her shoulders instead, firm and grounding, holding her still as the boat rocks beneath us.
“Dangerous,” I say hoarsely. “The Deep will kill you if you let it. If you go in, you are asking it to.” She may have jumped out by herself. I’ve never heard of the velan reaching into a boat to pick someone out of it.
Her hands are still on me. She does not pull them away.
Neither do I.
For a long moment we stare at each other, the night pressing close, the ocean breathing around us. The skirr chirps softly as it hauls itself back onto the outrigger, curling up comfortably.
She is shaking now, smaller somehow, and I have a strong urge to pull her close, to shield her from everything that can harm her.
This female is sheer trouble, I realize. But she was given to me. And the Deep does not give without purpose.
I release her at last and reach for my spear, hauling it back into the boat with a wet scrape. The top blade is nicked. I will need to mend it.
She watches me with wide eyes. I think something new is flickering there beneath the fear. Interest?
Well, it’s very mutual. A woman on Xren! On the beach, and so given by the Deep, like any piece of driftwood. And what a woman she is. She was clearly brought here by the Plood in their round ship. Then she escaped from them and was given to me.
I scratch my chin. Is that how the Deep gives? She was on the beach, and that is very important. That’s where the Deep gives. But she was brought there by the Plood, who are no friends of the Deep. But they are the servants of Darkness… I shake the thought from my mind.
Oh, she’s wondrous to look at. Clearly a woman, with the double chest and the wide hips and the remarkable flatness right in the middle, where the legs meet.
The breath catches in my throat. It has all been described in old stories and tales, but now that I actually see one, it’s much better than I ever dared hope.
“Surely the Deep doesn’t care where you come from,” I ponder, my voice hoarse. “As long as I found you on the beach, you’re mine.”
The small sea creature hauls itself up onto the edge of the boat and shakes once, as if offended by the water. Its skin gleams in the moonlight. It blinks at the woman, then chirps, a soft sound that comes from deep in its throat.
She stares at it. There is still fear in her eyes, but curiosity pushes through.
“What name?” she asks. Two words only, fully understandable. Her voice sounds rough, scraped thin by terror and salt.
I shrug. “It has no name.”
The creature bumps my calf with its blunt head. I scowl at it. “Go sit or get out.”
It does not go. It chirps again and presses closer to the woman instead. It stretches its neck and sniffs her arm. Then it licks her skin with a rasping tongue.
Callie startles, then chuckles. The sound slips out of her before she can stop it. Her hand rises on instinct and rests on the creature’s head.
“Plik,” she says, uncertain.
The creature chirps louder.
I huff. “If you name him, he will never leave.”
She shifts on the bench. The movement brings her knee against my thigh. I feel the heat of her even through skin and cloth. My breath turns shallow.
“As long as I found you on the beach,” I say again, slower now, testing the words, “you are mine.”
Her hand flashes out. She knocks my fingers away from her knee. “No,” she says. “Not your. Mine.”
I lean back at once. Confusion floods my chest. The Deep gives, and we accept. That is how it has always been. Driftwood. Splix. Shells. Even enemies, sometimes. The Deep does not argue.
But she does.
She sits rigid with anger now. Her breath is fast, her eyes bright. She does not feel given, I think. She feels wronged.
If she is given, why does she choose to fight? The thought twists inside me. It leaves no place to stand.
I notice her shaking. Not from anger, I hope.
It may be from cold. The ocean is often much colder than the jungle, especially when it’s a bit windy, like now.
Or it could be from shock. Dark bruises mark her arm where the sea-Big gripped her.
One thin line of blood runs from a scrape on her shoulder.
The Big was overgrown with seaweed and small living things with hard shells.
The ocean rolls beside us, restless and hungry.
“I will keep you safe,” I say at last. She must know it. She’s safe in the boat. She’s not safe if she jumps out again. But she must understand that. She’s not stupid, this one. Not at all.
Her eyes flick to the water, and she swallows.
“The Deep is not done with you,” I add. “With us. Stay in the boat. I have my spear, and all the Bigs fear it. That one will fear it, too, now.”
I reach for the sheet at my feet, used to wrap the spear so its edges stay sharp.
I hesitate, because I do need to protect the blades, too.
But she needs it more. I place the sheet around her shoulders.
My hands brush her skin by accident. It’s cool and smooth and soft in a way that I can’t quite grasp.
Heat jumps up my arms. I calm my hands at once, but the moment lingers between us.
She does not pull away. She watches me instead. Her gaze moves over my chest, my arms, and the scars along my ribs. Her breath changes. I recognize the shift with a shock of my own.
Plik chirps and wedges himself between us, offended by the pause. He presses against her hip and then against my knee, as if he belongs in both places.
She touches his head again. Gentler this time.
“Friend,” she says. Then she taps her chest. “Callie.” She points back toward the dark stretch of coast behind us. “Ship.” Another word follows, softer. “Theodora.” And now she looks at me. “We go.”
Her meaning lands clear enough. She wants to go back.
I grip the edge of the boat. The beach is coming closer because I’m not paddling, and the boat drifts slowly toward the shore.
The coast ahead waits in shadow. The safer waters lie that way.
So does the village. A place that will not know what to do with her.
A place that may see her as proof against everything we believe. Or proof for it.
I turn the boat. We’re not going back to where I found her. There would be no point. I’m not giving her to the Plood.
“The village is safer,” I say. “You might like it. Or you might hate it. I sometimes do.”
She studies my face, and I look right back at hers. So soft, so smooth… There are no stripes, no scars, and no blade. No, she can’t survive on her own. Not in the Deep, and certainly not in the jungle. She needs someone. Yes, she was given to me. To protect, no doubt. And to…
I stop myself from thinking more about what I might do for her. That is heresy. We don’t believe in the Woman.
But she could still be Worshipped, comes the unwanted thought. Any woman could. Mated, too.
I glance at the ropes that I used to bind her thin wrists. They’re half-rotten and fragile. Tying her up again would serve no purpose. She knows what will happen if she goes back into the water.
I force myself to turn my back and paddle on. “You know, the Deep has given me many things. But none of them have ever looked at me the way you do.”