Chapter 21 #2
They were close. Close enough for Erinna to notice dark flecks of onyx in his eyes and full lips that were pressed in a thin line. He smelled like woodsmoke and pine. She leaned in, instinctively.
Kane opened his mouth to speak.
“Thank you.” Erinna cut him off and turned to Brax. “You ready?”
Brax grunted in confirmation as Kane slipped from the lower deck without another word.
By the time Erinna made her way from below, the sun was near setting. Her muscles groaned with fatigue as she paced the length of the ship, looking for that heathenous master gunner. Lila was nowhere to be found on the ship, and Erinna counted it as a small blessing.
Her feet faltered as she neared the opening in the trees that led to the cemetery. Perhaps…
Her rational brain used up its energy during boat repair, and without deep consideration she moved up the small hill to the spot that Inez had shown her the day before. It wouldn’t hurt to try, she thought.
Just a few minutes, she told herself. The doors were no closer to being open, and Erinna was running out of time to finalize her deal with Kane.
The odds felt insurmountable. Her hand went to the ring wrapped around her neck.
The small band of metal brought some comfort but also a reminder. She would figure something out.
The path leading to the graves was easier to traverse this time. She knew what to expect, when to duck, and how to avoid jutting stones that did their best to make her trip. The clearing rested unchanged. Erinna stepped over a dilapidated wooden fence that once guarded entry.
She strolled through the area, taking note of the gravestones that remained standing, the ones that had fallen and crumbled, and the marks in the ground where the slabs had become nothing but dust. There weren’t many, perhaps less than a hundred from what Erinna could tell. It was no surprise.
A cool breeze drifted through the trees, and the sun’s light had turned a dark orange.
Lengthy shadows danced across the earth.
Her hands grew clammy with nerves. Erinna had not intentionally accessed her Talent for over a decade.
Even then, it had been overwhelming. So overstimulating that the memory remained hidden in the shadow of childhood trauma. It was so very loud.
She gulped and shook the twitchiness from her hands.
It had worked that time in the alley, though whatever she felt was different than before.
With one long drawn breath, Erinna closed her eyes, searched for an inkling of power, and let her Talent prickle once more to life.
It felt different somehow, harder to reach—like she was trying to run through water.
Erinna dug harder, ice flooding her system; the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. It didn’t feel…right.
Her Talent receded with nothing to latch on to, and Erinna was left standing in a graveyard.
Defeated and fatigued, Erinna took one last walk around the cemetery. She would bring an offering next time if she was going to be serious. Souls needed something to latch onto if they were going to come back from the Realm Beyond. She would bring a small token when she returned.
Erinna caught her foot against a jutting rock and stumbled. The stone assailant was barely concealed by weeds and grass. Erinna paused to examine the ground. Crumbling gravel from a once-stone path rested beneath her boot.
She peered through the bushes and trees, surprised to have missed it on her first round. Obscured in the forest’s shadow sat a small hut overgrown with weeds. No doubt the home of the original groundskeeper.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the dinner bell. It wouldn’t bode well to be late unless she craved burned porridge and vegetables. Her investigation would have to wait.
Like every night, dinner was boisterous and rowdy as the crew gathered around the largest makeshift hearth in the broken stone fountain. Barrels, chests, stumps and logs had been placed around the sizzling meats to create a communal dining area. Erinna looked around for an inconspicuous corner.
She searched for Inez, but the diviner was nowhere to be found.
Erinna had been so focused she failed to hear Brax’s shouts in the distance.
“Erinna Yarrow! Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me!”
Erinna startled and nearly dropped her plate in the boiling stew. Over her shoulder she could see Brax waving her over. Lila and Asher sat in heated debate. She could hardly believe what was happening. They were asking her to join them.
“Umm…did you need more?” Rem cleared his throat and waited with another spoon of hearty barley stew.
“N...No, sorry, thank you, Rem.” She stammered and left the crowd of men and women waiting for more food. She made her way to the group. Two of them smiled as she approached; Lila frowned slightly, but the glint in her eyes was noted.
“Here.” Asher patted the space beside her and Lila, and although Erinna was not fond of sitting next to the master gunner, she didn’t want to be ungracious.
“Brax said you did a good job while he was away.” Asher nudged Erinna lightly on the shoulder and took another bite.
“Just did what needed to be done.”
Brax guffawed and swung a mug, spilling a small bit of frothy liquid. It was some sort of ale. He grabbed another mug and pushed it Erinna’s way.
“You did it better than any of these guys, excluding myself of course.” He took another sip, froth catching on his mustache.
“Hey, we each play our parts… I doubt you want any of this near your hard work.” Asher sent a gush of wind his way. Erinna dug into her food and listened as they descended back into the argument they were having before.
Before she knew it, she was laughing. Lila and Brax were at each other’s throats over whether or not she should have another cannon port.
Lila turned to her. “Tell him it’s possible.”
Erinna nearly choked on her food. All of their eyes were trained on her, like she was about to reveal some big secret. Lila’s emerald stare was pleading; Brax bounced his knee in anticipation.
One deep breath. Erinna grabbed the tankard in front of her and took a long gulp. “Sorry, Brax.” She rubbed the foam off her upper lip, savoring the burn as the ale went down. “But one extra cannon port should not be a problem.”
Brax howled, and Lila clasped Erinna’s shoulder with an approving squeeze, clinking her own mug of ale to Erinna’s in cheers.
She didn’t know when it happened, but she had started to feel more comfortable around them. Her distaste for pirates was fading to the background. She may have been too quick to judge.
“Where’d you learn all of that anyways?” asked Lila.
“My father and I, we build ships on Tarth.”
“Dammit!” Brax slammed the tankard down on the stone slab propped by a mixture of stone and wood. “Yarrow…you’re a real Yarrow.”
She smiled. “Yup, in the flesh.”
“What does that mean?” asked Asher, and even Lila scoffed.
“Her father’s the guy who created our ship.”
Erinna’s smile faded in an instant; she almost choked on that realization. How could she not have realized?
“Well, he didn’t build it, just came up with the design.”
Memories came back slowly. Though she’d never seen the actual ship, she’d seen the designs.
Patterns kept in a journal on the top shelf of his office.
Models that had been proposed to the Navy and swiftly declined for more war-faring models.
It was a hybrid ship. A mix between a brigantine and galleon.
Slightly larger but could pick up great speed with the help of a conjuror… or a stormsinger.
Erinna turned to Asher with a lump in her throat. “It was literally built for your Talents.” Though she tried to choke it down, a sadness crept back into her bones. Followed by stoic determination. Now was not the time to get cozy, she needed to find a way to fix things.
“Thank you, for this.” Erinna shoveled the rest of the food into her mouth and downed a healthy gulp of ale before leaving them behind. If anyone protested, she didn’t hear it.
Her feet carried her to the fort’s entry, landing in the shadow of the gleaming iron bars.
Talent wasn’t working, that was clear from Afton’s fruitless attempts. This was a physical problem. Mechanistic in nature. She could feel it in her bones.
Erinna inched closer, her fingers tracing the air above the metalwork, studying the way it had been set into the stone.
The masonry around it tugged at something in her memory—those same careful joints, that particular way the blocks locked together.
She’d seen this before, in the tunnels beneath Tarth.
Her breath caught, and she knew with certainty that the same hands that built those tunnels, built this fort.
She pressed her palms flat against the cold stone, feeling for the subtle irregularities she knew must be there.
Yes—faint cracks spider-webbed through the wall, so fine they were nearly invisible, yet Erinna knew they outlined the hidden mechanisms that held those bars in place.
As she traced one hairline fracture upward, an unnaturally cold wind met the back of her hand, sharp and cold against her skin.
She was moving in the right direction.
Erinna trudged through overgrown vines, moss replacing rock as she continued until it stopped. She peered up, scanning in the dark, nearly passing it, but there, a few feet out of reach, was a divot in the wall.
Heart pounding with renewed hope, she searched for a stick, anything to help her knock the dirt and growth away from where a switch would be. An old, mangled branch would have to suffice.
She raised the bent wood to the divot, trying to knock the dirt and dust away as carefully as possible. It was a fruitless attempt. The mechanism was caked in decades of plant life and detritus. Maybe with a ladder and some fire she could…
Fire.